are to be marshaled by the kings, and to raise the shout of battle,
they actually disappear from the action, and leave the field
perfectly clear for the chiefs to perform their deeds of valor.
There is not, perhaps, an example in all the Iliad of a chief
falling, or even being wounded, by an ignoble hand. Amid the
cloud of missiles that were flying on the plains of Troy, amid
the crowd of chiefs and kings that were marshaled on either side,
we never hear how a 'certain man drew a bow at a venture, and
smote a king between the joints of the harness.' Yet this must
necessarily have occurred in any prolonged combats such as those
about the walls of Troy.

"Here, then, is a plain departure from truth, and even from
reasonable probability. It is indeed a mere omission which does
not offend the reader; but such inaccuracies suggest serious
reflections. If the epic poets ignore the importance of the
masses on the battlefield, is it not likely that they underrate
it in the public assemblies? Is it not possible that here too,
to please their patrons, they describe the glorious ages of the
past as the days when the assembled people would not question
the superior wisdom of their betters, but merely assembled to be
taught and to applaud? I cannot, therefore, as Mr. Grote does,
accept the political condition of things in the Homeric poems,
especially in the Iliad, as a safe guide to the political life
of Greece in the poet's own day.

"The figure of Thersites seems drawn with special spite and venom,
as a satire upon the first critics that rose up among the assembled
people to question the divine right of kings to do wrong. We may
be sure the real Thersites, from whom the poet drew his picture,