Book VII

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Holding the spear in this manner was, in ancient warfare, understood as a signal to discontinue the fight.

The challenge of Hector and the consternation of the Greeks, presents much the same scene as the challenge of Goliath, 1 Samuel, ch. 17: “And he stood and cried to the armies of Israel;—Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants.—When Saul and all Israel heard the words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.”

It was an ancient custom for warriors to dedicate trophies of this kind to the temples of their tutelary deities.

[The club-bearer.]

[It is a word used by Dryden.]

Homer refers every thing, even the chance of the lots, to the disposition of the gods.

[Agamemnon.]

The lot was merely a piece of wood or shell, or any thing of the kind that was at hand. Probably it had some private mark, and not the name, as it was only recognized by the owner.

This reply is supposed to allude to some gesture made by Ajax in approaching Hector.

The heralds were considered as sacred persons, the delegates of Mercury, and inviolable by the laws of nations. Ancient history furnishes examples of the severity exercised upon those who were guilty of any outrage upon them. Their office was, to assist in the sacrifices and councils, to proclaim war or peace, to command silence at ceremonies or single combats, to part the combatants and declare the conqueror.

This word I have taken leave to coin. The Latins have both substantive and adjective. _Purpura—Purpureus._ We make purple serve both uses; but it seems a poverty to which we have no need to submit, at least in poetry.—Tr.

A particular mark of honor and respect, as this part of the victim belonged to the king. In the simplicity of the times, the reward offered a victorious warrior of the best portion of the sacrifice at supper, a more capacious bowl, or an upper seat at table, was a recompense for the greatest actions. It is worthy of observation, that beef, mutton, or kid, was the food of the heroes of Homer and the patriarchs and warriors of the Old Testament. Fishing and fowling were then the arts of more luxurious nations.

[The word is here used in the Latin sense of it. Virgil, describing the entertainment given by Evander to the Trojans, says that he regaled them

Perpetui _tergo bovis et lustralibus extis._ Æn. viii.

It means, the whole.—Tr.]

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