Note 104 — Chapter XX · STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS AS EXHIBITED IN GRECIAN LEGEND.

Iliad, ii. 204. Agamemnôn promises to make over to Achilles seven well-peopled cities, with a body of wealthy inhabitants (Iliad, ix. 153); and Menelaus, if he could have induced Odysseus to quit Ithaka, and settle near him in Argos, would have depopulated one of his neighboring towns in order to make room for him (Odyss. iv. 176).

Manso (Sparta, i. 1, p. 34) and Nitzsch (ad Odyss. iv. 171) are inclined to exclude these passages as spurious,—a proceeding, in my opinion, inadmissible, without more direct grounds than they are able to produce.