(M107) This passage contrasts the recognised autocracy of the head of the family over his own household with the courteous deference of the younger brothers towards the eldest; and it is evidence, so far as it goes, that the eldest brother did not succeed to his father's power over his grown-up brothers, but owed what influence he did not obtain from the superior advantages of his age and experience, to a superstitious feeling that something was due to him in his position of head of the eldest branch of the family.
In the _Odyssey_,(212) Zeus gives Poseidon the title of "eldest and best"--{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}--and elsewhere Hera lays claim to the same birthright.(213)
The power of the head of a household must have been something much more real. Telemachos declares that he is willing that some other _basileus_ in Ithaka should take the kingship, but he will be master over his own house--{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~} { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}--"and over the slaves that the divine Odysseus won for me."(214)
In the Homeric Hymn to _Hestia_, that deity receives the title of honour of firstborn: the poet, by a fanciful blending of ideas, implying that the honour paid to the sacred hearth by the eldest of the family, fell to her share as the eldest born of the children of Kronos.(215)