Odysseus, it is true, reigns in the room of his father; but it is not clear that primogeniture, as regards succession to the throne, is fully recognised.[1] Thus, Antinous says that it was necessary that Kronion should appoint Telemachus as ruler, which points to some special custom of divine nomination even of the eldest and only son. Telemachus himself admits the possibility of the chiefs of the Achaians at Ithaca selecting one of their own number to succeed to the crown, while he himself retained the possessions of his father.[2]
Meanwhile (and this I think is of primary importance in dealing with the Saga of the Wooing) there was what we should call an interregnum. Even the Agora is not convoked, and the Suitors, or rather, as we have seen grounds for suspecting, the associated brethren, to use a phrase familiar to Hindu lawyers, administer the kingdom and estate of the prince whom every one supposes to be dead.
We have sufficient knowledge of the results of such an interregnum in savage life; it is made the occasion for all sorts of outrage, disorder, and debauchery. Thus, after describing the usual mourning customs, hair-cutting, mutilation, and so on, Mr. Jarvis[3] writes: "But these usages, however shocking they may appear, were innocent compared with the horrid saturnalia which immediately followed the death of a chief of the highest rank. The most unbounded license prevailed. All law and restraint were cast aside, and the whole people appeared more like demons than human beings. Every vice and crime was allowed. Property was destroyed, houses fired, and old feuds revived and revenged. Gambling, thefts, and murder were as open as
- ↑ Agamemnon possesses "the sceptre of his sires, imperishable for ever" (Iliad, ii., i86), and at any rate in the time of Thucydides (i., 13) and Aristotle (Pol., iii., 14) the heroic kingship was believed to be hereditary.
- ↑ Odyssey, i., 386, 394-396, 397, 398.
- ↑ History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands, p. 66, and compare Stewart, Residence in the Sandwich Islands, p. 216.
