Note 142 — Chapter XX · STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS AS EXHIBITED IN GRECIAN LEGEND.
Reading edition
See the illustrative case of Lykaon, in vain craving mercy from Achilles. (Iliad, xxi. 64-97. Ἀντί τοι εἶμ᾽ ἱκέταο, etc.)
Menelaus is about to spare the life of the Trojan Adrastus, who clasps his knees and craves mercy, offering a large ransom,—when Agamemnôn repels the idea of quarter, and kills Adrastus with his own hand: his speech to Menelaus displays the extreme of violent enmity, yet the poet says,—
Ὣς εἰπὼν, παρέπεισεν ἀδελφείου φρένας ἥρως, Αἴσιμα παρειπὼν, etc.
Adrastus is not called an ἱκέτης, nor is the expression used in respect to Dolon (Il. x. 456), nor in the equally striking case of Odysseus (Odyss. xiv. 279), when begging for his life.