Ancient Bpk^ P(mn:' 109 



bfe^ suppos^ly that impi^ty arid in^Verente t<> 

 <fhe ^o^ ift ihe person of Agamemnon, thb' 

 general of the' whole (?onfLxlefate anny, whert 

 he rejected the modest prayer of Chryses, the 

 priest of Apollo, and treated him with indig- 

 nity and inJiult, was the gr^t critiic, which tht^ 

 poet meant to reprobate, ^rid iirf'the ^cqiiel'<!>f 

 the poem'to' e^liibit the lortj^ train of calami- 

 ties, which were the punishment of this crime ? 

 From this impiety of Agarnernnon sprang the 

 discord of the chiefs and all the evils, which 

 foUbweid. T6 a people, trbmposed of a naul- 

 titude of independent states, piety to thegod^ 

 might be su^^posed to be a more important 

 moral than concord. Homer, 'indeed, in the 

 opening of his poem assigns the quarrel be- 

 tween Agamemnon and Achilles, as the proxi- 

 mate source of ^'tllfe '>i^f^« aXyex Kxxmc^ 

 which constitute the history of his po^m ; 

 but the irreverence of Agamemnon to Apollo, 

 in the person of his priest, to which he imme- 

 diately passes, is the primary cause. He de- 

 scribes the indignation of Achilles, as the con- 

 sequence of Agamemnon's irre\erent conduct ; 

 and the first calamity of the Greeks is the inflic- 

 tion of the offended god. If the probability of 

 thi8, as a principal moral, be iidmitted, it will 

 justify a farther inference of moment in this 

 essay, that I lomer had no idea of mere allego- 



