911 | 912 | 913 | 914 | 915 |
1 | 245 | 490 | 735 | 980 |
84 Grote, i, p. 393, states the number of the Grecian forces at upwards
of 100,000 men. Nichols makes a total of 135,000.
85 "As thick as when a field
Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends
His bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them."--Paradise Lost," iv. 980, sqq.
8
6 This sentiment used to be a popular one with some of the greatest
tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of
power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it,
and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in
the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren,
"Ancient Greece," ch. vi. p. 105.
8
7 It may be remarked, that the character of Thersites, revolting and
contemptible as it is, serves admirably to develop the disposition
of Ulysses in a new light, in which mere cunning is less prominent.
Of the gradual and individual development of Homer's heroes,
Schlegel well observes, "In bas-relief the figures are usually in
profile, and in the epos all are characterized in the simplest
manner in relief; they are not grouped together, but follow one
another; so Homer's heroes advance, one by one, in succession before
us. It has been remarked that the Iliad is not definitively
closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to precede
and to follow it. The bas-relief is equally without limit, and may
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