In cases of involuntary or unpremeditated homicide, póvos åkoúσios, the manslayer goes into exile until he has appeased the kindred of the dead, or until the stated term of such exile (a year, as we learn from other sources,) has elapsed. The act of reconciliation is denoted by aideíolai, Aristoc. § 77, cp. § 72, Nausim. § 22, Macart. § 57 (similarly aidéois, Midias, § 43). It may be added that in Attic law the price of blood ἰς τὰ ὑποφόνια.

NOTE, PAGE 10; BOOK i. 277-8.

The edva or bride-price.

The edva in Homer are invariably gifts made by the wooers to the father or kinsmen of the bride, that is, the bride-price, the kalym of the dwellers on the Volga. The Greeks of the Homeric age virtually bought their wives; cp. Aristotle, Pol. ii. 8, § 19, speaking of the barbaric customs of ancient Greece, τὰς γυναῖκας ἐωνοῦντο παρ' ἀλλήλων. The father of the bride was thus said ἐεδνοῦσθαι θύγατρα (Od. ii. 53), to accept certain ἔεδνα as the price for his daughter,—what is called 'coming to terms about the marriage in Iliad xiii. 381 (ὄφρα . . . συνώμεθα . . . ἀμφὶ γάμῳ). As a rule the woman would go to the highest bidder, but in the case of a favoured wooer it seems to have been not unusual either to remit the price and give the bride ȧváedvov (cp. Agamemnon's offer to Achilles, Il. ix. 141), or to return a portion of the edva after marriage (Od. i. 278, ii. 196), as is still the custom in similar circumstances among the Kanekas in New Caledonia.

In Pindar dva is already used in its later sense of pépvŋ or dowry (Pind. Pyth. iii. 94; Ol. ix. 10).

In Homer čedva, gifts from the wooers to the father of the bride, are distinguished on the one hand from dŵpa, gifts from the wooers to the bride, and on the other from μeixa, gifts from the father of the bride to his daughter.

NOTE, PAGE 12; Book i. 349.
ἀλφηστής.

The etymology and meaning of this word are not yet placed beyond doubt.

Two derivations are offered.

1. From root ARBH- which appears in Gr. åλp-ávew, Lat. lab-or, Germ. Arb-eit. This derivation gives rise to two explanations of the word, I which are not generally distinguished :—

(a) ‘Gain-getting,' 'enterprising;' a very appropriate sense if åλøŋoral is a special epithet of sea-faring men or traders. And so some commentators take it (e. g. Nitzsch on Odyss. i. 349, Paley on Aesch. Theb. 770). But two out of the three passages where it occurs in Homer lead rather to the conclusion that, whatever be the exact meaning of the word, it is an epithet descriptive of mankind at large, not of merchantmen only. Such is the context of Od. i. 349, 'it is not minstrels who are in fault, but Zeus, methinks, is in fault:'

ὅς τε δίδωσιν

ἀνδράσιν ἀλφηστῆσιν, ὅπως ἐθέλῃσιν, ἑκάστῳ.

Again, Od. xiii, 261, 'Orsilochus who in wide Crete' ἀνέρας ἀλφηστὰς νίκα ταχέεσι ποδέσσιν.

The context of the third passage, Od. vi. 8, hardly helps us to determine whether the word has the wider or the narrower application: 'Nausithous planted them (the Phæacians) in Scheria'

ἑκὼς ἀνδρῶν ἀλφηστάων.

Assuming, then, that it is a generic epithet of mankind, we seem to require some more obvious and primitive description than ‘gain-getting,' ' enterprising.'

(b) The second explanation supplies us with such a description. Those who adopt it find in the root dλp- the notion of winning by effort: thus ảλpŋoral would mean 'toilsome,' 'living by the sweat of their brow.' This interpretation is open to a different objection from the last. The sense thus given is excellent, but it is very questionable whether the proposed etymology will yield it. The root ảλ- in Greek shows no trace of the idea of activity or labour, which appears in the cognate words in other languages. In Greek, åλpávw means 'to bring in, to fetch, a price,' and other derivatives of the root dλp- must be interpreted mainly by the usage of this verb, and not by the primary meaning of the root as it is revealed by comparative philology, a meaning which, while it is found elsewhere, is purely hypothetical in Greek.

2. The other derivation, to which on the whole we incline, is from äλpı (Hom. Hym. Cer. 208), in the sense of aλpirov, and edw, · barleymeal eating.' Thus we should have a vivid Homeric epithet, which seizes on a striking and differentiating mark of men. Its proper place would be alongside of ȧvdpi ye σɩтopáy (Od. ix. 191), of the description of men as ènì xeovì σîrov dovres (Od. viii. 222, ix. 89, x. 101), and as ἀρούρης καρπὸν ἔδοντες (Ιl. xxi. 465). Civilized men as αλφησταὶ

are thus distinguished from beasts and from savages, who are wμnorai, 'raw-flesh eating.'

The use of ἀνέρας instead of ἀνθρώπους οι βροτούς in combination with ἀλφηστὰς need not create a difficulty. Compare ἄλφιτα μύελον ἀνδρῶν (Od. ii. 29o), where ἀνδρῶν is coextensive with ἀνθρώπων.

The word soon fell out of Greek. It occurs once in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, 458, where the context leaves it as doubtful as in Od. vi. 8; three times in Hesiod, apparently as a general epithet of mankind, but not so as to give any clue as to its meaning. It is found twice in tragedy, in Aesch. Theb. 770, and Soph. Philoct. 709, and in each case it would seem to be an archaism adopted from Epic language. Æschylus probably understood it,—and, if we are right, misunderstood it,—as 'gainful,' 'trading,' whereas 'barley-meal eating' is better suited to the passage in Sophocles.

In a fragment of Epicharmus (Frag. 10, ed. Lorenz), quoted by Athenæus, vii. 81, are the following lines:

μύες [ἔτ'] ἀλφησταί τε κορακίνοι τε κοριοειδέες
αἰολίαι πλάτες τε κυνογλώσσοι τε.

Here μves åλonoraí is not (as one scholar has supposed from a reference to the first line, which is quoted by itself in Athenæus, vii. 15) • barley-eating mice, but μύες, αλφησταί, and κορακίνοι are three kinds of fish, μves being 'muscle-fish.' Probably donoral, as the name of a fish, was so called from the bait of meal with which the fish was caught. This use of åλpnoraì as a substantive confirms to some extent the derivation of the adjective aλpnoraì which is given above under 2. otherwise we must suppose åλøŋoraì the substantive to be quite dif ferent in etymology from the Homeric adjective ἀλφησταί.

It may be worth mentioning that the traditional interpretation of åλpŋoraí, now however discarded, is 'inventive.' Eustathius, the scholiasts on the Odyssey, and the grammarians agree in paraphrasing it by εὑρετικοί, ἐφευρετικοί, ἐπινοητικοί, adding that εὑρίσκειν is synonymous with ả^peîv (see, for instance, Schol. B and E on Od. i. 340, and Etym. Magn). This at first sight is unintelligible, for beyond all doubt ảλø‹îv never meant to 'invent.' But there was one idiomatic use of ἀλφάνειν in which it was equivalent to εὑρίσκειν. τί ἀλφάνει; ‘what does it fetch?' at a public auction, was the older expression for the later Attic Tí EvρiσKEL; see Bekk. Anecd. p. 382, 8, Lexic. Seq. and the quotations there from Aristophanes and Eupolis. Similarly riμǹv ảλpeîv, 'to fetch a price (cf. τιμαλφής), is the same as τιμὴν εὑρεῖν. Is it possible that

the equivalency of eùpeîv and áxpeîv in these technical expressions misled the grammarians into explaining ἀλφησταὶ by εὑρετικοί ?

For an interesting discussion of this word see an article by Mr. F. F. Fletcher in Hermathena, No. 1, 1873, where the view which is maintained above, and which seems to have originated with K. F. Hermann, is enforced at length. We have adopted some of the arguments put forward in that article.

NOTE, PAGE 24; Book ii. 244-5.

There are here two main lines of interpretation, (1) taking ȧvdpáσ πλεόνεσσι to be governed by μαχήσασθαι, as in the text. In this case it is best to regard the tone of Leocritus as defiant. He answers the taunt of Mentor, who in 241 had called the wooers naúpovs, by retorting it. So far from being waûρos, he would say, we are кaì πλéoves, we actually outnumber you. The subject to μaxýσao@aι will be Mentor and his party.

(2) Taking #λeóveσo, with åpyaλéov :-'it would be hard for you, even if you were more in number than you are, to fight with us about a feast.' According to this, πλεόνεσσι is suggested by πολλοὶ ἐόντες at the end of Mentor's speech in 241. The sense is decidedly improved by this rendering: but there is one fatal objection against it as our text stands. If the received reading, ei mλeóveσσɩ páxoto, in 251, be right, it seems decisive in favour of λeóveσot in 245 being similarly governed by the verb, μaxhoaola. This difficulty is avoided by the reading of the Schol. in 251, el mλéovés ol éπowтo, even if Odysseus had the larger following.' We have not ventured to introduce this into the text, as being deficient in authority, though it certainly adds point as well as simplicity to the passage.

Another suggestion of the Scholiast is to retain the MSS. reading in 251, and regard πλεόνεσσι in each case as equivalent to σὺν πλεόνεσσι, 'fight with more men on your side.' The general sense would then be much the same as in (2), but such a use of the dative may be pronounced impossible, and is not justified by the Attic phrases oтρAT&, στόλῳ μάχεσθαι.

NOTE, PAGE 36; Boox iii. 162.

ἀμφιέλισσαι = recurvata.

Ships thus described had probably a curved beak at either extremity, raised high out of the water. In the reliefs at Medinet Habou, there is

a picture of a sea fight between the Egyptians under Ramses III. (12001166 B.C.) and those maritime peoples of the Mediterranean, among whom it has been usual to recognize the ancestors of the Achæans, Etruscans, and Sicilians.

།

The ships of these pre-homeric sea-kings might be called àμpiéλioσai; they are lofty in prow and stern, and either extremity is finished off with a curved bird's beak, which rises high out of the water. The vessels of the Egyptians are low at prow and stern, and have not that raised and fenced half-deck on which the warrior stands in our engraving. This is the place where Odysseus posted himself when he meant to offer battle to Scylla of the rock. (Od. xii. 229, 230):—

εἰς ἴκρια νηὸς ἔβαινον πρῴρης.

If this be the correct explanation of ȧμpiédiooal, it must be remembered that the term would no longer apply to Greek vessels of the sixth century, as represented in the vases of that period. The prow was by that time constructed for ramming purposes, for which the high birds' beaks of the early Mediterranean vessels were not at all adapted. An example of the Homeric ship, or something like it, is painted on a very old vase in the Cesnola collection. (Cesnola's Cyprus, pl. xlv.) Like the vessels in the Egyptian reliefs, this galley has its prow and stern recurvatae, built high out of the water and protected by lofty bulwarks. On the whole subject consult M. Chabas, Études sur l'Antiquité Historique, pp. 309-313 (Paris 1873), from which our sketch is borrowed. We may recognize the vessels of early Mediterranean sea-rovers in the Egyptian reliefs, without committing ourselves to the ethnological thenica ries either of De Rougé or Brugsch.