12 The following scene, in which Homer has contrived to introduce so

brilliant a sketch of the Grecian warriors, has been imitated by

Euripides, who in his "Phoenissae" represents Antigone surveying the

opposing champions from a high tower, while the paedagogus describes

their insignia and details their histories.

13 --No wonder, &c. Zeuxis, the celebrated artist, is said to have

appended these lines to his picture of Helen, as a motto. Valer Max.

iii. 7.

14 The early epic was largely occupied with the exploits and sufferings

of women, or heroines, the wives and daughters of the Grecian

heroes. A nation of courageous, hardy, indefatigable women, dwelling

apart from men, permitting only a short temporary intercourse, for

the purpose of renovating their numbers, burning out their right

breast with a view of enabling themselves to draw the bow freely;

this was at once a general type, stimulating to the fancy of the

poet, and a theme eminently popular with his hearers. We find these

warlike females constantly reappearing in the ancient poems, and

universally accepted as past realities in the Iliad. When Priam

wishes to illustrate emphatically the most numerous host in which he

ever found himself included, he tells us that it was assembled in

Phrygia, on the banks of the Sangarius, for the purpose of resisting

the formidable Amazons. When Bellerophon is to be employed in a

deadly and perilous undertaking, by those who prudently wished to

procure his death, he is despatched against the Amazons.--Grote, vol.

922

The Iliad of Homer