The Princess
Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous, conducts the family washing as
a regular and expected part of her work, while the great chieftains
themselves are men of their hands not only on the battle-field,
but in the common labours of peace. Odysseus is a capable plough
man, carpenter, and shipwright, as well as a good soldier. But
the simplicity is by no means rudeness; it consists with a highly
developed code of manners, and even a considerable refinement.
Brutes like Penelope's suitors may, in half-drunken anger, fling
the furniture or an ox-hoof at the object of their scorn; but there
are brutes in every society, and the manners of the Achaeans in
general are stately and dignified.
On the field of war there is still evidence of an advanced stage
of civilization. The whole question of the equipment of the Homeric
heroes has been the subject of perhaps even more dispute than that
of the Homeric house. Infinite pains have been spent in the effort
to show, on the one hand, that the equipment worn by the heroes
of the Iliad was of the more ancient type, consisting mainly of
a great shield of ox-hide large enough to cover the whole body,
behind which the warrior crouched, wearing for defensive armour
no more than a linen corselet and leathern cap and gaiters, and
on the other that the hero wore practically the complete panoply
of the later Hellenic hoplite, the small round shield, the bronze
helmet, with metal cuirass, belt, and greaves; while the question
of whether the offensive weapons were of iron or of bronze has been
debated with equal pertinacity.
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