Note 87 — Chapter XX · STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS AS EXHIBITED IN GRECIAN LEGEND.

Ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς γέρασι πατρικαὶ βασιλεῖαι, is the description which Thucydidês gives of these heroic governments (i. 13).

The language of Aristotle (Polit. iii. 10, 1) is much the same: Ἡ βασιλεία—ἡ περὶ τοὺς ἡρωικοὺς χρόνους—αὐτὴ δ᾽ ἦν ἑκόντων μὲν, ἐπί τισι δ᾽ ὡρισμένοις· στρατηγὸς δ᾽ ἦν καὶ δικαστὴς ὁ βασιλεὺς, καὶ τῶν πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς κύριος.

It can hardly be said correctly, however, that the king’s authority was defined: nothing can well be more indefinite.

Agamemnôn enjoyed or assumed the power of putting to death a disobedient soldier (Aristot. Polit. iii. 9, 2). The words which Aristotle read in the speech of Agamemnôn in the Iliad—Πὰρ γὰρ ἐμοὶ θάνατος—are not in our present copies: the Alexandrine critics effaced many traces of the old manners.