And here I may observe, that if the date thus assigned to Homer be correct, the very subject of the Iliad might have been suggested by the consequences of the Dorian irruption.
Homer relates, "Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumbered." But Achilles is the native hero of that Thessalian district, which was the earliest settlement of the Dorian family.

Agamemnon, whose injuries he resents, is the monarch of the great Achaean race, whose dynasty and dominion the Dorians are destined to overthrow.

It is true that at the time of the Trojan war the Dorians had migrated from Phthiotis to Phocis--it is true that Achilles was not of Dorian extraction; still there would be an interest attached to the singular coincidence of place; as, though the English are no descendants from the Britons, we yet associate the British history with our own: hence it seems to me, though I believe the conjecture is new, that it is not the whole Trojan war, but that episode in the Trojan war (otherwise unimportant) illustrated by the wrath of Achilles, which awakens the inspiration of the poet.

In fact, if under the exordium of the Iliad there lurk no typical signification, the exordium is scarce appropriate to the subject.

For the wrath of Achilles did not bring upon the Greeks woes more mighty than the ordinary course of war would have destined them to endure.