(3) The next point of difference is that, "we hear no more of Iris as the messenger of Zeus;" in the Odyssey, "the agent of the will of Zeus is now Hermes, as in the Twenty-fourth Book of the Iliad," a late "Odyssean" Book. But what does that matter, seeing that ILIAD, Book VIII, is declared to be one of the latest additions; yet in Book VIII. Iris, not Hermes, is the messenger (VIII. 409-425). If in late times Hermes, not Iris, is the messenger, why, in a very "late" Book (VIII.) is Iris the messenger, not Hermes? Iliad, Book XXIII., is also a late "Odyssean" Book, but here Iris goes on her messages (XXIII. 199) moved merely by the prayers of Achilles. In the late Odyssean Book (XXIV.) of the Iliad, Iris runs on messages from Zeus both to Priam and to Achilles. If Iris, in "Odyssean" times, had resigned office and been succeeded by Hermes, why did Achilles pray, not to Hermes, but to Iris? There is nothing in the argument about Hermes and Iris. There is nothing in the facts but the variability of mythical and poetical conceptions. Moreover, the conception of Iris as the messenger certainly existed through the age of the Odyssey, and later. In the Odyssey the beggar man is called "Irus," a male Iris, because he carries messages; and Iris does her usual duty as messenger in the Homeric Hymns, as well as in the so-called late Odyssean Books of the Iliad. The poet of the Odyssey knew all about Iris; there had arisen no change of belief; he merely employed Hermes as messenger, not of the one god, but of the divine Assembly.

(4) Another difference is that in the Iliadthe wife of Hephaestus is one of the Graces; in the Odyssey she is Aphrodite. {Footnote: Monro, Odyssey, vol. ii. p. 336.} This is one of the inconsistencies which are the essence of mythology. Mr. Leaf points out that when Hephaestus is about exercising his craft, in making arms for Achilles, Charis "is made wife of Hephaestus by a more transparent allegory than we find elsewhere in Homer," whereas, when Aphrodite appears in a comic song by Demodocus (Odyssey, VIII. 266-366), "that passage is later and un-Homeric." {Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, vol. ii. p. 246.}

Of this we do not accept the doctrine that the lay is un-Homeric. The difference comes to no more than that;the accustomed discrepancy of mythology, of story-telling about the gods. But as to the lay of Demodocus being un-Homeric and late, the poet at least knows the regular Homeric practice of the bride-price, and its return by the bride's father to the husband of an adulterous wife (Odyssey, VIII. 318, 319). The poet of this lay, which Mr. Merry defends as Homeric, was intimately familiar with Homeric customary law. Now, according to Paul Cauer, as we shall see, other "Odyssean" poets were living in an age of changed law, later than that of the author of the lay of Demodocus. All these so-called differences between Iliadand Odyssey do not point to the fact that the Odysseybelongs to a late and changed period of culture, of belief and customs. There is nothing in the evidence to prove that contention.

There (5) are two references to local oracles in the Odyssey,that of Dodona (XIV. 327; XIX. 296) and that of Pytho (VIII. 80). This is the old name of Delphi. Pytho occurs in Iliad,IX. 404, as a very rich temple of Apollo—the oracle is not named, but the oracle brought in the treasures. Achilles (XVI. 233) prays to Pelasgian Zeus of Dodona, whose priests were thickly tabued, but says nothing of the oracle of Dodona. Neither when in leaguer round Troy, nor when wandering in fairy lands forlorn, had the Achaeans or Odysseus much to do with the local oracles of Greece; perhaps not, in Homer's time, so important as they were later, and little indeed is said about them in either Epic.

(6) "The geographical knowledge shown in the Odyssey goes beyond that of the Iliad... especially in regard to Egypt and Sicily." But a poet of a widely wandering hero of Western Greece has naturally more occasion than the poet of a fixed army in Asia to show geographical knowledge. Egyptian Thebes is named, in ILIAD, IX., as a city very rich, especially in chariots; while in the ODYSSEYthe poet has occasion to show more knowledge of the way to Egypt and of Viking descents from Crete on the coast (Odyssey, III. 300; IV. 351; XIV. 257; XVII. 426). Archaeology shows that the Mycenaean age was in close commercial relation with Egypt, and that the Mycenaean civilisation extended to most Mediterranean lands and islands, and to Italy and Sicily. {Footnote: Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, i. 69.} There is nothing suspicious, as "late," in the mention of Sicily by Odysseus in Ithaca (Odyssey, XX. 383; XXIV. 307). In the same way, if the poet of a western poem does not dilate on the Troad and the people of Asia Minor as the poet of the ILIADdoes, that is simply because the scene of the ILIADis in Asia and the scene of the Odyssey is in the west, when it is not in No Man's land. From the same cause the poet of sea-faring has more occasion to speak of the Phoenicians, great sea-farers, than the poet of the Trojan leaguer.

(7) We know so little about land tenure in Homeric times—and, indeed, early land tenure is a subject so complex and obscure that it is not easy to prove advance towards separate property in the Odyssey—beyond what was the rule in the time of the ILIAD. In the Making of the Arms (XVIII. 541-549) we find many men ploughing a field, and this may have been a common field. But in what sense? Many ploughs were at work at once on a Scottish runrig field, and each farmer had his own strip on several common fields, but each farmer held by rent, or by rent and services, from the laird. These common fields were not common property. In XII. 422 we have "a common field," and men measuring a strip and quarrelling about the marking-stones, across the "baulk," but it does not follow that they are owners; they may be tenants. Such quarrels were common in Scotland when the runrig system of common fields, each man with his strip, prevailed. {Footnote: Grey Graham, Social Life in Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, i. 157.}

A man had a {Greek: klaeros} or lot ( ILIAD, XV. 448), but what was a "lot"? At first, probably, a share in land periodically shifted-& partage noirof the Russian peasants. Kings and men who deserve public gratitude receive a {Greek: temenos} a piece of public land, as Bellerophon did from the Lycians (VI. 194). In the case of Melager such an estate is offered to him, but by whom? Not by the people at large, but by the {Greek: gerontes} (IX. 574).

Who are the {Greek: gerontes}? They are not ordinary men of the people; they are, in fact, the gentry. In an age so advanced from tribal conditions as is the Homeric time—far advanced beyond ancient tribal Scotland or Ireland—we conceive that, as in these countries during the tribal period, the {Greek: gerontes} (in Celtic, the Flaith) held in POSSESSION, if not in accordance with the letter of the law, as property, much more land than a single "lot." The Irish tribal freeman had a right to a "lot," redistributed by rotation. Wealth consisted of cattle; and a bogire, a man of many kine, let themout to tenants. Such a rich man, a flatha, would, in accordance with human nature, use his influence with kineless dependents to acquire in possession several lots, avoid the partition, and keep the lots in possession though not legally in property. Such men were the Irish flaith, gentry under the RI, or king, his {Greek: gerontes}, each with his ciniod, or near kinsmen, to back his cause.

" Flaithseems clearly to mean land-owners," or squires, says Sir James Ramsay. {Footnote: Foundations of England, i. 16, Note 4.} If land, contrary to the tribal ideal, came into private hands in early Ireland, we can hardly suppose that, in the more advanced and settled Homeric society, no man but the king held land equivalent in extent to a number of "lots." The {Greek: gerontes}, the gentry, the chariot-owning warriors, of whom there are hundreds not of kingly rank in Homer (as in Ireland there were many flaithto one Ri) probably, in an informal but tight grip, held considerable lands. When we note their position in the Iliad, high above the nameless host, can we imagine that they did not hold more land than the simple, perhaps periodically shifting, "lot"? There were "lotless" men (Odyssey, XL 490), lotless freemen, and what had become of their lots? Had they not fallen into the hands of the {Greek: gerontes} or the flaith?