The World of Homer

wells on the prowess of famous individuals in the single combat; the struggle of one hero against a group of assailants; t

e centre.[3] This steady fight of lines of dismounted men-at-arms endures from dawn to midday, till, at noon, comes "the break in the battle," "the Danaans by their valour brake the battalions."[4] Agamemnon, on foot, rushes into the ruined ranks of Troy, and slays many Trojans in their chariots (which they would naturally mount for the sake of speedier flight); there is a pursuit of the broken foe, "footmen kept slaying footmen as they were driven in flight, and horsemen slaying horsemen with the sword"; till the flying Trojans r

hiefs are put out of action, precisely as in the Highland armies of clans under Dundee or Montrose or Prince Charles, where so much depended on the success of the first onslaught. Homer's men have more faculty for recovering from a severe stroke

d the dismounted Trojans form five columns of attack on a fortified position.[6] The Achaeans, scattered and disheartened, are mainly led and helped by the two Aiantes, but Poseidon rallies fiv

g each other.[9] (The spears of defenders and assailants, at the battle of Langside (1568), were so closely interlocked, that d

ay of valour, and the success of the Cretan prince, on the left of the Achaean fortified position. The Boeotians there, with the Athenians and "Ionian tunic-trailers," are hard pressed, but the Aiantes make a stout resistance, and the arrows of the Locrians are showered

e smitten by a boulder from the hand of Aias; the Trojans give ground, are pursued, and fall back, till when Hec

"Then man fell upon man when the close fight was scattered,"[15] and we have a new set of individual valiances, among the bra

esilaus. This is the moment that Achilles has prayed and longed for since the first book of the poem. Addressing Agamemnon, he then swore a great oath by the sceptre that "longing for Achilles shall come upon the Achaeans one and all, when multitudes fall dying before manslaying Hector."[17] In the same book he bids Thetis pray to Zeus

and did not arm, he sent Patroclus forth in Achilles' armour, at the head of the Myrmido

is conditioned by the use of dismounted men-at-arms as heavy infantry, whether employed in lines of resistance, in squares or schiltroms of levelled spears, or in columns of attack. The fighting men in view are the gentry, stiffening "the host," the λα?? of whose equipment we know little, while the archery of light-armed bowmen, such as the Locrians, is not without its effect. But the b

of pursuit, the horses were in readiness. Heavy armed infantry, like the hoplites of historic Greece, were developed later than Homer, and the heavy cavalry then became a separate arm. The changes occurred in the dim age between the date of the Iliad and Odyssey and the dawn of historic Greece. Chariots ceased to be employed in war by the Greek cities of Asia. The chief arm was the heavy drilled infantry, the hoplites. We catch our first glimpses of them on the Warrior Vase of the upper and later stratum at Mycenae, and on an old sculptu

ian warfare, except in so far as Homer's dismounted men-at-

alled lines of heavy dismounted men-at-arms ends in the breaking of the phalanxes, and in the single

dern criticisms of Home

fighting are a confusion of the methods of historic Greece-with drilled hoplites a

e is scattered," they "fight in another way"; there is flight, pursuit, and examples of individual valour; there is a rally, and the lines of men on foot re-form. What else could there possibly be? The charge of the Union brigade, at Waterloo, begins by "fighting in one way," a resistless charge of squadrons, and ends by "fighting in another way," in knots, with individual examples

they fought at Inkerman, nay, for a moment at Waggon Hill, as one who was in the thick of it

and we have absolutely no evidence as to how a "Mycenaean" or Aegean general

parently by the older minstrel).[26] Both sorts of fighting are given in their proper places: the engagement of masses before, the individual valiances after "the battle is scattered," while in the clash of the massed forces, the conduct of p

(Iliad, iv. 303 seqq.), "Neither let any man, trusting to his horsemanship and valour, be eager to fight the Trojans alone before the rest, nor yet let him draw back.... But whensoever a warrior from his own chariot can come

usually fight dismounted; always, in the opening of a general action. But though Nestor recommends the old chariotry tactics, Herr Mülder says that he is recommending the historic, "the modern method," and at

nry v. They can only be misunderstood by critics under the suggestion of the idea that the

??χεσιθωρηχθ?ντε?. Cf. v. 744, πρυλ?ε? "m

ad, xi.

xi.

?γγαι,

, μ?χοντο ?μιλαδ?

ii. 6

d, xiii.

iii.

σοντο, x

iii. 1

iii. 1

iii. 7

iii. 8

xv. 2

liad,

xv. 3

i. 24

i. 40

ix. 6

xvi.

viii. 348. Cf. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, iv. 33. Chariot in attendance to rem

E. A. G., vol.

43. Homer und die altjo

G. E.

he real fight comes, it is as a rule purely Mycenaean." We do not know how Mycenaeans fought in a general engagement. But people, in Homer, do fight as they "are said to be going to tight," when a schiltrom of spears is formed and is assailed, as in Iliad, xiii. 125-205. There the Trojan charge is c

er, op. c

er, op. c

untry is at war. Callinus. fr. 1. Thus Poseidon cannot say "young men, don't be slack," without quoting an Ionian elegiac poet! (Mülder, pp. 12, 13). It is waste of time to d