thing which we can call law, for Homer knew no law, and has no word for it. "They are separate, isolated judgments not connected by any thread of principle."[1] Only a firm belief in the divine source from which they proceed could give them a binding force in men's eyes.
It is true that the greatest Basileîs do not appear in Homer as themselves dispensing justice. It is the sages of the council who sit in judgment, as in the famous picture on the shield of Achilles. But the sanction of their decision was no doubt the same; they too were chiefs of less degree, and enjoyed the confidence of the people by virtue of a divine descent. There is no trace in Homer of any decay of this confidence, nor of the growth of that mistrust which issues eventually in a demand for written law. And if we are right in assuming that the later Homeric society is close upon the beginning of the State, we shall also be right in concluding that the State sets out on its career not with questioning but with trust; and that it has been made possible simply because men have shown themselves capable of discipline, ready to accept a divine ordering of society, and to obey those whom they believe to be better than themselves.
- ↑ Maine, Ancient Law, ch. i. p. 4. Maine perhaps puts this a little too strongly; for there is a Homeric word (δίκη) which seems to indicate an idea of usage, — the course which the gods pointed out and which the people would accept; while the θέμιστες are dooms which at once create this usage and conform to it. See Jebb, Homer, p. 48, and passages there quoted, to which may be added Il. xvi. 387 foll.; Od. xiv. 83; Hesiod, Theogonia, 85, and Works and Days, 9 and 215 foll.
