ClassicsFrom the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, Latin and Greek were compulsory subjects in almost all European universities, and most early modern scholars published their research and conducted international correspondence in Latin. Latin had continued in use in Western Europe long after the fall of the Roman empire as the lingua franca of the educated classes and of law, diplomacy, religion and university teaching. The flight of Greek scholars to the West after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 gave impetus to the study of ancient Greek literature and the Greek New Testament. Eventually, just as nineteenth-century reforms of university curricula were beginning to erode this ascendancy, developments in textual criticism and linguistic analysis, and new ways of studying ancient societies, especially archaeology, led to renewed enthusiasm for the Classics. This collection offers works of criticism, interpretation and synthesis by the outstanding scholars of the nineteenth century.

Studies on Homer and the Homeric AgeFour-time prime minister William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98) was also a prolific author and enthusiastic scholar of the classics. Gladstone had spent almost two decades in politics prior to his writing the three-volume Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age. This work and the preceding ‘On the place of Homer in classical education and in historical inquiry’ (1857), reflect Gladstone’s interest in the Iliad and the Odyssey, which he read with increasing frequency from the 1830s onward and which he viewed as particularly relevant to modern society. As he relates, he has two objects in the Studies: ‘to promote and extend’ the study of Homer’s ‘immortal poems’ and ‘to vindicate for them ... their just degree both of absolute and, more especially, of relative critical value’. Volume 1 establishes Homer’s contemporary relevance and provides an extensive ‘ethnography of Greek races’ related to Homer’s works.

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Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age

Volume 1: I . Prolegomena; II . Achaeis ; or,

The Ethnolo gy of the Greek R aces

William Ewart Gl adstone

CAMBRID GE UNIVERSIT Y PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paolo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108012041

© in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2010

This edition first published 1858This digitally printed version 2010

ISBN 978-1-108-01204-1 Paperback

This book reproduces the text of the original edition. The content and language reflect the beliefs, practices and terminology of their time, and have not been updated.

Cambridge University Press wishes to make clear that the book, unless originally published by Cambridge, is not being republished by, in association or collaboration with, or

with the endorsement or approval of, the original publisher or its successors in title.

STUDIES ON HOMER

A N D

THE HOMERIC AGE.

BY THE

RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, D.C.L.

M. P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

IN THEEE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

Plenius ac nielius Chrysippo et Crantore.— HOB ACE.

O X F O R D :

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

M.DCCC.LVI1I.

[The rijjli.t of Trnusln.tivn is nscrrccl.\

STUDIES ON HOMER

AND

THE HOMERIC AGE.

I. PROLEGOMENA.

II. ACHiEIS:

OB,

THE ETHNOLOGY OF THE GEEEK RACiSS.

BY THE

RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, D.C.L.

M. P. FOE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore.—HOEACE.

0 X F 0 R D :AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

M.DCCC.LVIII.

[The right of Translation is reserved]

THE CONTENTS.

I. PROLEGOMENA.

SECT. I.

On tlie State of the Homeric Question.

Objects of this Work Page IResults thus far of the Homeric Controversy 2Improved apparatus for the Study of Homer 4Effect of the poems on Civilization 5They do not compete with the Holy Scriptures 6

SECT. I I .

The Place of Homer in Classical Education.

Study of Homer in the English Universities 9Homer should not be studied as a Poet only 11His claims compared with those of other Poets 14Study of Homer in the Public Schools 18

SECT. III.

On the Historic Aims of Homer.

High organization of the Poems 21The presumption is that the Poet had Historic aims 22Positive signs of them 23Pursued even at some cost of Poetical beauty 26Minuter indications 28General tone 28Hypothesis of reproduction inadmissible 30What is chiefly meant by his Historic aims 35

vi CONTENTS.

SECT. IV.

On the probable Date of Homer.

The main question : is he an original witness a

Adverse arguments "•Affirmative arguments 39

SECT. V.

The probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer.

The received text to be adopted as a basis 42

Failure of other methods 44State of the Manuscripts 46Complaints of interpolation 47Testimonies concerning the early use of the Poems 49Preservative power of the Recitations or matches 55Pseudo -Homeric poems 56Argument from the Cyclic poems 59The Alexandrian period 60Amount and quality of guarantees 64Improbability of wilful falsification 67Internal evidence of soundness in detail 69

SECT. VI.

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry.

Homer paramount as a literary authority 71He has suffered through credulity 70And through incredulity »„Proposed method of treatment gjInstances of contrary method, (1) Hellen and his family 82Authority of Hesiod g.Instance (2), personality of Helen g-Conclusion g

CONTENTS. vii

II. ACH^IS.

ETHNOLOGY OF THE GREEK RACES.

SECT. I.

Scope of the Inquiry.

Preliminary objection of Mr. Grote stated 93Synopsis of national and tribal names to be examined 96

SECT. II.

On the Pelasgia/ns, and cognate races.

The Pelasgians 100Pelasgic Argos 101Dodona 106Thessaly and the Southern Islands 109Epithets for Pelasgians 113Use of this name in the singular 114The Pelasgians and Larissa 115The Arcadians Pelasgian 119Why Trpotrekrjvoi 121

The Arcadians afterwards the Swiss of Greece 122The Graians or Greeks 123Ceres and the Pelasgians 124The Iaones or Ionians 127The Athenians in the Catalogue 129The Catalogue, vv. 546-9 129The same, vv. 550,1 132The same, vv. 553-5 135Review of the Homeric evidence as to the Athenians 137Their relations with Minerva 140Post-Homeric evidence of the Pelasgianism of Attica 145

viii CONTENTS.

The Pelasgians related to EgyptThe Egyptians semi-fabulous to Homer *•Their Pelasgian resemblances, in Homer and otherwise I53The Greeks of the Iliad why never termed Pelasgian *SThe &piJK(S and QprjUtoi

The Caucones and Leleges * l

SECT. III.

The Pelasgians : and certain States naturalized orakin to Greece.

Minos in Homer 166His origin 167His place in the nether world ~i68The power of Crete 169Two of the five races apparently Pelasgian 17°The tradition of Deucalion 172The extent of the Minoan Empire 175Evidence of Post-Homeric tradition 176Circumstantial evidence 178The Lycians 181Their points of connection with Greece 183Elements of the population 185Cyprus 188Inhabitants probably Pelasgian 190No other name competes with the Pelasgian as designating the

first inhabitants of Greece 193The Pelasgians were the base or substratum of the Greek nation. 194Post-Homeric testimony respecting them logK. O. Mtiller's Summary 200The Pelasgian language 203The Pelasgian route into Greece 2 OrProbably twofold 2OgRoute of the Helli 2 o gPeloponnesus the old centre of power 2OQ

Derivation of the Pelasgian name 2 I I

CONTENTS. ix

SECT. IV.

On the Plimnicians and the Outer Geography ofthe Odyssey.

Tokens of the Phoenicians in Greece 216Limits of Homer's Inner or Greek Geography 217And Greek Navigation 219His Outer Geography Phoenician 221The traditions connected therewith also Phoenician 223Minos the 'O\o6(f>piov 225Commercial aptitude of the modern Greeks 227The Homeric Mouth of Ocean 228The two Geographical reports are blended into one 228The Siceli and Sicania 229Their site is probably on the Bruttian Coast 231The Epirus of Homer 234The Thesprotians in Homer 235The Cadmeans in Homer 239Period from which they date -240Conclusions respecting them 244

SECT. V.On the Catalogue.

The Greek Catalogue, properly an Array or Review 245The Preface 246The List 247The principle of arrangement 249The distribution in chief 250The sub-distribution 251Proofs of historic aim 255Genealogies of the Catalogue 256The Epilogue 259The Trojan Catalogue 261

SECT. VI.On the Hellenes of Homer.

The word Hellas the key to this inquiry 264List of passages where used 265Some of them admit the narrow sense 266

x CONTENT*... 26S

Some refuse it272

None require itHellenes in II. ii. 684 2<H

277Panhellenes in II. ii. 530 ' 'Cephallenes in II. ii. 631 and elsewhere 'The Helli or Selli 2 ? 9

Selli of the Scholiast of Aristophanes

SECT. VII.On the respective contributions of the Pelasgian and Hellenic

factors to the com/pound of the Greek nation.

Contributions to Mythology 285Correspondences with Rome and Troy 287The Pelasgian religion less imaginative 289Their ritual development fuller 290Order of Priests in Homer not Hellenic 293Contributions to language 294Classes of words which agree 298Classes which differ 301Evidence from names of persons 307General rules of discrimination 309Names of the Pelasgian class 311Names of the Hellenic class 317Contributions to political ideas 320To martial ideas 320Corporal education and Games 322Music and Song 329Supposed Pelasgianism of the Troic age gojThe traditions of Hunting o»2

The practice of Navigation ~-gSummary of the case . , 0States especially Hellic or Pelasgic - 2

SECT. VIII .

On the three greater Homeric appellatives.

Modes of formation for names of peoples ,The three greater appellatives not synonymous oProofs of their distinctive use

CONTENTS. xi

The Argive Juno, Argive Helen 353The Danaans of Homer 355Epithets of the three appellatives 356The Danaan name dynastic 359Campared with the Cadmean name 361Epoch of the dynasty 363Post-Homeric tradition 366Application of the name Argos 368Achaic and Iasian Argos 373The phrase neo-ov"kpyos 378The Apian land 379Summary of geographical conclusions 380Etymology of the word Argos 381Its connection with epyov 384The etymology tested by kindred words 388The Danaan Argeians of Od. viii. 578 391The Argive Juno 392Transition to Achseans 393Relation of Argeian and Pelasgian names 396The etymology illustrated 397Different extent of 'Apyelot and"Apyoj 401Propositions as to the Achaean name 402Particulars of its use 403Signs of its leaning to the aristocracy 406Mode of its application in Ithaca 411Its local sense in Thessaly 416In Crete 417In Pylos 418In Eastern Peloponnesus 419Force of the name Ilava^aiot 420The iEolid and ^Eolian names 423The Heraclids in Homer 425The descent of the ^Eolids 427The earliest Hellenic thrones in Greece 429The Danaan and Argive names used nationally in poetry only.. 431Summary of the evidence 433Later literary history of the three great appellatives 436Their value as primitive History 437

xii CONTENTS.

SECT. IX.

On the Homeric title of ami

Difference between Epithets and Titles 4 4 °Examples of Homeric titles 4 4 3The BainXfvs of Homer 445Common interpretations of the ava(- dvdpav 443Some particulars of its use in Homer 440How far connected with metrical convenience 447The Kpeiav and the noifirjv \aa>v 448Arguments for a specific meaning in ava% avbpwv 450Persons to whom the title is applied 453Persons to whom it might have been applied 455Associations of reverence with it 456It may indicate patriarchal chieftaincy 459Presumptions of this in the case of Agamemnon 461Propositions respecting his extraction and station 463Arguments against his Hellenic descent considered 465Connection of Tantalus with Greece and with Pelops 466As to the seat of his power 470Homeric notices of Pelops 471The Achseans rose with him 472They came from Thessaly 474The Dorians appropriate the Pelopid succession 477Protest against the popular tradition of the Hellenidse 480Which, however, bears witness to the connection with Thessaly 481Case of Agamemnon summed up 482The cases of Anchises and iEneas 484Presumptive evidence as to Anchises 4ggPresumptive evidence as to /Eneas ggEvidence from the Dardanid genealogy .0From the horses of Tros

490Evidence summed up

1 491Signs of kin between Trojans and GreeksSigns connected with the Hellic name ,The Hellespont of HomerThe gift of Echepolus AnchisiadesTwofold bond, Hellic as well as PelasgicCase of Augeias stated

goo

CONTENTS. xiii

Notes of connection between Elis and the North 502Relation of Augeias to the name Ephyre 504Cluster of apparently cognate names 505The race of Qrjpes 509Common root of all these names 510Probable signification of 'E<pvpri 513Places bearing the name 'Etpiprj 515Summary of the evidence for Augeias 519Case of Euphetes 520The site of his Ephyre 521Case of Eumelus 526The avag dvSpav is descended from Jupiter 529The four notes of the aval- av&paiv 531Negative proofs 532Persons with the four notes but without the title 536Its disappearance with Homer 538Signs in the Iliad of political disorganization 539More extensively in the Odyssey 542General significancy of the title civag avhpa>v 543

SECT. X.

On the connection oftlie Hellenes mid Achmanswith the East.

The Achaean name has no mark of a Greek origin 545Means for pursuing the inquiry 546The two groups of Indo-European languages 547Corresponding distinction of races 548Province of Fars or Persia proper 549Ascendancy of the Persians 550Relation of the Germani to the Celts 551And to the Hellenes 552The Persian tribe of Tepjxavioi 554The Homeric traces of the Persian name 555The Achaean name in Persia 556Its probable etymology 557The Persians according to Herodotus 558The comparison as to religious belief 561As to ritual, and other resemblances 563Evidence of the Behistun inscription 565

xiv CONTENTS.

The organization established by Darius «Presumptions from the term Baa-iKevs 5 'Hellenic traits in modern Persia *>The Eelliats ^Media a probable source of the Pelasgi 57r

ADDENDA 573

STUDIES ON HOMERAND

THE HOMERIC AGE.

I. PROLEGOMENA.*

SECT. 1.—On the State of the Homeric question.

W E are told that, in an ancient city, he who had anew law to propose made his appearance, when aboutto discharge that duty, with a halter round his neck.It might be somewhat rigid to re-introduce this prac-tice in the case of those who write new books on sub-jects, with which the ears at least of the world arefamiliar. But it is not unreasonable to demand ofthem some such reason for their boldness as shall beat any rate presumably related to public utility. Com-plying with this demand by anticipation, I will placein the foreground an explicit statement of the objectswhich I have in view.

These objects are twofold : firstly, to promote andextend the fruitful study of the immortal poems of Ho-mer; and secondly, to vindicate for them, in an age ofdiscussion, their just degree both of absolute and, moreespecially, of relative critical value. My desire is to in-dicate at least, if I cannot hope to establish, their proper

* Kevised and enlarged from contained in the 'Oxford Essays'the ' Essay on the place of Ho- for 1857, published by Mr. J. W.mer in Classical education and in Parker.Historical inquiry,' which was

2 I. Prolegomena.

place, both in the discipline of classical education, andamong the materials of historical inquiry. When theworld has been hearing and reading Homer, and talkingand writing about him, for nearly three thousand years,it may seem strange thus to imply that he is still an'inheritor of unfulfilled renown,'a and not yet in fullpossession of his lawful throne. He who seems to im-peach the knowledge and judgment of all former ages,himself runs but an evil chance, and is likely to befound guilty of ignorance and folly. Such, however, isnot my design. There is no reason to doubt that Greece

Dum fortuna faitknew right well her own noble child, and paid him allthe homage that even he could justly claim. But inlater times, and in most of the lands where he is aforeigner, I know not if he has ever yet enjoyed hisfull honour from the educated world. He is, I trust,coming to it; and my desire is to accelerate, if everso little, the movement in that direction.

As respects the first portion of the design which hasbeen described, I would offer the following considera-tions. The controversy de vita et sanguine, concerningthe personality of the poet, and the unity and antiquityof the works, has been carried on with vigour for neara century. In default of extraneous testimony, thematerials of warfare have been sedulously sought in therich mine which was offered by the poems themselves.There has resulted from this cause a closer study ofthe text, and a fuller development of much that itcontains, than could have been expected in times whenthe student of Homer had only to enjoy his banquetand not to fight for it before he could sit down. It isnot merely, however, in warmth of feeling that he may

a Shelley's Adonais.

State of the Homeric question. 3

have profited; the Iliad and the Odyssey have been,from the absolute necessity of the case, put into thewitness-box themselves, examined and cross-examinedin every variety of temper, and thus, in some degree atleast, made to tell their own story. The result has beenupon the whole greatly in their favour. The more theyare searched and tested, the more does it appear theyhave to say, and the better does their testimony hangtogether. The more plain does it become, that thearguments used on the side of scepticism and annihila-tion are generally of a technical and external charac-ter, and the greater is the mass of moral and internalevidence continually accumulated against them. Inconsequence, there has set in a strong reaction amongscholars, even in Germany (in England the destructivetheories never greatly throve), on behalf of the affirm-ative side of all, or nearly all, the main questions whichhad been raised. Mure,b the last and perhaps mostdistinguished of British writers on this subject, has leftthe debate in such a state that those who follow himmay be excused, and may excuse their readers, from

b While speaking of this emi- tical and Imaginative' of the latenent labourer in the field of Ho- Professor Wilson. In that mostmeric inquiry, I must not pass useful, and I presume I may addby the sympathising spirit and standard, work, Smith's 'Diction-imagination of Mr. H. Nelson ary of Classical Biography andColeridge, the admirably turned Mythology,' I am sorry to findHomeric tone of the ballads of that the important article Ho-Dr. Maginn, or the valuable ana- merus, by Dr. Ihne, though it haslysia contained in the uncom- the merit of presenting the ques-pleted 'Homerus' of Archdeacon tion in a clear light, yet is nei-Williams. But of all the criti- ther uniformly accurate in its re-cisms on Homer which I have ferences to the text of Homer,ever had the good fortune to read, nor at all in conformity within our own or any language, the the prevailing state at least ofmost vivid and entirely genial are English opinion upon the con-those found in the ' Essays Cri- troversy.

B 2

4 I. Prolegomena.

systematic preliminary discussion ; and may proceedupon the assumption that the Iliad and Odyssey arein their substance the true offspring of the heroic ageitself, and are genuine gifts not only of a remote anti-quity but of a designing mind; as well as that he, towhom that mind belonged, has been justly declared bythe verdict of all ages to be the patriarch of poets.These controversies have been 'bolted to the bran;'for us at least they are all but dead, and to me it seemslittle better than lost time to revive them.

Having then at the present day the title to the estatein some degree secured from litigation, we may enterupon the fruition of it, and with all the truer zest onaccount of the conflict, which has been long and keenlyfought, and in the general opinion fairly won. It nowbecomes all those, who love Homer, to prosecute thesure method of inquiry and appreciation by close, con-tinued, comprehensive study of the text; a study ofwhich it would be easy to prove the need, by showinghow inaccurately the poems are often cited in quarters,to which the general reader justifiably looks for trust-worthy information. To this we have been exhortedby the writer already named:c and we have only tomake his practice our model. That something hasalready been attained, we may judge by comparison.Let us take a single instance. In the year 1735 waspublished 'Blackwell's Inquiry into theLife andWritingsof Homer.' Bentley, as it would appear from BishopMonk's Lifed of that extraordinary scholar, was not tobe taken in by a book of this kind : but such men asBentley are not samples of their time, they are livingsymbols and predictions of what it will require years or

c Mure's History of Grecian Literature, vol. i. p. I o ,•l 4-to ed. p. 622, n.

State of the Homeric question. 5

generations to accomplish. We may rather judge of thecommon impression made by this book, from the Notesto Pope's Preface to the Iliad, where Wartone extolsit as 'a work that abounds in curious researches andobservations, and places Homer in a new light.' Butno reader of Homer, in our own time, would really,I apprehend, be the poorer, if every copy of it coaldbe burned.

Since the time of Blackwell's work, important aidshave been gained towards the study of Homer, by theresearches of travellers, fruitful in circumstantial evi-dence, and by the discovery of the Venetian Scholia, aswell as by the persevering labours of modern critics.We have been gradually coming to understand thatthese precious works, which may have formed thedelight of our boyhood, have also been designed toinstruct our maturer years. I do not here refer to theirpoetic power and splendour only. It is now time thatwe should recognise the truth, that they constitute avast depository of knowledge upon subjects of deep inter-est, and of boundless variety; and that this is a know-ledge, too, which can be had from them alone. It wasthe Greek mind transferred, without doubt, in somepart through Italy, but yet only transferred, and stillGreek both in origin and in much of its essence, inwhich was shaped and tempered the original mould ofthe modern European civilization. I speak now of civi-lization as a thing distinct from religion, but destined tocombine and coalesce with it. The power derived fromthis source was to stand in subordinate conjunction withthe Gospel, and to contribute its own share towardsthe training of mankind. From hence were to be de-rived the forms and materials of thought, of imaginative

e Warton's Pope, vol. iv. p. 371, n>

6 I. Prolegomena.

culture, of the whole education of the intellectual soul,which, when pervaded with an higher life from theDivine fountain, was thus to be secured from corrup-tion, and both placed and kept in harmony with theworld of spirits.

This Greek mind, which thus became one of the mainfactors of the civilized life of Christendom, cannot befully comprehended without the study of Homer, andis nowhere so vividly or so sincerely exhibited as inhis works. He has a world of his own, into which,upon his strong wing, he carries us. There we findourselves amidst a system of ideas, feelings, and actions,different from what are to be found anywhere else;and forming a new and distinct standard of humanity.Many araong them seem as if they were then shortlyabout to be buried under a mass of ruins, in order thatthey might subsequently reappear, bright and fresh forapplication, among later generations of men. Others ofthem almost carry us back to the early morning of ourrace, the hours of its greater simplicity and purity, andmore free intercourse with God. In much that thisHomeric world exhibits, we see the taint of sin at work,but far, as yet, from its perfect work and its ripeness;it stands between Paradise and the vices of later hea-thenism, far from both, from the latter as well as fromthe former; and if among all earthly knowledge, theknowledge of man be that which we should chiefly court,and if to be genuine it should be founded upon experi-ence, how is it possible to over-value this primitive re-presentation of the human race in a form complete, dis-tinct, and separate, with its own religion, ethics, policy,history, arts, manners, fresh and true to the standardof its nature, like the form of an infant from the handof the Creator, yet mature, full, and finished, in its

State of the Homeric question. 7

own sense, after its own laws, like some masterpieceof the sculptor's art.

The poems of Homer never can be put in competi-tion with the Sacred Writings of the Old Testament,as regards the one invaluable code of Truth andHope that was contained in them. But while theJewish records exhibit to us the link between manand the other world in the earliest times, the poems ofHomer show us the being, of whom God was pleasedto be thus mindful, in the free unsuspecting play of hisactual nature. The patriarchal and Jewish dispensa-tions created, and sustained through Divine interposi-tion, a state of things essentially special and exceptional:but here first we see our kind set to work out for it-self, under the lights which common life and experiencesupplied, the deep problem of his destiny. Nor isthere, perhaps, any more solemn and melancholy lesson,than that which is to be learned from its continualdownward course. If these words amount to a beggingof the question, at least, it is most important for usto know whether the course was continually downwards;whether, as man enlarged his powers and his resources,he came nearer to, or went farther from his happinessand his perfection. Now, this inquiry cannot, for Eu-rope and Christendom at least, be satisfactorily con-ducted, except in commencing from the basis whichthe Homeric poems supply. As regards the greatRoman people, we know nothing of them, which is atonce archaic and veracious. As regards the Greeks, itis Homer that furnishes the point of origin from whichall distances are to be measured. When the historicperiod began, Greece was already near its intellectualmiddle-age. Little can be learned of the relative move-ments of our moral and our mental nature severally,

8 I. Prolegomena.

from matching one portion of that period with another,in comparison with what we may gather from bringinginto neighbourhood and contrast the pristine and youth-ful Greece of Homer on the one hand, and, on theother, the developed and finished Greece of the age ofthe tragedians or the orators.

The Mosaic books, and the other historical books ofthe Old Testament, are not intended to present, anddo not present, a picture of human society, or of ournature drawn at large. Their aim is to exhibit it inone master-relation, and to do this with effect, they doit, to a great extent, exclusively. The Homeric mate-rials for exhibiting that relation are different in kindas well as in degree: but as they paint, and paint tothe very life, the whole range of our nature, and theentire circle of human action and experience, at an epochmuch more nearly analogous to the patriarchal time thanto any later age, the poems of Homer may be viewed,in the philosophy of human nature, as the complementof the earliest portion of the Sacred Records.

Although the close and systematic study of the Ho-meric text has begun at a date comparatively recent,yet the marked development of riches from withinwhich it has produced, has already been a real, per-manent, and vast addition to the mental wealth ofmankind. We can now better understand than for-merly much that relates to the fame and authority ofthis great poet in early times, and that we may for-merly have contemplated as fanciful, exaggerated, orunreal. It was, we can now see, with no idle wonderthat, while Greek philosophers took texts from him solargely in their schools, the Greek public listened tohis strains in places of thronged resort, and in theirsolemn assemblages, and Greek warriors and states-

Homer and Classical Education. 9

men kept him in their cabinets and under their pil-lows ; and, for the first and last time in the history ofthe world, made the preservation of a poet's composi-tions an object of permanent public policy.

SECT. 2.—The Place of Homer in Classical Education.

Now, from these considerations may arise the im-portant question, Does Homer hold in our Englisheducation the place which is his due, and which itwould be for our advantage to give him ? An im-mense price is paid by the youth of this country forclassical acquirement. It is the main effort of thefirst spring-tide of their intellectual life. It is to behoped that this price will continue to be paid by all those,who are qualified to profit by the acquisition ; andthat though of other knowledge much more will here-after be gained than heretofore, yet of this there shallon no account be less. Still, viewing the greatness ofthe cost, which consists in the chief energies of somany precious years, it highly concerns us to see thatwhat we get in return is good both in measure andin quality. What, then, are the facts with respect tothe study of Homer in England at the present day ?

I must here begin with the apology due from onewho feels himself to be far from perfectly informed onthe case of which it is necessary to give an outline.But even if I understate both the amount of Homericstudy, and its efficiency, there will, I am confident,remain, after every due allowance shall have beenmade for error, ample room for the application of thegeneral propositions that I seek to enforce. They arethese: that the study of Homer in our Universities isas yet below the point to which it is desirable that itshould be carried, and that the same study, carried on

10 I. Prolegomena.

at our Public Schools, neither is, nor can be made, afitting substitute for what is thus wanting at the Uni-versities.

In my own day, at Oxford, now a full quarter of acentury ago, the poems of Homer were read chiefly byway of exception, and in obedience to the impulse ofindividual tastes. They entered rather materially intothose examinations by which scholarship was princi-pally to be tested, but they scarcely formed a sub-stantive or recognised part of the main studies of theplace, which were directed to the final examination inthe Schools for the Bachelor's degree. I do not recol-lect to have ever heard at that time of their being-used as the subject matter of the ordinary tutorial lec-tures; and if they were so, the case was certainly arare one. Although the late Dr. Gaisford, in the esti-mation of many the first scholar of his age, during hislong tenure of the Deanery of Christ Church, gave thewhole weight of his authority to the recommendationof Homeric study, it did not avail to bring about anymaterial change. The basis of the Greek classical instruc-tion lay chiefly in the philosophers, historians, and laterpoets; and when Homer was, in the academical phrase,* taken up,' he was employed ornamentally, and there-fore superficially, and was subjected to no such search-ing and laborious methods of study as, to the greathonour and advantage of Oxford, were certainly ap-plied to the authors who held the first rank in herpractical system. I am led to believe that the case atCambridge was not essentially different, although, fromthe greater relative space occupied there by examina-tions in pure scholarship, it is probable that Homermay, under that aspect at least, have attracted a greatershare of attention.

Homer and Classical Education. 11

When, however, the University of Oxford broughtto maturity, in the year 1850, a new .Statute of exa-minations, efforts were made to promote an extendedstudy of Homer. Those efforts, it happily appears,have produced a considerable effect. Provision wasmade by that statute for dividing the study of thepoets from the philosophical and historical studies, andfor including the former in the intermediate, or, as it istermed, 'first public' examination, while both the latterwere reserved for the final trial, with which the periodof undergraduateship is usually wound up. All candi-dates for honours in this intermediate examination arenow required to present not less than twelve Books ofHomer on the list of works in which they are to beexamined. And I understand that he has also takenhis place among the regular subjects of the tutoriallectures. This is a great sign of progress; and it mayconfidently be hoped that, under these circumstances,Homer will henceforward hold a much more forwardposition in the studies of Oxford. There remains some-thing to desire, and that something, I should hope, anyfurther development of the Examination Statute ofthe University will supply.

It is clear, that the study of this great master shouldnot be confined to preparation for examinations whichdeal principally with language, or which cannot enterupon either primitive history, or philosophy, or policy, orreligion, except by way of secondary illustration. Betterfar that he should be studied simply among the poets*than that he should not be studied at all. But as longas he is read only among the poets, he cannot, I believe,be read effectively for the higher and more varied pur-poses of which Homeric study is so largely susceptible.

The grammar, metre, and diction, the tastes, the

12 I. Prolegomena.

whole poetic handling and qualities of Homer, do, in-deed, offer an assemblage of objects for our considera-tion at once and alike singular, attractive, extended,and profitable. The extraneous controversies with whichhis name has so long been associated as to his person-ality and date, and as to the unity and transmission ofhis works, although they are for us, I trust, in sub-stance nearly decided, yet are not likely to lose theirliterary interest, were it only on account of the pecu-liarly convenient and seductive manner in which theyopen up many questions of primitive research; pre-senting these questions to us, as they do, not in thedull garb pieced out of antiquarian scraps, but alive, andin the full movement of vigorous debate. All this isfit for delightful exercise; but much more lies behind.

There is an inner Homeric world, of which his verseis the tabernacle and his poetic genius the exponent,but which offers in itself a spectacle of the most pro-found interest, quite apart from him who introduces usto it, and from the means by which we are so intro-duced. This world of religion and ethics, of civilpolicy, of history and ethnology, of manners and arts,so widely severed from all following experience, thatwe may properly call them palaeozoic, can hardly beexamined and understood by those, who are taught toapproach Homer as a poet only.

Indeed, the transcendency of his poetical distinc-tions has tended to overshadow his other claims anduses. As settlers in the very richest soils, saturatedwith the fruits which they almost spontaneously yield,rarely turn their whole powers to account, so they, thatare taught simply to repair to Homer for his poetry, findin him, so considered, such ample resources for enjoy-ment, that, unless summoned onwards by a distinct

Homer and Classical Education. 13

and separate call, they are little likely to travel further.It was thus that Lord Bacon's brilliant fame as a philo-sopher diverted public attention from his merits as apolitical historian/ It was thus, to take a nearer in-stance, that most readers of Dante, while submittingtheir imaginations to his powerful sway, have beenalmost wholly unconscious that they were in the handsof one of the most acute and exact of metaphysicians,one of the most tender, earnest, and profound amongspiritual writers. Here, indeed, the process has beensimpler in form; for the majority, at least, of readers,have stopped with the striking, and, so to speak, in-corporated imagery of the ' Inferno,' and have not somuch as read the following, which are also the loftierand more ethereal, portions of the 'Divina Commedia.'It may be enough for Homer's fame, that the consentof mankind has irrevocably assigned to him a supre-macy among poets, without real competitors or partners,except Dante and Shakspeare; and that, perhaps, if wetake into view his date, the unpreparedness of the worldfor works so extraordinary as his,the comparative paucityof the traditional resources and training he could haveinherited, he then becomes the most extraordinary, ashe is also the most ancient, phenomenon in the wholehistory of purely human culture. In particular points heappears to me, if it be not presumptuous to say somuch, to remain to this day unquestionably withoutan equal in the management of the poetic art. IfShakspeare be supreme in the intuitive knowledge ofhuman nature and in the rapid and fertile vigour ofhis imagination, if Dante have the largest grasp of the' height and depth' of all things created, if he standfirst in the power of exhibiting and producing ecstasy,

f The remark is, I think, Mr. Hallam's.

14 I. Prolegomena.

and in the compressed and concentrated energy s ofthought and feeling, Homer, too, has his own peculiarprerogatives. Among them might perhaps be placedthe faculty of high oratory; the art of turning to ac-count epithets and distinctive phrases; the productionof indirect or negative effects; and the power of cre-ating and sustaining dramatic interest without the largeuse of wicked agents, in whom later poets-have foundtheir most indispensable auxiliaries. But all this isnot enough for us who read him. If the works ofHomer are, to letters and to human learning, what theearly books of Scripture are to the entire Bible andto the spiritual life of man; if in them lie the begin-nings of the intellectual life of the world, then wemust still recollect that that life, to be rightly under-stood, should be studied in its beginnings. There wemay see in simple forms what afterwards grew com-plex, and in clear light what afterwards became ob-scure; and there we obtain starting-points, from whichto measure progress and decay along all the lines uponwhich our nature moves.

Over and above the general plea here offered for thestudy of Homer under other aspects than such as aremerely poetical, there is something to be said upon hisclaims in competition with other, and especially withother Greek poets. The case of the Latin poets, nearerto us historically, more accessible in tongue, moreeasily retained in the mind under the pressure ofafter-life, more readily available for literary and socialpurposes, must stand upon its own grounds.

In considering what is the place due to Homer ineducation, we cannot altogether exclude from view the

S This is the o-<£o8pdn;j, which the Iliad, but which was perhapsLonginus (c. ix.) commends in excelled in the Divina Oommedia

Homer and Classical Education. \5

question of comparative value, as between him and hisnow successful and overbearing rivals, the Greek tra-gedians. For we are not to expect that of the totalstudies, at least of Oxford and Cambridge, any largershare, speaking generally, can hereafter be given toGreek poetry, as a whole, than has heretofore been sobestowed. It is rather a question whether there shouldbe some shifting, or less uniformity, in the presentdistribution of time and labour, as among the diiferentclaimants within that attractive field.

I do not dispute the merits of the tragedians asmasters in their noble art. As long as letters arecultivated among mankind, for so long their honoursare secure. I do not question the advantage of study-ing the Greek language in its most fixed and mostexact forms, which they present in perfection; northeir equal, at least, if not greater value than Homer,as practical helps and models in Greek composition.But, after all allowances on these, or on any otherscore, they cannot, even in respect of purely poetietitles, make good a claim to that preference overHomer, which they have, nevertheless, extensivelyenjoyed. I refer far less to ^Eschylus than to theothers, because he seems more to resemble Homer notonly in majesty, but in nature, reality, and historicalveracity: and far less again to Sophocles, than to Euri-pides. But it may be said of them, generally, though ingreatly differing degrees, that while with Homer every-thing is pre-eminently fresh and genuine, with them,on the contrary, this freshness and genuineness, thislife-likeness, are for the most part wanting. We arereminded, by the matter itself, of the masks in whichthe actors appeared, of the mechanical appliances withthe aid of which they spoke. The very existence of

16 I. Prolegomena.

the word, eKTpaywSeip,h and other1 like compounds,shows us that, in the Greek tragedy, human natureand human life were not represented at large; theywere got up; they were placed in the light of certainpeculiar ideas, with a view to peculiar effects. Thedramas were magnificent and also instructive pictures,but they taught, as it were, certain set lessons only:they were pictures sui generis, pictures marked with acertain mannerism, pictures in which the artist followsa standard which is neither original, nor general, nortruly normal. Let us try the test of an expression some-what kindred in etymology: such a word as i%o/j.>ipoi}vwould carry upon its face a damning solecism. Again,let us mark the difference which was observed by thesagacity of Aristotle.k With the speeches in the Iliad,he compares the speeches in the tragedians; those mostremarkable and telling compositions, which we haveoccasion so often to admire in Euripides. But, as hesays, the Characters of the ancients, doubtless meaningHomer, speak TTOXITIKWS, those of the moderns, pqropi-KW?. I know no reason why the speeches of Achillesshould not be compared with the finest passages ofDemosthenes : but no one could make such a com-parison between Demosthenes and the speeches, thoughthey are most powerful and effective harangues, whichwe find in the Troades, or the Iphigenia in Aulide.This contrast of the earnest and practical with theartificial, runs, more or less, along the whole line whichdivides Homer from the tragedians, particularly fromEuripides.

When we consider the case in another point of view,and estimate these poets with reference to what they

h Used by Longinus xv. Po- > Steph. Lex. iii., 1353.lyb. vi. 56,8. k Aristot. Poet. c. 15.

Homer and Classical Education. 17

tell, and not to the mere manner of their telling it, theargument for assigning to Homer a greater share ofthe attention of our youth, becomes yet stronger. Forit must be admitted that the tragedians, especially thetwo later of the three, teach us but very little of theGreek religion, history, manners, arts, or institutions.At the period when they wrote, the religion of thecountry had become political or else histrionic in itsspirit, and the figures it presented were not only mul-tiplied, but were also hopelessly confused : while moralshad sunk into very gross corruption, of which, as wehave it upon explicit evidence, two at least of themlargely partook. The characters and incidents of theirown time, and of the generations which immediatelypreceded it, were found to be growing less suitable forthe stage. They were led, from this and other causes,to fetch their themes, in general, from the remote periodof the heroic or pre-historic ages. But of the traditionsof those ages they were no adequate expositors; hencethe representations of them are, for the most part,couched in altered and degenerate forms. This will bemost clearly seen upon examining the Homeric person-ages, as they appear in the plays of Euripides. Herethey seem often to retain no sign of identity except thename. The ' form and pressure,' and also the machineryor physical circumstances of the Greek drama, weresuch as to keep the tragedians, so to speak, upon stilts,while its limited scope of necessity excluded muchthat was comprised in the wide circle of the epicaction; so that they open to us little, in comparisonwith Homer, of the Greek mind and life: of thatcradle wherein lie, we are to remember, the originalform and elements, in so far as they are secular, ofEuropean civilization.

c

18 I. Prolegomena.

If I may judge in any degree of the minds of othersby my own experience, nothing is more astonishing inHomer, than the mass of his matter. Especially isthis true of the Iliad, which most men suppose to belittle more than a gigantic battle-piece. But thatpoem, battle-piece as it is, where we might expect tofind only the glitter and the clash of arms, is rich inevery kind of knowledge, perhaps richest of all in thepolitical and historical departments. It is hardly toomuch to say, in general, that besides his claims as apoet, Homer has, for himself, all the claims that allthe other classes of ancient writers can advance forthemselves, each in his separate department. And,excepting the works of Aristotle and Plato, on eitherof which may be grafted the investigation of the wholephilosophy of the world, I know of no author, amongthose who are commonly studied at Oxford, offering afield of labour and inquiry either so wide or so diver-sified, as that which Homer offers.

But, if Homer is not fully studied in our universities,there is no adequate consolation to be found in thefact, that he is so much read in our public schools.

I am very far indeed from lamenting that he is thusread. His free and genial temperament gives him ahold on the sympathies of the young. The simple anddirect construction of almost all his sentences allowsthem easy access to his meaning; the examination ofthe sense of single •words, so often requisite, is withintheir reach ; while it may readily be believed that thelarge and varied inflexions of the Greek tongue, in hishands at once so accurate and so elastic, make him pe-culiarly fit for the indispensable and invaluable work ofparsing. It may be, that for boyhood Homer finds ampleemployment in his exterior and more obvious aspects.

Homer and Classical Education. 19

But neither boyhood nor manhood can read Homereffectively for all purposes at once, if my estimate ofthose purposes be correct. The question therefore is,how best to divide the work between the periods of lifeseverally best suited to the different parts of it.

It is, indeed, somewhat difficult, as a general rule,beneficially and effectively to use the same book atthe same time as an instrument for teaching both thelanguage in which it is written, and the subject ofwhich it treats. What is given honestly to the onepurpose, will ordinarily be so much taken or withheldfrom the other. For the one object, the mind mustbe directed upon the thought of the author ; for theother, upon the material organ through which it isconveyed ; or, in other words, for the former of thesetwo aims his language must be regarded on its ma-terial, for the latter on its intellectual, side. Thedifficulty of combining these views, taken of necessityfrom opposite quarters, increases in proportion as thestudent is young, the language subtle, copious, andelaborate, the subject diversified and extended. Insome cases it may be slight, or, at least, easily sur-mountable ; but it is raised nearly to its maximum inthe instance of Homer. There are few among us whocan say that we learned much of the inward parts ofHomer in our boyhood; while perhaps we do not feelthat our labours upon him were below the average,such as it may have been, of our general exertions; andthough other generations may greatly improve upon us,they cannot, I fear, master the higher properties oftheir author at that early period of life. Homer, ifread at our public schools, is, and probably must be,read only, or in the main, for his diction and poetry(as commonly understood), even by the most advanced ;

c 2

20 I. Prolegomena.

while to those less forward he is little more than amechanical instrument for acquiring the beginnings ofreal familiarity with the Greek tongue and its inflex-ions. If, therefore, he is to be read for his theology,history, ethics, politics, for his skill in the higher andmore delicate parts of the poetic calling, for his never-ending lessons upon manners, arts, and society, if weare to study in him the great map of that humanitywhich he so wonderfully unfolds to our gaze,—hemust be read at the universities, and read with refer-ence to his deeper treasures. He is second to noneof the poets of Greece as the poet of boys; but he isfar advanced before them all, even before iEschylus andAristophanes, as the poet of men.

But no discussion upon the general as well as poet-ical elevation of Homer, can be complete or satis-factory without a more definite consideration of thequestion—What is the historical value of his testi-mony ? This is not settled by our showing either hisexistence, or his excellence in his art. No man doubtsAristo's, or Boiardo's, or Virgil's personality, or theirhigh rank as poets; but neither would any man quotethem as authorities on a point of history. To arrive ata right view of this further question, we must be rea-sonably assured alike of the nature of Homer's originalintention, of his opportunities of information, and ofthe soundness of his text. To these subjects I shallnow proceed; in the meantime, enough may have beensaid to explain the aim of these pages so far as regardsthe more fruitful study of the works of Homer, thecontemplation of them on the positive side in all theirbearings, and the clearing of a due space for them inthe most fitting stages of the education of the youthof England.

Historic Aims of Homer. 21

SECT. 3.—On the Historic Aims of Homer.For the purposes of anatomy every skeleton may be

useful, and may sufficiently tell the tale of the race towhich it belongs. But when we come to seek forhigh beauty and for approaches to perfection, of howinfinite a diversity, of what countless degrees, doesform appear to be susceptible ! How difficult it isto find these, except in mere fragments ; and howdangerous does it prove, in dealing with objects, totreat the whole as a normal specimen, simply becauseparts are fine, or even superlative. When, again, wepass onward, and with the body regard also the mindof man, still greater is the range of differences, andstill more rare is either the development of parts in adegree so high as to bring their single excellence nearthe ideal standard, or the accurate adjustment of theirrelations to one another, or the completeness of theaggregate which they form.

Now, it appears to me, that in the case of Homer,together with the breadth and elevation of the highestgenius, we have before us, and in a yet more remark-able degree, an even more rare fulness and consistencyof the various instruments and organs which make upthe apparatus of the human being—constituted as heis, in mind and body, and holding, as he does, on theone side of the Deity, and on the other, of the dust.Among all the qualities of the poems, there is nonemore extraordinary than the general accuracy and per-fection of their minute detail, when considered withreference to the standards at which from time to timethey aim. Where other poets sketch, Homer draws;and where they draw, he carves. He alone, of all thenow famous epic writers, moves (in the Iliad espe-cially) subject to the stricter laws of time and place;

22 I. Prolegomena.

he alone, while producing an unsurpassed work of theimagination, is also the greatest chronicler that everlived, and presents to us, from his own single hand, arepresentation of life, manners, history, of morals, theo-logy, and politics, so vivid and comprehensive, that itmay be hard to say whether any of the more refinedages of Greece or Rome, with their clouds of authorsand their multiplied forms of historical record, areeither more faithfully or more completely conveyed tous. He alone presents to us a mind and an organiza-tion working with such precision that, setting aside forthe moment any question as to the genuineness of histext, we may reason in general from his minutest in-dications with the confidence that they belong to someconsistent and intelligible whole.

It may be right, however, to consider more circum-stantially the question of the historical authority ofHomer. It has been justly observed by Wachsmuth1,that even the dissolution of his individuality does notget rid of his authority. For if the works reputed tobe his had proceeded from many minds, yet still, ac-cording to their unity of colour, and their correspond-ence in ethical and intellectual tone with the events ofthe age they purport to describe, there would arise anargument, founded on internal evidence, for the admis-sibility of the whole band into the class of trustworthyhistorical witnesses.

But, first of all, may we not ask, from whencecomes the presumption against Homer as an historicalauthority ? Not from the fact that he mixes marvelswith common events; for this, to quote no other in-stance, would destroy along with him Herodotus. Doesit not arise from this—that his compositions are poeti-

1 Historical Antiquities of tlic Greeks, vol. i. Appendix (.'.

Historic Aims of Homer. 23

cal—that history has long ceased to adopt the poeticalform—that an old association has thus been dissolved—that a new and adverse association has taken itsplace, which connects poetry with fiction—and that weillogically reflect this modern association upon earlytimes, to which it is utterly inapplicable ?

If so, there is no burden of proof incumbent uponthose, who regard Homer as an historical authority.The presumptions are all in favour of their so re-garding him. The question will, of course, remain—Inwhat proportions has he mixed history with imagina-tive embellishment ? And he has furnished us withsome aids towards the consideration of this question.

The immense mass of matter contained in the Iliad,which is beyond what the action of the poem requires,and yet is in its nature properly historical, of itself sup-plies the strongest proof of the historic aims of the poet.Whether, in the introduction of all this matter, hefollowed a set and conscious purpose of his own mind,or whether he only fed the appetite of his hearers withwhat he found to be agreeable to them, is little mate-rial to the question. The great fact stands, that therewas either a design to fulfil, or, at least, an appetite tofeed—an intense desire to create bonds and relationswith the past—to grasp its events, and fasten them informs which might become, and might make them be-come, the property of the present and the future.Without this great sign of nobleness in their nature,Greeks never could have been Greeks.

I have particularly in view the great multitude ofgenealogies; their extraordinary consistency one withanother, and with the other historical indications ofthe poems; their extension to a very large number,especially in the Catalogue, of secondary persons ;

24 I. Prolegomena.

I take again the Catalogue itself, that most remarkableproduction, as a whole; the accuracy with which thenames of the various races are handled and bestowedthroughout the poems; the particularity of the de-mands regularly made upon strangers for informationconcerning themselves, and especially the constant in-quiry who were their parents, what was, for each per-son as he appears, his relation to the past ? and further,the numerous legends or narratives of prior occurrenceswith which the poems, and particularly the more his-toric Iliad, is so thickly studded. Even the nationaluse of patronymics as titles of honour is in itself highlysignificant of the historic turn. Nay, much that touchesthe general structure of the poem may be traced inpart to this source; for all the intermediate Booksbetween the Wrath and the Return of Achilles, whilethey are so contrived as to heighten the military gran-deur of the hero, are so many tributes to the specialand local desires in each state or district for comme-moration of their particular chiefs, which Homer would,of course, have to meet, as he itinerated through thevarious parts of Greece.

Now, this appetite for commemoration does not fixitself upon what is imaginary; it may tolerate fictionby way of accessory and embellishment, but in themain it must, from its nature, rely upon what it takesto be solid food. The actions of great men in all times,but especially in early times, afford it suitable material;and there is nothing irrational in believing that therace which in its infancy produced so marvellous apoet as Homer, should also in its infancy have producedgreat warriors and great statesmen. Composing, withsuch powers as his, about his own country, and for hisown countrymen, he could scarcely fail, even indepen-

Historic Aims of Homer. 95

dently of conscious purpose, to convey to us a greatmass of such matter as is in reality of the very highesthistoric truth and value. If, indeed, we advance so faras to the conviction that his hearers believed him tobe reciting historically, the main question may speedilybe decided. For each generation of men, possessed ofthe mental culture necessary in order to appreciateHomer, knows too much of the generations immedi-ately preceding to admit of utter and wholesale impo-sition. But it is a fair inference from the Odyssey, thatthe Trojan War was thus sung to the men and thechildren of the men who waged it. Four lays of bards"1

are mentioned in that poem ; one of Phemius, three ofDemodocus; and out of the four, three relate to theWar, which appears to show clearly that its celebritymust have been both instantaneous and overpowering;the more so, as the only remaining one has reference notto any human transaction, but to a scene in Olympus.And I shall shortly advert to the question, whetherthe Homeric poems themselves were in all probabilitycomposed not later than within two generations of theWar itself.

It may be true that, with respect to some parts ofhis historical notices, the poet, adapting himself to thewishes and tastes of his hearers, might take libertieswithout fear of detection, most of all where he hasfilled in accessories, in order to complete a picture ;but I think we should be wrong in supposing that inthe interest of his art he would have occasion to makethis a general practice, or to carry it in historical subjectsbeyond matters of detail. Nor can I wholly disregardthe analogy between his history and his equally copiousand everywhere intermixed geographical notices: such

m Od. i. 326, viii. 72-82, 266-366, 499—520.

26 I. Prolegomena.

of them, I mean, as lay within the sphere of Greek expe-rience. These indeed, he could not, under the eyes ofthe men who heard him, cast into the mould of fiction;yet there could be no call of popular necessity for his un-equalled and most minute precision, and it can only beaccounted for by the belief that accurate record was agreat purpose of his poems. If he was thus careful torecord both classes of particulars alike, and if, as to theone, we absolutely know that he has recorded themwith exemplary fidelity, that fact raises a correspondingpresumption of some weight as to the other.

But there is, I think, another argument to the sameeffect, of the highest degree of strength which the na-ture of the case admits. It is to be found in the factthat Homer has not scrupled to make some sacrificesof poetical beauty and propriety to these historic aims.For if any judicious critic were called upon to specifythe chief poetical blemish of the Iliad, would he notreply by pointing to the multitude of stories from thepast, having no connexion, or at best a very feeble one,with the War, which are found in it ? Such brief andminor legends as occur in the course of the Catalogue,may have a poetical purpose; it appears not improba-ble that they may be introduced by way of relief to thedryness of topographical and local enumeration. Butin general the narratives of prior occurrences are (so tospeak) rather foisted in, and we must therefore supposefor them a purpose over and above that, which as a merepoet Homer would have in view. It is hard to conceivethat he would have indulged in them, if he had not beenable to minister to this especial aim by its means. Thus,again, the curious and important genealogy of the Dar-danian House" is given by iEneas, in answer to Achilles,

n II. xx. 213-41.

Historic aims of Homer. 27

who had just shown by his taunt that he, at least, didnot want the information, but knew very well0 theclaims and pretensions of his antagonist. Again, thelong story told by Agamemnon, in the assembly heldfor the Reconciliation, when despatch was of all thingsrequisite, may best be accounted for by the desire torelate the circumstances attending the birth of thegreat national hero, Hercules. It certainly impedesthe action of the poem, which seems to be confessedin the rebuke insinuated by the reply of Achilles:—

vvv be nvqadfjieOa xapfirjs

alxjfa judA.1' ov yap XPV K^-oroireveiv ev8a& eovrasovbf hiaTpijieiv eri yap fieya tpyov apenTov. V

Still more is this the case when Patroclus, sent in ahurry for news by a man of the most fiery impatience,is (to use the modern phrase) button-held by Nestor,in the eleventh Book, and, though he has f no time tosit down,' yet is obliged to endure a speech of a hun-dred and fifty-two lines, ninety-three of which, contain-ing the account of the Epean contest with Pylos, areabsolutely and entirely irrelevant. It may be said, thatthese effusions are naturally referable to the garrulousage of Nestor, and to false shame and want of in-genuousness in Agamemnon. In part, too, we maycompare them with the modern fashion among Orien-tals of introducing parables in common discourse. Butmany of these have no parabolic force whatever: andfrom all of them poetical beauty suffers. On the otherhand, the historic matter introduced is highly curiousand interesting for the Greek races: why, then, shouldwe force- upon Homer the charge of neglect, folly, ordrowsiness,i when an important purpose for these in-terpolations appears to lie upon the very face of them ?

o II. xx. 179-83. P II. xix. 148-50. i Hov. A.P. v. 359.

28 I. Prolegomena.

It will be observed, that if this reasoning in referenceto the interlocutory legends be sound, it supplies anhistorical character to the poem just in the places wherethe general argument for it would have been weakest;inasmuch as these legends generally relate to times oneor two generations earlier than the Troica, and arefarther removed, by so much of additional interval, fromthe knowledge and experience of his hearers.

But, over and above the episodes, which seem to owetheir place in the poem to the historic aim, there are amultitude of minor shadings which run through it, andwhich, as Homer could have derived no advantage fromfeigning them, we are compelled to suppose real. Theyare part of the graceful finish of a true story, but theyhave not the showy character of what has been inventedfor effect. Why, for instance, should Homer say ofClytaemnestra, that till corrupted by iEgisthus she wasgood ?r Why should it be worth his while to pretendthat the iron ball offered by Achilles for a prize wasthe one formerly pitched by Eetion ?s Why shouldhe spend eight lines in describing the dry trunk roundwhich the chariots were to drive ? * Why should hetell us that Tydeus was of small stature ?u Why doesMenelaus drive a mare ?x Why has Penelope a sisterIphthime,' who was wedded to Eumelus,' wanted for noother purpose than as a persona for Minerva in adream? y These questions, every one will admit, mightbe indefinitely multiplied.

But, after all, there can be no point more importantfor the decision of this question, than the general toneof Homer himself. Is he, for ethical and intellectual

r Od. iii. 266. 1 II. v. 801.8 II. xxiii. 826. " II. xxiii. 409.t Ibid. 326-33. y Od. iv. 7,97.

Historic aims of Homer. 29

purposes, the child of that heroic age which he de-scribes ? Does he exhibit its form and pressure ? Doeshe chant in its key? Are there a set of ideas of thewriter which are evidently not those of his heroes, orof his heroes which are not those of the writer, or doeshe sing, in the main, as Phemius and Demodocus mightthemselves have sung ? Wachsmuth says well, that Ho-mer must be regarded as still within the larger boundariesof the heroic age. There are, perhaps, signs, particularlyin the Odyssey, of a first stage of transition from it; butthe poet is throughout identified with it in heart, soul,speech, and understanding. I would presume to arguethus; that Homer never would have ventured to dis-pense with mere description, and to adopt action ashis sole resource—to dramatise his poem as he hasdramatised it—unless he had been strong in the con-sciousness of this identity. It is no answer to say thatlater writers—namely, the tragedians—dramatised thesubject still more, and presented their characters on thestage without even those slender aids from interjectednarrative towards the comprehension of them, which Ho-mer has here and there, at any rate, permitted himself touse. For the consequence has been in their case, thatthey entirely fail to represent the semblance of a pic-ture of the heroic age, or indeed of any age at all.They produce remote occurrences or fables in a dressof feelings, language, and manners suited to their owntime, as far as it is suited to any. Besides, as drama-tists, they had immense aids and advantages of otherkinds; not to mention their grand narrative auxiliary,the Chorus. But Homer enjoyed little aid from acces-sories, and has notwithstanding painted the very life.And yet, seeking to paint from the life, he commits itto his characters to paint themselves and one another.

30 I. Prolegomena.

Surely he never could have confined himself to this in-direct process, unless he had been emboldened by theconsciousness of his own essential unity with them all.He would have done as most other epic poets havedone, whose personages we feel that we know, notfrom themselves, but from what the poet in the cha-racter of intelligencer has been kind enough to tell us;whereas we learn Achilles by means of Achilles, Ulys-ses by means of Ulysses, and so with the rest. Nextto their own light, is the light they reflect on one an-other; but we never see the poet, so to speak, holdingthe candle. Still, in urging all this, I feel that moreremains and must remain unspoken. The question,whether Homer speaks and paints essentially in thespirit of his own age, or whether he fetches from adistance both his facts and a manner so remarkablyharmonizing with them, must after all our discussionscontinue one to be settled in the last resort not byarguments, which can only play a subsidiary part, butfirst by the most thorough searching and sifting of thetext; then by the application of that inward sense andfeeling, to which the critics of the destructive schools,with their avcnroSeiicTai (pd<reis,make such copious appeals.

But the assumption by an effort of mind of the man-ners and tone of a remote age, joined with the con-sistent support of this character throughout prolongedworks, is of very rare occurrence. In Greek literaturethere is nothing, to my knowledge, which at all ap-proaches it; and this I think may fairly be urged as ofitself almost conclusive against ascribing it to Homer.The later tragedians, in whose compositions we. shouldlook for it, do not apparently so much as think of it;and it is most difficult to suppose a poet so national asHomer to be in this cardinal respect entirely different

Historic Aims of Homer. 31

from all others of his race. Indeed the supposition isradically at variance with the idea of his poetical charac-ter; of which the very groundwork lies in a childlike un-consciousness, and in the unity of Art with Nature y.

May we not, however, go a good deal further, and sayboldly that the faculty of assuming in literary composi-tions an archaic costume, voice, and manner, does not be-long at all either to an age like that of Homer, or to anyage of which the literary conditions at all resemble it ?

In the first place, an inventor, working like Homerfor the general public, must, by departing altogetherfrom the modes of thought, expression,* and action cur-rent in his own day, pro tanto lose his hold upon thoseon whose approval he depends. It seems to follow thatthis will not be seriously attempted, except in an agewhich has ceased to afford a liberal supply of the mate-rials of romance. Is not this presumption made goodby experience ? The Greek tragedians, it is indisputa-ble, did not find it necessary to aim, and did not aim,at reproducing the whole contemporary apparatus, whichwas in strictness appropriate and due to their charac-ters. Virgil made no such attempt in the iEneid, ofwhich, notwithstanding the manners abound in ana-chronisms of detail. The romance poets of Italy ideal-ize their subject, not, however, by the revival of antiquemanners with their proper apparatus of incidents, but bymeans of an abundant preternatural machinery. Even inShakespeare's King John, Henry IV, or Henry VIII,how little difference can be detected from the Elizabe-than age, or (in this point) from one another2. Again,

y Nagelsbach, Homerische The- ground in ' The Fortunes of Ni-ologie, Einleitung, pp. 1-3. gel.' Novels and Eomances, vol.

1 Scott has paid, however, a iii. p. 68, 8vo edition,tribute to Shakespeare on this

32 I. Prolegomena.

in Macbeth or Lear, enough is done to prevent ourutterly confounding their ages with the common life ofthe hearers; but there is nothing that approaches to acomplete characteristic representation of the respectivetimes to which the personages are supposed to belong.So, again, in Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, or Antony andCleopatra, there is a sort of Roman toga thrown looselyover the figures ; but we do not feel ourselves amidstRoman life when we read them. And, in truth, whatis done at all in these cases is not done so much byreproducing as by generalizing, in the same sense as apainter generalizes his draperies. A great instance ofthe genuine process of reproduction is to be found inSir Walter Scott. He, however, besides being a man ofpowerful genius, cast not in the mould of his own age,but in one essentially belonging to the past, was amaster of antiquarian knowledge. And this leads meto name what seems to be the second condition ofserious and successful attempts (I need not here speakof burlesques, of which all the touches must be broadones) at disinterring and reviving bygone ages in thewhole circle and scheme of their life. The first, as hasbeen already said, is to live in an age itself socially old,so as not to abound in proper materials for high inven-tion. The second is, to live in an age possessed of suchabundant documents and records of a former time as tomake it practicable to explore it in all points by histo-rical data. This condition was wanting to Virgil, evensupposing him to have had the necessary tastes andqualifications. It was not wanting to Scott, with refer-ence especially to the period of the Stuarts, who, be-sides a vast abundance of oral and written traditions,had laws, usages, architecture, arms, coins, utensils,every imaginable form of relic and of testimony at his

Historic aims of Homer. 33

command, so that he could himself first live in the ageof his works, and then, when himself acclimatised, in-vent according to it.

In all this it is not forgotten that a certain amountof archaism is indispensable in all works purporting todraw their subject from a long-past age. But this mini-mum need only be slight and general, as in the iEneid;and it consists rather in the exclusion of modern acces-sories, than in the revival of the original tone. Andagain, the very choice of subject, as it is grave and severeor light and gay, will to some extent influence the man-ners : the former will spontaneously lean towards thepast, the latter, depending on the zest of novelty, willbe more disposed to clothe itself in the forms of thepresent. Thus we have a more antique tone in Henrythe Fifth, than in the Merry Wives of Windsor. Butarchaic colouring within limits such as these is broadlydifferent from such systematic representation of theantique as Homer must have practised, if he had prac-tised it at all.

As in romance and poetry, so in the progress of thedrama, this method appears to be the business of a lateage. The strength of dramatic imagination is alwayswhen the drama itself is young. It then confidentlyrelies upon its essential elements for the necessary illu-sion ; it knows little, and cares less, about sustainingit by elaborate attention to minor emblems and inci-dents. But when it has lived into the old age ofcivilized society, when the critical faculty has becomestrong and the imagination weak, then it strengthensitself by minute accuracy in scenery and costume,—in fact, by exact reproduction. This is indeed the novelgift of our own time: and by means of it theatricalrevivals are now understood and practised among our-

34 I. Prolegomena.

selves in a manner which former generations could notemulate, but did not require.

Nor mast we forget the importance, with referenceto this discussion, of Homer's minuteness, precision, andmultitude of details. Every one of these, be it remem-bered, if we suppose him not to be painting from thelife, affords an additional chance of detection, by thediscrepancy between the life habitually present to thepoet's experience, and that which he is representingby effort. But the voice of the Homeric poems is inthis respect, after all, unisonous, like that of the Greeks,and not multiform, like that of the Trojan armya. Weare driven, therefore, to suppose that Homer practisedthis art of reproduction on a scale, as well as with asuccess, since unheard of, and this at a period when,according to all likelihood and all other experience, itcould only in a very limited sense be possible to prac-tice it at all. The extravagance of these suppositionstells powerfully against them, and once more throwsus back on the belief that the objects which he paintedwere, in the main, those which his own age placed be-neath his view.

This view of the historical character of Homer, I be-lieve, substantially agrees with that taken by the Greeksin general. If I refer to Strabo, in his remarkableProlegomena1*, it is because he had occasion to considerthe point particularly. Eratosthenes had treated thegreat sire of poets as a fabulist. Strabo confutes him.Eratosthenes had himself noticed the precision of thegeographical details: Thisbe, with its doves; Haliartusand its meadows; Anthedon, the boundary; Lilsea bythe sources of Cephissus; and Strabo retorts upon himwith force—irorepov ovv 6 iroiwv ravTa ^

a II. iv. 438. t> Strabo i. 2, p. 16.

Historic aims of Homer. 35

} SiSda-KovTi; his general conclusion is, that Ho-mer used fiction, as his smith in the Odyssey used goldfor plating silver:—

0)S 8 ore TLS xpvabv "nepiyjvGTai apyupa avr\p,

that so Homer adjoined mythical ornaments to trueevents. But history was the basis:—e\a/3ev ovv irapaTJJ? laroplas ray ap^asc. And, in adopting the beliefthat Homer is to be taken generally for a most trust-worthy witness to facts, I am far from saying that thereare no cases of exception, where he may reasonably besuspected of showing less than his usual fidelity. Thedoctrine must be accepted with latitude : the question isnot whether it is absolutely safe, but whether it is theleast unsafe. We may most reasonably, perhaps, view hisstatements and representations with a special jealousy,when they are such as appear systematically contrivedto enhance the distinctive excellencies of his nation.Thus, for instance, both in the causes and incidents ofthe war, and in the relative qualities and merits ofGreeks and Trojans, we may do well to check the toorapid action of our judgments, and to allow some scopeto the supposition, that the historical duties of the bardmight here naturally become subordinate to his pa-triotic purpose in glorifying the sires of his hearers,that immortal group who became through him thefountain head to Greece, both of national unity and ofnational fame.

Indeed, while I contend keenly for the historic aimand character of Homer, I understand the terms in asense much higher than that of mere precision in theleading narration. We may, as I am disposed to think,even if we should disbelieve the existence of Helen, ofAgamemnon, or of Troy, yet hold, in all that is most

c Strabo i. 2, p. 20.

36 I. Prolegomena.

essential, by the historical character of Homer. Formyself, I ask to be permitted to believe in these, andin much besides these; yet I also plead that the mainquestion is not whether he has correctly recorded acertain series of transactions, but whether he has trulyand faithfully represented manners and characters, feel-ings and tastes, races and countries, principles and insti-tutions. Here lies the pith of history; these it has forits soul, and fact for its body. It does not appear to mereasonable to presume that Homer idealized his narrationwith anything like the license which was permitted tothe Carlovingian romance; yet even that romance didnot fail to retain in many of the most essential particu-lars a true historic character; and it conveys to us, partlyby fact and partly through a vast parable, the inwardlife of a period pregnant with forces that were tooperate powerfully upon our own characters and condi-tion. Even those who would regard the cases as parallelshould, therefore, remember that they too must readHomer otherwise than as a poet in the vulgar andmore prevailing sense, which divests poetry of its rela-tion to reality. The more they read him in that spiritthe higher, I believe, they will raise their estimate ofhis still unknown and unappreciated treasures.

SECT. 4.—The probable Date of Homer.

In employing such a phrase as the date of Homer, Imean no reference to any given number of years beforethe Olympiads, but simply his relation in the order ofhistory to the heroic age; to the events, and, above all,to the living type of that age.

When asserting generally the historic aims and au-thority of the poet, I do not presume to pronounce con-

Probable Date of Homer. 37

fidently upon the difficult question of the period atwhich he lived. I prefer to dwell upon the proposi-tion that he is an original witness to manners, charac-ters, and ideas such as those of his poems. It is notnecessary, to make good this proposition, that we shoulddetermine a given number of years as the maximumthat could have passed between the Trojan war andthe composition of the Iliad or Odyssey. But the in-ternal evidence seems to me very strongly to supportthe belief, that he lived before the Dorian conquest ofthe Peloponnesus. That he was not an eye-witness ofthe war, we absolutely know from the Invocation beforethe Catalogue"1. It also appearse that he must haveseen the grandchildren of iEneas reigning over the landof Priam. It is no extravagant supposition that fortyor fifty years after the siege, perhaps even less, mighthave brought this to pass.

The single idea or form of expression in the poems,which at first sight tends to suggest a very long inter-val, is that quoted by Velleius Paterculusf, the oloi vvvfiporoL eio-i%. But the question arises, whether this isan historical land-mark, or a poetical embellishment ?In the former sense, as implying a great physical dege-neracy of mankind, it would require us to suppose no-thing less than a lapse of centuries between the Troicaand the epoch of the poet. This hypothesis, thoughHeyne speaks of the eighth or ninth generation'1, ge-neral opinion has rejected. If it be dismissed, and if weadopt the view of this formula as an ornament, it losesall definite chronological significance. Thus it is lost inthe phrase, common in our own time with respect to

d II. ii. 486. sIl.v.3O4;xii.383,449;xx. 287.e II. xx. 308. h Exc. iii. ad II. xxiv., vol. viii.f Hist. i. 5. p. 828.

38 I. Prolegomena.

the intellectual characters of men now no more, butyet not removed from us, perhaps, by more than froma quarter to half a century—'there were giants inthose days.' Nay, the observation of Paterculus, espe-cially as he was an enthusiastic admirer, itself exempli-fies the little care with which these questions have beentreated. For the Iliad itself supplies a complete an-swer in the speech of Nestor, who draws the very samecontrast between the heroes of the Troica and those ofhis own earlier days :

Keivoicri 8' av OVTLS

T&V ol vvv fipoToi eloiv ituyflovLtov ^a^ioao1.

And it is curious that we have in these words a measure,supplied by Homer himself,of the real force of the phrase,which seems to fix it at something under half a century,and thus makes it harmonise with the indication affordedby the passage relating to the descendants ofiEneas. Theargument of MitfordJ on the age of Homer appears tome to be of great value: and, while it is rejected, it isnot answered by Heynek. Nor is it easy to conceivethe answer to those who urge that, so far as the poet'stestimony goes, the years from Pirithous to the siegeare as many as from the siege to his own day1. ButPirithous was the father of Polypsetes, who led a Thes-salian division in the war.m

If this view of Homer's meaning in the particularcase be correct, we can the better understand why it isthat the poet, who uses this form of enhancement fourtimes in the Iliad, does not employ it in the Odyssey,though it is the later poem, and though he had oppor-

' II. i. 262-272. vol.viii. p. 226.i Hist. Greece, chap. iii. App.; l Granville Penn on the Pri-

vol. i. 169-74, 4to. maiy Arguments of the Iliad, p.k Heyne, Exc. iii. ad II. xxiv.; 314. m U. ii. 740.

Probable Date of Homer. 39

tunities enough ; such as the athletic exploits of Ulyssesin Phseacia, and especially the handling of the Bow inIthaca. For in the Iliad a more antique tone of colour-ing prevails, as it is demanded by the loftier strain ofthe action.

There is one passage, and one only, which is justcapable of being construed as an allusion to the greatDorian conquest: it is that in the Fourth Book of theIliad, where Juno tells Jupiter that she well knows hecan destroy in spite of her, whensoever he may choose,her three dearest cities, Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae".It is probable that the passage refers to sacking such ashad been practised by Hercules0, and such as is pathe-tically described by Phoenix!7. But, in the first place,we do not know that these cities were in any sensedestroyed by the Dorian conquest, more than theyhad been by previous dynastic and territorial changes.If, on the other hand, it be contended, that we need notconstrue the passage as implying more than revolutionindependent of material destruction, then we need notintroduce the idea of the Dorian conquest at all to sus-tain the propriety of the passage, for Homer alreadyknew by tradition how those cities, and the territory towhich they belonged, had changed hands from Danai'dsto Perseids, and from Perseids to Pelopids.

But indications even far less equivocal from an iso-lated passage would be many times outweighed, in acase like that of Homer, by any conclusion justlydrawn from features, whether positive or negative, thatare rooted in the general body of the poems. Nowsuch a conclusion arises from the admitted and totalabsence of any allusion in Homer to the general inci-dents of the great Dorian conquest, and to the conse-quent reconstruction of the old or European Greece,

n II. iv. 51, ° II. ii. 660. r II. ix. 593,

40 I. Prolegomena.

or to the migrations eastward, or to the very existenceof the new Asiatic Greece which it is supposed to havecalled into being. Respecting the conquest itself, hemight by a sustained effort of deliberate intention havekept silence: but is it possible that he could haveavoided betraying by reference to results, on a thousandoccasions, his knowledge of a change which had drawnanew the whole surface of society in Greece ? It wouldbe more rational, were we driven to it (which is not thecase), even to suppose that the passage in question hadbeen tampered with, than to imagine that the poetcould have forborne through twenty-eight thousandlines, to make any other reference to, or further betrayhis knowledge of, events which must on this suppositionhave occupied for him so large a part of the wholehorizon of life and experience.

Again, the allusions to the trumpet and the riding-horse found in illustrative passages, but not as used inthe war, are by far too slight and doubtful, to sustainthe theory that Homer saw around him a system ofwarfare different from that which he recorded; andrequire us to adopt no supposition for the explanationof them, beyond the very natural one that the heroicpoet, without essentially changing manners, yet, withincertain limits, insensibly projects himself and his sub-ject from the foreground of every-day life into the mel-lowness of distance; and, therefore, that he may ad-visedly have excluded from his poem certain objects orpractices, which notwithstanding he knew to have beenmore or less in use. Again, what are we to say to theminute knowledge of Greece proper and the Peloponne-sus, which Homer has displayed ? Why does he (appar-ently) know it so much better than he knew Asia Minor?How among the rude Dorians, just emerged from com-parative barbarism, could he learn it at all ? How

Probable Date of Homer. 41

strange, that Lycurgus should have acquired the fameof having first introduced the poems to the Peloponne-sus, unless a great revolution and a substitution of onedominant race for another had come between, to obli-terate or greatly weaken the recollection of them inthe very country, which beyond all others they coveredwith a blaze of glory.

Of the very small number of passages in the poemswhich contain a reference to events later than theaction, there are two, both relating to the same sub-ject, for which at first sight it appears difficult to ac-count. Why does Neptune obtrude upon the OlympianCourt his insignificant and rather absurd jealousy, lestthe work of defence, hastily thrown up by the Achaeanarmy, should eclipse the wall built around Troy byApollo and himself? Evidently in order to obtainfrom Jupiter the suggestion, that he should subse-quently himself efface all traces of it. But why doesHomer show this anxiety to account for its non-appear-ance ? Why does he return subsequently to the sub-ject, and most carefully relate how Jupiter by raining,and Apollo by turning the mouths of eight rivers, andNeptune with his trident, all cooperated to destroy thework, and make the shore smooth and even again ?Had Homer lived many generations after the Trojanwar, these passages would have been entirely withoutpurpose, for he need not then have given reasons toshow, why ages had left no trace still visible of thelabour of a day. But if he lived near the period of thewar, the case is very different. He might then be chal-lenged by his maritime hearers, who, if they frequentedthe passage into the Sea of Marmora, would have hadclear views of the camp of Agamemnon, and whowould naturally require him to assign a cause for the

4$ I. Prolegomena.

disappearance even of such a work as a day's labour ofthe army could produce, and as the Trojan soldierycould make practicable for their chariots to drive overi.

These particular indications appear to be worth con-sidering : but the great reasons for placing the date ofHomer very near to that of the War are, his visibleidentity with the age, the altering but not yet vanishedage, of which he sings, and the broad interval in toneand feeling between himself, and the very nearest ofall that follows him.

SECT. 4>.—The Probable Trustworthiness of the Tewtof Homer.

Let us now proceed to consider the question, whatassumption is it, on the whole, safest to make, or whatrule can we most judiciously follow, as our guide inHomeric studies, with reference to the text of thePoems ?

Shall we adopt a given form of completely recon-structed text, like that of Mr. Payne Knight ?

Shall we, without such adherence to a particularpattern, assume it to be either indisputable or, at least,most probable that an extensive corruption of the textcan hardly have been avoided1'; and shall we, in conse-quence, hold the received text provisionally, and sub-ject to excision or to amendment according to anyparticular theory concerning Homer, his age, its man-ners and institutions, which we may ourselves havethought fit to follow or construct?

Shall we admit as authoritative, the excisions ofAristarchus or the Alexandrian critics, and the obeli

1 II. vi. 445-64 ; xii. 10-33 ; "•> V°L viii. p. 789 ; Lord Aber-xv. 384. deen's Inquiry, p. 65.

r Heyne, Exc. ii. ad II. JJ. sect.

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 43

which he has placed against verses which he sus-pected ?

Or shall we proceed, as a general rule, upon thebelief, that the received text of Homer is in generalsound and trustworthy, so far, at least, as to be verygreatly preferable to any reconstructed or altered formwhatever, in which it has hitherto been produced orproposed for our acceptance ?

My decided preference is for the fourth and last ofthese alternatives: with the observation, however, inpassing, that the third does not essentially differ fromit with respect to the great body of the Poems, so faras we know what the Alexandrian text really was.

I prefer this course as by far the safest: as the onlyone which can be entered upon with such an amountof preliminary assent, as to secure a free and unbiassedconsideration of Homeric questions upon a ground heldin common: and as, therefore, the only one, by meansof which it can be hoped to attain to solid and materialresults as the reward of inquiry. In order fairly toraise the issue, the two following propositions may bestated as fitting canons of Homeric study:—

1. That we should adopt the text itself as the basisof all Homeric inquiry, and not any preconceivedtheory, nor any arbitrary standard of criticism, refera-ble to particular periods, schools, or persons.

2. That as we proceed in any work of constructionby evidence drawn from the text, we should avoid thetemptation to solve difficulties found to lie in our way,by denouncing particular portions of it as corrupt orinterpolated : should never set it aside except uponthe closest examination of the particular passage ques-tioned ; should use sparingly the liberty even of array-ing presumptions against i t ; and should always let

44 I. Prolegomena.

the reader understand both when and why it is ques-tioned.

Now, let us consider these rules, and the methodwhich it is proposed by means of them to apply,

a. With reference to the failure of other methods.b. With reference to the antecedent probabilities for

or against the general soundness of the text.c. With reference to the internal evidence of sound-

ness or unsoundness afforded by the text itself.The first of the two rules has been brought more

and more into operation by the believers in Homer asthe Poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey, in self-defenceagainst the sceptical theories: and it has been bothannounced and acted upon by Mure with such breadthand completeness, as to leave to those, who adopt it,simply the duty of treading in his footsteps.

Again, as to the second, it may now be hoped thatby the force of circumstances it is gradually cominginto vogue, though perhaps less, as yet, by a distinctconviction of its reasonableness, than through the utterfailure and abortiveness of all other methods. Firstto theorise rashly (with or without consciousness), andthen rudely to excise from the Homeric text whateverclashes with our crude conceptions, is, after all, anessentially superficial and vulgar method of proceeding:and if it was excusable before the evidence touchingthe Poet and the text had been so greatly confirmed,as it has recently been, by closer scrutiny, it can hardlybe forgiven now. The text of Homer cannot be fault-less : but, in the first place, it is plain, as far as generalconsent can make it so, that the poems, as they stand,afford a far better and surer foundation than any otherform of them which has been proposed, whether cur-tailed in their principal members, as by the destructive

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 45

school, or only amended by free handling in detail. Allthe recasting processes which have yet been tried, havebegotten ten solecisms, or another solecism of tenfoldmagnitude, for every one that they did away. In fact,the end of schemes, such as that of Lachmanns, hasbeen not to achieve any thing like real progress in acontinuous work, but simply to launch so many distinctspeculations, isolated, conflicting, each resting on itsauthor's own hearty approval, and each drawing fromthe rest of the world no other sign than the shrug orthe smile, which seems to be the proper reward ofperverted ingenuity.

It would be presumptuous and unjust to treat theremarkable performance of Mr. Payne Knight as oneof what may be called—to borrow a phrase from thecommercial world—the Homeric bubble-schemes. Itwas anticipated with eagerness by Heyne. It was hailedby the calm judgment and refined taste of Lord Aber-deen. Yet this was not enough.

hfxipai 8' firiKonroi

The ordeal of time has not destroyed the value ofMr. Payne Knight's Prolegomena, but it has been de-cidedly unfavourable to his text as a practical attemptat reconstruction. With the old text in the right hand,and Mr. Knight's in the left, who would doubt in whichto look for the nearest likeness to Homer? Or whowill ever again venture to publish an abridged or re-modelled Iliad?

Apart, however, from the unsatisfactoriness of theresults of attempts at reconstruction, have we reason tobelieve that the text of Homer has, as a whole, been

a In the Berlin Philosophical Transactions, 1839, and FernereBetrachtungen, 1843. ' Pindar.

46 I. Prolegomena.

seriously vitiated by interpolation or corruption ? Thedifficulties attending its transmission from the time ofthe poet are not to be denied. But I think we havescarcely enough considered the amount of means whichwere available, and which were actually employed, inorder to neutralize those difficulties, and achieve thetask. Although writing of some description appearsto have existed at the epoch of the Poems, it can beprobably proved, and may at any rate be fully admitted,that Homer did not write, but recited only. This is thefirst step : now for the second. I. pass by the argumentwith those, who deny that poems of this length could betransmitted orally at all, as one already disposed of bythe general verdict of the world. So, likewise, I leavebehind me, at the point where Mure has placed them,all the reasonings of the piecers, who say that there wereoriginally a number of Iliadic and Odyssean songs, after-wards made up into the poems such as we now havethem: of the amplifiers, who look upon them as ex-panded respectively by gradual interpolations and ad-ditions from an original of small dimensions; of theseparators, who will have just two Homers and no more,one for the Iliad, and one for the Odyssey. I assumefor the present purpose the contrary of all these threepropositions: and simply invite those who disbelievethem, but who also conceive that the text is generallyunsafe and untrustworthy in its detail, to some consi-deration of that subject.

In attempting to weigh retrospectively the probablefortunes of the Homeric text, I presume that we mayestablish as our point of departure the judgment deli-vered by Heyne", that the manuscripts of Homer aresatisfactory: that we possess all, or nearly all, that the

u Exc. ii. ad II. Q, sect. ii. vol. viii. pp. 790, i.

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 47

Alexandrian critics possessed; and that by the advanceof the critical art, we have now probably, on the whole,a better and truer Homer than that of Aristarchus,which is the basis of the modern text. The imperfectstate of notation when writing first began to be used,and the changes in pronunciation, have not, we mayalso suppose with Heynex, done more than trifling orsecondary damage to the copies.

The first serious question is this; how far was Homermutilated, first, by the ihapsodists, or reciters, before hewas put into writing, and secondly, by those who, inorder to bring the lays of the Iliad into one body, must,it is assumed, have added and altered much, even ifthey had no whims of their own, and only sought to dowhat was needful nexus et junctures causa. It is, ofcourse, admitted that these lays, even though ideallyone as they came from their framer, were in manycases actually separated. And Heyne quotes the Scho-liast of Pindar?, complaining by report that CinEethusand his school had interpolated largely, as well as thepassage in which Josephus2 (so he states) gives it ashis opinion that the Iliad, from having been piecedtogether long after it was composed, presented manydiscrepancies. Now, even if this were the opinion ofJosephus, it would have no more pretension to histo-rical authority, than if it had been delivered yesterday.But the fact is, that Josephus mentions it simply as acurrent notion ; (patriv ovSe TOVTOV . . . aWa Sia/ui.v>]fjiovevo-

/mevyv . . . K<xi Sia TOVTO TrciWas ev avTrj v^eiv TCC<; oiacpwvta?.

Indeed, it cannot be too carefully borne in mind, thatif the positive notices of Homer in early times areslight, so as to throw us back very much upon the poemsfor their own vindication, yet, on the other hand, all

x Bxc. ii. ad II. a, sect. ii. y Pind. Nem. ii. i.vol. viii. pp. 790, i. z Joseph, contr. Ap. i. 2.

48 I. Prolegomena.

the authorities cited on the sceptical side, are chrono-logically so remote from the question in debate, thatthey are but opinions and not proofs, and that we maycanvass and question them without the smallest scruple,or fear that we are pitting mere theory against legi-timate evidence.

It is not to be denied that the condition of theHomeric poems, before they were committed to writing,was one of great danger. But the question may wellbe asked, how came poems of such length to be pre-served at all by mere oral transmission through aperiod of undefined, and possibly of very great, length ?It is plain that nothing but an extraordinary cele-brity, and a passionate attachment on the part of thepeople, could have kept them alive. Now, if we sup-pose this celebrity and this attachment, let us inquirefurther, whether they may not have supplied the meansof neutralizing and counteracting, in the main, the dan-gers to which the poems were exposed ; and whether itis unreasonable to say, That which could have preservedthem in their unity at all, must, in all likelihood, havepreserved them in a tolerably genuine state. Fully ad-mitting that the evidence in the case is imperfect, andcan only lead to disputable conclusions, I neverthelessask, What is the most probable supposition respecting thecondition of the Homeric poems in the pre-historic timesof Greece? Is it not this—that, with due allowance fora different state of circumstances, they were then, whatthey were in later times; the broad basis of mental cul-ture ; the great monument of the glory of the nation,and of each particular State or race ; the prime enter-tainment of those prolonged festive gatherings whichwere so characteristic of early Greece; that they werenot only the special charge and pride of particular poeti-cal schools, but distinct objects of the care of legislators

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 49

and statesmen; that in this manner they were recog-nised as among the institutions of the country, and thatthey had thus to depend for their transmission, not onlyon the fire of national and poetic feeling, but upon a jea-lous custody much resembling that which even a com-paratively rude people gives to its laws ?

I shall attempt a summary of the arguments andtestimonies which appear to me to recommend, if theydo not compel, the adoption of these conclusions.

i. Heraclides Ponticns, a pupil of Plato, in a frag-ment 7rep! irdXiTeiwv, declares that Lycurgus was thefirst to bring the poetry of Homer into Peloponnesus :TTJV 'Oju^pov Trolrjtjiv, irapa TWV airoyovwv H.peo(pvXov Xa-

fiwv, irpwTOS SieKO/uiaev els TleXoirovvriarov. This testimonyis late with reference to the fact it reports, but not latein the history of Greek literature. Of the source fromwhich it was derived by the author who gives it us, weknavv nothing. No light is thrown upon it by iEIian,a

who adds the epithet aOpoav to irolricnv. Plutarch en-larges the expression of the tradition, but seems to addlittle to its matter, except that some portions of Homerwere known before Lycurgus brought the whole fromCrete.b It is stated in the Republic of Plato,c thatCreophylus was a companion of Homer. Strabod in-forms us that he was a Samian; and Hermodamas, themaster of Pythagoras, is said by Diogenes Laertiuse

to have been his descendant. Now, we cannot callany part of these statements history; but they exhibita body of tradition, of which the members, drawn fromscattered quarters, agree with one another, and agreealso with the general probability that arises out of afact so astonishing as is in itself the actual preservation

a Var. Hist. xiii. 14. c Plat. Eep. x. p. 600, B.b Plut Lye. p. 41. d Strabo xiv. p. 946. eviii. 2.

E

50 I. Prolegomena.

of the poems of Homer. It is in truth this fact thatlays the best ground for traditions such as the one inquestion. If they came before us artificially completeand embellished, that might be made a ground of sus-picion. But appearing, as this one does, with an evidentabsence of design, there is every presumption of its truth.Before considering the full force which attaches to it ifit be true, we will draw out the kindred traditions.

2. Of these, the next, and a most important one, isthe statement of Herodotus respecting Clisthenes, theruler of Sicyon, who, when he had been at war withArgOS, pa^rwSovi 'iiravae ev "ZiiKvlavi aywv'iXearOai, T<BV 'O/LU]-

pe'iwv eTrioov e'lveKa, on 'A.pyeiol r e tcai "Apyo? ra iroXXa

•n-avra ufnvearai*. He proceeds to say, that Clisthenessought to banish the memory of Adrastus, as being anArgive hero, from Sicyon. It is not necessary to in-quire what these Homeric poems may have included ;but the conclusion of Grote, that they were ' the Thebaisand the Epigoni, not the Iliad £,' seems to me incredible.Nor is it correct that the Iliad fails to supply matterto which the statement may refer. In the Iliad, thename of Argos, though meaning it is true the countryrather than a city, is nearly associated with the chiefseat of power, and becomes representative of the wholeHellenic race in its heroic infancy. This is surelyhonour infinitely higher, than any local fame it couldderive from the civil feud with Thebes. The Iliad, too,marks most clearly the connexion of Adrastus withArgos—for it names Diomed as the husband of hisdaughter or granddaughter, iEgialea1'; it also marks thesubordinate position of Sicyon,

86' &p "ASprjaros TtpG>T en

Herod, v. 67. e Hist. Greece, ii. 174 n. h II. v. 412-15.1 II. ii. 572.

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 51

by making it a mere town in the dominions of Aga-memnon, while Argos figures as a sovereign and power-ful city. There may therefore perhaps be room todoubt whether Herodotus meant even to include theThebais or Epigoni in the phrase ' Homeric poems.'

But the importance of the passage is not wholly de-pendent on these considerations. It shows,

a. That there were, at Sicyon, State-recitations ofHomer six centuries before the Christian era, attendedwith rewards for the successful performers.

b. That these recitations were in conformity withcommon use; for they are named as something or-dinary and established, which was then set aside, notas a custom peculiar to Sicyon.

c. That the recitations depended upon the Homericpoems, since they were entirely stopped on account ofexceptionable matter which the Homeric poems weredeemed to contain.

d. That these recitations were in the nature of com-petitive contests among the rhapsodists, when the bestand most approved, of course, would obtain prizes.This implies that the recitations were not single, as ifby poet laureates, but that many shared in them.

3. Next to this tradition, and nearly coeval with it,but reported by later authority, is that respecting Solonand Athens. Dieuchidas of Megara, an author of un-certain age, placed by HeyneJ later than Alexander, isquoted in Diogenes Laertiusk as testifying to the fol-lowing effect concerning Solon: TO. Te 'O^pov e'

yeypctfpe p'w^/aiSeiaOat. olov OTTOV 6 TTJOCOTO?

ap-^eaQai TOV e%o/J.evov. /ULSXXOV OVU ^oXwv'

e(pu>Ti<rev, 3j Ueia-icrTpaTos. B u t w e have also a b e t t e r

j Heyne, Horn, viii., seq. k I. 57-

E 1

52 I. Prolegomena.

witness, I think, in Lycurgus the orator, contemporarywith Demosthenes,1 who gives a most striking accountof the political and martial use of the Homeric songs.He says, ovrw yap inreXafiov ifxwv ol irarepes cnrovSatovetvai TroirjTrjv, wtrre v6fx.ov e'Oevro /ca0' e/cacrr>jv S

ru>v TLavaOrivalcw fxovov TU>V aWcov iroirjToov

TO. eirrj. ' It was with these songs in their ears,' heproceeds, ' that your fathers fought at Marathon ; andso valiant were they then, that from among them theirbrave rivals, the Lacedaemonians, sought a general,Tyrtseus.'

a. Now, these words appear to carry the traditionalorigin of this law, as far as the authority of Lycurguswill avail, back to the early part of the seventh cen-tury, when Tyrtseus lived.™

b. Thus, at the period when Athens is just begin-ning to rise towards eminence, she enacts a law thatthe poems of Homer shall be recited at her greatestfestival.

c. This honour she accords to Homer (whatever thatname may have imported) alone among poets.

d. This appears, from the connexion with Tyrtseus, tobe a tradition of a matter older still than the one men-tioned by Dieuchidas. But the two are in thoroughaccordance. For Dieuchidas does not say that Solonintroduced the recitations of Homer, nor does he refersimply to the Panathenaica. He pretty clearly implies,that Solon did not begin the recitations, but that hereformed—(by bringing them into regular succession,which implies a fixed order of the songs)—what hadbeen introduced already; while Lycurgus seems to sup-ply the notice of the original introduction as havingoccurred before the time even of Tyrtaeus.

1 In Leocritum, 104-8. m Smith's Diet. ' Tyifceus.'

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 53

4. The argument from the sculptures on the chestof Cypselus, representing subjects taken out of theIliad, refers to a period nearly corresponding with thatof Tyrtaeus, as Cypselus was probably born about B. C.700: and tends to show that the Iliad was famous inCorinth at that date."

5. The next of the specific traditions is that re-lating to Pisistratus. To his agency it has been thefashion of late years to assign an exaggerated, or evenan exclusive, importance. But whereas the testimoniesrespecting Lycurgus, Clisthenes, and Solon, (as well asthe Athenian legislators before him,) are derived fromauthors probably, or certainly, of the fourth and fifthcenturies B. C, we have none at all respecting Pisis-tratus earlier than the Augustan age.0 Cicero sayshe first disposed the Homeric books in their presentorder; Pausanias,P that he collected them, Sieavaa/j-epare teal aWa^ov fj-vij/uovevo/jLeva; Josephus,*) who, as we

have seen, merely refers to the report that the Iliad wasnot committed to writing until after Homer's time, iswrongly quoted1" as a witness to the labours of Pisis-tratus. An ancient Scholion, recently discovered,s namesfour poets who worked under that prince. And it may beadmitted, that the traditions respecting Pisistratus havethis distinctive mark—that they seem to indicate thefirst accomplishment of a critical and literary task uponHomer's text under the direct care and responsibilityof the sovereign of the country.

Thus, the testimony concerning Pisistratus is of an

n See the Homerus of Arch- II. i. 1.deacon Williams, pp. 9—11. 1 Contra Ap. i. 2.

0 Cic. de Or. iii. 34. r Smith's Diet., Art. ' Home-P Paus. vii. 26. p. 594. add rus :' and elsewhere.

iSuidas in voc. "Ofirjpas. Eustath. s Ibid, from Ritschl.

54 I. Prolegomena.

order decidedly inferior to that which supports theearlier traditions, and cannot with propriety be putinto the scale against them where they are in conflictwith it; but there is no reason to reject the report thathe fixed the particular order of the poems, which thelaw of Solon may have left open in some degree tothe judgment of the reciters, although they were re-quired by it to recite in order.

6. The dialogue, doubtfully ascribed to Plato underthe name of Hipparchus, states that that sovereign—

TCL 'Oixripov wpwros knoiua-ev is TTJV yr\v TavT-qvl, KCLL r/vdyicacre

TOVS patyubovs navadrjpaCois e£ wroA.7jT/reo)s e$ef?7s avra huivai,

&<m(p vvv STL otbe TToiovcri *.

As regards the matter of original introduction, thispassage contradicts all the foregoing ones. From theuncertainty who is its author, it must yield to them asof less authority. But this is not all. It is on the veryface of it incredible: for it asserts, not that his poetrywas first arranged or adjusted, but first brought intothe country by Hipparchus. This is in itself absurd :and it is also directly in the teeth of the statement,which can hardly be a pure fiction, that Solon by lawrequired the poems of Homer to be recited at thePanathensea. As regards the succession in reciting, itis quite possible that he may have put the last hand tothe work of his father.

However, the passage may deserve notice as a signof the general belief that the care of the poems ofHomer, and provision for their orderly publication inthe only mode then possible, was a fit and usual partof the care of States and their rulers.

The whole mass of the passages which have beencited may be thought to bear primarily on the contro-

fc Hipparchus, § 4. (ii. 228.)

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 55

versies which I have waived. But they have a mostimportant, even if secondary, bearing upon the ques-tion, whether the received text is generally sound inits structure. The dangers which menaced that text ofcourse were referable to two sources: the one, want ofdue care; and the other, falsification for a purpose:and it is necessary to bring into one view the wholepositive evidence with respect to the preservation andpublication of the Homeric poems, in order to estimatethe amount both of these dangers and of the safeguardsagainst them. I resume the prosecution of this task.

From the word aywvlQcrdai, applied by Herodotus tothe recitations at Sicyon, it is plain that they werematches among the rhapsodists. And as the match didnot in the main depend upon the original compositionsof the candidates, but on the repetition of what Homerwas reputed to have composed, the question arises, onwhat grounds could the prize be adjudged ? Partly,perhaps, for the voice and manner of the rhapsodist;but partly also, nay, we must assume principally, forhis comparative fidelity to the supposed standard ofhis original. And, when we consider the length ofthe poems, we may the more easily understand howthe retentiveness of memory required to give an ade-quate command of them, might well deserve and re-ceive reward. True, the vanity of a particular rhapsodistmight readily induce him to suppose that he could im-prove upon Homer. But surely such an one would besubject to no inconsiderable check from the vigilance,and the impartial, or more probably the jealous, judg-ment of his contemporaries and rivals. The aberrations,too, or interpolations, of each one inventor, would beimmediately crossed by those of every other; and theintrinsic superiority of the great poet himself, and the

56 I. Prolegomena.

extraordinary reverence paid to his name, would thusderive powerful aid from the natural play of humanpassions. I look upon the circumstance that these re-citations were competitive, and probably open to allcomers, as one of the utmost importance. Freedom,in such a case, would be far more conservative thanrestriction.

The force of such considerations is abated indeed,but it is not destroyed, by the fact that poems notcomposed by Homer were esteemed to be Homeric.We have no means of knowing whether this false esti-mation reached in general beyond the character ofmere vulgar rumour. We find, indeed, that Callinusascribed the Thebais to Homer, Thucydides the PythianHymn, and Aristotle the Margites. But, of these three,the last judgment, for all we know, may have been atrue one. The Thebais was judged by Pausanias to bethe best of the epics, after the Iliad and Odyssey. Itdoes not therefore follow, that because a poet mightassign this to him, he would also have assigned others.Few authors show more slender marks of critical acu-men than Herodotus; but even he treats the notionsthat the Cyprian epic or the Epigoni belonged to Ho-mer in terms such as to show, that they were at mostmere speculations, and not established public judg-ments."

Now, even in a critical age, it seems to be inevitable,that authors of conspicuous popularity shall be followedon their path, not only by imitators, but, where thereis the least hope of even temporary success, by forgers.We see, in the present day, attempts to vent newnovels under the name of Walter Scott. I have my-self a volume, purchased in Italy, of spurious verses,

u Herod, ii. 117. iv. ^2.

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 57

printed under the name of her great, though not yetfamous, modern poet, Giacomo Leopardi. In periodsfar less critical, impostors would be bolder, and dupesmore numerous. But it cannot be shown that a num-ber of other epics, or even that any single one, hadbeen generally ascribed to Homer with the same con-fidence as the Iliad and Odyssey; nor that the samecare, public or private, was taken in any other case forthe keeping and restoration of the text.

Again, though the Spartan and Athenian traditionstake no specific notice of competition, yet we are jus-tified in supposing that it existed, because the practicecan be traced to an antiquity more remote than any ofthem. It is true that in Homer we have no example ofcompetition among bards actually exhibited; but neitherdo the poems furnish us with an occasion when it mighthave been looked for. The ordinary place of the bardwas as a member of a king's or chieftain's household.At the great assemblages of tribes, or of the Greekrace, to which the chiefs repaired in numbers, morebards than one would also probably appear. Some lightis thrown upon this subject by the passage relating toThamyris in the second Book of the Iliad.v He met hiscalamity at Dorion, when on a journey; and it caughthim Ol)(a\l>]6ev lovra Trap J^vpvrov Ol^aXitjoi. Homer'susual precision justifies our arguing that, when he sayshe came, not simply from a place, but also from, or frombeside, the lord of a place, the meaning is, that he wasattached to that lord as the bard of his court or house-hold. Again, he was on a journey. Whither bound,except evidently to one of these contests ? This isfully shown by the lines that follow, for they con-template a match as then about to take place forth-

v II. ii. 594-600,

58 I. Prolegomena.

with. For the form of his boast was not simply thathe could beat the Muses, but (to speak in our phra-seology) he vauntingly vowed that he would win, eventhough the Muses themselves should be his rivals.

trrevro yap evxdpevos viKTrja-e/jiev, ewrep &v avTal

Movaai aeibonv.

Institutions which embrace competition have, fromthe character of man's nature, a great self-sustainingpower; and there is no reason to suppose that be-tween the time of Thamyris and that of the Sicyonianrhapsodists this method of recitation had at any timefallen into abeyance. In a fragment of Hesiodx,quoted by the Scholiast on Pindar, we find the phrasepcnrreiv aoiSfr; but on account of its mention ofHomer as a contemporary, this fragment is untrust-worthy. In other places, however, he distinctly wit-nesses to the matches and prizes of the bards, and saysthat at the match held by Amphidamas in Aulis, hehimself won a tripod y. Again, Thucydides finds anunequivocal proof of the competition of bards in thebeautiful passage which he quotes from the very ancientHymn to Apollo2.

I do not think it needful to dwell in detail uponthe means privately taken for the transmission of theHomeric songs. Cinsethus of Chios (according to theScholiast on Pindara, quoting Hippostratus, a Sicilianauthor of uncertain date), ipp'a-^wSricre ra 'Ofxtjpou eV^(about 500 B.C.), for the first time at Syracuse. Itmay be observed that this passage may probably implythe foundation of public recitations there. Eustathius1',

* Fragm. xxxiv. a Schol. Pyth. vi. 4 ; Nem.y Op. ii. 268-75. ii. 1.z Hymn. Apoll. 166—73 ; b II. A. p. 6.

146-50.

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 59

quoting, as Heynec observes, inaccurately, charges Ci-nsethus with having corrupted the Homeric poems; butthe words of the Scholiast need not mean more thanthat he composed certain poems and threw them intothe mass of those which were more or less taken to beHomeric. We need not enlarge upon Creophylusd, orupon the Homeridae mentioned by Pindar, and, accord-ing to Strabo, claimed as her own by Chios6. That nameappears to be used freely by Platof, without explana-tion, as if in his own time they formed a well-knownschool. According to AthenaeusS, quoting Aristocles, awriter of uncertain date, the name 'Ofirjpia-Tai was givento the rhapsodists generally.

The Iliad and the Odyssey were known to Herodotusunder their present titles, as we find from his referencesto them. But it is justly argued by Heyne, that theremust have been known poems of their scope and sub-ject at the time when the other Cyclic poems werewritten, which fill up the interval between them, andcomplete the Troic story'1; that is to say, not long-after the commencement of the Olympiads.

Again, it is needless to do more than simply touchupon the relation of Homer to Greek letters and cul-ture in general. He was the source of tragedy, thefirst text-book of philosophers, and the basis of liberaleducation; so much so, that Alcibiades is said to havestruck his schoolmaster for having no MS. rhapsody ofthe Iliad1, while Xenophon quotes Niceratus as sayingthat his father made him learn the Iliad and Odyssey,and that he could repeat the whole of them by heartk.

c Heyne, viii. p. 8 n . Republ. B. i.; ii. 599.d Sup. s A then. iv. p. 174-e Pind. Nem.iLi, and Strabo, h Heyne, viii. 814.

xiv. i. p. 645. > Hut. Apoph., p. 186 D.f Plat. Phffidrus, iii. 252, and k Xenoph. Sympos. iii. 5.

60 I. Prolegomena.

Cassander, king of Macedon, according to Athenaeus,could do nearly as much. He had by heart rwv eirwvra TroWa.

Passing on from this evidence of general estimation,I come to what is more important with respect to thequestion of the text—that is, the state of the poems atthe time of the Alexandrian recensions, as it is ex-hibited by Villoisou, from the Venetian Scholia on theIliad which he discovered. From this source appearsto me to proceed our best warrant for believing in thegeneral soundness of the text.

The first tendencies of the Alexandrian school, asthey are represented by Zenodotus, appear to havebeen towards very free excision and emendation, Ari-starchus, its highest authority, is considered to repre-sent a reaction towards more sober handling. Theplan of expressing suspicion by obeli was a good one—it raised the question of genuineness without fore-closing it. The passages which he excluded stand in.the text, and many among them are not much damagedby the condemnation. One particularly, in the speechof Phoenix,m appears to me alike beautiful and charac-teristic. After all, the obelos is generally attached tolines of amplification and poetic ornament; which couldbe dispensed with, and yet leave the sense not vitallymutilated. But we may quote Aristarchus as a witness,on the whole, to the substantial soundness of the text.For it is plain that the affirmation of all his doubtswould still leave us with the substance of the Iliad asit is ; while it seems that the judgment of mankind, orrather its feeling, which in such a matter is worth morethan its judgment, has refused to go as far as he did,for his doubts or adverse verdicts are recorded, but the

l Athen. xiv. p. 620. ™ II. ix. 458-61.

Probable Trustivorthiness of the Text of Homer. 61

lines and passages remain, are still read and taught asHomer, and are not pretended to be distinguishable byany broad mark of intrinsic inferiority. It is not meantthat the soundness of each line has been consideredand affirmed to be free from doubt, but that it hasbeen felt that, while clear discrimination in detail wasimpracticable, retention was, on the whole, safer thanexclusion. Nor is this because a principle of blindcredulity has prevailed. On the contrary, the samejudgment, feeling, or instinct, be it what it may, ofcivilised man, which has found it safest to adhere tothe traditional text of Homer, has likewise thought itsafest to rule the case of authorship advereely as to theHymns. Under all the circumstances, I find no diffi-culty in understanding such accounts as that whichtells us that the inquiry, which is the best edition ofHomer? was met with the answer, 'the oldest;'—orsuch a passage as that of Lucian,n who introducesHomer in the Shades, declaring that the a6eroviu.evaio-Tt ey, the suspected and rejected verses, were all his;whereupon, says Lucian, I recognised the abundantfrigidity of the school of Zenodotus and Aristarchus.This is in an ironical work; but ironical works are oftenused as the vehicles of real opinions.

The Venetian Scholiast is full of familiar referencesto the different editions of the text of the Iliad, as beingstandards perfectly well known; and he thus exhibitsto us, in a considerable degree, the materials which theAlexandrian critics found existing, and with which theywent to work upon that'poem.

The multitude of editions (kSocreii) which they hadbefore them, were partly state editions (al TTOXITIKOA, al/caret vo\eis, al Sia TWV iroXewv, al avo TWV 7r6\ewv), and

11 Lucian, Ver. Hist. ii. 117.

62 I. Prolegomena.

partly those due to private care {pi icar avSpa). Theselatter seem to have obtained the name in two ways.The first was, when it was taken from particular editorswho had revised the text, such as Antimachus (contem-porary with Plato), Callimachus, and, above all, Ari-stotle, who prepared for Alexander the Great the copyCK vdpOtiKos, and, again, the edition of Zenodotus, thatof Aristophanes, and the two separate editions of Ari-starchus, all of the Alexandrian school; or else theywere named from the persons who possessed them, andfor whom they had been prepared by the care of learnedmen. Among such possessors was Cassander, king ofMacedonia.

The existence of these State editions is a fact full ofmeaning. It appears to show nothing less than this,that the text was under the charge of the publicauthorities in the several States. We have particularnames for six of these editions through the VenetianScholiast—those of Marseilles, Chios, Cyprus, Crete,Sinope, Argos. On beholding this list, we are imme-diately struck by the fact that while it contains namesfrom the far East, like Sinope, and far West, like Mar-seilles, it does not contain one name of a city in GreeceProper, except Argos, and that a city having perhapsless communion than almost any other considerableplace with Greek literature in general. We ask whydo not Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Corinth, why do notSyracuse and the great Greek towns of Sicily andItaly, appear with their several Homeric texts? Themost likely answer appears to be, not that these sixenumerated cities were more distinguished than othersby the carefulness of their provisions for the safety ofthe Homeric text, but that for some reason, possiblyfrom their lying less within the circle of Greek letters

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 63

at large, they still retained each their particular text,whereas an approximation had been made to a commontext,—of which the cities most properly Greek in gene-ral availed themselves. For sometimes there are certainsigns supplied in the Scholia of a common text pre-vailing in the State or national, and another in theprivate editions, and this without reference to the sixcities above mentioned. In the supposition of such atendency to divaricate, there is nothing beyond likeli-hood ; for private editors would be more free to followtheir own judgments or conjectures, whereas the publiccurators would almost, as a matter of course, be morerigidly conservative. At any rate, there are traceableindications before us to this effect; for the Scholiastcites for particular readings—

al (K TS>V Ttokaov, xxi. 351 .

al diro -nokewv, xxii. 51.al airb TG>V irokecov, xix. 386.

and on the other hand—al KOT' avftpa, xxii. 103.

as well as in other places, nvh TU>V TTOXITIKWV (e. g. xxiv.30), and at TrXe/ou? TW /car' avSpa (xxiii. 88). It is there-fore likely that there was a national text, approximat-ing to uniformity, and used in common by those cities,the principal ones of Greece, which are not quoted ashaving had texts of their own; for there is no reason,that I am aware of, to suppose that the phrases al wo-\iriKa), and the rest of those equivalent to it, are con-fined to the six editions. Now, while the six Stateeditions indicate a care probably dating from very earlytimes for the soundness of the text, the common Staterecension, if, as appears probable, there was one, indi-cates a gradual convergence of critical labours and ofthe public judgment in the generality of those States,

64 I. Prolegomena.

of which the people had the oldest, strongest, and mostdirect interest in the Homeric poems.

There is a third form of common text, less perfectthan either of the others, of which abundant traces arefound. We find mention of the editions or copiescalled at Koivcti, at SijfioTiKal, al Stj/uwSeis, and they are

sometimes described collectively, as on Iliad ii. $3, evBe TOU<; KoivaU eyeypairro Kai rrj ZujvoSorelw, /3ov\yv.

Sometimes the greater part of these Koival or S^wSenhave a particular reading. They all, of all classes, va-ried more or less, and are distinguished according totheir merits, as (pauXcu, ei/caiorepai, /xerpiai, -^apiiarraTai.

These ordinary or public (not national) editions, pre-pared for sale in the open book-market, were probablyfounded, in the main, on the national text, but beingintended for general sale, and not prepared by respon-sible editors, they were ordinarily inferior. This Ve-netian Scholiast was himself a critic, and wrote whenthe iEolic and Ionic dialects were still in use, as ap-pears from his references to them.P

The Scholia to the Odyssey supply the names of someeditions besides those which have been mentioned.One of these is the AioXh, or AIOXIK^ ; 1 another is neK Movcretov,* which is explained to refer to the deposi-tory near the School at Alexandria; and a third hKw\«i,s which is interpreted to mean an edition inwhich the poems of Homer were placed in a series withthose of the Cyclical authors.

On the one hand, then, it may be readily admittedthat the Homeric poems were exposed, before they werereduced to writing, to the powerful and various action

P Villoison, Proleg. p. xxvii. in loc.q Od. xiv. 280. s x v i . J 9 5 ; a n a Buttmann inr Od. xiv. 204, and Buttmann loc.

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 65

of disintegrating causes. Among these we may nameneglect, inability to cope with the real difficulties oftheir transmission, the personal vanity of the rhapsodists,and the local vanity of communities. But I think wehave also disclosed to us, both by the fragmentary no-tices of the history of the poems if taken in their col-lective effect, and by the state of things in and uponwhich the Alexandrian critics laboured, the operationof an immense amount of restorative counter-agency.All chance of our arriving at a sober judgment mustdepend upon our duly weighing these two sets of forcesin their relation to one another. There were indeedtendencies, which may well be called irresistible, toaberrations from the traditional standard; but therewere barriers also insurmountable, which seem to haveconfined those aberrations within certain limits. Theycould not proceed beyond a given point without awa-kening the consciousness, that Homer, the pricelesstreasure of Greece, and perhaps the first source of itskeener consciousness of nationality, was in danger ofbeing disfigured, and deformed, and so lost; and thatsense, when once awakened, without doubt generatedsuch reactions as we find exemplified in the proceed-ings of Pisistratus.

We may indeed derive directly, from the force of thedestroying element, when viewed in detail, the strong-est proof that there must have been an original stand-ard, hy recurrence to which its ravages could fromtime to time be repaired. For if that element hadworked without such means of correction, I do not seehow we could now have been in possession of an Iliadand an Odyssey. As with regard to religions after theyare parted from their source, the tendency would havebeen to continually-increasing divergence. The dis-

F

66 I. Prolegomena.

similarities arising from omission, alteration, and interspolation, would have grown, so as to embrace larger andlarger portions of the poems, and at this day, insteadof merely questioning this or that line in a few places,and comparing this with that reading, we should havebeen deliberating among a dozen Iliads and a dozenOdysseys, to discover which were the true.

If, then, it be said that the proceedings of Pisistra-tus or of Solon, bear testimony not to the soundnessbut to the incessant corruption of the text, my answeris, they bear witness to its corruption, just as the re-cords of the repairs of Westminster Abbey might besaid, and truly said, to bear testimony to its disrepair.That partial and local faults, and dislocations, wouldcreep in, is as certain as that wind and weather actupon the stoutest fabric : but when we read of the re-pairs of a building, we infer that pains were taken tomake it habitable; and when we read of the restora-tions of Homer, we perceive that it was an object ofpublic solicitude to keep the poems in a state of sound-ness. As, indeed, the building most used will ceeterisparibus require the most frequent repairs, so the ele-mentary causes of corruption, by carelessness, mightoperate most powerfully in a case where the poetmight be recited by every strolling minstrel at a localfestivity: but it is also clear that in these very casesthere would be the greatest anxiety to detect and toeliminate the destructive elements, when once theywere seen to be making head. But, in truth, the ana-logy of a building does not represent the case. Edificesare sometimes disfigured by the parsimony of after-times : but there was no time, so far as we know, whenGreece did not rate the value of Homer more highlythan the cost of taking care of him. Again, the archi-

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 67

tects of degenerate ages think, as Bernini did of Mi-chael Angelo, that they can improve upon their de-signs: but the name of no Greek has been recordedwho thought he could improve upon Homer, and thevanity of the nameless was likely to be checked bytheir companions and competitors.

We have principally had in view the question, whetherHomer was, in a peculiar degree, guarded against anyprofound and radical corruption which might grow outof unchecked carelessness; but the result will be notmore unfavourable, if we ask how did he stand in re-gard to the other great fountain-head of evil, namely,falsification with a purpose ? Now, the fact, that inany given case provision is made for jealous custodyagainst any attack from without, affords no proof, oreven presumption, against the subsistence of destroy-ing causes within. But the Greeks, as a nation, hadno motive to corrupt, and had every motive to preservethe text of Homer. His national office and positionhave been admirably expressed by Statius, in verses onthe Trojan expedition :—

Turn primum Graecia viresContemplata suas: tum sparsa ac dissona moles,In corpus vultumque coitt.

His works were the very cradle of the nation; there itfirst visibly lived and breathed. They were the mostperfect expression of every Greek feeling and desire:in the rivalry between the Hellenic race and the (after-wards so called) fidpfiapoi of Asia, they gave, in formsthe most effective and the most artful, everythingworth having to the former, and left the later Greeknothing to add. What void to be filled could even

* Achilleis, i. 456.

F 2

68 I. Prolegomena.

vanity discover, when so many Greek chieftains, in-ferior, in a degree never measured, to Achilles, were,nevertheless, each of them, too strong for the prince ofTrojan warriors?

But it may perhaps be replied that, even supposingthat collective Greece could gain nothing by corruptingHomer, yet the relative distribution of honour amongthe principal States might be affected to the profit ofone and the prejudice of another. Now it is plain that,in this delicate and vital point, the sectional jealousiesof the Greeks would afford the best possible securityto the general contents of the text: something of thesame security that the hatred of the Jews and theSamaritans supplied, when they became rival guardiansof the books of the Old Testament. Argos, deeply in-terested for Diomed, and Lacedsemon for Menelaus,and both for Agamemnon, were watchmen alike power-ful and keen against Athens, if she had attempted toobtain for herself in the Iliad a place at all propor-tioned to her after-fame. There were numerous partsof Homer's Greece, both great and small, that fell intosubsequent insignificance, such as Pylos, Ithaca, Salamis,Locris: the relative positions of Thessaly and SouthernGreece were fundamentally changed in the historictimes. But all, whether they exulted in the longlivedhonours of their States, or whether they fondly broodedon the recollections of former fame, were alike inter-ested in resisting interlopers who might seek to tres-pass for their own advantage, as well as in the generalobject of preserving the priceless national monumentfrom decay. Nor is there any room to suppose, thatthese questions of primeval honour were indifferent tothe later Greeks. The citation from the Catalogue bythe Athenian envoys before Gel on in Herodotus (to take

Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer. 61)

a single instance), affords conclusive proof to the con-trary : and, even so late as in the day of Pausanias, hetells us that Argolis and Arcadia were the States, whicheven then were still keenly disputing with Athens thepalm of autochthonism.

It, therefore, appears to me that the presumptions ofthe case are on the whole favourable, and not adverse, tothe general soundness of the Homeric text.

I confess myself to be very greatly confirmed in thisview of the presumptions, by the scarcely measurableamount of internal evidence which the text supplies tosubstantiate its own integrity. Almost the whole ofthe copious materials which recent writers have accu-mulated to prove the unity and personality of theauthor, is available to show the soundness of the text.The appeal need not be only to the undisturbed stateof the main strata of the poems, the consistent structureand relations of the facts; the general corpus of thepoems might have been sound, and yet a bad textwould, when subjected to a very searching ordeal onthe minutest points, have revealed a multitude of sole-cisms and errors: but, instead of this, the rigid appli-cation of the microscope has only shown more clearly agreat perfection in the workmanship. The innumerableforms of refined and delicate coincidence in names andfacts, in the use of epithets, the notes of character, theturn of speeches and phrases, and the like, are so manyrills of evidence, which combine into a stream of re-sistless force, in favour of that text which has beenfound so admirably, as a mirror, to reflect the imageand the mind of Homer, and which, like a mirror,could not have reflected it truly unless it had itselfbeen true.

Indeed, I must proceed a step further; and admit

70 I. Prolegomena.

that the arguments ah extra, which I have here putforward respecting the historic aims of the poet, hisproximity in time to his subject, and the probablesoundness of the text, are rather answers to objections,than the adequate materials of affirmative conviction.

After having myself tested the text as to its self-con-sistency and otherwise, in several thousand places, I findscarcely one or two places in each thousand, where itseems to invite expurgation in order to establish theconsistency of its contents. The evidence on which Ireally place reliance is experimental evidence: and thatI find in the poems, accumulated to a degree which noother human work within my knowledge approaches. Ido not presume to hope more than that the more remoteand general arguments, which have now been used, mayassist in removing preliminary barriers to the consider-ation of the one cardinal and paramount argument, thetext itself and its contents.

And here a brief reference must be made to thescepticism in miniature which has replaced the moresweeping incredulity of Wolf and his school. Editorsof great weight, refusing to accompany even the Chori-zontes in separating the authorship of the poems, ne-vertheless freely condemn particular passages. I donot deny that there are various passages, of which thegenuineness is fair matter for discussion. But I con-fess that I find such grounds of excision, as those com-monly alleged by critics recommending it, very inde-terminate, and of a nature to leave it doubtful wheretheir operation is to stop. They generally involve ar-bitrary assumptions either of construction or of history,or the application of a more rigid and literal rule ofconsistency than poetry either requires or can endure,or else the capital error, as I cannot but consider it,

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 71

of bringing Homer to be tried at the bar of later andinferior traditions. And there is a want of commonprinciples, a general insecurity of standing ground, andan appearance of reforming Homer not according toany acknowledged laws of criticism, but according tothe humour of each accomplished and ingenious man:which, in a matter of this weight, is no sufficient gua-rantee. I therefore follow in the line of those, whoserecommendation is to draw every thing we can out ofthe present text; and to see how far its contents mayconstitute a substantive and consistent whole, in thevarious branches of information to which they refer.When we have carried this process as far as it willbear, we may find, first that many or some of the seem-ing discordancies are really embraced within a compre-hensive general harmony, and secondly that with afuller knowledge of the laws of that harmony we mayourselves be in a condition at least of less incapacity topronounce what is Homeric and what is not. I will onlysay that were I to venture into this field of criticism, Ishould be governed less than is usual by discrepanciesof fact often very hastily assumed; and much morethan is usual by any violence done to the finer analogiesof which Homer is so full, and by departures from hisregular modes of thought, feeling, and representation.

SECT. 6.—The Place and Authority of Homer in His-torical Inquiry.

The principal and final purpose, which I wish to pre-sent in the most distinct manner to the mind of thereader, is that of securing for the Homeric traditions,estimated according to the effect of the foregoing con-siderations, a just measure of relative as well as abso-lute appreciation.

72 I. Prolegomena.

It appears to me that there has prevailed in thisrespect a wide-spread and long-continued error, assum-ing various forms, and affecting in very different degrees,without doubt, the practice of different writers, but soextended and so rooted, as at this stage in the progressof criticism to require formal challenge. I mean, thatit is an error to regard and accept all ancient traditions,relating to the periods that precede regular historicannals, as of equal value, or not to discriminate theirseveral values with adequate care. Above all, I stronglycontend that we should assign to the Homeric evi-dence a primary rank upon all the subjects which ittouches, and that we should make it a rule to reduceall other literary testimony, because of later origin, toa subordinate and subsidiary position.

Mere rumours or stories of the pre-historic timesare not, as such, entitled to be called traditions. Astory of this kind, say in Apollodorus, may indeed bybare possibility be older than any thing in Homer; butif it comes to us without the proper and visible criteriaof age, it has no claim upon our assent as a truthfulrecord of the time to which it purports to refer. Tra-ditions of this class only grow to be such, as a generalrule, for us, at the time when they take a positive formin the work of some author, who thus becomes, as faras his time and circumstances permit, a witness tothem. It is only from thenceforward, that their faith-ful derivation and transmission can be relied on as inany degree probable.

Again, I cast aside statements with respect to whichthe poet, being carried beyond the sphere of his ordi-nary experience, must, on that account, not be pre-sumed to speak historically; yet even here, if he isspeaking of matters which were in general belief, he is

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 73

a witness of the first class with respect to that belief,which is itself in another sense a matter of history;and here also those, who have followed him at a re-mote date, are witnesses of a lower order.

Or there may be cases, as, for instance, in the stub-born facts of geography, where the laws of evidencecompel us rudely to thrust aside the declaration of thebard; or cases where his mode of handling his mate-rials affords in itself a proof that he did not mean tospeak historically, but, in the phrase of Aristotle, «c-TrXtjKTiKU)?, or for poetic effect.

Or again, it is conceivable, though I do not knowwhether it has happened, that Homeric testimony mightcome into conflict, not with mere counter-assertion, butwith those forms of circumstantial evidence which aresometimes conclusively elicited by reasoning from posi-tive data of architecture, language, and ethnology. Iclaim for Homer no exemption from the more cogentauthority which may attach to reasoning of this kind.

Clearing the question of these incumbrances, I wishto submit to the suffrages of those, who may be morecompetent than myself to estimate both the propositionand the proof, the following thesis: that, in regard tothe religion, history, ethnology, polity, and life at largeof the Greeks of the heroic times, the authority of theHomeric poems, standing far above that of the wholemass of the later literary traditions in any of theirforms, ought never to be treated as homogeneous withthem, but should usually, in the first instance, be han-dled by itself, and the testimony of later writers should,in general, be handled in subordination to it, andshould be tried by it, as by a touchstone, on all thesubjects which it embraces.

It is generally admitted that Homer is older by some

74 I. Prolegomena.

generations than Hesiod, by many than the authors ofthe Cyclical Poems; and older by many centuries thanthe general mass of our authorities on Greek antiquity,beginning with iEschylus and Herodotus, and comingdown to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Diodorus Siculus,Strabo, iElian, Pausanias, Diogenes Laertius. Nor isit by time alone, that his superior proximity and weightare to be measured. Of all the ages that have passedsince Homer, it may be truly said that not one hasproduced a more acute, accurate, and comprehensiveobserver. But, above all, writing of the heroic time,he, and he alone, writes like one who, as from internalevidence we may confidently assert, stood within itsprecinct, and was imbued from head to foot with itsspirit and its associations.

It is, of course, quite possible, that in one particularor another, Homer may be in error, and the later tra-dition, it is also just possible, may be correct. But so,also, the evidence of an eye-witness in a court of jus-tice may be erroneous, while by chance the meresthearsay may be true. This does not divert men froma careful classification of evidence according to its pre-sumptive value, where they have purposes of utility,according to the common and limited sense of theterm, in their view. In regard to the early Greekhistory, the practice has often been otherwise; partlyin the works of scholars, and yet more, as we mightexpect, in the more popular forms of tuition. It hasbeen to lump together the heterogeneous mass of tra-ditions embodied in the literature of a thousand years.All that the sport of fancy and imagination had con-ceived—all that national, or local, or personal vanityhad suggested—all that motives of policy had forgedin history or religion—or so much of this aggregate as

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 75

time has spared to us, has been treated without anysystematic recognition of the different value of differ-ent orders of tradition. I admit that it is towards theclose of the Greek literature that we find the principalprofessed inquirers into antiquity; and their aim andmethod may have redressed, in great part, any ine-quality between themselves and writers of the time ofThucydides or Plato. But nothing can cancel, nothing,it might almost be said, can narrow, the enormous in-terval, in point of authority, between Homer, who sangin the heroic age, and those who not only collectedtheir materials, but formed their thoughts, after it wasclosed, and after its floating reminiscences had becomesubject to the incessant action of falsifying processes.

For a length of time the temper of our ancient his-tories was one of unquestioning reception. But wheremuch was self-contradictory, all could not be believed.Under these circumstances, it was not unnatural thatthose writers who were full and systematic, should bepreferred, rather than that the labour should be under-gone of gathering gold in grains from the pages ofHomer, of carefully collecting facts and presumptionssingly from the text, and then again estimating theamount and effect of their bearings upon one another.Hence the Catalogues of Apollodorus, or the downrightassertions of Scholiasts, have been allowed to give formto our early histories of Greece ; and the authentic,but usually slighter notices of Homer, have receivedlittle attention, except where, in some detail or other,they might suit the argument which each particularwriter happened to have in hand. Again, becauseHerodotus was by profession an historian and nothingelse (at least, I can discern no better reason), moreimportance seems to be attached to his notices of prior

76 I. Prolegomena.

ages than to the less formally presented notices ofHomer, who, according to the statement of Herodotushimself, preceded him by four hundred years. I donot mean by this remark to imply that Herodotus andHomer are particularly at variance with one another,but only to illustrate what seems to me a prevailingsource of error.

In general, where the traditions reported by thelater writers are preferred to those of Homer, it is per-haps because, although they may conflict with probabi-lity as well as with one another in an infinity of points,yet they are in themselves more systematic and complete.They represent to us for the most part pasticcios arbitra-rily made up of materials of unequal value, but yet madeup into wholes; whereas, the evidence which he suppliesis original though it is fragmentary. Had he been fol-lowed by a continuous succession of authors, we should,no doubt, do wisely in consenting to view the subjectsof fact, with which he dealt, mainly as they were viewedby those who trod in his steps. But, on the contrary,they were separated from him by a gulf both wideand deep; over which his compositions floated, indespite of difficulties so great that many have deemedthem positively insurmountable, only by their extraor-dinary buoyancy.

It is in the Cyclic poems that we should naturallyseek for materials to enlarge, expound, or correctHomer. But there is not a line or a notice remainingof any one of them, which would justify our assigningto them any historical authority sufficient to qualifythem for such a purpose. Their reputed authors, fromArctinus downwards, all belong to periods within thedates of the Olympiads11. They all bear marks of hav-

u Mure, ii. 282.

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 77

ing been written to fill the gaps which Homer had leftunoccupied, and so to enter into a partnership, if notwith his fame, yet with his popularity; with the popu-larity, of which his works, as we can well judge frommore recent experience, would be sure to shed someportion upon all compositions ostensibly allied withthem, and which then, as now, presented the most co-gent inducements to imitators who had their livelihoodto seek by means of their Muse.

Homer, without doubt, gave an immense addition ofcelebrity and vogue to the subject of the Trojan war,much as Boiardo and Ariosto did to the whole circle ofthe romances of which Orlando is the centre. One ofthese poems, the 'IXlov Uepo-i?, is a simple expansion,as Mure has observedx, of the third lay of Demodocusin the Eighth Odyssey''. They seem to bear the markof being, not composed first-hand from actions of men,but from a stock of compositions in which heroic ac-tions had already been enshrined; so little do tbeyappear to have been stamped with the individualitywhich denotes original design. And accordingly theusual manner of quoting them is not as the certainworks of a given person, but the form of citation is (6ypd\lsas T>JV /ULiKpav 'IXtdSa, 6 vou'jcra^ ra KuVjOW eV^), t h e

writer of the little Iliad, the composer of the CyprianSongs, and the like. Heynez holds even the com-mencement of the Cyclic poems to have been at least acentury after the date of the Iliad and Odyssey.

Mr. Fynes Clinton, whose name can never be men-tioned without a grateful recognition of his merits andservices, supplies, in the early part of his Fasti Helle-nici, many valuable suggestions for the sifting of early

x Mure, ii. 286. y Od. viii. 499. 2 Exc. i. ad Ma. ii.

78 I. Prolegomena.

Greek history. But he nowhere acknowledges, or ap-proaches (I believe) to the acknowledgment of therule, that for the heroic age the authority of Homerstands alone in kind. In the Fasti Hellenici manystatements, dating long after Homer, are delivered as ifof equal authority with his in regard to the history ofthat age; and Mr. Clinton seems to have been led intoa snare, to which his duty as a chronologer probablyexposed him, in assuming that history and chronologymay be expected to begin together; an assumption, Iapprehend, not supported by probability. Mr.Mitfordhas admirably pointed out the importance of veracityto Homer's function, and to his fame as a poet, at atime when a poet could be the only historian11, theprobability and singular consistency of his scatteredanecdotes, and the remarkable contrast between theclearness of his history, and the darkness and uncer-tainty which follow after him, and continue until thehistoric age begins; nor does he scruple to declarethat ' for these early ages Homer is our best guideVBut even this is still short of my desire, which is notmerely to recognise him as primus inter pares, but totreat his testimony as paramount, and as constituting aclass by itself, with which no other literary testimonycan compete. And so once more Bishop Marsh, in hisable work on the Pelasgi, assigns no special office, Imight perhaps say no peculiar weight, to the Homerictestimony.

But I am glad to shelter myself under the authdrityafforded me by the practice of Buttmann, who, in thePreface to his admirable Lexilogus, declares his rule ofphilological investigation in Homer to be this: to take,

a Hist, of Greece, chap. i. sect. iv. p. 62. 4to.b Ibid. sect. iii. p. 47.

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 79

first, the evidence of the text itself in its several parts;secondly, that of the succeeding epic poetry, and alongwith this the testimony of the prime after-ages ofGreek literature ; thirdly, grammatical tradition.

And yet the extensive contrariety between the oldand the new is admitted. 'The Iliad and the Odyssey,'says Mr.Grote0, 'and the remaining Hesiodic fragments,exhibit but too frequently a hopeless diversity, whenconfronted with the narratives of the logographers.'And the author of the Minosd cleared away the fabulousand defaming accounts of that sovereign, to return tothe representations of Homer and of Hesiod; Kalroi yeiriOavwTepoi elaiv rj crv/j.'iravTes ol Tpaywoo7roiot, wv arv OLKOVWV

ravra \iyei?. The great ancient writers, indeed, seemnever to have questioned the authority of Homer as awitness; nor could any one wish to see him enthronedat a greater elevation than that assigned to him as lateas in the pages of Strabo. Virgil systematically madelight of him, but he was in a manner compelled by hissubject to make light of historical veracity altogether.

Historical scepticism, which has come of late yearsinto possession of the ground, has not redressed, asaffecting Homer, the wrong that had been done byhistorical credulity. We once exalted into history thegeneral mass of traditions relating to the ages whichnext preceded those of continuous historic records; wenow again decline the labour of discrimination, andreduce them all alike into legend. The name ofMr. Grote must carry great weight in any question ofGreek research: but it may be doubted whether theforce and aptitude of his powerful mind have been assuccessfully applied to the Homeric as to the later

c History of Greece, vol. i. p. 146 ; chap. vi. Introd.d Minos, 12, in Plato's Works.

80 I. Prolegomena.

periods. He presents us, indeed, with even moregoodly and copious catalogues than historians are wontofiEolids, of Pelopids, of ruling families in every cornerof Greece, and from the earliest times; but he, too,fixes a chronological point for the commencement ofhistory, namely, the first recorded Olympiade. Heseems to think that the trustworthy chronology ofGreece begins before its real history. He declines totake his start from disinterred Pelasgif; he conceivesthat we have no other authority for the existence ofTroy than we have for the theogonic revolutions s; theimmense array of early names that he presents areoffered as names purely legendary. He will not at-tempt to determine how much or how little of historythese legends may contain; he will not exhibit a pic-ture from behind the curtain, because, as he forciblysays, the curtain is the picture, and cannot by any in-genuity be withdrawn1'. He deals in the main alikewith Homer, Hesiod, the tragedians and minor Greekpoets, the scattered notices of the historians, of theantiquarian writers near the Christian era, and of theScholiasts. Of course, therefore, he cannot be expectedto rectify the fault, if such there has been, in regard tothe appreciation of the poems of Homer.

I may, however, observe that in this, as in othercases, extremes appear to meet. Attempts to winnowthe legendary lore, and to separate the historic or pri-mitive kernel from the husk, were clearing the stageof a multitude of mythical personages unknown to theearliest tradition ; all of whom now are ushered in once

e Preface, p. xi. Quarterly Review July, (1856){ Ibid. p. xii. treats this renunciation as ones Vol. i. p. 2. of Mr. Grote's main titles toh An accomplished critic in the praise.

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 81

more; they are, indeed, labelled as iinhistorical; butthey are again mixed up wholesale with those, fromwhose company critical observation had expelled them.In thus reimparting a promiscuous character to the firstscenes of Grecian history, we seem to effect a retro-gressive and not a progressive operation. At any rateit should be understood that the issue raised embracesthe question, whether the personality of Achilles andAgamemnon has no better root in history than that ofPelasgus, of Prometheus, or of Hellen. And again,whether all these, being equal to one another, are like-wise equal, and no more than equal, in credit to Ceres,Bacchus, or Apollo. As to all alike, what proportionof truth there may be in the legend, or whether any,' it is impossible to ascertain, and useless to inquire';'all alike belong to a region, essentially mythical, nei-ther approachable by the critic, nor measurable by thechronologer.

If the opinions which have been here expressed arein any degree correct, we must endeavour to recoveras substantial personages, and to bring within the graspof flesh and blood some of those pictures, and even ofthose persons, whom Mr. Grote has dismissed to theland of Shadow and of Dream.

In this view, the earliest Greek history should befounded on the text of Homer, and not merely on itssurface, but on its depths. Not only its more broadand obvious statements should be registered, but weshould search and ransack all those slighter indications,suggestions, and sources of inference, in which it is soextraordinarily rich; and compel it, as it were, to yieldup its treasures. We cannot, indeed, like the zoologist,say the very words, Give me the bone, and I will clis-

i Grote's Hist., vol. i. pp. 58, 9, 72.G

82 I. Prolegomena.

inter the animal; yet so accurately was the mind ofHomer constructed, that we may come nearer to thiscertainty in dealing with him, than with any other childof man. The later and inferior evidence should be dif-ferently handled, and should not be viewed as intrin-sically authoritative. But that portion of it, which fillsup the gaps or confirms the suggestions of Homer, be-comes therehy entitled to something of historic rank.Again, widely extended and uniformly continued tra-ditions may amount to proof of notoriety, and may, notby their individual credit, but by their concurrence,supply us with standing ground of tolerable firmness.Beyond all this we may proceed, and may present toview, where for any cause it seems desirable, even ill-supported legends, but always as such, with fair noticeof any circumstances which may tend to fix their creditor discredit, and with a line sufficiently marked be-tween these and the recitals which rest upon Homericauthority. Thus, the general rule would be to beginwith Homer: a Jove principium. We should planthis statements each in their place, as so many founda-tion stones. While he leads us by the hand, we shouldtread with comparative confidence; when we quit hisguidance, we should proceed with caution, with mis-trust, with a tone no higher than that of speculationand avowed conjecture.

In many instances, the application of these princi-ples will require the rudiments of early Greek historyto be recast. In illustration of this statement, I willrefer to a legend, which has heretofore been popularlyassumed as in a great degree the ethnological startingpoint of Greek history.

The current ideas respecting the distribution of theGreek races are founded upon the supposition that

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 83

there was a certain Hellen, and that he had three sons,Dorus, iEolus, and Xuthus, the last of whom died andleft behind him two sons, Ion and Achseus. This Hel-len was (so runs the story) the son of Deucalion, andDeucalion was the son of Prometheus, and the husbandof Pyrrha, who again was the daughter of Epimetheusand of Pandora, the first-made woman. From theagency of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the human race tooka new commencement after the Deluge. The nation atlarge were called Hellenes, after Hellen; and from histwo surviving sons, and his grandsons Ion and Achseus,were named the four great branches of the commonstem. Such is the legend as it stands in Apollodorus k ;and that part of it which describes Hellen and his threesons, but no more, is found in a fragment of Hesiod,quoted by Tzetzes on Lycophron 1.

It is obvious that any one, setting about the inven-tion of a story with the compound purpose, first, ofuniting the Greeks in a common bond of race; secondly,of referring them to a common country as their cradle ;and, thirdly, of carrying up their origin to an extremeantiquity, could hardly have done better than inventthis tale. And that, which might have been done at astroke by an individual mind, was done no less effectuallyby the common thought and wish of the Greek peoplemoulding itself by degrees into tradition. The tale has asymmetry about it, most suggestive of design and inven-tion. How clearly it connects all the celebrated familiesor groups of the Greek nation ; with what accuracy itfixes their relation to the common stem ; and with howmuch impartial consideration for the self-love of everyone among them, and for their several shares of fame.

Not only in general, but even in detail, we mayk I. vii. 2 and 3. 1 Hes. Fragm. xxviii from Tzetzes ad Lye. 284.

G 2

84 I. Prolegomena.

watch the gradual formation of this tradition adaptingitself to the state of Greece. In Homer we find noHellenes greatly distinguished, except JSolids andAchseans. This is the first stage. But when theDorians attain to power1", they claim a share in thepast answerable to their predominance in the present:and they receive accordingly the first place in thegenealogy as it stands in Hesiod, where Dorus is thefirst-named among the three sons of Hellen. TheAcheeans, now in depression, do not appear as Hellenesat all. But with the lapse of time the Ionians ofAthens, becoming powerful, desire to be also famous:therefore room must be made for them: and theAchseans too by their local intermixture with the samerace, and their political sympathy with Athens, oncemore come to be entitled to notice: Xuthus accord-ingly, in the final form of the tradition is providedwith two sons, Ion and Achseus, and now all the fourbranches have each their respective place.

This tradition, however, is neither in whole nor inpart sustained by Homer, and can by no effort be madeto fit into Homer; to say nothing of its containingwithin itself much incongruity. If we exclude Xuthus,as a mere mute, it gives us five persons as the epony-mists of five races, the four last included in the first.But of the five persons thus placed upon the stage,Homer gives us but one; that one, iEolus, has no raceor tribe, but only two or three lines of descendantsnamed after him. Again, the two or three children ofJEolus in Homer become five in Hesiod, twelve inApollodorus, and by additions from other writers reacha respectable total of seventeen11. Thus as to persons,

m Hermann, Griech. Staats-Altherthum, Sect. 8.n See the list in Clinton, F. H. Vol. I., p. 46, note.

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 85

Homer has indeed an iEolus, but he has no Hellen, noDorus, no Ion, no Achaeus. Now as to races. Hementions, without doubt, Hellenes, Achseans, Dorians,Ionians; but affords hardly any means of identifyingDorians with Hellenes, and as to Ionians, suppliespretty strong presumptions that they were not Hel-lenic". Nor does he establish any relation whateverbetween any of the four races and any common an-cestor or eponymist. Again, the Deucalion of thislegend is two generations before its yEolus; but theDeucalion of Homer, who may be reckoned as threegenerations before the fall of Troy, is also three gene-rations later than his iEolus. In fact, this legend ofHellen and his family is like an ugly and flimsy, butformal, modern house, built by the sacrilegious collec-tion of the fragments of a noble ruin.

It may be thought dangerous, however, in settingup the authority of Homer, to pull down that ofHesiod, who comes nearest to him. But, firstly,Hesiod is only responsible for so much of the legendas connects two persons named ^Eolus and Dorus withHellen as their source; which is at any rate no morethan a poetical dress given to an hypothesis substan-tially not in conflict with the Homeric traditions.Secondly, as respects literal truth, the name Hellen atonce bears the strongest evidence against its own pre-tensions to an historical cliaraeter such as that assignedto it, because its etymology refers it to the territorialname 'EXXay, and through this to the national name"EAXotP. Lastly, the essential difference in point ofauthority lies between Homer and Hesiod, not be-tween Homer together with Hesiod on the one side,and those who came after Hesiod on the other.Homer was fully within the sphere and spirit of the

0 See inf. I I . Sect. 2. P Mure, Lit. Greece, vol. i., p. 39, n.

86 I. Prolegomena.

heroic age; Hesiod was as plainly outside it. He isapparently separated from the mighty master by a con-siderable term, even as measured in years. That termit would be difficult to define by any given number;but it is easy to see that even when defined it wouldconvey an utterly inadequate idea of the interval ofpoetic and personal diflference, and of moral and socialchange, between Hesiod and Homer. It is not to befound in this or that variation, for it belongs to thewhole order of ideas; all the elements of thought, thewhole tone of the picture, the atmosphere in whichpersons and objects are seen, are essentially modified.

I venture one remark, however, upon Hesiod's verybeautiful account of the Ages. None can fail to bestruck by the order in which he places them. Begin-ning with the Golden, he comes next to the Silverage, and then to Brass. But, instead of descendingforthwith the fourth and last step to the Iron age,he very singularly retraces his steps, and breaks thedownward chain by an age of heroes, of whom he saysthat it was

biKaiorepov KOL apewv,

avhpZv fjpcacav Oztov yevos, ol KaK&ovrai

fjixCOeoi TrpoTeprj yeireq icar' aitelpova yalav<i.

These, he goes on to explain, were the men, partly slainin the Theban and Trojan wars, partly translated byJupiter to the ends of the earth, the islands of theblest. After this, the scale drops, at once, to the lowestpoint, the Iron age, the age without either NeVeo-t? orAufoi?, the age of sheer wickedness and corruption.

This very curious turn in the arrangement of theHesiodic Ages, and especially the insertion, in a regu-lar figurative series taken from the metals, of a com-pletely heterogeneous passage, calls for explanation;

q Hes. Op. 157.

Place and Authority/ of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 87

and I venture to suggest that this passage should beconstrued as disclosing to us that brilliant halo, whichthe Homeric poems had cast over an age still recent, soas not only to hold it above the one that followed, butalso to raise it even above that which had preceded it ;above the age of Bellerophon, of Tantalus, of Sisyphus,of Minos, and even of Hercules. The splendour of thefame of heroes really depended on the Bard. The greatBard of Greece had lifted Achilles and Ulysses to aheight surpassing that of the older Heroes, who re-mained unsung by him; and he had promised Mene-laus, in the Fourth Odyssey1", that very seat in theregions of the blest, to which allusion is here made byHesiod. While the apparent poetic solecism of thispassage is thus accounted for, it becomes, at once, bothan emphatic testimony to the immense power exercisedby the verse of Homer, and a distinct declaration byHesiod of the wide social interval, by which he washimself separated from the heroic period; a declarationentirely accordant with the internal evidence of thepoems of Hesiod generally, and amounting by implica-tion to the double statement from this poet, that Homerbelonged to the heroic age, and that he himself did notbelong to it.

The tradition of Hellen and his sons, then, exhibitsone of the cases in which we must take our choice be-tween the testimony of Homer, and what are apparentlythe inventions of the later Greeks.

Another of these cases, which will be my second andlast illustration, relates to Helen of Troy.

It has been much disputed whether this celebratedcharacter is to be regarded as historical or fictitious.A writer of no less judgment and authority than the

r Od. iv. 561-9.

88 I. Prolegomena.

Bishop of St. David's, adopts the latter alternative, uponvarious grounds. The strongest among them all, in hisview, is, that ' in the abduction of Helen, Paris onlyrepeats an exploit, also attributed to Theseuss.' Thisexploit, the Bishop thinks, was known to Homer, ashe introduces iEthra, the mother of Theseus, in thecompany of Helen at Troy. And other writers havefui'ther developed these ideas, by rinding absurdity inthe Homeric tale of Helen, on the ground that shemust have been eighty years old when the supposedabduction by Paris took place.

Now, the basis of these statements entirely dependsupon the assumption that the later traditions are en-titled to be treated either as upon a par, or, at anyrate, as homogeneous with those of Homer. The tra-dition which assigns a rape of Helen to Theseus, isonly available to discredit the tale of Homer, on thesupposition that it rests upon authority like that ofHomer. But if it was a late invention, then it ismore probably to be regarded as a witness to the fameof the Homeric personages, and the anxiety of Atticato give her hero the advantage of similar embellish-ments, than as an original tradition which Homercopied, or as a twin report with that which he hashanded down.

The tradition of the rape of Helen by Theseus ismentioned by Herodotus* as a tale current among theAthenians. He testifies apparently to the fact, thatthe Deceleans of Attica enjoyed certain immunities inSparta, and were spared by the Lacedaemonian forceswhen they invaded Attica; which was ascribed by theAthenians to their having assisted in the recovery ofHelen from Theseus, by pointing out to the Tyndaridse

s Bp. ThirlwalFs Hist, of Greece, chap. v. t Herod, ix. 73.

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 89

the place of her concealment. Herodotus, however,does not affirm the cause stated by the Athenians,nor the abduction by Theseus, which afterwards be-came, or had even then become, an established tradi-tion. Isocrates" handles it without misgiving, and itis methodized in Plutarch, with a multitude of otherparticulars, our acceptance of which absolutely requiresthe rejection of Homer's historical authority.

And so again with regard to iEthra, the daughter ofPittheus, whom, the later ages have connected withTheseus. We have no right to treat her introductionin the company of Helenx, as a proof that Homer knewof a story connecting Helen with Theseus, unless weknew, which we do not, from Homer, or from authorityentitled to compete with Homer, that there was a re-lation between iEthra and Theseus.

Now, the story of Homer respecting Helen, is per-fectly self-consistent: and so is his story respectingTheseus: but the two are separated by an interval oflittle less than two generations, or say fifty years. ForTheseus^ fought in the wars against the Qrjpe?, in whichNestor took part: and he wooed and wedded Ariadne,the aunt of Idomeneus, who was himself nearly or quiteone generation older than the Greek kings in general.On the other hand, Homer shows the age of Helen tohave been in just proportion to that of Menelaus: forshe had a daughter, Hermione, before the abduction,and might, so far as age was concerned, have bornechildren after their conjugal union was resumed2.Why, then, if Homer be the paramount authority,should we, upon testimony inferior to his, introduceconflict and absurdity into two traditions, which he

u Encom. Hel. 21 et seq. x II. ill. 144.y II. i. 262. z See Od. iv. 1 2.

90 I. Prolegomena.

gives us wide apart from one another and each self-consistent, by forging a connexion between them?

I have stated these two cases, not by way of beggingthe question as to the superiority in kind of Homer'stestimony, but to show how important that questionis; and in how many instances the history of the heroicage must be rewritten, if we adopt the principle, thatHomer ought to be received as an original witness, con-temporary with the manners, nay, perhaps, even withsome of the persons he describes, and subject only tosuch deductions as other original witnesses are liableto suffer: whereas the later traditions rest only uponhearsay; so much so, that they can hardly be calledevidence, and should never be opposed, on their owncredit, to the testimony of Homer.

In bringing this discussion to a close, I will quote apassage respecting Homer, from the Earl of Aberdeen'sInquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Ar-chitecture, which, I think, expresses with great truthand simplicity the ground of Homer's general claimto authority, subject, of course, to any question respect-ing the genuineness "of the received text:

In treating of an age far removed from the approach ofregular history, it is fortunate that we are furnished with aguide so unerring as Homer, whose general accuracy of obser-vation, and minuteness of description, are such as to afford acopious source of information respecting almost everythingconnected with the times in which he composed his work: andwho, being nearly contemporary with the events which he re-lates, and, indeed, with the earliest matter for record in Greece,cannot fall into mistakes and anachronisms in arts, or manners,or government, as he might have done had he lived at a moreadvanced and refined period a.

I t was said of a certain Dorotheus, tha t he spent hisa Lord Aberdeen's Inquiry, p. 6?. (1822 )

Place and Authority of Homer in Historical Inquiry. 91

whole life in endeavours to elucidate the meaning ofthe Homeric word KXIO-I^. Such a disproportion be-tween labour and its aim is somewhat startling; yetit is hardly too much to say, that no exertion spentupon any of the great classics of the world, and at-tended with any amount of real result, is really thrownaway. It is better to write one word upon the rock,than a thousand on the water or the sand: better toremove a single stray stone out of the path thatmounts the hill of true culture, than to hew out milesof devious tracks, which mislead and bewilder us whenwe travel them, and make us more than content if weare fortunate enough to find, when we emerge out oftheir windings, that we have simply returned to thepoint in our age, from which, in sanguine youth, weset out.

As rules of the kind above propounded can1 only befully understood when applied, the application of themhas accordingly been attempted, in the work to whichthese pages form an Introduction. In this view, it maybe regarded as their necessary sequel. I commit it tothe press with no inconsiderable apprehension, and withdue deference to the judgments of the learned: for Ido not feel myself to have possessed either the freshrecollection and ready command of the treasures ofancient Greece, or the extended and systematic know-ledge of the modern Homeric literature, which areamong the essential requisites of qualification to dealin a satisfactory manner with the subject. I shouldfurther say, that the poems of Homer, to be rightlyand thoroughly sounded, demand undoubtedly a dis-engaged mind, perhaps would repay even the studyof a life. One plea only I can advance with confi-dence. The work, whatever else it be, is one which

92 I. Prolegomena.

has been founded in good faith on the text of Homer.Whether in statement or in speculation, I have desiredand endeavoured that it should lead me by the hand:and even my anticipations of what we might in anycase expect it to contain have been formed by a reflexprocess from the suggestions it had itself supplied :

Oh degli altri poeti onore e lume!Vagliami il lungo studio, e il grande amoreChe m* an fatto cercar lo tuo volume;

Tu sei lo mio maestro, e il mio autore b.

Finally, though sharing the dissatisfaction of othersat the established preference given among us to theLatin names of deities originally Greek, and at somepart of our orthography for Greek names, I havethought it best to adhere in general to the commoncustom, and only to deviate from it where a specialobject was in view. I fear that diversity, and evenconfusion, are more likely to arise than any benefit,from efforts at reform, made by individuals, and with-out the advantage either of authority or of a clearprinciple, as a groundwork for general consent. I amhere disposed to say, ' OUK ayaQov voXvKoipavlij ;' andagain with Wordsworth,

' Me this unchartered freedom tires.'Yet I should gladly see the day when, under the au-thority of Scholars, and especially of those who bearrule in places of education, improvement might beeffected, not only in the points above mentioned, butin our solitary and barbarous method of pronouncingboth the Greek and the Latin language. In this onerespect the European world may still with justice de-scribe the English at least as the penitus toto divisosorbe Britannos.

b Inferno, I. 3:,

II. ETHNOLOGY.

SECT. I.

Scope of the Inquiry.

I NOW proceed to attempt, in a series of inquiries, thepractical application of the principles which have beenstated in the preliminary Essay. The first of theseinquiries might on some grounds be deemed the mosthazardous. It is an inquiry into the Early Ethnologyand Ethnography of Greece : or the Composition ofthe Greek nation, and the succession and Distributionof its races, according to the text of Homer. Thereligion, the politics, the manners, the contemporaryhistory, of the Iliad and Odyssey, may justly be consi-dered to form essential parts of the plan of the Poet, andto have been distinctly contemplated by his intention.But into anterior legends he only dips at times: andof the subject of the succession and distribution of racesit probably formed no part of his purpose to treat atall; so that in the endeavour to investigate it we areentirely dependent, so far as he is concerned, uponscattered and incidental notices.

But here it is, that the extraordinary sureness andprecision of the mind of Homer stands us in such ad-mirable stead. Wherever, amidst the cloud and chaosof pre-Homeric antiquity, he enables us to discern aluminous point, that point is a beacon, and indicatesground on which we may tread with confidence. Thematerials, which at a first glance appear upon the face

94 II. Ethnology.

of the poems to be available for our purpose, may in-deed be but slender. But the careful gathering toge-ther of many dispersed indications, and the strict ob-servation of their relative bearings has this effect, thateach fragment added to the stock may both receiveillustration from what is already known, and may giveit in return, by helping to explain and establish rela-tions hitherto doubtful or obscure. And as the totalor gross accumulation grows, the nett result increasesin a more rapid ratio : as a single known point upon aplane tells us of nothing besides itself, but two enableus to draw a line, and three a triangle, and each furtherone as it is added to construct a multitude of figures:or as in the map-puzzles, constructed to provoke theingenuity of children, "when once a very few countrieshave been laid in their right places, they serve as keysto the rest, and we can lay out with confidence thegeneral order. Even so I am not without hope that,as to some parts at least of this ethnical examination,the Homeric indications may, when brought together,warrant our applying to them words used by Cicerofor another purpose: est enim admirabilis continuatioseriesque rerum, ut alice ex aliis newce, et omnes inter seaptce conligatceque videantura.

I must not, however, step over the threshold of theinvestigation without giving warning, that we have tomeet at the outset an opinion broadly pronounced, andproceeding from a person of such high authority asMr. Grote, our most recent historian of Greece, to theeffect that these inquiries are futile. This intimation isso important that it shall stand in his own words. " Ingoing through historical Greece," says Mr. Grote, " weare compelled to accept the Hellenic aggregate with

a Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 4.

Scope of the Inquiry. 95

its constituent elements as a primary fact to startfrom, because the state of our information does notenable us to ascend any higher. By what circum-stances, or out of what pre-existing elements, this ag-gregate was brought together and modified, we find noevidence entitled to credit11." And then, in condemna-tion particularly of Pelasgic inquiries, he resumes: " ifany man is inclined to call the unknown ante-Hellenicperiod of Greece by the name of Pelasgic, it is open tohim to do so: but this is a name carrying with it noassured predicates, no way enlarging our insight intoreal history, nor enabling us to explain—what wouldbe the real historical problem—how or from whom theHellens acquired that stock of dispositions, aptitudes,arts, &c. with which they began their career Noattested facts are now present to us—none were pre-sent to Herodotus and Thucydides even in their age,on which to build trustworthy affirmations respectingthe ante-Hellenic Pelasgians."

In answer to these passages, which raise the questionno less broadly than fairly, it may first be observed,that at least Herodotus and Thucydides did not thinkwhat we are thus invited to think for them, and thatof the judgment of the latter, as an inquirer into mat-ters of fact, Mr. Grote has himself justly expressed thehighest opinion0. Mr. Grote, placing in one categoryall that relates to the legendary age, finds it as a wholeintractable and unhistorical, with a predominance ofsentimental attributes quite unlike the practical turnand powers of the Greek mind in later timesd. Buthas not this disturbance of equilibrium happened chieflybecause the genuine though slender historic materials

t> Grote's Hist. vol. ii. pp. 349-51. part ii. cli. 2. c Preface p. ix.d Preface p. xvii.

96 II. Ethnology.

of the heroic age, supplied by the poems of Homer,have been overborne and flooded by the accumulationsmade by imagination, vanity, resentment, or patriotism,during a thousand years ? Even of the unsifted mass oflegend, to which the distinguished historian refers, itmay be doubted, whether it is not, when viewed as awhole, bewildering, formless, and inconsistent, ratherthan sentimental. It has been everywhere darkenedby cross purposes, and by the unauthorized meddlingof generations, which had ceased to sympathize withthe heroic age. At any rate, I crave permission to trywhat we can make of that age in the matter of history,by dealing first and foremost with him who handled itfor the purposes of history, apart from those, I meanthe after poets, tragedians, and logographers, to whomit was little more than a romance.

I trust that the recent examples of men so learnedand able as Bishop Thirlwall and K. O. Miiller, neitherof whom have thought subjects of this kind too unin-viting to reward inquiry, may avail both to prevent theinterposition of a preliminary bar to the discussion, andto protect it against an adverse prejudgment. By an-ticipation I can reasonably make no other answer to acondemnatory sentence, than that which is conveyed inthe words ' let us try.' But at any rate, est. operce pre-tium: the stake is worth the venture. He would beindeed a worthless biographer who did not, so far ashis materials carried him, pursue the life of a hero backto the nursery or even the cradle: and the same faith-ful and well-grounded instincts invest with a surpassinginterest all real elucidation of the facts and ideas, thatmake up the image of the Greek nation either in itsinfancy or even in its embryo.

There are three and only three names of ordinary

Scope of the Inquiry. 97

use in the Iliad, by which the poet designates thepeople that had been banded together against Troy.This same people afterwards became famous in history,perhaps beyond all others, first by the name of Hel-lenes, which was self-applied; and secondly by the nameof Greeks, which they acquired from their Italian con-querors and captives. Greece is now again becomeHellas.

These names, prominent far beyond all others, are,1. Aavaol, Danaans.2. 'Apyeiot, Argeians or Argives.3. 'A^aioi, Achaeans.They are commonly treated as synonymous. It ap-

pears at least to have been assumed that they are inca-pable of yielding any practical results to an attempt athistoric analysis and distribution. To try this questionfully, is a main part of my present purpose. Thus muchat least is clear: that they seem to be the equivalents, forthe Troic period, of the Hellenic name in later times.

But there are other names, of various classes, whichon account of their relations to the foregoing ones it ismaterial to bring into view.

First, there are found in Homer two other designa-tions, which purport to have the same effect as thethree already quoted. They are

1. Uava-^aioi, Panachaeans.a. TLaveWrjves, Panhellenes.Next come three names of races, whose relations

to the foregoing appellations will demand scrutiny.These are

1. UeXaa-yo), Pelasgians.a. "E\\>]V€9, Hellenes.3. QptJKes, Thracians, or rather Thraces.Lastly, there are a more numerous class of names,

H

98 II. Ethnology.

which are local in this sense, that Homer only men-tions them in connection with particular parts of Greece,but which being clearly tribal and not territorial, standclearly distinguished from the names which owed, ormay have owed, their origin to the different cities ordistricts of the country, such- as Phocian (II. ii. 517),Rhodian (654), Elian (II. xi. 670), or Ithacan (Odysseypassim): and likewise from the names which alreadywere, or afterwards came to be, in established connec-tion with those of districts, though they have no ap-pearance of having been originally territorial: such asArcadian (II. ii. 603, 11), Boeotian (II. ii. 494), Athe-nian (II. ii. 546, 551).

Of the class now before us there are some which areof importance in various degrees with regard to theviews of primitive history to be gathered from theHomeric poems. As such I rank

1. KaSfieloi, Cadmeans, in Thebes, II. iv. 388 andelsewhere: and with this, as an equivalent, KaSfielwves,II. iv. 385 and elsewhere.

2. 'laove?, Ionians, in Athens, II. xiii. 685.3. AwjOte'e?, Dorians, in Crete, Od. xix. 177. A town

Dorion is also mentioned in the Catalogue as withinthe territories of Nestor, II. ii. 594.

4. KecfxxWtjves, Cephallenes, in the islands underUlysses, II. ii. 631.

5. 'Ecpvpot, Ephyri, in Thessaly, II. xiii. 301.6. SeXXoJ or 'EXXoJ, Helli, in northern Thessaly, II.

xvi. 234.7. Kawc«i>e?, Caucones, in southern Greece, Od. ill.

366: (and among the Trojan allies, II. x. 429, xx. 329.)8. 'Exetot, Epeans, in Elis, II. ii. 619, and on the op-

posite or northern coast and islands of the CorinthianGulf: compare II. ii. 627, and xiii. 691.

The Pelasgians. 99

g.*A(BavTes, Abantes, in Euboea, II. ii.536.10. MvpulSoves, Myrmidones, in Phthia, II. ii. 684.11. JHovptjres, Curetes, in iEtolia, II. ix. 529.1 a. $>\eyvai, Phlegyae, in Thessaly, II. xiii. 301.13. &npe?, in Thessaly, II. i. 267, 8. ii. 733,4.And lastly it may be mentioned that in the single

word Tpaia, used (II. ii. 498) to designate one of thenumerous Boeotian towns, we have an isolated indica-tion of the existence in the heroic times of the germof the names Greece and Greek, which afterwards as-cended to, and still retain, such extraordinary fame.

The Homeric text will afford us means of investiga-tion, more or less, for the greater part of these names,but the main thread of the inquiry runs with these five ;Pelasgians, Hellenes, Danaans, Argeians, Achaeans.

In conjunction with the present subject, I shall con-sider what light is thrown by Homer on the relations ofthe Greeks with other races not properly Greek: theLycians, the Phoenicians, the Sicels, the Egyptians, thepeople of Cyprus, and finally the Persians. The nameof the Leleges will be considered in conjunction withthat of the Caucones.

H 2

100 II. Ethnology.

SECT. II.

The Pelasgians; and with these,

a. Arcadians. b. TpaiKol or Grseci. c. Ionians.d. Athenians, e. Egyptians. / . Thraces.

g. Caucones. h. Leleges.

It will be most convenient to begin with the case ofthe Pelasgians: and the questions we shall have to in-vestigate will be substantially reducible to the follow-ing heads:

1. Are the Pelasgians essentially Greek?2. If so, what is their relation to the Hellenes, and

to the integral Greek nation ?3. What elements did they contribute to the form-

ation of the composite body thus called ?4. What was their language ?5. What was the derivation of their name ?6. By what route did they come into Greece ?The direct evidence of the Homeric poems with

respect to the Pelasgians is scattered and faint. Itderives however material aid from various branches oftradition, partly conveyed in the Homeric poems, andpartly extraneous to them, particularly religion, lan-guage, and pursuits. Evidence legitimately drawn fromthese latter sources, wherever it is in the nature of cir-cumstantial proof, is far superior in authority to suchliterary traditions as are surrounded, at their visiblesource, with circumstances of uncertainty.

I. The first passage, with which we have to deal, isthat portion of the Catalogue of the Greek armament,where Homer introduces us to the contingent of Achil-les in the following lines :

The Pelasgians: Pelasgic Argos. 101

N w av TOVS O(T(TOL TO TJeXaayiKov "Apyos evaiov,O? T "A\ov o't r ' 'A\O'T7»]I» ot re Tpr\ylv evepovro,Ot T eixov ®6b)v r)8 'EWaba KokXiyvvaiKa,Mvpfxibopes 8e naXcvvro KCU "E\Arjz>es KW. 'T&v av irevT-qKOVTa ve&v rjv apxps ^

All evidence goes to show, that Thessaly stood in amost important relation to the infant life of the Greekraces; whether we consider it as the seat of many mostancient legends ; as dignified by the presence of Do-dona, the highest seat of religious tradition and au-thority to the Greeks; as connected with the twoancient names of Helli and Pelasgi: or lastly in regardto the prominence it retained even down to and duringthe historic age in the constitution of the AmphictyonicCouncile. All these indications are in harmony withthe course of Greek ethnological tradition.

Now the Catalogue of the Greek armament is di-vided into three great sections.

The first comprises Continental Greece, with theislands immediately adjacent to the coast, and lyingsouth of Thessaly. The second consists of the Greekislands of the iEgean. The third is wholly Thessalian:and it begins with the lines which have been quoted.

What then does Homer mean us to understand bythe phrase TO Tlekaa-yitcbv*Apyos in this passage? Is it

i. A mere town, or town and district, like Alos,Alqpe, and others which follow; or is it

i. A country comprising several or many such?And if the latter, does it describe

i. That country only over which Peleus reigned, andwhich supplied the Myrmidon division; or

i. A more extended country ?

d II. ii. 681-5. e Hermann Gr. Staats-alt. sect. 12.

102 II. Ethnology.

First let us remark the use of the article. It is notthe manner of Homer to employ the article with theproper names of places. We may be sure that it car-ries with it a distinctive force: as in the Trojan Cata-logue he employs it to indicate a particular race orbody of Pelasgiansf apart from others. Now the dis-tinctive force of the article here may have either orboth of two bearings.

i. It may mark off the Argos of the Pelasgians fromone or more other countries or places bearing the nameof Argos.

i. Even independently of the epithet, the articlemay be rightly employed, if Argos itself be not strictlya proper name, but rather a descriptive word indicatingthe physical character of a given region. Thus ' Scotland'is strictly a proper name,' Lowlands' a descriptive wordof this nature: and the latter takes the article wherethe former does not require or even admit it. Andnow let us proceed to make our selection between thevarious alternatives before us.

Whichever of the two bearings we give to thearticle, it seems of itself to preclude the suppositionthat a mere town or single settlement can be here in-tended : for nowhere does Homer give the article to aname of that class.

Secondly, in almost every place where Homer speaksof an Argos, he makes it plain that he does not meana mere town or single settlement, but a country in-cluding towns or settlements within it. The exceptionsto this rule are rare. In II. iv. 5 a we have one ofthem, where he combines Argos with Sparta andMycenae, and calls all three by the name of cities.

f II. ii. 841.

The Pelasgians: Pelasgic Argos. 103

The line U. ii. 559 probably supplies another. But in alater Sections the general rule will be fully illustrated.

It will also clearly appear, that the name Argos is infact a descriptive word, not a proper name, and isnearly equivalent to our ' Lowlands' or to the Italian' campagna.'

Thirdly: in many other places of the Catalogue,Homer begins by placing in the front, as it were, thecomprehensive name which overrides and includes theparticular names that are to follow; and then, withoutany other distinctive mark than the use of the faintenclitic copulative re, proceeds to enumerate parts in-cluded within the whole which he has previously named.Thus for instance

ot 8' Evfioiav expv...

Xaktdba T EiperpCav re K.T.\. V. $$$, 6.

' Those who held Euboea, both Chalcis and Eretria'.. .Or in the English idiom we may perhaps write morecorrectly,' Those who held Euboea, that is to say Chal-cis, and Eretria'—and the rest.

Again,01 5' eix.oir KOIXTIV AaKebalfxova KijT<ae(r(TavQapiv re 'S.'napTriv re... v. 581, 2.

' Those who held channelled Laconia, abounding in wildbeasts, namely, the several settlements of Pharis andSparta,' and the rest.

So with Arcadia, v. 603, and Ithaca, v. 631.We may therefore consider the verse 681,

N w av TOVS, orraoi TO UeKacryiKov "Apyos kvaiov'

as prefatory, and I print it, accordingly, so as to marka pause.

But, again, is it prefatory only to the division ofAchilles, and is it simply the integer expressing the

S Inf. sect. viii.

104 II. Ethnology.

whole territory from which his contingent was drawn,or is it prefatory to the whole remainder of the Cata-logue, ending at v. 759, and does it include all the nineterritorial divisions described therein ? There is nogrammatical or other reason for the former alternative,while various considerations recommend the latter.

There is no sign in the poems of any connectionbetween Achilles with his Myrmidons, or between thekingdom of his father Peleus, and any particular partof Thessaly under the name of Argos, or PelasgicArgos. Although the division of Achilles did notembrace the whole of the PhthiansS, yet Phthia ap-pears to be the proper description of his territory, sofar as it has a collective name: and there are signs,which will be hereafter considered, that the name ofPhthia itself was embraced and included within thewider range of another name.

Again, the Pelasgic name, as will be further observed,is not in Homer specially connected with the South ofThessaly, where the realm of Peleus lay, but ratherwith the North, the towns and settlements of whichare enumerated, not in the first, but in the later para-graphs of this portion of the Catalogue.

In the invocation of the Sixteenth Book, to whichreference will shortly be made, Achilles at once ad-dresses Jupiter as Pelasgic, and as dwelling afar (T^XOOI

valwv): therefore, the special Thessalian seat of the godcould not be in the dominions of Peleus.

We have observed, again, in the earlier parts of thecatalogue various collective names, afterwards explaineddistributively, for the various contingents: but there isnot one of this class of names employed for any of theEight Divisions which follow that of Achilles. They

g II. xiii. 686, et seqq.

The Pelasgians: Pelasgie Argos. 105

all seem to bear the form of particular distributiveenumerations, belonging to the comprehensive head ofPelasgic Argos or Thessaly.

There is also something in the obvious break in theCatalogue, signified by the words

vvv av TOVS, oaaoi...

which indicate, as it were, a completely new startingpoint. There is nothing else resembling them. Theyform the introduction to a new chapter of the lists,after a geographical transition from the islands: andthere is no reason for these marked words, if PelasgicArgos was either a mere town district, or a localsovereignty, but a very good reason, if Pelasgic Argosmeant that great integral portion of the Greek terri-tory, the vale of Thessaly, the particular parts of whichthe Poet was about to set forth in so much detail.

It may therefore be inferred, that the epithet Ile-\a<ryucbi' is applied by Homer to the Thessalian valecollectively, as it is contained between the mountainsof Pindus to the west, (Eta and Olympus to the north,Othrys to the south, and Ossa or the sea to the east.We might, without geographical error, translate thephrase TO HeXao-yucov "Apyos of the second Iliad by thatname of Thessaly11, which the country afterwards ac-quired: but the idea which it properly indicates to us, is,that Argos which had been settled by the Pelasgians.

It is the only geographical epithet which, applied tothe name Argos, belongs to the north of Greece : andit is so applied by way of distinction and oppositionto other uses of the name Argos in other parts of thepoems, which we shall hereafter have to examine,namely, the Achaic and the Iasian Argos.

h So Strabo, p. 221.

106 II. Ethnology.

II. Perhaps the most solemn invocation of Jupiteras the great deity of the Greeks in the whole of thePoems is where Achilles, sending forth Patroclus tobattle, prays that glory may be given him. It runsthus (II. xvi. 233-5):

Zev ava, Acoboovaie, HeXaoyiKe, rr]X60i vaicov,

Aoob(pvr)s yxbiav bvcrxeinepov' afj-cpl be <r' "EWoi<rol vaiovv imocfifJTat, aviTTTonobts j^aiMuevvai.

It seems not too much to say upon this remarkablepassage, that it shows us, as it were, the nation pitchingits first altar upon its first arrival in the country. Itbears witness that those who brought the worship ofDodonsean Jupiter were Pelasgians, as well as that thespot, which they chose for the principal seat of theirworship, was Dodona. For the appeal of Achilles onthis occasion is evidently the most forcible that he hasit in his power to make, and is addressed to the highestsource of Divine power that he knew.

It has been debated, but apparently without anyconclusive result, what was the site of the Dodona sofamous in the after-times of Greece11. It seems clear,however, that it was a Dodona to the westward ofPindus, and belonging to Thesprotia or Molossia. Butthis plainly was not the position of the Dodona we havenow before us. For in a passage of the CatalogueHomer distinctly places this Dodona in Thessaly, givingit the same epithet, <Wx«'Mepo?, as Achilles applies to itin II. xvi. Gouneus, he says, was followed by theEnienes and Perrhsebi,

01 irepl A(obd>vr]v bvcrx.eifji,epov OXKI edevro,

ot r a/*</>' ijxepTov TiTaprjaiov epy

•> The discussion is reviewed in Cramer's Greece, vol. i. 115.* II. ii. 750.

The Pelasgians: Dodona. 107

Both the name of the Perrhsebi and that of the riverTitaresius fix the Dodona of Homer in the north ofThessaly. And the character assigned to this Titaresius,so near Dodona, as a branch of Styx, 'the mighty adjura-tion of the gods/ well illustrates the close connectionbetween that river, by which the other deities were toswear, and Jupiter, who was their chief, and was in acertain sense the administrator of justice among them.In the Odyssey, indeed, Ulysses, in his fictitious narra-tions to Eumseus and Penelope, represents himself ashaving travelled from Thesprotia to consult the oracleof Jupiter, that was delivered from a lofty oakA But nopresumption of nearness can be founded on this passagesuch as to justify our assuming the existence of a se-parate Dodona westward of the mountains in the Ho-meric age: and there was no reason why Ulysses shouldnot represent himself as travelling through the passesof Mount Pindusk from the Ambracian gulf into Thes-saly to learn his fate. Nor upon the other hand is thereany vast difficulty in adopting the supposition whichthe evidence in the case suggests, that the oracle ofDodonsean Jupiter may have changed its seat before thehistoric age. The evidence of Homer places it in Thes-saly, and Homer is, as we shall see, corroborated by He-siod. After them, we hear nothing of a Dodona havingits seat in Thessaly, but much of one on the western sideof the peninsula. As in later times we find Perrhsebiand Dolopes to the westward of Pindus, whom Homershows us only on the east, even so in the course oftime the oracle may have travelled in the same direc-tion1. It is highly improbable, from the manner in

i Od. xiv. 327 ; xix. 296. k Cramer's Ancient Greeee, i. 353.1 Cramer's Greece, i. 370.

108 II. Ethnology.

which the name is used, that there should have beentwo Greek Dodonas in the Homeric age.

However, the very passage before us indicates, thatrevolution had already laid its hand on this ancient seatof Greek religion. For though the Dodona of Homerwas Pelasgic by its origin, its neighbourhood was nowinhabited by a different race, the Selli or Helli, andthese Helli were also the viro^rai or ministers of thedeity. While their rude and filthy habits of life markthem as probably a people of recent arrival, who hadnot themselves yet emerged from their highland home,and from the struggle with want and difficulty, intocivilized life, still they had begun to encroach upon thePelasgians with their inviting possessions and moresettled habits, and had acquired by force or otherwisethe control of the temple, though without obliteratingthe tradition of its Pelasgic origin. The very fact, thatthe Helli were at the time the ministers of Jupiter,tends to confirm the belief that the Pelasgians werethose who originally established it ; for how otherwisecould the name of the Pelasgian race have found itsway into an Hellenic invocation ?

Thus, as before we found that what we term Thes-saly is to Homer ' the Argos of the Pelasgians,' so wenow find that people associated with the original andcentral worship of the Greek Jupiter, as having probablybeen the race to whom it owed its establishment.

And thus, though the Pelasgians were not politicallypredominant in Thessaly at the epoch of the Troica, yetThessaly is Pelasgian Argos : though they were notpossessed of the Dodonaean oracle, yet Jupiter of Do-dona is Pelasgian Jupiter : two branches of testimony,the first of which exhibits them as the earliest known

Thessaly and the Southern Islands. 109

colonisers of the country, and the second as the reputedfounders of the prime article of its religion.

We must not quit this subject without referring tothe evidence of Hesiod, which, though second in im-portance to that of Homer, is before any other literarytestimony. He refers twice to Dodona. Neither timedoes he appear to carry it to the westward. In onepassage he connects it immediately with the Pelasgians;

AwSoSi^v, (prjyov r e , TleXacryaiv zhpavov, rjnev™.

In the other passage, he associates it with the Hellicname through the medium of the territorial designa-tion Hellopia:

earl TIS 'EAXOWHJ Tro\.v\ri'ios rib' evkeCfiaiv,

ivQa re Acobcavi] TLS fir sa^ariy TreiroXHTTCU11.

Thus, in exact accordance with Homer, he associatesDodona with two and only two names of race, the sametwo as those with which it is associated in the invoca-tion of Achilles.

III. Next, we find in Homer a widely spread con-nection between Thessaly and the islands which formas it were the base of the iEgean sea.

From these islands he enumerates four contingentsfurnished to the Greek army:

1. From Crete, under Idomeneus (II. ii.645).2. From Rhodes, under Tlepolemus {653).3. From Syme, under Nireus (671).4. From Nisyrus, the Calydnse, and other minor

islands, under Pheidippus and Antiphus (676).1. As to Crete. Universal tradition connects the

name of Deucalion with Thessaly. But he was the son,according to Homer, of Minos, who was the ruler orwarden of Crete (Kpyrri eirlovpo?, Il.xiii. 450): and he

m Hesiod ap. Strab. vii. 327. n Sckol. ad Track, v. 1169.

110 II. Ethnology.

was also the father of Idomeneus, leader of the Cretansbefore Troy (II. xiii. 452), and ruler over many of them(ibid.), but not, so far as appears, over the whole island.

Now Minos was not only king of all Crete, but sonof Jupiter (ibid., and Od. xi. 568) by a Phoeniciandamsel of great note (II. xiv. 321); we must thereforeregard him, or his mother, as having come from Phoeniciainto Crete. The inference would be, that Deucalion camefrom Crete to Thessaly, and that he, or Idomeneus hisson, re-migrated to Crete. Homer does not indeed statethat Deucalion was ever in Thessaly: but he indirectlysupports the tradition both by placing Idomeneus ina diiferent position in Crete from that of his grandfa-ther Minos, and otherwise0. This supposition wouldat once reconcile the later tradition with Homer, andexplain to us why the grandson of Minos only filled aninferior position.

Again, as we see that Thessaly is Pelasgic, and thatthe Thessalian Myrmidons are called Achseans, so like-wise we find among the five nations of Crete both Pe-lasgians and AchseansP. Here, according to Strabo,Staphylus described these two races as inhabiting theplains, and Andron reported them, as also the Dorians,to have come from Thessaly: erroneously, says Strabo(x. 4., p. 476), making the mother city of the Doriansa mere colony from the Thessalians. And the ancienttradition which places the infant Jupiter in Crete ('Jovisincunabula Creten'), concurs with the idea which theabove-named facts would suggest, that the Pelasgiansmay have come, at least in part, from the southernislands of the iEgean.

2. As to Rhodes. Tlepolemus, its chieftain, is theson of Hercules, and of Astyochea, whom, in the course

0 Vid. inf. sect. iii. p Od. xix. 175.

Thessaly and the Southern Islands. I l l

of his raids, he took from Ephyra by the river Selleeis.It is questioned which Ephyra, and which Selleeis, forof both there were several, these may have been. Ifthey were in Thessalyi, we have thus a line of connec-tion established between Thessaly and Rhodes.

3. As to the contingent from Nisyrus, the Calydnae,and Cos. Firstly, it was commanded by Pheidippusand Antiphus (678), sons of Thessalus, the son of Her-cules. The connection between Hercules and Thessaly,which is agreeable to the general course of tradition,also harmonises with the most natural constructionwhich can be put upon this passage of Homer: namely,that this Thessalus was the person who afterwards be-came the eponymist of Thessaly, that he was a nativeor inhabitant of the country, and that either he, ormore probably his sons, were emigrants from it to theislands.

His name, latent for a time, may afterwards haveattained to its elevation, as a means of connectingThessaly with Hercules, when the descendants of thathero had become predominant in the South. Perhapsthe appearance of the post-Homeric name 'Doris' maybe explained in the same manner.

Secondly, Cos is described as the city of Eurypylus.This may mean a city which he had founded; or a citywhich was then actually under his dominion. Beyondall doubt, it indicates a very special connection of somekind between Cos and Eurypylus. Now, his name ismentioned without adjunct. Had he been a deceasedfounder of the city, he would probably have been calledOslo's like Thoas (II. xiv. 230). If he was living, whowas he ? We have in the Iliad one very famous Eury-pylus, who appears among the nine foremost of the

1 This question is discussed, inf. sect. ix.

112 II. Ethnology.

Greek heroes (II. vii. 167), and whose rank entitledhim (xi. 818) to be called Aiorpeffis; an epithet con-fined, as is probable, to Kingsr. Now although Homerallows himself, when he is dealing with secondarypersons, to apply the same name to more than oneindividual, without always caring to discriminate be-tween them, there is no instance in which he does thisfor a person of the class of Eurypylus. This probably,therefore, is the same Eurypylus, as meets us in otherparts of the poem, the son of Eusemon. But from theCatalogue8, it appears that he commanded the contin-gent from Ormenium in Thessaly. If then, the sameperson, who founded or had some special relation toCos, was also the commander of a Thessalian force, herewe have a new track of connection between Thessalyand the islands to the southward.

4. Nireus, named by Homer for his beauty alone,with his three ships from Syme, can scarcely be said tomake an unit in the Greek catalogue.

With this one inconsiderable exception, we find inall the cases of island contingents a connection subsist-ing between them and Thessaly, and this connectionnot appearing to be mediate, along the line of mainlandwhich reaches from Thessaly to within a short distancefrom Crete, but apparently maintained directly by themaritime route: a fact of importance in considering theprobable extension and movement of the Pelasgic race,which we find existing in both regions. We know fromHomer* that the southern islands were a commonroute connecting Greece with the East. There are alsoabundant traces of migration by the northern coast ofthe iEgean. Thus it is at both those gates of Greece,

r See inf. sect. ix. 3 H. ii. 735,t Od. iv. 83. xiv. 199, 245. xvii. 448.

The Pelasgians. 113

that we find the Pelasgian name subsisting in the timeof Homer, when in the nearer vicinity of the centre ofAchaean power it was already extinct.

IV. Again, I think we may trace the near connec-tion between the Pelasgians and the Greek nation inthe laudatory epithets with which the former are men-tioned by Homer. We must here keep in mind onthe one hand the extraordinary skill and care withwhich the Poet employed his epithets, and on the otherhand, his never failing solicitude to exalt and adornevery thing Greek.

Homer names the Pelasgians only thrice, and eachtime with a laudatory epithet.

In II. x. 429, where they form part of the Trojancamp, and again in Od. xix. 177, where they are statedto be found in Crete, they are Slot. Homer neverapplies this word except to what is preeminent in itskind : in particular, he never attaches it to any nationalname besides the Pelasgi, except 'Ayaioi, which of it-self amounts to a presumption that he regarded hiscountrymen as in some way standing in the same classwith the Pelasgians.

In the remaining passage where he names thePelasgians, that in the Trojan Catalogue (II. ii. 340), hecalls them iy^ecrl/j-wpoc. He uses this epithet in onlythree other places. Of itself it is laudatory, because itis connected with the proper work of heroes, the a-raSlr)varfilvij. In one of the three places he applies it in-dividually to two royal warriors, one Munes the hus-band of Briseis, and the other Epistrophus (II. ii.693), awarrior associated with Munes. In the second (II. vii.134), he gives it to the Arcadians; whom in the Cata-logue (ii.611), he has already commended as eiua-Taixevoi

eiv. In the third passage (Od. iii. 188), he ap-1

114 II. Ethnology.

plies the epithet to the Myrmidons themselves. Fromeach of these uses, the last especially, we may draw freshpresumptions of his high estimate of the Pelasgian name.

V. Again. In the case of a race, unless when it canbe traced to an Eponymus or name-giver, the pluralname precedes the singular in common use. Theremust be Celts before there can be a Celt, and Pelas-gians before there can be a Pelasgian. The use there-fore of the singular, in the names of nations, is a proofof what is established and long familiar.

For example, Homer never calls a single GreekAaradj, nor"Apyeios (though in the particular cases ofJuno and of Helen he uses the singular feminine, ofwhich more hereafter), but only 'A^ato'y; and we shallfind, that this fact is not without its meaning. It istherefore worthy of note, that he uses the term Ile-\ao-y6$ in the singular. The chiefs of the PelasgianeTTiKovpoi at Troy were Hippothous and Pulseus, (II. ii.843,) who were

vie 8w» AqOow IleXaa-yov TevrafiCbao.

And again, (xvii. 288),Arjdoio Ylikacryov <£a#kjuos vtos.

'The illustrious son of Lethus the Pelasgian.' It seemsuncertain, from their place in the Trojan Catalogue,whether these Pelasgians were European or Asiatic;nor is it material to which region they belonged.

VI. It is further observable, that Homer implies dis-tinctly the existence of various tribes of Pelasgi underthat same name in various and widely separated places.He says,

ITITIOOOOS 8 &ye (fivXa HeXaaywv iy\e<nn^puvT&V, ol AapCcrcrrjv kpifZti>\aKa vauriovcnv.

Strabo justly observes upon the use of the plural (pv\ain this passage as implying considerable numbers.

The Pelasgians and Larissa. 115

And the words TWV ol in the following line, signifying"namely those Pelasgi, who," show that the poet foundit necessary to use a distinctive mark in order thatthese Pelasgi might not be confounded with other Pe-lasgi. Again, as this is in the Trojan Catalogue, whereas a matter of course no Greeks would be found, hecould hardly need to distinguish them from any Pelasgiconnected with the Greeks, and we may assume it asmost probable that he meant thus to distinguish themfrom other Pelasgi out of Greece rather than in Greece.At the same time, he may have had regard to other Pe-lasgians of Pelasgic Argos. In that country, as we mayconclude with confidence from the appellation itself,they were known to form the bulk of the population,and as we hear of no such Pelasgian mass elsewhere inHomer, he may possibly have had them particularly inhis mind, when he described the Trojan Pelasgians asPelasgians of Larissa.

Some light is also thrown upon the character andhabits of nations by the epithets attached to theirplaces of abode. Homer mentions Larissa but twice:once here, and once where he relates the death ofHippothouS, T^X' airo Aaplo-trris epi/3a>\aicos (Il.Xvii.30i).The fertility of Larissa tends, as far as it goes, to markthe Pelasgi as a people of cultivators, having settledhabits of life.

There is some difficulty, however, connected withthe particular sign which Homer has employed to dis-tinguish these Pelasgians. 'Hippothous led the Pelasgi,those Pelasgi, I mean, who inhabit productive Larissa.'From this it would appear that in the days of Homer,though there were many Pelasgi in various places, therewas but one Larissa. And, accordingly, the namenever appears within the Greece of Homer, either in

1 2

116 II. Ethnology.

the Catalogue, or elsewhere. Yet tradition hands downto us many Larissas, both in Greece and beyond it: andcritics hold it to be reasonably presumed, wherever wefind a Larissa, that there Pelasgi had been settled. Butthis name of Larissa apparently was not, and probablycould not have been, thus largely employed in Homer'stime; for if it had been so, the poet's use of the termLarissa would not have been in this case what he meantit to be, namely, distinctive. Yet the Pelasgians wereeven at that time apparently falling, or even fallen, intodecay. How then could they have built many new citiesin the subsequent ages ? And, except in that way, howcould the name Larissa have revived, and acquired itspeculiar significance ?

In six places of the Iliad we hear of a particularpart of the city of Troy which was built upon a height,and in which the temple of Apollo was situated (v.446}.This affords us an example of a separate name, Tlepyafio?,affixed to a separate part of a city, that part apparentlybeing the citadel. In like manner the citadel of Argos(which stood upon an eminence) had, at a later date, adistinct name, which was Larissa x, and was said to havebeen derived from a daughter of Pelasgus so called y.Now it may have been the general rule to call thecitadels of the Pelasgian towns Larissa. If so, thenwe can readily understand that so long as the townsthemselves, or rather, it might be, the scattered ham-lets, remained, the name of the citadels would be rarelyheard : but when the former fell into decay, the solidmasonry which the Pelasgi used for walls and forpublic buildings, but which did not extend to privatedwellings, would remain. Thus the citadels wouldnaturally retain their own old name, which had been

x Strabo viii. 6. p. 370. y Cramer's Greece, iii. 244.

The Pelasgians and Larissa. 117

originally attached to them with reference to their for-tifications. This hypothesis will fully account for theabsorption of the particular and separate names of townsin the original and common name of their citadels.

Where an agricultural settlement was made uponground, some particular spot of which afforded easymeans of fortification, convenience would probably dic-tate the erection of a citadel for occasional retreat intime of danger, without any attempt to gather closelyinto one place and surround with walls the residencesof the settlers: a measure which, as entailing many dis-advantages, was only likely to take place under thepressure of strong necessity. Such I have presumedto have been the ordinary history of the Pelasgian La-rissas. That which, while it flourished as a Pelasgiansettlement, might be an Argos2, would, perhaps, after aconquest, and the changes consequent upon it, becomeat last a Larissa.

But cases might arise in which the most fertile lands,lying entirely open and level, would, on the one hand,offer peculiar temptations to the spoiler, and, on theother, offer no scarped or elevated spot suitable for aseparate fortification. In such a case the name epiftw-Aa£ would be best deserved, and in such a case toothe probable result would be, to build a walled townincluding all the habitations of the colonists. Thiswalled town would, for the very same reason as thecitadels elsewhere, be itself a Larissa: and thus thisPelasgian name might be a distinctive one in the time ofHomer, and yet might become a common one afterwards.

All this corresponds with the general belief on thetwo points, (i) that the Pelasgians dwelt, as in Attica,

ov, and (a) that the Larissas are Pelasgian.z Inf. sect. viii.

118 II. Ethnology.

But moreover it is supported by particular instances*Troy, for example, had its Pergama on a lofty part ofthe site where it stood : and from the epithets amelvt],6<ppv6ecr<Ta, r/ve^oeaa-a, applied to the name "I\ios but

never to Tpoltj (of course I mean when this latter word isused for the city, the only class of cases in point), it mayjustly be inferred that Ilusa built the Pergama when hemigrated into the plain. But the wall surrounding theentire city was only built in the next generation, underKing Laomedon, who employed Neptune and Apollofor the purpose.

Another, and perhaps more marked instance, is to befound in the case of Thebes. We know from Thucy-didesb that Bceotia was, from its openness and fertility,more liable to revolutions from successive occupancythan other parts of Greece. With this statement apassage of the Odysseyc is in remarkable accordance.Homer tells us that Amphion and Zethus, probablyamong the very earliest Hellic immigrants into MiddleGreece, first settled on the site of Thebes; and, headds specially, that they fortified it. But apparentlyit could not have been the usual practice of the timeto surround entire cities, at least, with fortifications, be-cause he goes on to assign the special reason for itsbeing done in this case, namely, that, even powerful asthey were, they could not hold that country, so open{evpv-xopo?, Od.xi. 2,65) and rich, except with the aid ofwalls. This would appear to be a case like the Aaplo-crt}ept(3a>\a£ of the seventeenth Iliad, and both alike wereprobably exceptions to the general rule.

I have now done with the direct notices of the Pe~lasgi in Homer. But we have still a considerable har-

a II. xx. 215 and seqq. b Thuc. i. cap. 2.c Od. xli. 260-5.

The Arcadians Pelasgian. 119

vest of indirect notices to gather. Particularly, indiscussing the meaning of the name Ionians, we shallhereafter find reason to suppose that Homer's Athe-nians were Pelasgic: and I propose here to refer tosome similar indications with respect to the Arca-dians.

The Arcadians in Homer.Like the Pelasgians, the Arcadians are, as we have

seen, happy in never being mentioned without Homer'scommendation. In Il.ii. 611 they are e-Tntrraixevoi vo-Xefil^eiv. In U.vii. 134 they are ey^etTiiawpoi.

In the Catalogue he also throws some light upon thehabits of the Arcadians: first, by describing them asheavy armed, ayxi/ud^rai: secondly, by stating thatthey had no care for maritime pursuits. In both re-spects their relation to the Trojans is remarkable.With the exception of the Arcadians, the epithet ayyi-fxd^rjrai is nowhere used except for the substantiveAdpSavoi, and the position of the Dardanians in Troasvery much corresponded with that of the Arcadians inGreece. Again, the Trojans, as we know, were so en-tirely destitute of ships, that Paris had to build them byway of special undertaking. These resemblances tendto suggest a further likeness. As the Trojans appear tohave been peculiarly given to the pursuits of peace, itis reasonable to suppose the poet had the same idea ofthe Arcadians. The ayxindyriTai is connected withthe habits of settled cultivators. A peasantry furnishesheavy infantry, while light troops are best formed froma population of less settled habits and ruder manners.And as the use of ships had much less to do withregular commerce than with piracy and war,d so the

d This state of ideas and habits is well illustrated by Odyss. xiv.222-6 : and see inf. sect. 7.

120 II. Ethnobgy.

absence of maritime habits tends, for the heroic age, toimply a pacific character. In those days the princi-pal purpose of easy locomotion was booty: and therewas no easy locomotion for bodies of men, except byships. Though inclosed by hills, Arcadia was a horsefeedinge, therefore relatively not a poor country. Inlater times it was, next to Laconiaf, the most popu-lous province of the Peloponnesus; and even in Homer,although its political position was evidently secondary,it supplied no less than sixty ships with large crews toeachs. All this is favourable to the tradition whichgives it a Pelasgian character.

Again, the Arcadians were commanded by Agapenorthe son of Ancseush. He would appear not to havebeen an indigenous sovereign. For we learn from aspeech of Nestor in the twenty-third Book', that gameswere celebrated at the burial of Amarynceus by theEpeans, in which he himself overcame in wrestlingAncseus the Pleuronian. Ancaeus therefore was not anArcadian but an iEtolian: and his son Agapenor wasprobably either the first Arcadian of his race, or else astranger appointed by Agamemnon to command theArcadians in the Trojan war. Their having ships fromAgamemnon, and a chief either foreign or of non-Ar-cadian extraction, are facts which tend to mark theArcadians as politically dependent, and therefore protanto as Pelasgian : for it cannot be doubted that what-ever in Greece was Pelasgian at the epoch of theTroica, was also subordinate to some race of higherand more effective energies.

Again. It will hereafter (I think) be found that the

e Strabo viii. p. 383. S II. ii. 610.f Xenoph. Hell. vii. 1, 23, and h II. ii. 609.

Cramer iii. 299. i 630-5

The Arcadians Pelasgian.

institution of all gymnastic and martial games wasHellenic and not Pelasgick. In the passage last quotedthere is a very remarkable statement, that there werepresent at the games Epeans, Pylians, and iEtolians:that is to say, all the neighbouring tribes, except theArcadians. Thus we have a strong presumption esta-blished that these games were not congenial to Arca-dian habits : and if the same can be shown from othersources with respect to the Pelasgians, there is a strongpresumption that the Arcadians were themselves Pelas-gian.

Once more. In the sixth book Nestor relates, thatin his youth the Pylians and Arcadians fought near thetown of Pheise and the river Iardanos. The Arcadianswere commanded by Ereuthalion, who wore the armourof Areithous. Areithous had met his death by strata-gem from Lycoorgos, who appropriated the armour, andbequeathed it to his Qepa-wuiv, or companion in arms,Ereuthalion. Nestor, on the part of the Pylians, en-countered Ereuthalion, and by the aid of Minerva de-feated him.

From this tale it would appear, first, that Lycoorguswas king of Arcadia. His name savours of Pelasgianorigin, from its relation to Avuawv of the later traditionrespecting Arcadia, and to Lycaon son of Priam, de-scended by the mother's side from the Leleges; again,to Lycaon the father of Pandarus; possibly also tothe inhabitants of Lycia. The allusion to his havingsucceeded by stratagem only, is very pointed (148),

TOV AvKOOpyos eire<f>ve 80'A.u, OVTL Kpare'C ye,

and the terms employed appear to indicate a militaryinferiority: which accords with the probable relation ofthe Arcadians, as Pelasgi, to their Hellenic neighbours.

k See inf. sect. vii.

II. Ethnology.

And this again corresponds with the close of the story;in which Nestor, fighting on the part of the Pylianswho were Achsean, and therefore Hellenic, conquersthe Arcadian chieftain Ereuthalion (II. vi. 132-56).

It may be remarked once for all, that this militaryinferiority is not to be understood as if the Pelasgiwere cowards, but simply as implying that they gaveway before tribes of more marked military genius orhabits than themselves; as at Hastings the Saxons didbefore the Normans ; or as the Russians did in the latewar of 1854-6 before the Western armies.

Lastly, the Sios applied to Ereuthalion (II. v. 319),accords with the use of that epithet for the Pelasgielsewhere.

Thus a number of indications from Homer, slightwhen taken separately, but more considerable whencombined, and drawn from all the passages in whichHomer refers to Arcadia, converge upon the suppositionthat the Arcadians were a Pelasgian people.

They are supported by the whole stream of later tra-dition ; which placed Lycaon, son of Pelasgus, in Ar-cadia, which uniformly represented the Arcadians asautochthonic1, and which made them competitors witlithe Argives for the honour of having given to the Pe-lasgians their original seat in the Peloponnesus.

Here too philology steps in, and lends us some smallaid. The name of n.poai\r}vot, which the Arcadianstook to themselves, and which is assumed to mean olderthan the moon, appears, when so understood, to ex-press a very forced idea : it is difficult indeed to con-ceive how such a name could even creep into use.But if we refer its origin to -rpo and ZeXXot or ZeAA^e?,it then becomes the simple indication of the historical

1 Xenoph. Hell . vii. 1. 23 .

The Arcadians Pelasgian.

fact we are looking for, namely, that they, a Pelasgicpopulation, occupied Arcadia before any of the Hellicor Sellic races had come into the Peloponnesus.

From its rich pastures, Arcadia was originally welladapted for Pelasgian inhabitants. Defended bymountains, it oflFered, as Attica did through the povertyof its soil, an asylum to the refugees of that race, whendispossessed from other still more fertile, and perhapsalso more accessible tracts of the Peloponnesus m. Henceit is easy to account both for its original Pelasgian cha-racter, and for the long retention of it.

We seem then to find the Arcadians of Homer(first) politically dependent, and (secondly) commandedby a foreigner, but yet (thirdly) valiant in war. Itwould thus appear that what they wanted was not ani-mal or even moral courage, but the political and govern-ing element, which is the main element in high martialtalent. All this we shall find, as we already have insome degree found, to be a Pelasgian portraiture. Andif it should seem to have been drawn with the aid ofconjecture, let it at any rate be observed that it issupported by the Arcadian character in the historicages. They appear from various indications to havebeen for many generations the Swiss of Greece: notproducing great commanders, and obscure enough, untila very late date, in the political annals of the country,but abounding in the materials of a hardy soldiery, andtaking service with this or that section of the Greeksas chance might dictate. For in Xenophon they boastthat when any of the Greeks wanted auxiliaries (<?7r/-Kovpot) they came to Arcadia to obtain them: that theLacedaemonians took them into company when they in-vaded Attica, and that the Thebans did the very same

m Thuc. i. 2.

124 II. Ethnology.

when they invaded Lacedsemon n. And Thucydides tellsus that, in the Sicilian war, the Mantineans, with a por-tion of their brother Arcadians, fought for hire withthe Athenians on one side, while another contingentfrom the very same State assisted the Corinthians, whohad come in force to aid in the defence of Syracuseagainst them".

Two other circumstances, slight in themselves, stillremain for notice.

i. It was through the authority and practice of theRomans that the name of Greeks or Graians came ul-timately to supplant that of Hellenes. Out of this fact,which is the most important piece of evidence in ourpossession, arises the presumption, that as it was thePelasgians who may be said to have supplied the mainlink between Greece and Italy, and between the Hel-lenic and the Roman language, the Graians could notbut have been a branch or portion of that people.Now we know that the Pelasgians were cultivators ofthe plains. Boeotia is, as we have seen, indicated byThucydides P as the richest plain 1 of Greece, and onthat account among the parts most liable to the displace-ment of their inhabitants. It was therefore probably aplain where the Pelasgi would have settled early and innumbers: and it deserves notice, that the Catalogue1",placing the town of Graia in Boeotia, places it where wenaturally assume a large, though now, as in Thessaly,subordinate Pelasgian population to have existed.

Nor is the passage in which Aristotle notices theTpaiKoi adverse to the belief that they were a Pelasgianrace. He states that the deluge of Deucalion was in the

n Xenoph. Hellen. vii. i. 23. q See also Muller, Orchomenus0 Thucyd. vii. 57. p. 77, and his references.P B . i. 2. r l l . ii. 498.

The Oraians: the Pelasgians and Ceres. 125

ancient Hellas: which is the country reaching from Do-dona to the Achelous (avrrj S' eariv i) irepl rqv Aw8u>vi]v

Kal rov 'AyeXwov). This may include either great part,or the whole, of Thessaly: whether we understand it ofthe little and Thessalian Achelous, near Lamia, whichwas within thirty stadia of the Spercheuss: or of thegreat Achelous, which skirted the western border ofthat country, and whose line of tributaries was fed fromthe slopes of Pindus. If we understand the Dodona ofEpirus, this will give a considerable range of country,all of it outside Thessaly. Aristotle proceeds tosay, that there dwelt the Selli, and those then calledTpaiKol but now Hellenes («u ol KaXov/xevoi Tore /mevTpaiKol vvv ( "EXAj/i/e?). Thus he describes as Tpaucoithose who, together with the Selli, were the inhabitantsof the country that Homer calls Pelasgic Argos: so thataccording to him the Tpaucdi were not Sellic: and thetime, when they were thus neighbours of the Selli, wasthe pre-Hellenic time. This is nearly equivalent to anassertion by Aristotle that the Graians were Pelasgic,for we know of no other pre-Hellenic race in Thessaly*.

2. In vv. 695, 6 we find that (Tlvpao-os) Pyrasus inThessaly (probably deriving its name from wvpos wheat,grain), is described as Arj^rpo^ refxevos: and it is theonly ground consecrated to Ceres that Homer men-tions. It is material that this should be in Thessaly,the especially Pelasgic country: for both-slight noticesin Homer, and much of later tradition, connect thePelasgi in a peculiar manner with the worship of thatdeity. For example, Pausanias mentions a temple ofArj/tr/Ttip Ue\aa-yhn at Corinth even in his own time.This connection in its turn serves to confirm the cha-racter of the Pelasgi as a rural and agricultural people.

8 Strabo ix. p. 433. * Aristot. Meteorol. i. 14.a P a u s . i i . 22. 2.

126 II. Ethnology.

So far as this part of the evidence of Homer is con-cerned, it goes to this only, that with the aid of Hesiodit serves to exhibit Ceres in direct relations with twocountries; both withThessaly,and, as will now be shown,with Crete; in which also, as we know from Homer(brought down by Hesiod to a later date), the Pelas-gian name still remained when it had apparently beensubmerged elsewhere in Greece; and in which there-fore it may be inferred that the Pelasgian element wasmore than usually strong and durable.

In the fifth Odysseyx we are told that Ceres fell inlove with a son of Iasus (Iasion, in Hesiod Iasios), whomshe met veiw evl rpnroXcp; in what country Homer doesnot say, but Hesiod, repeating the story, adds it was inCrete, Kp^rrjs £v TT'LOVI Srj/jupy. Thus the double connec-tion is made good.

Over and above this, the name Iasus goes of itselfto establish a Pelasgian origin.

1. Because "laa-ov "Apyo? is an old name for the Pe-loponnesus, or else a large portion of it; whereas theHellenic name was, as we know,''A- atKov"'Apyof. Andthe'Iaa-/(5ai reigned in Orchomenus2 two or three gene-rations before the Neleids. This probably touches aperiod when no Hellic tribes had, as far as we know,found their way into the Peloponnesusa, and when thedynasties even of the middle and north were, as is pro-bable, chiefly Pelasgian.

2. Because "Ia<ro?b was the name of one of the Athe-nian leaders, and the Athenians were, as we shall find,manifestly Pelasgian. His father Sphelus is also theson of Boucolus, a name which will be shown to be ofPelasgic and not Hellenic character0.

x Od. v. 125. a S e e inf s e c t g.y Hesiod. Theog. 971. b II. xv. 3 32, 7.z Od. xi. 281-4. c Inf. sect. vi.

The Ionians.

3. Because Dmetor the son of lasus was the rulerof Cyprus at the epoch of the Troica, and that islandseems to have stood in an anomalous relation of half-dependence to Agamemnon, which is best capable ofexplanation if we suppose it to have been inhabited bya population still retaining its Pelasgian character. Tothis question I shall shortly have occasion to return ina more full consideration of the case of Cyprus.

Of later tradition, there is abundance to connectCeres with the Pelasgians: their character as tillers ofthe soil, and hers as the giver of grain: the worship ofher at Eleusis, dating from time immemorial, and pur-porting to be founded upon rites different from thosein vogue at a later epoch: this too taken in connectionwith the Pelasgian origin of Athens, and its long re-tention of that character. In the ancient hymn toCeres, estranged from Jupiter and the other gods, shecomes to Eleusis, and there herself founds the worship;and she announces in her tale that she was come fromCrete:

vvv avre KprjT-qdev, eir evpea v&ra 0a\air<rr)s,

ijKvdov, OVK e6eAov<ra& '

I even venture to suggest it as possible that theexistence of a re/uevos (or land devoted to the service ofany deity) at all, affords a presumption of a Pelasgicpopulation and institutions. For we find only threeother cases of such endowments : all in places stronglymarked with a Pelasgic character. One is that of theriver Sperchius in Thessaly: a second that of Venus inCyprus; and the third that of Jupiter in Gargaruse.

The Ionians.

The notices of the Ionians contained in Homer areA Hymn,Cer. 123. e H.xxiii. 148. Od.viii.362. Il.viii.48.

128 II. Ethnology.

faint and few: but they are in entire contradiction withthe prevailing tradition.

The word 'Idoves occurs only once in the poems,where we find the five contingents of Boeotians, Ionians,Locrians, Phthians, and Epeans, united in resisting, butineffectually, Hector's attack upon the ships. They arehere termed eXKe^Tooves1, an epithet which is unfortu-nately nowhere else employed by the poet. The orderin which they are named is,

i. Boeotians, i. Ionians, 3. Locrians,4. Phthians, 5. Epeans.

A description thus commences in three parts, of whichthe first is (689-91),

ot fikv 'AOrjvaCcav irpoXel\.eyiJt.ivoi' kv 8' apa roicnvrjp\ vtos Yierf&o, Mevecrdevs' 01 8' a/*' errovro4>eiSas re 2TJ)(IOS re, Bias r ei5s"

The second describes the leaders of the Epeans: thethird of the Phthians, and these, it says, meaning appa-rently the Phthian force, fought in conjunction withthe Boeotians, fxera HOKOTWV e/xayovro (700). No Boeo-tian leaders are named: the absence of Oilean Ajax,who officially led the Locrians, is immediately accountedfor by saying that he was with his inseparable friend,the Telamonian chief.

These 'Iaove? e\/ce /TWi/e? then were the TrpoXeXey/uevoi,

a chosen band of the Athenian force; or else they werethe force composed of men picked among the Athe-nians. But no distinguished quality or act of war is re-counted of the Athenians, either here or elsewhere in theIliad. They are simply called Mcrruipes avrrj?,s but thisis a mere general epithet, has no reference to any par-ticular conduct, and is not sustained by any relation oftheir feats in arms. The five divisions above namedfight in order to be beaten by the Trojans: and we

f II. xiii. 635. g II. iv. 328.

The Athenians in the Catalogue. 129

may be sure that Homer does not produce the flowerof the Greeks for such a purpose. Nor has their chiefMenestheus any distinction whatever accorded to him,even in the much questioned passage of the Catalogue,except that of being excellent at marshalling forces.

The passage II. ii. 546-56, describing the Atheniansin the Catalogue, is of so much historical interestthrough the various points it involves, as to deserve aparticular consideration, which it may best receive inthis place. Upon it depends some part of the Homericevidence relating to the signs of a Pelasgian origin.

Three lines of it must in any case be allowed to re-main, in order to describe the Athenian contingent andits commander.

01 8' ap 'AQrfvas f?X0V> cvnTiixevov irroXUOpov... (v. 546.)T&V avO' fjye[/.6vev vlos ITereaio Meve&Bevs. (552-)

7"<3 8' &fia TTfVTriKovTa fii\aivai vrjes eirovro. (55^-)

To the supposition that this jejune minimum repre-sents the passage in its original form, it is certainly anobjection, that in no other place of the whole Cataloguehas Homer dispatched quite so drily and summarily anyimportant division of the force.

The remainder of the passage falls into three por-tions, of which the first is separable from the twoothers, and the first with the second is also separablefrom the third. They are as follows:

(i)—w. 546-9.01 8' ap 'AOrivas ft\ov, ivKTinevov TiroMeOpov,brjtxov 'E/jex^ijos /^eyaAjjropoj, ov wor' 'AOyvr]0pi\j/e Aios dvyarrjp, re/ce 8e fetScopos "Apovpa,Kab 8' ev 'Ad-qvrjcr elaev, 1(5 evl •ni.ovi vrjai.

There is a reading of 'AOyvw for 'Adyvrjer': it is dis-puted whether Te«? applies to Srj/xov or to Erechtheus;whether eu> is to be understood of Erechtheus or of

K

180 II. Ethnology.

Minerva; and again, what is the meaning of irlovi asapplied to VTJW ? The variety of lection is not material:the application of rke is clearly to Erechtheus, as seemsalso that of e£ to Minerva11. Again, the application of theepithet TTIOVI to the temple is perhaps sufficiently sup-ported by Od. xii. 346, irlova vtjov, and II. v. 512, fxd\aTTIOVOS e£ aSvTOio.

It does not appear that these lines, or the two whichfollow, were rejected by the Alexandrian critics, butthe Pseudo-Herodotus, in the Life of Homer, c. 28,states that they were interpolated.

The objections from internal evidence are stated byPayne Knight'.

1. That the Greeks had no temples at the time ofthe Troica.

2. That as "Apovpa is superficies non orbis Terrce, soit was not a known personification at the time ofHomer.

As to the first of these, we hear of Trojan templesin the Iliad ; probably also of the Greek temple ofApollo in II. ix. 404; and of Greek temples in theOdyssey, beyond all reasonable doubt. We hear ofiEtolian priests in II. ix. 575; while it is not likely thatthere should have been priests without temples.

Again, the circumstances of the Greeks in the Iliadwere not such as to lead to the mention of templesusually or frequently. Therefore this is not a groundof suspicion against the passage.

As to the second objection, it should be borne inmind that the Earth, Yala, as well as "Apovpa, wasapparently to Homer, not less than to the other an-cients, a surface, not a solid {tcvKkorepri's <!>? curb ropvov,Herod, iv. 36.) The objection really is, that "Apovpa

h Heyne in loc. > In loc.

The Athenians in the Catalogue. 131

means a particular class of ground, namely, arable orcultivable land; and that to personify this class of landby itself is artificial, far-fetched, and not in the mannerof Homer.

To me it appears clear that it would be unnatural forus, but very doubtful whether it was so for Homer. Wecould not in poetry well treat Corn-field or Garden asa person: but the corn-bearing Earth (QlSwpos "Apovpa)had for the Greeks in their early days a vividness ofmeaning, which it has not for us. To us, to the modernEuropean mind, the gifts of Ceres are but one item inan interminable list of things enjoyable and enjoyed :to man when yet youthful, while in his first ruder eon-tact with his mother Earth and the elements, whilepossessed of few instruments and no resources, this ideawas as determinate, as it was likewise suggestive andpoetical. The Latins have no word by which to renderthe word "Apovpa in its full meaning, though arvummust have been taken from it, or from the same rootwith it. It nearly corresponds with the English 'glebe'in its proper useJ. It signifies not only corn land, butall productive land, for instance, vine land, in II. iii. 246.But to them, so pregnant was the idea, that besides acrop of epithets such as Tro\v<pop/3o$ and rpa<pepij, itthrew off its own inverted image in the epithet, habi-tual with Homer, of arpvyeros for QaXaa-aa, the un-cornbearing sea. Now when the idea of corn landhad been thus vividly conceived, the next step, that ofviewing "Apovpa as Yala, was one not very hard to take.The objection seems to arise out of our unconsciously

j From the Greek fiSiKos, according to Richardson, who quotesThe Fox (v. 2.)

If ItalyHave any glebe, more fruitful than these fallows,I am deceived.

K 1

132 II. Ethnology.

reading Homer in the false light of our own familiarassociations.

His text affords evidence in support of these views.May it not be said that the phrase irdrpis"Apovpak forpatria shows us a great step towards personification ?In the New/a (Od. xi. 489), eirdpovpo? is equivalent to' alive;' compare II. xvii. 447. Again, Ulysses, the mo-ment he escapes from the river mouth to the shore,kisses the ^elSwpos "Apovpa1 among the reeds: whichseems to show an use of the term nearly synonymouswith Tata or earth. And again, praying for the gloryof Alcinousm, he says,

TOV fxev Kev « r t {eflkopov &povpav

&<r(3«TTov K\COS ety.

The fame of Alcinous could not be confined to fields.So the setting sun casts shadows oh the epifiw\os"ApovpaT'.In both cases the term so approximates to the meaningof Earth, doubtless by metonymy, as to be indistin-guishable from it. Again II. iv. 174, aeo $' oarea Trvcrei"Apovpa. Surely the meaning here is Earth, for weare not to suppose Homer meant to say the bodies ofhis warriors would lie on the cultivable land only. Butanother passage brings us up to actual personification,that respecting Otus and Ephialtes

o#s 8rj jj.r]KC<TTOvs 6ph\n £e£8&>pos"Apovpa0'.

This objection to "Apovpa therefore will not hold good:and the passage cannot be condemned upon internalevidence. It is referred to by Plato, in the first Alci-biadesP.

(2)—Vss.550,1.

fvd6Ze piv Tavpoicri Kal apvewis ikaovrai

novpoi 'AdtjvaCmv, 7repireAAo/i(,e'i>&)i> iviavT&v.

k Od. i. 407. ' Od. v. 463. m Od. vii. 332.n II. xxi. 232. 0 Od. xi. 309. P. (ii. I 3 2 Serr. Steph.)

The Athenians in the Catalogue. 133

Some refer fi.iv to Minerva, and construe the passagewith reference to the Panathenaic celebration. Whenso interpreted, as it is contended, the words betray apalpable anachronism.

Again it is alleged, (i) Homer does not in the Cata-logue introduce general descriptions of the religiousrites of Greece, and it is scarcely likely he should men-tion here a celebration, which he does not report tohave had anything peculiar in its character. (2) Fromxi. 729 it appears that cows were sacrificed to Minerva,not bulls: (3) the tenour of the sentence directs us toErechtheus, and it involves worship offered to a localhero.

With respect to the Panathenaica, a difficulty wouldundoubtedly arise, if we were obliged to suppose thatit contained a reference to gymnastic games, which wehave every reason to treat as having borne in the ageof Homer a marked Hellenic character^. But the wordsimply no such reference. They speak, at the most, ofno more than periodical sacrifices. This implies anestablished festival, and nothing beyond it. Now sucha signification raises no presumption whatever againstthe genuineness of the passage: because we have onedistinct and unquestionable case in Homer of an esta-blished festival of a deity, that namely of Apollo in theOdyssey. The day of the vengeance of Ulysses wast h e eopTT] TOIO Qeoio a.yvriT.

So considering the passage, let us next examine theobjection taken to it, that it involves hero-worship5,which was not known in the Homeric age.

Now we have in the Odyssey, as well as here in theIliad, cases of mortals translated to heaven and to thecompany of immortals.

1 Inf. sect. 7. r Od. xxi. 255. s Payne Knight in loc.

134 II. Ethnology.

In the Odyssey we have, for example, the case ofCastor and Pollux, who enjoyed a peculiar privilege oflife after death, and revisited earth in some mysteriousmanner on alternate days*. And this, too, althoughthey were buried".

Their TIM TTJOO? Ziyi/oy was such that, as the passagein Od. xi. proceeds to state, they vied with deities;

rijii]v bi \e\6yxa<r Iva Oeoioiv.

This TIM must have included honour paid on earth:to be in heaven, unless in connection with earth andits inhabitants, was not of itself a rl/xv, much less wasit the TIM of the gods. The subject of hero-wor-ship will be further examined in a later portion ofthis work: but for the present it appears sufficiently,that this comes near to hero-worship. The passageabout Erechtheus is no more than a development ofthe expression relating to the Tyndarid brothers; and,though by some steps in advance of it, can hardly berejected on this ground alone as spurious. All passagescannot be expected to express with precisely the samedegree of fulness the essential ideas on which they arefounded; and we are not entitled to cut off, on thatground alone, the one which happens to be most inadvance.

But although the application to Erechtheus mightnot convict the passage, I very much question whetherwe ought so to apply it. It is quite against thegeneral bearing of the passage, which would much morenaturally refer it to Minerva. The reason for it is thatcows or heifers were offered to her, and not rams orbulls. No doubt, in the particular cases mentioned tous, (II. vi. 94, x. 292, xi. 729, and Od. iii. 382,) cows orheifers only are spoken of. But in Od. iii. 145 we are

' Od, xi. 302-4. u II. iii. 243.

The Athenians in the Catalogue. 135

told that ettaTonfiai were to be offered to her, which wecan hardly limit so rigidly: and considering that thecases of cows mentioned by Homer are all special,while this passage speaks of what was ordinary andperiodical, I think we should pause before admittingthat the application of the lines to Minerva is on thisground indefensible.

The word irepneKKofi€vwvy is taken to mean not an-nual revolutions, but the revolutions of periods of years.I question the grounds of this interpretation : but, if itcould be established, it would certainly rather weakenthe passage; for Homer nowhere else mentions period-ical celebrations of any kind divided by any number ofyears, and I doubt whether such an idea does not in-volve greater familiarity with numerical combinationsthan the Poet seems to have possessed.

Leaving these two lines subject to some doubt, butby no means fully convicted, let us proceed to the thirdand last of the contested portions of the passage.

(3)—Vss. .553-5.TW 5' oi/wo) rts O/AOIOS im\06vios yivef avrjpKoanrjcrai vrrnovs re nai avepas aavibuiras'Ne'orcop 010s epifef 6 yap irpoyetwTepos rjev.

These lines were condemned by Zenodotusw, uponthe ground that we have no other mention of thesegifts of Menestheus, and no example of his puttingthem in exercise. Mr. Payne Knightx also urges thatMenestheus, here so commended with respect to cha-riots as well as infantry, does not even appear as acompetitor in the chariot-race at the funeral games ofPatroclus, although, in order to enlarge the competition,even the slow horses of Nestor are put in requisition.

v Eustath, in loc. et alii. "' Schol. A. in lot-. * In loc.

136 II. Ethnology.

The Scholiast answers, with regard to the first ob-jection, and Heyney accepts the defence as sufficient,that other persons are praised in the gross, of whom nodetails are given anywhere: as Machaon is called api-o-Tevwv in II. xi. 506. But a mere general epithet isvery different from a set passage of three lines express-ing extraordinary preeminence in particular accom-plishments.

Again, the word applied to Machaon is by no meansone of abstract panegyric, but is itself a description ofthe activity in the field by which he was at the momentbaffling the energies of Hector, and would, says thePoet, have continued to baffle them, had not Pariswounded him. Thus the word is not a vague epithet:the words iravaev apicrreiiovra Mcr dcx/a simply mean, thatthe manful exertions of Machaon were arrested.

There is another objection to the passage in the ra-ther inflated character of its compliment to an undis-tinguished man. Even Nestor2, it says, did not beathim, but only (epi^ev) vied with him: and this not asan abler, but only as an older, man.

On the other hand, some of the Scholiasts ingeniouslysuggest that these verses are given to Menestheus byway of compensation ; TOVTO ^apvCeTai CLVTW, evel firj ev-

SoKtufoei iv TCU? /ua^at?a. But Homer does not usuallydeal out compensation, among the Greeks, by abstractpraises, for the want of the honour earned by deeds:and all the other martial eulogies on chiefs in theCatalogue are well borne out in the poem.

On the whole, Mr. Payne Knight's objection, andthe judgment of the Alexandrine Critics, seem to leavethis part of the passage in a state so questionable, thatnothing ought to be rested on it. The best point in

y Obss. in loc. z Eustath. in loc. » Schol. BL. in loc..

Review of the Homeric evidence. 137

its favour is, that the Athenian Legates before Gelonare represented by Herodotus as confidently relying onit, when there would have been an interest on his partin demurring to its authority, for it was a question ofmilitary precedence that was at issue : TWV KOI "O/mr/pos6 67T07rotos avSpa apicrTOv e<prj<re els "IXiov cnruceaQai, Ta^ai

re Kai SiaKocrfjirjo-ai (TTparovb.

On the other hand, it may be observed with justicethat the compliment here paid to Menestheus is thevery best of which the case admitted ; perhaps the onlyone that an interpolator would have been safe in se-lecting. For he would have known that any panegyricrelating to strength or prowess in action would be con-clusively belied by the rest of the poem in its entiretenour.

But while we cannot confidently rely upon thesethree lines, there appears to be no reason why weshould not use the evidence supplied by the rest of thepassage as most probably good historic matter. It un-doubtedly represents a strong course of old local tra-dition": for there was in Athens a most ancient templededicated to Minerva and Erechtheus in conjunction.

The Homeric evidence then up to this point standsas follows with reference to Athens and the Atheniancontingent, or the principal and picked men of it, which-ever be the best term for the passage. They were

1. Ionians, II. xiii. 685.2. e\Ke)(iTU)vei, ibid.

3. Autochthonous, II. ii. 547.4. Undistinguished in the war.5. Under the special patronage of Pallas or Minerva,

II. ii. 546, and Od. xi. 323, where the epithet lepdcov,given to Athens, indicates a special relation to a deity.

b Herod, vii. 161. c Lord Aberdeen's Inquiry, p. 100.

138 II. Ethnology.

The epithet eX/cexmw/es suggests unwarlike habits,and, though more faintly, it also betokens textile in-dustry. It stands in marked contrast with the ctfurpo-XiTwves* of the valiant Lycians, whose short and sparetunic required no cincture to confine it. It corrobo-rates the negative evidence afforded by the Iliad ofsome want of martial genius in the primitive Athens.It coincides with the tutelage of Pallas, for the Minervaof Homer has no more indisputable function than asthe goddess of skilled industrye. All this tends tobetoken that the inhabitants of the Homeric Atticawere Pelasgian.

Again, the autochthonic origin, ascribed to the Athe-nians in the person of Erechtheus, amounts to an asser-tion that they were the first known inhabitants of thecountry: in other words, that they were Pelasgian.

The negative evidence is also important. There isnothing in Homer that tends to associate Athens withthe Hellenic stem. The want of military distinctiondeserves a fuller notice.

It can hardly be without meaning, that of all thechiefs, considerable in the Iliad by their positions andcommands, there are but two who are never named asin actual fight, or with any other mark of distinction,and these two are the heads of the two (as we suppose)emphatically Pelasgian contingents, from Athens andArcadia respectively. Agapenor, who (being howeverof iEtolian extraction) leads the Arcadians, is namednowhere but in the Catalogue: Menestheus is repeat-edly named, but never with reference to fighting. Inthe only part of the action of the poem where he isput forward, he shuddersf, and shows an anxiety for hispersonal safety, much more like a Trojan leader than a

d II. xvi. 419. e See Od. xx. 72. f II. xii. 331.

Review of the Homeric evidence. 139

Greek one. Yet they were sole commanders, the firstof no less than sixty ships, the second of fifty. There areno similar cases. The nearest to them are those (i) ofProthousS, who commands 40 ships of the Magnesians,and Gourieush, who leads 11 of the Enienes and Per-rhsebi: both of these are remote, Thessalian, and veryprobably Pelasgian tribes: (2) of Podarkes, who com-mands 40 ships, but only as deputy for his deceasedbrother Protesilaus, who is said to have been not onlythe elder, but the more valiant1.

Agapenor, indeed, was evidently dependent in a pe-culiar sense on Agamemnon, in whose ships he sailed :but this could not affect his position as to personalprowess. The case of Menestheus is the more remark-able from this circumstance, that he is the only inde-pendent and single commander in charge of so many asfifty ships, who is not invested with the supreme rankof Bao-iXevs or King. His father Peteos is howevercalled Aiorpeiptji fiacn\ev$ (II. iv. 338), which marks himas having probably been a person of greater importance.

And what is true of the commanders is true also ofthe troops. Athens, and with her Arcadia, may justlybe regarded as the only two undistinguished in Homeramong those states of Greece which afterwards attainedto distinction. For among the States which acquiredfame in the historic ages, Argolis, Achaia, and Laconiahold through their chiefs very high places in the poem:Elis and Boeotia are conspicuous in the anterior tradi-tions which it enshrines. Only Attica and Arcadiafail in exhibiting to us signs of early pre-eminence inthe arts of war: which in a marked manner confirmsthe suppositions we have already obtained, as to thePelasgian character of their inhabitants.

S II. ii. 756. h II. ii. 748. • Ibid. 703-7.

140 II. Ethnology.

A sign, though a more uncertain one, that points inthe same direction, is afforded by the choice of Athens,on the part of OrestesJ, as his place of habitation dur-ing the tyranny of iEgisthus in Mycenae. The dis-placed, if they do not fly to the strong for protection,go among those who are weaker, and where they maymost easily hold their ground, or even acquire powerafresh. In other words, in the case before us, an Hel-lenic exile would very naturally betake himself amonga Pelasgian people.

While however the indications of a predominatingPelasgian character among the Athenians at the epochof the Troica appear to be varied and powerful, I mustadmit that they are crossed by one indication, which isat first sight of an opposite character, I mean thatwhich is afforded by their name. Even though wewere to surrender the entire passages in the Cataloguerespecting them, it would still be difficult to contendthat the name of Athens and of Athenians is forged insix other places of the poems where one or the otherof them is found, besides that there is a second allusionto Erechtheus in the Odyssey. Here we have then,attached to a people whom we suppose Pelasgian, aname connecting them immediately with a deity com-monly reputed to be of strong Hellic propensities:connecting them, indeed, in a manner so special as tobe exclusive, because no other city or population inHomer takes its name from a deity at all. This indi-cates a relation of the closest description: and it isquite independent of the suspected passage, which re-presents Minerva as the nurse or foster-mother ofErechtheus.

Now it will be found, upon close examination, thatj Od. iii. 307.

Athenian relations with Minerva. 141

Minerva plays a very different part in the Iliad fromJuno, the great protectress of the Greeks, and fromNeptune, their actual comrade in fight. The differenceeven at first sight is this, that theirs appears to be anational, hers more a personal and moral sentiment.In Juno, it is sympathy with the Greeks as Greeks;in Neptune, antipathy to the Trojans as Trojans: butboth cases are plainly distinguishable from the temperand attitude of Minerva.

Her protection of Ulysses, whose character is thehuman counterpart of her own, is the basis of the wholetheurgy of the Odyssey, and is also strongly marked inthe AoXwveia. Again, she comes, in the first bookk, atthe instance of Juno, to restrain and guide Achilles : forJuno, it is stated, loved both Agamemnon and Achillesalike; which may imply, that this was not the exact casewith Minerva. So again, she inspires Diomed1 for thework of his apia-Teia, with a view to his personal dis-tinction™. On each of the two occasions when the twogoddesses come down together from heaven, it is Junothat makes the proposal. When Minerva promptsPandarus to treachery, it is by the injunction of Jupi-ter, issued on the suggestion of Juno". In the seventhbook, however, she descends of herself on seeing thatthe Greeks lose ground, tells Apollo that she was come,as he was, with the intention to stay the battle0, and theresult of their counsel is one of the single fights (thatbetween Hector and Ajax), which were sure to issue inglory to the Greek heroes. Still she has not the rabidvirulence against Troy which distinguishes Juno, whichmakes her exact the decision for its destruction in theOlympian assembly, and which leads Jupiter to say to

k II. i. 194. ] II. v. 1-8. m V. 2,3.» II. iv. 64-74. ° II. vii. 34.

142 IT. Ethnology.

her sarcastically, that if she could but eat Priam andhis children and subjects raw, then her anger would besatiated.

In fact, Juno has all the marks of a deity entirelyHellic: both in the passionate character of her attach-ment, and in the absence of all signs whatever of anypractical relation between her and the Trojan people.

It is not so with Pallas. Pitilessly opposed to theTrojans in the war, she is nowhere so identified withthe Greeks as to exhibit her in the light of one of thosedeities, whose influence or sympathies were confined toany one place or nation. Her enmity to Troy is my-thologically founded on the Judgment of Paris P: but ithas a more substantive ethical ground in the nature ofthe quarrel between the two countries.

Unlike Juno and Neptune, she was regularly wor-shipped at Troy, where she had a priestess of highrank, and a temple placed, like that of Apollo, on theheight of Pergamus.

Distinct proof, however, that Minerva was neitheroriginally at war with the Trojans, nor unknown tothem by her beneficial influences, is afforded by thecase of Phereclus son of Harmonides, the carpenter ;this Phereclus was the builder of the ships of Paris,and was a highly skilled workman 1 by her favour,

The name of Harmonides may be fictitious; but therelation to Pallas deserves remark, if we assume Troyto have been fundamentally Pelasgian; and it affordsa strong presumption, that there was nothing in thecharacter of Minerva to prevent her being propitiousto a Pelasgian country. Her attributes as the goddessof industry, or more strictly, in our phrase, of manu-

P II. xxiv. 25-30. q II. v. 59.

Athenian relations with Minerva. 143

facture, were indeed in no special harmony with thecharacter of the Pelasgians, as she had nothing to dowith works of agriculture: but neither was there anyantagonism between them.

There is also something that deserves notice in thespeech in which Minerva expresses to Juno her resent-ment at the restraint put upon her by Jupiter. Sheaccuses him of forgetting the services she had so oftenrendered to Hercules when he was oppressed by thelabours that Eurystheus had laid upon him, and de-clares that it was she who effected his escape fromHadesr. Now this has all the appearance of being thefabulous dress of the old tradition, which reports thatthe children of Hercules had taken refuge in Attica,and had been harboured there; that Eurystheus invadedthe country in consequence of the protection thusgiven, and that he was slain while upon the expedition.It seems therefore possible, that this reception of theHeraclids may have had something to do with thespecial relation, at the epoch of the Troica, betweenAthens and Minerva as its tutelary goddess? In con-nection with Hercules personally, the Iliad affords usanother mark that friendly relations might subsist be-tween Troy and Pallas. She, in conjunction withthem,

Tp&es Kal Tl&Was 'AOrjirq*,

erected the rampart in which Hercules took refugefrom the pursuing monster.

But the full answer to the objection is of a widerscope, and is to be found in the general character ofthis deity, which did not, like inferior conceptions,admit of being circumscribed by the limits of a parti-cular district or people.

•" II. viii. 362-9 : cf. Od. xi. 626. 3 II. xx. 146.

144 II. Ethnology.

It will hereafter be shewn, that, like Latona andApollo in particular, Minerva in Pagan fiction repre-sents a disguised and solitary fragment of the trueprimeval tradition*. All such deities we may expectto find, and we do find, transmitted from the old Pelas-gians into the mythologies both of Greece and Rome,or those common to Pelasgian and Hellene. We expectto find, and we do find, them worshipped both amongthe Greeks and among the Trojans as gods, not of thisor that nation, but of the great human family. In theory,exclusive regard to the one side or the other comportsfar better with the idea of such deities as representunruly passions or propensities of our nature like Marsand Venus, or Mercury; or chief physical forces likeNeptune; or such as, like Juno, are the sheer productof human imagination reflected upon the world above,and have no relation to any element or part of a truetheology. But the Homeric Jupiter, in so far as he isa representative of supreme power and unity, and thePallas and Apollo of the poems by a certain moral ele-vation, and by various incidents of their birth or attri-butes, show a nobler parentage".

In the capacity of a traditive deity, Minerva is withperfect consistency worshipped alike among Trojansand Greeks, Hellenic and Pelasgian tribes. There isnothing strange, then, in our finding her the patronessof a Pelasgian people. The only strangeness is herbeing (if so she was) more specially their patroness thanof any other people. The very fact that, for the pur-poses of the war, Homer gives her to the Greeks, mightperhaps have prepared us to expect that we should findher special domicile among the Hellic portions of thatnation: but it supplies no absolute and conclusive reason

* See inf. Religion and Morals, Sect. II. u Vid. inf. as before.

Post-Homeric evidence. 145

for such a domicile. But I close the discussion withthese observations. In the first place, the Pelasgiancharacter of the Athenians in early times is establishedby evidence too strong to be countervailed by any suchinference as we should be warranted in drawing to acontrary effect from the special connection with Mi-nerva. Again, it may be that the connection of bothwith Hercules may contain a solution of the difficulty.But lastly, if, as we shall find reason to believe, thetraditive deities were the principal gods of ancientGreece, and if the entrance of the Hellic tribes broughtin many new claimants upon the divine honours, it mayafter all seem not unreasonable that we should find, inone of the most purely Pelasgian States, the worship ofthis great traditive deity less obscured than elsewhereby competition with that of the invaders, and conse-quently in more peculiar and conspicuous honour.

An examination of the etymology of certain namesin Homer will hereafter, I trust, confirm these reason-ings on the Athens of the heroic age: with this excep-tion, we may now bid adieu to the investigation of theHomeric evidence of Pelasgianism in* Attica.

That evidence certainly receives much confirmation,positive and negative, from without. In the first place,though Hesiod supplies us with an Hellen, and with aDorus and iEolus among his sons, he says not a wordof an Ion; and the tradition connecting Ion withHellen through Xuthus is of later date : probably laterthan Euripides, who makes Ion only the adopted sonof Xuthus an Achaeanx, and the real son of Creusa, anErectheid; with Apollo, a Hellic, but also a Pelasgiandeity, for his father. Again, in the legendary timeswe do not hear of the Athenians as invaders and con-

x Eurip. Ion 64. 1590. Grote i. 144.

L

146 II. Ethnology.

querors, which was the character of the Hellic tribes,but usually as themselves invaded ; for example, by Eu-rystheus from the Peloponnesus.

In ancient tradition generally, the Athenians appearon the defensive against Boeotians ?, Cretans, or others.And the reputed Pylian and Neleid descent of the Pisi-stratid family is a curious illustration of the manner inwhich Attica was reported to have imported fromabroad the most energetic elements of her own popu-lation2, and also of the (so to speak) natural predomi-nance of Hellic over Pelasgic blood.

Thucydidesa informs us, that the Athenians werefirst among the Greeks to lay aside the custom of bear-ing arms, and to cultivate ease and luxury. Of this wehave perhaps already had an indication in the words

He also states that, on account of the indifferentsoilb, which offered no temptation comparable to thosesupplied by the more fertile portions of Greece, therewas no ejection of the inhabitants from Attica bystronger claimants. Tiji/ yovv 'ATT(/C^I>, e/c TOV eirl irXei-

(TTOV Sia TO XewToyewv acTTatylaiTTOv oi/crav, avdpwiroi WKOVV

ol avTol ael. This is simply stating in another formwhat was usually expressed by declaring them auto-chthons. It is part of their Pelasgian title.

A remarkable passage in Herodotus covers the wholebreadth of the ground that has here been taken; andit is important, because no doubt it expresses whatthat author considered to be the best of the currenttraditions, founded in notoriety, and what Croesus like-wise learned upon a formal inquiry, undertaken with aview to alliances in Greece, respecting the origin of

y Thirlwall, vol. ii. p. 2. » Herod, v. 65.a Thuc. i. 6. l> i. 2.

Post-Homeric evidence. 147

the Athenians. Herodotus, like Homer, makes theAthenians Ionian; and in conformity with the con-struction here put upon Homer, he declares the Ioniansnot to be Hellenic, but to be Pelasgian0. The Atticpeople, he goes on to say, having once been Pelasgianbecame Hellenicd. According to some opinionse, thischange occurred when the Ionians came into Attica:but the evidence of Homer, I think, makes AthensIonian at the same epoch when it is Pelasgian. Itherefore construe the statement of Herodotus as signi-fying that the Athenians, in the course of time, receivedamong themselves Hellenic immigrants from the moredisturbed and changeful parts of Greece, and these im-migrants impressed on Attica, as. they had done on otherstatesf, the Hellenic character and name; only with thedifference that, instead of a conflict, and the subjugationof the original inhabitants, there came a process of moreharmonious and genial absorption, and in consequence,a development of Greek character even more remark-able for its fulness than in any other Grecian race.Even in the case of Attica, however, the Helleniccharacter was not finally assumed without a collision,though perhaps a local and partial one only, whichended in the ejectment of the Pelasgians. This conflictis reported to us by Herodotus from Hecatseus&, and ifwe find that in it, according to the Athenian version ofthe story, the Pelasgians were the wrong-doers, it isprobably upon the ground that the winner is always inthe right: and the Athenians had the more need of acase, because their policy demanded a justification,when, under Miltiades, they followed the Pelasgians toLemnos, and again subdued them there. Each version

c Herod, i. 56. d i. 57. e Hock's Creta ii. 109.f Thuc. i. 3. e Herod, vi. 137, 8.

L 2

148 II. Ethnology.

of the Attican quarrel contains indications of being re-lated to the truth of the case: for the Pelasgians aremade to declare, that the Athenians drove them outfrom the soil of which they were the prior occupants,and which they cultivated so carefully as to arousetheir envy, while the Athenians alleged that when,before the days of slavery, their children went to drawwater at the Nine-Springs ('Ewedicpovvoi), the Pelas-gians. of the district insulted them. What more likelythan that, when the Hellenic part of the populationwas coercing the other portion of it into servitude, theirresentment should occasionally find vent in rustic inso-lence to boys and maidens ?

The doctrine thus propagated by Herodotus concern-ing Attica is even more strongly represented in Straboas respects its Ionian character. Tyv /uev 'IdSa Trj ira-\ala 'A.T91$I TY}V avTtjv cpafxev' Kai yap "\wvcs eicaXovvTO ol

TOTS ' A T T I K O I , Kai eKelQev elcriv ol Ttjv 'Air/av eiroiK^cravTes

"lioves, Kai ^ptjudiuevoi rtj vvv \eyo/J.evri yXwTTt] 'la$i ».

The poverty of their soil kept them, he adds, apartas of a different race (eQvos), and of a different speech(yKwrrrj).

And thus again Herodotus reports that the sameletter which the Dorians called San, the Ionians calledSigma. Is not this more than a dialectic difference,and does it not indicate a deeper distinction of race?'1

The connection of the Pelasgians with ancient Atticawill receive further illustration from our inquiry here-after into the general evidence of the later traditionrespecting that race.

Egypt.If we are to venture yet one step further back, and

ask to what extraneous race and country do the Pelasgics B. viii. p. 333. h Herod, i. 139.

Egypt and the Pelasgians- 149

ages of Greece appear particularly to refer us as theirtype, the answer, as it would seem, though it can onlybe given with reserve, must be, that Egypt and itspeople appear most nearly to supply the pattern. Avariety of notes, indicative of affinity, are traceable at avariety of points where we find reason to suspect a Pe-lasgian character: particularly in Troy, and in the earlyRoman history, more or less in Hesiod and his school,and in certain parts of Greece. Many of these notes,and likewise the general character that they indicate,appear to belong to Egypt also.

The direct signs of connection between Egypt andGreece are far less palpable in Homer, than betweenGreece and Phoenicia. We have no account from himof Egyptians settled among the Greeks, or of Greeksamong the Egyptians. The evidence of a trading in-tercourse between the two countries is confined to thecase of the pseudo-Ulysses, who ventures thither fromCrete under circumstances* which seem to show thatit was hardly within the ordinary circle of Greek com-munications. He arrives indeed in five days, by theaid of a steady north-west wind: but a voyage of fivedaysk across the open sea, which might be indefinitelyprolonged by variation or want of wind, was highlyformidable to a people whose only safety during theirmaritime enterprises lay in the power of hauling up theirvessels whenever needful upon a beach. It was neartwice the length of the voyage to Troy1. Hence wefind that Menelaus was carried to Egypt not volun-tarily, but by stress of weather: and Nestor speaks withhorror of his crossing such an expanse, a passage thateven the birds make but once a year™. If this be

1 Od. xiv. 243. k Ibid. 257. ' II. ix. 363.m Od. iii 318.

150 II. Ethnology.

deemed inconsistent with the five days' passage, yeteven inconsistency on this point in Homer would be aproof that the voyage to Egypt was in his time rare,strange, and mysterious to his countrymen, and so wasdealt with freely by him as lying beyond experienceand measurement.

There is nothing in Homer absolutely to contradictthe opinion that Danaus was Egyptian; but neither isthere anything which suffices conclusively to establish it.And if he considered the Egyptians to approach to thePelasgian type, this may cast some slight doubt on theEgyptian origin of Danaus. The Poet certainly wouldnot choose a Pelasgian name, unless fully naturalized,for one of the characteristic national designations of theAchseans. But he is too good a Greek to give us parti-cular information about any foreign eminence within hisfatherland. It seems, however, possible that in thename avlri, given to Peloponnesus, there may lie a rela-tion to the Egyptian Apis. Apis was the first of the fourdivine bulls of Egypt"; and the ox was the symbol ofagriculture which, according to the tradition conveyed byiEschylus °, Danaus introduced into the Peloponnesus.

The paucity of intercourse however between Greeceand Egypt in the time of Homer does not put a nega-tive on the supposition that there may have been earlymigration from the latter country to the former.

It has been questioned how far the ancient Egyptianswere conversant with the art of navigation. The af-firmative is fully argued by Mr. M'CullochP in hiscommentaries on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.But it is plain that the Egyptians were not known toHomer as a nautical people. Not only do we never

» Dollinger Heidenthum und Judenthum vi. 136. p. 427.0 Inf. p. 176. p Note xvii.

Egypt and the Pelasgians. 151

on any occasion hear of them in connection with theuse of ships, but we hear of the plunder of their coastby pirates, when they confined themselves to resistanceby land. This want of nautical genius agrees with allthat we learn of them in Holy Scripture. And itplaces them in marked resemblance to the Pelasgianraces generally: to the Arcadians P; to the Trojans;to the early Romans, who paid no serious attention tothe creation of a fleet until the second Samnite WarB.C. 311, or, as Niebuhr thinks, then only first had afleet at alH: and again, to the landsmanlike spirit ofHesiod, who calls himself

ovre TI vavTiKiris <Te<TO$t<rjU.e'i>os, ovre rt, vr]5>v,

limits it entirely to a certain season, never was at seaexcept crossing from Aulis to Eubosa, and considers thewhole business of going to sea one that had better beavoided1".

That with Homer the fabulous element enters intohis view of the Egyptians seems plain, from his callingthem the race of Paieon, in the same way as he callsthe Phaeacians the race of Neptune: and in some de-gree, also from the place which he gives them in the wan-derings of Menelaus, since they lay, like those of Ulysses,in the exterior and unascertained sphere of geography.

Proteus is called AlyvTrnos, but in all probability themeaning is Proteus of the Nile, which is the properA'lyvTrro? in the masculine gender; while the country,derivatively called from it as the yn Aiyvn-ros, takes thefeminine. We shall hereafter see how Proteus belongsto the circle of nautical and therefore Phoenician tra-dition8. That deity has upon him all the marks of the

P II. ii. 614. s Vid. inf. sect. 4. Nagelsbach1 Smith, Antiq. p. 331. Nie- (Horn. Theol. ii. 9.) may be con-

buhr, Hist. iii. 282. suited in an opposite sense.r Works and Days 6 J 6 et seqq.

152 II. Ethnology.

outer and non-Grecian world. He is no less an ad-mirable type of the rpwKTm, than a regular servant ofNeptune, IWe^d&wo? viroS/ndo? (Od. iv. 386). This con-nection with Neptune by no means makes him Greek:Neptune was the god of the OdXaaa-a, which extendedbeyond the circle of Greek experience, even to theborders of Ocean. We see set upon the whole of thisadventure the same singular religious token as upon theremote adventures of Ulysses, namely this, that Mene-laus passes beyond the ordinary charge of the Hellenicdeities. The means of deliverance are pointed out tohim, not by Minerva, but by Bidothea, daughter ofProteus himself, whose name, function, and relationshipalike remind us that it was Ino Leucothea, daughter ofthe Phoenician Cadmus, who appeared to Ulysses forhis deliverance, in a nearly similar border-zone of themarine territory lying between the world of fable andthe world of experience; for the position of Egypt wasin this respect like that of Phseacia. It would seem,then, as if Homer himself knew Egypt mainly througha Phoenician medium.

Of the Phoenician intercourse with that country wemay safely rest assured, from their proximity, from theirresort thither mentioned in Homer*, and from thetraces they left in Egypt itself.

It seems a probable conjecture that they had froma very early date a colony or factory in Egypt, by whichthey carried on their commerce with it. In the timeof Herodotus, there was at Memphis a large and well-cared-for Te/uevos or demesne of Proteus, whom thepriests reported to be the successor of Sesostris on theEgyptian throne. This demesne was surrounded bythe habitations of the ' Tyrian Phoenices,' and the whole

1 Od. xiii, 272. xiv. 228.

Egypt and the Pelasgiwns. 153

plain in which it stood was called the 'Tvplwv a-rparo-•weSov. There is another tradition in Herodotus, accord-ing to which the Phoenicians furnished Egypt with thefleet, which in the time of Necho circumnavigatedAfrica".

Homer affords us little or no direct evidence of a con-nection between the religion of Greece and an Egyp-tian origin, to which Herodotus conceived it to be refer-able ; but yet it may very well be the case, that Egyptwas the fountain-head of many traditions which werecarried by the Phoenicians into Greece. In Homer, forexample, we find marks that seem to connect Dionysuswith Phoenicia: but the Phoenicians may have becomeacquainted with him in Egypt, where Diodorusx reportsthat Osiris was held to be his original. There are twomarks, however, of Egyptian influence, which seem tobe more deeply traced. One is the extraordinary sacred-ness attached to the oxen of the Sun. The other, theapparent relation between the Egyptian Neith and theAthene of Attica, taken in conjunction with the Pelas-gian character of the district?. But certainly our positiveinformation from Homer respecting the Egyptians maybe summed up in very brief compass. They would ap-pear to have been peaceful, rich, and prosperous: highlyskilled in agriculture, and also in medicine, if we arenot rather to understand by this that they knew theuse of opium, which might readily draw fervid eulo-giums from a race not instructed in its properties. Butthe testimony to their agricultural excellence cannotbe mistaken. Twice their fields are. mentioned, andboth times as TrepucdWeeg aypol: in exact correspond-ence with the tradition which we find subsisting inAttica respecting those fields which were tilled by the

a Herod, iv. 42. x i. 13. y Inf. Religion and Morals, sect. iii.

154 II. Ethnology.

Pelasgiansy. And this case of the Egyptians is theonly one throughout the Poems in which Homer be-stows commendation upon tillage. Again, they foughtbravely when attacked2. We find also the name iEgyp-tius naturalized in Ithaca. Lastly, they appear to havebeen hospitable to strangers, and placable to enemies".This is a faint outline: but all its features appear to bein harmony with those of the Pelasgian race.

It is worthy of remark, that the Lotophagi visitedby Ulysses correspond very much with the Egyptians,such as Homer conceived them. Locally, they be-longed to the Egyptian quarter of the globe: they re-ceived the companions of Ulysses with kindnessb; andthey gave them to eat of the lotus, which appears in itsessential and remarkable properties exactly to corre-spond with the vijTrevOei0 that Helen had obtained fromEgypt. As every figure of the Phoenician traditions,except perhaps iEolus, is essentially either hard, or cruel,or deceitful, even so, whether on account of neighbour-hood or otherwise, it seems to have been the poet's in-tention to impress the less energetic but more kindlycharacter of the Egyptians on this particular people,which perhaps he conceived to be allied to them.

There is indeed one suggestive passage of the Odys-sey from which it is open to us to conjecture that therewas more of substantive relation between Greece andEgypt than Homer's purpose as a national poet led himfully to disclose. Menelaus, when he returns to Egyptafter hearing from Proteus of the death of Agamemnon,raises in Egypt a mound in honour of his brother"5, 7i/'ao-fieo-Tov ic\eos eirj. But this mound could not contri-bute to the glory of the slain king, unless Greece andits inhabitants were tolerably well known in Egypt.

y Sup. p.148, zOd. xiv. 271. a Od.v. 278-86.b Ibid. ix. 84, 94. c Ibid. iv. 220. d Ibid. 584.

Egypt and the Pelasgians. 155

Upon the whole, the evidence of the Homeric poemsdoes not correspond with those later traditions whichrefer principally to Egypt as the origin of what is Greek.In considering this subject, we ought indeed to bear inmind Homer's systematic silence as to the channels bywhich foreign influences found their way into Greece.For it throws us entirely upon such indirect evidence ashe may (so to speak) involuntarily afford. And wemust also recollect firstly that the Egyptian influence,whatever it may have been, may perhaps have operatedmore in the Pelasgian period, than in that Achaean ageto which the representations of Homer belong. Se-condly, that much may have reached Greece, as toreligion or otherwise, in a Phoenician dress, which thePhoenicians themselves may have derived from Egypt.

There are other features, well known from all his-tory to be Egyptian, though not traced for them by thehand of Homer, which tend strongly to confirm theirrelationship to the Pelasgian race, partly as it is deli-neated in the Homeric outlines, and partly as it isknown from later tradition. One of these points is thecomparatively hard and unimaginative character of itsmythology, conforming to that of the race. It is in-teresting to notice how the Greeks, with their fine senseof beauty, got rid at once, in whatever they derivedfrom Egypt, of the mythological deformities of godsincarnate in beasts, and threw them into the shapesof more graceful fable.

A second point of Pelasgian resemblance is the strongritual and sacerdotal development of religion. A third isthe want of the political energies which build and main-tain extensive Empire. With all its wealth, and its earlycivilization, this opulent state could never make acqui-sitions beyond its own border, and has usually been in

156 II. Ethnology.

subordination to some more masculine Power. A fourthis, the early use of solid masonry in public edifices.The remains in Greece and Italy which are referred tothe Pelasgians are indeed of much smaller dimensionsthan those of Egypt: but the Pelasgians of these coun-tries, so far as we know, had not time to attain anyhigher political organization than that of small com-munities, with comparatively contracted means of com-manding labour. A fifth is their wealth itself, whichcauses Egyptian Thebes to be celebrated both in the Iliadand in the Odyssey, perhaps the only case in which thepoet has thus repeated himself,U.ix.38i, andOd. iv. 126.

Lastly, the reputed derivation of the oracle at Do-dona from Egypt harmonises with the Pelasgian cha-racter assigned to that seat of worship by Homer. Thetradition to this effect reported by Herodotuse wasGreek, and not Egyptian: it was obtained by him onthe spot: and if Homer's countrymen partook of thepoet's reserve, and his dislike of assigning a foreignsource to anything established in Greece, a presump-tion arises that this particular statement would nothave been made, had it not rested on a respectablecourse of traditionary authority.

It may however be asked, if the Pelasgians are to beregarded as Greeks, and as the base of the Greeknation, and if Homer was familiar with their name andposition in that character, how happens it that he nevercalls the Greeks Pelasgiaus, as he calls them Danaans,Argeians, and Achseans, and never even gives us in the

e Herod, ii. 54. According to This again leads us to view thethe Egyptian tradition there re- Phoenicians as the chief mediumported, the Phoenicians carried of intercourse between Egypt andinto Greece the priestess who Greece,founded the Dodonsean oracle.

Silence of the Iliad. 157

Iliad a Pelasgian race of tribe by name as numberedamong the Greeks?

Now it is not a sufficient answer to say, that thePelasgian race and name were falling under eclipse inthe age of Homer; for we shall see reason hereafterto suppose that the appellations of Danaan and Ar-geian were likewise (so to speak) preterite, though notyet obsolete, appellations; still Homer employs themfreely.

Their case is essentially different, however, as weshall find, from that of the Pelasgians, since those twonames do not imply either any blood different fromthat of the Achaean or properly Greek body, or anyparticular race which had supplied an element in itscomposition : one of these the Pelasgian name certainlydoes imply. Those names too, without doubt, wouldnot be used, unless they shed glory on the Greeks: thePelasgian name could have no such treasure to dispense.

It should, however, here be observed, that an exami-nation presently to be made of the force of the Argeianname will help us to account for the disappearance fromGreece of the Pelasgian name, which it may perhapshave supplanted.

Let me observe, that if the Pelasgians did, in pointof fact, supply an element to the Greek nationality,which had, while still remainiug perceptibly distinct,become politically subordinate in Homer's time, that isprecisely the case in which he would be sure not toapply the name to the Greeks at large, nor to anyGreek state, as its application could not under suchcircumstances be popular. His non-employment of it,therefore, for Greeks is pro tanto a confirmation to thegeneral argument of these pages.

If, again, there were a distinct people of Pelasgians

158 II. Ethnology.

among the Trojan auxiliaries, and on the Greek side alarge but subordinate Pelasgic element, this would beample reason both for his naming the Pelasgic allies ofthe Trojans, with a view to the truth of his recital, andfor his not using the Pelasgic name in connection withthe Greeks; for in no instance has he placed branchesof the same race or tribe on both sides in the struggle.Glaucus and Sarpedon, the transplanted .ZEolids, can-not be considered as exceptions, first, from the old dateof their Greek extraction : and secondly, because theyare individuals, whereas we now speak of tribes andraces. The name, too, was more suited to the un-mixed Pelasgians of the Trojan alliance, than to apeople, among whom it had grown pale beneath thegreater splendour of famous dynasties and of moreenergetic tribes.

The application of this reasoning to the Pelasgi is for-tified by its being applicable to other Homeric names.

It can hardly be doubted that the name Qpfil; is akinto Tpa)(\v and rprjxysf, that it means a highlander, orinhabitant of a rough and mountainous country, andthat it included the inhabitauts of territories clearlyGreek. This extended signification of the term explainsthe assertion of Herodotus^, that the Thracians werethe most numerous of all nations, after the Indians.

Now Homer makes Thamyris the Bard a Thracian;yet it is clear from his having to do with the Muses,and from the geographical points with which Homerconnects his name, that he must be a Greek11. Theyare, Awptov in the dominions of Pylos, where he met hiscalamity, and the CEchalia of Eurytus in Thessaly, fromwhence he was making his journey'. Strabo tells us

f Mure, Lit. Greece, vol. i. £ Herod.v.2. h II. ii.594-600.p. 153 n. » II. ii. 730.

Thraces and Threidi. 159

that Pieria and Olympus were anciently Thraciank, andmoreover, that the Thracians of Boeotia consecratedHelicon to the Muses. Orpheus, Musaeus, Eumolpus,were held to be Thracians by tradition, yet it also madethem write in Greek. I think we may trace this de-scriptive character of the name Qprjices, and its not yethaving acquired fully the force of a proper name withHomer, in his employment of it as an adjective, andnot a substantive. It is very frequently joined in thepoems with the affix avSpes, which he does not employwith such proper names as are in familiar and esta-blished use, such as Danaan, Argive, or Achiean. Hesays Achaean or Danaan heroes, but never joins thenames to the simple predicate 'men.' When he says'A^aio? avrip, it is with a different force; it is in point-ing out an individual among a multitude. Indeed inHomer it is not Qp*i% but QprjiKio? which means Thra-cian, of or belonging to the country called Thrace,QprjKri. There is then sufficient evidence that Greeksof the highlands might be Thraces; and there mayvery probably have been whole tribes so called amongthe Greeks. Yet we never have Thracians named byHomer on the Greek side, while on the Trojan sidethey appear as supplying no less than two contingentsof allies: one in the Catalogue, and another which hadjust arrived at the period of the AoXwveta'.

These two appear to be entirely distinct tribes: be-cause no connection is mentioned between them ; be-cause the first contingent is described as being composednot of all the Thracians, but of all the Thracians withinthe Hellespont: and lastly, because the new comershave their own /3a<ri\evs with them, as the first contin-

k Strabo x. p. 471. ' II. ii. 844, and x. 434.

160 II. Ethnology.

gent had its leader Acamas and Peirous. The Hel-lespont meant here seems to be the strait, because itis ayappoo?. And it is therefore possible, that whilethe first contingent was supplied by the nearer tribes,the second may have been composed of those Thracianswho lay nearer the Greek border.

Notwithstanding that Mars, who is so inseparablyassociated with Thrace, fights on the Trojan side, .wehave no evidence from Homer which would warrantthe assumption that he intended to connect the Thra-cians more intimately with the Pelasgians than with theHellenes. It may be that the poet's ethnical knowledgefailed him. The wavering of Mars seems to indicatea corresponding uncertainty in his own mind. Perhapswith both the Thracian and Pelasgian names it was thebreadth of their range that constituted the difficulty.Some part of Thrace is with him epif3u\a!~l; it is thepart from which the first contingent came, as the sonof Peirous belonged to it. And that part is less moun-tainous than the quarter which I have presumed mayhave supplied the contingent of Rhesus. The epithetis the very same as is applied to the Pelasgian Larissa™:and the Larissan Pelasgians are placed next to the firstThracian contingent in the Trojan Catalogue.

The most probable supposition for Thracians as wellas Pelasgians is, that they had affinities in both direc-tions ; that they existed among the Greeks diffusively,and were absorbed in names of greater splendour: butthat on the Trojan side they still had distinct nationalexistence, and therefore they are named on that side,while to avoid confusion silence is studiously maintainedabout them on the other. The whole race, says Grote,present a character more Asiatic than European ".

i l l . xx. 485. mil. ii. 841. n Hist. Greece, iv. 28.

Caucones and Leleges. 161

Many other races have been recorded in the latertraditions as having in pre-historic times inhabitedvarious parts of Greece. Such are Temnices, Aones,Hyantes, Teleboi. Of these Homer makes no mention.But there are two other races whom he names, theLeleges and Caucones, and with respect to whomStrabo0 has affirmed, that they were extensively dif-fused over Greece as well as over Asia Minor.

Homer has proceeded, with respect to the Caucones,exactly in the same way as with respect to the PelasgiIn the Iliad he names themP among the Trojan allies,and is wholly silent about them in dealing with theGreek races. But in the Odyssey, where he had nonational distinctions to keep in view, he names them asa people apparently Greek, and dwelling on the westernside of Greece. The pseudo-Mentor is going amongthem on business, to obtain payment of a debt'i: andthe manner in which they are mentioned, without ex-planation, shows that the name must have been familiarto' Nestor and the other persons addressed. Probablytherefore they were a neighbouring tribe: certainly aGreek tribe, for we do not find proof that the Ho-meric Greeks carried on commerce except with theirown race.

The poet names them with a laudatory epithet: theyare the Kai/Kwye? neyddv/moi. This may remind us of hisbounty in the same kind to the Pelasgians: and itseems as though he had had a reverence for the re-mains of the ancient possessors of the country.

We have abundant signs of the Leleges on theTrojan side in the war. In the Tenth Book theyappear as a contingent: but besides this, Priam had

0 Strabo viii. 7. p. 321, 2. P II. x. 429 ; xx. 329.1 Od. iii. 366.

M

162 II. Ethnology.

for one of his wives Laothee, daughter of Altes, kingof the Lelegians, who are here called 3>tXo7TTo'Xe/uo<r.What is more important, we find the expressions Ae-Xeyes /cat Tpwes* used together in such a way, as impliesthe wide extension of the former as a race. In theTwentieth Iliad, iEneas in speaking of Achilles refersto his former escape from the great warrior. Hefought, says ^Eneas, under the auspices of Minerva:who shed light before him, and bid him slay Lelegiansand Trojans,

1

e'i \aXKei(f Ae'Aeyas net! Tpwas kvaiptw.

The Trojan force was in two main portions, eachwith many subdivisions: first, the army of Priam, withthose of his kindred or subordinate princes : and, se-condly, the allies, with their numerous and widely dis-persed races. In the passage just quoted, the word Lele-ges must either mean the great body of allies, or else itmust, conjointly with Troes, signify the whole mass ofwhat we may call the indigenous troops. Now theformer is highly improbable. Such differences as areimplied in the combination of Thracians, Lycians, andPelasgians, could not well be, and nowhere else arecomprehended by Homer under a single name as onerace or nation, though the Lycians, on account of theirexcellence, are sometimesl taken to represent thewhole body of the allies. And again, if the Lelegesmeant- the whole body of allies, the Pelasgians wouldappear as a branch of them, which is contrary to allevidence and likelihood. If then the two words toge-ther represent those indigenous troops, as contradistin-guished from the allies, who were arrayed in the fivedivisions that are enumerated in vv. 816—39 of the

>' II. xxi. 85. ' II. xx. 96. t Inf. p . JS2.

Oaucones and Leleges. 163

Second book, the question is, how is the sense to bedistributed between them. And here there is notmuch room for doubt. The name Tpwe? had beenassumed four generations before the war from KingTros, and was therefore a political or dynastic name,not a name of race. It most probably therefore in-dicates either the inhabitants of Priam's own city andimmediate dominions, or else the ruling race, who heldpower here, as elsewhere, among a subject population.In either case we must conclude that the word Lelegesis meant to indicate the blood, and also the blood-name(so to speak) of the bulk of the population through aconsiderable tract of country: and it will be observedthat in the fourth and fifth of the divisions" in theTrojan Catalogue Homer specifies no blood-name orname of race whatever.

This being so, we find an important light cast uponthe meaning of the word Leleges. As we proceedwith these inquiries, we shall find accumulating evi-dence of the Pelasgianism of the mass of the popula-tion on the Trojan side: and thus when it appears thatthat mass or a very great part of it was Lelegian, italso appears probable that the Leleges were at leastakin to the Pelasgians, though some have taken themto be distinctv.

In answer therefore to the question, who were theseCaucones and these Leleges, while we are deficient inthe means of detailed and particular reply, we may, Ithink, fall back with tolerable security upon the wordsused by Bishop Thirlwall in closing an ethnologicalsurvey:

" The review we have just taken of the Pelasgiansettlements in Greece appears inevitably to lead to the

" II. ii. 828-39. v Hock's Creta, ii. p. 7.

M 2

164 II. Ethnology.

conclusion that the name Pelasgians was a general one,like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni: but that eachof the Pelasgian tribes had also one peculiar to itselfx.'

Upon our finding, as we find, the Pelasgian name incertain apparent relations with others, such as Lelegesand Caucones, it appears more reasonable to presumea relationship between them, than the reverse: fornothing can be more improbable than the simultaneouspresence at that early period of a multitude of races,radically distinct from each other, and yet diffused in-termixedly over the same country upon equal terms,and if there was a relationship, it would most probablybe that of subdivision, under which Leleges and Cau-cones might be branches of the widely spread Pelasgianfamily.

This opinion is supported, not only by presumptions,but by much indirect evidence. It is indisputable thatvarious names were applied, by the custom of theHomeric age, to the same people, and at the sameperiod. The poet calls the inhabitants of Elis bothElians and Epeans. The people of Ithaca are Ithace-sians (lOaK^crtot), but they are also 'A^cwo/?, and inthe Catalogue they are included under the Cephalle-niansz. The Dolopians in the speech of Phoenixa areincluded under the Phthians; and are also within thescope of the other names applied by the Catalogue tothe followers of Achilles, who were called by the nameof Myrmidons, or of Hellens, or of Achseans. Of thesethe first seems to be the denomination, which the rulingrace of that particular district had brought with it intothe country. The third probably belongs to the Myr-midons, as members of that tribe, of Hellic origin, which

* Thirlwall's Hist, of Greece, y Od. passim. * II. ii. 631.Ch. ii. Vol. i. p. 41. i2mo. » II. ix. 184, and xvi. 196.

Gaucones and Leleges. 165

at the time predominated in Greece generally. Thesecond, as we shall find, was the common name for allGreek tribes of that origin, and was the name whichultimately gained a complete ascendancy in the country.Of the five nations of Crete in the Seventeenth Odys-sey1', either all or several are probably included in theKprjres of the Second Iliad0. Nay, we may now de-clare it to be at least highly probabled, that the Ionianname was a sub-designation of the Pelasgians. Thuswe have abundant instances of plurality in the designa-tions of tribes. On the whole, we shall do best toassume that the names in question of Leleges andCaucones indicated Pelasgian subdivision. The inquiryis, however, one of ethnical antiquarianism only; thesenames are historically insignificant, for, apart from thePelasgian, they carry no distinctive character or specialfunction in reference to Greece.

h Od. xix. 175. c II. ii. 645.d See supr. p. 126.

Erratum.—I have inadvertently, in p. 103, rendered K^raec-a-ov ' fullof wild beasts.' I t ought to have been translated 'deep-sunken.'See Buttmann's Lexilogus, in voc.

166 II. Ethnology.

SECT. III.

Pelasgians continued: and certain States naturalisedor akin to Greece.

a. Crete. b. Lycia. c. Cyprus.

This appears to be the place for a more full consi-deration of the testimony of Homer with respect to,probably, the greatest character of early Greek history,and one who cannot be omitted in any inquiry con-cerning the early Pelasgians of Greece : in as much asthey stand in a direct Homeric relation to Crete, ofwhich he was the king.

In the poems of Homer, Minos appears to standforth as the first great and fixed point of Greeknationality and civilization. He is not indeed so re-mote from the period of Homer himself as others,even as other Europeans, whom the poet mentions,and whom he connects by genealogy with the Trojanperiod, particularly the JEolids. But the peculiaritiesmeeting in his case, as compared with most of them,are these:

i. That he is expressly traced upwards as well asdownwards.

i. That he is connected with a fixed place as itssovereign.

3. That so much is either recounted or suggestedof his character and acts.

4. That the Homeric traditions as to Minos are soremarkably supported from without.

Minos is mentioned, and somewhat largely, in noless than six different passages of the Iliad and Odys-

Crete and the traditions of Minos. 167

sey. Homer has given us a much fuller idea of him,than of the more popular hero Hercules, although heis not named in nearly so many passages; and it issingular, that the more ancient of the two personagesis also by much the more historical. Again, the poethas told us more about Minos, although he is of foreignextraction, than he has said about all the rest of theolder Greek heroes put together. Of Theseus, Piri-thous, Castor, Pollux, Meleager, Perseus, Jason, and therest, his notices are very few and meagre. In dealingwith Homer, I should quote even this fact of thegreater amount of his references, which in the case ofmost other poets would be immaterial, as a strong pre-sumption of the superior historical importance of theperson concerned.

Minos, according to Homer, had Jupiter for hisfather, a Phoenician damsel for his mother, and Rha-damanthus for his younger brother. The namee of hismother is not recorded, but Jupiter calls her far-famed.This fame, if due to her beauty, would probably havekept her name alive; but as it has not been preserved,it is more probably a reflection from the subsequentgreatness of her son.

The story thus far appears probably to indicate thatMinos was a Phoenician by birth, but without a knownancestry, and raised into celebrity by his own energiesand achievements.

The mode, by which he rose to fame, was by thegovernment of men and the foundation of civil institu-tions. At nine years old he received, such is thelegend, revelations from Jupiter,f and reigned, in thegreat or mighty city (fieydXtj Tro'Xt?) of Cnossus, over

e II. xiv. 321. i Od. xix, 178.

168 II. Ethnology.

Crete: such was the form, copied by the politic legis-lator of Rome, in which a title to veneration wassecured for his laws. No other city, besides this capital,is described in Homer by the epithet neyak-n, or by anyequivalent word.

A further vivid mark of his political greatness is af-forded us by that passage in the Odyssey, which exhibitshim not simply as exercising in the world beneaths themere office of a judge, but rather as discharging therea judicial function in virtue of his sovereignty. Suchis the force of the word Qem<TTeveiv,h which signifiesrather to give law than to administer it: or, at least,to exercise the function of a king rather than of ajudge' (ar-rtojo). He is described as still the illustriousson of Jupiter, Aioy ayXaos wo?. Even there he appearsnot as one of the suffering or bewildered inhabitantsof that lower world, but in the exercise of power as anactual ruler among the spirits of the departed ;

ot be IMV apjbj Suas dpovro avatara.

He only is invested with any character of this kind.Every other apparition below is either in actual suffer-ing, or gloomy and depressed.

The epithet 6\o6<ppu>v, applied to Minos in an earlierpassage of the NeWa, might perhaps convey the sameidea as Virgil has rendered by his durissima regna,k inthe description of Rhadamanthus: and we may alsocompare the address of Menelaus in the Third Iliad toJupiter,

Zed Trdrep OVTIS creto 0eS>v dAofirrepoj a U o s . '

'A reasonable construction would refer the word to the

g Od. xi. 568-71. k Ma. vi. 566.h Cf. II. i. 238. ii. 205. l II. iii. 365.' II. xviii. 501. xxiii. 436.

Power of Crete. 169

commercial character of the Phoenician people, at oncecunning and daring™; and there is much probability inthe opinion of Hock, who interprets the word as mean-ing 'exactor of tribute,' or as alluding to the exactionby Minos of a tribute from Attica". On this we shallshortly have to enlarge.

As to the family and kingdom of Minos, we shouldgather in the first place from Homer, that Crete hadunder him been preeminent in power. He was kingof the island (Kprjrri e-7rtovpo$)°, and he reigned, at theage of nine years only (ewewpos ftao-lXeve), in Cnossusover the five nations. The island had ninety, or in therounder numbers, an hundred cities. Two generationshad passed since Minos; Idomeneus his grandson didnot apparently reign, like Minos himself, over the wholeof it: for if this had been the case, it is very impro-bable, presuming that we may judge by the analogieswhich the order of the army in general supplies, thatMeriones would have been made his associate, whichin some manner he is, in the command; and again,the feigned story of Ulysses in the Odyssey, though itintroduces Idomeneus, does not represent him as kingof the whole island, but rather implies that his pre-tended brother, iEthon, also exercised a sovereigntythere v. But even then the Cretan contingent, althoughthe towns named as supplying it do not extend overthe whole island 9, amounted to eighty ships, and thusexceeded any other, except those of Agamemnon andof Nestor. And then, when Minos had so long beendead, it was still the marked and special distinction of

m Nagelsbach, Homerische ° II. xiii. 450. Od. xix. 179.The"ologie, p. 83.; and Vid. inf. P Od. xix. 181-98.sect. iv. pp. 120, 124. <l Hock's Creta, ii. 182.

n Hock's Creta, ii. 142, n.

170 II. Ethnology.

the country, that it was the seat of his race. So Eumseus,describing the disguised stranger to Penelope, saysr,

$7jcr! 8' 'Obvaafjos geivos TraTp&ios elvat,

Kpjjrjj vcueraav, 6'0i MCvwos yevos iarlv.

A passage which perhaps testifies that the family ofMinos had been ]~elvoi to the predecessors of Ulysses.

But perhaps there is no country in Greece whichHomer so rarely mentions without a laudatory epithet.Though (-TreplppvToi) sea-girt, it is not with him anisland : i t is Kpyri] yaia, K.pi^Tij evpeia, JZ-pyTr} eicaTOfJL-

7roXi?s, and in the principal description, Homer exaltsit more highly, I think, than any other territory,

KpijTTj TIS yai effTi, fieo-a ivl olvom TTOVTU

Ka\-q ical uUipa, irepippvTO? iv 8' avdpanroi

woAAoi, diretpecrtot, frat ivvquovra TroATjes*.

If it should be thought that the evidence to thecharacter of Minos as a lawgiver is slight, we mustcall to mind that even the word law is not found inHomer. The term afterwards used by the Greeks toexpress what we mean by a law, vo/xos, only occurswith Homer in a sense quite different. He tells usof nothing more determinate than SUm and de/xio-reg.But relatively to his pictures of other governors, thelegislatorial character of Minos is as strongly markedas that of Numa is in Livy, relatively to other kingsof Rome.

In conclusion, as to the region of Crete, it was inha-bited by five races: namely,

I. 'A^ato/. 1. 'EreoicpfJTes. 3 . KvSwves.4. Awpiees. 5. TleAd<ryoi.

Of these the Achseans and Dorians are evidently Greek.

r Od. xvii. 523. * Od. xiv. 199. II. xiii. 453. II. ii. 649.4 Od. xix. 172.

Pelasgianism in Crete. 171

We are now examining at large the title of the Pelasgito the same character. With respect to the Cydones, wemay draw an inference from the facts, that they lived (Od.iii. 292), on a Cretan river Iardanus, and that this wasalso the name of a river of Peloponnesus (U. vii. 133). Ishould even hold that this stream, which is not identified,was most probably in Arcadia : first, because in the con-test with the Hellic tribes of Pylos, the Arcadians asPelasgians would be on the defensive, and would there-fore fight on their own ground : secondly, because thebattle was on the wKupoos KeXdSwv. These words are mostsuitable to some mountain feeder of the Iardanus, withits precipitate descent, rather than to the usually morepeaceful course of a river near the sea, especially nearthe sea coast of sandy Pylus, which reached to theAlpheus". This supposition respecting the Celadon willalso best account for what otherwise seems singular;namely, that the battle was at once on the Celadon,and also about the Iardanus ('lapSavov afitpl pee6pav).Again, the battle was between Arcadians and Pylians,and therefore, from the relative situation of the terri-tories, was probably on some Arcadian feeder of theAlpheus, lying far inland. Now if Iardanus was anArcadian river, and if the Arcadians were Pelasgi, itleads to a presumption that the Cydonians of Crete,who dwelt upon an Iardanus, were Pelasgian also.

There remain the 'ETeoKjOJjTe?, apparently so called,to distinguish them as indigenous from all the otherfour nations, who were eTryXvSes, or immigrant. This iscurious, because it refers us elsewhere for the origin ofthe Pelasgi. It is the only case in which we hear ofany thing anterior to them, upon the soils which theyoccupied. Lastly, Crete lay between Greece and Cy-

1 II. xi. 712. v II. vii. 133,5.

II. Ethnology.

prus, and Cyprus is clearly indicated in the Odyssey ason the route to Egyptw.

But we hear also of Rhadamanthus as the brother ofMinos, of Deucalion as his son, and of Ariadne as hisdaughters And the notices of these personages inHomer all tend to magnify our conception of his powerand his connections.

Theseus, who is glorified by Nestor as a first ratehero -v, and described as a most famous child of thegods2, whom both Homer, and also the later legendsconnect with Attica, marries Ariadne, who dies on herway to Athens a. The marriages of Homer were gene-rally contracted among much nearer neighbours. Thismore distant connection cannot, I think, but be takenas indicating the extended relations connected with thesovereignty of Minos and his exalted position.

The genealogy of Idomeneus runs thusb; ' Jupiterbegot Minos, ruler of Crete. Minos begot a distin-guished son, Deucalion. Deucalion begot me, a rulerover numerous subjects in broad Crete.'

Here it is to be remarked,1. That while Minos and Idomeneus, the first and

third generations, are described as ruling in Crete, Deu-calion of the second is not so described.

2. That Idomeneus is nowhere described as havingsucceeded to the throne of his grandfather Minos, butonly as being a ruler in Crete: and that, as we haveseen, from the qualified conjunction of Meriones withhim in the command, perhaps also from the limitedrange of the Cretan towns in the Catalogue, therearises a positive presumption that he had succeeded

w Od. xvii. 442. * Od. xi. 631.* Od. xi. 321. * Ibid. 322-5.y II. i. 260-5. b H- xiii. 450-3.

Traditions of Deucalion. 173

only to a portion of the ancient preeminence and powerof his ancestor.

Now there is no direct evidence in Homer connect-ing Deucalion with Thessaly. The later tradition,however, places him there: and this tradition mayprobably claim an authority as old as that of Hesiod.A fragment of that poetc, with the text partially cor-rupt, speaks of Locrus, leader of the Leleges, as amongthose whom Jupiter raised from the earth for Deuca-lion. This reference to Locrus immediately suggeststhe name of the Locrian race, and so carries us intothe immediate neighbourhood of Thessaly; and thegeneral purport of the words is to express something alittle like the later tradition about Deucalion, whichhad that country for its scene. Combining this witlithe negative evidence afforded by the Homeric text,we thus find established a communication seeminglydirect between Crete under Minos, and Thessaly, towhich country we have already found it probablethat Deucalion immigrated, and where he may havereigned.

The usual statement is, that the name Deucalionwas common to two different persons, one the son ofMinos, and the other the king of Thessaly. But wemust be upon our guard against the device of the laterGreek writers, who at once unravelled the accumu-lated intricacies that had gradually gatheied abouttheir traditions, and enlarged the stock of material forpampering vanity, and exciting the imagination, bymultiplying the personages of the early legends. As re-gards the case now before us; the tradition, which makesHellen son of the latter of these Deucalions, would cer-tainly make him considerably older than he could be if a

•• Fi-figm. xi. Strabo vii. p. 332.

174 II. Ethnology.

son of Minos. It must be admitted, that Homer repeatsthe name of Deucalion, for a Trojan so called is slain byAchilles in II. xx. 478. It has pleased the fancy of thepoet there to use the names of a number of dead heroesto distinguish the warriors who fell like sheep under thesword of the terrible Achilles: we find among them aDardanus, a Tros, and a Moulius; and it is so littleHomer's practice to use names without a peculiarmeaning, that we may conjecture he has done it, inpreference to letting Achilles slaughter a crowd ofignoble persons, in order that in every thing his Pro-tagonist might be distinguished from other men. Butthe poet seems to take particular care to prevent anyconfusion as to his great Greek, and indeed as to allhis great living, personages. I am not aware of morethan one single passage in the Iliad d, among the mul-titude in which one or other of the Ajaxes is named,where there can be a doubt which of the two is meant.It is exceedingly unlikely that if a separate Deucalionof Thessaly had been known to Homer, he should nothave distinguished him from the Deucalion of Crete.This unlikelihood mounts to incredibility, when we re-member (1) that this other Deucalion of Thessaly isnothing less than the asserted root of the whole Hel-lenic stock, and (2) that the poet repeatedly uses thepatronymic Deucalides as an individual appellation forIdomeneus, whereas the adverse supposition wouldmake all the Achseans alike AevKaXlSai. We maytherefore safely conclude at least, that Homer knew ofno Deucalion other than the son of Minos.

We come now to Rhadamanthus, who is thrice men-tioned by Homer. Oncee, as born of the same parentswith Minosf. Once, as enjoying like him honours from

J II. xiii. 681. e II. xiv. 322. f Od. iv. 564.

Of Rhadamanthus and the Phceadans. 175

Jupiter beyond the term of our ordinary human life:for he is placed amidst the calm and comforts of theElysian plain. The third passage is remarkable. It iswhere Alcinous^ promises Ulysses conveyance to hishome, even should it be farther than Euboea, whichthe Phseacian mariners consider to be their farthestknown point of distance, and whither they had con-veyed Rhadamanthus,

€Tro\j/6fievov TITVOV, Tavqiov vlov'

on his way to visit, or inspect, or look after, Tityus.This Tityus we find in the veKvla suffering torture forhaving attempted violence upon Latonah, as she wasproceeding towards Pytho, through Panopeus. Pano-peus was a place in Phocis, on the borders of Boeotia,and on the line of any one journeying between Delosand Delphi.

There is in this legend the geographical indistinct-ness, and even confusion, which we commonly find whereHomer dealt with places lying in the least beyond therange of his own experience or that of his hearers, aswas the case with Phaeacia. If Tityus was in Pano-peus, the proper way to carry Rhadamanthus was bythe Corinthian gulf. But from various points in thegeography of the Odyssey, it may, in my opinion, begathered, that Homer had an idea, quite vague andindeterminate as to distance, of a connection by seabetween the north of the Adriatic, and the north ofthe iEgean, either directly, or from the sea of Mar-mora : and it suited his representation of the Phsea-cians, and best maintained their as it were aerialcharacter, to give them an unknown rather than aknown route. However that might be, if we lookinto the legend in order to conjecture its historic

s Od. vii. 317-26. h Od. xi. 580.

176 II. Ethnology.

basis, it appears to suggest the inferences which fol-low:

1. That according to tradition, the empire or supre-macy of Minos, which may in some points have resem-bled that afterwards held by Agamemnon, embracedboth Corcyra and likewise middle Greece, where Pano-peus and Pytho or Delphi lay.

We must, however, presume the empire of Minos tohave been in great part insular. There were contem-porary kingdoms on the mainland, which give no sign.of dependence upon it.

2. That the Phseacians acted as subjects of Minos incarrying Rhadamanthus by sea from one part of thedominions of that king to another.

3. That Rhadamanthus went to punish Tityus as anoffender within the realm of Minos, and did this on thepart and in lieu of Minos himself.

4. That though he was not Greek by birth, his per-son, and family, and empire were all Greek in the viewof Homer.

This conjectural interpretation of the legend derivessupport from many quarters.

Tt is in thorough harmony, as to the extended ruleof Minos, with the Eleventh Odyssey, which representsMinos as acting in the capacity of a sovereign in theshades below ; which also exhibits, as suffering judi-cially the punishments that he awarded, offenders con-nected with various portions of Greek territory, andamong them this very Tityus.

It is now time to look to the post-Homeric traditions.The extent of the sway of Minos is supported by the

tradition of Pelasgus, in the Supplices of iEschylus',which represents the whole country from (probably)

h. Suppl. 262.

Minos: post-Homeric tradition. 177

Macedonia to the extreme south of the peninsula, ashaving been formerly under one and the same sway.The empire of Minos may have been magnified intothis tradition.

The authority of Thucydides is available for the fol-lowing points *:—

1. That Minos was the earliest known possessor ofmaritime power: thus harmonising with the hypothesisthat the Phseacians, whose great distinction was intheir nautical character, were acting as his subjectswhen they carried Rhadamanthus.

2. That his power extended over the Grecian sea, oriEgean ('HWrjviKr] OaXarrcra) generally (ext nr\elcrTOv) ;

thus indicating a great extent of sway.3. That he appointed his children to govern his domi-

nions on his behalf (T<W? eavrod TratSas yye/xova? eyica-

TaaTn^as) : which supports the idea that his brotherRhadamanthus may have acted for him at a distance.

4. That he drove the Carians out of the islands ofthe iEgean. This statement receives remarkable con-firmation from Homer, who makes the islands up tothe very coast of Caria contributors to the force of theGreek army: while Lesbos and others, situated farthernorth, and more distant from Crete, appear to havebeen, like Caria itself, in the Trojan interest.

In the Minos ascribed to Platok we find the tradi-tion of his direct relations with Attica, which werewell known to the theatre. This supports the noticein Homer of the marriage contracted between Theseusand his daughter Ariadne.

Aristotle1, like Thucydides, asserts the maritimepower of Minos and his sovereignty over the islands,

1 Thucyd. i. 4. k Minos, 16, 17. ' Pol. ii. TO. 4.

N

178 II. Ethnology.

and adds, that he lost or ended his life in the course ofan expedition to conquer Sicily"1.

Herodotus", like Thucydides, treats Minos as thefirst known sovereign who had been powerful by sea,He states, that Minos expelled his brother Sarpedonfrom Crete, and that Sarpedon with his adherentscolonised Lycia, which was governed, down to the timeof the historian himself, by laws partly Cretan0: andhe also delivers the tradition that Minos was slain inan expedition against Sicily at Camicus, afterwardsAgrigentum. A town bearing his name remained longafter in the island.

Euripides laid the scene of his Rhadanianthus in Boeo-tia: and a Cretan colony is said to have established theTilphosian temple there P. Hock finds traces of a markedconnection between Crete and that districts

More important, however, than any isolated facts arethe resemblances of the Lacedemonian and Cretanpolitics, noticed by Aristotle1", in combination with theadmission always made by the Lacedaemonians, thattheir lawgiver Lycurgus initiated the Cretan institu-tions5, and with the universal Greek tradition that inCrete, first of all parts of Greece, laws and a regularpolity had been established by Minos. Again, in theDialogue printed among the works of Plato, the authorof it seeks to establish the fundamental idea of law:puts aside the injurious statements of the tragedianswho represented Minos as a tyrant, declares his laws tohave been the oldest and the best in Greece, and the

m For a lucid sketch of the P Miiller's Dorians, ii. n . 8 ;position of Minos as defined by Eurip. Fragm. i.tradition, see Thirlwall's Greece, 1 Creta ii. 87.vol. i. ch. 5. r Pol. ii. 10.

a Herod, iii. 122. s Ibid. ii. 10. 2.0 Herod, i. 173.

Minos: Laconian and Cretan laivs. 179

models from which the prime parts of the Laconianlegislation had been borrowed1.

Among the resemblances known to us appear to be1. The division between the military and the agri-

cultural part of the community.2. The TreploiKoi of Crete, holding the same relation

to the Cretans, as the Helots to the Spartans, and likethem cultivating the land.

3. The institution of o-vo-o-ma in both countries.4. The organism of the government: the five ephors

corresponding with the ten Koa-fio) of Crete, and the/3ouX being alike in both.

There also still remain etymological indicationsthat Minos was the person who raised some tribe orclass to preeminence in Crete, and depressed someother tribes or classes below the level of the free com-munity. In Hesychius we read,

jxvoia, oiKiTeia.fjLvrjTOi, bov\oi.(j.v&a, bovXeia.

And Athenseus quotes from the Cretica of Sosicrates,Ttjv fxkv KOIVTJV Sovkelav 01 "K.prjreg KaXovcri fivoiav' rrjv Se

iSlav cupa/uuwras' rov? $e TrepioUovi, inrrjKOOVi11. H e also

says, that, according to Ephorus, the general name forslave in Crete was KXapwms, and that it was derivedfrom the custom of apportioning the slaves by lot.This remarkably fixes the character of Cretan slaveryas owing its rise to some institutions public in thehighest sense, for merely private slavery could not, itwould appear, have had an origin such as to accountfor the name. It thus indirectly supports the ideaimplied in ixvola and /mvnroi, that it was derived fromMinos. Athenaeus" again, quoting the Creticce g

t Minos 11-17. u Athen. vi. p. 263. T Ibid. p. 267.

N a

180 II. Ethnology.

of Hermon, gives us the words lAvdnas, TOVS evyevei?(otherwise read iyyeveis) oiKeras, and thus pointing tothe reduction to servitude of some of the previouslyfree population of the country.

There can be little doubt that it was the Pelasgicpart of the population which thus succumbed beforethe more active elements of Cretan society, and whichcontinued in the manual occupation of husbandry,while war, policy, and maritime pursuits became thelot of their more fortunate competitors. For is itdifficult to divine which were those more active ele-ments, since Homer points out for us among the inha-bitants of Crete at least two tribes, the Achseans andthe Dorians, of Hellic origin. Bishop Thirlwall pointsalso to a Phoenician element in Crete, and to Homeras indicating the Phoenician origin of Minos. This issuggested not only by his birth, and by his maritime pre-eminence, but by Homer's placing Daedalus in Cretew.For that name directly establishes a connection withthe arts that made Sidon and Phoenicia so famous.The later tradition, indeed, places Daedalus personallyin relations with Minos, as having been pursued by himafter he had fled to Sicilyx.

Elsewhere I have shown reason for supposing that asecond of the five Cretan nations, namely, the Ki/'cWe?,was Pelasgian: and there is a curious tradition, whichsupports this hypothesis. According to Ephorus^, therewere solemn festivals of the slave population, duringwhich freemen were not permitted to enter within thewalls, while the slaves were supreme, and had the rightof flogging the free; and these festivals were held inCydonia, the city of these KvScoves.

Our belief in a Cretan empire of Minos, founded on

•w II. xviii. 592. * Paus. x. 17. 4. y Ath. vi. p. 263.

The Lycians. 181

the evidence of the Poems, and sustained by the state-ment of Thucydides, need not be impaired by the factthat we find little post-Homeric evidence directly avail-able for its support. In early times the recollection ofdynasties very much depended on the interest whichtheir successors had in keeping it alive. Now theMinoan empire was already reduced to fragments atthe time of the Troica. The supremacy over Greecewas then in the hands of a family that held the throneof the Perseids and the Danaids, a throne older thanthat of Minos himself, though in his time probably lessdistinguished: a throne whose lustre would have beendiminished by a lively tradition of his power and great-ness. And it was from the Pelopids that the Doriansovereigns of Sparta claimed to inherit. Therefore thegreat Greek sovereignty, from the Troica onwards, hadno interest in cherishing the recollection of this ancientpart of history; on the contrary, their interest lay indepressing it; and under these circumstances we neednot wonder that, until the inquiring age of Greekliterature and philosophy, when Athens gained thepredominance, the traces of it should have remainedbut faint. But the traces of Cretans have been foundextensively dispersed both over the islands, and on thecoasts of the iEgeanz.

To complete the statement of this part of the case,it is necessary to turn to another country, holding, withits inhabitants, a very peculiar position in the Iliad.The attentive reader of the poem must often inquire,with curiosity and wonder, why it is that Homer every-where follows the Lycian name with favour so marked,that it may almost be called favouritism. At everyturn, which brings that people into view, we are metby the clearest indications of it: and few of Homer's

z Hock's Creta, b. ii. sect. 4. (ii. 222 and seqq.)

182 II. Ethnology.

indications, none of his marked indications, are withouta cause and an aim.

Sarpedon, the Lycian commander in chief, performsthe greatest military exploit on the Trojan side that isto be found throughout the poemsa. That he does notobscure the eminence of Hector is only owing to thefact, that his share in the action of the poem is smaller,not to its being less distinguished. Everywhere heplays his part with a faultless valour, a valour set offby his modesty, and by his keen sense of public dutyaccording to the strictest meaning of the termb; Jupiter,his father, sheds tears of blood for his coming death;and he is in truth the most perfect as well as thebravest man on the Trojan side. Glaucus, his secondiu command, is inferior to no Trojan warrior save Hec-tor, though in the exchange of the arms with DiomedHomer has, as usual, reserved the superiority to theGrecian intellect.

The distinctions awarded to the Lycian people are infull proportion to those of their king Sarpedon. Theyformed one only among the eleven divisions of theauxiliary force, but the Lycianc name, and theirs onlyd,evidently on account of their eminence, is often usedto signify the entire body. In the great assault on theGreek trench and rampart, Sarpedon their leader com-mands all the allies, and chooses as his lieutenantsGlaucus. and Asteropaeus a Pseonian, but not the Pseo-nian general6. They are never mentioned with anyepithet except of honour: and to them is applied the

a II. xii. 397. (Schol. on II. v. 105.)b See particularly his speech a For the question whether the

II. xii. 310-28. Leleges on one single occasionc There were also Lycians of form an exception, see sup. p.

Troas, with whom Pandarus was 162.connected : and it is possible that c II. xvii. 350,1. ii. 848.these may be the persons meant.

The Lycians. 183

term avTtOeoJ, which is given to no other tribe or na-tion in the Iliad, and in the Odyssey only to the Phse-acians^; to these last it appertains doubtless on accountof their relationship to the immortals. The Lycianattack in the Twelfth Book is the one really formidableto the Greeks11, and in the rout of the Sixteenth Bookwe are told, that ' not even the stalwart ('[(pdifioi) Ly-cians' held their ground after the death of Sarpedon1.They alone are appealed to in the name of that pecu-liar and sacred sentiment of military honour called alSws,which, with this single exception, seems to be the ex-clusive property of the Greeks1.

It is difficult to account for this glowing representa-tion, so consistently carried through the poem, exceptupon the supposition, that Homer regarded the Lyciansas having some peculiar affinity or other relation withthe Greeks; and that he on this account raised themout of what would otherwise more naturally have beena secondary position.

There are many signs of a specific kind, that this wasactually his view of them.

i. To make Sarpedon the son of Jupiter was at onceto establish some relationship- with the Greek races.

a. The legend of Bellerophon, delivered on the fieldof battle, was not required, nor is it introduced, merelyto fill up the time during which Hector goes from thecamp to the city. It required no filling up: but Homerturns the interval to account by using it to give us thisinteresting chapter of archaic history, doubtless in orderto illustrate, as all his other legends do, the beginningsand early relations of the Hellenic races. Accordinglywefind that Antea, wife of Proetus the Argive king, was

II. xii. 408. xvi. 421, sOd. vi. 241. h II. xii. 397.» II. xvi. 659. ) II. xvi. 422. xvii. 426.

184 II. Ethnology.

a Lycian : that a familiar intercourse subsisted betweenthe two courts, such as probably and strongly impliesthat the nations had other ties : and lastly that aniEolid line of sovereigns, descended through Sisyphus,were the actual governors of Lycia at the period of theTroica.

3. The very same ideas of kingship and its offices,which prevailed in Greece, are expressed by Sarpedonin his speech to Glaucusk, and there is an indication offree institutions which enlarges the resemblance. Theforce of this circumstance will be more fully appreciated,when we shall have examined the Asiatic tinge which isperceptible in the institutions of Troy itself.

4. Besides the iEolid sovereignty, the etymology ofthe names of Lyciau warriors connects itself not onlywith the Greek race, but with the Hellic element inthat race.1.

5. On the other hand Apollo, whom we shall here-after find to be the great Pelasgian, though also uni-versal, god, is even, according to Homer, in close andpeculiar connection with Lycia, although he is notlocalized there by Homer as he is in the later tradition.First as being XvKriyevfc. • Secondly as the great bow-man : while Lycia was so eminent in this art, that/Eneas, addressing Paudarus with a compliment on hisskill, says no man before Troy can match him, andperhaps even in Lycia there may not be a better archer1".Thirdly, this Paudarus the archer, and son of Lycaon,received the gift of his bow from Apollo himself": andsays, that Apollo prompted or instructed him, as hecame from Lycia °. It may, however, be reasonablyquestioned, whether we are here to understand theLycia of the South, or the district of kindred name in

k II. xii. 310. ' Vid. inf. sect. vii. m II. v. 172." I I . ii. 827. ° I l . v . 105.

The Ly clans. 185

Troas. In any case, Apollo in Lycia would be no morethan the counterpart of Minerva in Pelasgian Athens.

6. The prevalence of that Lycian name in otherquarters, such as Arcadia, of a marked Pelasgian cha-racter, further Supports the supposition that Lycia hadprobably a Pelasgian race for the bulk of its popula-tion, holding the same subordinate relation to anotherrace as we find in corresponding cases. In Arcadia?Pausanias reports a Lycaon son of Pelasgus; a Ly co-sura, the city he founded; Lyceon, the hill where itstood; and Lycea, the games he established.

All this evidence combines to show some corre-spondence between Lycia and Greece, as to the consti-tuent elements of the population. The agreement couldnot have been perfect: for the records of the Lycian lan-guage, I believe, show a prevalence of other elementsthan the Greek. But we have thus a reason to sup-pose, that the community of architecture and other artswhich has been found to subsist between the two coun-tries, was not merely dependent on later colonisation,but was owing to an affinity of races and similarity ofmanners which dates from the heroic age.

Lastly, the fragments of Homeric evidence respect-ing the Lycians are combined by a later tradition, whichlinks them to Crete, the main subject of our recentinquiry. According to this tradition, there was a Sar-pedon earlier than the Sarpedon of the Troica, who,besides being son of Jupiter, was brother to Minos.He is said to have been expelled, with his adherents,by that sovereign from Crete; to have repaired toLycia, and to have colonised that country, or a part ofit. In the time of Herodotus, as we have seen, it re-tained laws of Cretan, that is to say of Greek, origin.And at two later periods of its history, far remote from

P P a u s . v i i i . 2 . 1 .

186 II. Ethnology.

Homer and from one another, its inhabitants signalisedthemselves by the most desperate valour in defence ofXanthus, its capitals

For the origin of the group of names, having Amosor some similar word for their root, it seems most na-tural to infer its identity with the Latin lucus, essentiallythe same with lupus, and to presume that it had a Pe-lasgic source, but that the word corresponding with it,probably AVKOS, meaning a wood or grove, had becomeobsolete in the later Hellenic tongue. There is everyreason for a supposition of this kind, as these words,etymologically connected, evidently hang round somecommon centre, which centre has reference to primitiveand to Pelasgic life, as well as to the somewhat spe-cially Pelasgic deity Apollo. Nor is it strange thatthe root of a name associated with the Pelasgi shouldhave been lost to the Greek tongue, while the nameitself remains: we have another example in Larissa.

But if there was such a word, with such a meaning,the link, which may perhaps connect it with Pelasgiclife, is evident. For the first agricultural settlers mustoften be, as such, in a greater or less degree, dwellers inwoods. It may be said that in the United States, atthe present day, the proper name for an agriculturalsettler is ' backwoodsman.' In British colonies of Aus-tralia, they, who pass beyond the limits of existing settle-ment, in order to extend it, are said to go into the bush.Thus the idea at the root of the Lycian name is in allprobability twin, or rather elder brother, to that whichproperly would indicate the agricultural settler.

It is however plain, that we cannot look to any thingsimply Pelasgian in the Lycian population, as supplyingthe motive which has induced Homer to give the Ly-cians a marked preference over other populations, them-

1 Grote, Hist. Greece, iv. 280.

The Lycians. 187

selves of a Pelasgian character. This preference mustbe due to the other element, "which associates themespecially with the Hellenic race. And we may notirrationally suppose it to be founded on any one ofsuch causes as these : the special connection in theroyal line between the two countries: a larger infusionof the more lordly blood into a subordinate Lele-gian or Pelasgian body in Lycia, just as in Greece, thanin Troas and Asia Minor generally : or lastly, a morepalpable and near connection between the dominantcaste in Lycia and those Persian highlanders, fromamong whom may have proceededr the forefathers ofthe Hellenic tribes. Everywhere we see this racebranching forth, and, by an intrinsic superiority, acquir-ing a predominance over the races in prior occupation.Whether the stock came to Lycia by land, or from theeastern coast of the Mediterranean, it may be hard evento conjecture: but there is one particular note of rela-tionship to Persia, which Lycia retains more clearly thanGreece, and that is the high estimation in which, to judgefrom the connection with Apollo and from Il.v.172, theuse of the bow was held in that country. The case wasthe same in Persia. According to Herodotus, one of thethree essential articles of education in Persia was theuse of the bows; and he is not contradicted by Ctesias,who calls him in most things a liar and a fabulist*. Wemust not, indeed, rely too strongly upon a circumstancelike this. Cyaxares the Median had the art taught tohis sons by Nomad Scythians". We may however ob-serve that alike on the Trojan and the Grecian side wenever hear of the bow except in the hands of highbornpersons, such as Paris, Pandarus, Teucer: and, in thegames, Merionesv.

r Vid. inf. sect. x. l Photii Bibliotheca 72. p. 107.* Herod, i. 1 j6. "Herod, i. 73. v II. xxiii. 860.

188 II. Ethnology.

In passing, it may deserve remark, that the Lyciansalone, of all tribes or nations on either side, appear notunder two leaders merely, but two kings, in the strictsense. I do not however believe that this indicates apolitical peculiarity. The origin of it may probably befound in the legend of Bellerophon, to whom, after hishigh exploits and great services, the reigning sovereigngave half his kingdomw. Now that king is nowherestated to have had a son: and if we suppose a failureof issue in his own direct line, and the succession ofone of the two descendants of his daughter to eachmoiety of the realm, it at once accounts for the excep-tional position of Sarpedon and Glaucus.

The suppositions then towards which we are led are,that Minos was of Phoenician origin, that he came toCrete and acquired the sovereignty, that he ruled overa mixed population of Cretans, Pelasgians, and Hellictribes, that he organised the country and establishedan extended supremacy, especially maritime and in-sular, beyond its limits; which however we must notconsider as involving the consistent maintenance ofsovereignty according to modern ideas, and which is inno degree inconsistent with the rule of Danaids orPerseids in Peloponnesus. Lastly, that in giving formto his social institutions, he depressed the Pelasgianelement of Cretan society, and laid, in political depres-sion, the foundations of their subsequent servitude.

If this be so, it is worth while further to observe,that there are traces of a somewhat analogous historyin Cyprus, another acknowledged stepping-stone, ac-cording to Homerx, between Greece and the East.

In the Seventeenth Book of the Odyssey y, Ulysses,in one of his fictitious narrations, states to the Suitors,that the Egyptians, who had taken him prisoner and

w II. vi. 193. * Od. xvii. 442, 8. y Ibid. 440-4.

Cyprus. 189

reduced him to slavery, then made a present of him totheir ^eivos Dmetor, a descendant of Iasus, who ruled' with might,' that is, with considerable power overCyprus (o? KvTrpov Icpi avaaa-ev); the same expressionas he uses in the Eleventh Book with respect to Am-phion, the Iasid, in Orchomenus. Prom all we knowof the Iasian name2, it may be inferred that this wasa Pelasgian dynasty, and if so, then without doubt thatit ruled over a Pelasgian people.

Ulysses does not mention the time of this transac-tion ; and it must be remembered, that he spoke in thecharacter of an aged person, so that the scene mightbe laid (so to speak) thirty or forty years back, andtherefore long before the expedition to Troy.

But in the Eleventh Book of the Iliada, we findAgamemnon putting on a breastplate, which was evi-dently a marvel of workmanship, with its plates onplates of different metals, and its six dragons flashingforth the colours of the rainbow. Now we must ob-serve, first, that this was evidently meant to be under-stood as a Sidonian or Phoenician work: secondly, thatit was presented to Agamemnon by Cinyres of Cyprus,to conciliate his favour (—xaPl'£°iULei'0$ fiao-tXtj'i, perhapswe might render it, to win the favour of his king—)upon the occasion of his hearing that the king wascollecting an armament against Troy. That is to say,it was to compound with him for not appearing in per-son to join the Greek forces. Here then we must inferthat there was some vague allegiance, which was due,or which at least might be claimed, from Cyprus toAgamemnon, under the iroWrja-iv vyo-oian*.

Now we know nothing of the Pelopids before theTroica as conquerors: and especially, it would be diffi-

z Vid. sup. p.125. a II. xi.19-28. b II. ii.108.

190 II. Ethnology.

cult to apply the supposition that they were such inrelation to a place so distant. Therefore the politicalconnection, whatever it may have been, could probablyrest upon an ethnical affinity alone; and, as we knownothing of any Hellic element in this quarter, thataffinity seems to presume the Pelasgian character ofthe population. The inference, which may thus bedrawn, coincides with that already suggested by thename of Iasus.

We may however justly be curious to learn whatconditions they were which gave to Cinyres, and so faras we know to Cinyres alone, among princes, this verypeculiar attitude at a critical juncture. It is obvious,that in proportion as his situation was remote from theGreek rendezvous, and from the scene of action, theservice became more burdensome: but on the otherhand, in proportion as he was distant from the centreof Achaean power, he was little likely to be coerced.How comes it then that Agamemnon had over Cinyresan influence which he does not seem to have possessedover the tribes of Macedonia and Thrace, though theselay nearer both to him, and to the way between him andthe Troad, which he had to traverse by sea?

The hypothesis, that the population of Cyprus waspurely or generally Pelasgian, appears to square re-markably with the facts. For then, upon the onehand, they would naturally be disinclined to interfereon behalf of the Greeks in a war where all purelyPelasgian sympathies would (as we must for the pre-sent take for granted) incline them towards Troy.

But further, we find among other notes of thePelasgians this, that they were characterised by awant of nautical genius, while the more enterprisingcharacter of the Hellenes at once made them, and has

Cyprus. 191

kept them down to this very day, an eminently mari-time people; and Homer himself, with his whole soul,evidently gloried and delighted in the sea. If thenthe population of Cyprus was Pelasgian, we can readilyunderstand how, notwithstanding its sympathies andits remoteness, it might be worth the while of its rulerto propitiate Agamemnon by a valuable gift in orderto avert a visit which his ships might otherwise be ex-pected to pay; and how the Pelopid power over Cyprus,as an island, might be greater than over nearer tribes,which were continental.

It may aid us to comprehend the relation betweenCyprus and Agamemnon, if we call to recollection theinsular empire which Athens afterwards acquired.

There is another sign, which strongly tends to con-nect Cyprus with the Pelasgian races, especially thosewhich belong to Asia. It is the worship of Venus,who had in that island her especial sanctuary, and who,upon her detection in the Odyssey0, takes refuge there.In the war, she is keenly interested on the Trojanside : and the Trojan history is too plainly markedwith the influence of the idea, that exalted her toOlympian rank. That Venus was known mythologicallyamong the Hellenic tribes, we see from the lay ofDemodocus. That she was worshipped among them,seems to be rendered extremely improbable by thefact, that Diomed wounds her in his apia-Te?ad. Wemust consider her as a peculiarly, and perhaps inHomer's time almost exclusively Pelasgian deity; andher local abode at Paphos may be taken as a markedsign, accordingly, of the Pelasgianism of Cyprus.

We have already seen Agapenor, a stranger, placedby Agamemnon in command of the Pelasgian forces of

c Od. viii. 362. d See inf. Eeligion and Morals, Sect. iii.

192 II. Ethnology.

Arcadia; and Minos, a stranger, acquire dominion overthe partially, and perhaps mainly, Pelasgian populationof Crete. It seems probable, that Cyprus in this tooaffords us a parallel. We have the following consi-derations to guide us in the question. First, thePelasgians, not being a maritime, were consequentlynot a mercantile people. Secondly, from the descrip-tion of the gift sent by Cinyres, we must understand it,on account of the preciousness of its materials and itsornaments, to have been a first rate example of theskill of the workers in metal of the period. Suchthings were not produced by Pelasgians; and we must,to be consistent with all the other Homeric indica-tions, suppose this breastplate to have been of Sido-nian or Phoenician workmanship. This suppositionconnects Cinyres himself with Phoenicia, while hispeople Mere Pelasgian. Again, on examining his namewe find in it no Pelasgian characteristics; but it ap-pears to be Asiatic, and to signify a musical instrumentwith strings, which was used in Asiae. All this makesit likely, upon Homeric presumptions, that he was aPhoenician, or a person of Phoenician connections, andthat into his hands the old Pelasgic sovereignty of Minoshad passed over from the Iasid family, which had reignedthere shortly before the Troica.

The Homeric tradition with respect to Cinyres issupported to some extent from withoutf. Apollodorusso far agrees with it as to report, that Cinyres migratedfrom the neighbouring Asiatic continent into Cypruswith a body of followers, founded Paphos, and marriedthe daughter of the king of the island. Apollodorus,Pindar, and Ovid, all treat Cinyres in a way which

e Gr. Kivvpa, Hebr. kinnur. f Apollod. Bibl. iii. 14.3. Pind.Liddell and Scott, in voc. Pyth. ii. 26. Ov. Met. x. 310.

Negative argument from Homer. 193

especially connects him with the worship of Venus, asthough he had introduced it into the island ; and it isobservable, that the points at which we find this deityin contact with the race are all in Asia, or on the wayfrom it, that is to say, Troas, Cyprus, and lastly, Cy-thera: as if it were not original to the Greeks, butengrafted, and gradually taking its hold. Sandacuswas, according to Apollodorns, the father of Cinyres,and had come from Syria into Cilicia.

The process which we thus seem to see going for-ward in the Pelasgian countries, and which was pro-bably further exemplified in the Greek migrations tothe coast of Asia Minor, was grounded in the natural,if we mean by the natural the ordinary, course ofthings. In the last century, John Wesley said, thatthe religious and orderly habits of his followers wouldmake them wealthy, and that then their wealth woulddestroy their religion. So in all likelihood it was thepeaceful habits of the Pelasgians that made their set-tlements attractive to the spoiler. They thus invitedaggression, which their political genius and organizationwere not strong enough to repel; and the power oftheir ancient but feeble sovereignties passed over intothe hands of families or tribes more capable of perma-nently retaining it, and of wielding it with vigour andeffect.

I must not, however, pass from the subject of Ho-meric testimony respecting the Pelasgi, without advert-ing to one important negative part of it.

It must be observed, that, as anterior to the threeappellatives which he ordinarily applies to the Greeksof the Trojan war collectively, Homer uses no namewhatever other than the Pelasgic, which is not oflimited and local application. Neither Ayaio\,'Apyeioi,

o

194 II. Ethnology.

nor Aavaol, bear any one sign of being the proper de-signation of the original settlers and inhabitants of allGreece: and if the name for them be not UeXacryoi,there certainly is no other name whatever which cancompete for the honour, none which has the samemarks at once of great antiquity, and of covering awide range of the country. And if, as I trust, it shallhereafter be shown, that all these came from abroad asstrangers into a country already occupied, there thenwill be a presumption of no mean force arising evenout of this negative, to the effect that the Pelasgianswere the original base of the Greek nation, whilewe are also entitled to affirm, upon the evidence ofHomer, that their race extended beyond the limits ofGreece.

Such is the supposition upon which we already beginto find that the testimony of the poems as a wholeappears to converge. It is, I grant, indirect, and frag-mentary, and much of it conjectural; we may greatlyenlarge its quantity from sources not yet opened : butI wish to direct particular attention to its unity andharmony, to the multitude of indications which, thoughseparate and individually slight, all coincide with thetheory that the Pelasgi supplied the substratum- of theGreek population subsisting under dominant Hellic in-fluences ; and to the fact, I would almost venture toadd, that they can coincide with nothing else.

We must proceed, however, to consider that portionof the evidence in the case, which is external to theHomeric Poems.

Besides what has been up to this point incidentallytouched, there is a great mass of extra-Homeric testi-mony, which tends, when read in the light of Homer, tocorroborate the views which have here been taken of

The Pelasgians; post-Homeric evidence. 195

the Pelasgi, as one of the main coefficients of the Greeknation.

In the first chapter of the able work of Bishop Marsh,entitled, Horce Pelasgic&s, will be found an ample col-lection of passages from Greek writers, which, thoughmany of them are in themselves slight, and any one iftaken singly could be of little weight for the purpose ofproof, yet collectively indicate that the possession ofthe entire country at the remotest period by the Pelasgiwas little less than an universal and invariable tradi-tion. I will here collect some portion of the evidencewhich may be cited to this effect.

Coming next to Homer in time and in authority,Hesiod supports him, as we have seen above11, in asso-ciating Dodona both with the Pelasgic and with theHellic races; placing it, just as Homer does, in the midstof the latter, and more distinctly than Homer indicatingits foundation by the former. It may be observed that,in a Fragment, he questionably personifies Pelasgus'.

Next we find the very ancient poet Asius, accordingto the quotation of PausaniasJ, assigning the veryhighest antiquity to the Pelasgian race, by making Pe-lasgus the father of men ;

avTideov Se YlfXacrybv kv V^LKOIXOKTIV opiaai

yaia y.i\aiv avefta>Kev, tva OVTJT&V yivos tLrj.

Among the Greek writers, not being historians them-selves, of the historic period,, there is none whose testi-mony bears, to my perception, so much of the truearchaic stamp, as iEschylus. It seems as if we couldtrace in him a greater piety towards Homer, and we cer-tainly find a more careful regard both to his characters

s Cambridge, 1815. ' Hist. Fvagm. x. 2,h Sup. p. 108. J Paus. viii. 1, 2.

O 2

196 II. Ethnology.

and his facts, than were afterwards commonly paid tothem. Nay he excels in this respect the Cyclic poets.They were much nearer in date to the great master,but he, as it were, outran them, by a deeper and noblersympathy. In him, too, the drama had not yet acquiredthe character, which effaces or impairs its claims to his-torical authority: which earned for it the eKTpaywSeivof Aristotlek and Polybius'.and on which was foundedthe declaration of Socrates in the Minos,'ATTIKOV Xiyeis/xvOov Kal Tpayiic6vm. Even where he speaks allegori-cally, he seems to represent the first form of allegory,in which it is traceably moulded upon history, andserves for its key. It is not therefore unreasonable toattach importance to his rendering of the public tradi-tion respecting the Pelasgi, which we find in a remark-able passage of the Supplices;

TOV yrjyevovs ydp dp eyw TlaXaixOovosTvis YleKaaybs, rrjcrbe yfjs apyj]yirr)$.t/xov S' avaKTOs €v\6ya>s kudivvpovyevos He\acry&v rrjvhe Kapnovrai \96van.

Pelasgus, himself the speaker, then describes hisdominions as reaching from Peloponnesus (x<«/»? 'Airly)in the south to the river Strymon in the north (irpb$SWOVTOS f)\lov), and declares how Apis, coming fromAcarnania, had fitted the country for the abode of manby clearing it of wild beasts. Acarnania marks theline of country, which formed the ordinary route fromThessaly to Peloponnesus. Taken literally, Pelasgus isthe son of the Earthborn, and the name-giver of thePelasgian race. What the passage signifies evidently is,that by ancient tradition the Pelasgians were the firstoccupants of the country, and that they reached from

k Rhet. m Minos 10.l Hist. vi. 56, 8. n JEsch. Suppl. 256.

The Pelasgians; post-Homeric evidence. 197

the north to the south of Greece. It is in the reign ofthis mythical Pelasgus, that Danaus reaches the Pelo-ponnesus.

Of such an eponymus Thessaly, Argos, and Arcadiahad each their separate tradition in its appropriatedress. Pausanias reports the Arcadian one very fully:and according to its tenour Pelasgus taught the use ofdwellings and clothes, and to eat chestnuts instead ofroots, grass, and leaves0. The tomb of Pelasgus waspretended to be shown at Argos.

Herodotus states that the Hellas of his day was for-merly called TleXatrylaP: gives to the Peloponnesianwomen of the era of Danaus the name of UeXaa-yiwrlSe?ywaiKesi: he denominates the Arcadians UeXacryol'ApKaSesr, the people of what was afterwards AchaiaHeXacryoi AlyiaXeess, the Athenians TleXaa-yol Kpa-

vaol1, whom also he describes as autochthonic": andhe shows, that recollections of the Pelasgian worshipwere preserved in his day at Dodonax. He further-more mentions the IleXao-yIKOV Ta^oy y at Athens ; andhe places the Pelasgian race in Samothrace, and Lem-nos, and mentions their settlements upon the Helles-pont, named Placia and Scylace.

Thucydides describes the spot or building called TLe-Xatryitcov under the Acropolis at Athens, the very situa-tion, in which the original town would in all likelihoodbe placed for safety. This historian also sustains, withthe weight of his judgment, the opinion that in pre-Hellenic times the prevailing race and name in Greecewere Pelasgic ; Kara e'6i»i Se aXXa re KCU TO IleXacryiKov

CTTt TrXet<TTOVz.

0 Paus. viii. 2, 2. p Herod, ii. 56. q ii. 171.r i. 146. * vii. 94. * i. 56.

u viii. 44. x ii. 52. y v. 64. 2 Thuc. i. 3.

198 II. Ethnology.

It is true, that in another passage*1, among the racesof the fidpftapoi, he enumerates the Pelasgi: but theepithet itself, which was wholly inapplicable to theheroic age, shows that he spoke with reference to thedemarcation established in his own time, which madeevery thing barbarous that was not Greek, either geo-graphically or by known derivation. Barbarian with himand his contemporaries meant simply foreign, with theaddition of a strong dash of depreciation. The full-grown-Hellenic character no longer owned kindred withthe particular races, which nevertheless might havecontributed, each in its own time and place, to theformation of that remarkable product. The relation-ship is, however, established by Thucydides himself;for he says these Pelasgi were of the same Tyrseni, whooccupied Athens at an earlier period.

Theocritus, who nourished early in the third centuryB. C, has a passage where he distinguishes chronologi-cally between different persons and races. He beginswith the heroes of the Troica, and then goes back tothe en irporepoi, in which capacity he names the La-pithse, the Deucalidse, the Pelopids, and lastly the"Apyeos aicpa TleXacryolb. The word aicpa might meaneither (i) the flower of Greece, or (2) the very oldestand earliest inhabitants of Greece0. Now as the Pe-lasgians were by no means the flower of Greece, wecan only choose the latter meaning for this particularpassage. The word "Apyos is perhaps taken here in itslargest sensed.

Apollonius Rhodius, nearly a century later, adheresto part at least of the same tradition, and calls Thessaly

a Thuc. v. 109. * Theocr. Idyll, xv. 136-40.c Pind. Pyth. xi. 18. Soph. Aj. 285. d See inf. sect. viii.

The Pelasgians; post-Homeric evidence. 199

the TroAiA ib? ata He\ao-yu>ve. The Scholiast on thispassage adds an older testimony, stating that Sophocles,in the Inachus, declared that the TieXacryol and 'Apyeioiwere the same.

According to Strabo, the Pelasgi were the mostancient race which had held power in Greece: T£>V

-jrepi Trjv 'J&WdSa SvvacrTeva'dvTwi' apyaiOTarroi . In the

same place he calls the oracle of Dodona TleXao-ywv'ISpufia, a Pelasgian foundation. He expressly supportsthe construction which has been given above to theTleXacryiKov "Apyos of Homer £, in the' words TO Tle-XaaytKov "Apyos n QerraXla Xeyerai, and he defines thecountry by the Peneus, Pindus, and Thermopylae. Hetraces the Pelasgi in a multitude of particular places,and, on the authority of Ephorus, mentions YieXacryiaas a name of Peloponnesus. He also gives us thatfragment of Euripides, which states, in harmony withthe testimony of iEschylus, that Danaus came toGreece, founded the city of Inachus, and changed thename of the inhabitants from Pelasgiotes to Danaans.

IT eAacry tiaras §' (hvo^aa/xevovs TO TrplvAavaovs KaXeiadat VO\LOV iOrjK1 av 'EXXdSa.

And Strabo considers that both the Pelasgiote and theDanaan name, together with that of the Hellenes, werecovered by the Argive or Argeian name on account ofthe fame, to which the city of Argos rose11.

The writings of Dionysius of Halicarnassus probablyrepresent all, that a sound judgment could gather fromthe records and traditions extant in his time1. Hepronounces confidently, that the Pelasgian race wasHellenic; which I take to mean, that it was one of the

e Argonaut, i. 580, and Scliol. Paris. f Strabo vii. p. 327.g Ibid. v. p. 221. h Ibid. <• i. 17.

200 II. Ethnology.

component parts of the body afterwards called Hel-lenic, not that the early Pelasgi were included amongthe early Hellenes. He considers that the race camefrom Peloponnesus, where many believed it to beautochthonic, into Thessaly, under Achseus, Phthius,and Pelasgus. It was unfortunate, as in other respects,so in being driven to frequent migrations. This ideaof the frequent displacement of the Pelasgians was pro-bably the product in the main of the two facts, first,that traces of them were found at many widely sepa-rated points, and secondly, that, according to tradition,they had sunk into a position of inferiority.

K. O. Miiller, proceeding chiefly on the post-Homerictradition, has strongly summed up the evidence as tothe Pelasgi, to the following effect.

They were the original inhabitants of the plains andflat bottoms of the valleys, any one of which theancients called by the name "Apyos, as we see by theplains of the Peneus, and of the Inachus. If, as Straboholds, this use of the word was in his time modern, andMacedonian or Thessalian, it may still have been arevival of a primitive usage, even as the very old wordTpaiKOi had come back into use with the Alexandrianpoets, through the old common tongue of Macedonia.

Their oldest towns were the Lariss8ek, and thenumber of these points out the Pelasgians as a city,founding people, expert in raising considerable anddurable structures. These Larissse were upon alluvialsoils by rivers, and the Pelasgians were early diggers ofcanals1. Their pursuits were agricultural; hence theyoccupy the richest soils: hence Pelasgus is the host of

k See however p. 114 above. labourer, in the time of Homer;1 So the dxtTTjybs avrjp already II. xxi. 257.

exists, as apart from the common

TIte Pelasgians; post-Homeric evidence.

Ceres, and the inventor of bread: hence TyrrhenianPelasgi convert the stony ground by Hymettus intofruitful fields. The shepherd life of the Pelasgians isan Arcadian tradition, but Arcadia was not their onlyoriginal seat, and, when displaced by Achaeans andDorians, they may have been driven to the hills. Suchseats we find in Argos, Achaia, Peloponnesus gene-rally, Thessalia, Epirus, and Attica, where they may betraced in the division of the tribes.

Treating as an error the tradition of their vagrantcharacter, he conceives them to be generally and aboveall autochthonic. He quotes from Asius in Pausaniasthe lines which have already been quoted.

There is no record, he says, of their coming intoGreece by colonization. They are a people distinct, hethinks, from Lelegians and Carians, as well as from thenorthern immigrants, Achseans, and Thessalians: andthey are the basis and groundwork of the Greeknation™.

In Niebuhr11 will be found a comprehensive outlineof the wide range of Pelasgian occupancy in Italy: andCramer supplies a similar sketch for Asia Minor andfor Greece".

I forbear to quote Latin authorities as to the Pelasgiof Greece. The strong Pelasgian character of MagnaGrascia will of itself naturally account for the free useof the name by Romans to designate the Greek nation,and cannot therefore greatly serve to show even thelater tradition concerning the ancient position of thePelasgians in Greece, and their relations to its otherinhabitants.

Marsh appears to assert too much, when he saysm K. 0 . Miiller, Orchomenos, 119-22. n Chap. iii.

0 Cramer's Geogr. Ancient Greece, vol. i. p. 15.

202 II. Ethnology.

that we may set down as peculiarly Pelasgian thoseplaces which retained the Pelasgian name in thehistoric ages. It does not follow from this retention,that Placia and Scylace were more genuinely Pelasgianthan Thessaly, any more than we are entitled to sayfrom Homer, that Thessaly was originally more Pelas-gian than Attica or Peloponnesus, though it retainedthe name longer. The reason may have been, that nosuch powerful pressure from a superior race was broughtto bear in the one class of cases, as in the other0.

In holding that the Pelasgians were the base, s.o tospeak, of the Greek nation, I mean to indicate it as aprobable opinion, that they continued to form the massof the inhabitants throughout all the changes of namewhich succeeded the period of their rule. But it wouldappear, that a succession of other more vigorous influ-ences from the Hellic stock must have contributed farmore powerfully in all respects, excepting as to num-bers, to compose and shape the nationality of thepeople. The chief part of the Pelasgians of Atticamay perhaps have lain among the 400,000 slaves, whoformed the unheeded herd of its population; much asin Italy the serfs of the Greek colonists bore the Pe-lasgian name P. So large a body could scarcely havebeen formed in that limited territory, except out of theoriginal inhabitants of the country. In early stages ofsociety the bulk of society takes its impress from one,or from a few, of superior force: and the ruling familiesand tribes of a smaller, but more energetic and warlike

0 The tradition that the Pelas- 'EXXaSoy awb TOVS dpxaiorarovs XP«-gians were the original inhabit- vovs, KepKvpa, 1830, chap. i. p. 2.ants of the Greek Peninsula ap- Also that Pelasgi and Hellenespears to have been adopted into were the two factors (^17) of thethe literature of modern Greece. Greek nation. Ibid. p. 3.See UerpiSrit—'luropla rijs TraXaias V Niebuhr, ibid.

Language of the Pelasgians. 203

race, finding for themselves a natural place at the headof societies already constituted, assume the undisputeddirection of their fortunes, and become, by a sponta-neous law, their sole representatives in the face of theworld, and in the annals of its history.

We may, however, find no inconsiderable proof of thepresence of a strong Pelasgian element in the Greeknation, in that portion of the evidence upon the casewhich is supplied by language. Those numerous andimportant words in the Latin tongue, which correspondwith the words belonging to the same ideas in Greek,could only have come from the Pelasgian ancestry com-mon to both countries; and, if coming from them, mustdemonstrate in the one case, as in the other, the strongPelasgian tincture of the nation.

And as the language of a country connot be exten-sively impregnated in this manner, except either bynumbers, or by political and social ascendancy (as wasthe case of the French tongue with the English), or byliterary influence (as is now the case with us in respectto the Greek and Latin tongues), we must ask to whichof these causes it was owing, that the Pelasgians sodeeply marked the Greek language with the traces oftheir own tongue. It was not literary influence, for wemay be sure that there existed none. It was not politicalascendancy, for they were either enslaved, or at theleast subordinate. It could only be the influence oftheir numbers, through which their manner of speechcould in any measure hold its ground; and thus wearrive again at the conclusion, that they must have sup-plied the substratum of the nation.

It is true that Herodotus, as well as Thucydides,spoke of the Pelasgians as using a foreign tongue. Soa German writer would naturally describe the English,

204- II. Ethnology.

and yet the English language, by one of its main ingre-dients, bears conclusive testimony to the Saxon elementof the English nation, and also illustrates the relativepositions, which the Saxon and Norman races are knownin history to have occupied. The tongue of the Pelas-gians had been subject within Greece to influence andadmixture from the language of the Hellic tribes: be-yond Greece it had received impressions from differentsources; and naturally, after the consequences of thisseverance had worked for centuries, the speech of thePelasgians would be barbarous in the eyes of the Greeks.Again, Marsh 1 observes that, in the very chapter wherehe distinguishes Pelasgic from Hellenic, Herodotus (i.56) declares the Ionians to belong to one of thesestocks, the Dorians to the other: both of which popu-lations were in his time undoubtedly Greek. And thehistorian gives another strong proof that the Pelasgianswere Greek, where he assigns to this parentage (ii. 52)the Greek name of the gods: Qeov? Se irpoawvofxaaav a(pea<}cnrb TOV TOLOVTOV, OTL Kocrfjiw Oevres TO. iravTa irpy'y/j.aTa K.T.X.

Even if we suppose, as may have been the case, thatthe Pelasgi mentioned by Herodotus, and by Thucy-dides, spoke a tongue as far from the Greek actuallyknown to either of them, as is German from the En-glish language at the present day, yet by its affinitiesthat tongue might still remain a conclusive proof, thatthe ancestors of those who spoke it must have formedan essential ingredient in the composition of the nation.The evidence, which we know to be good in the onecase, might be equally valid in the other.

There is abundance of testimony among authors, bothGreek and Roman, to establish the relation of thePelasgi to the old forms of the language of both coun-

1 Horse Pelasg. ch. ii. p. 28.

Pelasgian route into Greece. 205

tries. It is enough for the present to refer to theSecond Chapter of Bishop Marsh's Horae Pelasgicse fora very able and satisfactory discussion of the question.I shall presently have to consider the particular com-plexion of the words which the Greek nation appear tohave derived from Pelasgic sources, and the inferenceswhich that complexion suggests. But this will best bedone, when we have examined into the Homeric importof the Hellenic and Pelasgian proper names.

We have next to examine the question,By what route is it most probable that this Pelasgian

nation came into Greece ?On this subject there can hardly be any other than

one of two suppositions: the first, that by Thrace, orby the islands of the north, they reached Thessaly : theother, that they crossed from Asia, to the south of thej9£gean,by the islands which divide the spaces of that sea.

It is observed by Cramer1", that the prevailing opinionamong those ancient writers, who have discussed the sub-ject, places the Pelasgians first in the Peloponnesus: thisbeing maintained by Plierecydes, Ephorus, Dionysius ofHalicarnassus, and Pausanias, without any dissentientsto oppose them. This tradition evidently favours theopinion of a passage by the south.

Dionysius, who may be regarded as summing up thegeneral results of Greek tradition, says8 it placed thePelasgians first in the Peloponnesus as autochthons;and represented them as having migrated to Thessalyin the sixth generation. In six generations more, theywere, he conceives, expelled by the iEtolians and Lo-crians, then called Curetes and Leleges, and were dis-persed into various quarters : indeed, here the traditionseems to become wholly vague or mythical, and to have

r Cramer's Greece i. 17. s Antiq. Rom. i. 17, 18.

206 II. Ethnology.

gathered into one mass most of the places in whichthere appeared signs of Pelasgic oceupaney: it includesthe report of a great migration to Italy.

Marsh1 considers Thrace as the original seat in Eu-rope of the Pelasgi; but the data on which he proceedsare too narrow; they have reference only to the islandsof Lemnus, Imbrus, and Samothrace. There is no evi-dence of Pelasgians on the Continent to the north ofthe iEgean except what places them at a distance fromTroy (rrjXe Horn. II. xvii. 301), and if so, at a pointwhich they may have reached from those islands, moreprobably, than by the continental route. It is on thewhole more likely, however, that Pelasgians may havefound their way into Greece both by the north (and if so,probably through the islands), and also by the south.

Homer affords no materials for conclusively deter-mining the question. He gives us the Pelasgic nameestablished in Thessaly, which favours our supposingthe one passage, and likewise in Crete, which favoursthe other. He gives us the Pelasgic Jove of Dodona(a very weighty piece of testimony), and the Te/xeuos ofCeres in Thessaly, telling rather for the first; and helikewise gives us a perceptible connection betweenCeres and Crete, and between Jupiter and king Minos,verging to the latter. But it is to be observed that,with the exception of Attica, the chief Homeric tokensof Pelasgianism lie in Northern and in Southern, butnot in Middle, Greece: which favours the opinion, thatthere may have been a double line of entry.

The extra-Homeric tradition is on the whole most fa-vourable to the supposition of a southern route. Hesiodmakes Dodona in Thessaly Pelasgian, but distinctly as-sociates Ceres with Crete: and the Theogony (479, 80)

fc Horse Pelasg. pp. 12-15.

Pelasgian route into Greece. 207

sends Jupiter as an infant to be reared in Crete. TheHymn to Ceres, as we have seen, brings her from thenceto Eleusis; and the popular mythology in general treatsthat island as the cradle of Jupiter, therefore manifestlyas the place from which the Greeks derived his worship.More than this; the tradition makes Peloponnesus theseat and centre of Pelasgic power, as we see from^Eschylus, who makes Pelasgus reside in Peloponnesus,but rule as far as Macedonia. So likewise the namesboth of 'ATT/^ yaia and of 'laa-hv "Apyo$ connect them-selves originally with this part of Greece: especiallywhen we consider that Apis in Egypt is the sacred bull,and that agriculture, the characteristic pursuit of thePelasgians, was also the business of oxen. Again, He-rodotus" reports that the local tradition of Dodonaassigned to that oracle an Egyptian origin; and asDodona was Pelasgic, this tradition somewhat favoursthe hypothesis of entry by the south.

There are several allusions in Homer to Crete, toCyprus, or to both, as marking the route betweenGreece and Asia. Menelaus, after quitting Troy, andnearing Crete (Od. iii. 285-92), sailed afar

KvTtpov <i>oiviKr]V re ical AlyvirrCovs eiraArj^eis*.

The pseudo-Ulysses sails from Crete to Egypt?, and re-turns thence to Phoenicia, in one tale, and afterwardsstarts for Libya by Crete ; in another legend, he is givenover from Egypt to Cyprus; and Antinousz, in theSeventeenth Odyssey, replying to the supposed beggar-man, says, Get out of the way,

pr] Taya TTlKprjV A'lyvTtTOV KCU Kvirpov I'KT/CU.

We already know the connection of Crete with Greecefrom the Iliad : and thus it appears as on the high road

11 Herod, ii. 54-7. x Od. iv. 83.y Ibid. xiv. 246-58, 290, 293-300. z Ibid. v. 442, 7, 8.

208 II. Ethnology.

from Greece to Phoenicia,and by Phoenicia to Egypt. Theunexampled populousness of that island would, as a mat-ter of course, beget migration; and, of all the tracts lyingto the west of the iEgean, the Thessalian plain would,from its extent, offer perhaps the greatest encourage-ment to agricultural settlers. The traditions reportedby Herodotus from Dodona connect that place closelywith Egypt and the East, and the route now supposedby Crete establishes that connection in what is probablythe simplest and most obvious line.

The continental country from Thessaly to the northand east was held as it would appear to a great extentby a martial and highland race Qptjues and QptjiKioi. Itis not likely tbat the Pelasgians had much in commonwith that people, or could make their way to Greeceeither with or in despite of them. Perhaps the coastwhere we find Cicones and Pseones apart from theThracians, may have afforded a route, and we must re-member the traditional traces of them both on the coastof the Hellespont and in the islands*.

This may be the place most convenient for observ-ing, that there can be little hesitation in regarding thenorthern route as that by which the Hellic tribes cameinto Greece. They, a highland people, caine along amountain country. They left their name upon theHellespont, the sea of Helle, which means not themere strait so called in later times, but the wholenorthern iEgeanb; and upon the river Selleeis, whichdischarges itself into the sea of Marmora. We first hearof them in Homer at the extreme north of Thessaly:

a Perhaps the use of the word I t is derived from a and irepas, anrjirtipos for mainland may suggest, end or stop ; consider also mpda,that it is due to an insular people, to pass over, avrmepaia, II. ii. 635,who would appropriately describe and nc'pr)v Upfc Eifiolrjs, ibid. 535.a continent as the unlimited (land). b See inf. sect. vi.

Peloponnesus the seat of power. 209

then we find them giving their name, Hellas, to thatcountry, or to some part of it. The people of Hellas,when their connection with their sires of the mountainhad become faint in comparison with their relation tothe territory they occupied, called themselves Hellenes,from the region they inhabited ; and lost sight, as itwere, of the ruder parent tribe. In the meantime, theyhad struck out offshoots through Greece, and the nameHellas had, as will be seenc, probably come, even in thetime of Homer, to be applied in a secondary and compre-hensive sense to the whole northern and central partsof it.

It is remarkable and undeniable, with reference bothto Pelasgic and to Hellenic times, that in whatever partof the country ruling tribes or families might firstmake their appearance, the permanent seat of powerfor Greece was uniformly in the Peloponnesus. Everymovement of political importance appears to directitself thither, and there to rest in equilibrium. Theold tradition of Pelasgus, the dynasties of Danaids,Perseids, and Pelopids, the great Heraclid and Doricinvasion, evidently aiming at laying hold on the centreof dominion, and yet more, that Spartan primacy (fiye^o-vla), which endured for so many centuries, all tell thesame tale; finally the train of evidence is crowned by thestrong local sympathies of Juno. It was only in thefifth century before the Christian era that Athens ac-quired the lead : nor did she keep it long. Her sway,after an interval, was followed by another shortlivedascendancy, that of Thebes, in the fourth century. ButGreece ended as she had begun : and the last splendoursof her national sentiment and military courage wereflung from its pristine seats in Peloponnesus: from La-

c Inf. sect. vi.

P

210 II. Ethnology.

cedaemon, and Achaia. The old Amphictyonic Unionalone remained, throughout the historic times of Greece,to bear witness to the fact that it was in the north of theIsthmus, and above all in Thessaly, that the Hellic tribesfirst organised themselves as distinct political integers,united in substance, if not in form, in respect of theircommon religious worship, and their common blood.

It was probably greater security, which gave this ad-vantage, in early times, to Southern over Northern andMidland Greece. Only one narrow neck of land ledinto the Peloponnesus, and that passage was so circuit-ous, or dangerous, or both, that it was not the highwayof immigrant tribes, who seem usually to have crossedthe Corinthian gulf into Elis. This tract of land hadnot indeed the whole, but it had much, of the advan-tage enjoyed by England. It was not quite, but it wasalmost,

A precious stone, set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wall,Or as a moat defensive to a house0.

When reached, it was the highway to nothing. The fatlands of Boeotia were a road onwards for all who camefrom Thessaly : there was here a choice between bar-renness and poverty, on the one hand, like those ofAttica in early times, and insecurity of tenure in therich soils, which were the object of desire to each tribeas it went upon its march. The Peloponnesus wasricher than the one, far more secure than the other: itthrove accordingly; and in the Trojan war this smallterritory supplied four hundred and thirty ships, pro-bably including the greatest number of large vessels,while the other two divisions of continental Greece to-gether gave no more than five hundred and thirty.

c Richard II., act ii., sc. i.

Derivation of the Pelasgian name.

And it seems to have had altogether a more vigorousand concentrated political organisation; for while thefive hundred and thirty were in fifteen divisions, undertwenty-six leaders, the Peloponnesian force was in sixdivisions, under nine leaders only, and of the six threeat least, namely, those of Mycenae, Lacedsemon, andArcadia, were virtually under the direct command ofAgamemnon.

Various derivations have been suggested for thename of the Pelasgi. Some will have it to come fromPeleg, mentioned in the tenth chapter of Genesis,whose name, said to mean division, is taken to alludeto the partition of the earth's surface among the varioustribes of the human race. Marsh well observes, thatthis amounts to no more than possibility: that themeaning of the word will not serve to attach it to thePelasgi in particular, as in the early ages of the worldmigration, with partition and repartition, was a continu-ous process: and that, even if true, it tells us nothing ofthem antecedent to their European settlement*1: no-thing, that is to say, of a material kind, except whatwe know independently of it, viz. their being, in com-mon with all other races, of eastern origin. Clintongives other reasons for rejecting this etymologye, whilehe sees force in the reference of the names of Iapetusand Ion to Japheth and Javan respectively. It seemsplain that we could not safely build upon even a com-plete similarity of name, in a case where the intervalof time that separates Peleg and Pelasgi, the terms weare to compare, is so vast and so obscure.

So also the name veXapyoi, meaning storks, has beentaken to be the foundation of HeXacryol; and the ex-planation has been given, that the stork is a migratory

<1 Horse Pelasg. ch. i. sub fin. e Clinton, Fast. Hell. i. p. 97.P 2

II. Ethnology.

bird, and that the Pelasgi were called after it onaccount of their wanderings.

This explanation, which seems worse than the for-mer, rests in part upon a statement of Herodotus mis-construed. He calls the Dorians e'Qvo? -TrovXvwXavrjTovKapTa{, and this has' been erroneously applied to thePelasgians, of whom, on the contrary, he says, ovSa/itj KWe^e-^wprja-e. This statement from a writer of the age ofHerodotus, fully neutralises the statement of Dionysius,who describes them as itinerant, and never securelysettled^. He may, indeed, mean no more than Thucydi-des means, when he says (i. 2), that the occupants of goodsoils were the most liable to dispossession. But doesthis idea of itinerancy correspond with the migrationsof the stork, which seem to have reference to thesteady periodical variations of climate, and to be as faras possible from the idea implied in 'much-roving?'

It appears to have been the understood characteristicof that bird, to draw to and dwell about the settled habi-tations of men. It seems highly improbable, and with-out precedent, that a widely spread nation should takeits name from a bird : but may not the bird have takenits name from the nation ? If it were a nation empha-tically of settlers, as opposed to pirates, robbers, nomads,and rovers of all kinds, dwelling with comfort in fixedabodes, as opposed to the avnrroiroSes ^afialevvai^, mightnot birds, which seemed to share these settlements, bereasonably named after the people ?

It by no means appears as if Aristophanes, in thepassage where he uses the term, intended a mere pun.It is in the comedy of the Birds', and is an allusion tothat law of the Athenians, evidently here signified

f Herod, i. 56. h II. xvi. 235.s Dion. Hal. i. 17. i 'Opvides, v. 1359.

Derivation of the Pelasgian name. 213

under the name of storks, which required children toprovide for their parents I The passage is clearly a tes-timony to the Pelasgic origin of the Athenians ; and itmay be based upon the belief, that the storks took theirname from the Pelasgi, and that the similarity lay in theirhabit of settling on the roofs of houses and the like,almost as if inhabitants, in the villages of which thePelasgi were the first Greek founders. It also givesroom for the conjecture that HeXapyol may have beenthe old form of the name. The stork, it may be re-membered, was one of the sacred birds of the Egypt-ians.

Again, the word 7re'Att<yo? has been suggested assupplying the true derivation of the Pelasgian name.Marshk rejects it, because he conceives it is foundedupon the hypothesis that the Pelasgi came across theiEgean, which he thinks improbable. But the evidenceappears to be in favour of their having come principallyby the islands, if not at once across the iEgean. Itmay also be questioned, whether the etymology mustrest on this hypothesis exclusively. For, in the firstplace, the more natural construction would be, notthat they came by sea, but that they came from beyondsea, an idea which might very well attach to any peopleof Asiatic origin. So it was that the too famous Pela-gius, who is known to have been a Welshman, came byhis classical name ; a name bearing that very significa-tion '. But is it not also possible, that -n-eXayos may at onetime have had the meaning of a plain? It properlysignifies a wide open level surface, corresponding withthe Latin cequor, and with our main. Hence Homernever attaches to the word ireXayos any of his usual

j Potter's Antiq., b.i. ch. 26. l See Hey's Norrisian Leo-k Horse Pelasg. ch. i. p. 17. tures, vol. iii. p. 142.

214 II. Ethnology.

epithets for the sea, such as dlvo^r, >/x>?el?,arpvyeros, Tro\v<p\oicrfios; but only fiiya, great: and heuses the phrase aXo? ev veXdyeaa-im, which would be meretautology, if ireXayos properly and directly meant thesea. So Pindar has TTOVTIOV ireXayo?, iEschylus a\s ire-\ayia, and Apollonius Rhodius ireXayos BaXdo-crris".There were in Macedonia, as we learn from Strabo, apeople called Pelagones", and in Homer we find thenames TleXdywv and lltjXeywv. Again, we have in He-sychius, among the meanings of ire\ayll£etv, y^evSea-OaifAeydXa, and for TreXayoi he gives (xeyeOos, vXijOos, fivdo<;;

as well as irXdros OaXda-a-t]?. I t seems not impossiblethat the Pelasgi may owe their name to the word ve-Xayos, in its primary sense of plain and open surface:as the word 9/>»5£, in this view its exact counterpart,was derived from Tprj^ys, and at one time meant simplythe inhabitant of a rough and rocky place, a moun-taineer or highlander.

There is, however, another mode in which IleXao^otmay bear the sense of inhabitants of the plain, or rather(for it is in this that the word will most comprehen-sively apply to them, and most closely keep to its propermeaning), of the cultivable country, which would in-clude valleys as well as plains properly so called : andindeed this derivation, suggested by K. O. Miiller, isthe simplest possible, if only we can clear the first step,which assumes the identity of IleXao-yoi and HeXapyol.He says it is compounded of TTCXW and lipyos. The firstmeaning of 7re'Ato seems to imply motion with repetitionor custom. Afterwards it is to be, and especially to be

m Od. v. 335. root, and 'accessible,' 'easily tra-o 01. vii. 104 ; Persse 427 ; veiled,"open'(compare eipvayvia)

Scott and Liddell in 7re\ayos. I as the meaning.venture to suggest wehdfa as the ° Strabo, p. 327, 331.

Derivation of the Pelasgian name. 215

wont to be. Thus it will, while yet very near its foun-tain, have the sense, to frequent or inhabit. To thesame origin he refers TT6\I$, iroXioo; and also the TreXw-pia, the harvest feast of Thessaly, taken as the feast ofinhabitation P or settlement.

The subject of this name will again come into view,when the later name of 'Apyelot is examined. In themean time, let it be observed, that if the Pelasgi werethus called from being, or if only they in fact were, in-habitants of the plains, we find in this some furtherexplanation of the tradition, which can hardly havebeen an unmixed error, of their vagrant character.For the plains contained the most fertile soils: and,especially as they were of limited extent, their in-habitants could not but rapidly increase, so as torequire moi"e space for the support of their population.Further, these rich tracts offered a prize to all thetribes who were in want of settlements; according tothe just observation of Thucydides% already quoted,that the most fertile parts of Greece, namely, Boeo-tia, Thessaly, and much of Peloponnesus, most fre-quently changed hands. This would be more and moreapplicable to a given people, in proportion as it mightbe more addicted to peaceful pursuits. Manifestly, itis as inhabitants of the plains, or the cultivable country,that Homer especially marks the Pelasgi: both by callingthe great plain of Thessaly Pelasgic, and by the epithetepi(3wAa£ which he applies (II. ii. 841. and xvii. 301), totheir Larissa, on the only two occasions when he men-tions it. And the etymological inquiry seems, upon thewhole, to direct us, although the particular path besomewhat uncertain, towards a similar conclusion.

P Orchomenos, p. 119 and n. 1 Thuc. i. 2.

II. Ethnology.

SECT. IV.

On the Phoenicians, and the Outer Geography ofthe Odyssey.

The text of Homer appears to afford presumptions,if not of close affinity between the Phoenician and Hel-lenic races, yet of close congeniality, and of great capa-city for amalgamation; although the former were ofSemitic origin.

The Phoenician name, as may be seen from Strabo,was widely spread through Greece: even in Homer wefind the word $om£ already used, (i) for a Phoenician,(a) for a Greek proper name, (3) for purple, and (4) forthe palm tree (Od. v. 163).

We find the ancient family of Cadmus established asa dynasty in Boeotia, about the same time, according tothe common opinion, with the earliest appearances ofthe Hellenic race in the Greek peninsula. We haveno reason to suppose that they were themselves of Hellicextraction : but we find them invested with the samemarks of political superiority as the Hellenic families,and figuring among the Greek sovereigns in successivegenerations. They must have ejected previous occu-pants : for Amphion and Zethus first settled and for-tified Thebes, and they were the sons of Jupiter andAntiopea.

Ino Leucothee, the daughter of Cadmus, was alreadya deity in the time of Homer. She appears in that ca-pacity to Ulysses, when he is tossed upon the waters be-tween Ogygia and Phseacia; that is to say, when he wasstill beyond the limits of the Greek or Homeric world,

a Od. xi. 260.

The Phoenicians. 217

and within the circle of those traditions, lying in theunknown distance, which the Greeks could only derivefrom the most experienced and daring navigators ofthe time; namely, the Phoenicians. This appears tomark Ino herself, and therefore her father Cadmus, asof Phoenician birth. And accordingly we may setdown the position of this family in Greece, as theearliest token of relations between Phoenicia andGreece.

It is followed by one more significant still, and moreclearly attested in Homer. Minos, a Phoenician, ap-pears in Crete and founds an empire: he marries hisdaughter Ariadne to the Athenian hero Theseus; andso quickly does this empire assume the national cha-racter, that in the time of the Troica, Hellenic racesare established in the island, the Cretan troops arenumbered without distinction among the followers ofAgamemnon ; and Idomeneus, only the grandson ofMinos, appears to be as Grecian as any of the otherchiefs of the army. The grandfather himself is ap-pointed to act as judge over the shades of Greeks inthe nether world1': and his brother Rhadamanthus hasa post of great dignity, if of inferior responsibility, inbeing intrusted with the police of Elysiumc.

Nowhere is Homer's precision more remarkable,than in the numerous passages where he appears beforeus as a real geographer or topographer. Indeed, byvirtue of this accuracy, he enables us to define withconsiderable confidence the sphere of his knowledgeand experience; by which I mean not only the coun-tries and places he had visited, but those with respectto which he had habitual information from his country-men, and unrestricted opportunities of correcting error.

b Od. xi. 568. c Od. iv. 564.

218 II. Ethnology.

In the direction of the west, it seems plain that heknew nothing except the coast of Greece and the coast-ward islands. Phseacia hangs doubtfully upon his hori-zon, and it is probable that he had only a very generaland vague idea of its position. Towards the north,there is nothing to imply, that his experimental know-ledge reached beyond the Thracian coast and, at thefarthest, the Sea of Marmora. He speaks of Ida, as ifits roots and spurs comprised the whole district, ofwhich in that quarter he could speak with confidenced.To the east, he probably knew no region beyond Lyciaon the coast of Asia Minor, and to the south Cretewas probably his boundary: though he was aware, byname at least, of the leading geographical points of amaritime passage, not wholly unfrequented, to the al-most unknown regions of Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Egypt.The apparent inconsistency however of his statements6

respecting the voyage to Egypt, affords proof that it laybeyond the geographical circle, within which we are toconsider that his familiar knowledge and that of hisnation lay.

While he is within that circle, he is studious alikeof the distances between places, the forms of country,and the physical character of different districts: but,when he passes beyond it, he emancipates himself fromthe laws of space. The points touched in the voyageof Ulysses are wholly irreconcilable with actual geo-graphy, though national partialities have endeavouredto identify them with a view to particular appro-priation. Some of them, indeed, we may conceivethat he mentally associated with places that had beendescribed to him: nay, he may have intended it in

d II. ii. 824; and xii. 19.e Od. iii. 320-2; and xiv. 257.

Limits of Greek navigation. 219

all: but the dislocated knowledge, which alone eventhe navigators of the age would possess, has suffered,by intent or accident, such further derangement in itstransfer to the mind of Homer, that it is hopeless toadjust his geography otherwise than by a free and largeinfusion of fictitious drawing. This outer sphere is,however, peopled with imagery of deep interest. Forthe purposes of the poem, the whole wanderings bothof Menelaus and Ulysses lie within it, and beyond thelimits of ordinary Greek experience. And throughoutthese wanderings the language of Homer is that of apoet who, as to facts, was at the mercy of unsifted in-formation ; of information which he must either receivefrom a source not liable to check or scrutiny, or elsenot receive at all: and who wisely availed himself ofthat character of the marvellous with which the wholewas overspread, to work it up into pictures of the ima-gination, which were to fill both his contemporaries andall succeeding generations with emotions of interestand wonder.

In Homer we find that Greek navigation alreadyextends, yet it is very slightly, beyond the limits ofGreek settlement. The Pseudo-Ulysses of the Four-teenth Odyssey made nine voyagesf, avSpas e? a\\oSd-7roii9; and at length, inspired as he says by a wildimpulse from on high, he planned and executed avoyage to Egypt. But he is represented as a Cretan,and the early fame of Crete in navigation is probablydue to its connection through Minos with Phoenicia.Here too the representation is, that he is a Cretan ofthe highest class, the colleague of Idomeneus in hiscommand z, and thus, according to the law of poeticallikelihood, to be understood as probably of a family

f Od. xiv. 231, 243-8. 6 Od. xiv. 237; II. xiv. 321.

220 II. Ethnology.

belonging to the Phoenician train of Minos. TheThesprotiaii ship of the Fourteenth Odyssey trades forcorn toDulichium only. TheTaphians,indeed, who fromthe xenial relation of their lord, Mentes1', to Ulysses,must in all likelihood have lived in the neighbourhoodof Ithaca, are represented as making voyages not onlyto an unknown Temese, which was in foreign parts {evaWoOpoovs avOpdnrovs1), but likewise to Phoenicia; thelatter voyage, however, is only mentioned in connectionwith the purpose of piracy^. But these Taphians appearto have formed an insignificant exception to the gene-ral rule: we do not hear any thing of them in the greatarmament of the Iliad. Speaking generally, we maysay that the Achseans had no foreign navigation: it wasin the hands of the Phoenicians.

It is to that people that we must look as theestablished merchants, hardiest navigators, and furthestexplorers, of those days. To them alone as a body, inthe whole Homeric world of flesh and blood, doesHomer give the distinctive epithet of vavo-ncXvrol av§pesk.He accords it indeed to the airy Phaeacians, but in allprobability that element of their character is borrowedfrom the Phoenicians1, and if so, the reason of the deri-vation can only be, that the Phoenicians were for thatage the type of a nautical people. To them only doeshe assign the epithets, which belong to the knavery oftrade, namely, TroXuTraiTraXoi and TpwKral. When wehear of their ships in Egypt or in Greece, the circum-stance is mentioned as if their coming was in the usualcourse of their commercial operations. Some forcealso, in respect to national history, may be assignedto the general tradition, which almost makes the Me-

h Od. i. ios ; "• l 8 ° - ' Od. i. 183. j Od. xv. 425.k Od. xv. 415. 1 See Wood on Homer, p. 48.

The Outer Geography Phoenician. 9,91

diterranean of the heroic age ' a Phoenician lake;' totheir settlements in Spain, and the strong hold theytook upon that country; and to the indirect Homerictestimony, as well as the judgment of Thucydides, re-specting the maritime character of the Minoan empire.

Again, Homer knew of a class of merchants whomhe calls •wprtKrnpe's in the Eighth Odyssey (v. 152). Butwhere Eumseus enumerates the Sii/uwepyoi, or 'tradesand professions' of a Greek community, there are no•7rpt]KT>ipe$ among themm. Again, as the poet knew ofthe existence of this class on earth, so he introduced theminto his Olympian heaven, where gain and increase hadtheir representative in Mercury. From whence couldthe prototype have been derived, except from inter-course with the Phoenicians?

But the imaginative geography of the Odyssey goesfar beyond the points, with which Homer has so muchat least of substantive acquaintance, as to associatethem historically with the commerce or politics of theage. The habitations of the Cyclops, the Laestrygones,the Lotophagi, of iEolus, the Sirens, Calypso, andCirce, may have had no ' whereabout,' no actual site,outside the fancy of Homer; still they must have beenimagined as repositories in which to lodge traditionswhich had reached him, and which, however fabulouslygiven, purported to be local. Again, with respect tothe tradition of Atlas, it is scarcely possible to refuse toit a local character. He knows the depths of everysea, and he holds or keeps the pillars that hold heavenand earth apart. This must not be confounded withthe later representations of Atlas carrying the globe, orwith his more purely geographical character, as repre-senting the mountain ranges of Northern Africa. Here

m Od. xvii. 383.

222 II. Ethnology.

he appears n as the keeper of the great gate of the outerwaters, namely, of the Straits of Gibraltar: that greatgate being probably the point of connection with theocean, and that outer sea being frequented exclusivelyby the Phoenicians, who in all likelihood obtained fromCornwall the tin used in making the Shield of Aga-memnon, or in any of the metal manufactures of theperiod. Rocks rising on each side of a channel at theextreme point of the world, as it was known to Greekexperience, or painted in maritime narrative, could notbe represented more naturally than as the pillarswhich hold up the sky. This figure follows the ana-logy of the pillars and walls of a house, supporting theroof, and placed at the extremities of the interior of itsgreat apartment0. With equal propriety, those who arebelieved alone to have reached this remote quarter, andto frequent it, would be said to hold those pillars'1.

Even in a less imaginative age than that of Homer,the love of the marvellous, both by the givers and bythe receivers of information, would act powerfully incolouring all narratives, of which the scene was laid intracts unknown except to the narrator. But a morepowerful motive might be found in that spirit of mono-poly, which is so highly characteristic of the earlierstages, in particular, of the development of commerce^.To clothe their relations in mystery and awe, by theaid both of natural and supernatural wonders, wouldbe, for a people possessed of an exclusive navigation,

nNagelsbach,HomerischeThe- to the same point, by making itologie 80-3. mean the doors of Ocean.

0 There were columns outside P Hermann Opusc. vii. 253.the doors, for example, of the Nagelsbach, ii. 9, note,palace of Ulysses in Ithaca. Od. Q Blakesley's Introduction toxvii. 29. This construction of Herodotus, p. xiv.the metaphor would come nearly

Traditions of the Outer Geography.

a powerful means of deterring competitors, and ofmaintaining secure hold upon profits either legitimateor piratical.

We have before us these facts in evidence: on theone hand, a people who in maritime enterprise had farsurpassed all others, and had a virtual monopoly of theknowledge of the waters and countries lying beyond acertain narrow circle. Then, on the other hand, we havea multitude of adventures laid by Homer in this outersphere, and associated wholly with the persons andplaces that belong to it. Upon these grounds it seemshardly possible to avoid the conclusion, that the Phoe-nicians must have been the people from whom Homerdrew, whether directly or mediately, his informationrespecting the outer circle of the geography of theOdyssey. Such is the judgment of Strabo. He saysTOVS Se QOIVIKWS Xeyw fjLt]vvrdi; he considers that evenbefore the time of Homer they were masters of thechoice parts of Spain and Africa: and it appears thatthe traces of their colonization remained until his dayr.

But further; the traditions themselves bear otherunequivocal marks, besides their lying in parts knownto Phoenicians only, of a Phoenician character; andwhether these marks were attached by Homer, orcame ready made into his hands, has no bearing uponthe present argument.

I have spoken of the tradition of Atlas; and of thelikelihood that the Phoenicians would cast a veil overthe regions of which they knew the profitable secrets.In conformity with these ideas, the island of Ogygia isthe island of Calypso, the Concealer: and this Calypsois the daughter of Atlas.

Phseacia is, in the Odyssey, the geographical middler Strabo iii. 2. 13, 14. pp. i49> 5°-

II. Ethnology.

term between the discovered and the undiscoveredworld ; Ogygia is the stage beyond it, and the stage onthis side of it is Ithaca. I do not understand the Phsea-cians to be a portrait of the Phoeniciansr: but the veryresemblance of name is enough to show that Homerhad this people in his eye when he endowed his ethe-real islanders with the double gift, first, of unrivallednautical excellence,and, secondly, of forming the mediumof communication between the interior space bounded bythe Greek horizon, and the parts which lay beyond it.

But in many instances we find Homer's peculiar andcharacteristic use of epithets the surest guide to hismeaning. Now in Minos we have, according to Homer,a firmly grounded point of contact with Phoenicia. OfMinos, as the friend of Jupiter, and the Judge of thedefunct, we must from the poems form a favourableimpression. Yet is Ariadne M/i/wo? Ouydrijp 6\o6cppovo$.What is the meaning of the word 6\o6(ppa)v? I thinkan examination of the use of kindred words will show,that in the mind of Homer it does not mean anythingactually wicked or criminal, but hard, rigid, inexor-able ; or astute, formidable to cope with, one whotakes merciless advantage, who holds those with whomhe deals to the letter of the bond ; and, in consequence,often entails on them heavy detriment.

In this view, it would be an epithet natural and ap-propriate for a people, who represented commerce at atime when it so frequently partook of the characters ofunscrupulous adventure, war, and plunder; and anepithet which might pass to Minos as one of the greatfigures in their history, or as a conqueror. Again, it isworth while to review Homer's use of the adjective oXoot.This epithet is applied by him to the lion, the boar,

r Mure, Greek Literature, i. 510.

Minos the 6ko6<ppa>v.

and the water-snaker. Achilles, when complaining ofApollo for having drawn him away from the Trojanwall, calls him 6ewv oXowTare irdvTwv3. Menelaus, com-bating with Paris, when his sword breaks in his hand,complains of Jupiter that no god is dAowTepo?*. Phi-laetius, in the Twentieth Odyssey, astonished that Ju-piter does not take better care of good men, uses thesame words". And Menelaus applies the same epithetto Antilochus, who has stolen an advantage over himin the chariot-racev. In the positive degree, it is ap-plied to old age, fire, fate, night, battle, to Charybdis(Od. xii. 113), and even to the hostile intentions of agod, such as the SXoa (ppovewv of Apollo (II. xvi. 701),and in BeS>v 6Xoa$ Sia /3ovXas (Od. xi. 275).

But the characteristic force of the epithet applied toMinos becomes most clear, and its effect in stamping aPhoenician character upon certain traditions undeni-able, when we examine the remaining instances of itsuse; and likewise that of the cognate, indeed nearlysynonymous, phrase 6Xo(pool'a el8w$.

Only two persons besides Minos receive in Homerthe epithet 6Xo6(f>pwv*. One of them is Atlas, the fa-ther of Calypso: the other is iEetes, the brother ofCirce. Again, the phrase SXotpwi'a elSoos is applied toProteus*'; and it is used nowhere else except by Melan-thins, where he means to describe Eumasus as a persondangerous and to be suspected2. Again, the SXocpwl'a ofProteus are his tricksa: and moreover we have the6Xo(pu>l'a Syvea of Circeb. Thus it would appear thatHomer virtually confines these epithets within one par-ticular circle of traditions; for Proteus, iEetes, Circe,

r II. xv. 630. xvii. 21. ii. 723. s II. xxii. 15. f II. iii. 365.11 Od. xx. 201. v II. xxiii. 439. x Od. i. 52 and x. 137.y Od. iv. 460. z Od. xvii. 248. "Od. iv. 410. b Od. x. 289.

Q

II. Ethnology.

Atlas, all belong to the Outer Geography of the Odys-sey0: and the use of one of them for Minos, with hisalready presumable Phoenician extraction*1, leads us, inconcurrence with many other signs, to conclude that theepithet is strictly characteristic, and the circle of tra-ditions Phoenician. One of the slightest, is also perhapsone of the most curious and satisfactory signs of thePhoenicianism of the whole scheme. Tiresias is employedin the Eleventh Odyssey to predict to Ulysses his com-ing fortunes: and in doing it he uses many of the verylines, which are afterwards prophetically spoken byCirce. Now why is Tiresias made the informant ofUlysses ? He is nowhere else mentioned in the poems;yet he is introduced here, in possession of the only giftof prophecy permitted in the nether world. Why havewe not rather Amphiaraus, or Polupheides, those Seersat the top of all mortal renowne? Surely there can bebut one reason; namely, that Tiresias was a Theban, anative of the only Greek State, except Crete, wherehe could have been the subject of a Phoenician dy-nasty f. It was doubtless this Phoenician connection,which qualified him to speak of regions, of which aGreek Seer would, in right of his nation, have pos-sessed no knowledge.

Nor is it only upon the epithets that we may rely;but upon the characters, too, of those to whom they areappropriated. They are full of the elements of cunningand deception. Proteus, Circe, Calypso, the Sirens, theLaestrygones, the Cyclopes, all partake of this element,while in some it is joined with violence, and in others

c As perhaps does Amphitrite, bears on the connection of Minosmentioned four times in the Odys- with Phoenicia, in treating thesey, never in the Iliad. subject of the Outer Geography.

d I shall consider further the e Od. xv. 252, 3.construction of II. xiv. 321, as it f Od. x. 492.

Commercial aptitude of modern Greeks. 227

with refinement or sensuality. In all of these we re-cognise so many variations of the one Phoenician type.

It has been observed, that Virgil seems to recogniseProteus as an eastern counterpart of Atlas, in the lines

Atrides Protei Menelaus ad usque columnas, &c.This is a recognition by Virgil of the Phoenician charac-ter of the tradition : but I see no evidence that Homermeant to place Proteus and Atlas in relations to oneanother as representing the East and West of the Me-diterranean, though this theory is adopted by Niigels-baehe' and others.

The office of the god Mercury, and his relationshipto Calypso, will be found to confirm these conclusions11.

The moral signs of the Greek character, though notidentical with those of the Phoenician, yet establish aresemblance between them ; in so far that both pos-sessed vigour, hardihood, and daring, and that the in-telligence, which directed and sustained these greatqualities, was susceptible of alliance with craft. In thecensure upon the -n-pvKTijpes, which Homer has conveyedthrough the mouth of Euryalus, we may read a genuineeffusion of his own nature: but the gifts of Mercury toAutolycus appear to show, that the Phoenician charactereasily amalgamated with the Greek by its cunning, aswell as by its strength. And certainly we may wellmarvel at the tenacity of tissue, with which these cha-racters were formed, when we find that still, after thelapse of three thousand years, one race is distinguishedbeyond all others for aptitude and energy in prosecutingthe pursuits of honourable commerce; that in England,now the centre of the trade of the whole world, theGreeks of the present clay alike excel all other foreign-ers who frequent her great emporia, and the children of

s Nagelsbach ii. 9. h See Studies on Eeligion, sect. iii.Q 2

228 II. Ethnology.

her own energetic and persevering people; themselvesperhaps the offspring of the Thesprotians, who went forcorn to Dulichium; of the Taphians, who carried swarthyiron to Temese; of the Cretans, who made much moneyin Egypt; and of the Lemnians, who obtained metals,hides, captives, and even oxen, in return for their wine,from the jovial Greeks of the army before Troy.

The more we attempt an examination of the geo-graphy of the Odyssey, the more we find that, impos-sible as it is to reconcile with the actual distribution ofearth and sea, it has marks of being derived from thenation, who navigated in the remote waters where itsscenes are laid. The fundamental article of the wholeis the circumscription of the known seas by the greatriver Ocean, which, alike in the Iliad and the Odyssey,flows round and round the earth, returning upon itself,a^r6ppoo?h, like what is called an endless rope. And thetwo keys, as I believe, to the comprehension of it are tobe found in the double hypothesis,

(1) That Homer placed to the northward of Thrace,Epirus, and the Italian peninsula, an expanse, not ofland, but of sea, communicating with the Euxine. Or,to express myself in other words, that he greatly ex-tended the Euxine westwards, perhaps also shorteningit towards the east; and that he made it communicate,by the Gulfs of Genoa and Venice, with the southernMediterranean.

(2) That he compounded into one two sets of Phoe-nician traditions respecting the Ocean-mouth, and fixedthe site of them in the North East.

h I have given the accepted, Ocean. In the Mediterranean, asand perhaps the more probable is well known, the tidal action ismeaning; but the word is also not perceived,well adapted to signify the tidal

The Siceli and Sicania. 229

It would carry us too far from the line of ethnolo-gical inquiry, were I now to examine the extensivequestion with which these propositions are connected.I will only observe in this place, that all the featuresof this outer geography, when viewed at large, are ofsuch a nature as to favour, or perhaps rather to compel,the supposition, that it was founded on foreign, that isto say, on Phoenician information. Its extended range,its reach, by the routes of Menelaus on the one side,and of Ulysses on the other, over all the points of thecompass, its vague, indeterminate, and ungeographicalcharacter as to distances and directions, and yet its fre-quent, though inconsistent and confused, resemblancesat almost every point to some actual prototype, ofwhich the poet may have had possibly or probably avision in his eye ;—all this agrees with the belief, thatit represents a highly manufactured work, made upfrom Phoenician materials, and can scarcely agree withany thing else.

Reserving this much agitated subject for a fullerseparate discussion, I will here only proceed to considerthat limited portion of it which bears upon ethnology;I mean the evidence afforded us by Homer in theOdyssey, and particularly in connection with the Wan-derings, as to the site and character (i) of the Siceli andof Sicania: (2) of the Thesprotians and Epirus : and(3) with respect to the family of Cadmus, which generaltradition connects immediately with Phoenicia in theperson of its founder, and which Homer, by indirecttestimony, I think, justifies us in considering as derivedfrom that source.

The Siceli and Sicania.

Notwithstanding his use of the name Thrinacie, the

230 II. Ethnology.

poet appears to have had no geographical knowledgeof Sicily, at least beyond its shape ; for I think it maybe shown that he places the site of the island in theimmediate neighbourhood of the Bosphorus. But hemight still have heard of the eastern coast of Italyimmediately adjoining, afterwards the country of theBruttii, which forms the sole of the foot rudely describedby the configuration of southern Italy. For this coastis much nearer to Greece ; it probably would be takenby mariners on their way from Greece to Sicily, andmight be visited by them before they had pushed theirexplorations to the more distant point. The Athenianfleet in the Peloponnesian war touched first at theIapygian promontory, and then coasted all the wayk.This possibility grows nearly into a certainty, when wefind that Homer speaks of a race, evidently as trans-marine, which from history would appear probably tohave inhabited that region at some early period.

I venture to argue that this Bruttian coast, the soleof the Italian foot, reaching from the gulf of Tarentumdown to Rhegium, is the country which appears to usin the Odyssey under the name of Sicania.

In the fabulous account which Ulysses gives of him-self to his father Laertes before the Recognition, hespeaks as follows:

eljiii ixtv e£ 'AkvfSavros, odi KKVTO. 6c«i/xara vaia>,i/tos 'AcpeibavTos Uo\vTTrj)jLovlbao avaKTOs'avrap ffxol y ovofx forty 'EmjpiTos' aXkA [xe haijxwvTt\ay£ a-irb StKaznrjj hevp' ekdijxev OVK eOehovra:vrjvs 8e jxoi rjb' eorrjKfi» e?x' aypov vocrtyi 7ro'A)7Os'.

In this passage Ulysses represents himself as a mari-ner, driven by some cross wind out of his course intoIthaca. Now this implies that his point of departure

k Thucyd. vi. 42, 44. 1 Od. xxiv. 304-8.

The Sieeli and Sicania.

should be one from which by a single change of windhe could easily be driven upon Ithaca. Again, Sicaniamust have been a region known to the Ithacans, or else,instead of merely naming it, he would have described itto Laertes, as he describes Crete to Penelope1".

Now, to fulfil these conditions, no other country thanthe one I have named is available. It has only anopen sea between it and Greece, and a passage of sometwo hundred or two hundred and fifty miles, so that awind driving him from his course might readily carryhim across. And there is no other tract on the westernside of the Adriatic, which is so likely to have beenintended by Homer. lapygia, beyond the Tarentinegulf, lies northward even of Scheria; and, like Scheria,so lapygia was, we may be assured, in the Outer orunknown sphere of geography for Homer.

On the other hand, the Bruttian coast might well beknown in Greece, though by dim rumour, yet betterthan Sicily: first, because it was nearer ; and secondly,inasmuch as it did not in the same manner present theappearance of an island, its bearings would be moreeasily determined, and therefore its site was less likelyto be mistaken. Lastly, history assures us that theSicanian name prevailed in Italy, before it passed overinto Sicily. Therefore the country of the Bruttii is inall likelihood the Homeric Sicania.

But again, we hear in Homer of SWeAoi, though notof a 2iKeA/a. The Suitors advise Telemachus to sendhis guests to the 2(Ke\otn for sale : adding that a goodprice, a renumerating price (afyov), would thus be ob-tained for them. On the other band, a Sicelian femaleslave is the wife of Dolios, and looks after Laertes inhis old age0.

m Od.xix.j72. "Od.xx. 383. ° Od.xxiv.211,366,389.

232 II. Ethnology.

From these passages we may infer,1. That the country of the HiKeXol was within the

remoter knowledge of Ithacan seamen.2. That they were a rich people; since they were able

to pay a good price for slaves.The first point, as we have seen, would make the

2t/ceAoj suitable inhabitants of Sicania.But likewise as to the second, Homer has given us

some indications of their wealth: (a) in the name 'A^e/-Sa? (the open-handed) ascribed by Ulysses to his father;(b) in that of 'E^pros (object of contention) assumedfor himself; (c) perhaps also in the name'A?u//3a?, akinto that of 'AXiy/3>?P, where there was silver, and to thatof'A|oJ/3a? a rich Sidonian^. This name probably in-dicates the possession of metallic mines, which for thatperiod we may consider as a special sign of advancementand opulence.

Then if we turn for a moment to the historicperiod, it is in this very country that we find plantedthe great and luxurious cities of Sybaris and Crotona1".

Now as the people called Siceli, and the countrycalled Sicania, are thus placed in relations of proximityby Homer, so they continue throughout all antiquity.The reports collected by Thucydides represent theSicanians as giving their name to Sicily, and displacingthe former name Trinacria, which is identical with theHomeric Thrinacie. At a later time, the Sicilians passedfrom Italy into Sicily, and, as was said, upon rafts;that is to say, across the strait, and consequently fromthe country which, as I contend, is the Homeric Si-cania. These Siceli were rumoured to have overcomethe Sicani, and to have again changed the name of the

P U.ii.857. Schbnemann Geog. r Cramer's Italy, ii. pp. ,354,Horn. p. 31. <l Od. xv. 426. 391.

The Siceli and Sicania. 233

island to Sicily. It is yet more material to note, thatThueydides says there were still Siceli in Italy when hehimself lived: and he adds the tradition that Italus, aking of theirs, gave his name to the Peninsula5*.

To these reports, which form a part of the accountgiven by Thueydides, we may add the statement ofDionysius, that the 'ZuceXol were the oldest inhabitantsof Latium, and were displaced by the Pelasgi *. Thisimplies their movement southward, and makes it pro-bable that we should meet them in Bruttiura, on theirway to Sicily, perhaps pressing, in that region, uponthe Sicani.

Such an hypothesis would be in entire agreement withHomer, who evidently represents the Sicanian as olderthan the Sicelian name: for the first had become terri-torial, when the latter was only tribal or national. Andall this is in agreement with Thueydides in the essen-tial point, that he makes the Sicanians precede theSiceli: while, though the tradition he reports brings theSicani from Spain under pressure from the Ligures",he need not mean to exclude the supposition, that theymay have come by land down the Italian peninsula.Though it is probably wrong to confound the Siceliwith the Sicaniv, it would thus on all hands appear,that they were but successive waves of the tide of im-migration advancing southward.

There is a further evidence that Homer meant toplace Sicania within the Greek maritime world, andnot beyond it. It is this. In his fabulous narrative toLaertes, Ulysses apprises the old man, that he had seenhis son five years before in Sicania, hopeful of reachinghis homex. Now this is a proof that the place was

s Thucyd. vi. 2. * Dionys. i. 9. u Thuc. ibid.v Cramer's Italy, ii. p. 2. x Od. xxiv. 309.

284 II. Ethnology.

in the Inner or known sphere of geography: for in theouter circle, as for instance at iEolia, he never has anyknowledge or reckoning of his own as to the power ofreaching home: it was iEolus who gave him theZephyr to take him home, not he who knew that if hegot a Zephyr he would reach home. And in likemanner he is supplied with express directions by Ca-lypso : while Menelaus, not being absolutely beyondthe known world, has no instructions for his voyagefrom Proteus, who plays for him the part of divine in-formant.

Thus then it appears, that Homer knew something ofthat part of the Italian continent, which we may termthe sole of the foot. Again, if we look onward to theheel, Iapygia or Apulia, and observe its proximity toCorcyra or Scheria, we shall perceive that mariners inthe time of Homer might take the route, which wasafterwards pursued by the Athenian fleet under Niciasand his colleagues. But this is conjectural; and asScheria was so faintly known, we must suppose Apuliato have been still more faintly conceived. BeyondApulia Homer gives no sign of any acquaintance what-ever with Italy. It therefore at once appears possiblethat he had no idea of the junction by land betweenthe Greek and Italian peninsulas, and that he hadimaged to the northward only an expanse of sea. I post-pone, however, the further discussion of this subject.

Spirits and the Thesproti.The Ithacan Suitors threaten to send Irus (Od. xviii.

84, 115), and again Ulysses (Od. xxi. 307), to a certainlawless and cruel king named Echetus; and in the twofirst passages we have the additional indication ij-rreipovSe.This expression used in Ithaca can refer to no other

Epirus in Homer.

mainland than that of the Greek Peninsula : of whicheven the nearer partsy pass by that name.

As on the one hand Echetus is savage, and evidentlyforeign (for we never find a Greek sold by Greeks as aslave to a Greek), he must be beyond the Greek limit:doubtless beyond the Thesproti, who were allies (ap6/xioi,Od. xvi. 427) of Ithaca. On the other hand, he couldnot be remote, or the Suitors would not have spoken soglibly of sending persons there. Hence we can hardlydoubt, that this Echetus was a sovereign in the regionof Epirus, between Scheria and the Thesproti: and theterritorial name"H-rreipoi may thus be at least as ancientas the Poet.

In like manner we find in the Sixth Odyssey afemale slave named Eurymedusa, in the household ofAlcinous, the old nurse of Nausicaa. She was broughtby sea 'AireiprjOev, and is described as ypnv's''Airei.pairiz.

This is probably meant to indicate some part of thesame region.

Thus Epirus would appear to form, along with Sche-ria and Sicania, Homer's line of vanishing points, orextreme limits of actual geography, towards the north-west and west of Greece. To trace these vanishingpoints all round the circuit of his horizon, whenever itcan be done, is most useful towards establishing thefundamental distinction between his Inner and Outer,his practical and poetical geography. In order to markthat distinction more forcibly, I would, if I might ven-ture it, even call the former of these alone Geography,and the latter his territorial Skiagraphy.

More nearly within the circle of every day inter-course with Greece than the barbarous Echetus and hisEpirus, and yet hovering near the verge of it, are theThesprotians of the Odyssey.

y Od. xiv. 93. z Od. vi. 7-12.

236 II. Ethnology.

Ulysses, in the Fourteenth Book, in the course of hisfabulous narrative to Eumseus, relates that, when hewas on his way from Crete to Libya, the ship in whichhe was sailing foundered, but that, by the favour ofJupiter, he floated on the mast for nine days, and, onthe tenth, reached the land of the Thesprotians.

This statement suffices to fix that people to the northof the gulf of Ambracia (Arta). For had they lain tothe south of that gulf, this would not have been thefirst land for him to make, as it would have beencovered by the islands.

The narrative which follows is very curious. The Thes-protian king Pheidon, according to the tale of Ulysses,took good care of him without making him a slave (SKO-pxlo-craTo aTrpiarriv); which, as he was cast helpless on theshore, common usage would apparently have justified,and even suggested. The king's son, who found himin his destitute condition, had his share in this greatkindness; for he took him home, like Nausicaa, andclothed him. Here, says the tale, he heard news ofUlysses, who had proceeded from thence to Dodona toinquire about his fate, and had left much valuable pro-perty in trust with these hospitable and worthy people.But he goes on to relate, still in the assumed character,that, instead of keeping him to wait for Ulysses, theThesprotian king took advantage of the opportunityafforded by a Thesprotian ship about to sail to Dulichiumfor corn, and dispatched him by it as a passenger to hishome. The crew, however, infected with the kidnap-ping propensities of navigators, maltreated and boundhim, with the intention of selling him for a slave: but,when they landed on the Ithacan beach to make ameal, he took advantage of the opportunity, and madehis escapea.

a Od. xiv. 2 93-359-

Thesproti in Homer. 237

This ingenious fable is referred to, and in part re-peated in subsequent passages of the poemb, with nomaterial addition, except that the country is called{iriwv Srjfjios xix. 271) a rich one.

But another passage0, quite independent of all theformer, adds a highly characteristic incident. Anti-nous, the insolent leader of the Suitors, is sharply re-buked by Penelope, and is reminded that his fatherEupeithes had come to the palace as a fugitive fromthe Ithacan people, dependent on Ulysses for deliver-ance from their wrath. The reason of their exaspera-tion was, that Eupeithes had joined the buccaneeringTaphians in a piratical expedition against the Thespro-tians, who were allies of Ithaca.

We have here a very remarkable assemblage of cha-racteristics, which all tend to prove, and I think verysufficiently prove, the Pelasgianism of the Thesprotians.The humane and genial reception of the stranded sea-farer is in exact accordance with the behaviour of theEgyptian kingd, and his people to him on a previousoccasion. The fact that he was not enslaved, suggestsit as most probable, that there were no slaves in theThesprotian country: which would entirely accord withthe position of the Pelasgians, as themselves not the con-querors of a race that had preceded them, but the firstinhabitants of the spots they occupied in the Greek pen-insula. The richness of their country is further in har-mony with the account of Egypt, and with their addictionto agricultural pursuits. The feigned deposit by Ulyssesof his metallic stores with them proves, that they werenot a predatory, and therefore proves, for that period,that they were not a poor people. The name Pheidon,

b Od. xvi. 65. xvii. 525, and xix. 269-99.c Od. xvi. 424-30. d Od. xiv. 278-86.

238 II. Ethnology.

or thrifty, given to the king, agrees with the characterwhich, as we shall elsewhere find, attaches in a markedmanner to Pelasgian proper names. And lastly, theywere the subject of attack by Taphian buccaneers;which tends to show their unoffending and unaggressivecharacter.

On the other side, we find them trading by sea toDulichium: and we find the crew of the trader at-tempting to kidnap Ulysses. But as the Pelasgianswere not in general navigators, it may very well havehappened that the trade of the country had fallen intothe hands of some distinct, possibly some Lelegian, oreven some Hellenic race, which may have settled therefor the purpose of carrying on a congenial employment,and which, like other traders of the time, would beready upon occasion to do a turn in the way of piracy.It is to be remembered that there was a Thesprotiane

Ephyre; which proves, as I believe, an early infusion ofsome race connected with the Hellenic stem.

I conclude, therefore, from Homer, that the Thespro-tians were Pelasgian. And this conclusion is stronglysustained by the extra-Homeric tradition. Herodotusstates, that they were the parent stock from whencedescended the Thessaliansf, a report which I only followto the extent of its signifying an affinity between theearly settlers on the two sides of Mount Pindus. AndDionysiuss appears to imply the opinion, that they wereThesprotian Pelasgians who settled in Italy.

I have already stated, that I can hardly think Homerpoints out to us more than one Dodona in the Iliadand Odyssey respectively. At the same time, if thesupposition of two Dodonas be admissible, the circum-

e Strabo vii. p. 324, f Herod, vii. 176. g Dion. Hal. i. 18.

Cadmeans in Homer. 239

stances suggested by him would help to account for it.For the Dodona of the Iliad is described as Pelasgicand also Hellic: that is, as we must I think suppose,having been Pelasgic, it had become Hellic. The Do-dona of the Odyssey (on this supposition) is Thespro-tian, that is to say Pelasgic, only. The solution wouldthen be, that the Pelasgians of the original Dodona,when displaced,claimed to have carried their oracle alongwith them, while the Hellic intruders in like manner setup a counter-claim to have retained it in its originalseat. The history of Christendom supplies us with casesbearing no remote analogy to this, in connection withthe removal of a great seat of ecclesiastical power.

Cadmeans.

We have seen that the name of Ino Leucothee is suffi-ciently identified with a circle of Phoenician and outer-world traditions. And, as her name and position giveus directly, or by suggestion, the principal testimonyborne by Homer to Cadmus her father, this will be themost convenient place for considering his connectionwith Greece.

We are justified, I think, in at once assuming, first,from his relation to Ino, that he was Phoenician;secondly, from the deification of his daughter, that hewas a ruler or prince. And thirdly, Ino appears toUlysses in his distress as a protecting deity. Now as,when mortal, she had been Phoenician by extraction,and as she thus shows her sympathies with the Hel-lenic race, we must assume a link between these twofacts. They would be associated in an appropriate man-ner, if the family of Cadmus her father had becomenaturalized in the possession of a Greek sovereignty.

Diodorus Siculus has handed down a tradition re-

240 II. Ethnology.

specting Cadmus1', which is important from its combi-nation with circumstantial evidence; and which is inharmony with Homer, as it appears to represent thePhoenician immigrant at a well known and naturalresting-place on his way towards Greece. It is to theeffect, that Cadmus put into Rhodes, built there atemple of Neptune (and here we should remember theworship, and, as some think, the temple of Neptune'in Scheria), established a line of hereditary priests, anddeposited offerings to Minerva of Lindos. Amongthese, there remained in after-times a finely wroughtkettle or caldron, executed in an antique style ofart, and bearing an inscription in the Phoenician cha-racter.

In connection with the name of Cadmus, we havethe Homeric designations of KaS/ueioi and Ko^eiW?.They appear to be synonymous: but the patronymicalform of the latter corroborates the opinion that therewas an individual Cadmus from whom the names pro-ceeded, that they were properly dynastic, and notnames taken from a nation or extended race.

We have next to inquire as to the period withinwhich this race of Cadmeans held sway in Boeotia, thedistrict where alone we hear of them. When did theybegin, and when did they close ?

The extra-Homeric tradition would throw Cadmusback to one of the very earliest periods, which wouldappear to be included within Homer's knowledge up-wards. The generations are arranged as follows :

i. Cadmus. 4. Laius.1. Polydorus. 5. (Edipus.3. Labdacus. 6. Eteocles and Polynices.

i> Diod. Sic. v. «8. ' Od. vi. 266.

Cadmeans in Homer.

The last-named brothers are contemporaries of Ty-deus. It follows that Cadmus is placed seven generationsbefore the Trojan war; he is made contemporary withDardanus, and he appears in Greece about three anda half generations before Minos came to Crete.

Now this is not the presumption, to which theHomeric text would give rise. For it does not seemlikely that, if a family of an active race like the Phoe-nicians made their way into Greece, and managed toestablish a sovereignty within it seven generationsbefore the Troica, upwards of a century should elapsebefore any other adventurer was found to repeat so ad-vantageous a process.

Further, the Cadmeans were in Thebes. But Cad-mus was not its founder. It was founded, as we aretold in the Eleventh Odysseyk, by Zethus and Am-phion, sons of Jupiter and of Antiope, daughter ofAsopus: two persons who have thus, on both sidesof their parentage, the signs of being the first known oftheir own race in the country. From the appearanceof Antiope in the Neti/Za, where none but Hellenic andnaturalized Shades are admitted, we may infer thatAmphion and Zethus were not Pelasgian but Hellene.Again, as they first founded and fortified Thebes, theymust have preceded Cadmus there. What then wastheir probable date?

In the Ne/ci/i'a, so far as regards the women, Homergives some appearance of meaning to introduce thepersons and groups in chronological order.

The first of them all is Tyro1, who seems to havebeen of the family of iEolus, and to have lived aboutfour generations before the Troica.

260-5. ' >5ee inf-R

242 II. Ethnology.

The next is Antiope, mother of Amphion and Ze-thus.

After her come (i) Alcmene, mother of Hercules,(a) Epicaste, mother of (Edipus, and(3) Chloris, mother of Nestor.

All of whom belong to a period three generations beforethe war.

After these follow Leda and Ariadne, with otherswhose epoch the text of Homer does not enable us tofix. But Ariadne, the bride of Theseus, and aunt ofIdomeneus (the nevanrokios;), stands at about one gene-ration and a half before the war: and Leda, as themother of Castor and Pollux who were dead, and ofHelen whose marriageable age dated from so manyyears before the action of the Iliad, as well as of Cly-temnestra, belongs to about the same date.

On the whole therefore it would appear, from thesigns of chronological order, that Antiope can hardly havebeen older than Tyro, and therefore can only have beenabout four, and her sons about three generations beforethe War. We have no vestiges of their race in Homerichistory, except that, in the Nineteenth Odyssey™, thereis recorded the death of Itylus, the son of Zethus, inhis boyhood. The Amphion Iasides of' Od. xi. 283,must be another person. But, if this reasoning besound, Cadmus, who succeeds to them in Thebes, wasprobably much more recent than the later traditionmakes him, and may have come into Greece only ashort time before Minos.

His name appears to have been given as a dynasticname to his subjects, or the ruling class of them, andto have continued such under his descendants. For

m Od. xix. 522.

Cadmeans in Homer.

not only does it appear to have begun with him, butwith the fall of the family it at once disappears.

In five different places of the poems, Homer hasoccasion to refer to occurrences, which took place atThebes under the Cadmean dynasty, in the time of(Edipus and of his sons: and in these five passages heemploys the names Ka^etot and Ku^etWe? no lessthan eight times for the people, while he never callsthem by any other name".

But when we come down to the time of the war,this dynasty has disappeared with Eteocles and Poly-nices : the country of Boeotia, which it had once go-verned, seems to have lost its cohesion, and its troopsare led by a body of no less than five chiefs. And now,whenever Homer has occasion to refer to the inhabitantsof the country, they are never K.aS/j.eioi orbut they are BOIWTOI. The words BO/WTO? andare found nine times in the Iliad.

Nations called by a name which is derived from anational source, are likely to retain it longer than thosewhich are designated dynastically from the head of aruling family: as they must change their dynastiesmore frequently than they can receive new infusionsof race and blood, powerful enough to acquire a predo-minance over the old.

Strabo indeed says0, that Homer calls the Cadmeansof the Troic war by the name of Minyae. But noMinyse are named in Homer at all, although he speaksof t h e 'OjO^O/uevo? Mivvt'fio?, a n d of t h e TTOTa/xb^ M(W);i'oy

in Peloponnesus, and though there was perhaps therealso a Minyan Orchomenos. Even if Minyse werenamed in Homer as a race, it would be strange that

n II. iv. 385, 388, 391, v. 804, 7. x. 208. xxiii. 680. Od. xi, 275.0 ix. p. 401.

R 1

II. Ethnology.

Homer should without a reason alter, for the period ofthe war, that use of the Cadmean name, to which headheres elsewhere so strictly, as to show that he isacting on a rule. Whereas the transition to BOHOTOI

is not only intelligible, but politically descriptive.Upon the foregoing facts we may found several ob-

servations :1. The Cadmean name would seem to be strictly

dynastic: as it makes its first appearance on the spotwhere Cadmus has reigned, and disappears at the samepoint, along with the extinction of his family.

2. The use of the Cadmean name by Homer, com-pared with his departure from it, each having appro-priate reference to the circumstances of differentepochs, appears to be a marked example of a carefuland historic manner of handling local names with re-ference to the exact circumstances of place, time,and persons, and not in the loose manner of laterpoetry.

3. Our whole view of Cadmus and the Cadmeansfrom Homer has been attained by circuitous inference:and, presuming it to be a just one, we have here a verysingular example of the poet's reticence with respectto all infusion of foreign blood and influence into hiscountry.

245

SECT. V.

On the Catalogue.

The Catalogue in the Second Book belongs moreproperly to the Geography, than to the Ethnology ofthe poems. But I advert to it here on account bothof the historic matter it contains, and of the manner inwhich it illustrates the general historic designs of thePoet.

It is perhaps, in its own way, nearly as characteristicand remarkable a performance, as any among the loftierparts of the poem. Considered as a portion of the Iliad,it would be more justly termed the Array than theCatalogue; for it is a review, and not a mere enumera-tion. Considered with respect to history, its value canscarcely be overrated: it contains the highest title-deeds of whatever ancient honour the several Statesmight claim, and is in truth the Doomsday Book ofGreece.

We may consider the Greek Catalogue in three parts:First, the Invocation or Preface.Secondly, the Catalogue Proper.Thirdly, the Postscript, so to call it, 761-779.

Before and after, he has graced the work with splendidsimiles. When all is concluded and, as it were, markedoff, he proceeds to append to it the Trojan Catalogue;a work of less extent and difficulty, as also of lesspenetrating interest to his hearers, but yet constructedwith much of care, and with various descriptive embel-lishments.

The Preface contains the most formal invocation of

246 II. Ethnology.

the Muses among the few which are to be found inthe poems. The others are,

II. i. i. Introduction to the Iliad : addressed to Qea.II. ii. 761. In the Postscript to the Catalogue.U. xi. 218. Before the recital of the persons who were

slain by Agamemnon.U. xiv. 508. Before the recital of the Greek chiefs,

who, on the turn of the battle, slew variousTrojans.

II. xvi. 112. Before proceeding to relate, how theTrojans hurled the firebrands at the Grecian ships.

Od. i. 1. Introduction to the Odyssey: addressed toMovua.

In the cases of the Eleventh and Fourteenth Books,the invocation of the Muse stands in connection witha particular effort of memory; for the recitals prefacedby it consist of names not connected by any natural tieone with the other. But it is here that the Poet's ap-peal to the Muse most deserves attention.

If Homer was composing a written poem, the invo-cation is ill-timed and unmeaning. He has already, bya series of fine similes, elevated the subject to a properlevel. Considered as a mere written Catalogue, it doesnot deserve or account for the prayer for aid: in thispoint of view, it was of necessity among the sermoni•propiora, and was one of the easiest parts of the poemto compose. But if we consider the poem as a recita-tion, then the Catalogue was very difficult; because ofthe great multitude of details which are included in it,and which are not in themselves connected together byany natural or obvious link.

It is true that he begs the Muses to inform him, be-cause they were omnipresent and omniscient, whereashe is dependent on report only (K\<EO?) for information.

The Greek Array. 247

Now this was equally true of the whole material of thepoem : but the reason why he introduces the statementof this truth in so marked a manner, must be from thearduous nature of the task he was beginning; nor couldit be arduous in any other way, than as an effort ofmemory.

The invocation contains another proof that thepoems were composed for recitation in the words (vv.489, 90)

o£8' el juot Setca /nei» yXfiacrat, 8e/ca be oro^ar' elev(fxmvri 5' app^Kros, \a\Keov be /not Tjrop eveCi],

Nothing can be more proper than to refer to the in-sufficient ability of the bodily organs of recitation, ifhe were about to recite: but nothing less proper, if hewere engaged on a written poem. It has been a fa-shion however with poets to copy Homer in this pas-sage, although the reason and circumstances on whichit is founded had become wholly inapplicable: and theirabusive imitation has blinded us to the significance ofthe passage as it stands in the Iliad.

Now as regards the list itself.In this Catalogue, he had to go through the different

States of Greece, furnishing twenty-nine contingents ofvarious strengths, all indicated by the number of ships,to the army. These contingents are under forty-fiveleaders, many of them with genealogies, and comingfrom one hundred and seventy-one Greek towns. Theproper names of the Greek Catalogue, strictly so called,are three hundred and ninety-six, and those of theTrojan one hundred and five, making in all five hun-dred and one. These must have been a selection froma larger number, for there were Greek towns (for exam-ple Qijpal of the Peloponnesus, Od. iii. 488, and the va-rious towns named 'E^)J^^) not named in the Catalogue;

248 II. Ethnology.

and this again increased the difficulty of keeping bymemory to the list throughout. Again, it was difficultto adopt any arrangement that should not be whollyarbitrary, in displaying to us the parts of an army whichcomprised so many divisions, and which was drawn fromsources so numerous, and dispersed over a territory ofsuch extremely irregular formation.

Homer has however with great ingenuity adopteda geographical arrangement in the Greek Catalogue,which, so far as the various divisions were concerned,has enabled him to combine them into a kind ofwhole.

The territory, which supplied the army, consistedpartly of continent, and partly of islands: and the islandsagain were partly such as, lying about the coast of themainland, might be most conveniently remembered inconjunction with it, partly such as formed a group ofthemselves.

If we take the continent and islands together, weshall find that they form part of a curvilinear figure,not indeed circular, but elliptical, and more nearly ap-proaching a circle than that group of islands in theJEgean, which afterwards obtained the name of Cyclades.This name, taken from the rude approximation to ageometrical figure, may possibly have been at first sug-gested to the Greeks by Homer's geometrical arrange-ment in the Catalogue. I speak of Homer's arrange-ment as geometrical, because the principle he hasadopted is that of mental figure drawing: it is of courseof the rudest kind, and he perhaps did not even knowthe correct mode of constructing a circle.

The proportion of the figure formed by the mainlandand islands is about two-thirds of a complete circum-ference : the ends of the curve being Thessaly to the

The principle of arrangement. 249

north, and Calydnse, with the other small islands, in thesouth-east.

Let us now proceed to notice, firstly, the primarydivision of the Catalogue into principal parts, and se-condly, the subdivision in each of those parts.

It is worth while to remark, that the Poet has notadopted the mode of enumeration which might havebeen thought most obvious: namely, to begin at one ofthe extremities of this semicircle (so to call it), and thenproceed towards the other. If the territorial subdivi-sions had been regular, this would have been conve-nient : but from their utter irregularity it would in thiscase have been wholly useless.

Again, he might have begun with Agamemnon, hisimmediate forces and dominion ; and might then pro-ceed through the States according to the political im-portance of their respective contingents. But to thiscourse there were two objections. First, their order couldnot on this principle have been easily decided, especiallyafter passing a few of the most considerable. But, se-condly, he appears to have avoided, with a fixed pur-pose and with an extraordinary skill, both here andelsewhere, whatever could have excited feelings of jea-lousy as between the several States of Greece. Ofcourse I do not refer to the admitted supremacy ofAgamemnon: but if he had attempted to place theforces of Nestor, Diomed, Menelaus, of the Athenians,the Arcadians, the Phthians, in an order thus regu-lated, it would have been at variance with obvious pru-dence, and with his uniform rule of action. Perhaps,however, we may rightly consider, that if Homer hadbeen writing his poems, he could not have failed togive Agamemnon the first place in this description.He has not then followed the general form of the ter-

250 II. Ethnology.

ritory, nor has he begun with the chief political memberof the armament. Nor, lastly, has he even treated thePeloponnesus as a separate division of Greece: but hehas introduced it, though it was the most important partof the country, between the eastern parts (Boeotia, withsix other States) and the western parts (JEtoJia, withtwo other States) of Middle Greece.

There are therefore various modes of arrangement,which either politically or geographically might betermed obvious, but which the Poet has passed by.Why has he passed them by ? and why has he begunthe Catalogue with the Boeotians? who were neitherpowerful, nor ancient, nor distinguished in a remark-able degree; nor did they lie at any one of the geo-graphical extremities of the country.

Again, it might be asked, why has he not either di-vided all the islands from Continental Greece, or none ?Instead of that, he reckons Euboea, Cephallenia, Za-cynthus, and Ithaca, in the same division with Conti-nental Greece, but begins a new division with Crete.

Let us now carefully note what he has done, andsee whether it does not suggest the reasons.

The three principal divisions of the Catalogue wouldappear to lie as follows:

I. Continental Greece south of mount (Eta, includingthe Middle and the Southern division, with the islandsimmediately adjacent. This section furnishes sixteencontingents. (II. ii. 494—644.)

II. Insular Greece, from Crete to Calydnse: theseislands furnish four contingents. (645-680.)

III. Thessalian Greece, from (Eta and Othrys in thesouth, to Olympus in the north : which furnishes ninecontingents. (681-759.)

These three divisions completely sever the line of

The principle of arrangement. 251

the semicircular curve. It follows that in recitation liewould be able to dispose of each part severally, as eachforms a compact figure of itself: and this he could nothave done, had he followed the seemingly more naturaldivision into continent and islands. At the interval be-tween the first and the second, he makes a spring fromiEtolia to Crete: and another between the second andthe third, from the Calydnse to Thessaly.

The desideratum obviously was, to assist memory bysuch a geographical disposition, that the different partsmight be made by association each to suggest thatwhich was immediately to follow. So distributed, theywould supply a kind of memoria technica.

We see how he prepares for this operation by his dis-tribution in chief, which gives him the three sections ofGreece, as they succeed one another on the line of the(completed) figure.

And, though we may not yet have in view a reason forhis beginning with the Boeotians, we seem now at leastto have a reason before us for his beginning with themiddle section instead of one of the extremes ; namely,that it was the principal one, as it not only supplied thelargest number of ships and men, and nearly all thegreater commanders, but also as it contains the seatof sovereignty, and supplied the forces of the Chief ofthe army.

Having the three sections before us, let us now ob-serve the manner in which he manages the sub-distri-bution, so as to make each district of territory lead himon to the next.

And here he seems evidently to proceed upon thesetwo rules: first, never to pass over an intervening ter-ritory, though he may cross a strait or gulf.

And secondly, to throw the several States into rude

252 II. Ethnology.

circles or other figures, round the arc or along the lineof which his recollection moves from point to point.

His first figure may be called a circle, being ellip-tical8; and it includes nine contingents.

1. Boeotia. 6. Attica.2. Minyeian Orchomenus. 7. Salamis.3. Phocis. 8. Argolis.4. Locris. 9. Mycenae.5. Euboea.

His second is a zigzag, and includes seven con-tingents11.

1. Lacedsemon. 5. The Dulichians.1. Pylus. 6. The Cephallenians.3. Arcadia. 7. JEtolia.4. Elis.

We now part with the first section.His third figure embraces the second section, or

insular division of the Catalogue, and is again part ofa rude circle or ellipse0.

1. Crete.2. Rhodes.3. Syme.4. Cos and other islands. Carpathus is included,

which lay between Crete and Rhodes; being appa-rently in political union with Cos and the Calydnse, andcontributing to the same contingent, it could not butstand with them. Strabo observes that this principle ofpolitical division, according to what he terms Swdarreiai^,has been adopted by the Poet in his account of the Thes-salian contingents.

By reference to the rude maps annexed, which mark

a Fig. i. in Map. b Fig. ii. in Map. c Fig. iii. in Map.d ix. 5. p. 430.

The order for Tliessaly. 253

the several contingents by figures, the nature of thiscontrivance will be clearly seen.

It is more difficult to trace Homer's method of pro-ceeding with respect to Thessaly.

This country furnishes nine contingents, which maybest be described by the names of their leaders. Thereis no difficulty as to the first four, except that some ofthe boundaries are indeterminate. They form, like thelast or insular group, an incomplete circlee. The lead-ers are;

I. Achilles (681-94).II. Protesilaus (695-710).III. Eumelus (711-15).IV. Philoctetes (716-28).There is more difficulty in describing the arrange-

ment of the remainder. Strabo, who has followed theCatalogue in Thessaly with great minuteness, seems tohave noticed the circular arrangement: at least hespeaks of the KVKXO? T5S OerTaXlas, and the trepiodeiaTtji ^a5joa?f. But when he comes to the sixth division,that of Eurypylus, he appears to find it impossible tofix with any confidence the site of Ormenium: andsays, KCU aXXa <5' eaTiv a Xeyoi TJ? av, aXX' ovv OKVUS Sia-

rpi/3eiv eir\ ?r\eov£. And further on he observes, thatthe displacements and changes of cities, and mixturesof races, have confounded the names and tribes'1, soas to make them in part unintelligible to men of hisday: where we are anew reminded of the passage ofThucydides, in which he tells us, that the most fertiletracts underwent the most frequent changes of popu-lation1.

The Swaorrela of Eurypylus is in our maps commonlye Fig. iv. in Map. f Strabo ix. p. 435.S Ibid. p. 439. !l Ibid. p. 442. i Thuc. i. 2.

254 II. Ethnology.

placed on the sea coast, but as it appears, with littleauthority of any kind: while, after all the proof wehave seen of continuous arrangement, it seems incre-dible that, in this instance alone, Homer could havefollowed an order such that the Swaa-rela should notmarch either with that which precedes, or that whichfollows, but should be severed from them by a line ofterritories intervening, which he has already disposed of.

To judge from analogy with the otherwise uniformrule of the Catalogue, the dominions of Eurypylus musthave been somewhere conterminous both with those ofthe Asclepiads, and with those of Polypoetes. Waivinghowever any effort to fix positively their site, we findthe other four remaining contingents connected by azigzag linek, like that which was used in southernGreece. The leaders are as follows:

I. Podaleirius and Machaorr (729-33). (Eurypylus734-7, omitted.)

II. Polypoetes (738-47).III. Gouneus (Enienes, Perrhffibi, and Dodona,

748-55)-IV. Prothous (the Magnesians, 756-9).In this view Homer appears to subdivide Thessaly

into two figures, as he had done Southern Greece: andin both cases one of them is curvilinear, in which theeastern parts are arranged: the other a zigzag, whichincludes the western portions.

I have described this geometrical arrangement, as ofgreat interest in connection with the question, whetherthe poems were written or recited; and also as it seemsto be in itself highly ingenious.

It seems to distribute in rude but real symmetrybefore the eye of the mind, an assemblage of objects

k Fig. v. in Map,

Fresh proofs of historical intention. £55

between which it would at first sight appear almostimpossible to frame any link of connection.

But in Homer, though there is much that is inge-nious, there is nothing that is far-fetched: and theorder he has followed might well, as to many parts atleast of Greece, have been that of his own itinerancyas a minstrel. And, though complex in other respects,yet if it reduces a complex physical arrangement to theform, in which it becomes practically more manageablethan in any other way for his purposes, it is evidentlythe one which may best be justified on the principlesof common sense.

The Greek Catalogue is also full of proofs of thehistorical intention of Homer.

In the first place, such proof is afforded by theimmense amount of its details, which are prima faciea load upon his verse,- and which Homer seems tohave so regarded, from the care he has taken to relievethe subject by the cluster of similes at the beginning.He must have had a purpose in facing this disadvan-tage. It is quite at variance with his own spirit, andthe spirit of his age, to suppose that this purpose wasmerely to flatter the vanity of hearers by wholesalefiction.

The use of supernatural machinery is agreeable tothe genius of the poet and his age, but not so thevulgar falsification of plain terrestrial facts. If thesupposition of wholesale fiction cannot be maintained,there is no other alternative but that of an historicalpurpose.

Viewed at large, the Catalogue is an answer to thatnormal question, which expresses the anxiety of everyGreek to make the acquaintance of a man first of allthrough what are colloquially termed his ' belongings.'

256 II. Ethnology.

Tts ; iioOev eis avbpSiv ; m)0i rot iroKis ', t)bf TOKJ}«';

The chief indication of departure from this purposeis in the case of Nireus™. This paltry leader is almostthe only person of legitimate birth, both of whoseparents are named: and while he is evidently intro-duced for his beauty only, it is most suspicious that hisfather should be named ~Kdpo^, and likewise his mother

This savours of the names AtipioSoicos ands, which Homer has given to his Bards in the

Odyssey. And again of his Phronius, son of Noemon,whom he introduces to play the part of a considerateand serviceable Ithacan citizen". With the insignifi-cant island of Syme Homer might, for a special object,well take this liberty. And we may observe here, aselsewhere, that what is probably a departure fromliteral truth, may also be in a higher view historical:for doubtless his object is to commemorate impressivelythe wonderful beauty of Nireus, and this he does by in-venting appropriate accessories.

Again, though an accurate geography would not ofitself have proved the personal parts of the narrativeto be historical, it is scarcely conceivable that he wouldhave adopted one so minute and elaborate, as well asexact, if he had meant to combine with it a string ofmerely fictitious personalities.

Thirdly, besides many simple patronymics, there arefound thirteen minor genealogies in the Catalogue, tenof them Greek, and three foreign. They are of threegenerations only in every case, with the single ex-

1 Od. i. [70, et alibi. discussed in conjunction with hism I am not prepared to con- general mode of using number,

tend that the numbers of the in the ' Studies on Poetry,' sect.ships are to be taken as literally iii.correct: but this subject will be n Od. ii. 386.

Genealogies of the Catalogue. 257

ception of the Orchomenian leaders, who have four:and in every case they attach to secondary heroes, whoare thus treated in a mass, while provision is made inother parts of the poem for making known to us thedescent (with the exception of Ajax) of all the greaterheroes, as occasion serves to state it for each of themsingly. Now it is inconceivable, even on generalgrounds, that the poet should have invented this mass ofnames; for they could surely have excited no sort of in-terest among his hearers, except upon one ground. Theymust have been true genealogical records of persons, whohad played a part in the great national drama; one notperhaps of high importance, yet sufficient to be the basisof such traditions, as are justly deemed worthy of localrecord among a people eminently strong in their muni-cipal, as well as their general patriotism. Over andabove this, many points of these minor genealogiescoincide with, and illustrate other historical notices inother parts of the poem.

Again, there are in all eight cases in the Catalogue,where the name of a mother is mentioned. These are,

1. Astyoche, mother of Ascalaphus and Ialmenus,Mars being the father, v. 513.

2. Aroura mother of Erechtheus, no father being-mentioned, v. 548.

3. Astyochea mother of TIepolemus, Hercules beingthe father, v. 658.

4. Aglaie mother of Nireus, Charops the father,v. 672.

5. Alcestis mother of Eumelus, Admetus the father,

v- 7*5-6. Rhene mother of Medon, Oileus the father, v. 728.7. Hippodamia mother of Polypoetes, Pirithous the

father, v. 742.s

258 II. Ethnology.

8. Venus is mentioned as the mother of iEneas,Anchises being the father, v. 820.

The second of these cases, if we are to regard thepassage containing it as Homeric, must not be con-sidered as an account of parentage, but simply as amode of asserting autochthonism. Again, the parentsof Nireus, whether true persons or not, are evidentlynamed with reference to the consideration of beautyonly, which is the key to the whole passage.

And the parentage of iEneas may also perhaps benamed for the sole purpose of embellishment.

Described by the words 6ea ftporw evvrjOeta-a, it doesnot appear to stand in the same class, or to be suscep-tible of the same explanations, as those Greek caseswhere Greek chieftains born out of wedlock have godsfor their fathers; nor is there any case, among theGreeks, of illegitimate birth from a goddess. Of thefive other cases three (1,3, and 6), are obviously illegiti-mate births, one at least of them with a fabulous father.This raises the presumption that the name of themother was mentioned as the only remaining means ofrecording the descent: inasmuch as the persons wouldotherwise have been ovrlSavot. It may reasonably beconjectured, that all these births were out of wedlock.

The epithets of the Catalogue are so accurately de-scriptive of the country, that they have always beenused as tests of the traditions respecting the situationsof the places to which they refer. They are not lessexactly in harmony with the descriptions in other partsof the poem, and this in minor cases, where purposedfiction can hardly be supposed, not less tban in thegreater ones. For instance, the Arcadians of II. vii.134, are ey^ea-lfjLwpoi: those of the Catalogue are ayyi-

( 6 0 4 ) , a n d eTrifTTO.fj.evoi TroXe/xiCeiv ( 6 l l ) . T h e

The Epilogue. 259

Pelasgi of II. x. 429 are Scot, those of the Catalogue(840) are ey-^ea-l/xwpoi. The Cephallenians of the Ca-talogue are fxeyaQvixoi (631), those of II. iv. 330 areo-r/^e? OVK aXaTraSval. The Crete of the Odyssey (xix.174) has iw^Kovra 7ro'X e?, the Crete of the Catalogue(v. 649) is eKaTOfjivoXig".

Single commands are in every instance assigned towho in those the rest of the poem appear as chiefs ofthe first order. In the case of Idomeneus alone is thisin any way obscured ; as the passage (645-51) runs:' Idomeneus led the Cretans' Idomeneus ledthem, with Meriones. But it is very remarkable thatMeriones holds just this sort of ambiguous relation toIdomeneus in the poem at large: sometimes he iscalled his Oepdiroov (xxiii. 113 et alibi), and his oirawv(x. 58 et alibi), while he stands among the nine firstwarriors of the army, who (vii.161), volunteer for singlecombat with Hector; and when Idomeneus leads thevan, he manages the rear (iv. 251-4). Again, thoughthe opportunities afforded by the Catalogue are ofnecessity narrow, yet Homer has contrived within itslimits to mark distinctly the character and position ofnearly every great chieftain : certainly of Agamemnon,Achilles, Menelaus, Telamonian Ajax (v. 668), andUlysses.

The third portion, or epilogue, appears to be ascrib-able chiefly to the genial love of Homer for the horse.His arrangement of the army according to the numberof ships, which conveyed each division, had shut out themention of the chariots and the coursers who drewthem, and he appears to have devised this closing in-

0 The reasons for treating this number. (Studies on Poetry,as a coincidence will be found sect, iii.)in a paper on Homer's use of

S 2

260 II. Ethnology.

vocation for the purpose of supplying the defect. Itwas certainly not necessary in order to fix the positionof Achilles in the army, which the First Book hadcompletely developed; and the passage is chiefly occu-pied with the horses of Eumelus, together with those ofAchilles and his force.

It contains, however, two remarkable notes of histo-rical veracity. The horses of Eumelus, a Thessalian, areproclaimed to have been by far the best {fj-ey apia-Tai):and the Myrmidons, again a Thessalian contingent, arehere spoken of as having a number of separate chariotsand horses; we are told (773), ' the soldiers played atgames The horses stood feeding, each near his ownchariot, and the chariots were in their sheds.' This isnever said of any other contingent in the army. Instrict harmony with this picture, Thessaly was conspi-cuous throughout the historic times of Greece, for theexcellence of its breeds of horses, and the high cha-racter of its cavalry.

If all this be so, we cannot wonder at the high esti-mation in which the Catalogue of Homer was held bythe Greeks of after-ages, as the great and only systema-tic record of the national claims of the respective states.

This was not merely literary or private estimation:the Catalogue had the place of an authoritative publicdocument. Under the laws of Solon, for example, itreceived the honour of public recitation on solemnoccasions. It was also quoted for the decision of contro-versies. In the critical moment, which preceded the firstPersian war, the Athenian and Spartan envoys applyon the part of Greece to Gelon for his aid. He claimsthe command. In resisting this claim and urging theirown right to lead the fleet, unless that post be claimedby the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians found their pre-

The Trojan Catalogue. 261

tensions on the magnitude of their fleet, their autoch-thonism, and, finally, the testimony of Homer to themerits of Menestheus P.

The Trojan Catalogue has less of organic connectionthan the Greek with the structure of the poem at large.

In proceeding to this portion of his work, the poetdoes not renew his ornamental similes, or his invo-cation to the Muse. He evidently meant to lower thetone of his strain : and moreover he was not about totax memory as he had done in the former operation, theproper names being only abotit one foui'th in numberof those used for the Greeks, and none of them beingarranged in long strings like the towns of Boeotia.

He now begins in what may be called a naturalorder: taking first that section of the army, whichwas supplied by the Troic sovereignties, principal andsubordinate; and among these giving the first place tothe troops of Ilion itself, as the most considerable, andas those chiefly concerned. The next is given to the Dar-dan forces, which were connected with the original seatof the race, and the following ones to the contingentssupplied by the subordinate sovereigns of the rest ofTroas.

His pursuit of this order reminds us, that the geo-graphical distribution was in the case of the Trojanlist simple, and did not require the aid of mentalgeometry, as he had only to follow, almost throughout,a single line of States along the European and Asiaticcoasts. It also strengthens the presumption that, whenHomer chose an order so different, and so much lessnatural and obvious, in the case of the Greeks, he musthave been governed by some peculiar reason.

It will be observed that, of the eleven divisions ofP Herod, vii. 161.

II. Ethnology.

the Allies, the two first are the Pelasgians and theThracians. As the blood of these two races flowedlikewise in the veins of the Greeks, the precedencegiven to them may have been founded on this rela-tionship. But this presumption is qualified by ourfinding that, doubtless on the ground of geographicalorder, the Lycian contingent, which had, at any rate,strong Greek affinities, comes last of all.

For a reason given elsewhere, we must consider thenumbers assigned to the Greek contingents as approxi-mate representations of their respective force: but theomission to particularize numbers at all in the TrojanCatalogue is itself an evidence of its historical cha-racter. The Trojan army was of a miscellaneouscharacter: we also know that the allied contingentswent and came, and that their absence from home, notprompted by the same powerful motives as that of theGreeks, was shortened by reliefs. Thus we find Rhesuswith his Thracians just arrived in the Tenth Book 1:Memnon comes to Troy after the death of Hector1":and we are told of the sons of Hippotion (II. xiii. 79a),who rjXQov a/j.oi(3ol, had come as reliefs, on the precedingday. An army thus collected piecemeal, and thus fluc-tuating in its composition, could not leave behind it thesame accessible traditions. Again, the destruction ofTroy itself obliterated what alone could have been theirdepository; nor had Homer, as a Greek bard, either thesame motives or the same means for gathering detailedinformation, as he would naturally possess with referenceto his own countrymen.

Hence, as the Trojan Catalogue is shorter, so alsoits scope is more limited. It contains no specificationof forces: no anecdotes going farther back than the

<i II. x. 434. r Od. xi. 521.

The Trojan Catalogue. 263

existing generation : scarcely any of what may becalled specialties of character or position as to thechiefs. It shows a good deal of knowledge of thegeography and products of the countries, but thisknowledge is of a much more general and vague cha-racter, than that which he has displayed in almostevery portion of the Greek Array. He gives here veryfew lists of towns at all, and never uses epithets re-quiring us to believe that he had a personal knowledgeof their site and character. Only Ariste is Sia, andLarissa is ipifiwXa^. In two or three cases he speaksof commercial products; a characteristic which it isobvious that he might have learned without any per-sonal experience of the countries. He does not usethis particular kind of sign at all in the descriptions ofthe Greek Catalogue: and we may perhaps correctlyinterpret it, where it appears, as a token of his want ofvivid and experimental knowledge.

He also occasionally names a mountain or a river.But there is a general avoidance of particular and cha-racteristic epithets, such as, (to refer to the Boeotianlist alone,) Trerpyecrcra given to Aulis, TroXvKvrj/mos to Eteo-nos, evpv-xppos to Mycalesos, eiJKTinevov to Medeon andHypothebse, iroXvTpripwv to Thisbe, 7ron?ety to Haliartos,TroXva-rdipvXoi to Arne, ia-^aTowira to Anthedon, withperhaps one or two other cases.

Another material inference is suggested by the verydifferent texture of the Trojan Catalogue.

Upon the whole, this vagueness of description cannot,I think, but be regarded as much in conflict with thebelief that Homer was a Greek of Asia Minor, if at leasthis comparative knowledge of the two countries on theopposite sides of the iEgean is to be taken as a sign,either positive or negative, of his nativity.

264 II. Ethnology.

SECT. VI.

On the Hellenes of Homer; and with them,

Hellas; Panhellenes; Cephallenes; Helli or Selli.

We have next to inquire into the force of the Hel-lenic name in the poems of Homer.

It meets us not, like the Pelasgic, in a single form,but in a group of words; among which, the principalare as follows:

i/'EXX^e?, II. ii. 684. \2. TlaveWtjvei}, ibid. 530. > National or tribal names.3. SeXXol, II. xvi. 234. )

And, lastly, the territorial name of4. "EXXay.Observing the order of derivation as it has been

pointed out by Murea, we shall naturally look to theword "EXXa? as a guide to the meaning of its deriva-tives, "EWtjves and UaviWrives. It is itself drawn from'EXXol or SeXXo/: but as that name is only once usedin the Poems, and as by far the largest body of evidencetells upon the word "EXXay, the decision upon the wholegroup of words will turn mainly upon the inquiry weshall have to make into the use of that word by Homer.With it therefore we shall commence. Is there, we haveto ask, clear proof, that it went beyond the dominions ofPeleus ? If it went beyond them, how far did it go ? anddid it include that division of Greece, in which Locrislay, whose inhabitants a particular line of the Catalogueclasses with the Panhellenes? For no suspicion of spu-riousness can justly arise out of the fact (if it be one),

a Lit. Greece, i. 39, note.

The Hellas of Homer.

that Homer calls by the name of Hellenes the inhabit-ants of any country, which was itself within the scopeof the territorial name Hellas: inasmuch as this is littlemore than, the word Yorkshire being given, to makeuse also of the word Yorkshiremen.

At the outset, however, it is essential to observe,that a certain elasticity in the use of geographical aswell as political names could not but belong to the age,in which Homer lived: first, because of the successivemovements of tribes, like wave on wave, so that theuse of any such name would ordinarily be either grow-ing or declining, but not stationary: secondly, becauseof the indeterminate forms which political authorityassumed, as resting on a mixture, in unknown propor-tions, of the various elements of custom, compact, re-verence, and force: and, thirdly, because of the wantof well-defined geographical boundaries.

We are not entitled to assume that the territory,which we call Greece, was, in Homer's time, subdividedwith precision between a given number of territorialnames. We hear of Phthia, ^Egialus, Elis, Arcadia:but these seem to be the exceptions rather than therule. For many parts of it there are no local nameswhatever; and we must not look for any thing re-sembling the manner in which England is made up ofits counties, France of its departments, or the laterGreece of its individual states.

The passages in which the word Hellas is used byHomer stand as follows in the order of the Poems:

i. A verse in the Catalogue, II. ii. 683 :<J>0w?i> ^8 ' 'EAAa5a KaWiyvvalKa,

2. (Achilles loquitur), ix. 395 :TioWal 'Ax««8«'s daiv av 'EAAaSa re <i>9(r)V re.

266 II. Ethioloyy.

3. (Phoenix log.), ibid. 447:dtov ore -np&Tov Xhtov 'EAAdSa KaWiyvvatKa.

4. (Phoenix log.), ibid. 478 :(pevyov eiretr' cm&vevde bi 'EAAaSoy evpv\opoio,

5. (In the narrative), II. xvi. 595 :XaA/ccoros (piKov vlou, 6s 'EAAdSt OLKIO. vaia>v

oA/3(o re TTAOOTW re ixeTeirpeire MvpiAiboveo-atv.

6. (Penelope fo^.), Od. i. 344:fj.efj.vrjjji,evri aitl

avbpbs, TOV KAeos ehpv na.6' 'EA\a8a KCLI nicrov "Apyos.

7. (Penelope log.), Od. iv. 724:rj -nplv )xev Troatv Icr^Aw dmiAecra 6vfj,o\iovTa,

•navroirjs apirriai KeKaa/ievov iv Aamotcn,iadkov, TOV KAeos evpv KaO" 'EAAoSa Kat fxeaov "Apyos.

8. Penelope repeats the same lines, Od. iv. 814-16.

9. (Achilles log.), Od. xi. 494:ewe 8e' 1x01, ETJ/ATJOS a^vp.ovos d n nti-nvanavrj er' e\ei. TIIM]V TioXecnv [/.era MvpfJ.ib6ve<rcnvrj \xw a.THJ.&£ov(nv av 'EAAdSa re <t>0Hjz; re.

10. (Menelaus log.), to Telemachus, Od. xv. 80 :ei 8' e(?eAei? Tpa(p8r)vai. av cEAAd8a /cat neaov "Apyos,ocppa roi avrbs 'imujxai, inro^ev^co 8e' TOI tirirovs,aorea 8' avOpdncav r)yr)crojxai.

Of these passages, there are some which admit for theword Hellas the contracted sense of the dominions ofPeleus, or even of a simple portion of them. Namelythe following:

In (1) we are reading part of the description of thecountry, from which the force of Achilles was drawn.Beginning from the line which precedes it, we maytranslate thus: ' the inhabitants of Alos, and of Alope,and of Trachin, and those who occupied Phthia, and

The Hellas of Homer. 267

the Hellas of fair women.' It is clear, on the face ofthe passage, that, whatever it may mean, the sense doesnot require it to mean more in this place than a parti-cular district, forming part of the dominions of Peleus.

In (2), where Achilles says, there are many Achaeanmaids through Hellas and Phthia, any one of whom hecan have for a wife.

In (5), where we are told that Bathycles, son ofChalcon, dwelt in Hellas, preeminent among the Myr-midons in prosperity and wealth.

And in (9), where the shade of Achilles asks whe-ther his father Peleus is still in the enjoyment of kinglypower in the populous country of the Myrmidons, orwhether he is deprived and despised through the rangeof Hellas and Phthia.

But among these four passages there is a distinction.In (1), (5), and (9) Hellas is combined with Phthia.Now we have seen, that there were Phthians beyond thedominions of Peleus : if the territorial name Phthia wassimilarly extended, then the presumption would arisethat Hellas also might mean something more than laywithin those dominions. But there are many passageswhere Phthia is used without Hellas; and in them allit is used to express the district where Peleus reigned.It is not unlikely therefore, at first sight, that Hellashas the limited sense of a part of the kingdom in thesepassages. And in the passage relating to Bathycles,the son of Chalcon, the limited sense is yet morestrongly suggested ; yet, as we may hereafter see moreclearly, it is by no means positively required either inthat or in any of these four places.

And it is abundantly clear, from the remainder ofthe passages, that the name Hellas had already, inHomer's time, begun to bear a more extended sense.

268 II. Ethnology.

In proof of this, let us take, firstly, the two passagesin which it stands alone. In II. ix. 444-8, Phoenix tellsus that nothing would induce him to quit Achilles; no,not even if the gods, brushing off his old age, were tomake him young and vigorous again, such as he waswhen first he left Hellas, the land of fair women, flyingfrom his feud with his father Amyntor. Now this pas-sage absolutely proves that the word Hellas was used byHomer, at least occasionally, for some limited district,and not (as in after times) for the entire country; inas-much as Phoenix could not otherwise have said he leftHellas on this occasion. But on the other hand it de-monstrates, that the limits of Hellas were not so narrow,as the passages heretofore considered might permit us tosuppose. For Phoenix goes on to describe the cause ofquarrel; and (478-80) says he took his course throughbroad open Hellas, and came into fertile Phthia, toPeleus the king. The supposition most consistent withthe wording of these passages is, that Phthia comprisedthe principal district of the dominions of Peleus, whilea portion of them may have fallen (as we elsewhere seewas perhaps the case) under the name of Hellas: butthey absolutely place the abode of Amyntor outside therealm of Peleus; and therefore, in saying that Phoenixleft Hellas, and that he fled from his home throughHellas, they imply necessarily that Hellas, the regionfrom which he fled, was, in part at least, outside of thatrealm to which he fled.

But these passages will harmonise perfectly with eachother, and with those formerly examined, if we supposethat Hellas meant the whole of Northern Greece ge-nerally, but that a particular portion of it had beenmore definitely stamped with the name of Phthia, asthe chief seat of Peleus and the Myrmidons. For then

The Hellas of Homer. 269

the original abode of Phoenix might be in Hellas, as hesays (in ix. 447) that it was: and yet he would pursuehis way through Hellas, as he says (ibid. 478) that hedid : and he would also leave Hellas, namely by cominginto Phthia: and moreover the dominions of Peleusmight go beyond what was commonly known by theparticular designation of Phthia, and might includesome portion of Hellas, as, from II. ii. 683, they evi-dently did.

This supposition is recommended to us, not only byits conforming to all the requisite conditions, and fur-nishing a convenient construction for all the passageswe have examined, but by the fact that Phthia, andPhthia alone, is commonly mentioned in the poem asthe home of Achilles and the Myrmidons: which showsthat they had a more special relation to the territoryknown by that name, than to Hellas.

If any thing be still wanting, the proof is brought tocompleteness by two other passages: the one (II. x.261-7), which tells us that this Amyntor, son of Or-menus, dwelt in Eleon; dwelt there permanently, sinceAutolycus stole from him an helmet, by breaking intohis substantial well-built house,

•nvKivov bo/xov avTiTopr/cTas^ :

and the other the verse of the Catalogue0, which placesEleon in Boeotia. These passages therefore clearly ap-pear to carry the name Hellas as far as Boeotia, and tomake it reach continuously from thence to Phthia.And if Hellas comes down to Boeotia, then it includesLocris; and the various tribes of these regions may beincluded in the general name of Hellenes, though toall appearance they were not as yet familiarly and or-dinarily so called. And if Locris and Boeotia, with

t> II. x. 267. e II. ii. 500.

270 II. Ethnology.

part of Southern Thessaly (the dominions of Peleus),are included within the range of the name Hellas, wecan have no difficulty in supposing that it includedNorthern Thessaly also, which must have been the path-way of the Helli to the South.

But we find "EXXay in another combination besidesthat with Phthia, in the four passages of the Odyssey,(one of them being a simple repetition of another,)which we have still to examine.

Now the line Od. iv. 726, repeated 816, is under sus-picion, of which it is not worth while to scrutinise thejustice : as the idea and force of it is just the same withthat of Od. i. 344,

'Avbpbs, TOV K\£OS fiipv <ca0' 'EAAaSa ml ixecrov "Apyos.

This passage describes the fame of Ulysses as spreadthrough the breadth of Hellas and mid-Argos; (or,from the heart of Argos to its extremities, right throughor all over Argos.) And again in Od. xv. 80, whenTelemachus has proposed to return home forthwith fromthe court of Menelaus, his host gently dissuades himfrom haste, and counsels a more extended tour, /c<x0''~E\\dSa KOU fj.i(7ov "Apyos; offering to take charge ofhis horses, and to shew him 'the cities,' or secured dwell-ings, ' of men.'

The signification of the word "Apyos will be consi-dered hereafter: for the present purpose it is enoughto observe that the word pio-ov, as used by Menelaus,in combination with Hellas, of itself prevents our ap-plying it simply to the narrow corner of the Pelopon-nesus in which the city of Afgos was placed ; andtherefore that it can scarcely mean less than Pelopon-nesus. And it is not less plain, that whatever may bethe force of the words when taken singly, their effectwhen taken together can hardly be loss than this:

The Hellas of Homer. 271

Menelaus must mean to point to Greece at large, as thescene of the proposed excursion. For there is no as-signable portion of Greece to which, consistently withthe words and the sense, he can be held to confine hismeaning. If we could suppose him to mean Pelopon-nesus only by the two names Hellas and Argos, whichhe employs in this place, we should but enlargethereby the Homeric capacity of the word Hellas; forwe have already brought it down from the north toBoeotia; and we should, in the Avay now proposed, carryit through the isthmus, and over Peloponnesus, or, atthe least, over some part of it. But even if Menelausmeans Peloponnesus only, which is most improbable, itis plainly incredible that such should be the meaningof Penelope in Od. i. 344. As a Greek, she cannotmean to limit the renown of her husband to any sphereless wide than Greece.

We have already seen, that Hellas sometimes in-cludes certainly the territory from Southern Thessalyto Boeotia, and probably Thessaly at large: and it isquite plain that, if it comes to Boeotia, it does not stopthere, but applies to the whole of Middle Greece, theregion between Thessaly and the isthmus: for the ap-plication of the term Hellas could not stop except atsome great natural division of the country, and theisthmus is here the only one possible.

Now the name Argos is related to Thessalyd, butmuch more specially related to the Peloponnesus, aswe shall see from a number of passages. It has no re-lation at all in Homer to that division of the countryin particular which we call Middle Greece.

Assuming it, then, to mean Peloponnesus, in thatcase Hellas means Middle with Northern Greece: and

d II. ii. 681.

272 II. Ethnology.

the two names of Hellas and Argos, taken together,completely and conveniently express the whole country.The only alterations are such as would assign to Hellasa larger sense; in no case can it, as to this passage, ad-mit of a more restricted one.

The foregoing argument is supported to a certainextent by the fact, that while territorial names are fre-quent for the Peloponnesian part of Greece, (we haveAehaic Argos, Iasian Argos, Elis, Arcadia, Lacedsemon,)the continent to the north of the isthmus is generallywithout territorial names: Phthia and Pelasgic Argosare, I think, the only exceptions. There is thus beforeus a gap, which the name Hellas, as it has been hereconstrued, seems conveniently to fill.

This construction of certain passages, in which theword Hellas is contained, is not one which should beadopted by the reader unawares. But if, like myself,after examining into it strictly he assents to its justiceand necessity, then he will find that it is of the utmostimportance to the elucidation of Homeric history; forit supplies a key to other much contested uses of theHellenic name.

In the first place, I submit that if we now review theten passages in which Homer speaks of Hellas, andbear in mind that in some among them it cannot beconstrued as meaning less than, with a certain amountof indeterminateness as to boundaries, Northern andMiddle Greece generally, we shall also find, that thereis not one of all those passages, in which it will not atleast admit of the same sense. I do not deny that it isopen to us to hold that the Hellas, in which Chalcondwelt, was a mere district of Thessaly, and that Homerattaches in different places different senses to the word.But if there is a sense, substantially one, which will

The Hellas of Homer. 273

suit the word in every place where it is used, it seemsmost reasonable to adhere generally to that sense. Sucha meaning we have, I think, found for Hellas, in con-cluding that it is used to signify Northern and MiddleGreece. In this sense it overrides and includes Phthia,as France overrides Alsace or Burgundy. But as therewas a time when Alsace and Burgundy might, before thepresent state of incorporation, have been either said to bein France or not in France, without an outrageous licenseof speech either way, so perhaps the land of Phthia wasfor Homer either a part of Hellas, or a province carvedout of Hellas by the special occupation of the Myrmi-dons, as occasion might chance to demand. Not thathe did not conform to the facts, but that the facts werethemselves indeterminate. To our habits, under whichevery inch of ground belongs to somebody, this indefi-niteness is wholly strange ; but in times when only spotshere and there were appropriated, and there was no uni-versal occupation, it was thoroughly natural, and thething really strange would be the absence of it. Ac-cordingly, when Phoenix says he left Hellas, he gives toPhthia, the name of the place he reached, its exclusiveforce. When he says Chalcon dwelt in Hellas amongthe Myrmidons, he probably means in Phthia, but nowregards Phthia as covered by the larger designation.When Homer tells us the soldiers of Achilles were thosewho inhabited Alos, and Alope, and Trachin, and whooccupied Phthia and Hellas, we understand by thethree first, particular spots which the Myrmidons hadsettled, by Phthia a larger district which they had so fardotted with their occupancy as to make it peculiarlytheirs, and by Hellas the surrounding country, intowhich they had more or less ramified.

Assuming then the seuse of the word Hellas to beT

274 II. Ethnology.

now sufficiently ascertained, the next question is, howcame this country, which has been described, to bear thename of Hellas ? And the question admits of but oneanswer. It could only be called Hellas because tribesof Helli had become its masters, its governing race, thedepositaries, through its various regions, of political andmilitary power.

We must therefore understand that, according toHomer, tribes reputed to be of Hellic origin were sofar distributed over this country, as to have begun atleast to affix their name to it: though without havingabsolutely effaced every older name, like HeXao-yiKov"Apyoi, and though not precluding the introduction ofnames perhaps more recent, certainly more specific,such as Phthia.

We may now proceed to consider the force, accord-ing to Homer's use, of the names derived from Hellas.These are, as commonly understood,

and to these I shall presume to add,3 . J£.e<paX\r]ves.

The first of these is found only in II. ii. 684. Here,after the description of the places from which the forcesof Achilles came, the poet proceeds to give them theirdesignation:

MvpiJ-ibovfs 8e Kakevirro nal"EXkrjV€s Ka\'A\aLoL

We find an exclusive usee of the word Myrmidonsfor the force of Achilles throughout the Iliad, except inthis one place; notwithstanding that Phoenix, who waslord of the Dolopes, commanded one of the five divisionsf,and that we may therefore presume a certain part ofthe force to have been Dolopian. From this exclusive

e Iliad passim : and Od. iii.182. iv. 9. and xi.494. r II. xvi. 171.

The Hellenes of Homer. 275

use, we cannot doubt that the name of Myrmidons wasthat which appertained to them in particular, as theruling tribe among the subjects of Peleus.

Had we found reason to construe the word "EAAa?in the preceding line as meaning only a district of hisdominions, it would have followed, that"EX\jjMr? meantthe inhabitants of that district; and that a part of thesoldiers of Achilles were Hellenes rather than Myrmi-dons, in virtue of a local name. But it follows fromwhat we have already concluded about Hellas, that thename of Hellenes was applicable to all the Myrmidonsas being themselves inhabitants of Hellas, that is, ofPhthia, which belonged to Hellas.

And in passing it should be noticed that, althoughthe Myrmidons inhabited Phthia, they are never calledPhthians; nor do we ever hear of Phthians at all inHomer, except only in that passage where they are de-scribed as engaged with Locrians and others in repel-ling the Trojan assault &. They are there described asunder the command of Medon and Podarces. But inthe Catalogue Podarces and Medon h, as substitutes forProtesilaus and Philoctetes respectively, command thesecond and fourth Thessalian contingents, which camefrom districts lying near the kingdom of Peleus. Eithertherefore the Phthian name extended beyond the li-mits of Phthia, or the Phthians were those whom theMyrmidons had recently driven out, and whose landsthey had occupied.

We cannot conclusively settle the sense of the word' Aycuo\ in this passage, except by anticipating the resultsof an examination, on which we have not yet entered.But it may be observed even at this point, that the bear-ings of the passage are somewhat adverse to a merely

g II. xiii. 685-700. h II. ii. 704. 727.T 2

276 II. Ethnology.

local construction for it. If Myrmidon was the strictlyproper name, then Achaean must have been a designa-tion which was not proper to the Myrmidons only, butwhich they enjoyed in common with others. And yet,on the other hand, not in common with all the Greeks,but in some sense more restricted than that, in which itis habitually applied to the whole army. For in thatlarge and general sense every contingent of the armywas Achaean, and Homer would certainly therefore nothave mentioned the Achaean name with respect to onein particular. It can hardly escape observation that, stu-dying great clearness and precision in the Catalogue,he systematically avoids the introduction of his generalnames for the army. We never read of Danaans orArgeians in it at all, and of Achseans only twice11. Sofar then as the passage itself guides us, it points to thesupposition that those who were called Myrmidons pro-perly, to distinguish them from all others, and Hellenesbecause they were (in common with others) inhabitantsof Hellas, belonged likewise to a particular class orrace of Greeks, to whom the name of 'A%aiol was ap-plicable in some distinctive sense. The three appella-tions, accordingly, are not so many synonyms ; but eachhas probably its own proper scope.

Thucydides ' speaks with his usual accuracy, when hesays that Homer has given the name of Hellenes to noportion of the army except the troops of Achilles fromPhthiotis. He does not however go beyond the asser-tion that this word had not yet grown into an appella-tion for the Greeks universally, an assertion which, asfar as Homer's evidence goes, is undeniable. But itdoes not require us also to deny that the Hellas ofHomer extends beyond Phthia, and that the name of

h II. ii. 530. 562. 684. i Thuc. i. 3.

The Panhellenes of Homer. 277

Hellenes may even then have been beginning to attachto the inhabitants of other parts of Hellas, though per-haps less fixedly, as yet, than to the Myrmidons.

With these facts in view, I am wholly unable tofollow those who have condemned, upon internal evi-dence, that verse of the Catalogue in which we findmention of the Panhellenes.

Speaking of Oilean Ajax, commander of the Lo-crians, the poet says (II. ii. 530),

ey\(Cri 5' eKe'/caoro YlavehKrivas xaVAxawvs.

It is not grammatically necessary that we should makethese two words coextensive; and I do not believethat either of them separately, as here used, conveysthe whole force of the two, though perhaps conjointlythey may carry the assertion that he was the best spear-man in the army.

If there was a Hellas in the time of Homer, whichwas inhabited by a variety of tribes, then, as thesetribes dispersedly might be called with propriety Hel-lenes, even apart from the authority of constant use, sothey might with equal propriety be combined into theterm Panhellenes, which would mean all the tribes, in-cluding the Locrians, that inhabited Hellas, or North-ern and Mid-Greece. Thus, as the Achaean name wasat this time more prominent and distinguished in thePeloponnesus 5 than in any other part of the country,the poet may in this place by 'Amatol mean the South-ern or Peloponnesian Greece; so as, by the two epithetsconjointly, to signify the whole army. Or he may meanall those who, in Hellas or beyond it, were of the pureAchaean race (assuming, for the moment, that such a raceexisted); and thus may here assert, that Ajax excelledall Hellas, and even all Achaeans in or out of Hellas,

j Vid. inf. sect. viii.

278 II. Ethnology.

using the last of the two words by way of climax. I donot deny that he may also be construed to mean thewhole host in the gross by 'A^atot, agreeably to thecommon use of it; but this is less likely; as the name,so understood, would not be distinctive.

Nor do I see any reason to hesitate about treatingthe Homeric name Ke<pd\\rives as one^of his Hellenicgroup of names. As in the case of HeXaa-yo), so herewe have a name formed by a combination of differentwords. The word head seems to have been representedby a root of flexible structure. In Sanscrit it is kapdlak,in Greek tce<pd\ri, in Latin caput: but it also appears inthe German kopf, and in the Greek K6TTT€IV, 'to butt,' andin Kvfirj, Kofita-raw, Kvj3epvdoo. The word K.ecj)d\\i]ves seems,

then, to be formed in the most direct manner from theroot Keep, signifying • head,' and wEXX)?ve?: and thus itboth attaches Ulysses, with at least the dominant raceamong his subjects, to the Hellic stock, and indicatesthe tendency of the Hellenic name, even in Homer'stime, to reproduce itself and to spread abroad.

Again, we observe in his rare use of Ke^aXX^e? thesame signs as in "EXX^e? and Hai/e'XX>/i/e?, that thepower of the name was only growing up from its infancy.For the word is used but twice in the Iliad, and nomore than four times in the Odyssey, where there isconstant occasion for addressing, or for speaking of, thesubjects of Ulysses. We find in that poem 'IQaKyo-ioieleven times, and ''Ayaioi constantly.

Having dealt with the Homeric derivations of Hellas',k Donaldson's New Cratylus, Stanley (on JEsch. Suppl. 263)

p. 291. states, that what I have termed1 It is not necessary to trace Middle Greece was the Hellas of

in this place, with precision, the Ptolemy: that with Strabo thevarious applications of the name word includes most of the islandsHellas, after the time of Homer, of the iEgcan : and, finally, that

The SeMoi of Homer. 279

let us now ascend to the word, from which it is itselfderived; Hellas being evidently, in the Greek tongue,the country which had been occupied by the Helli.

Of the people who are so termed, either under the formbeginning with the aspirate, or else under that of SeXXoJ,we find obvious Homeric vestiges in the Hellespont,'EXAiJonroi/To?; in various rivers termed SeXXj/e/?; andin the invocation of Achilles to Jupiter, which placesthe Selli in the north of Thessaly, about wintry Dodona,and seems to stamp them as then still remaining apeople of the rudest habits in their mountain home1";

Aco8(ai'?js (xebsonv bv<r\eifxepov' Afujn be 2eXA.ot(Tol vaiovcr wo^Tjrat avuTTTonobes, yapaievvai.

The word "EXXot would appear to be not the mostprobable reading of the text of this invocation; for itpresumes an inconvenient loading of the sentence withthe double pronoun ere and a-oi. But there can be nodoubt whatever as to its identity with SeXXot. Inde-pendently of philological argument, there is thestrongest presumption that in this place Achilles in-tends to name his own national ancestry, as being theministers of the god ; who give him, as it were, theright to invoke the aid of the Pelasgic indeed, but

it also came to include Asia Mi- to observe how this domesticnor, and parts even of the African name, taken from the race whichcoast, as well as places elsewhere, made Greece so great and fa-which had been colonised by the mous, has retained its vitalityGreek race. According to Cra- through so many vicissitudes,mer (Geogr. Greece, i. 2), at the and is now the national nameepoch of the Peloponnesian war, of Greece, in opposition to thatHellas meant everything south which was probably drawn fromof the Peneus and the gulf of a Pelasgian source, and which, asAmbracia. He considers that proceeding from the Koman mas-Herodotus also meant by it a ters of the country, told its peopleportion of Thesprotia (Herod, ii. the tale of their subjugation.56. viii. 47). It is interesting m II. xvi. 234.

280 II. Ethnology.

therefore genuine and original, Jupiter of Dodona. Butno circumstance seems to be better established by phi-lological research, than that in many cases of Greekwords, which now begin with the aspirate, there wasone (or more than one) initial letter, and that fre-quently that letter was the sigma. Much obscurityhas hung about this subject, from the fact that disco-very has proceeded piecemeal, and that for a length oftime the word digamma was used to signify what hadoriginally filled the void now existing in so many placesof the Homeric versification. What this digammamight have been was disputed; but it was, almost in-sensibly perhaps, assumed to be some one letter orsound only. But as inquiry has made further advances,many forms of a lost letter or letters have been dis-covered : and it has also been made clear that the gapsought to be filled up variously, and not by any oneuniform expedient. To take very simple examples,there can be no doubt about the identity of e£, eirTa,!)?,with sew, septem, sus: nor any doubt about the essentialidentity of SSwp and sudor, qSvs and suavis, eicupo<; andsocer: none therefore that the <r ought to be supplied,and notyj w, or v, in the passage cplXe eKvpe". Whileindeed a presumption arises0 from the German wordsschwieger and schwdger, that a double or even trebleloss may have occurred, and that the passage may haverun (pike crFeKupe. Under these circumstances, in thecase before us, where we have both forms represented,there can be no hesitation as to the identity of'EXXoland 2eXXo/: the first represented in "EXXa?, "

11 II. iii. 172. by Mr. James Yates, during the0 I follow the acute and saga- year 1856, to the Philological

cious notes of Professor Maiden Transactions : also Donaldson'sto a valuable paper contributed Cratylus. p. 120.

The SeAAot of Homer. 281

and the 'EXW/a of Hesiod: the otherand older one. supported by 2eAAi?e/?.

There is another curious and instructive case, inwhich we have the older form of the word 2eAAoJ stillremaining: besides that of UpocreX^vot, to which allu-sion has already been made in considering the case ofthe Pelasgian Arcadians. In the Birds of Aristo-phanes, the dramatist satirizes Athens and the SicilianExpedition, under the name of a city in the clouds,called Ne<pe\oKOKKvyla; the object being to expose thearrogance of great pretensions, without adequate meansto support them. There, he says, lie most of the goodsof Theagenes, and all those of iEschines. This Theageneswas called Kairvos, smoke, because he promised much,and did nothing. JEschines was a pauper, who pre-tended to wealth. The Scholiast adds, %v §e Ata^lvw2eAA(w. "TOiXeyov §e eK fA-eracpopas TOLOVTOVS SeAAoi/?' KOL

TO akafyvevecrdai Se, <reA\t£«i/P. Cary thinks the term creA-Xl^eiv came from a Sellus, the father of this iEschines.But in the first place, it seems difficult to rely on theScholiast for knowing, still less for recording with accu-racy, the name of the father of an obscure person, whohad lived in the age of Aristophanes. In the secondplace, if iEscbines was an obscure fellow, it is most impro-bable that his father's name should have become the rootof a Greek word descriptive of a particular habit or pro-pensity. Such words (for example) as hectoring and rho-domontading presuppose a great celebrity in the personon whose name they are based. Lastly, the derivationfrom the ancient "ZeXXol seems a perfectly natural one,and also adequate to the case. It is in some degree cha-racteristic of those who in reduced circumstances traceback their lineage to a very ancient stock, instead of

P In loc, Gary's Birds, p. 77.

282 II. Ethnology.

relying simply on the substantial honour of their de-scent, still to affect the possession of the wealth whichhas passed away from them: to play for themselves thepart, which Caleb Balderstone desires to play, on behalfnot of himself, but of the Master of Ravenswood, inScott's 'Bride of Lammermoor'; and altogether to be sen-sitive, or what is called touchy on the subject, and to leanon the whole towards a certain boastfulness, in commonwith the veoTrkovToi at the other extremity of the scale.There is a broad distinction between treating the Scho-liast as a witness to the existence and force of a cur-rent phrase, and the taking his word for the parentageof a nobody, like this iEschines, who had lived longbefore him. It may, however, not be necessary to con-strue a-eWl^eiv solely, or even specially, with referenceto a pride in wealth which had passed away. If we shallhereafter show for the Selli 1 a Persian ancestry, then,even without any regard to change of circumstances,the phrase at once leads us back to the descriptiongiven by Herodotus of the Persians their forefathers.Hepcrai, (pvcriv eovTe? vfipiuTai, eicriv a^p^ixaTOir.

I shall also have occasion to notice hereafter one ortwo other words apparently akin to 2eXXo/.

9 See sect. x. r i. 89.

283

SECT. VII.

On the respective contributions of the Pelasgian andHellenic factors to the compound of the

Greek nation.

IN this attempt at an ethnological survey, we havenow come down to the point, at which the GreekPeninsula passes over from its old Pelasgian charac-ter, and becomes subject to predominating Hellenicinfluences.

Now therefore, and before we examine the relationsand succession of the great Homeric appellations forthe Hellenes, appears to be the time for consideringhow the account stands between these tribes and thePelasgians, and what were, so far as by probable evi-dence we can ascertain it, the respective contributionsfrom the two sources to the integral character of theGreeks and of their institutions.

In the case of Greece, as it is known to us in his-tory, we have the most remarkable disproportion be-tween moral and physical power, and between thegreen and the full grown product, which is offered toview in the whole range of human experience. A cir-cumscribed country, with a small population, throwsforth, without loss of vital power, to the East and tothe West, colonies greatly transcending itself, as wouldappear, in wealth and population; continues for manycenturies to exercise a primary influence in the world;at one time resists and repels, at another invades andterrifies, at a third overthrows and crushes to atomsthe great colossus of Eastern empire, and continues toexercise, through the medium of mind, a singular mas-

284 II. Ethnology.

tery, enduring down to our own time, and likely still toendure, over civilized man. And even the miniatureorganization of Greece presents to us, within its ownlimits, diversities of- character almost enough for aquarter of the globe.

Many of these diversities connect themselves withthe ethnological formation of the different commu-nities. In the course of that process, so far as can bediscerned, certain admixtures of foreign influence weresupplied direct from Phoenicia, Egypt, or elsewhere:but the grand component parts or factors in this com-posite product are two, the Hellenic and the Pelasgic.To this dual combination, perhaps the double invoca-tion of Achilles (II. xvi. 233,4) is a witness.

The development of the national character is the mostlarge and varied in Attica, where the population, fromsuccessive immigrations of bodies of refugees, and fromthe free general resort and reception of strangers, pre-sented also the largest and most varied ethnical com-pound.

In analysing that national character which thus re-sulted from the amalgamation of ingredients chieflyHellic and Pelasgic, we have now to ask how far itsdifferent elements are referable to the Pelasgic or tothe Hellic root respectively ? We have traced in somedegree the course and local circumscription of the races:can we affiliate upon them any of the contributionswhich they severally made to the varied manners andto the institutions of Greece ?

The proof, as far as it is specific, can be only thatwhich probable and conjectural evidence afford: butthat evidence is supported by the fact, that it tends, asa whole, to an orderly result.

While they proceed from different sources, and pre-

Contributions to the mythology. 285

sent visible and even permanent distinctions of character,there is no violent disparity between the Hellic andthe Pelasgic races: they afford a good material for coa-lescence. We are not to suppose that whatever theone had, the other had not. Of what belongs histori-cally to the Pelasgi, much may stand as theirs onlythrough their priority of entrance into the country.

I propose to inquire what evidence can be drawn,either from philological sources, or from the text ofHomer, to throw light on the several pursuits and ten-dencies of these races, under the heads of Religion,Policy, War, the Games, Poetry, the Chase, and Navi-gation.

Under some of these heads, however, we must in ameasure anticipate results which will be only obtainedin full from later inquiries.

The Poems afford us no complete and decisive testfor discriminating between the Hellene and the Pelas-gian contributions respectively to the Greek religion.

We shall, however, hereafter find many details ofevidence bearing upon this subject.

For the present I must confine myself to two verygeneral propositions, which are founded on the relationsof the Greek religion with those of Troy and of Italy.

First, there seems to be a presumption, which mayweigh with us to a certain extent in the absence ofcounter-evidence, that those parts of the Greek religionwhich were common to the Greeks with the Trojanswere Pelasgian, and that those which were not common,were not Pelasgian. But of the parts which were com-mon, and therefore Pelasgian, many may have been ori-ginally Hellene too.

Again, a relationship subsists between Greece andItaly, as to the component parts of their respective

286 II. Ethnology.

populations, which, without being unduly strained, willthrow considerable light upon the question of Hellicand Pelasgic attributes.

The Greek or the Italian of the classic times couldnot be expected to own relationship with what lay tothe northward, on each of those two peninsulas. TheRoman, therefore, whose investigations led him tosuppose there were Pelasgians in Italy, would only de-rive them from Greece. For us the case stands farotherwise; and we must simply consider the Pelasgiansof Greece, and the Pelasgians of Italy, as two amonga variety of branches, which struck out at differenttimes from the main trunk of an extended race, pro-bably diffusing itself over many parts of Asia andEurope. In Greece and Italy respectively these Pe-lasgic tribes entered into new combinations, probablynot wholly different, nor, on the other hand, by anymeans in exact correspondence.

We may perhaps be found not to go beyond the limitsof the modesty which the case requires, when we simplylay down this rule : that correspondences in religion orin language between Greece and ancient Italy raise a pre-sumption, that those features of each country, in whichthe correspondence is observed, are of Pelasgic origin.

i. Something of such correspondence we may per-ceive in regard to religion. The religion of HomericGreece differs from that of Rome, not only as to minordeities, but in the names given to many of the greaterdeities, and especially in the far more imaginative cha-racter of its traditions.

Those parts of the religion of Greece and Romewhich were common to both were probably Pelasgian.

Let us take first the names which correspond, andthen those which are different.

Contributions to the mythology. 287

(I.) Names of deities that correspond in the Greekand Latin tongues:

i. ZeJff Deus.a . Zevs-iraTrip . . . J u p i t e r .3 . 'Airo'XXwv . . . . A p o l l o .4 . 'Icrnn V e s t a .5 . A J J T W L a t o n a .

6 . Hep<re<p6vri . . . . P r o s e r p i n a .7 . "Apr/? Mars or Mavors.

(II.) Names of deities which do not in any mannercorrespond in the Greek and Latin tongues:

1. "Hprj Juno.1. Hoo-eiSwv Neptune.3. ' A i S w v e v s . . . . Pluto.4. "AQnvn Minerva.5. " H ( p a i ( T T 0 9 . . . . Vulcan.6. 'TZp/j.rj? Mercury.7. ' A c p p o S f r r i . . . . Venus.8. "Apre/uLis Diana.9. A r i f x y r r i p . . . . Ceres.

10. Aiowo-os Bacchus.

Two remarks may be made on the deities of the firstlist.

First, that it comprehends generally the gods whomwe shall find to bear marks of being the most ancientamong the Greek deities; with the marked exception,however, of Minerva a.

Secondly, that in it we find no deity who takes parton the Greek, that is, the Pelasgian side, in the war ofTroy. The only two names which do not appear onthe Trojan side, are Vesta, who with Homer is notpersonified at all: and Proserpine, who from the seatof her dark dominion could not share in the wars wagedupon earth.

a See Studies on the Theo-mythology of Homer.

288 II. Ethnology.

On the other hand, when we turn to the second listof exclusively Greek names, we find that it contains allthe deities who took part against Troy: and only twovery secondary names of deities friendly to it.

Mars and Venus, both engaged on the Trojan side,and one standing in the first list, are the deities afterwhom, according to Ovidz, the two first months of theRoman year were named in the first age of the city.

It would not, however, be safe to depend implicitlyupon the apparent reappearance of certain names inthe Latin language, without a fuller knowledge of thelaws of discrimination between the early mythology ofthe Romans, and the form which their religious systemassumed at the period when they came into free com-munication with Greece and its colonies, from which,as they certainly borrowed some names of deities, suchas Pallas and Phoebus, so they may have assumed otherstoo. We have no proof, for example, that Apollo wasprominent, or even that he was known, in the earliestRoman worship. Ciceroa says, Jam Apollinis nomen estGrcecum. Still, a temple was raised to him in Romeb

as early as 430 B. C.; and the Trojan sympathies ofmost of the deities in the first list tend in some degreeto show both that they were well known in the Pelas-gian religion, and that many of the older portions ofthe mythology were common to the Trojans, the earlyRomans, and the Pelasgians of Greece.

We may more boldly rely upon a general indication,which is offered to us by the religious systems both ofRome and of Troy, in comparison with that of Greece.

The large account of Roman deities furnished bySaint Augustine, in his ' De Civitate Dei,' constitutesfor us the principal representation of the great work of

z Fasti, i. ,39. •' De Nat. Deor. ii. 27.b Liv. Hist. Rom. iv. 25, 29.

Pelasgian Religion less imaginative. 289

Varro, now lost, on the ' Antiquitates Rerum Divina-rum.' Notwithstanding the multitudinous developmentof the theurgic system, the 'De Civitate" tends to sup-port the belief that it was not vivified, like the systemof the Greeks, by the intense pervading power of avigorous and prolific imagination. The 'Fasti' of Ovidmay perhaps be referred to as sustaining the sameopinion. And Heyne in his commentary on Virgil hasobserved upon the comparative dulness and dryness ofthe early mythology of Rome: Italici mythi longe aGrcecee fabulce suavitate absunt; nee varietas gratainestc.

In a later portion of this workd I shall endeavour toshow, that a similar character apparently attaches tothe religious system of Troy: not so much a purity orsimplicity, as a comparative poverty and hardness; andan indisposition in the inventions to assume thosegraceful forms, of which the Grecian Theo-mythology,as exhibited in Homer, is so full.

And again, when we pass from Homer to Hesiod, wefind a great mass of religious fable, either added by thelater poet, or grown up in the interval between thetwo. Hesiod's depositories are much more numerouslypeopled: but we have passed at once from the poetryof a theogony to its merest prose, when we compare hismanner of touch or handling, and his ideas on thesesubjects, with those of Homer. And, as on othergrounds we may consider Hesiod to represent the Pe-lasgian side of the Greek mind, we seem justified inreferring the distinctive tone of his mythology in somedegree to his Pelasgian characteristics.

c Exc. iv. ad Mn. vii. See Hist. Eom. Literature, vol. iii.Browne's History of Roman Li- p. 56.terature, chap. viii. p. 129, and '] See'The Trojans.'chap. iii. p. 41. Also Dunlop's

U

290 II. Ethnology.

But independently of confirmation from the case ofTroy, and from the tone of Hesiod, the character of theold Italian mythology, so devoid of imagination, force,and grace, leads us to ascribe these properties, when wefind them abound in the Greek supernaturalism, to itsnon-Pelasgian, that is, to its Hellenic source.

When, however, we turn to another form of develop-ment in religious systems, we find the case entirely dif-ferent : I mean the development in positive observancesof all kinds, and in fixed institutions of property andclass. Here the religion of Rome was large and copious.Polybius has left upon record, in a most remarkablepassage, his admiration of the Roman system of Seian-Saifxovla, which had, he says, been so got up, and carriedto such a point, that it could not be exceeded. It wasall done, in his opinion, on account of the multitude.Were States composed of the wise, the case would havebeen different: but as the people are full of levity andpassion, \elirerai TOIS aSrjXois (poftois KCU Trj TOiavTy rpa-

Not less remarkable is the testimony of Dionysius;who, while he praises Romulus for the severe simplicityof what he caused to be taught and held concerningreligion, and for the expulsion of immoral fables andpractices, says that he arranged for his people all thatconcerned the temples of the gods, their consecratedlands, their altars, their images, their forms, their in-signia, their prerogatives and their gifts to man, thesacrifices in which they delight, the feasts and assem-blies to be celebrated, and the remissions of labour tobe granted in their honour. In no other newly foundedcity could be shown such a multitude of priests and

d Polyb. vi. 56, sect. 6-12.

Its ritual development fuller. 291

ministers of the gods", who were chosen, too, from themost distinguished familiesf.

The Fasti of Ovid give an idea of the manner inwhich the Roman Calendar brought the ceremonial ofreligion to bear upon the course of life. For somecenturies an acquaintance with the Calendar was theexclusive property of the sacred orders; and the priest-hood turned to its own power and profit the know-ledge, which afterwards filled the pages of that charac-teristic work.

Again, we shall have occasion, when considering thedistinctive character of Troy, to notice that the politicaland ritual forms of religion appear to have been muchmore advanced there, than with the Greeks. This dif-ference will naturally connect itself with the strongerPelasgian infusion in the former case. We shall thenfind that of the two great kinds of sacred office, oneonly, that of the navTi?, and not that of the priest,seems at the time of Homer to have appertained to theHellenic races.

And it is not a little curious to observe that, whenSaint Paul arrives among the Athenians, the pointwhich he selects for notice in their character andusages, after all the intermixtures they had undergone,is still this, that they are 8euri8ai/ui.ove<TTepoih, peculiarlydisposed to religious observances; and that, not con-tented with the gods whom they suppose themselves toknow, they have likewise a supernumerary altar for ' theUnknown God.' Nor are we the less warranted to con-nect this peculiarity with the original and long preservedPelasgian character of Athens, because that city had, for

e Dionysius, b. ii. 18-21. 8 Smith's Diet., Art. 'Fasti.'f Id., b. viii. 38. See also Cic. h Acts xvii. 22.

Div. i. 2.U 2,

292 II. Ethnology.

centuries before, become a peculiarly apt representativeof the full Greek compound : for a system of ritual ob-servance has a fixity, which does not belong to mereopinion; and, when once rooted in a country, has power-ful tendencies to assume such a solidity as survives vicis-situde : perhaps in some degree on account of its neu-tral and pacific character, and of the power it leavesto men of separating between outward observance andinward act.

Although the opinion has been entertained, thatfrom the earliest ages it was the exclusive privilege ofthe first-born to offer sacrifice, it appears most probablethat the separate function of priesthood was, like otheroffices and professions, one of gradual formation.Whether the primitive institution of sacrifice wasspontaneous or commanded, every man, that is to say,every head of a family, was, I shall assume, at first hisown offerer or priest'. Then, as the household developedinto the community, the priestly office, in the firststages of political society, as a matter of course apper-tained to the chief.

He, by the necessity of natural order, originallyunited in his own person the great functions of

i. Father. 2. Teacher.3. Priest. 4. King.5. Proprietor. 6. Commander.

The severance of these offices successively would arrivesooner or later, according as the progress made innumbers and wealth was rapid or slow. Concentrationof employments in a single hand marks the primitivecondition or retarded movement of society, while thedivision of labour is the sign of more speedy and moreadvanced development. Even the annals of the people

' Outram cle Sacrif. l>. i. ch. iv. sect. 3.

Order of Priests not Hellenic. 293

of Israel furnish instances in which we trace, at periodswhen these offices had undergone division under divineauthority, vestiges of their former union. It appearsthat, besides Moses, who consecrated Aaron and hissons by divine command, Joshua, Samuel, and Saulk

on certain occasions offered sacrifice. The exclusivecharacter of priesthood has been impressed upon it,under Divine Revelation, by positive ordinance, andfor a special purposel.

The Hellenes in Homer appear to exhibit it in itsearlier state of union with the office of civil govern-ment; and the Pelasgians to display it as a functionwhich has indeed become special and professional, butonly on that self-acting principle which, in the progressof society, leads to division of labour.

If we suppose the case of two races, one of theminhabiting a rude and barren country in a state of per-petual poverty and warfare, and then recently, by a de-scent upon more fertile soils, brought into contact withcivilised life: the other of them addicted from a muchearlier period to pursuits of peace and industry, inha-biting plains, and accustomed to form agricultural set-tlements ; there will be no cause for wonder upon ouralso finding that the latter of these races has a profes-sional priesthood, while the former has none; but thatthe sacrificial office remains in the private dwellingwith the father of the family, and on public occasionswith the head of the civil government.

This appears to have been the state of facts as be-tween the Trojans of Homer who had a priesthood, andthe Hellenes who had none: and the difference may be

k Exodus xi. 12-16, and Levit. 1838. Art. Priest,viii. 1-13. 1 Sam. xvi. 2, &c. See ' Heb. v. 4.Calmet's Diet. Taylor's Edition,

294 II. Ethnology.

principally referable to the different condition and his-tory of the Pelasgian and the Hellic races : while othercauses, belonging to the respective characters of theraces, may have contributed their share towards theproduction of this curious result. Partly the greaterpersonal energy and self-reliance of the Hellic tribes,but partly also the earlier and older ease, wealth, andfixity of the Pelasgians, are the probable reasons why,at the point of time exhibited in the writings of Homer,we find priesthood properly a Pelasgian, but not yetproperly an Hellenic, and only to a limited extent anadoptive, institution.

Thus far, then, we have a presumption, to be greatlystrengthened as I trust hereafter, that the Greek re-ligion owed to the Hellenes its imaginative, and to thePelasgians its sacerdotal and ceremonial development.And this presumption is, I think, in entire accordancewith what we should reasonably anticipate, from rela-tions otherwise knoAvn to have subsisted between thetwo races. I now pass on to the subject of language.

In attempting to illustrate the relations of Pelas-gians to Hellenes through the medium of the affinitiesand contrasts between the Greek and Latin languages,I am aware that I venture upon ground which requiresto be trodden with great circumspection. For theLatin nation may possibly have contained within itselfsome ethnical element not dissimilar to the Hellenic,as well as one substantially corresponding with thePelasgian, factor of the Greek people. And again,there is a very extended relation of the two languagesto a common root in the Sanscrit. The number ofwords traceable to such a root has recently been statedat 339 in the Greek, and 319 in the Latin tongues1.

1 Browne's Roman Classical Literature, ch, i. p. 13.

Contributions to language. 295

We must not then, it will justly be observed, inferfrom the simple fact of resemblance between a Greekand a Latin word, that the one has been borrowed ordirectly modified from the other.

Let us begin by considering the just effect of theseremarks, and inquiring whether they do not still leavespace enough for an useful examination.

I begin from the assumption, that there was a deepand broad Pelasgian substratum both in the Greek andthe Roman nations. It is thought, and it may perhapsbe justly thought, that a dominant tribe of Oscans, whowere a nation of warriors and hunters, came among thePelasgi of Italy, as the Hellenes came among the Pe-lasgi of Greece. But while we may properly assume theidentity of the Pelasgian factor in the two cases respec-tively, it is quite j)lain that the compounds or aggre-gate characters are broadly distinguished, and representan assemblage and admixture either of different qua-lities, or else of the same qualities in very different pro-portions. Therefore we are justified in laying it down asa general rule, that whatever is found in the languageof the two countries alike was most probably Pelas-giau: since, if that portion of the aggregate languagehad been supplied from those elements in which thenations differed, it is likely that a corresponding dif-ference would have been found to prevail betweentheir modes of speech.

Again, I think we must distinguish between thesimple fact of derivation from an original source incommon, and those degrees or descriptions of resem-blance which show that any given words not only hadone source at first, but that they continued together upto a certain point in the formative process, so as to becapable, from their shape, of derivation, not only from

296 II. Ethnology.

that root, but also one from the other. For instance,the Greek eyw and the Latin ego are both stated to bederived from the Sanscrit aham. But here it is quiteplain that they have not only set out from the samepoint, but travelled along the same road to their jour-ney's end, as the Greek and Latin words are identical.On the other hand, if we take the Greek reao-apes, andthe Latin quatuor, both are referred to the same San-scrit root, chatur: but neither of them can well havebeen derived from the other, and each is more nearlyrelated to the root than it is to the other. Or if wetake the Latin anser, the Greek x "> a n ^ *^e English' goose,' these words scarcely appear to have a con-necting link: but it is found, and a remote or me-diate connection established, by means of the Germangans. Instances might easily be multiplied.

In single cases, where the relationship of words isonly of the kind last exemplified, it would not be safeto draw inferences to the effect of their being respec-tively due to this or that element in the compositionof the nation.

But where there is such a similarity as to showeither that the word has advanced nearly to its maturestate before the Greek and Latin forms began to diva-ricate, or that the Latin form may have been derivedfrom the Greek in an early stage of the history of thelanguage, or vice versd, then it seems just to refer theresemblance of terms to the existence of a powerfulcommon element in the two peoples.

And further, if we shall find that the words standingin close kindred are capable of classification with refer-ence to their sense, then, when we have once consti-tuted a class of such words, it may be justifiable to addfresh words to it on the strength of a more remote

Niebuhr's propositions. 297

affinity, in virtue of the presumption already created.For instance, if the names of the commonest objectsand operations of inanimate nature are generally inclose correspondence, we may infer a relation betweenother words which are in the same class as to meaning,though they may be not so nearly alike, with more con-fidence than if the reasoning as to this latter sectionwere not supported by the former. On this principleI proceed in the collections of words given below.

Of course the utmost care must be taken to excludethose words which have been copied from Greek intoLatin, after the literary ages of Rome had begun, andaccording to the practice which Horace has describedand recommended"1.

Niebuhr was, I believe, the first person to draw fromphilological sources a conclusion as to the characterand habits of the Pelasgians. He proceeded upon thethreefold assertion, (i) that the words common to thetwo tongues are presumably Pelasgian, (2) that they forthe most part refer to tillage and the gentler ways oflife, and (3) that we may hence conclude that the Pe-lasgians were a people given to peace and husbandry.And conversely, that the words which widely differ inthe two tongues are not Pelasgian, and that the pursuitswhich they indicate must have been more peculiarlycharacteristic of some other race, that contributed tomake up the composition of the Roman nation. The prin-ciples thus assumed by Niebuhrn appear, when placedunder due limitation, to be sound; and the only ques-tion is, whether they are supported by the facts of thecase. If in a given language we find the words indica-tive of a certain turn of life to have been derived from

m Hor. de Art. Poet. v. 53.n Hare and Thirlwall's Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 65.

298 II. Ethnology.

a particular race, which forms part of the nation speak-ing that language, while other words, referable to otherhabits and pursuits, have been supplied by other racesalso numbered among its constituent parts, it is just toread the characters of those races respectively throughthe character of the words that they contribute to thecommon tongue. For the question is really one offorces which may have been adjusted with as muchaccuracy, as if they had been purely mechanical. Theordinary reason why a word of Pelasgian origin pre-vails over a word of Hellenic origin with the same sig-nification, or the reverse, is that it is in more or in lesscommon use: and the commonness of use is likely to bedetermined by the degree in which the employment orstate of life, with which the word is connected, maybelong to the one race or the other.

The survey taken by Niebuhr appears to have beenrapid; and the list of words supplied by him is verymeagre. Bishop Marsh n and other authors have, witha variety of views, supplied further materials. Themost comprehensive list, to which my attention hasbeen directed, is in the ' Lateinische Synonyme undEtymologieen' of Dbderlein0. The subject is essentiallyone which hardly admits of a fixed criterion or authori-tative rule, or of a full assurance that its limits havebeen reached. Mindful of the reserve which these con-siderations recommend, I should not wish to lay downinflexible propositions. But I venture to state gene-rally, that those words of the Latin and Greek tongues,which are in the closest relationship, are connected

1. With the elementary structure of language, suchas pronouns, prepositions, numerals.

2. With the earliest state of society.n Horse Pelasg. ch. iv. ° Scchster Theil. Leipzig, 1838.

Classes ofivords which agree. 299

3. With the pursuits of peaceful and rural industry,not of highly skilled labour.

Examples, numerous enough to show a most exten-sive agreement, will readily suggest themselves underthe first head. To illustrate the other propositions,though it can only be done imperfectly, I will followboth the positive and the negative methods. The first,by comparing words which denote elementary objects,both of animate and inanimate nature, or the simplestproducts of human labour for the supply of humanwants, or the members of the human body, or therudiments of social order. The second, by contrastingthe words which relate (1) to intelligence and mentaloperations, (2) to war, and (3) to the metals, the ex-tended use of which denotes a certain degree of socialadvancement. It will I hope be borne in mind, on theone hand, that these lists are given by way of instance,and have no pretension to be exhaustive: and, on theother hand, that exceptions, discovered here and there,to the rule they seem to indicate, would in no way dis-prove its existence, but should themselves, if purely ex-ceptions, be treated, provisionally at least, as accidental.

Class I.-—Elementary objects of inanimate Nature.i'pa, terra x€lf-a>v> h y e m s a/wreXoj, pampinusdrip, aer i'ap, ver i'X^, sylvaaWrjp, aether &pt], hora (pvWov, foliumavpa, aura iovrepa, vesper p'68ov, rosa, , f astrum -. / nubes Xaas, lapis

a?TV -Utella VeV°S\ nebula &ypoS, agerao-repos ^ s t e r u j a (wfO vi(pos, nix, nivis cipovpa, arvumKOTKOV, cselum Spoa-os, ros avrpov, antrum17X105, sol » j fluvius <J>VKOS, fueus<^-X^,luna ^T0Itpluvia <™V 1 jvv!-, nox pi-yos, fngus cmrfKaLov J '(Zeis) Aiof, dies x^m' humus lov, violairovros, pontus vevKfj, pix a-Koirekos, scopulus

" l J \ 8 sudorirovros, pontus vevKfj, pix aKoirs, ooXs "1 sal KJ/TTOS- \ s v8ap, sudor.OaXacrcra J s a lum (TTJKOS JTrdXoy, polus W 6 f \rapit\ l a c u s

\vKri in \vKa@as, l j u x \a\vs J\

300 II. Ethnology.

Class II.—Elementary objects of animated Nature.6r)p, fera axinTepos, accipiter mrros, equusXVKOS, lupus Kvav, KVVOS, canis irS>Xos, pullusxanpos, aper ois, ovis ovBap, uberXcav, leo fiois, bos apvos, agnusI'yXcXvs, anguilla ravpos, taurus Kpibs, aries"\6vs, piscis is, sus dXa>jnj£, vulpes.

Class III.—Articles immediately related to elementary wantsand to labour.

I . DWELLINGS.

86/j.os, domusOIKOS, vicusffvpai, foresKXrjts, clavise8os, sedesal&aXi], favilla6a.Xafi.os, thalamusXeyos, lectus.

2. POOD.olvos, vinumeXaia, oleaeXmov, oleum&ov, ovum

firjXov, malum(TVKOV, ficusrpvyr/, frugesd-TpuycToj, triticum(Tiros, cibusyXayoy, 1 lac,lac-yaka, yaXaKTOs f tisKaXap,os, calamusKpeas, carojueXjj meldais, dapes

, ccena.

4. TOOLS AND IM-PLEMENTS.

aporpov, aratrum

3 . CLOTHING.rjs, vestisuva, loena.

5. NAVIGATION.

vavs, navisv, limen

remuss, gubernator

ayKvpa, ancora7rovs, pes.

Class IV.—The constituent parts of the human body, thefamily, society, and general ideas.

I . THE HUMAN BODY.tcecpaXr), c apu tKofir], comaapos, armus0

v, fe-mur, morisi], palma

TTOVS, pes88ovs, OVTOS, dens, dentisXaTrro), labrumdeiKvvfxL, d ig i tusXa|, calxrjnap, jecurtvrepov, venter

., ulcusKiapxapbuyow, genup-vcXos, medullab'o-Tfov, os (ossis)ayjr, OS (oris).

piip, matervlos, filius<PpjT1P ItpMTpr) f

frater

exvpos, socer

*""> - Iheresnjs ]

yivos /gensgenus.

0 \Siaf cor

3 . SOCIETY.

(pifciv) pi£as, rexPtXevdepos, liberTtKTav (o-reyai), cf.

tom (tego)(j>a>p, furTraXXam, pellex.

2 . THE FAMILY.

ndrr/p, pater

4. GENERAL IDEAS.

veva, numendeos, deus

ovopxt, n o m e nfjLop<pT], formais, vis

) , Roma, roburrj, nidor

r], odorT], fama

^ " f Ifatum(pClTOV J

0ios, vitalnopos, morsvwos, somnusoSivrj", odiuma\yos, algor

V*™' jgustusyevo-aj B

nvis, annus\ ^ "llethumArfTto J86o~is, dosbwpov, donum

o w , sevum.

0 Applied principally to the shoulder of animals by the Latins.v The link of ideal connection is to be found in the sacrificial office of the

primitive rex. 1 Scott and Liddell in voc.' Compare the Homeric derivation of 'OSiWcvs from oSiWo/uiu, Od xix, 407.

Classes of words which differ. 801

Class V.—Adjectives of constant use vn daily life.peyas, magnus iraxvs, pinguis SpSos, ordor

imvpos $ P a r v u s @PaXvs> brevis VTTTIOS, supinusIpaucus ^Pa*"sltan1na ypaSy, gravis

TV\O.TVS, latus papbiisj1 . . flevisayxos ~\ xa°s> cavus e77TOS \ lentusayKitrrpov I / uncus repqv, tener Aeios, laevis

or r |_ angustus irhtos, plenus yewaios, gnavusayooros J fuiav, minor Sffioj, dexterKvprbs, curtus pdo-crav, major oAoj, solusyupoj, curvus wor, novus ^8uf, suavisirvppos, furvus aX\or, alius iri«pbs, acriss.

f ruber

A very extensive list of perhaps one hundred or moreverbs might be added, which are either identical ornearly related in the Greek and Latin languages: butit would not, I think, materially enlarge or diminishthe general effect of those words which have been enu-merated. We have before us about one hundred andeighty words in the classes of substantive and adjectiveonly. They might nearly form the primitive vocabu-lary of a rustic and pacific people. Two exceptionsmay be named, which may deserve remark. It will beobserved, that the senses are inadequately represented,only two of them, smell and taste, being included.The other three are also connected in the two lan-guages as follows: touch, by the relation of Qiyyavwand tango: sight, by elSco and video: hearing, by theevident connection of the Latin audire with the GreekavS>], the proper name in Homer for the voice.

The other marked exception is that of religion. Withslender exceptions, such as 0eo? = deus, the connectionof rew with pe'Cw, of numen with vevw, of Xot/3ij with libo,and that of apaoftai, aptirhp with orare, orator, am, thereis a considerable want of correspondence in the leadingwords, Such as lepos, ayios, dvw, /3wyuo?, vtjov, aya\p.a, <re/3w,

r Doderlein. s Ennius.

802 II. Ethnology.

(xavTis, of the one tongue, and sacer, sanctus, pins, tern-plum, vates, macto, mola, of the other. The greater partof the Pelasgian vocabulary must have been displaced onthe one side or on the other: and as it is in Greece thatwe have much fuller and clearer evidence of the adventof a superior race, which gave its own impress to lifeand the mind in the higher departments of thought, wemust conclude that this substitution probably took placein Greece, and was of Hellenic for Pelasgian words.

The proposition of Niebuhr with respect to terms ofwar, appears to me to be in the main well sustained bythe facts. Let us take for example the following list:which appears to show that, in this department, withthe exception of a pretty close relation between /3e'Ao?and telum, and a more remote one between TroXe/uos andbellum, possibly also between lorica and 6a>pri%, there ishardly in any case the faintest sign of relationship be-tween the customary terms employed in the two lan-guages for the respective objects.

telum i&Xor prselium \ . . / va-jiiprjensis "1 J £i<j>os pugna J . . \ fidxigladius J • • • • \ (pda-yavov currus \ f bitpposcuspis "| rheda J " " \ apfiamucro > a'W>7 rota KVKAOS (Horn.)acies J temogalea Kvvi)j tubaT_ , f dopvnasta < » , x ,

I eyx°s castra /cXttriaiscutum* 1 / offirit tabernaculum". .KXIO-II)clypeus I " \ <T6.KOS f Bi6slorica 6<*>pi£ '''' \ TO^OVocrea nvrniis saaitta -f'""vagina KOXEOS agiua . . . . . . - fc(TTfcmin f Ap77Sbellum < K[_ noAe/ios

It can hardly, I think, be questioned, that this classof words presents on the whole a very marked contrastto those which were before exhibited. And as we see

1 Perhaps connected with the Greek <ev8uv. " Csesar. b. iii. c. 96.

Classes of words which differ. 303

the highest martial energies of Greece manifestly re-presented in the Hellenes, we may the more confi-dently adopt that inference as to the habits of Hellenesand Pelasgians respectively, which the contrast be-tween the two languages of itself vividly suggests.

Before quitting this head of the subject, let us noticethe wide difference in the channels by which the twolanguages arrive at the words intended to represent thehighest excellence. For ' better' the Greeks have fie\-repo?, from /3e'Xo?, ' a dart,' and for ' best,' apia-ro?, fromaprjs, 'war;' while the Latins are contented with opti-mus, formed from a common root with opes, ' wealth.'

There is almost as remarkable a want of correspond-ence between the two languages in respect to the higherideas, both intellectual and moral, as in regard to war.

In three words indeed we may trace a clear etymo-logical relationship, but in two of the cases with atotal, and in the third with an important change in themeaning.

1. The jueVo? of the Greeks becomes the Latin mens;so that a particular quality, and that one belonging tothe TraQrj rather than the yOn of man, comes to standfor the entire mind.

2. The Greek ave/xo^ is evidently the Latin animus:or, that word which remains the symbol of a sensibleobject in Greek becomes the representative of mind inLatin. The adjective ave/xu>\io? is indeed capable of ametaphysical application: but it means 'of no account31.'

3. The dvfxos of the Greeks is the fumus of theLatins: and the case last described is exactly reversed.

The three great words in the early Greek for theunseen or spiritual powers of man's nature are voos,

and \| x>?- They perhaps correspond most nearlyx II. xx. 123.

304 II. Ethnology.

with the three Latin words mens, indoles, and vita*.There is not the slightest sign of conformity or commonorigin in any of the cases; although voos is akin to nosco?.

In two other very important words we find perhapsderivation from a common root, but nothing like a nearor direct relationship. The Greek apery may proceedfrom the same stock with the Latin virtus, and in likemanner arri may have the same source as vitium.

Upon the whole we may conclude, that in thisimportant class of words the resemblances are scantyand remote. It will be seen that under the head ofgeneral ideas there is not included any clear case ofcorrespondence in a mental quality; and all the re-semblances appear to rest, mediately or immediately,upon sensible objects and phenomena.

As respects the terms employed in navigation, it willhave been observed, that they are all connected withits rudest form, that of rowing; and that they do notinclude the words for mast, yard, or sail, in all of whichthe two tongues appear to be entirely separated.

Again, it may be stated generally, that society in itsvery earliest stages has little to do with the use ofmetals. This rule will be of various application,according to their abundance or scarcity in variouscountries, and according to the facility with which theyare convertible to the uses of man. As the objects ofenjoyment multiply with the continuance and growthof industry, the precious metals become more desirablewith a view to exchange. But the principal metal fordirect utility is iron: and of that, the quantity knownand used by the Greeks would appear, even in thetime of Homer, to have been extremely small. The

" As in JEn. xii. 952.> Buttmann's Lexil. in voc.

Glasses of words which differ. 305

use of metal for works of art, and probably also forcommercial exchange, would seem to have been derivedfrom Phoenician, not Pelasgian sources; and we haveno proof that when Homer lived they had acquired theart in any high degree for themselves.

The absence of any great progress in the use ofmetals may thus be set down as a sign of Pelasgianism.And now let us compare the Greek and Roman namesfor the metals respectively:

i. -^pvcrbi, aurum.a. apyvpos, argentum.3. XCCXKOS, ses.

4 . <ri8tipos, ferrum.5. fn6\i/3o?, plumbus: in later Greek juo'Au/3<W, the

form nearest to the Latin.6. Kacnrlrepoi, stannum.Here also there is a great want of correspondence.

Only in iron and lead, and possibly in silver, are theresigns of relationship: but in all it is remote. In theother metals it is entirely wanting; and. in those whichare nearest, it amounts only to presumptive derivationfrom a common root. The want of community in thisclass of terms seems to show, that the race which wasthe common factor of the two nations, Avas probablynot advanced in the use of metals beyond their ele-mentary purposes.

I will only further observe, that while so manynames indicative of social and domestic relations areakin, nothing can be more clearly separate than theGreek SovXo? and the Latin servus. From this fact itwould be no improbable, inference, that slavery wasunknown to the Pelasgians: and their ignorance of itwould, on the other hand, be in the closest harmonywith their slight concern in warlike and in maritime

x

306 II. Ethnology.

pursuits; since captivity in the one, and kidnappingthrough the other, were the two great feeders of theinstitution. It is also in close correspondence with thefurther hypothesis, which represents the Pelasgians asprobably the race that first occupied the Greek soil,and found no predecessors upon it over whom toestablish political or proprietary dominion*.

It may, I think, deserve notice in confirmation of thegeneral argument, that almost all those Greek words,which are in close affinity with the Latin, are found inHomer. For there can be little doubt that, after histime, the Greek tongue became more and more Hel-lenic : and the fact that a word is Homeric supplies themost probable token of a link with a Pelasgian origin.

And now let us sum up under this head of discussion.It may be said with very general truth, that the

words which have been quoted, and the classes towhich they belong, have reference to the primary ex-perience and to the elementary wants and productionsof life: but that they do not touch the range of subjectsbelonging to civilization and the highest powers ofman, such as war, art, policy, and song.

But if the evidence goes to show, that the Pelasgiantongue supplied both the Latin and the Greek nationswith most of the principal elementary words, and withthose which express the main ideas connected withrural industry, the inference strongly arises, i. Thatthey constituted the base of the Greek nation; and,2. that, originally cultivators of the soil for themselves,there came upon them a time when other tribes ac-quired the mastery among them, so that thenceforththey had to cultivate it under the government ofothers. The case of the Pelasgian vocabulary in the

x Compare sup. p. 237.

Evidence from names of persons. 307

Latin and in the Greek languages would thus appear toresemble the Saxon contribution to the English tongue:and it is likely that something like the general position,which we know to be denoted in the one case, is alsosimilarly to be inferred in the other.

No inconsiderable light may, I think, be thrownupon the character and pursuits of the Pelasgian andHellenic races respectively, from an examination of theetymology of the names of persons contained in theHomeric poems. For the names of men, in the earlystages of society, are so frequently drawn direct fromtheir pursuits and habits, that the ideas, on which theyare founded, may serve to guide us to a knowledge ofthe character and occupations of a people.

By way of summary proof that a connection pre-vailed (whether the names be fictitious or not, I carenot, for this purpose, to inquire,) between the Homericnames, and the pursuits and habits of those who bearthem, I may refer to the names of Phseacians andIthacans. Of the latter, which are numerous, notone is derived from the horse; and we know y that nohorses were used in Ithaca. The former are chieflycomposed of words connected with the sea : in con-formity with the fact that the pursuits of the peopleare represented by Homer as thoroughly maritime.

The names of persons in Homer are extremely nu-merous, amounting to many hundreds. It would behazardous, as a general rule, to assume for them an his-torical character, except in the cases of such individualsas, from general eminence or local connection, or from

y Od. iii. 601-8. The names of rough as Ithaca, and some of theCtesippus and Elatus among the nobles may, like Ulysses, haveSuitors are related to horses : had pastures on the continent.but all the islands were not so (Od. xiv. 100.)

X 2-

308 II. Ethnology.

some particular gift or circumstance, were likely to beheld in remembrance. In some cases, as we havealready seen?, they bear the marks of invention uponthem. But this question is little material for the pre-sent purpose: and indeed the probability that we ought,as a general rule, to regard the less distinguished namesas fabricated for the purposes of the poem, makes itthe more reasonable that we should turn to them tosee how far they connect themselves with distinctionsof pursuit, character, and race, and what properties andcharacteristics, when so connected, they appear to indi-cate as having been assigned by Homer to one race orto another.

We must not expect to arrive at anything betterthan general and approximate conclusions; for parti-cular circumstances, unknown to us, may have variedthe course of etymological nomenclature, and it mayalso happen, that in a great number of cases we cannotsecurely trace etymology at all.

Subject to these cautions, I would observe, first, thatthe evidence from other sources generally tends to show,

i. That the Trojans, except as to the royal house2,and perhaps a few other distinguished families, werePelasgian.

i. That the base of the Greek army and nation werePelasgian : with an infusion of Hellenic tribes, notfamilies merely, who held the governing power and pro-bably formed the upper, that is, the proprietary and mili-tary, class of the community, in most parts of Greece.

3. That some parts of the Greek peninsula presentlittle or no mark of Hellenic influences; particularlyAttica and Arcadia.

4. That the Lycians appear to approximate morey Sup. p. 256. a Inf. sect. ix.

Evidence from names of persons. 309

than the other races on the Trojan side to the highGreek type, and to present either the Hellenic ele-ment, or some element akin to it, in a marked form.

The investigation of individual names occurringsingly would be endless, and often equivocal: butHomer frequently unites many names in a group undercircumstances, which authorize us to assume a commonorigin and character for the persons designated: andothers, though he may not collect them together inthe same passage, are yet associated in virtue of pal-pable relations between them.

An examination of Homeric names, in the groups thusgathered, has brought me to the following results :

1. Where we have reason to presume an Hellenicextraction, a large proportion of those names, of whichthe etymology can be traced, appear to express ideasconnected with glory, political power, mental fortitude,energy and ability, martial courage and strength, ormilitary operations.

2. But where we may more reasonably suppose, inpart or in whole, a Pelasgic stock, ideas of this kindare more rarely expressed, and another vein of ety-mology appears, founded on rural habits, abodes, andpursuits, or the creation and care of worldly goods, or onother properties or occupations less akin to politicaland martial pursuits, or to high birth and station.

It is at the same time worth remark that, among theslaves of the Odyssey, we find names of a more high-born cast than those most current among the Pelas-gians. Such as Eumseus (fidw, to desire eagerly andstrive after), Euryclea, (who moreover is daughter ofOps the son of Peisenor,) Euryraedusa (in Scheria),and Alcippe (at Spartaa). There were two causes, to

a Od. ii. 347. vii. 8. iv. 124.

310 II. Ethnology.

which this might be referable: first, that high-bornslaves were often obtained both by kidnapping and bywar; Eumseus, as we know, was of this class. And se-condly, that the names of their lords may then, as now,have been occasionally given them. So that the highsignifications connected with servile names do not consti-tute an objection to the rules which have been stated.

There is another class of names, which requires espe-cial notice. They are those which have reference tothe horse. The rearing and care of the horse are inHomer more connected with the Trojans, than withthe Greeks: and his standing epithet, iTnr68ajui.os, is morelargely employed on the Trojan sideb. The horse wasnot exclusively, perhaps not principally, employed inwar and games. He was used in travelling also: hemay have been employed as a beast of burden: hecertainly drew the plough, though Homer informs usthat in this occupation the mule was preferable.

The points at which we may expect to find nameschiefly Pelasgian, besides those which are expresslygiven us as such, will be these three:

i. In connection with some particular parts of Greece,especially Attica or Arcadia.

i. Among the masses of the common Greek soldiery.3. Still more unequivocally among the masses of the

Trojan force, and of the auxiliaries generally; exceptthe Lycians, whom we have seen reason to presume tohave been less Pelasgian, and more allied, or at leastmore similar, to the Hellic races.

On the other hand we may presume Hellic blood, orwhat in Homer's estimation was akin to it, among theLycians, and likewise wherever we find, especially onthe Greek side, any considerable collection of names

h See Mure's Hist. Lit. Greece, vol. ii. p. 86-

Names of the Pelasgian Class. 311

appertaining to the higher class or aristocracy of thearmy, or of the country.

The Homeric names, which are given us as expresslyPelasgian, are four only; and they belong to the Pe-lasgian force on the Trojan side.

i. Hippothous. i. Pulseus.3. Lethus. 4. Teutamuse.

The etymology of the three first names seems obviousenough : and, though the persons are all rulers amongtheir people, not one of them unequivocally presentsthe characteristics which we should regard as appro-priate in Hellic names : although, from their beingof the highest rank, we should be less surprised if thecase were otherwise.

As regards the first of the four, upon examining theclass of names relating to the horse in the poems, wefind, as far as I have observed, only Hipponousf amongthe Greeks. This rank does not clearly appear: butj/o'oy, the second factor of the word, supplies the higherelement.

On the other side, in addition to Hippolochus, a namemeaning horse-ambush, who was both Lycian and royal,we have Hippasus, Hippodamas, Hippodamus, Hippo-coon, Hippomachus, and Hippotion. We have likewise,

Melanippus, (II. xvi. 695.)Echepolus, (II. xvi. 417.)Euippus, (II. xvi. 417.)

Take again Pulseus, from irv\r]. This name may meanporter or gate-keeper: it is scarcely susceptible of ahigh sense. In connection with the character of thePelasgians as masons and builders of walled places, itis appropriate to them. Homer has three other names,and no more, which appear to be founded simply upon

e II. ii. 840-3. f II. xi. 303.

II. Ethnology.

the term gate: YlvKwv, UvXdprris, and TlyXat eVi;?. Theyare all on the Trojan side.

Next, we have a larger class of names, where a stronginfusion of the Pelasgic character may be expected:namely, those connected with Attica.

Among these, three belong to its royal house, and inthem we find no certain features of the Pelasgian kind.They are,

1. Erechtheus, )2. Peteos, > From II. ii. 547-52.3. Menestheus, )

The last of the three, however, seems, if derived fromnivos, to belong to the higher class of names.

Besides these three there are,4. Pheidas, "j5. Stichius, / II. xiii. 690, 1.6. Bias, '7. lasus, \8. Sphelus, V II. xv. 332, 7, 8.9. Boucolus. ;

Now the whole of these are commanders or officers;and yet four of them, Pheidas (<pelSoo), Stichius (o-Te/ co),Sphelus (tr<j>a\\w), and Boucolus (/3owo\o?), are in amarked manner of the Pelasgian class: Bias (/3/>?), mayperhaps belong to it, as meaning mere physical force:and on the etymology of the ancient name lasus I donot venture to speculate. Boucolus, like Boucolion,which we shall meet presently, deserves particular atten-tion : we find nothing at all resembling it among thenames which are (on other grounds) presumably Hellic.

Other names in the poems, which there may be somereason, from their local connection, to presume Pelas-gian, are,

Names of the Pelasgian Class.

1. Lycoorgus, 1 From II. vii. 136, 149, where2. Ereuthalion, j they are described as Arcadians.3. Dmetor, Lord of Cyprus, from Od. xvii. 443.

And perhaps we may add,4. An Ion or Ian, as head of the 'Iaovej.5. An Apis, the early eponymist of the Pelopon-

nesus, or a part of itc.Now, though these are all rulers and great per-

sonages, the name Dmetor is the only one amongthem which seems in any degree to present Hellenicideas: nor need that mean a subduer of men; it may aswell mean simply a breaker of horses. Apis, we haveevery reason to suppose, means the ox. Lycoorgus,from AVKOS and epyov or its root, has all the appearanceof being characteristically Pelasgian.

Let us now inquire if the rules laid down will bearthe test of being applied to the lower order of theGreek soldiery.

In the Fifth Iliad Hector and Mars slay a batch ofapparently undistinguished persons'1. They are,

1. Teuthras. 4. (Enomaus.2. Orestes. 5. Helenus (son of (Enops).3. Trechus. 6. Orestius.

And again in the Eleventh Iliad Hector slays ninemore;

1. Asseus. 6. Agelaus,2. Autonous. 7. jEsymnus.3. Opites. 8. Orus.4. Dolops (son of Clytus). 9. Hipponous.5. Opheltius.

Now out of the seventeen names here assembled,Four, namely, Autonous, Clytus, Agelaus, and M-

•' See inf. sect. viii. d II. v. 705-7.

314 II. Ethnology.

symnus (from its connection with the wordruler), belong to what I term the Hellic class.

Three, namely, Teuthras, Asseus, and Helenus, donot immediately suggest a particular derivation.

Of Hipponous I have already spoken. The othernine appear to conform to the Pelasgian type. (Eno-maus corresponds with the Latin Bibulus.

Again ; the names of ordinary Trojans appear to be-long generally to the same type.

When Patroclus commences his exploits in the Six-teenth book, he slays in succession,

i. Pronous.i. Thestor, son of3. Enops.4. Erualus.5. Erumas.6. Amphoteros.7. Epaltes.

9. Damastor.10. Echios.11. Puris.12. Ipheus.13. Euippus, and14. Polumelus, son of15. Argeas.

8. Tlepolemus, son of

Of these only Tlepolemus and Pronous can with cer-tainty be assigned to the higher class. Damastor is doubt-ful, like Dmetor; but perhaps from its connection withTlepolemus, we ought to place it in the same category.Still it must be observed that Homer takes care tobring into action against Patroclus and the Myrmidonshis favourites the Lycians, as well as the Trojanse: andthat therefore we are to presume in this list an inter-mixture of Lycian names.

The names of ordinary Trojans are for the most partof the same colour. But we must bear in mind thatwe cannot so easily trace the Trojan as the Greek com-monalty. Homer rarely allows a Greek of high station

e II. xvi. vv. 369, 393, 419, 422.

Names of the Pelasgian Class. 315

or distinction to be slain: whereas the Greeks continu-ally destroy Trojans of eminence. We may thereforebe prepared to find names of the higher type some-what more freely sprinkled among the Trojan thanamong the Greek slain.

In the Sixth Iliadf a number of the Greek heroesdispatch consecutively a list of Trojans, which suppliesthe following names:

i. Dresus.a. Opheltius.

These two were sons of Boucolion,an illegitimate son of Laomedon,

3. iEsepus

4. Pedasus

who apparently never was acknow-ledged, but was brought up in thelower class by his mother Abarbaree.

. I add these names to the list:5. Boucolion.6. Abarbaree (mother of Boucolion).7. Astualus.8. Pidutes.9. Aretaon.

10. Ableros.11. Elatus.1 a. Phylacus.13. Melanthius.14. Adrestus.

Among all these names there is not one which wecan with confidence place in the higher category exceptAretaon. Dresus (compare Sp^a-r^p, a domestic ser-vant), Opheltius, Boucolion, Melanthius (from its use inthe Odyssey, supported byMelantho, and both belongingto servants), are unequivocally of the Pelasgian class:

f II. vi. 20-37.

316 II. Ethnology.

probably Elatus (which however is found among theIthacan suitors), Phylacus, Adrestus, should be simi-larly interpreted. Astualos (aa-rv, SA?) has no contraryforce : and of the rest the derivation is not obvious.

If we take the second batch of Trojans slain by Pa-troclus, it gives a somewhat different result. They are^,

1. Adrestus. 6. Melanippus.2. Autonous. 7. Elasus.3. Echeclus. 8. Moulius.4. Perimus, son of Megas. 9. Pulartes.5. Epistor.

Of these Autonous and Epistor would seem clearlyto belong to the higher class; to which we may addEcheclus, if it is derived (like Echecles, a Myrmidonchieftain) from e^« and /cAe'o?: but even this is not alarge proportion.

Now when we turn to the Lyciansh slain consecu-tively by Ulysses, we find a material change. These are,

1. Koiranos. 5. Halios.1. Alastor. 6. Noemon.3. Chromius. 7. Prutanis.4. Alcandros.

All of these seven visibly belong to the higher orHellenic order of names, except XpSfiios, which I pre-sume may be akin to -^pw/xa, and "AXios, 'mariner.' Butthis last named designation is also somewhat Hellic:I doubt if we find among Pelasgian names any takenfrom maritime ideas or pursuits.

Again, when Achilles comes forth, there is providedfor him a list of victims bearing distinguished names1,though practically unknown as characters in the poem.At the end of the Twentieth book he slays,

S II. xvi.694. h II. v. 677,8.i II. xx. 455-87-

Of the higher or Hellenic Class. 317

i. Druops.i. Demouchus, son of3. Philetor.4. Laogonus, and5. Dardanus, sons of6. Bias.7. Tros, son of8. Alastor.

9. Moulius.10. Echeclus, son of11. Agenor.12. Deucalion.13. Rigmos, son of14. Peiroos, one of the

Thracian leaders.1K. Areithous.

Now of these fifteen names none, if judged by therules which we have laid down, would clearly fall intothe Pelasgian, or more plebeian, class, except Dryops,perhaps Laogonus, and Bias : three only. Peiroos andRigmos (probably akin to piyos) are Thracian, and maybe put aside. Six, viz., Demuchus, Philetor, Alastor(contrast with this Lethus), Echeclus, Agenor, andAreithous, are of the Hellic class. The others, Darda-nus, Tros, Moulius (II. xi. 739), and Deucalion are re-peated from eminent historical personages.

In this set of names we observe, in conjunction witha new instance of Homer's ever wakeful care in doingsupreme honour to Achilles, unequivocal evidence, as Ithink, that the poet did distribute his names with somespecial meaning among his minor, and, (so we must sup-pose,) generally or frequently, non-historical personages.

And the further inference may perhaps be drawn ofa probable affinity of race between the highest Trojansand the Hellic tribes.

This inference may be supported by another example.The numerous sons of Anterior, whose names are col-lected from different parts of the poem, are as follows :

1. Agenor, II. xi. 59.2. Acamas, ii. 823. xi. 60. xii. 100, et alibi.3. Archelochus, ii. 823. xiv. 464.4. Coon, xi. 248.

318 II. Ethnology.

5. Demoleon, xx.395.6. Echeclus, xx. 474.7. Helicaon, iii. 123.8. Iphidamas, xi. 2,21.9. Laodamas, xv. 516.

10. Laodocus, iv. 87. and11. Pedgeus (v69os), v. 70.

I apprehend Laodocus should be construed, after themanner of Demodocus, to signify having fame or reputeamong the Xaoy. If so, then of the ten legitimatesons, eight have names with an etymology that directlyconnects them with the higher signification. The nameof the Bastard only is more doubtful.

Among the Suitors in Ithaca, who are the princes andchief men of the island, with their connections, andothers of the same class, we have the following list ofnames of the high class :

Mentor. Leiocritus.Elatus. (cf. II. xi. 701.) Leiodes.Euryades. Agelaus.Eurydamas. Damastor.Eurymachus. Demoptolemus.Eurynomus. Euryades.Amphinomus. Mastor.Peisander. Euenor.Eupeithes. Phronius.Antinous. Noemon.

Nor are the names which have not been placed inthis list of an opposite character. They are chieflysuch as have not an obvious etymology. Two of them,.ZEgyptius and Polybus, were, as we know, great namesin Egypt, and they probably indicate a Pelasgian or anEgyptian extraction. Others are, Halitherses, Mela-neus, Ctesippus, Nisus, Antiphus, Peirseus. Of these,

Of the hie/her or Hellenic Class. 319

the two, or even the three, first may perhaps be re-garded as properly Hellic.

Take again the six sons of Nestor:i. Antilochus. 5. Perseus.1. Stratius. 6. Aretus (akin to api-3. Thrasymedes. vnw, apery, and the4. Echephron. Arete of Scheria).

Of these only Perseus would not at once fall withinthe class; and this is evidently a most noble name,taken from a great Greek hero. Indeed it must itselfstand as a conspicuous example of the rule, if we shallhereafter be able to showk a relationship between theHellic races and Persia as their fountain-head.

Lastly, let us take the Myrmidon leaders and com-manders. These were,

1. Patroclus; rand after him the heads of the fiveson of L divisions.

a. Menoetius.3. Menesthius.4. Eudorus.5. Peisander, son of6. Maimalus, from fucundw.7. Phoenix. This name may represent, (1) Phoeni-

cian extraction or connection; (2) The palmtree; (3) The colour of red or purple, akin tocpovos, and to blood, which the colour <polvi£ issupposed to betoken. In any of these threeaspects, it will fall into the Hellic class.

8. Alcimedon, son of Laerces.9. Automedon.

All these names belong to the higher categories. Itis therefore the general result of our inquiry, thatwherever we have reason on other grounds to presume

k Inf. sect. x.

320 II. Ethnology.

a Pelasgian origin, we find in the proper names of per-sons, unless they chance to be merely descriptive of thecountry they inhabited, a decided tendency to repre-sent peaceful, profitable, and laborious pursuits, or thelower qualities and conditions of mankind. But where-ever from other causes we are entitled to presume anHellic relationship, there, so far as a simple etymologywill carry us, the personal appellatives appear to runupon ideas derived from intellect, power, command,policy, fame, the great qualities and achievements ofwar; in short, apart from religion, which does not ap-pear to enter into the composition of nomenclature atall, all the ideas that appeal most strongly to thosemasculine faculties of our race, in which its perfectionwas so vividly conceived by the Greeks to reside.

One among the most remarkable features of the Ho-meric Poems is, their highly forward development ofpolitical ideas in a very early stage of society1. Itseems hardly necessary to argue that these were ofHellic origin; because the fact is before us, that theymake their appearance in Homer simultaneously withthe universal ascendancy of the Hellic over the Pelas-gian tribes wherever they were in contact; and because,in comparing the two nations together, we shall haveoccasion to note the greater backwardness, and indo-cility, so to speak, of the Trojans1" in this respect. Iassume, therefore, without detailed argument, the pe-culiar relation between the Hellic stock and the poli-tical institutions of Greece.

For similar reasons I shall touch yery briefly therelation of the Hellic tribes to the martial character ofGreece.

We may consider the whole Iliad, which represents1 See ' Studies on Policy.' m See Studies on ' The Trojans.'

Evidence from political and martial ideas.

a conflict between less Pelasgic and more Pelasgicraces, and which gives a clear superiority to the former,as a general but decisive testimony to this fact.

We find another such testimony, with a well esta-blished historical character, in the comparison betweenthe secondary military position of Athens in the Iliad, andits splendid distinctions in later times. It is true indeed,that the Athenian. troops are mentioned specifically inthe attack upon the ships, together with the Boeotians,Locrians, Phthians, and Epeans m. Of these the twolatter are called respectively ^eyddu/noi and <pai$tfj.6evTes;the Athenians are the 'laoves eX e n-Mi/ey, an epithet ofmost doubtful character'as applied to soldiers. Itseems to me plain that Homer by no means meant theparticular notice of these five divisions for a mark ofhonour: they fought to be defeated, and he does notuse his prime Greeks in that manner. No Peloponne-sian forces are named as having been engaged on thisoccasion. Those probably were the flower of the army;and it is mentioned in the Catalogue that the troops ofAgamemnon were the bestn. Again, it will be seen,on reference to the Catalogue, that the whole force ofMiddle Greece is here in battle except the iEtolians,the contingent of Ulysses, and the Abantes (for whomsee 542-4). These three are all distinguished races,whom he seems purposely to have excluded from a con-test, where honour was not to be gained. The militarycontrast, then, between the earlier and the later Athens,may be taken to be established : and with it coincidesthat very marked, though normal and pacific, transitionof Attica from the exclusively Pelasgic to the fullestdevelopment of the composite Greek character0.

The passage of the seventh Iliad, which describesm II. xiii. 685. n II. ii. 577- ° Herod, i. 56.

Y

322 II. Ethnology.

the war of the Pylians with the Arcadians, suggests alike conclusion.

Upon the whole, however, the de facto Hellic ascend-ancy in Greece at the time is, with reference to war andthe strong hand even more than to policy, a full pre-sumption of their title to be regarded as having givenbirth to the splendid military genius of Greece.

When, for the business of the Trojan war, Homerdivides the two great traditive deities P, and assigns tothe Greeks Pallas, the more political, energetic, andintellectual of the two, to the Trojans Apollo, we maytake this as of itself involving an assertion, that thehigh arts of policy and war were peculiarly Hellenic.

We come now to the principle of what maybe calledcorporal education, which found a development amongthe Greeks more fully than among any other nation;first, in gymnastic exercises, generally pursued, and, se-condly, in the great national institution of the Games.

" There were," says Grote \ " two great holding pointsin common for every sectiou of Greeks. One was theAmphictyonic Assembly, which met half yearly, alter-nately at Delphi and at Thermopylae; originally andchiefly for common religious purposes, but indirectlyand occasionally embracing political and social objectsalong with them. The other was, the public festivalsor games, of which the Olympic came first in import-ance ; next, the Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian : insti-tutions, which combined religious solemnities with re-creative effusion and hearty sympathies, in a manner soimposing and so unparalleled. Amphictyon representsthe first of these institutions, and Aethlius the second."

This passage places in an extremely clear light therelative position of the Games and the Amphictyonic

P See Studies on Religion, sect. 2. q Hist, of Greece, vol. i. p. 137.

Evidence from Games. 323

Assembly. The Council represented a religious insti-tution, partaking also of a political character. TheGames, on the other hand, were a gymnastic celebra-tion, made available for national gatherings: placed, asa matter of prime public moment, under the guardian-ship of high religious solemnities, and referred for greatereffect, in the later tradition, to some person of the high-est rank and extraction, as their nominal founder. Asthe objects of the Games and the Council were distinct,so were their origin and history different; and this dif-ference mounted up into the very earliest ages. Thisis clearly proved by the extra-historic and mythicalnames assigned to their founders, whose faint person-ality does not even serve to repress the suggestion offiction, conveyed with irresistible force by etymologicalconsiderations. But the legend, though a legend only,conformed to the laws of probability, by assigning toAmphictyon a Thessalian birth, and by vindicating atthe same time to Aethlius the higher honour of theimmediate paternity of Jupiter; while, by placing himin Elis it secures his function as the institutor of theoldest, namely, the Olympic Games. In this legend,too, we see Hellenic imagination providing for its ownancestral honours in competition, as it were, with thoseof the sister institution, which may have been Pelasgian,

The foundation of Games in genere appears to betraceable, with sufficient clearness and upon Homericevidence, to the Hellic tribes.

The lengthened detail of the Twenty-third Iliad is ofitself enough to prove their importance, as an insti-tution founded in the national habits and manners.We must not, however, rely upon the absence of anysimilar celebrations, or even allusions to them, amongthe Trojans; since their condition, in the circumstances

Y 2

324 II. Ethnology.

of the war, will of itself account for it. But we. mayobserve how closely it belonged to the character of thegreatest heroes to excel in every feat of gymnasticstrength, as well as in the exercises of actual warfare.The kings and leading chiefs all act in the Games, withthe qualified exception of Agamemnon, whose dignitycould not allow him to be actually judged by his infe-riors, but yet who appears as a nominal candidate, andreceives the compliment of a prize, though spared thecontest for it; and with the exception also of Achilles,who could not contend for his own prizes. Again, it isa piece of evidence in favour of the Hellic character ofpublic Games, that, though there were three Athenianleaders alive during the action of the Twenty-thirdBook, none of them took any part. They were Mene-stheus, Pheidas, and Bias. Again, the speech of Ulyssesto Euryalus, the saucy Phseacianr, with the acts whichfollowed it, strengthen the general testimony of theIliad upon the point. So does the prosecution of theseexercises, to the best of their power, even by the Phse-acians, the kindred of the gods.

So much for the general idea of Games in Homer;but, to draw the distinction with any force betweenwhat is Hellic and what is Pelasgic, we must refer tothose passages which afford glimpses of the earlierstate of Greece, and see what light they afford us.

According to the Homeric text, Elis and Corinthwere the portions of the Peloponnesus, where the earlynotes of the presence of the Hellenic races are mostevident. Now of these Elis had the greatest andoldest Greek Games, while the Isthmian festival atCorinth was held to stand next to them.

The invention of these gymnastic exercises wasr Oil. viii. 179.

Evidence from Games. 325

ascribed in the later mythology to Mercury, who is inHomer a Hellenic, as opposed to Pelasgian, deity.

Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis,Qui feros mores hominum recentumVoce formasti catus, et decorse

More palsestrses.

I t has been observed, that the Hermes of Homerbears no trace of this function: but we have no proofin Homer of the formal institution of Games at all,although we have clear signs of them as a known andfamiliar practice ; and the Mercury of the poems iseven yet more Phoenician than he is Hellenic. Ari-stophanes* produces ihe'Epfi^'Evaydovios, and suppliesa fresh link of connection by referring to aywves inmusic, as well as in feats of corporal strength and skill.So does Pindar".

In truth, these Games were the exercise and pleasureof the highest orders only. For we see that, in Homer'sTwenty-third Book, not a single person takes a part inany of the eight matches that is not actually namedamong the fiyep.6ve$ and Kolpavoi of the Catalogue, withthree such exceptions as really confirm the rule. Theyare Antilochus, the heir apparent of Pylos, Teucer thebrother of Ajax, and Epeus, (only however in the boxingmatch,) who appears from the Odysseyx to have been aperson of importance, as he contrived the stratagem ofthe horse. Even the <r6\o$ avro^owvo?, the iron lump,part of the booty of Achilles, had formerly been usedfor the sport only of a kingy.

bv TTplv ji\v pii:ra<TKe jxiya aOevos 'HenWos.

The Greek Games presuppose leisure, and thereforethe accumulation of property, or the concentrated pos-

s Hor. Od. i. io. i. Isthm. i. 85.t Plutus 1162. x Od. viii. 493. xi. 592.» Pyth. ii. 18. Nem, x. 98. y II. xxiii. 827.

326 II. Ethnology.

session of lands: but this comports much more with Hel-lenic than with what we know of Pelasgic society, inwhich we do not find the same signs as in the former, ofan aristocracy occupying the middle place between thepeople at large, and the royal house. Let us now ex-amine another part of the Homeric evidence.

In the Eleventh Iliad, Nestor's legend acquaints usthat, at the time of the war between Pylians andElians, Neleus the king appropriated a part of thePylian spoil, in respect of a ' debt' owed him in Elis,the nature of which he explains2:

rio-crapes a6ko<f>6poi. iimoi avrdicnv oxevfav,

ZAOovres /xer' aed\a' Tiepl rpnroSos yap e/xeAAoi/

OeutrecrdaL' TOVS 8' avQi aval; avhp&v Avyeias

Kao-)^e6e, rbv 8' eXaTrjp' a<f>Cfi, aKa)(rj^ivov XTTTKOV.

There were then, it is plain, chariot races regularlyestablished (for the Games are here spoken of withoutexplanation, as a matter familiarly known) in Olympia:and this was during the boyhood of Nestor, or about twogenerations before the Trojan war. The tribes, whichwe here see concerned in these Games, are first, thePylians, and next the Elians, of whom Augeas was king.It will be seen in a subsequent part of this inquiry3,that both of these tribes were Hellic, and not Pelas-gian. Yet certainly there is nothing here to show di-rectly the non-participation of Pelasgians in the games.

There is however another passage of our useful friendNestor in the Twenty-third Book, which supplies in somedegree even this form of evidence. ' Would,' says hein his usual phrase, 'would I were young and strongY

<as oirOTe KpeCovT 'AfiapvyKea Qanrov 'E7mo£

BoWjOacria), TratSes 8' e#e<raz> /3a<rtA^os aeOAa"

Here is a distinct testimony to the custom of funeralGames in Elis, nearly two generations before the Troica.

1 II. xi. 699-702. a Vid. inf. sect. viii. b xxiii. 629.

Evidence from Games. 327

They embraced, as we find further down in the record,i. Chariot races, with the best prize; 2. Boxing;3. Wrestling; 4. Running; and 5. Hurling the spear.But we have a further most valuable passage. Therewas no person present, says Nestor, equal to myself;and then he adds an exhaustive enumeration of theraces that furnished the company:

OVT ap 'Evei&ir,

OVT avT&v TlvX'unv, OVT AITQOXWV [J,€yadvfJ.(i)V.

For the Epeans (orElians) and Pylians, I repeat the refer-ence already made. Nor can I doubt that the iEtolians,the subjects of CEneus and his illustrious family, belongedto the same stock. I do not inquire whether, as theywere always in later times held to belong to the iEolianbranch of the Greeks, so their name may have beenradically akin to, or identical with, the name of iEolus,which is often with Homer AiwAo?. But we find Melea-ger (independently of the reference to him, evidently asa great national hero, in the Catalogue c,) selected byPhoenix for the subject of an episode of great length, andheld out as a warning and example to Achillesd. Itmay safely be assumed he would have chosen no charac-ter for this purpose, except that of an hero of pure Hellicorigin. And the description of Tydeus, the father ofDiomed, by the epithet At™Xto?e, again serves to iden-tify the iEtolian name with the Hellic races.

The tribes present, then, at the Games were all Hellic,and they were all conterminous: the Epean inhabit-ants, the Pylians, neighbours on the South, the iEtoliansfrom the other side of the narrow strait, which was themost frequented passage into Peloponnesus. In faet, itwas evidently an assemblage of the neighbouring tribes;but with a most remarkable exception, that of the

c II. ii. 642. d II. ix. 529-99. e I l . iv. 399.

328 II. Ethnology.

eastern neighbours of Elis, those same Arcadians, whomby many signs we are enabled to conclude to have beenPelasgian.

A third instance in which Homer notices gymnasticexercises, is in II. iv. 389. Here Tydeus, having gone toThebes, finds a solemn banquet proceeding in the palaceof Eteocles. Alone among many, and on questionableterms with his hosts, he nevertheless at once challengesthem to gymnastic games, and beats them all.

d \ \ ' oy aed\eveiv irpoKaXiptro, Trdvra 8" evlica

p'riibims' Toit] ol emppodos rjev 'AOrjvr].

Achaean, that is Hellene, himself, he is> if not amongHellenes, yet among the members and adherents ofthat Phoenician dynasty which had established itself, toall appearance, in Boeotia, at a somewhat early date:even as, at a period slightly laterf, Minos establishedfrom Phoenicia a Throne in Crete, which soon becamewholly Greek in character.

And again, in II. xxiii. 678-80, we are told, thatMecisteus, on the death of (Edipus, went to Thebes tothe even then customary funeral Games, and there wasvictor over all the Ka ue/owe? who opposed him, by theaid of Minerva. Euryalus, the son of Mecisteus, wasan Argive, and was the colleague of Diomed andSthenelus. The same observations are applicable here,as in the last case.

There is therefore nothing in any one of these casesto connect the gymnastic celebrations with the Pelas-gian, but every thing to associate them with the Hellicraces.

Of the Greek Games, the Pythian are those which,as being under Apollo, might most be suspected of

f Sup. pp. 161], 24 2, and see 'The Outer Geography of the Odyssey.'

Evidence from Games. 329

Pelasgic origin. But these did not apparently beginas a national gymnastic festival until about 586 B. C.sThe Olympic contests had then been regularly re-corded for nearly two hundred years, since 776 B. C.And in the laws of Solon there was a reward of 500drachms for every Athenian who should gain anOlympic prize, of 100 only for an Isthmian: while ofthe Nemean and Pythian Games, as being merely local,they take no notice. So these Games, besides being se-condary, belonged to times much later, and also purelyHellenic.

ThePanathenaicGames are apparently of similar date.And with this evidence from the earlier historic timesbefore us, no importance can attach to a tradition so lateas that of Pausanias, who makes Theseus found the Pan-athenaica, and Lycaon, son of Pelasgus, the Awca«xh.But it is well worthy of remark, that in reporting thistradition he adds, that the Olympic Games were mucholder, that they mounted to the very highest antiquityof the human race, and that KjooVo? and Jupiter weresaid to have contended at them for prizes. Again,great fame attached to the Games said to have beencelebrated by Acastus on the death of his fatherPelias. Stesichorus, who lived in the seventh century,wrote a poem upon them; but Pelias, the brother ofNeleus, and son of Tyro, (having Neptune for hisfather,) was of undoubted Hellic origin1.

Minor instances of the addiction of the Hellic racesto Games may be found in the constant practice of theIthaoan Suitors, and in the resort of the Myrmidonsbefore Troy, during the seclusion of Achilles, to thismethod of beguiling their timeJ.

The case stands only a little less distinctly as to song.S Grote's Hist. ii. 322. h Paus. viii. 2.1.

i Grote's Hist. Greece, i. 160. J II. ii. 773.

330 II. Ethnology.

There is an aoiSos in the palace of Priam, as wellas in that of Ulysses; one in that of Agamemnon,and one in that of Alcinous. The Muses are OlympianMuses. Olympus geographically was quite as muchHellic as Pelasgian, and in every other sense, as Ibelieve, far more. We may perhaps most fairly esti-mate its national character, by contrasting the Jupiterof Olympus with the Jupiter of Dodona, and the homeof the large and varied group of Grecian gods with thesolitary grandeur which affords a trace of the old Pe-lasgian worship. In this view Olympus and the Museswill be clearly Hellic. Further J, Thamyris in his boastsupposes the Muses to be contending against him at thepublic matches. If I have been correct in tracing suchmatches to an Hellic source, Thamyris must have re-garded the Muses as Hellic when he made this suppo-sition. Again, Thamyris himself is a ©/>>?£, that is tosay, a Highlander: this connects him with the Helli ofthe hills, not with the Pelasgians of the more opencountry. The place, too, where the punishment isinflicted upon Thamyris, is in the dominions of Pylus:which, at any rate for a term equal to three generationsbefore the Troica, had been Achaean, that is, Hellick-

Apollo was doubtless an object of Pelasgian worship:the Apollo of Homer however is not confined to thePelasgians, but is by many signs, scattered throughoutthe poems, placed in close as well as friendly relationswith the whole Greek nation. Among these may bereckoned his acceptance of the propitiation and prayeroffered by Calchas. In truth, though it is his business,as the organ of Jupiter, to assist the Trojans, he nowhere shows any of that hostility to their opponents,which Neptune and Juno show to them.

j II. ii. 597, 8.k On Pelasgian music see Muller's Dorians, i. p. 367 (transl.)

As to poetry and music. 331

In later times, the traditions of Orpheus, Musaeus,and Eurnolpus, always Qpfjices, supported the traditionwhich derives Greek song from the mountain tribes.

Why has Arcadia a muse of her own, but becausethe Pelasgian poetry is not the Hellic ? and does notthe reputed character of that muse oblige us to assigna Hellic origin to the higher national poetry ?

Hesiod, as author of the Works and Days, is soenormously different from Homer in his frame of mind,as well as his diction, that it is hard to trace, even inthe most general form, a complete national affinitybetween them. The Theogony, by its subject, broughthim nearer to Homer, but it is quite destitute of theheroic power and fire: a calm and low-toned beauty, asin the legend of the Ages, is all to which Hesiod everrises. To my conjecture, he seems to personify theone-stringed instrument which might suffice for Pelas-gian song: while the Diapason of Homer, embracingwith its immeasurable sweep things small arid thingsgreat, things sublime and things homely, all objectsthat human experience had suggested, and all thoughtsthat the soul of man had imagined or received, presentsto us that Greek mind, full, varied, energetic, lively,profound, exact, which was destined to give form for somany ages to the genius of the world.

I cannot however part from this subject, and leavethe Hellenic races in possession of the honour of havingprincipally contributed to mould the powerful imagina-tion of the Greeks, without noticing the opposite con-clusion of Mr. Fergusson, in his admirable ' Handbookof Architecture.'

He treats the Greek nation as made up chiefly of twoingredients, the Dorian and the Pelasgian. He takesthe Greeks of the Trojan Epoch to have been Pelas-

332 II. Ethnology.

gian, and so to have continued until the return of theHeraclidse. Then, according to him, began the Hel-lenic, which he treats as synonymous with the Doric,preponderance; and, having Sparta before him as the onegreat Hellic type, he observes that the race was farbetter adapted " for the arts of war and self-govern-ment, than for the softer arts of poetry and peace k."

But the supposition of a Pelasgic supremacy in Ho-meric Greece, is contrary to all the evidence affordedby the text of Homer, and, I think we may add, to thebelief alike of ancient and of modern times. Even thelimited part of the Homeric evidence which is con-nected with the names"EXXa? and "EAA^e?, seems largeenough to overthrow any such hypothesis. Though theDorian race was Hellenic, it was apparently a late out-growth from the stock, and has no pretension whateverto be considered as the universal type of its products.In Sparta, the excessive development of policy wasdoubtless unfavourable to human excellence in otherforms; among others, to poetry and art. Still, neitherverse, music, nor architecture are disconnected from theDorian name and race. It seems quite impossible torefer the war-poetry of the Iliad, the grandest in theworld, for its origin to a people so unwarlike, in refer-ence especially to the changeful, romantic, and poeticside of war, as the Pelasgi.

The adventurous tone and tenour of the Odyssey,and its wide range over the world, and over the sea,are as little in keeping with what we can see of Pelas-gic habits in the heroic age. Above all, that largenessand unimpaired universality of type, which belongs tohuman character as drawn by Homer, and especially

k Fergusson's Illustrated Handbook of Architecture, book vi.chap. i.

Pelasgian sense of beauty. 333

to Achilles and Ulysses, demonstrate (I cannot use aweaker word) that all the materials of Grecian greatnesswere in his time fully ripened.

At the same time it is not necessary to deny, thatthe Pelasgians may have been endowed with a highsense of beauty. Not that Homer appears to have hada vivid conception of beauty in connection with archi-tecture, their great reputed accomplishment; for heseems, on the contrary, to have had little idea of orna-ment in buildings, beyond the blaze of plates of po-lished metal: far different here from what he shows him-self to be in dealing with dress, or armour, or the formsof men and horses. But we have before us the fact thatthrough Athens itself preeminently, and likewise throughits colonies to the east, the Greek race earned in after-times the very highest honours in poetry and the finearts. On the one hand, however, a large share of thesehonours, especially in early times, fell to the share ofthe race called iEoIian, which was clearly Hellic, and aprincipal part of the Hellic family. On the other hand,Arcadia, which remained more purely Pelasgian, whileAthens received all sorts of mixtures, never attained tohigh distinction in art, nor rose above a modest and tran-quil strain of verse. The great tragedians and the greatartists were of a race the most composite in all Greece.The natural inference would seem to be, that whateverthe Pelasgians may have contributed to the general re-sult, however they may have afforded for poetry andart (as also they did for war) a good raw material, itwas only when in combination with other elements fromother sources, that they could attain to great practicalexcellence. A lively sense of beauty is,doubtless,not onlya condition, but even a foundation : yet a great organ-ising power is as necessary for the production of the

334 II. Ethnology.

great works of imagination, as it was to Lycurgus forthe Spartan constitution, or to Aristotle for philosophi-cal analysis and construction; and this was the com-manding and sovereign faculty in a mind such as thatof Homer.

The connection between the Homeric Greeks andthe traditions of huntsmen is, I think, sufficiently evi-dent from Homer. His hunting legends, and the mul-titude of his hunting similes, are so many signs of it;and many indications, I think, concur towards forminga belief that the Greeks owed their fondness for thechace to their Hellic, not to their Pelasgic habits andblood.

I take first the relation between Achilles and hisinstructors. Chiron was the teacher of Achilles in thesurgical art, while Phoenix had charge of his highereducation. Surgery and war would obviously go to-gether. But Chiron too gave his father the ashenspear from Pelion, which none but Achilles could wield:he was the most civilized (SiKaioraros) of the Centaurs,the one to whom the ideas of right, on which society isfounded, were most congenial. But he seems to dwellon Mount Pelion, not like Phoenix, in the court of Pe-leus; he is, therefore, without doubt, a huntsman, andis in fact a link between the old and rude, and the newand more civilized life of the Hellic tribes.

Again. Of the Hellic legends of Homer, which arenot in all very numerous, two have hunting for theirsubject: as,

1. That of the Calydonian Boar in II. ix.2. That of the visit of Ulysses to the court of Au-

tolycus, in Od. xix.Now these two legends are the only ones in the

poems, that do not relate to war. Though the Trojans

Evidence as to hunting. 335

dwelt by Ida, we never hear of their hunts: but theirprinces feed sheep upon its slopes, or tend horses in theplain below.

Even apart from particular evidence, we might pre-sume that, if the nation derived its warlike turn froma Hellic source, so it must likewise have been withhunting, which was next of kin to war.

Lastly, if this supposition be correct, it helps to ac-count for what is otherwise an anomaly in the poems.Diana fights on the Trojan side: yet we find no evi-dence that she was worshipped among the Trojans, oreven known to them in the character, in which she hasthe greatest mythical celebrity. She is mentioned butonce, I think, among them; it is by Andromache, and thatis as having put a period to her mother's life \ nowherein her character as a huntress. But among the Greeksshe constantly appears otherwise than as in connectionwith death. Her epithets, ayporept], KeXaSeivi], lo^eaipa,are far more suitable to the huntress, than to the moresolemn function of the ministry of Death among humanbeings. Again, Helen is compared to her in appear-ance. The calamities of the Kalydonians came uponthem in consequence of their neglect as to her worshipon a particular occasionm; and the particular punish-ment inflicted is the sending a wild boar upon them.Nausicaa n is elaborately compared to her, and in thissimile she is described as hunting in Taygetus andErymanthus. Thus while among the more PelasgicTrojans, she appears only in virtue of the relation todeath which (we shall find) she holds from a traditivesource °; it is the Hellic influence, which superadds themythical and imaginative attributes of the beautiful

1 II. vi. 428. m II. ix. 533. " Od. vi. 102.° See infra, Studies on Keligion, sect. ii.

336 II. Ethnology.

huntress: and which, in so doing, supplies a markedproof of the addiction of the Hellic tribes to that pursuit.

It is not easy to judge whether the turn of the Greeksfor navigation ought to be referred in any degree to aPelasgian source. Plainly, if there was such a source,it was not the main one. We have seen that only themost elementary words connected with propulsion byrowing, appear to bear any sign on them of proceedingfrom that stock. We cannot argue from the maritimeexcellence of the Athenians at a much later date totheir nautical character in the time of Homer, on ac-count of the important ethnical changes, which in themean time they had gradually, but most thoroughly, un-dergone. On the other hand, our finding the pure Pe-lasgian population of Arcadia resorting to the inlandcountry, and wholly destitute of ships, affords a nega-tive indication. A stronger, and indeed very remark-able one, is supplied by the total want of ships amongthe Trojans, notwithstanding that their situation wasone highly favourable to the acquisition of maritimepower. Yet Paris needed to have ships built for himin order to effect his tourP, and the building of themappears in the Iliad as having been an event of muchnote in Troy. On the other hand, Homer is full of in-dications of the locomotive tendencies of the Hellicraces. Among these may be mentioned, the wide circleembraced in the adventures of Hercules: the offer ofMenelausi to accompany Telemachus on a journey aboutGreece: the sojourn of Neoptolemusr in Scyros: the fre-quent visits of Idomeneuss to Sparta before the war: themarriage of Theseus* to a daughter of the king of Crete :the journey of Nestoru into Thessaly: the pleasure

p II. v. 62. q Od. xv. 80. r od. xi. 506.s II. Hi. 232. t Od. xi. 322. u II. i. 269.

Evidence as to navigation. 337

visits of Autolycus to Ithaca, and of the young Ulysses"to Autolycus: the evident familiarity of the Poet withthe idea of travelling to recover debts ?: the existenceof places of wide resort for Games and Oracles7-: thecustom of assembling from a group of districts at thefunerals of great mena: nay, the very choice of thevoyages of Ulysses for the subject of so great a partof the Odyssey, and the lengthened tour of Menelaus.And while the Pelasgians appear to be akin to theland-loving Egyptians, we have found the Hellenes to bestrongly sympathetic in character with the Phoenicians,the great masters of navigation in the heroic age.

From the speech of the Pseudo-Ulysses in theFourteenth Odyssey, we have the strongest evidencethat navigation and agricultural pursuits, which werethose of the Pelasgians, stood in sharp opposition toone another. He could not bear tillage, but lovedships and warb.

epyov be JXOL oil <pi\ov rjev,ovb' olKOxfieXir), rjre rpi(pei ay\aa reKva'a\ka pot altl vrjes hrx\perp.o{. (pCkoi. ijcravKal iroAejuot (cat anovTes «5£eorot Kal diaroi.

It is also plain, from two circumstances at least, thatHomer regarded travelling as one great means of men-tal and practical culture. One is, that he describes thisbenefit as attained in the case of his great hero Ulysses ;

os jj.d\a TToWaT:\Ay\9r]

TTOXX&V 8' avOpt&Tiutv thev &.<rrea, Kal voov eyva>c.

The other is that, in the very remarkable simile of thex Od. xix. 399, 413. a II. xxiii. 629-43.y Od. iii. 267. xxi. 16. b Od. xiv. 222.z II. xi. 698-702. Od. vi. 364. c Od. i. 1-3.

xiv. 327.

338 II. Ethnology.

Thought, he treats travelling as the great stimulus tothe growth of the mind of man:

ws 8' or' hv alty voos avepos, o? r ' ewi -noXXriv

yaiav ekrjkovObis $/>eeri itevKdKiiJ.r\cn vorja-rj'

evff1 etrjp, rj f-vOa' nevoiviqri<rl re iroWd d .

Both as to navigation then, and as to locomotion,which stand nearly related to each other, it would seemthat we ought probably to regard the Hellic stock asthe parent of the Greek accomplishment.

After this laborious and microscopic investigation,we may now be justified in taking a survey more atease of the ground which we have traversed so slowly,and in endeavouring to embody our general results ina rude sketch of the succession, places, and functions ofthe two great races of early Greece.

Relying, therefore, upon what has been produced inthe way of proof, I will proceed to fill up its inter-stices with such conjectures as probable reasoning willsupply.

The Greek nation was originally formed of two greatcoefficients, the Hellic and Pelasgic races respectively:and there is no evidence, that any other race enteredlargely into its composition, or modified it sensibly:although individual foreigners or companies of emi-grants, which left little impression on the names ofdistricts or races, may notwithstanding have exerciseda powerful influence from time to time. We may con-sider the Leleges, Caucones, and other pre-Hellenictribes as branches of the Pelasgian family, or as akinto it rather than to the Hellic stem.

There is Homeric and post-Homeric evidence, whichseems to shew us the Pelasgians established through

A II. xv. 80.

Summary of the case. 389

Greece from Macedonia in the north, to Crete in thesouth: as well as in Italy, and elsewhere beyond theborders of Greece.

It is on the whole most probable, that the Pelasgiansprincipally entered Greece from the south by Crete;but they may have entered it in both directions. Ineither case, there is no other people to dispute withthem in continental Greece the title of its first regularsettlers. They chose their habitations in the plains,and were essentially a lowland people. It is even likelythat they derive their name from this characteristic,and that it marks them at once as agriculturists.

As respects the religion of Greece, its most essentialfeatures were probably common to the two races : aprinciple illustrated by the fact that the Helli, by akind of natural succession, become the wardens andinterpreters of the great Pelasgian shrine of Jupiter atDodona.

The first form of the religion of Greece was probablydue to the Pelasgians; and moreover it would appearto be from them that it received, in the main, its ritualand hierarchical, as contradistinguished from its ima-ginative, development. They appear to have incorpo-rated it in visible institutions, and to have given socialorder to the country; probably in that form in whichmen live sparsely, and not hi the large aggregations ofconsiderable cities. But social order in any form im-plies some means of defence against the lawless: andwe must view the Pelasgians as having introduced theconstruction of works of this class, which were then ofprime necessity to the existence of communities. Theirstanding pursuit was evidently that of agriculture : theonly link of connection established by Homer betweenthem and the beautiful in art, is the doubtful one of the

z 2

340 II. Ethnology.

epithets irepiKaWea and KaXae applied to the architectureof the palaces of Priam and Paris respectively.

In general, the Pelasgian race, though without thevivid temperament of the Hellic tribes, yet would ap-pear to have been both brave and solid in character.

The stream of Pelasgic immigration, flowing chieflynorthward, is met by the counter-stream of Hellictribes, proceeding from the highland nation of the Helli,which had taken its seat in the mountains to the northof Thessaly.

They in their southward course overspread the samecountries which the Pelasgi had already occupied; suc-cessive tribes of immigrants going forth from the parentstock at different times, as the pressure of populationon the means of subsistence required it, and underdifferent names, taken in all likelihood from theirleaders.

In the nest of mountaineers, barbarism, or at leastrudeness, continues: but as the young broods go forth,and make their way into more favourable conditions ofphysical and social life, their great capacities for deve-lopment find scope, and they rapidly assume a newcharacter.

By their greater energy and activity, they becameeverywhere the dominant race. Policy and war fellinto their hands : they supplied the more vigorous, in-tellectual, and imaginative element in the wonderfulcomposition of the Greek mind. Of the Pelasgianimagination it is difficult to speak in a definite man-ner : but it probably had not that masculine tone, andenergetic movement, when alone, which marks themind of Greece.

Far more expansive than their Pelasgian antecessors,e II. vi. 242,315.

Summary of the case-

the Hellic tribes availed themselves of the great advan-tages which the country offers for extended navigation,which was so essential as a means both of communica-tion, and of attracting the elements of civilization fromabroad. They were apt pupils under apt instructors,the Phoenician mariners. They developed the Pelasgicreligion into their more enlarged and diversified my-thology : they idealized the visible world together withhuman nature, and established those peculiar and perva-sively poetical relations between the seen and the unseenspheres of existence, which are the basis of the Greekmythology. Their keen sense of the beautiful led themto adorn both the body and the mind of man with theattributes of deity, while their imaginative power con-tinually prompted them both to clothe celestial objectsin shapes borrowed from the visible world, and to equipthe gods with sentiments and passions drawn from thesphere of every day experience.

They likewise brought with them the gymnastic ele-ment of the Greek system, the education of the body ;and they made provision for this education, in conjunc-tion with a powerful means of national union, in theGames which became so famous through so manyages.

The same qualities which found employment infashioning the relations of earth to heaven, were like-wise busy in uniting the past with the present, by theagency of history in the form of song.

Of this race were the Achseans, who by their powerand extension through Greece, gave to it and to itspeople their first famous designation, that which theybore in the Homeric times. From the same source pro-ceeded all the Hellenes, derivatively so called, and theMyrmidons. Under the great Achaean name, understood

342 II. Ethnology.

in its special sense, are probably included with thePelopids, the Pylians, Cephallenians, Epeans, Myrmi-dons, Locrians. Nor can we be certain that it did notalso include those iEolid families whose power and ex-tension subsequently impressed large portions of Greecewith the iEolian name.

While imperial cares and aims, and the refinementsand enjoyments, together with the stir, movement, andsolicitude of life, fell to theHellic portion of the Greeksocieties, and took its form from them, the Pelasgianelement, though depressed below the surface, continuedto live and act with vigour; it predominated in theclasses which form the solid substraf,um of society, thoseon which rural industry, if not those on which mechani-cal pursuits depended, and from which the upper sur-face, when exhausted by the prolonged performance ofits functions, may draw in every society successivestocks of new materials to renovate its vital forces.

While Homer himself seems to represent the un-bounded wealth and fulness, and the manifold andversatile power, of the composite Greek mind, weappear to have, in the rural strains of Hesiod, if not inthe unenlivened theogonic traditions ascribed to him,the just and natural exemplification of all that wemight expect in a Pelasgic poet.

In later, as well as in Homeric times, the Arcadiansseem in the most marked manner to have exhibitedthe Pelasgic aspect of the Greek mind and life: andthey show it much in the same relation to the Hellicraces, as that of the Saxons to the Norman chivalry.Like the Saxons, it was not in bravery that they failed:they were ey-^eai/m-copoi and eiria-Ta/uLevoi. iroXeftl^eiv : butin energy and passion, and likewise in governing andorganizing powers, they were beneath the competing

States especially Hellic or Pelasgic. 343

race, and therefore they gave way: while, from theirenduring and solid qualities, they were well qualified inafter generations to supply the greater waste caused bya more vivid temperament and keener action in thesoil above them.

Among the Spartans we find developed, in a verypeculiar degree, two of the imperial elements of theGreek character. The first is that political faculty ofthe Hellic races, by which, as Strabo says, they per-served their tye/uovta from the time of Lycurgus, downto the fifth century.

And the second is, the idea of the education of thebody, as an essential and main part of human training:a sentiment which to us may seem narrow, but wemust remember that the Greeks kept fully in theirview what we have dropped from our theories, thoughit may be hoped, not wholly from our practice, namely,the influence of bodily exercise and discipline in form-ing mental qualities and habits.

It was to Attica, however, that was reserved theoffice of exhibiting in the fullest degree the manysided-ness of the Greek character: and the efficient cause,by which she was fitted to fulfil this function, probablymay have been that constant infusion of new blood bythe successive immigrations of the different Greekraces, without the absolute displacement of any ofthem on a large scale, which, as we have seen, Thucy-dides remarks to have been her special characteristic.Hence she always exhibited both the ancient and thefresh; both, too, in the highest degree; urging, like Ar-cadia, the autochthonic origin of her population, whichmust refer to its Pelasgic element; contending with thatstate, and with Argosf, for the honour of the traditions

f Paus. i. 14. 2.

344 II. Ethnology.

touching Pelasgus and the worship of Ceres; but richerat the same time than any other Greek State, in thevaried aggregate of the qualities, which the compositeor entire Greek mind appears to have owed to Hellicinfusion. Hence the breadth of the transition which,according to Herodotus £, she had made from the Pe-lasgic to the Hellenic character: and yet she had madeit without any visible breach in the continuity of hersocial and political traditions.

Though Thessaly was the country in which, to allappearance, the Hellic tribes, coming down from thepoverty and rudeness of their highland life, first beganto develope their amazing powers, and to acquire civili-zation, yet it was rather, so to speak, their caravanseraor halting house, than their abode.

The Helli, thus travelling through Hellas, give it aname, and receive from it one in return ; so that whenthey pass on to the southward, they are no longer Hellibut Hellenes, and have only a secondary and derivativerelation to their original home and stock. It is intelli-gible, that they should not wish to claim too close akindred with the avnTToiro^ei ^afialevvai of Homerh,although most ready to own the relationship in solemnappeals to the ancient seat of Jupiter. Even in Ho-mer's time, they had advanced very far ahead of thehabits thus ascribed to them: for when the Greekchiefs return from the Doloneia, they first wash in thesea, then pass into the bath, and thirdly are anointed,before they begin their well-earned meal1.

The rapidity of their growth in numbers, and of theirpropagation southwards, might be due to their havingsettled on a fertile plain; while necessities, arising fromthe vicissitudes of climate, would be the probable and

g Herod, i. 56. h II. xvi. 235. • II. x. 537-9.

States especially Hellic or Pelasgic. 345

less copious cause of migration from the hills. But inany case, whether from the rapidity of their passagethrough Tliessaly, or from their having actually occu-pied no more than a small portion of it, they left it inthe Homeric, and apparently also in the Hesiodic pe-riod, still partly impressed, as they must have found it,with the Pelasgic namek. The prolonged existenceof this appellation indicates in part perhaps the pre-dominance of the Pelasgic element in this country,in part the fugacious character of the Hellic settle-ment, of which only the Achaean portion lived throughthe historic times in such a degree of force as to main-tain its visible identity : this, too, according to post-Ho-meric tradition, was peopled by the Myrmidons fromthe south, and not directly from the region of theHelli.

Thessaly, then, was the nursery or cradle of the Hellicor Hellenic races, but it was no more. Consequentlywith the lapse of time, as it wanted the true mixtureof ingredients, Thessaly became less and less Gi'eek inits essential habits and sympathies: while from itspreserving a federal consitution, under a federal head,the T070?, we may also refer to its more Pelasgiancharacter the apparent fact, that it Avas not so liable topolitical change, or vewrepitris, as were the less Pelasgianparts of Greece. When, after centuries of vicissitude,the outward notes of its original blood were almostgone, Pelasgian feeling still survived : for Thucydidesrelates that, when Brasidas entered Thessaly at thehead of the Lacedaemonian army, he found the mass ofthe people attached by affection to the Athenian cause,and had to rely on aristocratic influence to furnish himwith guides1.

k Hes. Fragm. xviii. 1 Thuc. iv. 78.

346 II. Ethnology.

SECT. VIII.

On the three greater Homeric appellatives.

a. Danaans. b. Argives. c. Achaeans.

W E now come to the great Homeric appellatives,Danaan, Argive, and Achaean. As Thucydides has said(i. 3), Aavaovs Se ev TO?? eirecri, KOU 'Apyelovs, Kai 'A^aioy?avaKoXei. Why has the great historian arranged thethree names in this order? It cannot be with referenceto the comparative frequency of their use: for the first

. is employed the smallest number of times, and thethird is by far the most frequent. For the present letus postpone seeking after the cause; and simply noteit as probable, even if no more than probable, that thereis a cause.

Let me, by way of preface to the examination ofthese names, consider the various ways in which, sofar as we have the means of tracing them (which isbut to a limited extent), the names attached by Ho-mer to the inhabitants of particular countries arederived.

They appear to come either1. From an eponymist directly, who is also an ori-

ginal founder, as AapSavol, Tpooe?, from Dardanus, andTros, in relation to Dardania and Troja respectively.

2. From the land they live in: and thus from aneponymist, if there has originally been one for the ter-ritory.

For example, we find 'iGctKfaioi from an island 'IQaxh,which again was derived from 'IflaKor. In a case like

Modes of formation for Names of Peoples. 847

this, when the appellation of the people comes notdirectly, but mediately from the name-giver, a territo-rial designation intervening, we can draw no inferenceas to the oneness of race between them and him. Thusin the case before us, 'Ifla/cjjo-ioi, though connected with'lOaKrj, has not as of necessity, any connection whateverwith 'I0a/co? personally.

3. From the land they live in, as described by itsmost prominent physical characteristic.

For example, the Thracians (Qprjices), must evidentlybe so called from the roughness of the country, as acognate word to Tpi^v?, which is thus applied toIthaca,

Tprjxel', dAA.' ayadrj Kovporpocfros. Odyss. ix. 27.

Again, from AtylaXos, the district afterwards calledAchsea, we have, in later Greeka, the name AlyiaXds forthe inhabitants. This does not occur in Homer, but wehave what is equivalent to it in the name of Alytdkeia,who was wife of Diomed, and daughter of Adrastus, theformer king of Sicyon in iEgialus. This is an instanceof the application of the principle, not to the inhabitantsat large, but to an individual inhabitant.

4. The name of a population may be derived se-condarily from that of another population. Thus whilewe must derive "EXA^e? from "EXXa?, this in its turncan only be drawn from the"EXAo<.

5. In the single case of the Athenians, we find thename of a population derived from that of a deity.

6. It is presumable, though not certain, that entirepopulations took their name from ruling individuals orraces. It seems hardly possible to explain, for ex-ample, the name K.a§neioi, which nowhere connectsitself with any of the foregoing sources of eponymism,

a Strabo, pp. 372, 383.

348 II. Ethnology.

otherwise than by reference to an individual Cadmus,whom Homer mentions in Od. v. 2>33-

The idea prevails extensively, at least by sufferance,that these three great names are in Homer mere syno-nyms, and have no reference to any actual and histori-cal differences, either existing when Homer wrote, orknown by him to have existed at a previous period.

This question it is proposed now to examine. I com-mence by making a broad admission. It is this.

Upon the face of the poems, and on almost all ordi-nary occasions, Homer seems at first sight to use, andhe very frequently does use, as equivalent and inter-changeable, those three principal designations which heapplies to the Greeks in common.

It is a very important question, however, whetherHomer knew of and observed any distinctions betweenthese names. For if he did, then these mere common-place words, as they are taken to be, may involve inthem the germ of much early history.

In this investigation, we have the advantage of deal-ing in great part, not with mere traditional assertion,but with facts. The use of particular names, at parti-cular epochs, for particular tribes, affords (if the textcan be trusted for genuineness) a class of evidenceanalogous to that supplied by coins and inscriptions forhistory, or that afforded by geological phenomena withrespect to the formation of the globe.

The poems of Homer, particularly the Iliad, aboundin passages relating to prior occurrences. These pas-sages are not in general of a high order of poeticalbeauty, as compared with the rest of the poem; theyoften cause the action to hang rather heavily; many ofthem make up the speeches of old men, whose naturalleaning to loquacity it appears that the Poet has, with

Homer's use of them distinctive. 349

his usual skill, made to minister to the accomplishmentof his own marked historic aims. But they are reposi-tories stored, we may almost say packed, with the mostcurious and suggestive information.

Some of them may be without date: but the time isgenerally fixed within limits sufficiently close, either bygenealogies, or by the period in the lives of the narra-tors, to which the tales belong. The war of the Eliansand Pylians in the Eleventh Book took place in theboyhood of Nestor : probably from fifty to sixty yearsbefore the war of Troy. The birth of Eurystheus, re-lated in the Nineteenth Book, was probably earlier stillby ten or twenty years. The other legends fall intothe interval between these events and the Troica.Now if we can trace a difference in the application byHomer of his appellatives, either as to the times or theplaces, he may hereby conclusively, though uncon-sciously, tell us a good deal about his view of the suc-cession, and the local distribution, of ruling races inGreece.

Such a rule of difference is easy to be traced.For example. In the Catalogueb and elsewhere, if

in the course of the action he refers to the soldiers whoproceeded from the country afterwards called Boeotia,he calls them BOMTOL But where Agamemnon has,or rather makes, occasion to tell a story of the samepeople acting in prior history, he calls them, not BOKOTO!,

but once KaSpeioi, and once by the equivalent nameKaSfieioivei0. The tale is an account of the missionof Tydeus from Thebes to Mycenae, in company withPolynices, which had occurred under the Pelopid dy-nasty.

In this story it appears, that Tydeus and Polynices,

t> II. ii. 494. xiii. 685. vid. sup. p. 243. c II. iv. 385. 191.

350 II. Ethnology.

first obtained a promise of the help they wanted; butthat, after they had departed, there was a change ofresolution. Hence messengers were sent to acquaint Ty-deus, and apparently to recall the force. The expressionis (II. iv. 384),

ivff O.VT ayyeXirjv em TvSr; areikav 'Axaioi.

An allusion to this occurrence is again put into themouth of Minerva in II. v. 800-7. ^he resemblance inthe names used is so precise as to be almost precisian.Again, the Mycenians are named once, and named as'Amatol. Again, the Thebans are named twice, andonce it is as KaS/jieioi, once as Ka^e/owe?.

These two instances fortify one another to such adegree by their concurrence, that, as I would submit,they would, even if they stood alone, amount to a de-monstration that Homer had regard to the times andcircumstances under which the several races prevailed,in those passages of his work which refer to particularincidents of prior history, personal and local. But thereis no lack of other evidence.

First, we have other pieces of prior history, whichaffect the same portion of Greece. The first of theseprobably preceded the Troica by only two, or, at theutmost, two and a half generations. It is the accountof the birth of Eurystheus, given by Agamemnon him-self in the Nineteenth Book. The scene of it is de-scribed as "Apyos 'AyjxuKov. He calls it indeed by thename, which it still bore at the time when he spoke,and which was understood by the hearers, for it re-mained the same country as it had been in formertimes. But the same people, who in the time ofTydeus, living under the Pelopids, were 'A^ato!, in thetime of Eurystheus, and therefore before the predomi-nance of the Pelopids, are described as 'Apyeiot. Tn

Proofs of the distinctive use. 351

II. xix. 122, Juno thus speaks of the birth of Eury-stheus

tfhr] avr\p yiyov errOkbs, os 'ApyeCoicnv ava£ei.

And again, v. 124, the same term is used.Again, it appears from the Sixth Iliad that Proetus,

who expelled Bellerophon about the same time, wasking of the 'Apyeloi (II. vi. 158);

os p fK brniov cka<T(T€v, firel TTOAII (pfprepos 7\tv

'Apyeloov.

According to extra-Homeric tradition, Proetus wasthe brother of Emystheus. According to Homer, hispower extends over Ephyre, and over the Argives : andas iEolid dynasties were then ruling in the west, it is thecountry afterwards called the Argos of the Achaeans,within some part of which he must have ruled. But intelling both the story of Proetus, and the story ofEurystheus, with reference to the same side of Pelo-ponnesus, and entirely out of connection with one an-other, the text of Homer, true to itself, calls the sub-jects of each at that period, only by the name 'Apyeioi,never Aavaoi or 'Ayaiol.

Thus, one generation before the Troica he callspeople Achseans, and calls them by that name only,whom one or two generations earlier he describes, andrepeatedly and uniformly describes, as having beenArgives. There can hardly be stronger circumstantialevidence of the fact, that to each term he attached itsown special meaning.

And yet it is not simply that Homer has made theArgive the more ancient, and the Achaean the morerecent, name. On the contrary, he uses both the oneand the other with marked respect to place as well asto time. For at the great Argive epoch he hasAchaeans : and at the great Achaean epoch, that of the

352 II. Ethnology.

poems, he has Argive associations, and a local Argivedesignation, still remaining.

In the Eleventh Book, Nestor detains Patroclus witha speech of great length. In the beginning of thisharangue, he refers to the circumstances of the moment,and, having ended his preface, he travels back to hisown early youth, indeed almost his childhood, to givethe story of a war, or foray, between the Epeans andthe Pylians. When he has ended this tale, he returnsto the actual position of affairs before Troy.

In the narrative of this raidd, he commonly termsthe one side Epeans, and the other Pylians. But heonce calls the Epeans, who were inhabitants of Elis,Elians. This is natural enough : for as the Elian nameafterwards (and so soon as in the time of Homer) pre-vailed in that race and country, it might very well havebeen already beginning to come into use. But he alsocalls the Pylians Achseans; and he uses the name dis-tinctively, for it is where he is speaking of them as theconquering partye. For this there is clearly no cor-responding reason. It is equally clear that Homer doesnot call the Pylians 'A^aio*, simply in the sense of beingGreeks, for then the name would not have been dis-tinctive ; the enemy too would have been included withthem, which would turn the passage into nonsense.Homer, then, (there is no other alternative) means tosay that the Pylians were, in some particular sense, ofthe Achaean race.

This is the more worthy of remark, when we lookto the preamble and peroration of the speech. For inboth of these, which refer to the whole body of theGreeks and to the Trojan epoch, he employs his usualnames, and calls them both Danaans (Aavawv ov icrjSe-

<* II. xi. 670-761. « v. 759.

Proofs of the distinctive use. 353

TCU, v. 665, also vid. 797), and Argives ('Apyelwvv. 667): finally Achseans (vies 'Ayaiwv, 800).

Thus then he calls the Pylians Achseans at the timeof the Argive predominance: for this local war couldhardly have been more than ten or twenty years afterthe birth of Eurystheus, and must therefore have beenbefore, or else during his reign; that is to say, at atime when his own subjects are called 'Apyeloi.

Again. Homer uses the word 'Apyelos in the femi-nine singular fifteen times. Twice it is with referenceto Juno. Of course this application of the term isfigurative. But though it be figurative, the figure isevidently founded on her close and intimate relation,not to the Greeks at large only, but to the Argive name;and to the persons, but more particularly to the place,that was so specially associated with itf.

In all the other thirteen places, the epithet is joinedwith the name of Helen. Does it for her mean simplyGreek, or something special and beyond this? Now ifit meant simply Greek, it would be strange that she isnever called, I will not say Aara^, because the Danaanname has no singular use in Homer, but certainly 'A^a/iyor'Avail's. Especially as the word'A^ato? is used as anepithet, be it remembered, many times oftener, than is'Apyetos: and it alone is used to describe the women ofGreece generally.

Again, if the epithet Argive, as applied to Helen,meant simply Greek, it might be suitable enough in themouth of a Trojan speaking among Trojans, but it wouldhave been weak and unmeaning, and therefore mostunlike Homer, in the mouth of a Greek or a friend ofGreeks ; or when, as in the Odyssey £, Helen is nolonger among strangers, but at home. Yet it is used

f Inf. p. 392. " Od. iv. 184, 296.

A a

354 II. Ethnology.

in the following passages among others, (i) by Juno toMinerva, II. ii. 161, (2) by Minerva to Ulysses, Il.ii. 177;and here in a near juxtaposition with the Achaean appel-lative, which goes far to prove of itself that 'Apyelq hasa meaning more specific than merely Greek. The pas-sage is,

'Apyehiv'FtKevriv, rjs eiVesa iroWot 'A^aiZvev Tpoiy a/no\ovTo.

I doubt whether Homer ever places in such proximitythe two epithets with the same meaning for each %.The tautology would be gross, if Achaean and Argeianeach meant neither more nor less than Greek : but if'Apyelrj have the local sense, nothing awkward remains.(3) It is used by Agamemnon, Il.iii.458, in addressingthe Trojans; (4) II. iv. 174, in addressing Menelaus;(5) II. ix. 140, in addressing the Greek Council. Itseems quite clear, from even this enumeration, that'Apyelri, as applied to Helen, must mean something dif-ferent from the mere fact that she belonged to theGreek nation at large.

Nor is it difficult to find a meaning. Homer indeedleaves us but narrow information as to the extraction ofHelen. He calls her sometimes euTraripeia h, and manytimes Aws eKjeyavla K In the Third Iliad he shows herto be the sister of Castor and Pollux, and in the Ele-venth Odyssey he shows them to be the children ofTyndareus and Ledai. Who Tyndareus was we do notknow from him. But the common tradition, whichmakes him a sovereign in Eastern Peloponnesus, isthoroughly accordant with the slight notices in Homer.For, as we see from the cases of Eurystheus and Proe-tus, it was in Eastern Peloponnesus that the Argive

s See inf. sect. ix. h II. vi. 292. Od. xxii. 227.> II. iii. 199 et alibi. J II. iii. 236. Od. xi. 298.

The Danaans of Homer. 355

power and name prevailed; and Helen, the daughter ofTyndareus is, as we have also seen, characteristicallywith him the Argive Helen. Thus then it may nowbe lawful to say, we are supplied with a meaning forthe name which makes it especially appropriate in themouth of Agamemnon, the head of the Pelopids. Forthey were the race who, coming in at the head of theAchseans, had from the West overpowered and super-seded the Argive power of the East, while they also heldas heirs to it by marriage: and if a royal Argive houseat the epoch of the war survived only in Helen and hersister Clytemnestra, she in part at least represented itstitle, and, as a lawful wife of Menelaus, added to histhrone whatever authority the name and rights of herrace were capable of conferring.

Having, I trust, seen enough to justify the belief thatsome at least of these names in the mind of Homer hada definite as well as a more general meaning, let usnow, taking them in succession, proceed to examinewhat that meaning is.

Among the three great Homeric appellatives, let usdirect our attention first to the one, which is presuma-bly the oldest. The word Aavaol, from the comparativepaucity of the signs and indications connected with it,evidently answers to this description.

We will take first the Homeric, and then the later,evidence respecting it. Of the former, the greaternumber of particulars are negative. Indeed we havebut two positive notes to dwell upon ; both of these,however, are of great importance.

i. The Danaan name is with Homer a standing ap-pellation of the Greeks. I think, however, it can beshown that it never means the Greek nation, butalways the Greek armament or soldiery.

A a 2

356 II. Ethnology.

I t is used in the Iliad one hundred and forty-seventimes. The name 'Apyeloi is employed oftener, namely,one hundred and seventy-seven times in the plural, be-sides eleven times in the singular as a personal epithet:and 'Amatol much more frequently still.

If we observe the shadings, attached to these wordsrespectively by means of the epithets which Homer an-nexes to them, we shall find they establish perceptibledistinctions.

The epithets of Aavaol are exclusively militaryepithets:

1. tjpwes. $

2. OepairovTes* Aprios. 6. "(pOifioi

3 . (pthoTTToXe/uLoi. y

The epithets of 'Apyeiot are as follows :

1. lofjLtopoi, II. iv. 24a. xiv. 479.2. aireiXawv aKoptjroi, II. xiv. 479 '

3. QwpriKTOl, II. Xxi. 429.

4. CpiXoTTToXefioi, II. xix. 269.

5. e\eyxie$, II. iv. 242.

Upon these we may observe, first, that they are fewin number; secondly, that they are used with extremerarity ; being only applied in four passages altogether,whereas the word Aapaol has epithets in twenty-two.Thirdly, this word only twice in the whole of thepoems has a military epithet attached to it. For Imust follow those, who do not translate lo^wpoi as cor-responding with ey^ea-l/uLoipoi: (i) because the Greekswere not archers, (2) because the derivation from 'la,' the voice,' giving the sense of braggart, harmonisesexactly with the accompanying phrase cnreiXdwv aKopn-TOI : as well as (3) for the presumptive, but in Homer

His epithets for the three designations. 357

by no means conclusive, reason, that 'lov in compositionis long.

The epithets of 'A^atot are numerous, highly varied,and of very frequent use. They are these :

I . aireikriTrjpe^. 9. fJieyddu/xoi.

1. fia^ys aKoprjTOi. 10. faevea -wveiovTe1;.

3 . avaAtaSes. II.

4. Slot. 11.

5. e\iKW7re<}. 1 3 .

6 . eVKVrjluu$e$. 14- aprj[(pi\oi.

y. j/jOwe?. 15- <pi\o7TTo\efji.oi.

8. KaprjKO/JiowvTes.

These epithets are used in nearly one hundred andthirty passages, and they may be classified as com-prising,

(1) One or two words of sarcastic reproach, veryrarely used.

(2) Words descriptive of courage and spirit: such arefjLeyaOvfjLot, fievea irveiovTes.

(3) Words indicating that disposition to brag, whichis more or less traceable in the military con-duct of the Greeks, as well as glaringly pal-pable among the Trojans.

(4) Words descriptive of personal beauty: eXj/cw7re?a n d KaprjKOiJLOWVTes.

(5) The word Slot, which signifies generally the pos-session of some kind of excellence.

(6) Words relating to well made and well finisheda r m o u r : evKV^/aiSeg, •^aXKOKv^/j.tSe^, aX/co^/rwve?.

And of the epithets of the three appellatives respect-ively we may say,

(1) Those oVAxaiol are highly diversified, extended,and elevated in meaning: and are not suitablefor soldiers exclusivelv.

358 II. Ethnology.

(2) Those of 'Apyeioi are so slight and rare that theymay be passed over.

(3) Those of Aavaol are most properly neither thoseof chiefs, nor of a nation at large, but of asoldiery.

In the Odyssey the Danaan name is used thirteentimes: but it never signifies either the Greeks contem-porary with the action of that poem, or the Greeknation in its prior history : it is employed always re-trospectively, and always of the soldiery in the Trojanwar.

It will be observed by readers of the poems, thatHomer often brings two of the three great appellatives,or even all the three, into juxtaposition so near, as wouldbe inconvenient upon the supposition that they arepurely synonymous. For instance, in II. i. 71, we have'Apyeioi and'Amatol in the same line, and in II.i.90,91,Aavaol and 'Amatol in two successive lines. It is, I think,obvious, that this inconvenience will be mitigated orremoved, if it can be shown that each of these threenames, though they were most commonly applied tomean the same body of persons, nevertheless had itsown shade of meaning. And we shall presently haveto examine cases, where a determination of this kindappears to be required by the sensek.

All the rest of the Homeric evidence connected withthe name Aavaol is of a negative character.

It is never used in the singular number, either as anadjective, or as a substantive. Nor is it ever appliedto women: a point not immaterial, in connection withthe question, whether with Homer it does not meanthe Greeks of the army exclusively. There is, again,nothing in his use of it which associates it with a par-

k Inf. pp. 410, n .

Danaan name dynastic. 359

ticular class of the army, either the lower or the higher;but it appears to be essentially general, comprehensive,and, I may add, likewise invariable in its meaning.

Still less should we expect to find it, nor do we findit, connected with the inhabitants of any particularpart of the country: it has not, like the Cadmean orCephallenian name, a local habitation within Greece.Nor has it in itself any root, or any derivative, whichwould associate it with any territory, as AlytaXelg refersus to Ai'yi'aXoy, or even &s*ApicaSes is related to 'AJOKCK V

Its use in the Iliad is in exact harmony with that inthe Odyssey: it is never associated with the history ofthe Greeks or any part of them : in short, there is noclear evidence of its existence or application beyond thelimits of the camp.

Neither has it any thing related to the physical cha-racter of the country, or to any of the races known tohave inhabited it, or to any employment or habit oflife, or to any deity. It floats before us like Delos onthe iEgsean, without any visible or discoverable root.And the only question is, whether the slight positive evi-dence at our command is not so limited, and so hemmedin on all sides by negatives, as to determine the hypo-thesis that may be drawn from it to one particularform, by forbidding us to move, except in one par-ticular direction.

It is quite plain that the Danaan name must havehad some root, lying very deep in the history or legendsof Greece : since it would not have been possible forHomer, as a poet of the people, handling a subject themost profoundly national, to describe the Greek armyunder any name, except one associated with some ofthe most splendid, or the most venerable, traditions ofthe country.

360 II. Ethnology-

Iii one way alone could this name fulfil the requiredcondition. If its root was not territorial, nor tribal,nor religious, it could only be personal. Was there, then,a Danaus known to the early history of Greece, whofounded a dynasty in its centre of power, at a periodanterior to the Hellenic history of the country, so asnot to be in competition with the honours of that race?If so, then it is intelligible that the Greeks might becalled Aavaol by Homer. If that dynasty had passedaway, we can well understand why Aavao) should not bea name of contemporary Greeks as such: just as Ka<Ve?otwas not an admissible designation for contemporary Boe-otians. Further, if it had never been an historical ap-pellative at all, but was the mere reflection cast by thefigure of a great primitive personage, and incorporated,for the Poet's purpose, in a designation made national byhim, then we can see how natural it was, that he shouldlimit the word altogether to an heroic and martialsense ; just as Cambrian for Welshman, or Caledonianfor Scotchman, or Gael for Highlander, or son of Al-bion for Englishman, would be an appellation naturallyappropriated to romance, or war, or any strain impreg-nated with a strong vein of imagery or passion, but yetwould not be suitable for the purposes of pure history.

In this inquiry concerning the Danaan name, wemust, I think, carry along with us, as a cardinal ele-ment in the case, that which we know from othersources respecting the manner in which Homer was wontto veil all traces of the entry from elsewhere of races,persons, or influences into Greece. It must never beforgotten, that, throughout the whole of the poems,there is apparently not one single statement, made to uswith the intention of conveying information respectingthe colonization of Greece from abroad. It seems to be

Compared ivith the Cadmean. 361

the Poet's intention that we should assume all Greekmanners, institutions, and races, to have sprung out ofthe very soil: and it is only accidentally that he im-parts to us any information or suggestion on this subject,when he is in quest of some other purpose, and unawareslets fall a gleam of light upon some foreign settlementor immigration.

All this is conformable to the course of natural feel-ing. Shakespeare found it worth his while to sing ofLear, but not of Hengist and Horsa; of the English inFrance, not of the Normans in England. And thoughDanish invasions have not robbed our great Alfred ofhis fame, yet for a long time, in order to guard its brilli-ancy, it may have been that we coloured in our own fa-vour the military history of the period. Arrivals fromabroad, in the early periods of the life of a nation, areusually the conquests, in one form or another, of foreign-ers over natives: of what is strange to the soil overwhat is associated with it. It can hardly be, that suchnarratives should be popular. An abnormal instanceto the contrary may be found in the fable, which de-duced the Julian line in Rome from iEneas : but this wasfor poetry composed a thousand years after the date ofits narrative; composed when the line of national conti-nuity with those, whom iEneas was taken to have con-quered, had been completely broken ; and composed forthe ears of a court, when the pulse of national life hadbecome almost insensible. Even the process, by whichHellenes mastered Pelasgians, is nowhere professedlyrelated by Homer; whose purpose it was to unite moreclosely the elements of the nation, and not to recordthat they had once been separate.

Except in the one point, that the name KaSpieioi hadhad a clear and undeniable place in prior history, there

362 II. Ethnology.

is a marked analogy between the modes in whichHomer treats the Cadmean and the Danaan stories.In each of the two cases, general tradition tells us of aforeigner, who enters Greece and founds a dynasty. Thisdynasty, after acting powerfully on the destinies of thecountry for some generations, in the course of timedisappears, the name dying with it. All this, in thefirst of the two instances, we have seen to be sufficientlysupported by inference and suggestion from Homer.Yet Homer never mentions Cadmus, except as it wereby chance, in the act of giving the extraction of Leu-cothee1; nor states that he came from abroad; nor thathe founded a dynasty at all. He gives us Cadmus, fa-ther of Leucothee, and Cadmeans, and lets us make ofthem what we can. So here he gives us Danaans, andnot indeed a Danaus, but a Danae, who is presumablyrelated to Danaus.

2. In Iliad xiv., Jupiter renders an account of hispassion for various women, all of them persons in thevery highest positions; and among these for Danae™.

Aawfojs K.aX\i<r<j>vpov 'AKpicntivqs,

rj T4KS Tlepcrrja, TT&VTGOV apibeUerov avbp&v.

In this passage we have Danae exhibited as the headof a line of sovereigns through Perseus, who occupied themost ancient and most distinguished seat of power inGreece, that of the Eastern Peloponnesus. From her,indeed, the derivation of sovereignty is locally continu-ous down to the time of Homer. Perseus is the fatherof Sthenelus", and Sthenelus of Eurystheus. Next tohim, we find Pelops in possession of the throne, with anew sceptre, betokening a new sovereignty. That is tosay, he was no longer a merely local sovereign, whosehighest honour it was to be first in that class, primus

1 Od. v. 333. m II. xiv. 319. n II. xix. 116.

The line of Danae. 363

inter pares; but he had also acquired an extensivesupremacy, reaching beyond his own borders, or thoseof the Achaic Argos, and embracing all Greece, witha multitude of islands0.

Such is the line of Danae downwards: beginningwith a son, whose paternal extraction we shall considerhereafter P. And her epoch, as we shall see, is sixgenerations before the Trojan war. For tracing herupwards, we have no means from Homer, except suchas are afforded by the word 'AKpio-iwvti. The use of apatronymic which describes Danae as the daughter(most probably) of Acrisius, in some degree makes itlikely that Acrisius either was the brother of Danaus,or otherwise collaterally related, rather than directly de-scended from him. For, had Danae herself been de-scended from Danaus, it seems improbable that she wouldhave drawn her patronymic from the less distinguishedAcrisius, unless Danaus was a very remote ancestor.But this is very improbable: for seven generationsbefore Troy form the utmost limit of Homer's historicalknowledge; and where all besides falls within thatline, it is improbable that there should be a singleexception reaching greatly beyond it. And again, fromthe course of migration, it is likely that we should findhis oldest traditions in Asia, and not in Europe. Onthe other hand, that Homer should stop short in tracingthe lineage onwards, just before he came to the foreignimmigrant, is in exact conformity with what he hasdone in omitting to connect (Edipus and Epicasteiwith Cadmus, or Pelops with Tantalus. In the formerof these two cases, the omission all the more cogentlysuggests design, because Epicaste is the only womanintroduced in the Ne/cwa without mention of her hus-band, among all those, eight in number, of whose cases

» II. ii. 108. P Inf. sect. x. q Od. xi. 271.

364 II. Ethnology.

he gives us the detail. It is most probable, therefore,that Homer meant the genealogy to stand as follows :and at the least, it must not be thought that the textof Homer gives countenance either directly or indi-rectly to those later fables, which throw back the firstGreek dynasties into a very remote antiquity.

i. Danaus=Acrisius

2. Danae3. Perseus4. Sthenelus5. Eurystheus (=Hercules)=Pelops

6. Atreus=Thyestes7. Agamemnon=iEgisthus.

According to these presumptions, Danaus is contem-porary with Dardanus1": and also is just such a personas Homer's poetic use of the name Aavaol would leadus to expect; one who came from abroad, and is onthat account kept in majestic shadow; one who foundeda throne, but did not introduce a race: one who mayhave given his people the name of Aavaol, as Cadmusgave that of KaS/meioi, for the time while his dynastywas in power, but whose name disappeared, togetherwith its sway. We have, it will be remembered inHomer, no Homeric legends of the period of the Da-naids, so that we do not know whether the name Aavao\was then in any degree national or not.

According to the post-Homeric tradition, Danauswas an Egyptian8, brother of iEgyptus. He migratedinto Greece, and became king of Argos. Acrisius andProetus were reputed to be his great-grandsons.

r See inf. sect. ix. ian sea-board, belonging to thea Fragm. of the Danais, Diint- Ionian race, and to the same

zer, Fragm. der Epischen Poesie, stock with the Hellenes. Fromp. 3. It has been argued by E. among such settlers, whetherCurtius (Ionier vor der lonischen Ionian or not, it seems likelyWanderung, pp. 11—13), that that the immigrants from Egyptthere were settlers on the Egypt- to Greece might have proceeded.

Epoch of the dynasty. 365

In Homer, too, we have an Acrisius and a Proetus:but Proetus is contemporary with Bellerophon, twogenerations before the Troica, so that he is later byfour generations than Acrisius, and later by at leastfour than Danaus.

The more recent tradition, contradictiug Homer po-sitively in this, as in so many instances, carries Proetusback to the time of Acrisius, and then, paying somerespect to the interval between Proetus and Danaus,gives compensation by thrusting Danaus himself threegenerations further back.

Of the posterity of the Homeric Proetus we hearnothing, and with him the Danaid line, prolonged in ajunior branch, may have expired. Tradition places himon the throne of Tiryns. His holding a separate sove-reignty in Argolis is not of itself in conflict with theHomeric account of the Perseids, who reigned at My-cenae ; because we find in Argos itself a separate sove-reignty under Diomed at the epoch of the Troica.But the terms used are peculiar. Proetus ruled over

TIOKV (f>epTepos rjev'Apyeioov Zei/y ydp 01 vno (mjirrpoi fbafj.aatr(u l.

The account of Eurystheus in the Nineteenth Bookmay, however, imply that he was king of all the 'Apyeioi:and at first sight there is some conflict here, because bothEurystheus and Proetus may be said to date two gene-rations before the Troica. The solution is probably asfollows. The passion of Antea, wife of Proetus, forBellerophon, suggests that her husband was more ad-vanced in life than Bellerophon, whom, as the grand-father of Glaucus, we may take as justly representingin time the second generation before the war. On theother hand, as Eurystheus was the contemporary of

1 II. vi. 158.

366 II. Ethnology.

Hercules, and Hercules had a son, as well as grand-sons in the war, we may assume Eurystheus to have beenjunior to the generation, as Proetus was its senior; sothat they need not have been contemporary princes.

The historic place assigned to Danaus, either as wemight fix it from Homer, or as the later traditionwould determine it, keeps him clear of the earliestHellic traditions in southern Greece. None of thesecan well be carried back beyond Sisyphus; and Sisyphusstands at five generations before the war, while Danauscannot be less than seven. Had Homer made Danaussynchronise with the earlier Hellic sovereignties, it wouldhave been, in my view, a presumption against his Egypt-ian origin, or his existence altogether. For an Egypt-ian stranger was little likely to attain to power, whereHellenes were already in the field : the more energeticgenius would subdue the less vigorous. The expulsionof the Hellenic Bellerophon, and the plot against hislife, may really have been connected with the politicaljealousies of the Danaids towards the formidable new-comers of the iEolid stem: nor do I read the fable ofJupiter with Danae otherwise than as a veil, used to givedignity to the commencement of an Hellic sovereignty,which, in the person of Perseus, partly succeeded,partly supplanted, the Danaid throne.

Danaus has been mentioned by Hesiod, the firstamong the later authorities. This poet states, that herelieved Argos from drought: an operation which har-monises well with the tradition that brings him from acountry dependent on the irrigation of the Nile, as theconditions of cultivation there could not but lead at anearly date to care in the management of water. Helikewise calls Perseus by the name of AavalSijs, and alsoterms him the son of Danaeu.

11 Hes. Fragm. lviii. and Scut. Here. 216. 229.

Post-Homeric tradition. 367

The only point of connection between the Danaidsand the Argive or Argeian name is, that Proetus, thelast of the Danaids, reigns over Argeians. But this is ata period when the Perseid house, which was evidentlyHellenic, has already become the first in rank among theGreek thrones, and has given, as is probable, the Argeianname to the people of Eastern Peloponnesus. The wholeevidence, therefore, throws the Danaan name, with allits incidents, back to a period anterior to that of Ar-geians and of Achseans.

But if the Danai were thus before the 'Apyeloi andbefore the 'A^GUO!, whom did they follow ?

The evidence of iEschylus in the Supplices supportsthe tradition which makes them immediately follow thePelasgiv, or which, more strictly, represents their nameas the first of those borne by the Greek nation after ithad ceased to be simply Pelasgic.

By Euripides was conveyed a kindred tradition, thatDanaus, having come to Argos, colonized the city ofInachus; and that the Peloponnesians, previously calledPelasgiotes, were thereafter called Danaix.

TIe\aayi&ras 8' wvofiaaixtvovs, TO irplvAavaovs KakeioSai vo/xov e'0?jic' av' 'EXXdba.

These traditions, received through the tragedians, co-incide with the evidence of the Homeric text. For thistext, in the first place, clearly throws the Danaan line far-ther back than that of any of the Hellic tribes. Secondly,by negative evidence, no where employing the Danaanname in the pre-Troic legends, he leaves us to infer thatit must have been the oldest, and the most remote fromcommon use, of his three great appellations. Thirdly,Homer supplies us with no other name which there is

v Sup. sect. iii. * Eurip. Ar. Fr. ii. 7.

368 II. Ethnology.

the smallest ground for inserting between the Danaansand the ancient Pelasgi, of whom we have found traces,direct and indirect, in so many places of the poems.

Thus, then, although we can plead little but conjec-ture from Homer with respect to the person Danans, weseem to be justified in concluding from his testimony,that the appellation was dynastic, that the dynasty waspre-Hellenic, and that it stands in chronological ordernext to the Pelasgic time.

The name 'Apyeioi is the next with which we haveto deal: and this name, applicable to persons, is soevidently founded on the name "AjO-yoy, applicable toterritory, that with this latter word we must of neces-sity begin the investigation; just as in order to arriveat the meaning of the term Hellenes, we were obligedto begin with Hellas.

And the word"Apyos is so important, and as it werecentral, in the geography of Homer, that we had betterfirst consider what are the various forms of expressionwhich Homer uses when he wants to express in wordsthe entire territory of the Greek nation :

i. We have already seen that he appears to use forthis purpose the combined force of the names Hellasand Argos;

avbpos, rod KAE'OS eipv Kaff" 'EkXdba /cat p,£<rov "Apyos y.

i. He employs other combinations for the like pur-pose. The first is that of "Apyos, extended by the epi-thet irav, and joined with the islands. These words takentogether embrace the whole Empire of Agamemnon :

T!o\Kr\inv vqaoLai, Kai"Apyei iravrl avaaafiv2'.

3. And again, with the proper name 'A^ai'!?,"Apyos is IT[TIO(3OTOV, KOU'Axa'Uba K.a\kiyvvaiKaR.

Od. i. 344- z II. ii. 108. » II. iii. 75, 2,58.

Applications of the name Argos. 3G9

This is spoken by the Trojan herald of the possible ad-justment of the quarrel, upon which, he says, we shalldwell quietly in Troy, and they will return to Argos andAchaeis. By " they" he means all the Greeks, thereforethe country to which they return means all Greece.

4. It maybe a question whether"Apyos, in combi-nation with fj.ea-09, includes the whole of Greece, as inthe speech of Diomed to Glaucus:

rep vvv cot ixkv Zyo) geifos (j>[kos''ApyeC jxicraadpi, a~6 §' ev Avdrj b.

5. It is also a question, what is the geographical forceof Argos, even when standing alone. It is manifestlywide in certain passages. Thus Paris mentions theKTyfA.Ct.Ta,

Sacr ay6[JLr]v ef "Apyeos fjjxtrfpov 8<5C :

and Polydamas, speaking of the possible destruction ofthe Greek army,

vcovvp.vovs airokiaOai air' "Apyeos (vdaK 'A^atovs d"

a line repeated elsewhere. On the other hand, the wordin some places has undoubtedly a limited meaning only.

6. Again, we find the word 'A^a/iy yala, used appa-rently with the intention of signifying the whole Greekcountry; as in the first Iliad by Nestor;

& iroirot, T] y.zya Trivdos'Axauba yala lK.aveie.

7. And we have the same word 'Avail's without yala,both in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

For instance, when Nestor and Ulysses were collect-ing the Greek forces, they were

Kabv dydpovTis K<XT 'Ayai'fi>a irovKvfloTeipav f.

And Ulysses, addressing his mother in the Shades be-neath, says,

b II. vi. 224. c II. vii. 363. d II. xii. 70.e II. i. 254, and vii. 124. f II. xi. 770.

B b

370 II. Ethnology.

ov yap TTW <Tj(ihov rjkOov 'Axp.CC8os, ovbi

yijs knijiriv S.

To proceed first with what is most clear, I think itmay be taken for certain that 'Ayau'i, with or withoutthe affix yam or alah, means nothing less than thewhole of Greece in the passages where Homer uses thisappellative alone. One passage, indeed, taken alone,affords decisive proof for itself that even the islands areincluded. Telemachus1 thus describes his mother asunrivalled in Greece:

ot'ij vvv OVK lort yvvr) /car' 'A\auba yaiav

ovre rivXov Uprjs, ovT"'Apyeos> ovre Mvnrivt]s,

OVT' avrrjs 'W&Kr)s, ovr' rjTicCpoio ^(Katvrjs.

For here are clearly enumerated as among the parts of'A^a/i?, several Peloponnesian states, the island of Ithaca,and the continent, evidently meaning that to the Northof the Corinthian gulf.

And yet it may remain true that, though commonlymeaning Greece at large, 'A^a/i? may still have a morespecial connection with the South, as the whole of thisisland is called Britain, whereas the name has been de-rived especially from its southern inhabitants.

But in the passages numbered (i) and (3) we findthe whole of Greece designated by the use, not of one,but of two expressions: in the first case they are,

1. "JEXXa?. 2 . fxecrop "AJO^OJ .

In the second they are,I . "AjOyoy. 2. 'A^a/ i j .

And with these we may compare the expression, evi-dently meant to cover all the Greeks, in II. ii. 530, underthe names

I. TLaveWrjves. 1. '

S Od. xi. 166 and 481. See also Od. xxiii. 68.h Od. xiii, 249. i Od. xxi. 107.

Applications of the name Argos. 371

Now there are here three ways in which the wordsmay be used so as to convey their joint sense, which Iassume to be that of Greece entire: viz.

i. That each word should cover a part, the two partstogether making up the whole, i.e. that the words shouldbe used distributively.

a. That each should cover the whole, and that thewords should be used cumulatively.

3. That one of the words should apply to a part ofGreece only, and should be overlapped as it were bythe other, that other meaning the whole.

Now as 'A^a/tV uniformly means all Greece in eightpassages where it stands alone, this will naturally governits sense in the two passages, where it is joined copula-tively with "Apyos. We shall also hereafter see thelocal use of the 'Amatol so diffused, that it would hardlybe possible to suppose any other meaning. Thus, then,we have one point fixed, from which to operate uponothers.

But what does the "Apyos 'nnrofiorov mean ?It is demonstrable that in Homer the word "Apyos

has several meanings.1. It is a city, as in U. iv. 51,

fjToi efiol Tpets jxev iro\v (pCXrarai elal 7roA.?;es"Apyos rf, Sirdprrj re, /cat evpvdyvta MvK^vr/,Tas Siair^pcrai K. T. \.

1. It is a limited territory, probably such as wasafterwards the State of Argolis. For when Telemachusis quitting Sparta, Theoclymenus joins himk, (pevywv e£"Apyeos. And again, when Melampus quitted Pylos, hecame to Argos:

6 5' a\\a>v 'Uero brjuov

"Apyos h lint6j3oTovl.k Od. xv. 223.

B b 2

372 II. Ethnology.

The first proves that Sparta was not included in thegeographical name "Apyos: the second proves the sameof Pylos: and this too is the "Apyos iTnrofioTov.

The same phrase is used in Od. iii. 163, of iEgisthus,who endeavours to corrupt Clytemnestra,

fwx<f "Apyeos IHTTO^OTOLO,

Here Mycenae is plainly meant by the MyX°?» ana" *ue

"Apyos 'nnrofioTov is Argolis, or something like it.This district, including Mycenae, was the head quarter

of the Greek power. Now we find that the wholedominion of Priam was named Tpolt], while includingmany cities and much territory, and the name Tpolrjwas also sometimes applied to the capital, of which theproper name was Ilion. So Venezia at the present daymeans both a city and a territory, even though the cityis outside the territory; the only distinction lying in theuse or non-use of the article. Therefore it was suffi-ciently natural, that the Trojan herald should name thewhole from the most excellent part, and so identifythem: and on the other hand, it would not be other-wise than natural, were he to name the most excellentpart, and likewise to name the whole, without verballydistinguishing them.

So that in II. iii. 75, 258, the phrase "Apyos e? OTO-fiorov, according to what has preceded, may eithermean,

1. The part of the Peloponnesus containing Argosand Mycenae as its head quarter, (and then the line mustbe interpreted in the third of the modes above pointedout; as we might now say, ' we visited Rome andItaly.')

a. Or it may mean the whole of Greece, by transferfrom its capital part, and then the line must be inter-

1 Od. xv. 238.

Applications of the name Argos. 373

preted in the second mode, as might now be said, ' toour Green Erin, our Ireland mother of the brave.'

The English ' and' would indeed mar the sense: butthe Greek KCU is much more elastic, and may be equiva-lent to the Italian ossia, or to the sign = .

I doubt if there be any passage in Homer where theword Argos stands alone, or with a characteristic epi-thet such as iTnroftoTov, and where it requires any othersense than one of the three just given—the city—thenorth east of Peloponnesus—and (by metonymy) allGreece.

When Nestor (U. ii. 348) denounces those Greekswho should think of returning home before the mindof Jupiter is known, and calls returning "Apyoa-Se ievai,it seems indisputable that we must construe "ApyosGreece.

When Paris says he brought the KT^aTo from Ar-gos, the most natural construction is, as the place wasSparta, and therefore not Argos in the narrow sense,from which he took them, that he means by Argos tosignify Greece.

When Sisyphus dwells at Ephyre, iui>x£ "ApyeostV7ro/3oTO(o, the word means the north eastern districtPeloponnesus'".

The word "Apyos in the Catalogue (ii. 559) mostprobably means the city only.

As it is plain that in some passages it cannot meanthe Peloponnesus, and as that meaning does not appearto be supported by superior probability in any place,such a meaning ought not to be admitted.

It is another question how we ought to construe thephrases nivov" Apyos—'A-^aukov"Apyos, used four times—and ''laaou "Apyos.

m See also II. xiii. 378. Od. xv. 224, 239.

374 II. Ethnology.

The two latter are evidently analogous to HeXacryi-KOV "Apyos, which we have already found to meanThessaly.

Of the four passages where we read the phrase'Axauicov "Apyos, the two first" relate to the return ofAgamemnon and the Greeks, and appear to admittherefore either of the limited sense of a portion ofPeloponnesus as the most eminent part, or of the ex-tended one of all Greece, better than of the interme-diate one of Peloponnesus itself, with which neitherAgamemnon, nor the whole body of the Greeks, hadany separate and defined relation, as they had with thedominions of Agamemnon in the capacity of their su-preme Chief, and perhaps with those of the Pelopidfamily jointly, so as to include Menelaus.

In the third case it is used of Juno, as she goes tohasten the birth of Eurystheus0,

Ka/)7raXi/xo)? 81 ?(cer' "Apyos ^ A\aCiKbv, kvff apa rjtr)

icpBC^v akoxov 'SOeveXov Hepcrrfidbao.

This passage evidently admits the sense of the city,or a limited district, better than that of the Pelopon-nesus at large. Indeed, as the seat of the Perseid do-minion is evidently intended, and as that dominion didnot reach over all Peloponnesus, we may say that thiscould not be the meaning of the words.

But the fourth passage requires a larger significationfor this phrase. It is the question of Telemachus, askingwhere Menelaus had been during all the time thatiEgisthus was about his crime P;

TTOV MeviXaos e?r/z>;

rj OVK "Apyeos r\ev 'A\aiiK.ov, ak\a -nrj aWy

This seems clearly to include Sparta in Achaicn II. ix. 141, 283. ° II. xix. 115. P Od. iii. 249.

Achaic and Iasian Argos. 375

Argos; and, this being so, no meaning is so suitableto it in this place as Eastern Peloponnesus. This con-struction is also eminently suitable to the relationbetween Eastern Peloponnesus and the Achaean power,which had its central seat there.

Undoubtedly Strabo treats 'A^auKov "Apyos as mean-ing the whole of Peloponnesus (viii. 5. p. 365, ibid. 6.p. 369), but the argument from Homer's text seems tobe against him : and even he admits from Od. iii. 249,that the term applied also to Laconia in particular:a \Aa tcai ISlws Trjv AaicwviKtjv OVTW 7rpo<rayopev9ijvai(i.

As then it appears that the sense of Eastern Pelo-ponnesus will suit the phrase "Apyos 'A^atikoi/ in allthe four passages where it is employed, while the moreextended meaning of the whole Peloponnesus is re-quired by none, and could only be even admissible inone (Od. iii. 249), we may conclude that Eastern Pelo-ponnesus is the proper meaning of the phrase.

We now come to "lao-ov "Apyos.In Od. xviii. 245, Eurymachus the Suitor, in paying a

compliment to the beauty of Penelope, says to her, youwould have more suitors than you have,

ei iravres ere tboiev av "laoov*Apyos'AyaioL

Now it must first be admitted, that this does notrefer to any country out of the Peloponnesus. Forin the first place, that was the most distinguishedpart of the country, and the chief Achaean seat; so thatthe intention of this speech therefore most naturallybears upon it. But also we have nothing in Homer toconnect any local use of the word "Apyos with MiddleGreece.

1 I t is curious that Strabo Xifiriov, as well as iirno&oTov, whenshould say in viii. 6, that Homer the former word does not occuroften marks "Apyos by the epithet at all in the Homeric Poems.

376 II. Ethnology.

But if Eurymachus means nothing to the North ofPeloponnesus, it is again most probable that he refersto that part of Peloponnesus with which Ithaca hadmost intercourse, where lay its relations of business,and of hospitality. Now this part was Western Pelopon-nesus, as we see from the journey of Ulysses to Ephyre(Od. i. 260); from the journey of Telemachus which, asit were, spontaneously takes that direction; from thecourse of public transactions implied in his speech(Od. iii. 82, cf. 72); from the Xi°e'0?' which Ulysses wentto recover in Messene (Od. xxi. 15) ; from Nestor'sbeing the person to visit Ithaca in the matter of thegreat Trojan quarrel; and from the apprehension felt bythe party of the Suitors, that Ulysses would forthwithrepair to Elis, or to Pylos for aid. (Od. xxiv. 431.)

Just so the relations of Crete were with EasternPeloponnesus ; and therefore Helen at Troy recognisesIdomeneus, because she has often seen him in Sparta.And this, I may observe in passing, is probably thereason why Ulysses, in the fictitious accounts which hegives of himself in Ithaca, is so fond of making himselfa Cretan, namely that he may avoid any risk of detec-tion, by placing his own proper whereabout at a distancebeyond the ordinary range of intercourse.

Nor are we wholly without information from Ho-mer on the subject of the original Iasus himself, fromwhom the name appears to be derived; and whosename we find still subsisting in Attica at the time ofthe TroicaT.

For a passage in the Eleventh Odyssey informs usthat Amphion, son of Iasus8, was a powerful prince in

r II. xv. 332. Iasus, Amphion, Iaolkos, Jason,s Od. xi. 281. E. Curtius with the Ionian race.

(' Ionier,' p. 22 et seqq.) connects

Iasian Argos. 377

Minyeian Orchomenus: that his youngest daughter,the beautiful Chloris, was queen of Pylos: and thatNeleus, marrying her, founded there the dynasty ofthe Neleids. Thus through Pylos we connect a power-ful Iasid family with Western Peloponnesus, possibly fivegenerations before the Trojan war, and at a time whenwe find from Homer that the Danaids or Perseus musthave been reigning in Eastern Peloponnesus. This seemsenough to justify putting the sense of Western Pelo-ponnesus upon the phrase "laaov "Apyos in the speechof Eurymachus.

We may justly inquire whether it is so certain, asseems to be taken for granted, that the Minyeian Orcho-menus, where Amphion reigned, was the Orchomenusof Boeotia. For his daughter Chloris was sovereign ofPylos, and we must suppose that sovereignty to havebeen not acquired by herself, but inherited from herfather. Now it is very improbable that Amphion couldhave been sovereign at the same time of Pylos and ofthe northern Orchomenos : between which intervenedan iEolid family settled at the Isthmus, another race ofHellenic chiefs, the line of Portheus, in iEtolia, and per-haps also the dynasty of Cadmus in Boeotia. We have noiustance in Homer of the possession by the same prince ofterritories not continuous. Now there was there a riverMinyeius, between Pylos and Elis; in Arcadia as well asin Boeotia there was an Orchomenos at the period ofHomer; it seems then probable, that the name of thattown should be combined with the Minyeian name inPeloponnesus as well as in Boeotia. If it were so, thepolitical connection with Pylos is natural, and the ap-plication of the Iasian name to Western Peloponnesusbecomes still more easy of explication. But eventhough the Orchomenos here named be Boeotian, the

378 II. Ethnology.

case remains sufficiently clear. For it was once, orformerly (TroVe) that Amphion reigned in Orchomenus;and the meaning may well be, that having in earlierlife reigned there, he had afterwards accompanied thesouthward movement of the time, perhaps being ex-pelled from his fat soil; and that he established, or re-established the connection between Western Pelopon-nesus and the Iasian name.

Lastly, the place /j.e<rov"Apyos seems to be equivalentto the English expression, ' through the breadth of Ar-gos,' or all over Argos; and though we may think that"Apyos alone means one side of the Peloponnesus, fieo-ov"Apyos may very well mean the whole. In the speechof Diomed* to Glaucus, it cannot mean less than this:on the other hand, from its being the counterpart ofLycia, it may perhaps not less probably signify thewhole of settled Greece, and thus be the equivalent of7rav'"Apyos in II. ii. 108. But the more convenientsense for Od. xv. 80 is plainly the Peloponnesus, be-cause then it squares precisely with Hellas in the samepassage, and the two together make up the whole ofGreece. But without disturbing the signification ofthe word Hellas, as meaning Northern and MiddleGreece, we might still give to peaov Argos the force of' all Greece.' The words of Menelaus would then stand asif an inhabitant of London said to his friend a foreigner,' I will take you through Scotland and all Britain.' Itis difficult, however, to decide absolutely between thesetwo senses of ne<rov*Apyo<s. What we see plainly is, thatthe word "Apyos had taken the deepest root, and a verywide range, in connection with Greek settlements, andwith such settlements only.

* II. vi. 224.

The Apian land. 879

And now with respect to the line so much criticised,fy^eirj 8 eictKaoTo ITaz>eAA.»7i>as Kal 'A\au>ijsu.

The word TlaveWyves may, we have seen, either meanthe tribes of Greece beyond the Isthmus, or those ofall Greece: in which latter and more likely sense it iscoextensive with 'A^aio/. I here finally touch uponthis verse along with those properly geographical, onaccount of the important combination which it in-volves.

We find in II.i. 2,70, iii. 49, and in Od.vii.25, xvi.18,the expression awitj yaitj, which some of the gramma-rians, and the common opinion mentioned by Strabox,have explained to mean the Peloponnesus, while mo-dern scholars render it simply distant?. In the twopassages of the Iliad, the former construction is cer-tainly more suitable: and the combination with TrjkoQevin II. i. 270, is tautological, flat, and un-Homeric, ifawlt] mean merely distant. In Od. xvi.18 either sensewill serve the passage. In Od. vii. 2,5 (when we againhave TrjXoQev) Ulysses states himself to have come e£aTTiris yaw. As he had not come from Peloponnesus,it is assumed that this is not the meaning. I questionthe reasoning. Ulysses everywhere, when questioned,shows an immense fertility in fiction about himself: inevery case, however, carefully reporting himself to become from a distant spot. I see no reason therefore whywe should not construe 'Airly yala to mean the Pelopon-nesus ; in conformity with the tradition which iEschy-lusz reports concerning Apis, and with the undoubtedusage of the tragedians. As I interpret the Outeror Romance-geography of the Odyssey, the Peloponne-

u II. ii. 530. maim Lexil. in voc. Crusins adx Strabo viii. p. 371. locc.y Heyne on II. i. 270. Butt- z Suppl. 277.

380 II. Ethnology.

sus would be understood by the Phseacians of Homerto be extremely remote from their country. The differ-ence of quantity is no sufficient reason against this con-struction. Plainly 'ATT/JJ yaltj, if it be a proper nameat all, means the whole Peloponnesus, and not a partof it, for Nestor in II. i. 270 uses it so as to include theWestern side, and Hector, II. iii. 49, so as to includethe Eastern.

I will now sum up the conclusions to which this in-quiry has brought us, either by certain or by probableevidence, with respect to Homer's geographical nomen-clature for Greece at large, and for its principal mem-bers.

1.' A^ai'Js "]ai'!? yata > invariably mean the whole of Greece.

aia J

2."Apyos either alone, or with epithets other thanthose which concern geographical extension, means

(1) The city only, as in II. iv. 52, and probably inII. ii. 559.

(2) The immediate dominions of Agamemnon inthe north and north-east of Peloponnesus, as inOd. iii. 263.

But it is possible, though by no means certain,that "Apyos in this sense should be held to in-clude the whole Pelopid dominions, which werelooked upon as having a certain political unity,and thus to be the equivalent of "Apyos 'A^ai-I'KOV.

(3) By metonymy from this supreme and metro-politan quarter of Greece, it means the wholecountry.

3. The phrase TW "Apyos in II. ii. 108 means thewhole of Continental Greece.

Geographical definitions. 381

4. The phrase ixecrov"Apyos means most probably thewhole of Greece, or Greece at large; possibly the Pelo-ponnesus only.

5. UeXacryiKov "Ap-yo? is Thessaly, from Macedonia to(Eta.

6.'AxauKov*Apyos means the Pelopid dominions of theTroic time, or in general words, Eastern Peloponnesus.

7."laa-ov"'Apyos means Western Peloponnesus.8. The word'EXAa? means

(1) probably a portion of the dominions of Achilles,as in II. ii. 683, ix. 395 ;

(2) certainly the country outside them to the south-ward of Phthia, down to the Isthmus of Corinth,and probably reaching northward through therest of Thessaly : II. ix. 447 and elsewhere ;

(3) it is possible thaf'EXXa? may mean all Greecein Od. i. 344, and xv. 80 ; but more likelythat the sense is the same as in (a).

9. The phrase ''Ami/ yaltj most probably, though notcertainly, means the entire Peloj>onnesus.

What then was this name "Apyos, which Homer usesso much more frequently, and with so much more elas-ticity and diversity of sense, than any other territorialname whatever ?

In the first place let us remark how rarely it is usedfor a city; in the strict sense of the word, we cannotbe said to find it more than once. Its proper meaningis evidently a tract of country.

From this it is limited to the city to which the tractof country belonged : or it is extended to the countryat large, of which the particular tract was the capitalor governing part. Both these significations are whatare termed improper: the latter is also political, andhas no relation to race, or to an eponymist, or to any

382 II. Ethnology.

physical features of soil or scenery, whether the word"Apyos may have had such reference or not, when usedin its original, proper, and usual application, to mean adistrict.

As previously with populations, let us now set outthe various descriptions of source, to which the Ho-meric names of countries and places owe their origin.

They appear to he derived either1. From an individual eponymist, as Ithaca from

Ithacus, Od.xvii.207; Dardania from Dardanus, U.xx.216; Ascanie from Ascanius, II. ii. 863 ; while we seethe intermediate stage of the process in the name'AxiV,joined with yala, supposed to indicate the Peloponne-sus, and to be derived from Apis.

2. From a race in occupation: as in the case of'Api'!f 7am, and 'A^ari? simply, from the Achseans;"E\Aa? from the"E\Xo£; Kp^n? or YLprjTai (Od. xiv. 199)from the Kprjre?.

3. From its physical features or circumstances di-rectly, such as AlylaXos from being a narrow strip alongthe shore of the Corinthian gulf, between the mountainsand the sea: there is also a town AlylaXos of the Pa-phlagonians, U. ii. 855. Probably we may add Ei//3ota,Euboea, from the adaptation of that fertile island to till-age, which afterwards made it the granary of Athens.

4. From some race occupying it: and in the caseswhere that race has been named from any feature ofthe country, then, not directly but derivatively, from thecountry itself.

For instance, Qp>}K>] from Qpfjices, Thracians, whichword again must come from a common root with rpa-%vs. The name Tprj^Iv has obviously a similar origin.

So again in the later Greek we find the old AlylaXosnamed AlyidXeia from the intermediate formation At-

Etymology of the word Argos. 383

yia\ei$: and perhaps "ApyoXi? from the 'Apyeioi, whoinhabited it, and took their name from"Apyos.

And so in Homer we have $0/>?; from that appa-rently comes Qdlot, and from this again, in the laterGreek, Phthiotis.

Such then are the ordinary sources, as far as weknow, of the territorial names of Homer.

The three aids which we have for judging of themeaning of the name"Aj07o? are, the Homeric text,etymology, and the later tradition.

None of these in any manner connect the name"Apyos either with an eponymist, or with a race of in-habitants, either mediately or immediately, as its root.We can only therefore look for its origin in somethingrelated to the physical features of the country, or coun-tries, to which it was applied.

The word apyos itself is frequently found in Homerotherwise than as a proper name. It is used as anadjective in the following combinations :

I. Kvves apyol II. i. 50.2.. (36es apyol II. xxiii. 30.3. apyrjv va Od, XV. 161.So also we have the compounds apyw (icepavvos)

apyiKepawos, apyeaTis (NOTO?), apyevvai (d'/ej, oQovai),

apyivoeis (JK-dfueipos), apyioSovres (ves)> apynroSes (icvves).

UoSdpyw (horse of Achilles).And it is usual to give to the word apybs* in these

several forms the several senses of1. Swift, as in swift dogs, swift thunderbolt.2. White, as in white goose, white (chalky) Ca-

meirns.

a See Scott and Liddell, in Od. ii. 11, and Hermann quotedvoc. Damm Lex. Horn, in voc. by him.Crusius II. xxiii. 30. Nitzsch on

384 II. Ethnology.

3. Sleek, shining, as in sleek oxen, with glisteningcoats.

It is said truly, that what is swift in motion gives anappearance of shining: and what shines is in some degreeakin to whiteness. But it is neither easy to say, inthis view of the matter, which is the primary, andwhich the secondary, meaning of the word, nor what isits etymology. Nor does it show the slightest re-semblance to the local name "Apyos, which, from thevariety of its applications, apart from any question ofrace or political connection, must have had some etymo-logical signification.

Nor, as regards the /3o'e? apyol in particular, is it veryeasy to believe in the sleekness of the oxen in Homer'stime, (this seems to be rather an idea borrowed fromthe processes and experience of modern times,) or ofthe camp oxen of any time. Nor is the matter mendedby two forced attempts, one to construe /3o'e? apyol asoxen having white fat within them, or again, as slowoxen. From these sources, then, we can at presentobtain no light.

Now I submit that the just signification of the pro-per name "Apyos is to be found by considering it as akinto the word epyov, which plainly appears in Homer tohave agricultural labours for its primary object. Andit seems pretty clear, that by the transposition ofletters which so commonly occurs in popular speech,especially during the infant state of languages, theword aypoi,' a field,' is no more than a form of "Apyos.

K. O. Miiller, as we have seen, considers that "Ap-yof with the ancients means a plainb: I would add aplain, not as being a flat surface, but as being formed

b Orchomenus und die Minyer, p. 119. See also E. Curtius' Ionier/ p. 17.

Etymology of the word Argos. 385

of cultivable ground, or else it means a settlementformed upon such ground.

In speaking of the word plain as applied to Greece,we use it relatively, not as it would be employed inreference to Russia or Hungary, but as meaning thebroader levels between the hills, and commonly towardsthe sea: such as those valleys of Scotland which arecalled carses, or those called straths.

Now in the first place I know no other meaning ofthe word "Apyos which will suit its various uses inHomer as Pelasgic Argos, Achaic Argos, Iasian Ar-gos. What is the one common physical feature of theseveral regions that accounts for the common factor inthese three compound expressions, if it be not thatof plain, that is to say, cultivable, and cultivated, orsettled country ?

Again, look at the relation of "Apyo? to 'Apyeloi.What except a physical and geographical meaning,still adhering to the word, and holding it somewhatshort of the mature and familiar use of a proper name,can account for the fact that we have in the historyand geography of Greece so many cases of an Argos,Avithout Argives, that is local or provincial Argives,belonging to it ? Achaic Argos indeed has 'Apyeioibelonging to it, but Pelasgic and Iasian Argos havenone. Just so we might speak of the Highlands ofSaxony, or of the Lowlands of Switzerland; but theinhabitants of the first are not known as Highlanders,nor those of the latter as Lowlanderse.

I believe there are no phrases, which more nearlytranslate the words "Apyos and 'Apyeloi, than Lowlands

c Strabo found in his own the Argive plain passed by thetime, and has reported it as the name of vApyos, and not the citycustom of the ' moderns,' that only.

c c

386 II. Ethnology.

and Lowlanders respectively. For the word Lowlandsmeans land not only lying low, but both lying low, andalso being favourable for cultivation: and these ideasmore truly represent the land fitted for the sort ofsettlement called "Apyos, than the mere idea of levelplains.

If this be the idea of the word Argos, we see thepropriety of its application to the city of Argos and itsdistrict. For this city stood, as a city of the town andmore open country, in a certain opposition to Mycenae,which nestled among the hills; and which bore geogra-phically much the same relation to Argos, as Dardaniato Ilion. It afterwards fell also into the same politicalanalogy.

In the phrase 'A-xauKov*Apyo$, Homer deals with acase where, as it is sometimes applied without anepithet, "Apyos may justly be called a proper name,like the European Pays-has; but there is no evidenceof this in his ' Pelasgic Argos,' and ' Iasian Argos,'and it seems likely that he rather intends in thosephrases to employ the term Argos as a word simplydescriptive, and to speak of the Pelasgian Lowlands,and the Iasian Lowlands. The difference of sense isjust that which we should indicate in English by theabsence of the capital letter.

There is evidence that the name had not exhaustedits elasticity even after Homer's time. In later ageswe find an Argos of Orestis in Macedonia; an Argosof Amphilochia in Western Greece; an Argos nearLarissa in Thessalyd, and other cases more remote.Nothing but a geographical force still adhering to theword will account for this extension.

d Cramer's Greece, i. 197. 385. ii. 10. Strabo ix. p. 440.

Etymology of the word Argos. 387

The same is the inference to be drawn from the epi-thets and quasi-epithets, or descriptive phrases, appliedto it by Homer. With the exception of one passage,where he gives it the political epithete

KKVTOV, they areall physical; being 'nrirofioTov, TroXvStyiov, TroKinrvpov,

and ovOap apovprj*}. Of these four epithets, the first is inHomer peculiarly connected with the specific form andcharacter of the country: accordingly, while it is thestanding epithet of Argos, being used with it eleventimes out of only fifteen in which the word has anyepithet or quasi-epithet attached to it, it is never foundwith Achaeis, or with Hellas. And the proof of itsphysically descriptive character lies in the j)assagewhere Telemachus gives to Menelaus an account ofIthaca;

h> S"16a.Kr] OVT ap bpofj.01 ivpees, ovre TL Xelfxcav'

alyifioTos, nal imWov e^paros iir7ro/3drotof.

The /7T7ro,QoTo? of Homer, again, does not point merelyto fertility, but also to labour and its results; notmerely to pasture, but also to grain, for the horses ofHomer are fed on this as well as on herbage,

K/H XevKov epeTTTofxevoi, iced o\evpas s.

Now, in referring the word "Apyos to a common rootand significancy with epyov, we are not bound to holdthat it attains its initial vowel by junction with the par-ticle a used in its intensive sense. For we have theword, and also its derivatives, in this form, coming downto us from the old Greek. Among the four tribes ofAttica which subsisted until the time of Cleisthenes11,one was that of the "ApyaSes or husbandmen : and inthe Elian inscription supposed to date about the For-

e II. xxiv. 437. g II. v. 196. viii. 560.f Od. iv. 606. •• Grote's Hist.

C C 2

388 II. Ethnology.

tieth Olympiad1, or more than 600 years B. C, wehave the very word epyov in the form apyov, with thedigamma, in a passage which I copy,

AITEfEUOS AITEfAPrON

This inscription, says the Article in the Museum Criti-cum, is of older date than any other which has eitherbeen brought in copy from Greece, or is to be found onthe marbles. The matter of it is a public treaty, be-tween the Elians and some of their neighbours, con-cluded for an hundred years.

Another good example of the interchange of thevowels a and e is in the word apooo, which it is obviousto derive from epa, the earth. In the Latin we seeboth forms preserved, the one in aro to plough, theother in sero to sow. And this latter suggests thederivation of the Greek (nrelpw from a similar source.

If then the meaning of "Apyos be an agricultural set-tlement, and its root the same with that of epyov, weneed not now discuss at large whether that root be theold word epa or terra, which however appears to be pro-bable, and which accounts both for the especial refer-ence of the word epyov in Homer to tillage, the oldestindustry, and for the subsequent extension of its mean-ing to labour and its results in general.

Now, having this view of the words "Apyog and ep-yov, we shall find, in the fundamental idea of labouritself, a meaning which will furnish a basis for theHomeric adjective, and for all its compounds in alltheir varied applications. That idea is always in rela-tion with what is earnest, and (so to speak) strengthful;sometimes this takes the form of keenness, and then

1 See Museum Criticum, vol. i. p. 536, and Marsh's Horse Pelas-gicre, p. 70.

The etymology tested by kindred words. 389

comes in the idea of swiftness in conjunction withlabour: sometimes, again, it takes the form of patience,and then labour suggests slowness. The labour of adog is swift, that of an ox is patient: hence the /ewe?apyoi are laborious dogs, therefore swift; and hence toothe /3o'e? apyoi are laborious oxen, therefore slow; theoffice of the one being to cover space, and of the otherto overcome resistance. We may bring the two sensesnear without any loss in either case, by calling the oxensturdy or sedulous, and the dogs strenuous or keen.

The third sense of whiteness legitimately attaches tothe effect of rapid motion upon the eye.

The sense of sleekness does not appear to be requiredin Homer: but it may be a derivative from that ofwhiteness.

By one or more of the three first senses, or by theoriginal sense of labour in its (so to speak) integralidea, all the Homeric words may be justly rendered.Some of them will bear either the sense of swift, orthat of white: for instance, apyin with Kepawos. InAristotlek, de Mundo, c. 4, we have 7w KepawHv.. .01

SiaTTOVTe?, apyrJTe? \iyovTai. And again, apye-

with NO'TO?. This may mean the fleet Notus: itmay also mean white, as carrying the light white cloudfrom over the sea, in the sense taken by Horace, whoappears to have been an accurate and careful observerof Homeric epithets; and who says,

Albus ut obscuro deterget nubila cceloSsepe Notusl.

This sense of the word Argos will suit other uses ofit which have not been yet named.

For instance, it will suit the ship Argo, which we may

k Steph. Lex. l Carm. I. vii. 15.

390 II. Ethnology.

consider as swift, or, and perhaps preferably, as stout,strong, doing battle with the waves: as we now say, agood ship, or a gallant ship. Again,it suits the noble dogArgus of the Odyssey, whose character would be butinadequately represented by either patient, swift, orwhite. Considering this word as the adjective of theword which describes what has been well called by awriter of the present day, " noble, fruitful labour,'' weat once see him before us, swift as he had been, andpatient as he was, but also brave, faithful, trustful, andtrustworthy. Argus the spy, named in the ' ApyeKpovrijsof Homer, represents one side of the early meaning ofthe wordm. The adjective apyaXio?, exaggerating as wellas isolating that element of difficulty which the rootcomprises, represents another: and the later word ap-yovvres11, the idle, catching the idea of slowness at thepoint where it passes into inertness, similarly representsyet another.

Such being the case in regard to the name"Apyos,we shall now have an easy task in dealing with 'Apyeiot.

Homer employs this word in four places (to speakin round numbers) for three in which he uses Aavaoi

He employs it as an epithet, sometimes with the nameof Juno, and frequently with the name of Helen.

In the Odyssey0 we have this singular and rare jux-taposition of the words:

'Apyeiav Aava&v 178' 'l\iov OLTOV CLKOVOIV.

NitzschP observes, that we might almost suppose theword 'Apyeiwv to be an epithet, and this observation isquoted by G.Crusius. Eustathius, the Scholiast, Barnes,

m See Nitzsch on Od. i. 38 for Argos.his etymology of Argeiphontes; n Soph. Fr. 288.but not for his etymology of Ar- ° Od. viii. 578.gus, which he simply refers to P In loc.

The Danaan Argives of Od. viii. 578. 391

Payne Knight, do not notice it. It seems to me moreagreeable to Homeric laws to treat 'Apyelwv as the sub-stantive, and Aavawv as the adjective. For as Homerknows of an Achaic, an Iasian, a Pelasgic Argos, so hemay consistently speak of Danaan Argives, with thelatent idea that there might be, and were, other Low-landers out of Greece. But there were not, so far as weknow, any other Danaans than a single Greek dynasty.

Homer also in other places uses Acwaoti as an adjec-tive, with the substantives jjfjowe? and alxMTal. He hasno corresponding use of 'Apyetoi: thus the old idea ofa colonus or farming settler seems still to colour theword, and lingers in it, even after it has grown to be incommon use a proper name.

In the application of the word 'Apyefa as an epithetto Juno and Helen, he appears not to mean simplyGreek but Argive Juno, Argive Helen, so that theword here is not properly the singular of 'Apyeloi thenational name, but simply the adjective formed from"Apyos, in the sense of that part of Peloponnesus whichformed the Pelopid dominions. To these Helen be-longed : and for that family, as previously for the Per-seid race, Juno felt her chief anxiety, evidently becausethey were the political heads of Greece.

Thus the use of Argeian as an adjective seems to bequite clearly limited to a local sense of the word : andthis being the case, it seems remarkable that the atten-tion of the commentators before Nitzsch should nothave been directed to the line in the Eighth Odyssey,and that Nitzsch, with %pa>es Aavaol and ar^^rou Aavaoito guide him, should suggest the sense of Argive Da-naans, instead of Danaan Argives.

1 II. ii. 110, 256. xv. 733. xii. 419.

392 II. Ethnology.

The local use, however, of the Argeian name mustnot be dismissed without a more full investigation.Let us first dispose of its use for Juno and Helen.

The proof that Helen is meant to be described asnot merely Greek, but as connected with Achaic Argosor Eastern Peloponnesus, has already been sufficiently 1set forth.

As respects Juno, we shall find that her affectionsalways centre in the house that was paramount in thechief seat of Hellenic power, the Eastern Peloponnesus.Her tenacious attachments are constantly directed tothe nation, and they survive dynastic changes. Henceher keen and venturesome feeling for Eurystheus;her never dying, never sleeping hatred to his rivalHercules; her esteem for Agamemnon equally withAchillesr, though they were so unequal in fame andvalour : perhaps suggesting that Achilles was regardedby her either because he was necessary for the pur-poses of Agamemnon, or because he was closely alliedto the chief Achaean stocks. Hence it is that, whenhe has assumed his arms*, she thunders in his honour:and hence her especial love for the three cities, whichwere the symbols of Greek power, Argos, Sparta, andMycenae11. So intense is her attachment, that shecould wish to be the actual mother of the Greeks,even as she would readily devour the Trojans uponoccasions Hence, once more, even in the Odyssey,where she is almost a mute, it is mentioned, that Aga-memnon y came safe across the sea, for Juno protected

1 Sup. p. 353, 4. u ii. j v . g2.r II. i. 196. x Od. iv. 35.s Inf. p. 417. y Od. iv. 515.' Od. xi. 45.

Transition from Argeians to Achceans. 393

him. This is quite enough to fix the sense owhen it is applied to Juno, as a local sense.

In fact, Homer's use of this word with a restrainedand local sense is not only clear, but most carefully de-fined, both as to time and as to place.

While in the army before Troy he freely inter-changes Danaan, Argive, and Achaean, as they are nearenough to identity for his purpose, he never appliesDanaan at all to the Greeks at home, and employs theother two names with the most accurate discrimina-tion.

The Argeian name is confined in place to the East-ern Peloponnesus, and in time to the Perseid epoch.Upon the transfer of the sovereignty to the Pelopidhouse, the Argeian name ceases to be applied to theirimmediate subjects. Let us now examine passageswhich may illustrate the case.

i. Two or nearly three generations before the Troica,in the time when Bellerophon was young, Proetus ruledover the 'Apyeloi,

iro\v (f>epTepos rjfv

'ApyeiwV Zeiiy yap ol VTTO o-K?j77rpw eSafxa<xcrei>z.

Now Proetus was certainly not lord of Greece. Therewas no lord paramount of Greece before the Pelopids:and near the time ofPrcetuswe have Eurystheus, (Eneusand his line, Cadmus and his line, Neleus and hisline, Minos and his line, as well as probably otherthrones, each in its own place. But Prcetus falls withinthe period of the Perseids, and within the local cir-cumscription of the Eastern Peloponnesus where theyreigned.

II. vi. 158.

394 II. Ethnology.

2. But neither is Eurystheus spoken of by Homeras sovereign of Greece; though he is king of theArgivesa,

oy 'Apyeiounv ava£et.

For when Juno fraudulently asks and obtains fromJupiter the promise that the person to be born thatday shall enjoy a certain sovereignty, it is not over theArgives, but over the irepiKTiove?:

rj {ikv rbv Travrecrai irepiKTiovea-cnv ava£eiv

oy Kev e7r' $ju.an rcSSe we'crrj /*era itocrcn yvvaiKos.

Thus the promise is the babe shall reign over vepi-KTiove?, a word clearly inapplicable to the whole of thatstraggling territory, which was occupied irregularly bythe Greeks. But when the fulfilment is claimed, it isthat he shall reign over 'Apyeloi. Therefore the twonames are coextensive, and accordingly 'Apyeioi doesnot mean all Greeks; for example, it does not includethe line of Cadmus then ruling in Boeotia.

3. But we come down to the time of Tydeus, whowas lord of Argos during the epoch of the Pelopidsovereigns. And now we find that his subjects ceaseto be called 'Apyeloi (see II. v. 803. iv. 384) in thelegends, where Homer observes a peculiar nicety in theapplication of these important words.

4. Still the Argeian name continues to preserve itslocal application to the inhabitants of Argos and its dis-trict, or of Achaic Argos.

At the games on the death of Patroclus, Idomeneusthinks he discerns Diomed coming in as the winner,and he describes him thus:

a II. XIX. 122.

Local sense of the former name retained. 395

boneti be juot e^/xe^at avr\pAITOJXOS yeverjv, /xeTa 8' 'ApyeCouriv avdaaei.b.

It is plain that here Idomeneus means among Ar-gives, and not among Greeks.

i. Because not Diomed was lord among the Greeks,but Agamemnon.

a. Because Diomed was lord over a part of theArgives.

3. Because the word is used in evident contradis-tinction to, and correspondence with, the foregoingword AiVwXo?, which is undoubtedly local.

Again, when we are told that Orestes made afuneral feast for the 'Apyeioic, we may probably pre-sume that we have here again the local sense.

Thus we see plainly enough the history of the rise ofthe Argive name. Belonging to the subjects of theruling part of Greece, it grows so as to be applicable toall Greeks, in cases where no confusion can arise fromits being thus employed. Thus the Roman name becameapplicable to Campanians or Calabrians as subjects ofRome, in contradistinction to Germans, Dacians, or Par-thians; but if the subject in hand were domestic andItalian, the domestic distinction would naturally revive.Even so Homer's Greeks are all Argeians in the Troica:but at home they have their local meaning, like Cad-means, iEtolians, Pylians, Elians, Epeans, Arcadians,Locrians, and also, as we shall find, Achseajis.

It is at the very period of the local prevalence of theArgive name, that we find also from Homer unequivo-cal appearances of a Cretan empire, circumscribing itby sea, and possibly more or less by land, though per-

b II. xxiii. 470. c Od. iii. 309.

396 II. Ethnology.

haps the Minoan power and dynasty may not at oncehave acquired its Grecian character. If then, with re-spect to the word 'Apyeloi, we see that it was originallyof limited and local application ; we have no reasonwhatever to suppose that the Danaan name could everhave been of wider scope. Two questions then arise.

First, why does Homer use the Danaan and Argivenames as national, when they were only local ?

Secondly, the priority of the Danaan name beingclear, as we see that the Danaan dynasty preceded thatone whose subjects were called Argives, why did theArgive name supplant or succeed the Danaan ?

The first question will be resumed hereafter, but Iwill now touch upon the second.

The name Danaan, in all likelihood, was that of adynasty originating beyond seas; and if so, it could notwell, until softened by the mellow haze of distance, bemore popular with the Greeks, when they had awakenedunder Hellic influence to a full consciousness of nationallife, than it would have been with the English in thelast century to be called Hanoverians or Brunswickers.

The Danaid line ceased, when Perseus came to thethrone, as he was descended on the father's side fromanother source.

Nothing could be more natural, than that with thischange of dynasty an old and merely dynastic nameshould disappear. But why should it be succeeded bythe name 'Apyeloi ?

I hope it will not be thought too bold, if, foundingmyself on the probable, perhaps I might say, plainresemblance of meaning between TLe\a<ryol and 'Ajo-yeioi, I conjecture that on the disappearance from useof the name Aavaol, instead of falling back upon the

Relation of Argeian and Pelasgian names. 397

old agricultural name HeXaa-yo), which had by a Da-naan conquest become that of a subordinate, if notservile class, the people may have come to bear thename 'Apyeioi; borrowed, like the other, from the regionthey inhabited, and from their habits of life in it, and ofequal force, but without the taint which attached tothe designation of a depressed race.

In this view, the name 'Apyeloi may be defined to bethe Hellic equivalent of the old Pelasgic appellation ofthe people of the country: and it naturally takes rootupon the passing away of the Danaau power, withinthe dominions of those to whom that power had beentransferred.

I shall. hereafter have occasion to consider further,what was the first historic use of the Argeian name.

There are signs in the later Greek of the affinity,which I have here supposed, between the Pelasgian andArgeian names, and of the assumption of the functionsof th6 former by the latter. I do not enter on thequestion of etymological identity, but I refer to simi-larity of application alone.

In Suidas we find the proverb 'Apyelov? 6pa?, with thise x p l a n a t i o n ', irapoifJ-la evi TCOV arevw? KCU KaTairXrjKTiKwg

opwvTwv. Now we know nothing of the Argives, thatis, the inhabitants of Argolis, which would warrant thesupposition that they were of particularly savage andwild appearance. But if 'Apyeioi, as has been shown,originally meant settlers in an agricultural district,and if in process of time the population gathered intotowns, in lieu of their old manner of living Kwnifibv,then, in consequence of the change, 'Apyeioi wouldcome to mean rustics, as opposed to townspeople, andfrom this the transition would be slight and easy to thesense of a wild and savage aspect, as in the proverb.

398 II. Ethnology.

Let us compare with it the Latin word agrestis. ThisI take to be precisely similar, indeed identical, etymo-logically, with 'Apyeios. The point of divergence iswhen "Apyoi by transposition becomes aypos, whenceare ager and agrestis. Materially this Latin word is instill closer correspondence with apy^crrris, a Greekderivative of apyos. Ideally, it passes through the verysame process as has been shown in the case of 'Apyeios,and here it is strongly supported by the commonHomeric word aypios, rude or savage, which comesfrom aypoi, made ready by transposition to yield sucha derivative.

This name we find not only as an adjective, butlikewise as a proper name. It is applied to a brotherof (Eneus and Melas, a son of Portheusd: and in thesenames we appear to see described the first rude Hellicinvaders of iEtolia, at an epoch three generations be-fore the Troica. The agrestis, or agricultural settler,next comes to mean the class of country folk, as op-posed to the inhabitants of towns or urbani; and then,while urbanus, with its Greek correlative ao-reio?, passeson to acquire the meaning of cultivated and polished,agrestis, on the other hand, following a parallel move-ment with 'Apyelot;, and in the opposite direction, comesto mean uneducated, coarse, wild, barbarous. Thus Ovidsays of the river Achelous, when he had been mutilatedby the loss of his horn in the combat with Hercules,

Vultus Achelous agrestesEt lacerum cornu mediis caput abdidit undise.

Thus Cicero, in the Tusculans, after a description ofthe battles of the Spartan youths, carried on not onlywith fists and feet, but with nails and teeth, asks, Qua;

d II. xiv. 115. e Ov. Met. ix. 96.

Illustrations of the Etymology. 399

barbaria India (al. barbaries Indica) vastior atque agre-stior ?

W e also find in Suidas the phrase 'Apyeioi cpcbpes,and this explanation: 'E7rt T5>V TrpoSyXtos irovijpwv olyap Apyeiot eiri K:\oTrrj KOOHKOSOUVTUI. 'ApiaTO(pdvr;s 'A.va-

yupu).

No part of this play remains, so that we are left togeneral reasoning: but it seems a most natural expla-nation of this proverb or phrase, that the word 'Apyelos,meaning wild and savage, should be applied to banditti:theft in the early stages of society, always frequentingsolitary places, as in the later ones, it rather draws tothe most crowded haunts of men.

Again, iEschines, in the Hep] Uapcnrpeo-fieias, bringsthe grossest personal charges against Demosthenes, foroffences, which he says had brought upon him variousnicknames. Among these, he thus accuses him: 'EKTTCUSUIV Se onraWaTTOiJievos, KCU SeKaraXavTOvs Slicas eKacrrw

TWV eiriTpotruiv Xay^avwv, "Apyas eKXqQr/. Th i s passage

is noticed by both Suidas and Hesychius under 'Apyas,and it is explained ovofia 6(pew$. A serpent, eithergenerally or of some particular kind, had, it seems, thename of 'Apyas, which we can easily derive from apyo?,taken in the same sense as that in which it became thename of Argus the spy. ' Now the serpent was moresubtil than any beast of the fieldf.' But this doesnot seem to satisfy the intention of the highly vitupe-rative passage in iEschines. This imputation of extremecleverness or craft would not have been perhaps a veryeffective one in Greece. I think he more probably meansto call Demosthenes a swindler or plunderer, homo triumliterarum, from whom his guardians were trying to

f Gen. iii. i.

400 II. Ethnology.

recover, and who was likely to be exposed, not like theserpent, to get off: and in this sense the word 'Apyasat once attaches itself to the reported passage in Ari-stophanes, and through that to the old meaning ofagrestis or 'Apyeios. Nor is 'Apyeloi, a thief, moreremote in sense from 'Apyeloi, a rural settler, than ispaganus, an idolater, from paganus, a villager.

I will take yet one more illustration, Hesychiusunder 'Apyeloi gives this explanation; EK TWV E/AWTCOJ/

01 Tri(TTeu6fj.evoi OVTWS eXeyovTO, tj Xaju-irpol. N o w t h e

sense of Xa/ji7rpol might easily be derived from theprimitive sense, in the same way as that of whiteness.But it is quite distinct from the explanation respectingthat select and trusted class of Helots, who were called'Apyeloi. This usage both serves to explain history, andis explained by it. 'Apyeloi was the name of the Greekcitizen in Eastern Peloponnesus under the Perseids ; itappears in part to have retained its local force through-out the period of the Pelopids ; for though in the legendof Tydeus the inhabitants of Argolis we at least find thename'A-^aiol among them, yet in the Twenty-third Iliad,and in the Third Odyssey, they are called 'Apyeloi. In thelocal usage, then, the Helot meaning a serf, the emanci-pated Helot would be a citizen, an 'Apyelo?. But neitherserfship nor citizenship were in those days rigidly defined,and the one ran into the other. What could under suchcircumstances be more natural, than that any Helotwho was separated from his brethren, by being takeninto the confidence of his master, and living on easyterms with him, should acquire the name of 'Apyeios,and that the class who had thus obtained it in a some-what peculiar sense, that is to say, the sense of a freerural settler, or (so to speak) freeholder, should con-tinue to bear it as descriptive of their own position,

Different extent o/'Apyeioi and "Apyos. 401

even when it had ceased to be generally applicable tothe free Greeks of that particular district? which ofcourse it could no longer be when the family and dy-nastic tie between Argolis and Lacedsemon came to bedissolved.

And if I am right in supposing that even in Homer&the name 'Apyewi evidently leans towards the masses,and that of 'A^aiot towards the select few or chiefs,such a distinction is in marked harmony with the wholeof this inquiry respecting the force of the formerphrase.

According to the view which has been here given,we must carefully distinguish between the sense of'Ap-<yeioi, as a national name in Homer, and that of "Apyos,in this respect. The name 'Apyehi was raised to thedistinction of a national name apparently in conse-quence of the political ascendancy of a house that reignedover territories specially named "Apyos, and over sub-jects named from the region 'Apyeioi. I say this with-out undertaking to determine whether there actuallywas a period in which the Greeks were as a nationcalled 'Apyeloi, a supposition which seems to me im-probable : or whether it was a name which Homerapplied to them poetically, like the name Aavaol, be-cause it had once been the proper designation of thosewho held the seat of Greek supremacy. In eitherview, however, the case of the name"A|O7oy is different.That name had not its root in political power, actualor remembered : it kept its place, as being founded ina good physical description, so far as it went, of thegeneral character of the principal habitable parts ofthe peninsula which the Hellic tribes, swarming down-

g See inf. p. 410.

Dd

402 II. Ethnology.

wards from their hills, successively and gradually occu-pied. Hence the substantive was, as we see, capable ofspreading beyond the adjective in space, since, whilewe have an Iasian and a Pelasgian "Apyos, we have noIasian or Pelasgian 'Apyelot. Thus they were detachedone from the other. In Homer the epithet has alarger range of clear signification than the substantive.But apart from Homer the substantive appears frometymology to have been the older, and from historyeither to have readied points at which the adjectivenever arrived, or to have long survived its desuetude.

The Achceans.The lights, which we have already obtained in con-

sidering the Danaan and Argive names, will assist theinquiry with respect to the Achaeans. At the sametime, the fullest view of that name and race cannot beattained, until we shall have succeeded in fixing whatwe are to understand by the Homeric ava% avSpwv.

I now proceed, however, to show from the text ofthe poems,

1. That of the three great appellatives of the nation,the name 'Amatol is the most familiar.

2. That the manner of its national use indicates thepolitical predominance of an Achaean race, in the Ho-meric age, over other races, ranged by its side in theTroic enterprise, and composing along with it thenation, which owned Agamemnon for its head.

3. That, besides its national use, the name 'Amatolhas also an important local and particular use for arace which had spread through Greece, and which ex-ercised sway among its population.

4. That the manner of its local and particular usepoints out to us, with considerable clearness, the epoch

Particulars of the use of the Achcean name. 403

at which it acquired preponderance, namely thatwhen Pelops and his family acquired ascendancy inGreece.

As respects the first of these propositions, the nume-rical test, although a rude one, yet appears to be con-clusive. We find that Homer uses the name 'Apyeloiin the plural two hundred and five times, of whichtwenty-eight are in the Odyssey; besides fifteen pas-sages in which the singular is used. And the nameAavao). about one hundred and sixty times, of which thir-teen are in the Odyssey. But we find the name 'Amatolemployed from seven to eight hundred times : that isto say, five hundred and ninety-seven times in theIliad, and one hundred and seventeen times in theOdyssey; all these in the plural number, besides thirty-two places of the poems in which it is used in the sin-gular, or in its derivatives 'A^atJ? or 'A^ati/co'?.

The particulars next to be stated will bear at onceupon the first and upon the second proposition.

Homer very rarely attaches any epithet to the name'Apyeiot, more frequently by much to Aavao}, and stilloftener to 'A^ato/. TO the first only six times in all:to the second twenty-four: and to the third near onehundred and forty times. It is not likely that metricalconvenience is the cause of this diversity. We havealready seen that 'Apyeloi is susceptible of a substantiveforce, which will carry one at least of the other namesby way of epithet, as if it indicated an employment,and not properly the name of a race. A like inferencemay be drawn from the greater susceptibility of carry-ing descriptive epithets, which we now find the Danaanand Achaean names evince. For example, the name ofthe Scotts, Douglasses, or Grahams, four centuries ago,would have afforded larger scope for characteristic epi-

D d 2

404 II. Ethnology.

thets than such a name as Farmers or Colonists, whenused to point out a particular people, or than such aname as Lowlanders, while it still retained its descrip-tive character, and had not yet become purely titular orproper. We must probably look, then, to politicalsignificance for the basis of the use made by Homer ofthe Achaean name.

When we examine the character of the epithets, thispresumption is greatly corroborated. Homer uses withthe word 'A^wtoJ, and with this word only, epithetsindicating, firstly, high spirit, secondly, personal beauty,and thirdly, finished armourh. I take these to be ofthemselves sufficient signs, even were others wanting,to point to the Achseans as being properly the rulingclass, or aristocracy, of the heroic age.

The Achaean name, again, attains with Homer to agreater variety of use and inflexion than the Danaanor Argeian names.

He has worked it into the female forms ' A-^auSes,'Axpui'dSes, 'A-^aial, as on the other side he has donewith the names Tpwes into Tpwh, TpwdSe?, and Tpwai,and AdpSavoi into AapSaviSes: but he has not madeany such use of the names 'Apyeioi and Aavaol. Thefemale use of the former appears indeed in the sin-gular with the names of Juno and of Helen, but neveras applicable to Greek women in general, or to a Greekwoman simply as such.

He uses it in the singular to describe 'a Greek''A^aio? avrip, II. iii. 167, 226 : which he never does forthe two other names. In the same manner he usesAdpSavos avnp, II. ii. 701. This form seems to indicatethe full and familiar establishment of a name; and the

h Sup. p. 357.

Particulars of the use of the Achcean name. 405

Dardanians had, we know, been Dardanians for sevengenerations before the Troica (II. xx. 215-40).

In the opening passage of the First Iliad, not lessthan in that of the Odyssey, Homer has, as it is gene-rally observed by critics, intentionally given us a sum-mary or ' Argument' of his poem. But I doubt whe-ther sufficient notice has been taken of the very effectivemanner in which he has given force to his purpose, bytaking care in that passage to use the most character-istic words. Achilles is there the son of Peleus, for hisextraction, as on both sides divine, but especially as onthe father's side from Jupiter, is the groundwoi'k of hishigh position in the poem. Agamemnon is likewisehere introduced under the title which establishes thesame origin for him, and more than any thing else en-hances the dignity of his supremacy before men1. Andthe Greeks too, if I am correct, are not without signifi-cancy here introduced to us, as is right, under theirhighest and also their best established designation, thatof Achaeans. Nor is it until they have been five timescalled Achseans k that he introduces the Danaan name1

at all. The Argive name, as if the weakest, when it isfirst employed, is placed in an awkward nearness to thetitle of Achseans, perhaps by way of explanation :

oy fxeya TT&VTCOV

'Apyeicov Kpareei, KOI ol TidQovrai 'A^atoi '"1.

Again the paramount force of the Achaean name mayjustly be inferred from its being the only territorialname which had clearly grasped the whole of Greeceat the epoch of the Troicav.

Turning now entirely to what indicates more or lessof peculiar character in the Achseans, I would observe,

» See inf. sect. ix. k II. i. 2,12,15,17, 22.1 II. i. 42. m II. i. 81. n See sup. p. 380.

406 II. Ethnology.

that the adjective Slot appears to be the highest of allthe national epithets employed by Homer; and this hecouples, as has been observed by Mure0, (who recog-nises a peculiar force in the term,) with the Achaeandesignation alone among the three. He also applies itto the Pelasgi; for whom, as we have found, he meansit to be a highly honourable epithet. Probably theAchseans are Slot because of preeminence, the Pelas-gians because of antiquity. To no other nation ortribe whatever does he apply this epithet. His verychary use of it in the plural is a sign of its possessing inhis eyes some peculiar virtue.

Of its feminine forms one has been selected to con-vey the most biting form of reproach to the army, inthe speech of Thersites. Now it is remarkable that inthat speech, of which an inflated presumption is thegreat mark, the Ach^an name is used five times withinnine lines, and neither of the other names is used atall. I do not doubt that the upstart and braggart usesthis name only because it was the most distinguishedor aristocratic name, as an ill-bred person always takespeculiar care to call himself a gentleman. And doubt-less it is for the same reason that he takes the feminineof 'A^cao?, instead of using Aavaal or'Apyeia) for his in-terpretative epithet, when he wants to sting the soldieryas ' Greekesses and not Greeks.'

Somewhat similar evidence is supplied by the Ho-meric phrase vies 'Ay(aiwv, which has nothing cor-responding to it under the Danaan or Argive names.This is an Homeric formula, and the form we? seems tobelong exclusively to the Achaean name. To theGreeks who always asked the .stranger who were hisparents, this phrase would carry a peculiar significance.

° Hist. Gr. Lit. xv. 5. vol. ii. p. 77.

Signs of its leaning to the aristocracy. 407

What addressed them as the sons of honoured parentswould be to them the sharpest touchstone of honour ordisgrace. And what the patronymic was to the indi-vidual, this form of speech was to the nation, an incen-tive under the form of an embellishment. It is aprinciple that runs throughout Homer; it is everywhere /J.rjSe yevoi TraTepwv ala"xyvefiev. The poet couldno,t say sons of Danaans, for their forefathers were notDanaan : nor sons of Argeians, for this would recall theploughshare and not the sword: though the army areaddressed from time to time as ijpwes Aavaol, and fjpwes'Amatol, they are never fjpweg 'Apyeiot. But to be sonsof the Achaeans was the great glory of the race, evenas to degenerate from being Achaean warriors intoeffeminacy would have been its deepest reproach : andthe fact that he calls a mixed race sons of the Achgeansis conversely a proof that the Achaean element was thehighest and most famous element in the compound oftheir ancestry.

But, unless I am mistaken, we have many passagesin Homer where the use of the simple term 'Amatol isshown from the context to have a special and peculiar,sometimes perhaps even an exclusive reference to thechiefs and leaders of the army. I think it may beshown that the word has in fact three meanings:

i. That of a particular Greek race, which extendeditself from point to point, acquiring power everywhereas it spread, by inherent superiority.

a. That of the aristocracy of the country, which itnaturally became by virtue of such extension and as-sumption.

3. That of the whole nation, which takes the namefrom its prime part.

We have now to examine some passages in support

408 II. Ethnology.

of the second meaning: and I know not why, but cer-tainly these passages appear in the Iliad to be mostabundant near the opening of the poem.

Chryses solicits ' all the Achseans and most the twoAtridaeP.' All the Achseans assent, except Agamemnon.Now the priest could not solicit the army generallyexcept in an assembly: and there is no mention ofone, indeed the reply of Agamemnon 1 is hardly suchas would have been given in one. It is likely, then,that those whom he addressed were Agamemnon's ha-bitual and ordinary associates; in other words, thechiefs.

When Calchas proceeds to invoke the vengeance ofApollo, which is to fall upon the army at large, it isno longer the 'Ayaioi of whom he speaks, but hisprayer is,

TureCav Aavaol e/xa b&Kpva aoicn (3e\eircntJr-

Although I do not concur with those, who find noelement of real freedom in the condition of the Greekmasses, whether at home or in the camp, yet it seemsplain enough, from the nature of the case, that the ques-tions relating to the division of booty, as being necessa-rily an executive affair, must have been decided by thechiefs. Now whenever questions of this class are handled,we generally find such an office ascribed to 'A^aio/.Agamemnon saysy Do not let me alone of the Argeiansgo without a prize;' and in conformity with this wefind Nestor stimulating the host at large with theexpectation of booty1. But Achilles replies to Aga-memnon, ' that the Achceans have it not in theirpower to compensate him there and then, for theyhave no common stock:' but ' when Troy is taken,

P II. i. 15, 22. 1 i. 26-32. >' i. 42.s i. 118. t ii. 354.

Signs of its leaning to the aristocracy. 409

then we the Achaeans will repay you three and fourfold". The same subject is again touched in i. 135,162,392. ii.227: and both times with reference to the'Amatolas the distributors of the spoil. In Il.ii.255 ^ ^s allottedby the tfpwes Actvao/.

In the same way we find a decided leaning to theuse of the word 'Amatol, when reference is made toother governing duties.

For instance, in the adjuration of Achilles by thestaff or sceptre. ' It has been stripped of leaf and bark,and now the we? 'A^UIM, who are intrusted by Jupiterwith sovereign functions, bear it in hand".' It is hardlypossible here to construe the phrase without limiting itto the chiefs.

I have referred to the passage where Homer intro-duces the word 'Apyeioi for the first time, under theshadow, as it were, of 'A-^aiol. Now, if we examinethat passage, we shall perceive that unless there besome shade whatever of difference in the meaning, thewords are tautological, an imputation which Homernever merits. But if we admit in the Achaean namea certain bias towards the nobles of the army, then thesense and expressions are alike appropriate.' ' I fearthe resentment of him, who mightily lords it over (all)the Greeks, and to whom even the Achaeans (or chiefs)submit themselves?.'

Again the phrase 'A^ato? avtjpz, twice used by Ho-mer, and both times in the mouth of Priam from theTrojan wall, both times also refers to noble and chief-tainlike figures, which his eye, keen for beauty, discernsamong the crowd. The second case is particularlyworthy of notice:

u II. i. 123,127. * i. ?37. y i. 78.z ill. 167, 226.

410 II. Ethnology.

Tty T' &p ob' ak\os 'Axaios avrip rjvs re piyas re,

*£°X0S 'Apyeicov K.e<pakrji> TJS1 evpeas WJXOVS ;

Of which the effect seems to be expressed in thesewords:

Who is th' Achaean ChieftainSo beautiful and tall ?

His shoulders broad surmount the crowd,His head outtops them all.

Here again, if Achaean and Argeian be synonymous,the use of the latter word is in the highest degree in-sipid, but if the reference be to the chief, excelling inheight the mass of the soldiery, a perfect propriety ismaintained.

I need not extend these illustrations to other pas-sages, such as II. ii.80,346. ix.670. And, on the otherhand, it is easy to point to passages where the force ofthe Achaean and Argeian names is obviously identical,such as II. ix. 521 : or again where Achaean and Da-naan must agree, as in II. ix. 641, 2. The most fre-quent use of the Achaean name is, I believe, for thenation, and not the race or class: yet a number of pas-sages remain to show the native bias and primitivemeaning of the word.

I will however point out two more places, one ineach poem, where that shading of the sense, for whichI contend, will either greatly facilitate the renderingof the text, or even may be called requisite in order toattain a tolerable construction.

1. It deserves particular notice, that Homer some-times places the words in very close proximity, as in thefollowing passage;

vt]5>v erf apiarepa brjioavTo

Xaol VT? 'ApyeCwv T&xa 3' av KCU KCSOS 7A\ai&v

eirXeTo' rows yap Fat^oxos ''Rvvotriyaios

&rpvv 'Apyewvv

Signs of its leaning to the aristocracy. 411

This is in II. xiii. 676-8, and Aavawv follows in 680.The nearness of the words, and the place of 'A%aio),between the twice used 'Apyeiot, is highly insipid andun-Homeric, if they are pure equivalents. But now itseems by no means impossible, that the Poet may in thispassage have in view a distinction between the leadersand the mass. He may have meant to say, • Hectorhad not yet learned that his men were suffering havockon the left from the Greek troops. But so it was; andthe chiefs might now perhaps have won fame, such wasthe might with which. Neptune urged on their forces,'but that, &c.

2. It is difficult, except upon the supposition of adifferent shade of meaning in these appellatives, toconstrue at all such a passage as

"Ikiov, 'ApyeiW re veas, KCU VOCTTOV ''hyjxi&v*.

Here the juxtaposition of the words, if they are syno-nymous, becomes absolutely intolerable. But the senseruns easily and naturally, if we render it ' he inquired(of me) all about (the fall of) Troy, and the fleet (orarmament) of the Greeks, and the adventures of thechiefs while on their way home.'

The Odyssey, however, appears to offer a larger con-tribution towards our means of comprehending theHomeric use of 'Ajaioi, than can be supplied by themere citation of particular passages.

There is considerable evidence of a division of racesin Ithaca: and also of the application of the Achaeanname to the aristocracy of the country.

The length of time during which Ulysses had beenabsent, will account for much disorganization in his

a 0(1. X. 14.

412 II. Ethnology.

dominions: and their lying chiefly in separate insularpossessions would tend to aggravate the evil. Stillnot only Nestor, Idomeneusb, Philoctetes, Neopto-lemus, but also Menelaus, who was absent almost aslong as Ulysses himself, appear to have resumed theirrespective thrones without difficulty; so that we areled to suppose there must have been much peculiarityin the case of Ithaca. Part of this we may find in thefact, that the family of Ulysses may but recently haveattained to power, and that the consolidation of raceswas imperfect. Besides his force of character, he hadaccumulated0 great wealth, following in the footstepsof his father Laertes, who was both a conqueror andan economist*1. His power, thus depending on whatwas personal to himself, could not but be shaken toits very base by his departure, and by his long detentionin foreign parts.

So far as we can learn from the text of Homer, thefamily of Ulysses had come, like the other Hellicfamilies, from the north: and it had only reigned inIthaca at most for two generations. His extraction isnot stated further back than his paternal grandfatherArceisiuse. But his connections all appear to be in thenorth. His maternal grandfather, Autolycusf, lived byParnesus, or Parnassus, in Phocis, near to Delphi. Andhis wife's father, Icarius, had a daughter Iphthime,who was married to EumelusS, heir-apparent of Phersein the south of Thessaly: a circumstance which affordsa presumption of proximity in their dominions. Thusit is probable that Laertes may have married in Thes-saly ; and, as we have no mention of the sovereignty ofArceisius, it is highly probable that Laertes was the

b Od. iii. 188,9. c Od. xiv. 96. d Od. xxiv. 377, and 205-7.e Od. xvi. 118. f Od. xix. 394. g Od. iv. 798.

Its application within Ithaca. 413

first, either to acquire the Ithacan throne, or at least tohold it for any length of time.

The fountain near the city, which supplied it withwater, and which probably marks its foundation, wasconstructed, as we are told, by Ithacus, Neritus, andPolyctorh.

The first must have been the Eponymist of the island :the second of its principal mountain1.

Peisander, called ava£ and IIoAu/cTojo/&/?k, is one offour principal Suitors, whose gifts to Penelope are spe-cifically mentioned in the Eighteenth Odyssey. Thushe would appear to have been most probably nephewto the Eponymist of the island. Sometimes indeedthe patronymic is derived from a grandfather, or even,as in the case of Priam (AapSavlSijs, II. xxiv. 629, 631),from a remote ancestor; but then he must apparentlybe a founder, or one of the highest fame. But Peisanderat the least may have been the son of Polyctor; and hewas probably the representative of the family, which hadbeen displaced from the Sovereignty by the house ofLaertes. He afterwards appears among the leaders inthe struggle of the Suitors with Ulysses1.

The names applied to the subjects of Ulysses in theOdyssey are three : KecpaWtjve?, ''IdaKqa-ioi, and 'Amatol.In accordance with its use in the Iliad, the first ofthese, which is but four times™ used, appears to be aname of the whole people of the state; and, judgingfrom what we have seen of the force of the word, itimplies that the Hellenic element was dominant. Thedifference in the use of the other two is very marked.

In the first place, the Suitors are commonly called

h Od. xvii. 205-7. ' Od. ix. 22. k Od. xviii. 299.1 Od. xxii. 243. m Od. xxi. 210. xxiv. 354. 377. 428.

414 II. Ethnology.

'A^aioln, never 'lOaicr/a-toi, nor ever Aavaol or 'Either, being the aristocracy, they were an Achaeanrace; or else, without all being of Achsean race, theywere called Achaean, because they were the aristocracy.Of that class they are stated to have constituted thewhole0.

The more probable of these two suppositions is, thatthey were by no means exclusively of Achaean blood,but took the name from their birth and station. It ismost natural to suppose that the displaced family ofPeisand'er, and probably others, were not Achaean, butbelonged to an older stock. This stock may have beenHellenic ; for, as we know, there were Hellenic, and inparticular iEolid, families in Greece long before we hearof the Achseans there.

The house of Ulysses still indeed had friends in theisland, like Mentor, like Noemon, son of Phronius, (orthe class represented by these names, if they be typicalonly,) or like Peirseus, who took charge of Theocly-menus at the request of Telemachus P. But the bulkof the people were neutral, or else unfriendly. Thebest that Telemachus can say is, that the whole peopleis not hostilei. And in the last Book, whilst morethan one half the Assembly take up arms againstUlysses the rest simply1"remain neutral: so that he hasno one to rely upon but his father, his son, and a merehandful of dependents.

While the Achaean name is thus exclusively appliedto the Suitors, and apparently to them because theyformed the aristocracy, the people, when assembled,

n Od. i. 394. 401. ii. 87. 90. 106. 112. 115. xviii. 301, et alibi.0 Od. ii. 51. xvi. 122. P Od. ii. 386. xv. 545.

q Od. xvi. 114. " Od. xxiv. 463.

Its application within Ithaca. 415

are invariably addressed as 'lOaKfaioi. It is said indeed,that the Achseanss were summoned by the heralds tothe Assembly of the Second Book: but it seems tohave been customary to send a special summons onlyto principal persons, as we find in Scheria*; though allclasses were expected to attend, and did attend.

I do not, however, venture to treat it as certain, thatthe word 'A^cno! is not applied to the population ofIthaca generally. When Euripides addresses the As-sembly, and incites the people to revenge the death ofthe Suitors, we are told that OIKTOS S1 e'Ae Travras'A^atouy. This may mean the aristocratic party in theAssembly, as we know that there were two sectionsvery differently minded. At any rate, if the wholepeople be meant, it is by the rarest possible exception.The name is applied, as we should expect, to the sol-diers who sailed with Ulysses to Troy: but within Ithacait seems clear that the name properly denotes the nobles.And upon the whole it seems most probable, that these'Ax««o(, in the Twenty-third Book, are the party of theSuitors, with reference rather to their position in societythan their extraction: while the minority, who do notjoin in the movement against Ulysses, are probably theold population of the island, who have no cause ofquarrel to make them take up arms against him, andyet no such tie with him, either of race or of ancientsubordination, as to induce them to move in his favour.

Ithaca was ill fitted for tillage, or for feeding any-thing but sheep and goats. And Ithacus, its eponymist,being a very modern personage, it seems highly pro-bable that, whether Achaean or not, he. and his racewere Hellenic, and gave to the population that peculiar

s Od. ii. 7. * Oil. viii. 11.

416 II. Ethnology.

name of Cephallenes, under which Laertes describesthem as his subjects. But there were probably anteriorinhabitants of the old Pelasgian stock, submerged be-neath two Hellenic immigrations, caring little which oftheir lords was uppermost, and forming the supineminority of the final Assembly.

The use of the Achaean name in Ithaca, in broadseparation from the Ithacesian, must then prove eitherits connection with a race, or its bias towards a class,and may prove both. But quitting the latter as suffi-ciently demonstrated, I now proceed to trace the localuse of the Achaean name.

And, first of all, we find it locally used in theNorth; in that Thessaly, where the name of Hellascame into being, and from whence it extended itself tothe Southward; therefore in the closest connectionwith the Hellic stem.

We are told in the Catalogue, with respect to thedivision under Achilles, after the names of the districtsand places from which they came,

Mvp/xiboves 8e KaKevvro, KaV'EXX'qves, KM 'Amatol".

Now we find throughout the Iliad, that the local ordivisional name of this body is unchanging: the troopsof Achilles are uniformly denominated Myrmidons.Therefore Homer does not mean that one part wereMyrmidons, another Hellenes, another Achseans, butthat the three names attached to the whole body, ofcourse in different respects. They were then Myrmi-dons, whatever the source of that name may havebeen, by common designation. They were Hellenes,because inhabitants of Hellas, of the territory fromwhence the influence and range of that name had

u II. ii. 624.

Local uses of the Achaean name. 417

already begun to radiate, more properly and eminentlytherefore Hellenes, than others who had not so posi-tively acquired the name, though they may have beenincluded in the Ilai 'AA^er. And manifestly they couldonly be called 'A^ato!, because known to be underleaders of the pure Achsean stock, who were entitledto carry the name in their own right, instead of bearingit only in a derivative sense, and because it had spread allover Greece. Of this peculiar and eminent Achseanismin the Peleid stock, we have, I think, two other signsfrom the poems: one in the possible meaning of thelove of Juno, which we have seen extended to Achillesin an equal degree with Agamemnon; the other in themarriage of Hermione to Neoptolemus, which wasfounded upon a promise given by Menelaus her fatherwhile before Troy. Doubtless the eminent services ofNeoptolemus might be the sole ground of this promise:but it may also have had to do with kin, as some specialrelation, of neighbourhood or otherwise, appears com-monly to accompany these matrimonial connections.In conformity with this passage, the name 'A^atiSes isapplied by Achilles in the Ninth Book to the womenof Hellas and Phthia.

It is wonderfully illustrative of the perspicacity andaccuracy of Homer, to find that, in this very spot,which he has so especially marked with the Achseanname, it continued to subsist as a local appellation,and to subsist here almost exclusively, all through thehistoric ages of Greece. On this subject we shall havefurther occasion to touch.

2. Of the five races who inhabited Crete at the timeof the Troica, one was Achaean*:

x Od. xix. 175-7.E e

418 II. Ethnology.

kv jj.ev 'Amatol

iv 5' 'EreoKprJTes //eya\?jropey, kv 6e Kvba>vfs,

AwjOte'es re rpixaLK.es, bwi re YleXaa-yoL

The presence of an Achaean tribe in Crete may havebeen due to its constant intercourse with Eastern Pe-loponnesus^, where the Achaeans had for some timebeen dominant: or to those relations with Thessaly, towhich the name of Deucalion in Homer bears probablewitness. In any case, the passage clearly - establishesthe local virtue of the name. It also exhibits to usAchaeans as distinct from Dorians, and shows us thatthere were a variety of branches, known to Homer, ofthe Hellenic tree. And the enumeration of the Achaeanand Pelasgian races with others in this place, comparedwith the uniform description in the Iliad of the wholeforce of Idomeneus as Cretan, shows us how carefulHomer was to avoid such confusion as the juxtaposi-tion of Achaeans and Pelasgians would have causedwith reference to the main ethnical division in theIliad.

3. In the Pylian raid of the Eleventh Book, Nestorcarefully distinguishes between the parties, as Epeans,also called Elians, on the one side, and Pylians, alsocalled Achaeans, on the other2. This raid took place inhis early youth, perhaps forty or fifty years before theTroica, and within the Achaean epoch. And as hewithholds the Achaean name from the other party, theyplainly were not Achaean in the limited sense. Andyet they were Hellenic: for, among other Hellenicsigns, Augeas, the king of the Epeans, was an ava% av-Spu>v. Thus again we have Achaean fixed as a sub-division, though probably the principal subdivision, ofthe Hellenic race.

y II. iii. 232. * II. xi. 671, 94, 732, 7. xi. 687, 724, 37, 53, 59.

Local uses of the Achwan name. 419

4. A fourth case, in which the Achaean name appearsclearly to have a limited signification, is in a secondpassage of the Greek Catalogue, where a part of theforces of Diomed are described as those,

01 r expv Alyivqv, Mdcrrjra re, Kovpoi'AyaiG>va.

Although Mases has been taken to be a town, yet itsjunction here with JEgina perhaps rather points to itas an island. It appears to be admitted that its site isunknown. And an extra-Homeric tradition11 reports,that the small islands off the Troezenian coast werecalled after Pel ops. It is impossible not to observethe correspondence between this tradition, and the in-direct traditions afforded us by Homer's language inthis verse. For in the Catalogue he seems carefully toavoid repeating the general Greek appellatives in con-nection with the inhabitants of particular places, and togive them local and special names only. It follows irre-sistibly, that therefore he must be understood here tospeak of the distinct race and local name of Achseans :to which race and name would naturally belong anysettlers brought by Pelops into Southern Greece.

And, as Homer does not discontinue altogether theapplication of the Argeian name to the inhabitants ofArgolis, he probably in this place means to distinguishAchseans not only from other Greek races, but evenfrom other subjects of Tydeus and of Diomed, whowould most properly be called Argeians.

It thus appears, that twice in the Catalogue Homerhas occasion to use the Achsean name locally, and inits original or, so to speak, gentile sense. And accord-ingly he has been careful not to risk confusion by em-ploying it in its wider signification either at the com-

a II. ii. 562. b Pausanias ii. 321.

E e 2

420 II. Ethnology.

meneement of the Catalogue or at the close. In bothcases he uses the word Aavaol; the only one of hisgreat appellatives which nowhere takes a local orotherwise varied meaning. When he begins he invitesthe Muse to tell him, v. 487,

otrives rjyefJLOves Aava&v KO.1 Koipavoi tftrav.

So also at the close, v. 760, he sums up in these words,

OVTOI ap fjyenoves Aava&v /cat Koipavoi rj<rav.

5. As Nestor applies the Achaean name to the inha-bitants of Pylos, so from the time of the Pelopid swayit becomes applicable to those of Eastern Peloponnesusgenerally, in a sense wider than that of II. ii.562, butyet narrower than the national one. In II. iv. 384, andII. v. 803, those, from among whom Tydeus set out forThebes, are called 'Amatol. So also in the colloquywith Glaucus, Diomed calls the comrades of his fatheron that occasion by the same name (II. vi. 223). Herepeats the name in his prayer to Minerva, II. x. 286,7;and here he is careful to distinguish them from the The-bans of that epoch, who are Ka.8fj.eiot (288).

6. In further prosecution of the same subject, wehave yet to consider the force of the kindred Homericword Tlava^aiol.

This is undoubtedly a term that challenges particularnotice. No writer is so little wont as Homer to varyhis expressions without a reason for it. But since theword ' Axaiol is used many hundred times as the simpleequipollent of Greek, it cannot require the prefix iravto enable it to convey this sense effectually. There-fore to suppose that TLavayouo\ means Greeks and no-thing more, would render the prefix unmeaning, and Iconclude that such cannot be an adequate explanationof its purpose. But if we construe the word as having

The name Ylavaxcuoi.

a specific reference not only to the aggregate, but tothe parts of which it is made up, then the prefix vavbecomes abundantly charged with meaning. The wordUava^aiol will in this view mean what we should call' all classes of the Greeks,' ' the Greeks from the high-est to the lowest.'

It is used, in all, eleven times. Of these elevenpassages, seven times it appears in the expression api-o-TJJe? Tlava^aioov. Here the preceding word apio-rrjesat once directs the mind to this notice of the differentclasses, and receives much force from the distinctive par-ticle vav: as we may judge from the fact that Homernever but once (ojOtcn-jJe? Aavawv, II. xvii. 225) appendsthe appellative in its simple form to apiartjes. Theprefix irav seems to strip the idea of conventionality,and to make it real: the chiefs are the pick and flowerof the whole Greek array.

Only in one other passage of the Iliad do we findUavayaiol; it is in the peroration of the speech ofUlysses to Achilles0:

el bi TOL 'ArpeiSrjy ykv anrf^Oero lajpoOi fj,a\\ov,

avrbs Kai rov b&pa, crti §' aWovs irep Uava\aiovs

reipofxevovs ekeaipe Kara crrpaTov.

' Still, if you detest (the king) Atrides from your heartever so much, him and his gifts, yet pity the Greeksthroughout the army, now suffering from the highestto the lowest.' The force of the TLava-^aioi Kara a-rpa-TOV is here very marked.

Lastly, in the Odyssey we find the line thrice re-peated,

T(3 niv 01 rv}J.[ibv (lev enoiriaav Uava)(aioi,

and always in the same connection with the death ofsome select and beloved hero of the army. Its obvious

c II. ix. 300.

II. Ethnology.

sense is, ' all classes of the Greeks would have joinedto do him honour, by lending a hand to raise hisfuneral mound.'

In every one of these cases therefore the word Tiav-a-^aiol seems to express the combination of all classes,and thus to point distinctly to the word 'Amatol as capa-ble of signifying something less than all classes, namely,one, that is, the ruling class.

The construction thus put upon Uavaxaiol is in con-formity with Homer's usual mode of employing suchwords as the adjective TTC<? and the preposition aw incomposition. We have previously seen the intensiveforce of Tray in Tray "Ayoyo? and Tlave\\t]vei. And Trci?

itself receives additional power from aw. As in U. i.,where Achilles, having just before reminded Calchas ofhis office as Seer to the Aavaoi, proceeds to assure himthat no one of the Greeks shall hurt him for doing hisduty, it is now no one, not of the Aavaoi merely, but ofthe arvfAiravres Aavaoi; no, not even if he name Agamem-non himself as the guilty person"1.

It is hardly necessary to point out how accuratelyall this coincides with the general results to which wehave been already led. According to these, the bulk ofthe Greeks were a Pelasgian population, under thesway of ruling tribes and families, belonging to anotherrace; among which the most powerful were those be-longing to the Achaean stock; and whose Argeian namewas etymologically, and perhaps practically, a sort ofsubstitute for the older Pelasgian one.

Nor is there difficulty in conceiving how, if theAchseans became the dominant race in the most im-portant parts of Greece, they might, without constitut-ing a numerical majority, give their name to the mass

d II. i. 85-91.

The JEolid and vEolian names.

of the people, and to the country itself, as Britain andBritons became England and English from the Angles,or as Lombardy took its name from tbe Lombards,and, unhappily, European Turkey, once the civil headof Christendom, from the Turks.

It has been customary to speak of the question whe-ther Homer was an JEolian Greek: to give the iEolianname to the forms of the Greek language prevailing inhis time: and to describe the Achseans as a branch ofthe iEolians. With certain exceptions, says Straboe,the iEolian name still prevails outside the Isthmus ;and it also covered the Peloponnesus, till a mixturetook place. The Ionians from Attica had occupiediEgialus; and when the Heraclids, with the Dorians,became masters of many Peloponnesian cities, theIonians were expelled in their turn tiro 'A^aiwv, AloXi-KOV 'iQvovs, after which two %Qvr\ only remained in Pelo-ponnesus, the iEolian and the Dorian.

Again, as respects the digamma, Heynef most justlyobserves that it may much more justly be called Pelas-gic than iEolic ; since the iEolians, as far as we know,only retained it, after having found it in use with thePelasgi. But in general, to those who ground their judg-ments on the Homeric text, the whole view of the rela-tion of Achseans and iEolians, as it is commonly given,will appear a false one. In the first place the iEoliansas a nation or tribe are wholly post-Homeric: unlesswe are bold enough to find some modification of theirname in the AiVwAoi. The iEolid families, indeed, ofHomer have evidently a great position, which we shallfurther discuss &: but they simply fall for the timeunder the general name of Achseans, as much as any

e B. viii. c. i. p. 333. f Horn. II. vol. vii. p. 711.s See inf. sect. ix.

424 II. Ethnology.

other families, and more than families like the iEacidse,who were in close political relations with a race bear-ing a designation of its own, namely, the Myrmidons.This nowhere appears to have been the case with theiEolians. On the contrary, the Neleids, though theywere of illegitimate birth, may perhaps be considered asbelonging to the iEolidse; but their subjects actuallybore the name of Achseans, besides their territorialname of Pyliansh. With respect to the epoch of theTroica, instead of calling the Achseans an iEolic race,it would be more reasonable to call the JEolids (asthere was nothing more extensive than a patronymicconnected with that name) Achaean houses. I do nothowever mean that they were properly such: for theiEolid name appears in Southern Greece before theAchaean, and was probably an older branch from thesame trunk.

The subsequent prevalence of the jEolian as com-pared with the Achaean name, (the Hellenic, however,overlying and soon absorbing both,) appears to point toone of two suppositions. Either there was an originalJEolian tribe, which has escaped notice altogether inHomer, as the Dorians have all but escaped it: or else,and more probably, it may have happened that part atleast of these iEolian houses held their ground inGreece, while the Achsean name, which had been ele-vated by the political predominance of the Pelopidsovereigns, collapsed upon the loss of that predomi-nance. It was to be expected that the name shouldshare in the downfall of the race, when the Heraclidand Dorian invasion expelled the bearers of it from theseat of their power, and reduced them first to be fugi-tives, and then to settle in a mere strip of the Pelo-

h Sup. p. 352.

The Heraclids in Homer. 4*25

ponnesus; a single region of narrow scope, and, as isremarked by Polybius* after many centuries, of smallweight and influence, which from them was calledAchaea. The fact that the Dorian name is all butunknown to Homer, while the Achaean one is at itszenith, not only heroically, as in the Iliad, but in theevery day familiar use of Ithaca throughout the Odys-sey, is to me one of several strong presumptions, notcountervailed by any evidence of equal strength, thatHomer could not have lived to see that great revolu-tion, which so completely effaced the ethnical landmarks,and altered the condition, of Southern Greece.

There is certainly a striking analogy between therelation of the iEolid houses named in Homer to theafterwards prevalent and powerful iEolian race, andthat of the Heraclid families, also named by him,to the Dorian race, which in like manner grewfrom obscurity in the Homeric period to such greatafter-celebrity. Hercules himself appears before us inthe ancient legend as the great Dorian hero, ' every-where paving the road for his people and their worship,and protecting them from other races V The onlyHeraclids mentioned nominally by Homer are Tlepole-mus, Pheidippus, Ant iphus; and there are otherswithout names specified1: none of these, or of theGreeks of the expedition, are called Dorians, while,again, none of the Heraclids of Homer are called bythe Achaean or iEolid names. They may have beenDorian houses, like the iEolid houses; and the namemay have become tribal afterwards, when they rose topower. The tradition of the reception of certain He-raclids in Attica appears to have been recognised by

i Polyb. b. ii. c. 38. k Miiller, Dorians, ii. n . 6.1 II. ii. 653. 665. 678. v. 628.

426 II. Ethnology.

the Lacedaemonians in the historic agesm, and in thesupposition of a friendship thus established, we mayperhaps find the true explanation of the Decelean pri-vilege mentioned by Herodotus".

In arranging chronologically the Danaan, Argeian,and Achaean names of Homer, we give the first placeto Danaan, and the next to Argeian, so as to bring theDanaans nearest to the Pelasgi. But the real meaningof this is simply that the three names were suggested toHomer by three periods of Greek history, which stand inthe order given to the names. If, however, instead oftracing the purpose of the Poet, we are to look for eth-nical history, then we must state that the Danaan namedoes not denote a change of race, but it is a mere foreignaffix to the closing portion of the Pelasgian period.Nor does the Argeian name, if we suppose it to havebeen a sort of translation or reconstruction of the Pe-lasgian, directly indicate the Hellenic infusion ; but themere fact of its substitution for a preceding appellationappears to presuppose a cause. Homer, indeed, givesus no Greek stories of the Danaid period, so that wedo not certainly know that he might not have describedthe Greeks of that period also as Argeian. All we cansay positively is, that his use of the Argeian namede facto begins with the epoch of the first Hellenicthrone in Greece, that of the Perseids. I hope toshow that the Achaean name and that of Perseus be-long in truth to the same stock and origin °: but it iswith the Pelopids only that the Achaean name appears,and it denotes the second stage of the Hellenic pre-ponderance, as the Argeian name marks the first, andthe Dorian the third. The first, or Argeian, stage be-longs partly, as I believe, to the house of Perseus, but

m Miiller ii. 11.10. n Sup. p. 88. o Inf. s e c t . x.

Descent of the JEolids. 427

partly, as is clear from the Homeric text, to the housesdescended from iEolus.

iEolus himself is nowhere mentioned in Homer.The oldest AloXlSai given to us as such are Sisyphusand Cretheus. The patronymic does not of itselfenable us to dete'rmine whether these were sons ofiEolus, or were more remotely descended from him.But indirectly we may perhaps be enabled to fix hisdate, as follows:

i. Bellerophon the grandson of SisyphusP, is calledby the contemporary Lycian king, the offspring of thedeity, that is, of Jupiter:

yCyvtoane 6eov yovov r\vv kovra^.

The meaning of this can only be that the person, whomHomer has indicated as the founder of the race, namelyiEolus, was a reputed son of Jupiter.

i. In the Ne/cui'o of the Eleventh Odyssey we areintroduced to Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus, andthe wife of Cretheusr. She is decorated with the epi-thet einraTepeia, never given elsewhere by Homer exceptto Helen, and apparently an equivalent with him forAto? etcyeyavia.

It is by no means unlikely, I would venture to sug-gest, that a similar force may lie in the epithet Sal-moneus, who is here called afivfioiv. That epithet isindeed sometimes applied on the ground of personalcharacter. But Homer also gives it to the villainiEgisthus, which appears quite inexplicable except onthe ground of the divine descent of the Pelopidss.The later tradition has loaded Salmoneus with thecrime of audacious profanity: and it has also, begin-ning with Hesiod4, made him a son of iEolus. The

P II. vi. 154, 5. 1 Ibid. 191. r Od. xi. 235-7.8 Inf. sect. ix. * Fragm. xxviii.

428 II. Ethnology.

word afxvfxwv, combined with the evvarepeia of Tyro,leaves little room for doubt that perhaps both, and cer-tainly the latter of these representations are agreeableto the sense of Homer. If so, then Tyro was a grand-daughter of IEolus; and we can at once fix his datefrom Homer, as follows:

1. iEolus.2. Salmoneus, Od. xi. 235-7.3. Tyro = Cretheus, ibid.4. Pheres, Od. xi. 259.5. Admetus, U. ii. 711-15, 763.6. Eumelus, ibid, and Od. iv. 798.

From which last cited passage I set down Eumelus as thecontemporary of his brother-in-law Ulysses, and half ageneration senior to the standard age of the war.

We have also the collateral line of Sisyphus fromiEolus as follows: 1. Sisyphus; 2. Glaucus (1);3. Bellerophon; 4. Hippolochus; 5. Glaucus (2), con-temporary with the waru. According to this tableSisyphus might be either the son or the grandson ofiEolus.

And again, Cretheus, who like Sisyphus is AloXlStn,may have been either the uncle or the cousin of hiswife Tyro. The Fragment of Hesiod would make bothhim and Sisyphus sons of iEolus, and therefore unclesto Tyro.

These genealogies are in perfect keeping with whatHomer tells us of the Neleid line. Tyro, he says, fellin love with Enipeus. In the likeness of that river,Neptune had access to her, and she bore to him twosons, Pelias and Neleus. Neleus is the father ofNestor: and Nestor stands one generation senior toEumelus; for he was in his third tri-decadal periodx,

11 II. vi. 154, 197, 206. x n_ }, 250.

Earliest Hellenic thrones in Greece. 429

if the expression may be allowed, during the action ofthe Iliad. Thus we have (as before), 3. Tyro; 4. Ne-leus; 5. Nestor; 6. Nestor. The maternal genealogyof Eumelus brings us exactly to the same point: forAlcestis, the daughter of Pelias, was married to hisfather Admetusy.

Thus the iEolid genealogies are laid down by Homerwith great clearness, except as to the first interval, andwith a singular self-consistency. Perseus2, as we haveseen, belongs to the fifth generation before the war.This is nearly the same with Sisyphus, and with Cre-theus: and we are thus enabled to determine withtolerable certainty the epoch of the first Hellenic in-fusion into Greece. It precedes the arrival of Por-theus in iEtolia by one generation, and that of Pelopsby two.

Of Sisyphus we know from Homer, that he lived atan Ephyre on or near the Isthmus of Corinth. It isnot so clear whether Cretheus ever came into thePeloponnesus. There is an Enipeus of Elis: but thereis also onea of Thessaly, which was doubtless its origi-nal. The name, however, of the Thessalian streamappears to have been written Eniseus. Nitzschb de-termines, on insufficient grounds as far as I can judge,that the passage of Od. xi. cannot mean the Enipeusof Pisatis. I can find no conclusive evidence eitherway: but Sisyphus was certainly in Southern Greeceat or before this time, so that we need not wonder ifCretheus, another iEolid, was there also. His reputedson Neleus founded, without doubt, the kingdom ofPylos. Post-Homeric tradition places even Salmoneus,the father of Tyro, in Elis.

y II. ii. 714. z Sup. p. 364. a Thuc. iv. 78.b On Od. iii. 4.

430 II. Ethnology.

We have now before us an outline of the firstentrance of Hellic elements into Greece, south ofThessaly. It seems to have been effected by fivefamilies;

1. The house of Perseus.2. That of Sisyphus.3. The illegitimate line of Cretheus, or the Neleids.4. Probably the legitimate line of Salmoneus, repre-

sented in Augeas.5. Next to these will come Portheus, the head of the

(Eneidse in iEtolia: and only then follows the greathouse of the Pelopids, not alone, but in conjunctionwith a race, to whose history we now must turn.

Of the Danaid and Perseid princes we have no rea-son to suppose, that they enjoyed the extended powerwhich was wielded by Agamemnon. Not only wouldthey appear to have been circumscribed, latterly at least,by the Minoan empire founded in Crete, but Homergives us no intimation that their dominion at any timeincluded the possession of a supremacy over a numberof subordinate princes beyond their own immediateborders, or reached beyond the territory which may begenerally described as the Eastern Peloponnesus.

A direct inference bearing on this subject may beobtained from the passage concerning the sceptre ofAgamemnon0: for the Pelopids do not succeed to thatof Eurystheus and the Perseids, but they hold fromJupiter: which seems to imply that they acquiredmuch more, than had been under the sway of theirpredecessors. Probably therefore we shall do well toconclude that Eurystheus, for example, had a limitedrealm, and that by land only: Agamemnon, a certainsupremacy by land and sea, within the range of which

c II. ii. 101-8.

Use of the Danaan and Argeian names poetical.

the old Minoan empire had now fallen. Still thekingdom of Eurystheus was probably in its own daythe greatest, and was also probably the oldest, of allproperly Hellenic kingdoms.

If, then, neither of the prior dynasties of Danaus andPerseus reigned over all Greece, it is unlikely thateither of them could give a name to the whole nation:though they might give a name to the part of thecountry which, having in their time been particularlyfamous and powerful, became under the Pelopids ametropolis, supreme throughout the rest of the coun-try ; and whose people then not only took the name of'AVOUCH for itself, but extended it over the whole ofGreece.

It is thus more than probable that the scope of thename Danai, (if we are to assume that it was then aname in actual use,) under the Danaids, and of the name'Apyeloi under the Perseids, was local, and confined inthe main to Eastern Peloponnesus, where those princesruled ; with the addition of any other parts of the coun-try, over which they might for the time have extendedtheir power. And if so, then we have to suppose thatHomer, having received the traditions of the Danaanand Argeian princes as having been at the head intheir own time of Greek history or legend, gave to thenation by way of a poetical name, but of a poeticalname only, the appellation which their subjects respec-tively had borne, and which had never before been,and never became by any other title than his poeticalauthority, applicable to all the Greeks.

The Achaean name, on the other hand, differs fromthese, first, in, denoting the extension of a particularrace, though not over the whole country, yet throughvery many of its parts, and secondly, in the fact that

432 II. Ethnology.

the ruling house of those who bore the name enjoyeda real political supremacy over both the continent andthe islands. So that it became the most legitimateexponent of Greek nationality, until it had lost both itsextension and its power; the one by compression of itsprincipal tribes into a narrow space : the other by thetransfer of its political prerogatives to the great Dorianfamily of the Spartan kings, after the conquest of theHeraclidae.

When the Achseans had ceased to predominate, therecould be no reason why their name should remainstamped upon their brethren, who boasted of the samedescent, and who had attained to greater force.

As in the Homeric times, while the Achseans werethe leaders of Greece, they might claim to represent

-the whole Hellenic stock, so, when the Dorians had de-throned them and occupied the seat of power, when theiEolian name was widely diffused, and, again, when Athenswith its mixed race became great, and claimed, alongwith its vaunts of antiquity and continuity, to pass over,as Herodotus says, to the Hellenic class, but withoutan Achasan descent, then the Achaean name could nolonger adequately represent the title to nationality, andthe various races naturally fell back on the designationwhich gave no exclusive right or preeminence to anyof them, and which they were all entitled to enjoy incommon. They apparently however chose to be con-nected with the rich plains of Thessaly, where theyfirst learned civilization, and organized their collectiveor national life, rather than with the rude and coarsemanners of their more remote ancestors in the hills.They were therefore not Helli, but Hellenes.

This may be considered as the rationale of the com-mon and palpably manufactured tradition respecting

Summary of the Evidence. 433

Hellen and his family, of which we have the earliestform in Hesiod.

Our conclusions respecting the names by which Ho-mer describes the inhabitants of Greece may now besummed up as follows :

1. We set out from the point at which Greece is,probably for the first time, settled by a race given totillage and pacific habits, under the general name ofPelasgians, with subdivision under minor names of par-ticular tribes, or partially and locally intermixed withfragments of other races.

2. A dynasty of foreign origin, in a portion ofGreece which then became, and ever after continuedto be most famous, leads the march of events; and, ap-parently without displacing the Pelasgians themselves,yet seems to have displaced, in a certain quarter, the Pe-lasgic by the Danaan name; at any rate, it attains to suchcelebrity, that its history, in the eye of Homer, fills thewhole breadth of its own epoch, and its name stands inafter time, poetically at least, for a national title.

3. An Hellenic dynasty of Perseids, belonging to theGreek Peninsula, follows this dynasty; and, effacing thetrace of foreign rule, governs its subjects under theArgeian or Argive name ; which, without reviving thetitle of the Pelasgi, a word now becoming or becomesubordinate, yet like that title is founded on the phy-sical character of the regions in which the populationwas settled, and upon the employments suited thereto.

4. Next appears upon the scene the Achaean name,which bears no mark of relationship to the soil, or toany particular employment, or to any particular epony-mist, but appears to be the designation of a race, notindeed foreign, yet new to the Peloponnesus.

5. A warlike and highly gifted race gradually per-Ff

434 II. Ethnology.

vade different parts of Greece under this name: thePelopids, its ruling family, possessing themselves of thethrone of the Perseids, attain, perhaps through the ex-tended sympathy of Achaean blood, to a national supre-macy. The Achseans are, in fact, become the Greeks ofthe Troic age. They include ./Eolids and .ZEacids, Argives,Boeotians, iEtolians, Epeans, Abantes, Dorians, Arcadians,Ionians, and all the other local tribes, as well as themass of old Pelasgians, who constitute the workingpopulation (so to speak) of the country; some of themby virtue of blood, and the rest by that political union,in which the Achaeans had an undisputed ascendancy.

6. All the characteristics of this race, social and re-ligious, and its close geographical proximity to, if notindeed its identity with, the first-named or MyrmidonHellenes of Homer, appear to derive it from the North,to dissociate it from the Pelasgic, and to unite it withthe Hellic stock.

7. Time passes on; we lose the guiding hand ofHomer; but universal tradition assures us that theDorians, emerging, like those who had preceded them,from the cradle of the nation, lead another and thelast great Hellenic migration southward ; the Pelopidsare driven from the throne of that which may hetermed the metropolitan region of Greece; they mi-grate to an inferior seat, with their followers, andbecome the obscure heads of a secondary State: andthe name of Hellenes, belonging to all the great Greektribes in common, whether of Achaean, iEolid, or Do-rian blood or connection, becomes the grand historicaldesignation of the nation at large.

8. After perhaps eight hundred years of fame andfreedom for Hellas, the iron hand of Roman powerdescends upon her at a time when the old Achaean

Summary of the Evidence. 435

name has revived by means of a democratic confe-deracy, and has once more overspreade the Pelopon-nesus. From this time, Hellas takes her place inhistory only as a minor portion of the Roman empire,even while, by an inward process, she is asserting herintellectual supremacyf, and moulding the literatureand philosophy of her conquerors. But to them poli-tically she is no more than an appendage of theMagna Grcscia, whose glory it is to be a part of impe-rial Italy, and whose name the land of Homer's songmust now assume in virtue of a double relationship;the first, that of their common social base, the oldPelasgi, of whom the Greeks (Tpaiico'i) were probablya part; and the second, that of a more recent colo-nization. Thus the Graic or Greek name, havingexisted, but never having emerged to what may becalled visibility in Hellas, travels round to it again bythe route of Italy, and finally becomes predominant inthis its earliest seat.

Of this intermixture and succession of names de-pendent on the fusion of races, and on political supre-macy, we have sufficient example in our own island. Ithas been inhabited by Britons, Romans, Angles, Saxons,Jutes, Danes, and Normans. All came more or less asconquerors, one following upon the other. But twonames only have left their mark, Britons and Angles:all the others, including the last or Norman conquerors,are submerged. So it has been with the succession ofPelasgians, Achseans, Hellenes, Greeks. Each of thesenames historically superseded the one before it.Apart from them, by the high privilege of Poetry,stand their names in another combination: the Iliad

e Polyb. ii. c 38.1 Hor. Ep. II. i. 156. Grcecia captaferum victorem cepit.

F f 1

436 II. Ethnology.

and Odyssey shew us Danaans, Argeians, and Achseans,as in the main synonymous before Troy: yet each withits own leaning, which makes Aavaol most properlyand by preference ' the soldiery,' 'Apyeioi, ' the masses,'and 'A^ato), ' the chiefs.'

It still remains to observe the immediately subse-quent literary history of these three great appellatives,which the Jiat of Homer made so famous.

Hesiod and the minor Greek poets afford us theonly satisfactory illustration of actual usage, becausethe tragedians may probably have sought, in treatingheroic subjects, to employ the nomenclature of theheroic age. The other poets spoke, of course, accordingto their own respective ages.

In Hesiod we do not find Aavaol at all: 'Apyeios onlyin the singular for Juno: 'Amatol is once used for theGreeks collectively, in a retrospective passage referringto the assembly at AulisS. He uses Have\\rjvesh in thesame poem with the same sense. An important pas-sage of Strabo1 testifies, that both Hesiod and Archilo-chus were acquainted with the use of the names "EX-\rjve$ and UaveWrjves for the Greeks at large; andrefers to works of theirs, now lost, by way of exampleas to the latter term. Both "EXXa? and "EWyves arefreely used in Simonides, who also has 'Apyeioi for theArgives only. And generally these old writers, comingnext after Hesiod, knew nothing of the use of 'Apyeloi,or even of 'Amatol, for the whole nation, while theword Aavaol is not found in them at all.

This is strongly confirmatory, as it appears to me, ofthe propositions I have endeavoured to establish.

Among the tragedians the name 'A^aibs, with its

S "Epya, ii. 269. h Ifta. ii. I46.' Strabo, viii. 6. p. 370.

Its value as primitive history. 437

derivatives, used to some extent by iEschylus, progres-sively declines: the Danaan name holds its groundrather better, and 'Apyeto? better still; though all areeclipsed by the great historical name of Hellenes,•which probably had enjoyed an undisputed prevalencefrom the time of the Dorian conquest. Thus, for poeti-cal use, dealing with the events and characters of theheroic age, they properly fall back upon the names•which Homer employed.

From these successions of name, whether the par-ticular appellation be founded upon lineage or uponphysical incidents, it is not unreasonable to hold thatwe may draw the outlines of a primitive history, atleast with more confidence and satisfaction than byefforts to compound and piece together the miscella-neous and promiscuous traditions of many ages andplaces, set wide apart from one another; in respect towhich, even where we have not to lament the gnawingpower of Time, we, at least, know that the facultiesboth of exaggeration and of invention, stimulated byvanity, rivalry, and self-interest in many other forms,have been at work. It is better to deal with slighterrelics, of which we know the bona fides, than with anabundance of such as have .been falsified. Besides,when we have effectually exhausted the power of thefirst, we may much more profitably use the subsidiarylights which the second will afford us. And the tend-ency of an attempt to invest the Homeric text with anunequivocal supremacy, is to substitute for completeand symmetrical systems, in which the hewn stone andthe trash are not distinguishable one from another,very slight and partial indeed, but yet authoritativefragments and outlines, all the intervals of which arefilled up by avowed conjecture. This conjecture is

438 II. Ethnology.

without a pretence to authority properly so called, butit is, at any rate, both kept visibly apart from what isauthoritative, and likewise founded upon the suggest-ions which even fragmentary testimony, when genuineand near the source, is well qualified to make.

And the succession of names is in effect of itselfalmost a political history. For the names of nationsare not arbitrarily changed, though such things havebeen done to particular cities within the dominion ofparticular states. The names of races, especially ofraces disposed, like the Greeks, to knit themselvesclosely with the past, are cherished as a material por-tion of their patrimony. When they alter, it is forsome great and commanding political reason. Suchas, for example, if some tribe or family, previously notadvanced beyond its fellows, in some great nationalexigency becomes invested with the responsibility ofacting for the whole body, and thus grows to be aswell its representative and organ in all external rela-tions, as also the representative of its inward life: orwhen some conquering dynasty and host have by thestrong hand entered in upon prior occupants of thesoil, and, reducing them to dependence or to servitudemore or less qualified, or narrowing the circle of theirpossessions, have taken into their own custody, toge<-ther with the best lands of the country, the wholerange of public affairs, and have imposed laws upon thevanquished, and imparted to them manners. In thiscase, the different elements are welded into a politicalunity, by a power proceeding from that race whichamong them has possessed the greater physical and mar-tial force. But unless there be more than the merelyconvulsive effort of conquest, unless deep roots bestruck into the soil, and sharper furrows drawn upon

Its value as primitive history. 439

it than the spear alone can carve, or than the wave ofa mere deluge traces, unless, in a word, there be apredominant organizing faculty, the effect will not bepermanent; and the crude mass of mere strength willsink down amid the surrounding milder, but moreenduring and more prevailing impulses. In someinstances it has been so : the body, which has beenstronger in the hand, has proved weaker in the intel-lectual and moral, that is to say, the enduring, ele-ments of power. The undying yet daily influencesand sympathies of peace wear down the convulsivevibrations, which the shock of war and conquest havecommunicated to the social fabric., Victory must endin possession, like toil in sleep. Possession implies thedispersion of the conquerors, and, in such cases as these,their free intermixture with the vanquished. Tiesof neighbourhood, of commerce, of marriage, ties be-longing to all the transactions of life, are gradually mul-tiplied between the new comers and the old; and by agentle process, experience and opinion gradually de-cide, not imperiously in the spirit of party, but insen-sibly for the benefit of all, what laws, what manners,what language k, what religion shall predominate. Thefate of the name follows that of the institutions andhabits with which it was connected; and the old de-signation prevails ultimately over the new, or the newover the old, in proportion as the older inhabitants havecontributed a larger or a smaller share towards the com-mon national life resulting from the combination; inproportion as the newly arrived receive more of impres-sion than they impart, or impart more than they receive.

k The mode of this process, of Spain, in Ticknor's Spanishwith reference to language, is Literature, Appendix A. (vol.beautifully exhibited for the case iii.)

440 II. Ethnology.

SECT. IX.On the Homeric title ava£ avSpwv.

BOTH in modern society, and in the forms of modernlanguage, the distinction is a familiar one, which se-parates between descriptive affixes or epithets, and titlesproperly so called.

A descriptive affix, be it substantive, like Aavaolal^fttiTai, or adjective, like Aavaol (piXoirToXepoi, de-scribes a quality, and challenges from the reader, likeany other phrase conveying an idea, assent to the jus-tice of its description. These descriptive affixes have atendency, from repeated use, to grow into formulce, andthen at length they approximate to the nature of titles.

But a title is quite a different thing from a descrip-tive affix. A title is the current coin of language,which is intended to pass from mouth to mouth with-out examination. It is like a pronoun, having for itsoffice simply to indicate, or to stand for, a particularperson. It is the index of a rank or office, a thing de-terminate in its nature, like an unit of number: and ithas no relation, when once fixed as a title, to personalcharacter, though in its origin it may have beenfounded on the real or presumed existence of personalqualities. Like a descriptive affix, a title maybe eitheradjective, as ' most noble,' or substantive, as ' marquis.'

Titles evidently presume a certain progress in theorganization of political society; while descriptive epi-thets must be used, in order to meet the purposes ofhuman speech, even in its first stages.

This degree of progress must have been attained inthe time of Homer ; for the use of titles in the poems,

Difference between Epithets and Titles. 441

as well as of descriptive epithets, can be clearly madeout.

Among the descriptive epithets of Homer we find,of substantives, fiye/noves, apicrrrjei, and alsoaotSol. Of adjectives, applied to classes,(/3a<Ti\rje$),inrepiJ.evees((3a<Tikrjes), 6eioi(aoi8ol): and appliedto persons, ey^ecppwi' IJriveXoTreia, TjjAeyUa^o? 7T€7rvvfieuof,

TroXvfAtjTts 'OSva-aevs: and many more.

In modern phraseology, duke, earl, baron, knight,esquire, are titles: nobles, clergy, freeholders, bur-gesses, are descriptive phrases. Of a descriptive epi-thet or affix which has grown to be a title, we mayfind instances among those just cited ; knight (knecht)meant originally a servant, then a person performingparticular service to the king ; and esquire (scudiero,ecuyer) meant a person who bore the arms of a knight,particularly his shield. In process of time these be-came titles. Again, words may hang doubtfully uponthe confine between title and epithet; as the muchcriticised expressions of the English Common PrayerBook, ' (our) most religious and gracious (king).'

We find in Homer that the word ftamXevs, a king, hadalready begun to pass from the function of a mere de-scriptive word towards that of a title; for, though rarely,he attaches it to the names of individuals, besides freelyusing it without them; and it is an usual note of titlesproperly so called, that they can, even if substantives,either be combined with the name of the person, or, inaddressing them, substituted for it. In the Iliad wefind 'AXe^dvSpw fiaa-iXrjt, and in the Odyssey "E^eroc/3ao-i\>}a. Again, we find fiao-lXeia used in the Odysseyin the vocativea, which in like manner marks it as atitle.

a Od. iv. 697.

442 II. Ethnology.

The word ava%, again, in Homer, which must on noaccount be confounded with (3acri\evsb, is commonly adescriptive epithet, nearly equivalent to our word lord,and, like it, having an extraordinary elasticity of sense ;for as a person may now be lord, so he might then beava%, of a kingdom, a people, a field, a mine, a slave, ahorse, or a dog. Instances are countless. Sometimesthe meaning is lord, or master, relatively to a particularobject, as of the horses of Nestor,

oi 8£ avaKTOs vvobbeCcravTes O^OKA.T)Z> c

Sometimes it means in the abstract a class of persons,oXoi r e OLVCLKTCOV TiaLbes £a<riv&'

where the avaKTwv TraiSes nearly corresponds with our'children of the higher orders,' i.e. the masters of slaves.

On the other hand, in reference to the immortals,ava£ is sometimes a title : as in II. xvi. 233,

Ze£ ava, Acahdvaie, UeXaayiKe.

There are, however, in Homer various words whichare undoubtedly and uniformly titular. Such are inparticular the adjectives Aiorpecprj? and Aioyevrj?, whichare very nearly equivalent in power to the phrase' Royal Highness' of the present day. They commonlyaccompany the name of the individual, or of the class,to which they belong: and they are confined, with onesingle exception, in the Iliad, to persons of the highestknown rank, that of f3am\evs or king. The exceptionis Phoenix, who is in one place addressed by Achilles

b This caution is not needless, others, render S.va% dv8pS>v, kingas the error is a common one. of men. Voss, with his usualDamm, indeed, most strangely precision, though probably with-says, aval- ex multo augustius out a very specific meaning, trans-nomen quarn fiamXeis (in voc. lates it, 'der herrscher des voUcs.'&vat-). The English translators, c II. xxiii. 417.Chapman, Pope, Cowper, and d 0(1. xiii. 223.

Examples of titles. 443

as yepaie AioTpecpes. But Achilles says thiswhen petting and coaxing the old man, and thereforethe instance does not destroy the force of the generalrule.

In one place we have 6 Aioyevrjse used for Achillesin the third person without his name : which still morestrikingly marks the word as a title. Also Atorpetp^is not unfrequently used in the vocative, without, aswell as with, the name of the person to whom it is ad-dressed. It may possibly be worth notice, that thesewords, Aiorpetprji and Awyev^, are never applied to Aga-memnon, as if they had, again like the phrase ' RoyalHighness,' a limit upwards as well as downwards, andwere not applicable to the supreme head of the na-tion. There is indeed one passage where Agamemnonis addressed as Aiorpefpr}?, but it is in the universallysuspectedf veiana of the Twenty-fourth Odyssey. Plainlythis fact cannot be referred to metrical considerations,even as to Aiorpecp^, because either in the genitive, orin the vocative, it would easily have been made availa-ble : especially in the latter inflexion, for Agamemnonis addressed vocatively some five and twenty times inthe poems. I admit that Ulysses may allude to him inthe line,

0vfj,bs 8e fxfyas f t m AiOTpe<j>zo$ /3ainXrjosS.

But the phrase here is more abstract than personal: itis perhaps as we should say, ' our royal master.'

The word (3a<ri\ev? may have borne originally a merelydescriptive character. But it has only partial traces ofthat character still adhering to it, as it is used in theIliad. The chief note of such a sense, that I can find,is, that it is used in the comparative and superlative todistinguish the Pelopid house from the other kings.

e II. xx. 17. f V . 1 2 1 . s II. ii. 196.

444 II. Ethnology.

Agamemnon is fiaa-tkevTaros, II. ix. 69, and Menelausis evidently intended in the ^ao-iXevrepo? of II. x. 239;where Diomed is bidden to choose the best man, irre-spectively of rank, and not to tie himself to the /3aeri-XevTepos.

As the Odyssey represents a period of political dis-organization, brought about by the long absence of thechiefs, it is not surprising that we find the word fiacn-Xei/?, and its proper epithet Atorpecprii, used in this poemwith greater laxity. The j3a<ri\rjes and the Aiorpecpeh^,are here not the kings but the aristocracy of Scheria,and of the dominions of Ulysses: and it is a compli-ment paid to Telemachus by Theoclymenus, when hesays',

vfxirepov b' OVK eon yivos j3aai\evT€pov akkotv bri[xm '106.KT]S.

Yet even here the special and official sense ofremains: no one is ever called individually aunless he is on the throne, though Antinous is said toresemble one of the king-class,

fiacnXfji yap avbpl eoiicas*-

And the same Antinous sarcastically expresses his hope,that Jupiter will not make Telemachus (3a<ri\eus inIthaca, notwithstanding his right of succession bybirth1. If jSao-tXev? only indicated a certain station,Telemachus without doubt was ftacnXevs already.

The sense proper to it in Homer is that in which, forsome thousands of years, it appears to have maintaineda world-wide celebrity.

And now as respects the constructions which havebeen put upon the phrase ava^ avSpwv. I t is notnoticed by Heyne or by Crusius. Of the translators I

h Od. i. 394. ' Od. xv. 533. k Od. xvii. 416.1 Od. i. 386; cf. 401.

Common interpretations qf&va£ h.vhpS>v. 445

have already spoken. As regards the Lexicographers,Scott and Liddell say ' Agamemnon as general-in-chiefis specially aval- avSpwv, while Orsilochos is called ava£avSpecrcrcv in II. V. 546 ;' but the phrase is irdXeeo-cr av-Speo-o-iv avctKTa, which I take to be simply equivalent toavdarcrovTa, and to have no relation to a phrase or for-mula.

Dammm says it indicates supreme dignity united withmilitary command.

Again; Mure11 remarks, that in common with TTOIMV

Xawv and Kpelwv, ' it denotes the office of any king orchieftain, but more particularly that of a supreme ruleror commander.'

That these explanations are entirely beside themark, I am convinced after a somewhat minute consi-deration.

In answer to Damm, I would observe that the phrasewas applied to iEneas, who was a commander, but nota sovereign : it was applied to Anchises, who was asovereign, but not a commander; it was applied toEumelus, who was neither a sovereign, nor a warriorof any note, and who commanded no more than elevenships.

It does not then depend upon the highest degreeeither of military or of civil elevation.

Nor does it in all cases attach to divine descent,even though that descent be from Jupiter; nor evenif it be immediate or next to immediate: as amongthe living, Sarpedon the son of Jupiter has it not,neither has Polypoetes his grandson (II. ii. 740). So,among the dead, it is not given either to Hercules orto Rhadamanthus0, sons of Jupiter. If, as is probable,reputed extraction from Jupiter in all cases attached

m In voc. "TO^. n Lit. Greece, vol. ii. p. 78. ° II. xiv. 322.

446 II. Ethnology.

to it, it was a remote and not a near extraction, andthus the title was the ornament of an antique lineage;certainly divine descent was not the immediate qualifi-cation for the particular dignity.

I do not dispute, that an idea of divine descent at-taches generally and immediately to sovereigns as such,at least in the Iliad. But this is represented by thewords AtoTpecprjs and Acoyevys, as they bear witness bytheir etymology, and not by ava^ dvSpwv. Indeed weseem to find the word Aiorpecp^ used for heaven-born,without reference to political power, in that line of theOdyssey (v. 378), where Neptune applies it to thePhseacians:

elaoKfv avOp&TTGicn Atorpe^eeo-cri luyeCrfs.

But of those Homeric titles which are specificallyGreek, by far the most remarkable is the title of ava£avSpwv.

It is used by the Poet fifty-two times: fifty times inthe Iliad, twice only in the Odyssey.

It is applied forty-six times to Agamemnon, and sixtimes to five other persons, once for each in four cases,and twice in one. The persons are,

Eumelus, a living Greek.Augeias, )Euphetes, j d e a d

Anchises,

It appears and perishes with Homer, not being foundin the writings of any other Greek author.

It is never used in any of the cases, except the no-minative : never separated from the proper name ofthe person to whom it is applied, except once (II. i. 7),and then only by the particle re: it always precedesthe name except in that single passage: it always ends

Particulars of its use. 447

with the first half of the fifth foot of the verse, exceptin that same passage: and again, the word ava£ isnever separated from the word avSpwv, except once in theOdyssey by the word Se.

It is applied to no person whose name does notbegin with a vowel, and to no person whose name isnot of the metrical value necessary to enable it to formthe last foot and a half of the hexameter: as, Aga-memnon, of two short syllables and two long ones;Euphetes, three long ones; Eumelus, two long andone short. Circumstances, these last, which, if theystood alone, would raise a presumption that the useof it was determined by metrical considerations only.

That metrical considerations had some degree of in-fluence on the use of phrases in Homer, we may suffi-ciently judge, by observing Jhat while Homer uses thename of Achseans four times for that of Argeians once,he uses the forms 'A-^aloia-i and 'A-^aloio-cv but twelvetimes, whereas he uses 'Apyeloiai and 'Apyeloia-iv morethan sixty times.

But we may observe that no metrical considerationscould have prevented Homer from applying the phraseto Diomedes, Polypoetes, or others, whose names differfrom that of Agamemnon only in having a consonantat the beginning of them : and yet he has not donethis: the names of all his six aVa/cTe? avSpwv begin witha vowel. Thus as he restrains himself beyond whatmetre requires, he may have had some reason otherthan metre to govern his use of the title.

The question is, whether there are, evidently or proba-bly, other conditions of substance, which, besides theseof sound, meet in the persons designated by the title,and which enable us to trace and fix its purport?

With reference to Mure's explanation I observe,

448 II. Ethnology.

that it does not appear to take account of the differ-ence between descriptive words in general, and titles,as applicable to Homer; but rather to assume thatthe Homeric phrases are simply of the former class.

I t is plain that the word Kpelwv is a term of that classonly: which, pro tanto, is indicated by its relationshipto the established and ordinary epithet of comparisonKpelao-wv. I t clearly describes the class of those, whobore single-handed rule, in the address to Jupiter,inraTe KpeiovTwv?; and it answers to the epithet princelyin 11. xxiv. 538.

OTTl Ot OVTL

Uaibav ev jxeyapoiai yovrj yivero npeiovroiv.

' For he had not as yet a princely offspring in his home.'

Lower than Bao-iXeuj, which corresponds to the rankimplied by our term ' majesty,' and less wide in sensethan ava£, which corresponds very nearly with ' lord,'it is generally the equivalent as to rank of prince orprincely, according to the English sense of the terms;but it is in Homer always a descriptive word only, andnever a title. Accordingly it is found in the laterGreek writers, when both ava.% avSpwv, and even T O ^ ^

have disappeared.The phrase iroiixnv Xawv is more largely used than

v, and with more appearance of approximation tothat substantive character, and susceptibility of indivi-dual application, which belongs to a title. Thus in

Oi 5' eTiav4crTr}(rav, ireidovro re •noiiiivi XaZv,

(TKrjTrrovxoL (3a<n\rjes%

the (3a<ri\>ies are the members of the Greek (3ov\ri, andvoifj.T]v Xawv means Agamemnon. Like Kpelwv, it wasapplicable to those who held secondary sovereignties,the feudatories, so to speak, of the principal chiefs: as

P II. viii. 31. Od. i. 45. q II. ii. 85.

The Troiixrjv \aS>v of Homer. 449

for instance, we find among the secondary command-ers of the Pylian division,

Atixovd re Kpdovra, Biavni re, woi/ixeW \aS>vr.

It reaches down to persons, of whom we know and caninfer nothing, but that they may probably have heldsmall fiefs (so to call them) with derivative sovereigntyof some kind, such as were, among the Trojanss, Bienor,Hypeiron, Apisaon, Hypsenor: and it is also applied tothe sons of the greater chiefs, for example, Thrasy-medes and Agenor*, as well as to the chiefs themselves,including Agamemnon. It is likewise given to iEgi-sthus, when he was, de facto, in possession of the throneof Agamemnon". It is therefore applicable to the ideaof political rule in the very widest sense, differing how-ever from ai>a£ in so far that, while it is assigned to per-sonages of smaller note politically, it is confined to theexpression of that kind of superiority, and has nothingwhatever to do with property.

I find it, on the whole, impossible to detect in thisphrase any thing of a definite character, except that itexpresses political rule at large, and expresses it underthe form of a figure adapted to the early and patriar-chal state of society. I hesitate then to call it withconfidence a title, because the class to which it appliesis somewhat indeterminate, and therefore it is wantingin specific meaning: yet it may partake somewhat ofthat character. We must, however, distinguish broadlybetween the element of subordination to Agamemnon,such as we see it in Nestor and Diomed, and that ofthe class to which the lower Trot/xeVe? \awv belonged.These were as widely separated as the great feudatories

r II. iv. 296. s II. ix. 92. v.144. xi.578. xiii.411.t II. ix. 81. xiii. 600. « Od. iv. 528.

450 II. Ethnology.

of mediaeval France, from the petty lords who so muchabounded in this island.

In its form, the phrase bears an external, ratherthan a real resemblance to ava£ avSpwv. For •n-oifi.tivfiguratively used expresses no more than the office of aruler in his political relation to his subjects; while

dvSpwv is much more peculiar in character, since% exhibits the idea of master as well as ruler, and he

is not merely ava% of a people, but ixva.% of individualmen, in respect to something appertaining to man assuch, of which he is the possessor or usufructuary. TheTroiwv \awv expresses a relation, which implies that poli-tical society is already formed, for Aao? means a bodyunited in that form.

Again, we are scarcely entitled to presume that ava£dvSpSiv denotes the office of 'any king or chieftain,' when,though it is used in some fifty passages, it is only appliedto six persons: nor is it less hazardous to say that it meansespecially the office of a supreme ruler or commander,when out of these six persons only one at all answersto that description, and when at least three are personsof insignificant power, as well as individually obscure.

Once more, it is the manner of Homer, where heapplies an epithet or phrase characteristically to one ofhis greater personages, to give them the exclusive useof it, such as the voScoKtis Sios for Achilles, icopvdaioXosfor Hector, TTOAVV TJ? and TroXvrXas Sio? for Ulysses.For example, KopvBaloXos is used thirty-eight times forHector, never for any other hero: though it is usedonce for Mars, in II. xx. 38. It would be strange if hedeparted from this usage in the case before us. But ifava% avSpwv be a mere phrase of description, as Muresupposes, he does depart from it in the strangest manner;for while he applies it forty-six times to Agamemnon,

"Ava£ avbp&v has a specific meaning. 451

lie likewise gives it to the very insignificant Eumelus.If it be a phrase simply serving the purpose, as anepithet would, of denoting the great political positionof Agamemnon, how can its force be more utterly shat-tered than by bestowing it not only upon Eumelus, whodoes nothing except drive a chariot, but upon Euphetes,who is mentioned but once in the poems of Homer,without any epithet or circumstance whatever exceptthis to distinguish him, and who is named nowhereelse at all ? If it describes a ruler as supreme amongrulers, why is it thus debasingly, as well as loosely,applied ? But if it describes a ruler generally, then whyis it employed so restrictedly ? The actual mode andconditions of its use require us to examine whether itdoes not in fact cover some specific idea, derived froma form of society which, even in the days of Homer,had become, or, at the least, was becoming obsolete;perhaps already in some part a monument of the past,and cutting across, rather than fitting into, the arrange-ments and usages of his time.

The peculiar formula 'lord of men' appears welladapted to mark the period of transition from the patri-archal to the political construction of society; in thefamily, sovereignty and the possession of property areunited,and the /3a<ri\ev$ naturally follows after and growsout of the ava£. Authority is here clothed in a formmore extended than that of a mere family connection,yet the idea of it remains indeterminate: there is no dis-tinct formation of class; superiors are not yet viewedunder the formal political notion of kings, nor (as inXaos) have men yet come to conceive of themselves assubjects. There are human beings with a superior: butthere is no society with a head. In that state of things,power, if less secure and rooted, was more absolute:

eg 2

452 II. Ethnology.

witness the projected sacrifice by Abraham of his sonIsaac.

To sum up, however, what we have said upon theother phrases, it appears that we have in Homer fourwords commonly used to express the ruling office, fromthe highest form of that office downwards: they are,

i. ftaariXev?, the most limited: confined in the Iliadto those who both were practically supreme, and ruledover considerable territory, or else were of primary im-portance from personal prowess or other qualities.,

i. Kpelwv, the next; embracing the very highest, butdescending to secondary princes, though commonlyconfined to the more considerable.

3. -Trotfxriv Xawv, which, also capable of application tothe highest, yet, as expressing political dominion in thewidest form, embraces the subordinate, derivative, andpetty principalities even of persons who do not appearto have been in any sense independent sovereigns.

4. More varied in its application than any of these,perhaps older, and related to the time when the onlyknown form of sovereignty implied indeterminate, andso far absolute powers of disposal, the word aval- in-volves the double idea of political authority and ofownership; it accompanies them both, like our wordlord, when they separate, and it adheres to each ofthem in all its forms.

I admit that the construction which it is. now pro-posed to put upon aVa£ avSpwv has not, so far as I amaware, been heretofore propounded; and that this is,pro tanto, a presumption against it. But in lieu of protanto, I would in this case crave to write pro tantillo;for it seems to be the fact, that, as only of late has Eth-nology been systematically studied, so only of late havethe text and diction of Homer been subjected to minute

Persons to whom it is applied. 453

investigation; and it is reasonable to expect, that thefurther application of critical attention to it may yetdisclose to our view much, which has heretofore beenunsuspected. It is the more allowable to proceed uponthis view in the case of ava.% avSpwv, because so fewreaders of Homer appear even to have observed that itis ever applied to any person besides Agamemnon, andtherefore the common opinion rests upon an inaccurateimpression as to the elementary facts. My purpose, ac-cordingly, may more justly be described as an attemptto open a new question, than as an attack upon a criti-cal verdict regularly delivered.

Let us now proceed to examine what the factsreally are respecting the use of the phrase ava% avSpwvin Homer.

I t is applied to Agamemnon in the following pas-sages :II. i. 7, 172, 442, 506. x. 64, 86, 103, 119, 233.

ii. 402, 434, 441, 612. xi. 99, 254.iii. 81, 267, 455. xiv. 64, 103,134.iv. 148, 255, 336. xviii. i n .v. 38. xix.51,76,146,172,184,199.vi. 33. xxiii. 161, 895.vii. 162, 314. Od. viii. 77.viii. 278. xi. 396.ix.96,114,163,672,677,697.

It is also applied to Anchises, II. v. 268.^Eneas, II. v. 311.Augeias, II. xi. 701,739.Euphetes, II. xv. 532.Eumelus, II. xxiii. 288.

Now although, as we have seen, the term is in factemployed only with names nearly akin to one anotherin point of metrical value, yet the Poet has given us

454 II. Ethnology.

the most distinct evidence that the employment of itwas not a mere metrical expedient to assist him in theuse of names otherwise unmanageable. This we learnin the two following forms :

i. The name Eumelus is one of those to which heapplies the phrase: but the metrical conjunction of itwith this name is by no means particularly convenient,for out of five places in which Homer mentions Eume-lus in the nominative case, he only once gives him histitle of ava.% avSpwv. Again, it is evident that he has nopreference for the end of the verse as a place for thename of Eumelus; for he places it elsewhere, at the be-ginning, and in rr/v Ei/^Ao? oirvie (II. ii. 714. Od. iv.798), on the only two occasions when he uses the no-minative without a title annexed. He only puts it atthe end of the verse in order to couple it with aval*avSpwv, and with Kpelwv (II. xxiii. 288,354). So far thenfrom being a metrical convenience, this phrase ratherforces him out of his way in order to introduce it. So itis with iEneas. Homer uses his name very many times,but never once places it at the end of a verse, except inthe single case in which he attaches it to the title ava£avSpcou. Again, then, the phrase compels him to adopt aposition which he is uniformly careful to avoid elsewherefor iEneas, and this in little short of forty instances.

1. Besides the names to which Homer applies thephrase, he employs a great number of names, of per-sons having high or the very highest rank, which pos-sess exactly the same metrical value as one or anotherof the six names above quoted ; but yet to none ofthese does he at any time give the title of ava£ avSpwv.Of such names I have observed the following : and Iexclude from the list the merely local characters of theOdyssey, and all persons in inferior station.

Persons to whom it might have been applied. 4<55

1i) Of the same metrical value with Eumelus :Patroclus. iEgisthus.Pheidippus. Admetus.Euneus. Amphius.Eudorus. Euphorbus.Euphemus.

And of the dead,Isandros. Adrestus.

(2) Of the same metrical value with Augeias, Eu-phetes, iEneas, Anchises:

Antenor. Hercules (Heracles).Sarpedon. Eurystheus.Pyrsechmes.

(3) Of the same metrical value with Agamemnon:Diomedes. Agapenor.Polypoetes. Euphenor.Megapenthes. Prothoenor.Thrasymedes. Hyperenor.Eteoneus.

(4) Of the same metrical value with Agamemnon,except having the last syllable short:

Menelaus. Melanippus.Echepolus. Polydorus.

And of the dead,Rhadamanthus. Meleagros.

Here are thirty-five names as susceptible of conjunc-tion with the phrase ava% avSpwv as the six to whichhe attaches it. How comes it to be attached, signifi-cant as it is primd facie, to the six, and never to thethirty-five ? Did it come and go by accident, or hadHomer a meaning in it ?

Moreover, I would by no means be understood to

456 II. Ethnology.

admit, that metrical obstacles would have sufficed toprevent Homer from applying almost any title toalmost any name: such were the resources of hisgenius and his ear, and such the freedom that theyouthful elasticity of the language secured to him.

It must be remembered too that he has given us aninstance (in II. i. 7) of a second site, so to speak, foraVa£ avSpwv in the Greek hexameter, which would haveenabled him at once to combine it with all such propernames as come within the compass of a dactyl andtrochee, or a spondee and trochee. Such as.IIoiAi;-Sd/Jias yap.... KctJ JIpla/j.os y . e v . . . . Kou yap Tev-/C|00? . . . . Qrjaevs a i r ro? . . . . AapSavos avros . . . . A n d

even without altering its usual position in the verse, bya break of it, or a ceesura, which is not unfrequent withhim, he might have given us (for example) ava£ av§p£>vyap 'Ejoex^eJ?. Or he might by tmesis, more liberallyused, have further widened the field for its employment.

Or again, he would have been free, by the rules ofhis own usage, to have said in the vocative, avSpwv ava.

His abstinence from inflexion absolutely, and fromtmesis almost entirely, in the use of aVaf avSpwv, I thinkdeserves remark. We might be struck, even in anotherauthor, by finding a word fifty-six times in the nomina-tive singular, and never in any other form: but inHomer these slight circumstances have a value andsignificance, which in ordinary cases it would be moredangerous to assign to them. It seems to me possible,that this restraint in the use of the name, which alwaysassigns to it the most commanding place in the sen-tence, was not unconnected with a sense of reverencetowards it. I think that if we were to examine thecorrespondence, for example, between British Ministersand their Sovereign, we might find that the phrase

Homer's reverence for this title. 4<57

' Your Majesty' was placed, under a sort of natural andunconscious bias, by the writers, in the nominativecase, in a proportional number of instances far exceed-ing that which the pronoun ' y o u ' would supply in anordinary letter.

I t is difficult to define this delicate and subtle senti-ment : but it may perhaps be illustrated by the feelingon which is founded the prevailing usage of addressingamong ourselves the very highest ranks, and in somelanguages all persons of consideration, in the thirdrather than the second person. And again, it is thesame description of sentiment, which, when carriedinto the sphere of religion, has led Dante invariably toforbear, when he introduces the name 'Cris to ' at theclose of a verse, from placing any other word in rhymewith it, so that he makes it its own echo (so to speak),and repeats it thrice, in no less than four passages, tomeet the full demand of his metre".

Or again, as Homer appears to have possessed a fine-ness of ear which is not only wonderful, but by us insome part inappreciable, it may be that he attached animportance, which we cannot measure, to preserving aperfect uniformity in this dignified and sonorous title,as a means of producing popular impression, not lessthan of satisfying his own taste.

Other instances might be given from Homer, bear-ing upon the case.

'Evoo-lxOwv is used forty times, and only once out ofthe nominative, though metrical reasons could nothamper the poet with respect to any of the cases ofthis noun. Aioyevw is used in the nominative andvocative only. K M W T O ? is used sixteen times, and inthe vocative alone. The feminine form however is

x Paradiso, xii. 71. xiv. 104. xix. 104. xxix. 11.

458 II. Ethnology.

found in the nominative, but only in two passages (oneof them with a rival reading) applied to Minerva.JZvpvKpelwv is found twelve times, and only in the nomi-native.

Perhaps again the rarity and slightness of his use oftmesis may be accounted for, not by euphony alone,but by the circumstance that these two words hadgrown by titular use almost into one.

The fact that the phrase ava% avSpwv should havedisappeared with Homer himself, while his heroes wereincessantly sung by later poets, of itself raises a pre-sumption that it belonged to a state of things which,when after a wide interval the race of his successorsbegan, had wholly ceased to exist.

That stage of society, in the closing stages of whichHomer lived, and which we know through him aloneof classical authors, was the patriarchal stage in its lastphasis. By the patriarchal stage of society, I mean thestage in which rights on the one hand, and powers andduties on the other, were still indeterminate, and weregradually passing from the state of nebula into that ofbody. Now, if the phrase avaj~ avSpwv belonged to it,without doubt it must at the outset have exhibited itsunvarying characteristic, the union of sovereign politi-cal power not only with hereditary descent, but with areference to some original stock as an object of deepveneration, if not to a relationship of blood more orless remote between the royal family and their subjects,or to the dominant race among them.

The chieftaincies of the Celtic tribes in our ownisland, such as they existed until within only one cen-tury back, afford us a partial analogy. The primary ideais that of the headship of an extended family, some-times approximating to the character of a nation;

Its relation to Patriarchal Chieftaincy. 459

sometimes more limited, so that many of such familiesor tribes may be regarded as belonging to the samenation. One marked characteristic of these chieftain-cies is that the preeminence and power, which theyattached to birth, is separable from, though capable ofunion with, sovereignty strictly so called, that is, an abso-lute political supremacy, and subsists in its main parti-culars even after the division; neither does it becomeambiguous or indefinite, where the field for its exerciseis a narrow one. The splendour of the name increaseswith the range of dominion, but its integrity subsistseven in the most contracted sphere, so long as the or-ganization on which it is dependent remains.

It is at least conceivable, that the Greek and theCeltic chieftaincies thus far agree. They differ in this,that the Hellenes, whenever we hear of them, appearmore or less clearly as the subjugators of some race inprior occupancy of the soil, and as the masters of slaves:so that, while the relation of the Highland Chief tohis clan was elevated and softened by union in blood,a Greek chieftaincy rather affected the relation betweenthe head of the tribe and, not the whole, but only a privi-leged part, of the community.

The fundamental idea of this chieftainship would liein the possession of the powers of government, patri-archally organized, by lineal descent, and traced up tothe point which was the recognised fountain-head ofthe traditions of the race.

Where the idea of succession by primogeniture waswell defined, there probably would be but one line inexistence at a time that could hold the title for anyone race. But there might be cases where the rule ofprimogeniture was unknown, or not consistently ap-plied, or where the fact of elder descent was contested,

460 II. Ethnology.

or where common descent from some one acknow-ledged race and period might confer the title on avariety of families, situated at remote points from oneanother, in each of which it might afterwards be con-fined to the lineal heir. In such cases there would bea plurality of lines, all running up into the stem of acommon ancestor, and all bearing in their own separatesuccessions the title of chieftainships.

Again, among these chieftains one might be politi-cally supreme over the rest within a given country.Such were the Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles, in Scot-land, who claimed to be kings as well as chieftains:and such in Ireland were the Kevanaghs. O'Ruarcs,and O'Briens.

If therefore I am right in interpreting the phraseava£ avSpwv to mean properly (together with somethingmore) Chieftain, in a sense including the main ele-ments of Celtic chieftaincy, or Patriarch, (but thelatter phrase is less applicable from it's conventionalconnection with advanced age), then it need excite nosurprise if we find an ava£ avSpwv on each side, and notin the supreme command. At the same time, thoughthere are vast differences in power between one Ho-meric ava% avSpwv and another, they are all, so far aswe see, strictly in the position of princes ordinarily in-dependent within their dominions, though owning, itmight be, the prerogatives of a qualified political supre-macy lodged in other hands.

Case of Agamemnon.

It is very worthy of remark, that Homer scarcelyever describes Agamemnon by personal epithets. In afew passages (I see seven noticed) he uses the wordSios in connection with the name: but this is one of

Mode of its use for Agamemnon. 461

the least specific among the Homeric epithets for indi-viduals, and is employed not only for Achilles, Hector,Ulysses, Nestor, and others, but for a crowd of inferiorpersonages, so that, as a word of the most generalpurport, it has little or no defining or individualizingpower. It means preeminence in some particular kind,among a class, and it is applicable to any class; to Aga-memnon greatest among sovereigns, and to Eumseusworthiest among swineherds. A few times Homercalls him tjpws, a word which he also applies to theentire Greek army (II. i i .no). In all other places, (Iomit, of course, the invectives of Achilles,) he is cha-racterised only by words taken from his position ordescent. The principal of these are ^ArpelS^, whichhe enjoys in common with Menelaus: Kpeluiv, appliedto him and to various other chiefs: nroltxtjv \awv, yetmore largely and loosely used: evpvicpelwv, which is ex-clusively his own among men, and which is the epithetused by Homer as properly descriptive of his wide-reaching sway. It is also applied to Neptune amongthe immortals, because vastness was with Homer aprincipal feature of the QaXaa-aa, his domain. Lastly,Agamemnon is ava£ avSpwv, which, as I hold, describeshis position by birth as the head or chieftain of theAchseans properly so called.

There are two remarkable passages, which are evi-dently intended to supply the key-note, as it were, forour conception of the material power of Agamemnon :the first, II. ii. 108, respecting the sceptre: the second,in the Catalogue, II. ii. 576-80: in both of these he iscalled Kpelwv, in neither ava£ avSpwv. This fact entirelyaccords with the supposition that neither a determinateform of political power, nor military command, is thevital idea of the phrase.

462 II. Ethnology.

On the other hand, although the Poet does not seemto connect this phrase with imperial power, yet that heintended to use it as one highly characteristic, we mayat once deem probable from his having employed it inthat remarkable passage? with which the poem begins,and which so succinctly, yet so broadly opens the sub-ject of it. For here he has taken the phrase ava% av-Spwv out of its usual, and elsewhere its only place inthe verse, and has subjoined it, contrary in this like-wise to his uniform practice elsewhere, to the nameof the person described by it. The line is

'Arpeibrjs re, &va£ avbp&v, Ktxl bios 'A\i\\e6s.

Evidently this is done for greater emphasis : as ' greatAlexander' is less emphatic than 'Alexander the Great,'and ' king Darius' than ' Darius the king.' It may beadmitted that the epithet Sios, used in this place forAchilles, is not one of the most characteristic: butAchilles had already been described (in v. i.) by that dis-guished patronymic which formed his chief gloryz, asit connected him, through his father and his grand-father, with Jupiter.

All these presumptions drawn from the case of Aga-memnon converge upon a point: they tend to show,that ava£ avSpwv means preeminence indeed, but yeta particular kind of preeminence; and one distinctfrom, and more specific than, the general idea of sove-reignty.

The so-called genealogy of Agamemnon differs fromevery other one given by Homer in this, that it doesnot describe the descent in a right line. For as Thy-estes, one of his three predecessors on the Pelopidthrone was the father of iEgisthus, who was' the con-temporary, but yet not the brother of Agamemnon, he

v II. i. 1-7. z See II. xx. 106.

Extraction and station of Agamemnon. 463

must without doubt have been brother to Atreus, Aga-memnon's father. It is in fact not a genealogy simply,but rather a succession in dignities. The dignity of ava%avSpwv may have combined with that of the politicalsupremacy to lead Homer into this unusual course. If,as I suppose, aW£ avSpwv required the double deriva-tion both of lineage and of sovereignty, this was theway, and the only way, in which Homer could attainhis end. And his having pursued this method seemsto imply that such was his end.

I cannot therefore under the conditions of the defi-nition given above, explain the application of the phraseto Agamemnon by mere reference to his political su-premacy. It will be necessary to prove, either bydirect or by presumptive evidence^ his lineal connec-tion with the primitive Grecian or Hellenic stock, thetrunk of the tree from which other Achaean familieswere branches and offshoots only.

I propose to do this by showing,First, that no appreciable value is to be attached to

the notions which represent him as the grandson of anAsiatic immigrant; while even if this descent could bemade good, we should not on that account be justifiedin at once proceeding to deny that the Pelopids wereof pure Hellenic blood.

Secondly, that he was not merely at the momentthe political head of Greece, but that he was also thehereditary chief of the Achseans, then the ruling tribeof the country.

Thirdly, that this Achaean tribe was in all likelihoodderived from Thessaly, where it was especially rootedand distinguished : as Thessaly was itself fed from theHelli of the mountains, and constituted the secondaryand immediate source from whence the Hellenic races

464 II. Ethnology.

successively issued, and spread themselves over the pen-insula.

I do not pretend to carry the proof of a patriarchalposition or lineal chieftaincy in the case of Agamem-non further. We do not know what was the strictlyoriginal royal stock of the Hellenic tribes. The cur-rent tradition of Hellen and his sons would be veryconvenient, but it is too obviously accommodated toafter-times, and too flatly at variance with the earliest,that is to say with the Homeric accounts, to be in theslightest degree trustworthy as an historic basis. Wemay take the Hesiodic tradition as affording evidenceof the belief that there was a primitive royal stock, andthat the ruling families had been derived from it, sincewithin these limits it does not contradict Homer; butwe can justly build upon it nothing further. Undoubt-edly the very employment of the phrase ava% avSpoov, ifthe proposed construction of it can be made good, willgreatly fortify this belief. But this can only be madegood in a presumptive manner: as by showing that thephrase was only given in ruling families: and only inthe representative lines of ruling families: and only infamilies which ruled over tribes of the dominant race;and which had so ruled from time immemorial—thatis to say, they must be families of which it can-not be shown that at any time they had acquired theirposition in their own tribe. If a first ancestor, appa-rently the channel of the title, is indicated, he must beone from whom history begins: there must be nothingbefore him, nothing to show that he or his line hadever been less than what he came to be. Lastly, thetribes, over which the ava% avSpHv rules, must be in vi-sible or presumable connection locally with the originalseat or cradle of the nation; and it will be a further

Arguments against his Hellenic descent.

confirmation of the argument if, as we ascend thelineal lines, we find in them a tendency to convergetowards an unity of origin, which we shall find poeti-cally expressed as the divine parentage of Jupiter, andthus covered with the golden clouds of a remote anti-quity, that not even the sun can piercea. Perhaps wemay even find reason to suppose it likely that descentfrom Jupiter was an essential qualification for the titleof ava£ avSpwv.

First, then, let us deal with the negative or adversepresumptions, which would go to prove that Agamem-non was not Hellenic at all.

It may be urged,i. That we see, even from Homer, that Pelops was

a recent hero, only two generations before the Troica,so that Agamemnon has no antiquity to boast of.

i. That, according to extraneous tradition, there isno connection between Agamemnon and the Hellicstock : as Pelops is reputed to be the son of Tantalus,and Tantalus the king of Phrygia.

To the first I answer, that the list of names in II. ii.IOI—8, is not simply a genealogy, for it includes Thy-estes,who is not in the right line; but it is a successionof kings on a common throne, and can only thereforebegin with Pelops, as the first who sat upon thatthrone.

But. further, even if it were a genealogy, yet Homerseems usually to begin his genealogies not with thefirst known ancestor of a person, but with the first an-cestor of his who settled in the place where he exer-cises power. Thus Nestor, though we acquire indi-rectly a knowledge of his earlier descent through the

wa, has no genealogy beyond Neleus his father,a II. xiv. 343.

H h

466 II. Ethnology.

because he was the ancestor that migrated into Pelo-ponnesus, or, at least, that first acquired the Pylian throne,by marriage into a prior, and perhaps a Pelasgian housedUlysses has none beyond Arceisius; and it is plain, fromthe records of the earlier dynasty in Ithaca, that therecould have been no king of that house before him.Dardanus and Minos, heads of genealogies, were alsothe founders of sovereignties. Again, Portheus isgiven us as the head of the (Eneid line in iEtolia : andwe have found it probable that he was the first of hisrace0 who migrated into that country. The same con-siderations, in all likelihood, hold good with regard toPelops.

Now with respect to the second objection.We are to remember that Homer has nowhere as-

serted the connection between Pelops and Tantalus, orbetween Tantalus and Phrygia.

But not even the latter connection, and far less theformer, would disprove the title of Agamemnon torepresent lineally the character of ava.% avSpwv. For, aswe have seen, that title subsisted in the line of Darda-nus, and the causes which planted it there might alsohave planted it in Phrygia; which is not irrationallysupposed to have been the line of march for the Hellicrace in its original movement westwards0. Moreover,Phrygia is not a name confined to Asia.

There are, however, many indirect Homeric indica-tions, as well as much extra-Homeric tradition, whichtend to connect Pelops both with Tantalus and withGreece.

First, even if Tantalus were known to Homer asthe father of Pelops, he could not have been named in

a Od. xi. 281. c s e e E. Curtius, Ionier vorb Sup. p. 398. der Ionischen Wanderung, p. 9.

Connection of Tantalus with the Greeks. 467

the tradition of II. ii. 101—8, unless he had occupied,like Pelops, the throne to which Agamemnon succeeded.

From the appearance of Tantalus in the Ne/a//'a, it isprobable that Homer regarded him as Greek, either bybirth or by what we may call naturalization. This hemight be in the Poet's view, if the traditions concerninghim, without assigning to him Greek birth or even resi-dence, made him the father of one who became a greatGreek sovereign. If, for instance, we take the nameof .#£olus ; it is the source of some of the most famousGreek houses, yet Homer never mentions it, except inthe patronymic, and gives us no means of absolutelyattaching it to any part of Greece. JEOIUS may havebeen known only as the father of Greeks. So Minos wasnot of Greek birth ; but was naturalized, and thereforeappears in the N&cvta as the judge of the nether world.All the other personages, without exception, who areintroduced there, are apparently Greek : Sisyphus,Hercules, Tityus, Theseus, Pirithous, from clear marksof residence: even Orion, since he is made the hero ofa scene in Delosd, appears, whatever his origin, to havebeen already Hellenized by tradition. Nor is it easy toavoid the same assumption with respect to Tantalus.

Again, we may be quite sure, that Tantalus was a per-son of the highest rank and position. None others seemto have been distinguished by an express notice of theirfate after death. Orion was the object of the passionof Aurora (Od.v. 121). Tityus was an offender so lofty,that he became the occasion of a voyage of Rhadaman-thus himself to deal with his crime6. Sisyphus was, as wehave found reason to believef, of the most exalted stock.

The punishment of Tantalus in the nether world isd Od. v. 121. also see II. xviii. 436. e Od. vii. 323.

( Sup. sect. viii. pp. 427, 8.

H ll 2

468 II. Ethnology.

probably, as in other cases, the reflection of a previouscatastrophe, certainly of a previous character, uponearth. The nature of his punishment is a perpetualtemptation, of irresistible force, presented to the ap-petites of hunger and thirst, while the gratification of itis wholly and perpetually denied. This shews that hisoffence on earth must have been some form of irkeo-ve^la, of greediness, presumption, or ambition. It istherefore not unlikely that by restless attempts atacquisition, he may have convulsed his dominions, andcaused his son to migrate.

Now this supposed vein of character in Tantalus wouldthoroughly accord with that of the Pelopid line. He ispunished for covetousness or acquisitiveness. His songains a kingdom through Mercury, who is the god ofincrease by fair means or foul. His grandson Thyestesgathers wealth (TroXvaps, II. ii. 106): his great-grandsonAgamemnon is deeply marked by the avarice every-where glanced at in the Iliad: and finally we have thereckless and guilty cravings of the ambition of iEgisthus.

We are by no means without reasons from the poemsfor placing Tantalus, as the later tradition places him,among the heroes of the stock of Jupiter. One groundis afforded us by the text of the Eleventh Odyssey forsupposing that he was, I do not say a son, but atleast a descendant of Jupiter. It is this; that appa-rently all the heroes, to whom we are thus introduced,were at least of divine extraction. They are, besidesTantalus, as follows :—

1. Minos, who was a son of Jupiter. (Od. xi. 568.)2. Orion: he was of divine extraction according to

the later tradition. In Homer he has no parentage, buthe had at least attained to divine honours, inasmuch ashe was translated into a star. (Od. v. 274 et alibi.)

Connection of Tantalus with the Greeks. 469

3. Tityus, son of Tata. (Od. xi. 596, and vii. 324.)4. Sisyphus, son of iEolus; therefore descended from

Jupiter.5. Hercules, son of Jupiter (ibid. 620.)But I rely specially upon the passages towards the

end, where these are all called avSpes >ip<*>e$, and whereUlysses says he might have seen others, namely, Qyo-eaUetplOoov re, Oeuiv epiKvSea re/cva, illustrious children ofthe gods: as if to be a child of the gods were a con-dition of appearing in this august, though mournful,company.

Hereas, a Megarian author of uncertain age, isquoted by Plutarch % as having declared that the lastcited verse was among the interpolations of Pisistratus.But Hereas was as likely to be wrong in this state-ment, through Megarian antipathy, as Pisistratus tohave interpolated the verse in favour of Athenianvanity. The internal evidence is, I think, in its favour.For the phrase Qewv ipucvSea reKva is, according to theview here given, really characteristic. It is, at thesame time, characteristic through the medium of anidea which, though it can be deduced fairly from thetext, is not obvious upon its surface; namely the ideathat all the heroes of the Ne/cwa were divine. Theverse is therefore supported by something in the natureof a spontaneous or undesigned coincidence.

The post-Homeric tradition makes Niobe the daugh-ter of Tantalus ; and, if this be so, then we may derivefrom her very high position a further support to thepresumption that Tantalus was of the race of Jupiter,as also to the hypothesis of his personal connectionwith Greece. For that the tradition of Niobe isGreek we see, from its being cited by Achilles; andthat she was a sovereign is clearly implied by the

s Thes. 20.

470 II. Ethnology.

combined effect of various circumstances. The first isher being compared by Achilles with Priam. Thesecond, that the vaunt of an inferior person wouldhardly have been noticed by the direct intervention ofthe gods. The third is the singular extent and dignityof that intervention : Apollo slays the sons, Diana thedaughters; Jupiter converts the people to stone; theImmortals at large bury the dead. The fourth is theuse of the term \aovs, which means plainly the sub-jects of the kingdom where Niobe was queen.

We cannot now carry farther the presumptions thatTantalus was the descendant of Jupiter, and Aga-memnon of Tantalus: but if, in considering the casesof the other members of his class, we shall sufficientlyshew that they were all descended in common reputefrom Jupiter, we shall then perhaps be warranted inrelying more decidedly upon the connection, which issuggested by the text in the case of Agamemnonthrough his presumed ancestor Tantalus.

It is difficult to find more than slight traces of theseat of the power of Tantalus from Homer.

He mentions a mountain called Sipylush, near theAchelous, and thus near the principal passage fromNorthern and Middle into Southern Greece. Here it isthat he places the mourning Niobe. But Pausaniasplaces the tomb of Pelops on the summit of MountSipylus, meaning, apparently, the hill of that name inLydia1. Again, the Phryges, over whom the later tra-dition reports him to have reigned, are also madeknown to us as a Thracian people1': a designation quitecapable of embracing any of the hill tribes in theneighbourhood of Thessaly. We have another sign ofthe extension of this name in the Phrygians of Attica,

h II. xxiv. 615. i Pausan. ii. 22. 4.k Strabo, xii. p. 579. xiv. p. 680.

Place of Pelops in Greek history. 471

mentioned by Thucydides (ii. 22): and the Phrygianalphabet is closely akin to that of Greece.

Strabo, however, observes, that the state of thesetraditions is so greatly confused, so as to make themscarcely tractable for the purposes of history1.

The connection of Pelops with Southern Greece iswell supported by the ancient name of Peloponnesus.No notice of this name is found in Homer; but weneed not be surprised, if Pelops was the first of his racein that part of the country, at finding him sparely re-cognised by the Poet: it is the uniform manner of thepoet with strangers or novi homines.

The Homeric notices of Pelops are not more liberalthan of Tantalus. 1. We find him called ir\>i%nnrosm

in such a way as shows that something connected withthe driving of a chariot must have been attached eitherto the known habits, or to some great crisis of his life,or to both. In either mode, it agrees with the commontradition, according to which, by success in the chariotrace, he won the hand of Hippodameia, daughter ofking (Enomaus, and therewith the throne of Pisa. Wehave another fact from Homer which tends to sup-port this tradition, namely, that in the earliest youth ofNestor there were, as we have seen, public games, whichincluded chariot-races, in Elis.

a. The common tradition is also further supportedby the passage in the Second Iliad, which gives us theline of Pelopid sovereigns. For we are there told thatVulcan wrought the Pelopid sceptre for Jupiter: thatJupiter gave it to Mercury, and Mercury to Pelops thehorse-driver, who handed it on to Atreus and the rest.From this statement two things clearly appear. First,that the throne of Pelops was gained either by craft, orat least by enterprise, of his own. Secondly, that it

l Strabo xii. 572, 3. m II. ii. 104.

472 II. Ethnology.

was a new power which he erected, and that he wasnot merely the transferee of the power of the Perseidline.

Nor is it difficult to discern wherein the noveltyconsisted. This sceptre carried the right of paramountlordship over all Greece—

•noWfjcnv lnqa-oun /cat "Apye'C iravrl avdcraew"—

whereas the Perseids had been local sovereigns, thoughprobably the first in rank and power among their con-temporaries of Continental Greece.

Now this sovereignty, thus extended, was plainly anAchsean sovereignty. For we have seen that, contem-poraneously with its erection, Homer drops the markedand exclusive use of the word 'Apyelot for the inhabit-ants of that quarter, and calls them by preference'A^atoj, the older name falling into the shade. Thus,then, the Achseans rose with the house of Pelops: andthis being the case, we can the better understand whyit was that that house rose to so great an elevation. Itwas because the Achaean race had now acquired exten-sion in the North and in the South of Greece, inEastern and Western Peloponnesus, and because itusually predominated wheresoever it went. Thus thehouse of Pelops had an opportunity of gaining influ-ence and power, which had not been enjoyed by thepreceding dynasties, though they ruled from the samesovereign seat. They were families only: the Pelopidswere chiefs of a race.

What we have thus seen from Homer, with respectto the high position attained by Pelops, is confirmedby the later tradition.

Pausanias notices the local traces of Tantalus, as wellas of Pelops, in Elis. A harbour there bore the name ofTantalus0: and Pelops was worshipped in a sanctuary

n II. ii. 108. o Paus. v. xiii. 1-4.

Place of Pelops in Greek history. 473

hard by the temple of Jupiter Olympius. It was onthe right hand, in front of that temple, a very markedsituation in all likelihood: and Pausanias says, that theElians reverenced Pelops among heroes, like Jupiteramong gods. It was probably on this account, and asa memorial of the worship from high places, that thedpovos, or seat of Pelops, was, as he says, not only inSipylus, but on the summit of the mountain.

Another tradition makes Pelops the original king ofPisa, the rival town to Elis, which at length succumbedto it. And a further tradition reports, that he becamethe son-in-law of (Enomaus, king of Pisa, by conqueringhim in the chariot-race: and together with this, that herestored the Olympian Games. Another tradition reportshim to have come from Olenos in Achaia: and as theDorians, with the Heraclids, came into Peloponnesus bythat route, probably as the easiest, so, and for the samereason, may Pelops probably have done. Lastly, whileHomer places Achaeans in JSgina and in Mases, (ofwhich the site is unknown,) Pausanias (b. ii. c. 34)states that nine islands (vyo-lSes) off the coast of Me-thana, which lies directly opposite iEgina, were in histime called the Islands of Pelops.

Before quitting the subject of Pelops, I would ob-serve, that his worship in Olympia with such peculiarhonours is connected with a tradition, that he raised theOlympian Games to a distinction which they had neverbefore attained. Now if we view him as the principalchief who brought the Achseans into Peloponnesus, thistradition tends to support the view which has beentaken in a former section of the relation between theHellic race and the institution of public Games. Noris there any thing more intrinsically probable, than thata chief from the great breeding region of Thessaly should

474 II. Ethnology.

have either founded the chariot or horse-races ofOlympia, or should have raised them to an unprece-dented celebrity, and secured for them the truly na-tional position that they for so long a time maintained.

We have seen thus far,1. That the title of aW£ avSpwv is employed by

Homer as the chief distinction of Agamemnon.2. That most probably Agamemnon was descended

from Tantalus, as well as from Pelops, that the line wasa line of sovereigns all along, and Tantalus in all like-lihood a reputed descendant of Jupiter himself.

3. That the Achseans emerge in company with the Pe-lopids, from the cavern of pre-historic night, and thatthe Pelopids are therefore to be taken as in all likeli-hood the chief and senior house of the Achaean tribe.

But we have still to ask, whence came the Achseansthemselves ? and how are we to prove their connectionwith the Hellenic name and stock ?

And first, as to Homeric evidence.We have already seen, in considering Homer's ac-

count of the contingent of Achilles, and also fromII. ix. 395, that the Achaean race appears to have beenthe dominant one in the proper and original Hellas ofThessaly : which appears to place it beyond doubt, thatthe Achseans were they who first carried with themextensively into Greece the Hellenic name, a namealways following in the wake of the Achaean one, andin Homer extending to all Greece, unless we except thatpart which was the sovereign seat of Achaean power.

The first form of the name is with the Helli of North-ern Thessaly: the second is developed into the Hellasproper of Southern Thessaly; we find the third in themore large and less determinate use of the word forGreece to the northward of the Isthmus. The name

Achceans from Thessaly. 475

gains this extension apparently just during the periodwhile the Achasans are moving southward, as the houseof Ulysses to Ithaca, the house of Neleus, perhaps withan Achaean train, to Pylos, the Pelopids to Mycenae andSparta, Tydeus from iEtolia to Argos.

And again, we must observe this distinction. We seethe Achaeans come into the Peloponnesus, and we can,from the text of Homer, point out the time when theywere not there. But we do not see them come intoThessaly from among the Helli of the mountains. Wesimply find their name prominent there; from whichwe must conclude, that Homer meant to point themout as the first representatives on an adequate scale ofHellas in that country.

All this is strongly confirmed by the later traditionas to the connection of Pelops with the Achasans ofThessaly, and by the clear historical proofs in our pos-session of the profound root which the Achasan namehad taken there.

Strabo, in a passage where he chooses a particulartradition from among many, as peculiarly worthy ofrecord, saysP,

'A^cuovs yap roiis <£>di(0Ta.s'(f>a<Tl (TvyKaTek66vrasTle\oTn els TTJV

Tle\oTt6vvr)<Tov, olnrjaai r-qv AaKiaviKrjV TOVOVTOV 8' apery bievey-

xeiv, ware TT)V TleKoirovvqaov, eK TTOW&V rjh-q XP°VU>V " Apyos

Keyofxevriv, Tore 'Axa'iKov "Apyos X.e\6rjvai.

Thus he at once asserts the connection of Pelopswith the Achasans, and of the Achaeans with Thessaly.He proceeds to say, that Laconia was considered tohave a peculiar title to the name of Achaic Argos q;that some construed Od. iii. 251 as supporting it, andthat the Achaeans, driven by the Dorians out of La-conia, in their turn displaced an Ionian race fromAchaia, and took possession of the district.

P Book viii. 5, 5. p. 365. 1 See sup. p. 381.

476 II. Ethnology.

Herodotus1", in treating of the Peloponnesus, de-scribes the Arcadians and Cynurians as avro-^Qove^ whohad never changed their habitation; four other races,including the Dorians, as eirjXvSes, and the Achseans ashaving migrated about the Peloponnesus, but neverleft it. He does not explicitly place the Achseans ineither class; and this tradition does not throw muchlight on the origin of the Achaeans, which would seemnot to have been within his knowledge, but only dealswith matter subsequent to their entry into Pelopon-nesus.

Pausanias3, again, would seem rather to draw theThessalian Achseans from Peloponnesus than vice versa.He tells us that, after the death of Xuthus, Achseuswent with an army from iEgialus, and established him-self in Thessaly. But with Homer before us, we mayboldly say, that there was no such person as either theXuthus or the Achseus of the later tradition, and thatthere were, on the other hand, Achseans in Thessaly longbefore the time assigned to this Achaeus, namely, theepoch when the race took refuge in .ZEgialus. This tradi-tion, then, is late and worthless, and, even if it directlycontradicted that of Strabo, which it does not, couldnot be put in competition with it.

The tradition which made Phthiotis in SouthernThessaly the cradle of the Achaean race, where it firstgrew into conscious life, seems to have been an undyingone.

Here again history comes in to our aid. Throughoutthe historic times of Greece, and down to the era ofPolybius, there were Achseans of Phthiotis. When,205 years before Christ, Quintius, the Roman general,examined into the origin of the Greek cities, and made

'• Herod, viii. 7, 73. s Pausan. vii. 1.

Duration of the name in Thessaly. 477

a classification of them1, the Achseans of Phthiotiswere declared to be Thessalians: and he appears to usethe name for all Phthians, since he calls Phaxidas" anAchaean, seemingly for no other reason than that hewas an inhabitant of Melitea, a city of Phthiotis.

I take it then to be sufficiently proved, that Aga-memnon and his house were the proper heads of theAchaean race, which rose with them. The proof isdoubled by the fact that they fell with it: for in thepost-Homeric literature, all of which follows the Dorianconquest, the Achaean name has ceased to be a livingname for the nation of the Greeks.

And as the Pelopids were the leaders of the Achaeans,so I now assume it to be sufficiently shown from Homer,that the Achaeans were in his time at the head of allthe Hellenic families and tribes; of the Dorians, theiEolids, the Cephallenes, and whatever others camefrom the same stock, and were in fact, for their age,the proper type of Hellenism itself.

That most remarkable supremacy of Agamemnonover the Greek nation, which is so strongly marked onthe page of Homer, and to the force of which Thucy-dides ascribes the wonderful movement of the Trojanwar, left behind it a tradition which it was thoughtworth while by the ruling race of Dorians to appro-priate, even after the shipwreck of the old politicalsystem.

Orestes came to the throne of Agamemnon, andTisamenus to that of Orestes. He was cast out bythe Heraclids with the Dorians, and they made Spartathe chief seat of their power. Thus established in theprimacy of Greece, they held it, under the name of'Hye/jLovta, contested sometimes, but only after thelapse of several ages, by "Athens: never absolutely

1 Polyb. xviii. c. 30. u v. 65. 3 and 11.

478 II. Ethnology.

taken away, until it passed, as Polybius says, unexpect-edly, into the hands of the Thebans, in the fourth cen-tury before the Christian era.

Tisamenus and his Achseans went into /Egialus, andgave it their own name. But the imperial Spartansfound it for their interest to put in their claim to theold Agamemnonian title. So, as Pausaniasx informsus, even down to his clay, the Tomb of Tisamenus wasshown in Sparta, and hard by it the Lycurgian feast ofPheiditia was kept; with a tradition that their fathers,admonished by an oracle, had fetched the remains ofthe last Pelopid sovereign from Helice in Achaea. Onthe other hand, the Achseans, who in the time of Poly-biusy had not yet ceased to keep the image of their le-gendary ancestor Achaeus, and whose claim to thatimage was recognised by the Roman general, likewisecherished a tradition that the family of Tisamenus hadbeen continued, and had reigned among them down tothe time of Ogygusz, when their League was formedupon the basis of democratic institutions.

Now it is no more than we might expect, that theAchaeans should, in their depressed fortunes, fondlycherish the recollections of their glory, by preservingand honouring the memory of the last of that race,who, through being their sovereigns, were also theheads of the Greek nation. But why did the Doriansexhibit an anxiety of a kind in their position so re-markable? Such a feeling could hardly have existed,had there not been a special character attaching to thePelopid race, as possessed not only of an actual su-premacy, but of some peculiar title by descent, towhich it was worth the while of the Dorian sovereignsto lay claim, as a kind of heirs by adoption. We donot find that when the Pelopids came in with their

* Paus. vii. i. 3. y Polyb. xl. 8. 10. z Polyb. ii. 41. 4. iv. 1. 5.

Dorians appropriate the Pelopid succession. 479

Achaeans, they had shown any corresponding solicitudeto connect themselves with the memory of Danaids orof Perseids: on the contrary, Homer expressly discon-nects the dynasties, by assigning to the Pelopids a newsceptre, fresh by the hands of Mercury from Jupiter.It seems to follow, that in all likelihood the Pelopidshad something which neither Danaids nor Perseids pos-sessed before them, and which the Dorians too did nothold at all, or did not hold by so clear a title : thehonour, namely, not of Hellenic blood alone, but ofbeing ruled by a family which represented an originaland primitive sovereignty over the Hellenic nation,through its foremost, or Achaean tribe.

This is the more remarkable, because the Doriansovereigns of Sparta claimed Hercules, and throughhim Jupiter, for their progenitor. But the patriarchalchieftaincy, though not more directly connected with adivine stock, had superadded to it that accumulation ofdignity, which depends upon the unbroken transmissionof power from the most remote historic origin: andHercules was modern in comparison with those towhom some of the Hellenic families were able (as wehave seen) to trace their ancestry.

Were we to give credit to the common traditionrespecting Hellen and his sons, I admit that it wouldraise a new difficulty in the way of the construction,which I propose to attach to the «Va£ avSpwv. Insteadof seeing Agamemnon invested with it because he ishead of the Achaeans, and highly favoured by a special,nay by an almost exclusive appropriation of it, becausethey are the foremost Hellenic tribe, we should have toown in them the youngest of all the branches fromthat stem, with Dorians, iEolians, and Ionians too,taking precedence of them: and we should have tolook, and look in vain, for any trace or presumption

480 II. Ethnology.

whatever of his descent from that Achseus, whom thetradition feigns to have existed.

But with the acknowledgment of Homer's historicalauthority, the credit of that tradition falls; as indeed itis etymologically self-convicted by the formation of itscardinal name Hellen.

The Achaean prominence in Homer rests on groundssufficiently clear: over the Ionians, who appear to benot even an Hellenic race; over the Dorians, latent inthe Pylian town of Dorion, or among the sister racesof Crete, where they are as yet wholly undistinguished :over the iEolids, (for there are no iEolians,) becausethese are single shoots only, while the Achseans are abranch, a principal section of the Hellenic race; andalso, as I think may be shown % because of all Hellenesthey appear really to have had the most normal con-nection with the true fountain-head of their race.

Nowhere among the Dorians, and (of course, if theIonians are Pelasgian,) nowhere among the Ionians,have we any trace of the name ava% avSpwv, or of thething indicated by it. May not this be the reason thatthe Dorian kings of Sparta sought (so to speak) toserve themselves heirs to the house of Agamemnon ?

I may observe in passing, as to the Ionians, that ithas recently been held that they are not only Hellenic,but the oldest Hellenes: that they parted from therest of the race in Asia, came into Greece by theislands, and were its great sea-faring race. Thistheory, ably as it has been supported, is but doubtfullyagreeable to the positive or negative evidence ofHomer: still it is not less fatal to the current traditionof Hellen and his family, than that which views theIonians as more nearly connected with the Pelasgians'1.

a See sect. x. Wanderung : vonE. Curtius, Ber-b Die Ionier vor der Ionischen lin, 1855.

Spurious Tradition of the Hellenidm. 481

Only among Achseans, iEolids, and Dardanians, do wefind the patriarchal title of ava£ avSpwv. The Dardanhouse fell with the Trojan war. The throne of Augeiashad given way even before that great crisis. It is pro-bable that the line of Euphetes was then no longer inexistence ; else we must have heard of it in the Cata-logue, or during the action. The realm of Eumelus wasremote and small, and if it had been wrecked in theconvulsions of the period, it would leave nothing uponwhich the Dorians could lay hold as a point of junctionwith the past. But they had come into the very do-minions of the family of Pelops, though with a transferof the metropolis from Mycense to Sparta. Here was thetrue Greek Patriarchate, of which for purposes of policythey might well desire to become the ostensible repre-sentatives.

The legend of the Hellenidae might probably be meantto cooperate towards the same end. Its determinate formI have ventured to discard : but its spirit and intentionhave their importance in connection with the subject ofthe extraction of the Greeks. It affords early witness tothe general belief in the derivation of the Greek racesfrom Thessaly: and though it does not suffice of itselfto prove that a Dorus or an Ion came from thence, yetit is of great importance as a testimony to their gene-ral connection with Thessaly, and it powerfully corro-borates evidence such as Homer affords to that effectin the case of the Achseans. Nor are we entirelywithout Homeric evidence of a connection betweenthe Dorians and the Achseans, and thus between theDorians and Thessaly. For the Dorians are found inCrete together with the Achseans (Od. xix.), and in thedominions of Nestor peopled by Achseans we find thetown called Awpiov, II. ii. 594. As, however, the great

1 i

482 II. Ethnology.

Dorian mass came into Peloponnesus not under a familyof Dorian rulers, but under Heraclids, their connectionwith the old Hellas was not maintained by any regaltradition, and hence perhaps the need of the legendof Hellen to revive the memory of it.

Let us now endeavour to gather together the threadsof the argument.

It is plain that Agamemnon was not called ava]~ av-Spwv on account of his great monarchy; because othergreat monarchs want the title, and, again, other insig-nificant lords hold it.

Nor did he possess it on the ground of autochthonism:for the Achseans were immigrants into the Peloponne-sus, and not autochthons, and they had been precededby other races.

Neither was it borne by him on the ground of adivine descent more direct or more illustrious thanthat of others: for his divine descent would in that caseat least have been specifically stated, instead of beingleft to remote and hazardous inference. Nor is the titleborne by Achilles, who was the great grandson of Ju-piter, or by Hercules or Minos, who were his sons.

If sovereignty and antiquity be connected with thetitle, they are not of themselves sufficient to confer i t :and if divine descent be a condition of it, this must bejoined with other conditions.

These negatives, established in the case of Agamem-non, leave room, I believe, for but one supposition;namely, that the ava£ avSpwv must indicate chieftaincy,or in other words, the lineal headship, passing by se-niority, of one among the ruling or royal houses, whorepresent the stem of a particular race, in his case theAchaean branch of the Hellenic family; and whogovern, and have continuously governed, those of their

Summary of the Evidence. 488

own name or branch. Of these royal houses theremight be many, allied together by common derivation,at the same or different epochs, from a common stem.

In sum, the Homeric picture appears to be as follows.First we have the remote and wintry Dodona of

Thessaly, the most ancient and most awful seat of thereligious worship of the Greeks ; in connection withwhich Achilles invokes Jupiter for the success and safereturn of Patroclus.

Around Dodona dwell the Selli or Helli. The spe-cial veneration paid to the place points it out as theoldest site of the national worship ; and the possessionof this oldest site again points out the tribe as themother-tribe of that wonderful Greek race, whose fameis graven ineffaceably upon the rock with a pen of iron.

From among the Helli of the mountains, who no-where appear among the contingents of the Greekarmy, must have proceeded the migratory bands whogave to the Thessalian plain the name of Hellas. Theirdescendants fix themselves as settlers there. Beguiledinto civilization, they become Hellenes; they spread,by their inborn elastic energies, towards the south, andcarry with them, only a little in their rear, the verytitle of their Hellenic origin, as well as their own pe-culiar name.

The ruling families of their septs or clans give eachto its actual head, if not to its heir, the dignity of ava£avSpwv, and this title they carry forth with them to thesouthern provinces in which they plant themselves.

One of these ruling families, the head of the greatsept of the Achaeans, carries the right to this title inthe case of Agamemnon : and inasmuch as it betokenswhat is both oldest and highest in descent and in civilauthority in the whole group of the Hellenic tribes, it

i i 2

484 II. Ethnology.

forms an appropriate and characteristic designation fortheir chief ruler and leader.

Having thus considered the case of Agamemnon, thegreat Achaean chieftain, in this view, we may proceedto the other cases of Anchises and iEneas, of Augeias,Euphetes, and Eumelus.

In none of these cases, however, have we the sameright to assume in limine the character of chieftainshipby known lineage from an Hellenic family, as in thecase of the Achseans. The cases of Anchises andiEneas may indeed be treated on grounds of their own.In the other instances, we must inquire what groundHomer furnishes for especially connecting these per-sons with the headship of ruling families, and withHellas or Thessaly.

This I shall do, subject to the general rule, that if inany particular case there can be found a special markof connection with Thessaly or Hellas in or about aparticular spot, it is thereupon to be inferred that inthat particular place the connection was known andcommemorated. If, for example, we find at a givenpoint an ava% avSpwv, reason binds us to presume that,as the local name might show the derivation fromthe first seat of the race, so by this title the linealdescent from a ruling family there was meant to becommemorated and marked.

The Cases of Anchises and Mneas.

But first for Anchises and iEneas.Homer is the historian as well as the poet of Greece :

but he is neither the poet nor the historian of Troy,further than as it was necessary for him to describegenerally to the Greeks the race with whom they hadbeen engaged in a death-struggle.

Cases of Anchises and JSneas. $85

The strong resemblance between the two nations,and especially their partaking, to a certain extent, of acommon lineage, seems to have constituted a difficultyin his way. Already in his time the sentiment ofGreek nationality was strong. Whether he chieflyfound or made it so, is nothing to the present purpose.This sentiment of nationality required to be circum-scribed by a clear line, marking the extent of theGreek political organisation ; and if it was unfavoura-ble to the acknowledgment of relationship to any racebeyond that line, especially was it so in the case of arace that the Greeks had conquered. Probably there-fore the purpose of Homer required that he shouldinstinctively as it were keep in special obscurity thenotes of kindred between the two countries.

In the case of the Greeks, Homer has intelligiblypointed out the origin of the race among the hills ofNorthern Thessaly round the ancient Dodona, and nearOlympus, its poetical counterpart, and the residence ofJupiter with his gorgeous train. Yet more clearly hashe in the case of the Trojans enabled us to trace themto their fountain-head, again in the mountains, andbeside the roots, of Ida, where they worshipped theIdsean Jovec. We have here the race without pre-decessors, residing in the very spot where they wereplanted by their divine progenitor, and coming downby a clear line of seven generations to the cousinsHector and iEneas.

But although the conditions of chieftaincy are thusobviously fulfilled in the race of Dardanus, yet difficultypresents itself in a new form. Why is the term ava£ av-SpS>v applied to Anchises and to his son JEneas, but neverto Priam, or to his son Hector, or to any of his family ?

c- II. iii. 276. vii. 202. ix. 47, 8. xvi. 605. xxiv. 290, 308.

486 II. Ethnology.

The answer to this question opens a curious chapterof Homeric history and speculation. In going throughit I shall endeavour carefully to separate between posi-tive statement, and interpretation or conjecture.

These facts then are on the face of the poem.i. Anchises nowhere personally appears in it. And

yet there was at Troy an assembly of Squoyipovres(II. iii. 146-8). Of the persons there mentioned, Lam-pus, Clytius, and Hiketaon were brothers of Priam;others, for example, Panthus and Antenor, were in theexercise of at the very least a subaltern sovereignty.They were present at Troy, while their sons fought inthe Trojan ranks. The reason, therefore, of the absenceof Anchises is not to be sought in his being representedby iEneas. Nor in the immunity of his dominions,through their being placed among the mountains, fromwar: for iEneas himself, before he came to Troy, hadonly been rescued by divine interposition from thehands of Achillese. Why then does Anchises neverappear? Either surely because of the high rank ofhis sovereignty, or because of some unexplained rivalrybetween the families.

1. It does not appear that iEneas took any part inthe councils of the Trojans. But still he is always re-presented as a personage of the greatest importance.It is said of him, as of Hector, 6e6s §' &>? TUTO <%KW.

Yet his character would seem to be wholly unmarkedby any great or striking quality, such as we find in Sar-pedon and in Polydamas. Something peculiar then inhis birth and position must have been the cause of theimportance attached to him, as it is not to be found inhis personal qualities.

3. Accordingly, there are clear indications of ad II. ii. 58. e II. x x . 9O_3) ! 28-31.

Evidence as to JEneas. 487

jealousy between iEneas himself and the Trojan royalfamily. In the great battle of B. x. 118, Deiphobus,wanting aid, goes to seek iEneas (459-61).

TOP 8' vurarov evpeu

ea rcW' aUl yap ITJOI^IB eTrepjyte bla>

otiveK ap', <!<T6\OV kovra juer' avbpaffiv, OVTI

Now this aversion is wholly foreign to the character ofPriam, which was genial and kindly: nor can it be ac-counted for by any thing in the very neutral characterof iEneas. There is an opinion of some critics, that heand Anchises had given offence by advising the restora-tion of Helen. This, however, seems (B. iii. 159) tohave been the general wish of the S^fioyepovres, towhom it is expressly ascribed; and it is Antenor, whoproposes it in the Assembly; why then should it not,if it existed, be mentioned by Homer in the case ofiEneas and Anchises? Yet there is not the faintestreference to it. It would still, however, appear insuffi-cient to account for the feeling imputed to Priam.Coupling it with the high position of iEneas, and theabsence of Anchises, I cannot but think there is mostprobably a reference here to the headship of the family,which is designated by the term ava% avSpoov. Nothingcould be more natural than this jealousy between therecent and wealthy city of the plain on the one hand,and the ancient but comparatively poor city of thehills on the other, if the ruling family of Dardaniaclaimed by seniority the chieftaincy of the race.

4. Another remarkable indication of the peculiarposition of iEneas is afforded by the taunt of Achilles(II. xx. 179-83),

r\ <ri ye 6vnbs e/xol (xayiaacrOai avdiyei

Tpiiecrcnv avageiv

488 II. Ethnology.

' But you will not get it,' he proceeds, ' for Priam haschildren of his own, and is 110 fool.'

To this taunt iEneas makes no reply, except bystating his genealogy, for which Achilles had not asked.Is not this very like justifying his expectation of thethrone ? or what other connecting link can be pointedout between the taunt of Achilles, and the genealogygiven in answer to the challenge it conveyed ?

5. While Ilion, the city of Priam, was later by seve-ral generations, probably having been founded in thereign of Ilus, Anchises reigned in Dardania, the origi-nal seat (II. xx. 216) of the race. The fact of hissovereignty there seems to be indicated by our findingiEneas in command of the Dardanians, with two sonsof Antenor, who probably served as his lieutenants(ii. 819-23): by the connection which that passageestablishes between Anchises and the hill country, in-habited (II. xx. 216) by the Dardanians ; by the di-vision of the royal line at the point where the Ilianname first appears (II. xx. 231); and by a number ofplaces showing the high position in the army whichjEneas held, as head of the Dardanian force.

6. The rank of iEneas was without any rival or parallelin the Trojan army, except Hector. Though strictlyspeaking Dardanian, he is addressed as

AlveCa, Tpdcav j3ov\rj<popr

His name is often combined with that of Hector, andwhen so combined frequently precedes it. Thus wehave (vi. 75),

el IM) ap Alveiq re KafEKTopL etire K. r. A.

To this are subjoined, by Helenus, words which as-sign to iEneas a parity of command with Hector:

Evidence as to JEneas. 489

AiVei'a r e Kdl''EKTop, tirel TTOVOS fy/f« /jiaAttrra

Tptowv Kal AVKLOW eyKe/cXtrat S.

If it be thought that metrical considerations had to dowith putting iEneas in these places as well as in xx.240, before Hector, so they might have to do withplacing Ilus before Assaracus in the genealogy.

It is asserted of him by Mars in the person of Aca-mas, U. v. 467,

(cetrai avj]p OVT1 laov eTCofxev "EKTO/JI 8«O,

Aiveias, vlbs fxeyakriTopos 'Ayxlaao.

Lastly, we have the prophecy of Neptune that thesceptre of Dardanus should continue in the line ofAnchises (II. xx. 302-8).

And, as regards the application to iEneas of the titlewhich properly belonged to Anchises, this seems toconnect itself with the practice of the heroic age as toa devolution of sovereignty, either partial or total, byaged men upon their heirs. We seem to find anotherexample of this in the case of Eumelus; and the instancesof Achilles, and especially of Ulysses, are also in point*

7. As the character of iEneas does not account forthe jealousy felt towards him, so neither does his con-duct. He nowhere thwarts Hector by opposition, or trieshim by advice that he is not inclined to take. Of thiscourse of proceeding we have an instance ; but it isin Polydamas. If, then, neither the character nor theconduct of -ZEneas supply the explanation, we must lookfor it in some claims that he was entitled to make invirtue of lineage, and that consequently attractedjealousy towards him.

8. Although it has been assumed that Priam was thehead of the Trojan race and federation, this is notstated by Homer. In II. xxiv. 544 it is only said that

S II. vi. 77.

490 II. Ethnology.

he excelled the other princes of that region, (i) in hiswealth, and (2) in the number, or possibly it may meanthe excellence of his sons. On the contrary, it is doubt-ful, by the mere words of the poem, whether Priamrepresented the senior or the junior line, and when wecompare and draw inferences from the text, we mayarrive at the conclusion that it was the junior line,quite as easily as at an opposite one; especially if weshall find, that the rights of seniority itself were lessdeterminate in Troas, than in Greece.

In the genealogy of the Twentieth Book, we find noassistance towards elucidating this question, except inthe precedence given to names. The three sons ofTros stand in the following order:

1. Ilus. a. Assaracus. 3. Ganymedes.Then (1) the fate of Ganymedes is described ;

(2) the line of Ilus is traced down to Priam;(3) that of Assaracus is traced to Anchises.

Here the line of Priam has precedence : but on theother hand, lastly, iEneas proceeds to state his own birthfrom Anchises, before that of Hector from Priam,

avrap lju.''hyyicr-qs, ITpta/ioy 8' erex^E/cTopa hlove.

9. In the Fifth Iliad we learn, that Jupiter presentedsome horses of a particular breed to Tros, as a compensa-tion for the loss of his son Ganymedes. Anchises broughthis mares to them in the time of Laomedon withoutleave, and thus got possession of the breed. And itis in this place that Homer calls him ava£ avSpwv?. Itmay also be observed that this was the act of a youngman; for Laomedon, on whom he played this trick, wasone generation higher in the family tree. It is hereshown undoubtedly that the horses of Tros, the com-mon ancestor, descended to the line of Priam; which

e II. xx. 240. f II. v. 268.

Summary of the Evidence. 4yl

was the more wealthy and powerful, and occupied theplain country, where the horses fed in great numbers(xx. 2,21); but again, does it not seem as if this very pro-ceeding of Anchises may have had reference to a rivalrybetween the two houses, and a claim on his part tothe headship of the family ? especially from the use inthis very narrative of the phrase aW£ avSpwv for Anchises(v. 268), and shortly after for his heir iEneas (v. 311).

To sum up the evidence. We find the phrase ava%avSpwv applied to two persons only among the Trojans.Those two are a father advanced in years, and his heirapparent. The father is plainly enough the sovereign ofDardania, as well as descended from Dardanus; and Dar-dania, though secondary in power, was the original seatof the race. We cannot say positively whether An-chises represented the elder or the younger branch ofthe family: for precedence of name is sometimes givento one, and sometimes to the other line. But as Troywas powerful, and Dardania poor, we can understandthe precedeuce of the Trojan line, even although it besupposed junior: whereas it seems difficult to accountfor the fact that the precedence is sometimes given toiEneas, or for the jealousy felt both towards him, and byhim, except on the supposition that his family in itshumbler circumstances either were the rightful repre-sentatives of Dardanus, whose sceptre, after the fall ofTroy, iEneas and his sons were undoubtedly to trans-mit11 ; or at least were in a condition, whether by pri-mogeniture in Assaracus, or whether by holding theoriginal seat of the race, to make fair and plausiblepretensions to the distinction.

It is important to bear in mind, that we have not

h II. xx. 303.

492 II. Ethnology.

the same clear assertion of the right of the elderbranch to succeed to power in Asia, which the casesof Agamemnon, Protesilaus, Thrasymedes, and perhapsothers, supply in Greece. On the contrary, we shallfind Sarpedon first leader of the Lycians, though of ajunior branch to Glaucus, and likewise representingonly the female line. We shall also find great reasonto question whether Hector, even if he was the heirexpectant of the succession, was not, nevertheless, ju-nior to Paris. This want of definiteness in the rule ofsuccession is exactly what would bring it into dispute,and perhaps into prolonged dispute. And if the right ofseniority was not fully acknowledged in Asia, this wouldat once explain, why Homer did not observe an uniformorder in the genealogy: perhaps it might also explainhis not being historically aware what that order was.

If this be so, the apparent anomaly of the applica-tion, on the Trojan side, to secondary persons only ofthe title so constantly given to the highest Greek, dis-appears, and becomes the consistent application of arule. And Anchises with iEneas may then offer themost perfect model of the ava% avSpwv, as uniting withcontinued sovereignty not only known lineal descentfrom the first ancestor, and from Jupiter, but also thecontinued possession of the original seat.

It may however be asked, why, even if we allow thatava£ avSpwv is among the Greeks a title of patriarchalchieftaincy, should we therefore assume that it had thesame defined meaning among a people of different bloodand institutions ?

Let me briefly answer this question.It is to the Helli that we have looked back as the

most probable source of those ideas and institutions ofclanship, which gave rise to the title of aVa£ avSpwv. But

Signs of kin between Trojans and Greeks. 493

the Helli were a mountain people, (for they werearound the wintry Dodona,) and so were the Dardanians:and the institutions of highlanders in different parts,even at wide intervals of space and time, often presentstrong mutual resemblances. The limited means andpursuits of man in such a physical position check deve-lopment, and tend to maintain uniformity.

The Dardan highlanders worshipped Jupiter on Ida,as the Helli worshipped him at Dodona. That it wasthe same Jupiter, we may infer with the greatest con-fidence, from the fact that Homer makes one formulaof invocation common to his Trojans and his Greeks'.

<S8e 8e n s ewrecncev 'A\aiS>i> re Tpdmv re*

Ztv itarep, "ibrjOev fiebiav, Kv8iore, /xe'yiore, K. T. A.

The bulk of the religion was nearly the same on bothsides, as far as the principal deities were concerned.

As the first among the proofs of affinity in blood, Ishould be inclined to cite that very visit of Paris to Me-nelaus, which gave occasion to the war. We have noother instance recorded in Homer of a foreign prince,received as such in domestic hospitality by a Greek chief-tain. Nor can we, inversely, find that Greek chieftainswere similarly entertained by foreigners. We have in-deed an account of gifts received by Menelaus in Egyptk;and we have the kindly reception by the Egyptianking and his people of the Pseudo-Ulysses as a suppli-ant1; and the similar entertainment of Ulysses, againas a suppliant, in Scheria. But these cases fall greatlyshort* of the case of Paris. Again, Homer calls theEgyptians a\\66pooi avOpwiroi™: and that phrase is anusual one with him, evidently representing a familiaridea. But he never calls the Trojans aWoOpoot, nor

' II. iii. 297, 320. k Od. iv. 125-35. • Oil. xiv. 276-86.m Od. iii. 302.

494 II. Ethnology.

speaks of them as having different manners or religionfrom the Greeks. The strongest word applied to themis aX\6Scnrosn. But this word seems to mean simply' from another place,' and does not convey the properand full idea of a foreigner. For not only the LycianSarpedon is an a\\o'<Wo? to the Trojans, but Greek pi-rates are usually said to attack aWoScnrot, whereas theyevidently were wont to plunder those of their own na-tion, even down to the time of Thucydides : and aboveall Eumaeus, disgusted and worn out with the profligatemisdeeds of the Suitors, thinks of moving off avSpas isaWoSaTrovt;, together with his Oxen (IOVT avrrjcri f36ea<nv),

by which he could not have meant more than a shortpassage to the Greek continent0. On the whole, I thinkthat all this permits the supposition that the Trojanswere admitted to be a kindred, though they were nota Greek people.

But further, the poems are full of testimony to theaffinities between the Trojans and the Greeks. It istrue they also bear witness to considerable differences:but both nations had been settled in the plain countryfor several generations before the Trojan War; and,with the growth of agriculture and trade, arts andwealth, they might well have diverged from the closeparallelism of a ruder age.

At this point, however, we must call to mind somematters, which have been more largely discussed already.

Among these resemblances of a general character itmay be observed, that there evidently are Pelasgi onboth sides of the great quarrel. The UeXaa-yol of theTrojans are among the e-wlKovpoL (II. ii. 840) : the Ile-Xaa-yol of the Greeks appear as one of the Cretanraces, distinct from the Dorians and Acha2ans, and

» II. iii. 48. xix. 324. 0 Od. in. 48. xx. 219. II. xvi. 550.

Signs connected with the Helli. 495

probably as the first founders of those lowland settle-ments in Thessaly (ii. 681), over which the Hellenicand Achaean names seem principally to have pre-vailed. Thus the Pelasgian name forms a decided bondof union between the two races: though, from the Poet'smentioning it on the Trojan, and suppressing it on theGreek side, we at once infer that the Pelasgian ele-ment was stronger and more palpable among theTrojans.

Next, it may be recollected that, according both toantecedent probability and to tradition, those Helliwho colonized the tract about Dodona must have comefrom, that is, come by way of, Dardania. There is thusevery likelihood of a similarity, either of race or ofmanners, between those who passed onwards, and thosewho dropped off the movement, and remained behind.

Nor are there wanting some indications, small inamount, but trustworthy in their nature, of primitiveidentity between the Dardans, or some portion of them,and the Helli.

The Trojan Catalogue divides itself into two prin-cipal parts. The latter of these (840-877) recites thenames of the allied nations. The former (816-39) men-tions no names of races but the Trojan and Darda-nian; which were really one, and were even in namesometimes treated as identical: for iEneas is addressed,though commander of the Dardans P, as

AlveCa, Tpcawv ^ovKr/fpope.

This division of the Catalogue is clearly indicated bythe verse which introduces it,

iivda Tore Tp&es re bUKptOev 778' tTilKovpoC

where the word Tpwey evidently includes the Darda-nians.

P See also Dolon's description, II, x. 418-21.

496 II. Ethnology.

And that every thing is Trojan, or Dardan, which lieswithin the division, vv. 816-839, may further be in-ferred from Dolon's description of v the bivouac of theetclicovpoi in U. x. 428—31. He enumerates nine nations,some of whom appear among the eleven described inII. ii. 840-77, but not one among those portions of theforce which are described 816-839. I therefore gather,that every thing in this part of the Catalogue is strictlyTrojan or Dardan. But here we have

"Acrios 'TpranChris, bv 'Ap(<r(3r)0ev (pipov titiroLaffla>v€s yteyaXoi., TtoTa^wv aitb SeWijeiroy.

The mention of this river is repeated in II. xii. 96, 7.Now the name of a river Selleeis at once suggests a

connection with the tribe of Selli or Helli: and furtheron we shall find, that Ephyre is a sign of the Helli, asLarissa is of the Pelasgi, and that one at least of theEphyres of Greece, probably one situated in Thessaly,was by a river Selleeis. In later times Sicyon% and inHomer Elis, if not Thessaly, show each their Ephyrewith a river Selleeis.

It has been already noticed, that in the Games ofthe Twenty-third Iliad, Homer tells us that the <T6\O$,

or ball of iron given by Achilles as a prize, had pre-viously been hurled by the strong arm of king Eetion.And as all the traces of gymnastic exercises in Homerlead us to refer them to Hellic families, we may per-haps be justified in taking this as an indication thatEetion, the father of Andromache, belonged to thisstock.

Another trace of the name of the Helli is found inthe grammatical structure of the ancient Homericword Hellespont. Its composition declares it to be the

1 Strabo, p. 338.

The Hellespont of Homer. 497

sea of Helle. Helle would be the descriptive name ofa woman of the tribe of Helli. Nor could any thingbe more natural, than that the Strait and neighbouringwater should take its appellation from the tribe ofHelli, or even from a person of that tribe, when wehave every reason to believe they made the passage inthe course of their migration westward.

In later times, the name Hellespont has been re-stricted to the narrow strait between the Sea of Mar-mora and the Archipelago. In Homer it bore thissense, at least oocasionally or inclusively, because hecalls it ayappoos r. At other times he calls it TrXaxyy,and the commentators have been much puzzled toshow how a narrow strait could be a broad one, whilethe interpretation salt has also been suggested for theepithet. It is just possible, that this adjective mightapply to what was afterwards known as the Hellespont,and might describe it as broad, in comparison with thebay in which lay the Greek ships : but it is much morenatural to construe it more freely, and to understandby it the broad Hellespont, in opposition to the narrowHellespont; that is, the open sea, in opposition to thedydppoos, which signifies the Strait. The expressionTrXarvs'EWt(nrovTos is used but thrice; once8 for thewater near the part of the camp occupied by Achilles,which we know was by the open sea', and twice" withreference to the sepulchral mounds which were to beerected there, and for which the most conspicuous spotwould of course be chosen. What irXarus suggests,another epithet, direipwv*, surely requires: for it is in-credible that this word should be applied to the mereStrait. And in truth, independently of epithets, it is

r II. xii. 30. s II. xvii. 432. * II. i. 350.u II. vii. 86. Od. xxiv. 82. * II. xxiv. 545.

K k

498 II. Ethnology.

demonstrable that the word in Homer sometimesmeans, not the strait, but the Archipelago. For Achilles,announcing his intention to sail home, says he will beseen passing 'J&WqcnrovTov eir l^Ovoevray, over the Hel-lespont, which, having his vessels already at the mouthof it, he clearly could not do if it meant the strait only.And, in truth, the etymology of the word speaks foritself: the Greeks never would have given the nameirovros at all to a narrow strip of water. The con-nection, which was thus established between thisquarter and Greece through the medium of thename Helle, was recognised by the later Greeks : butthey naturally altered its form, by keeping to theirown country the honours of the fountain-head, whilethey made the eastward traces of the name to besecondary and derivative. In Apollonius, Phryxus andHelle are the children of Athamas, and grandchildrenof iEolus: and they are carried from Thessaly on theback of a ram to the Troic sea, where she is dropped,and gives her name to it. This tradition is summed upin the argument to the Argonautica, and exhibits thebelief of the Greeks in the early relationship of thecountries.

All this marks the Helli not only as a people whohad crossed the straits, but as one which had left itsname associated with the northern coast of the iEgean,and moreover upon the country in the neighbourhood ofthe straits, up to the river Selleeis; a stream which wesee must have been at a considerable distance beyondTroy, because all the rivers that descended from MountIda were employed in clearing away the Greek earth-works, and this one is not among themz.

y II. ix. 360. z II. xii. 19-23.

The gift of Echepolus. 499

We find an insulated yet remarkable note of kinbetween the Dardan house and the Greeks in the caseof Echepolus. He was a son of Anchises, and he re-sided in Sicyon. He was possessed of great wealth,and apparently he had also the fine breed of horseswhich was in his family : for he presented Agamemnonwith the mare A70j?a, as a consideration for not beingrequired to follow him against Troy.

Now there was evidently at this time no commercialclass formed in Greece. Echepolus must therefore havehad a territorial fortune. To find a wealthy member ofthe Dardan house domesticated in Greece, and peace-fully remaining there during the expedition, must excitesome surprise. It seems to supply a new and strongpresumption of the Hellic origin of the royal familiesof Troas. The name too, and the gift of a horse, arein remarkable conformity with the horse-rearing andhorse-breaking pursuits of the highest Trojans.

We have already seen stray signs of the Pelasgicaffinities between the two contending parties: but itwould now appear, that there were affinities in the Hellicline also : and if so, then this institution of chieftaincy,standing above merely political supremacy, and indi-cated by the phrase ava'^ avSpoHv, may probably havesubsisted among Trojans as well as Greeks.

The less warlike character of the Trojans, their moreoriental manners, and their less multiform and imagina-tive religion, all point to considerable differences in thecomposition of the people. The Pelasgic ingredientwas probably stronger in Troy: it appears to have hadmore influence over religion, manners, and institutions.But the circumstances mentioned above are tokens of an

a II. xxiii. 293-9.K k a

500 II. Ethnology.

infusion of Hellic blood in the populations that inhabitedTroas. Now this was nowhere so likely to be found asin the royal family; for we see the governing facultyeverywhere accompanying the Hellic tribes throughGreece, and asserting itself both by the acquisition ofpolitical power, and by the energetic use of it. Every-where it rises, by a natural buoyancy, to the summit ofsociety; and gives their first vent, in miniature, to thoseenergies, which were afterwards to defy, or even tosubdue the world.

At the same time, though it is in connection withthe Hellic families alone that we find the ava£ avSpwvamong the Greeks, we need not proceed so far as todeny the possibility that it might also have been a Pe-lasgic institution, and that its non-appearance, in con-nection with their name, might be sufficiently accountedfor simply by their loss of political power. We haveno reason to suppose the Pelasgi and Helli to havebeen families of mankind whose characters were in ra-dical and absolute opposition to one another: the com-pleteness of their fusion after a short period seems toprove, that, though with a different distribution of ca-pacities and tendencies, they must have had many andimportant points of contact.

IV. Case of Augeias.

Let us take next the case of Augeias.He appears in three passages of the Iliad.L. The Epeans, who inhabited Elis, with Bouprasium

and other towns enumerated in the Catalogue, andlying in the north-western corner of the Peloponnesus,sent to the Trojan war forty ships, in four divisions,under four separate leaders, and without any head over

The case of Augeias. 501

the whole contingent. The fourth named of these isPolyxeinus, son of Agasthenes, himself a lord (ava£),and the son of Augeias.

2. In the Eleventh Book, Nestor gives the curioushistory of the war of his boyhood or earliest youth, be-tween the Elians (v. 671), called also Epeans (688),and the Pylians.

Neleus had sent to Elis a chariot with four horsesto contend in the games, of which a tripod was theprize. The horses were detained by Augeias (v. 701).

rovs 8' a30i ava£ avbp&v kvydas

Nestor and the Pylians invaded Elis in return, andbrought off an immense booty. The Elians then tookarms and besieged Thryoessa (in the Catalogue Thryon),the border city of Pylos, at the ford of the Alpheus.Minerva brought the tidings to Pylos. The Pylianforces spent one night on the boundary river Minyeius,and marched to the Alpheus, beside which they spenta second night.

3. In the morning the battle was fought: the Epe-ans were defeated, and driven all the way to Boupra-sium and the Olenian rock, upon the sea shore, in thewestern part of what was afterwards Achsea. TherePallas turned them back. The Pylians, who returnedhome, are called Achaeansa.

Nestor in the first fight had slain a warrior namedMovXiof. He was the son-in-law of Augeias, marriedto his eldest daughter Agamede, who was profoundlyskilled in drugs (v. 741);

rj roaa (pdpi^aKa jjfir/, oaa rpe^et evpeia yO&v.

K. O. Miiller (Orchomenus, p. $$$) infers from the

a II. xi. 759.

502 II. Ethnology.

Catalogue, that Augeias was lord only of a fourth partof Elis. But this assumption seems quite gratuitous inconnection with the passage in the Catalogue, andutterly in contradiction to the tenour of the history ofthe Pylian raid in B. xi. On the contrary, I infer withconsiderable confidence, from the acephalous state ofthe Elian division of the army, in which it differs fromthe other divisions, that there had been a revolution inthat state since the time of Augeias; and if so, thenindirectly the Catalogue confirms the Elian monarchydescribed in the Eleventh Book.

Thus then we find this ava£ avSpwv, Augeias, lord ofElis two generations before the Trojan war. He isneighbour to Achseans, whom we have already tracedin Hellas: and he appears to have belonged to thesame national origin with them, because they senttheir chariots to run races at his games. Again, thefact of his holding these games at all, and at a placewhich subsequently contended for and obtained thesuperintendence of the great national assemblages cele-brated at Olympia, testifies to his known connectionwith the cradle of the race whose custom it was tocelebrate them; because these festivities had a reli-gious and national character, and as such could notbut have depended very greatly upon traditionary title.This race we have previously found to be the Hellenicrace.

We may however find other indications of the de-scent of Augeias from a ruling Hellenic family, inlocal and personal notices which connect Elis, his ownterritory, with the north, and with Thessaly in par-ticular.

For example : jt was at the Alpheus in Elis thatThamyris suffered his calamity : and he was coming at

Notes of connection between Elis and the, North. 503

the time from (Echaliab, in the valley of the UpperPeneus, a part of the Homeric Thessaly or Hellasproper. (II. ii. 730.)

The name Op^, too, which is applied to him, neverseems to have spread farther southwards than the hillsabout Thessaly.

Further, he was coming from Eurytus of (Echalia,who is again named as the lord, apparently, of thatcity, in ii. 730. But the name Eurytus was one currentamong the descendants of Actorc, for a descendant ofActor who bore it is named in the Catalogue a littlebelow: and this latter Eurytus was an Epean chief:and the descendants of Actor are found in the Epeanor Elian army of the Eleventh Book. (xi. 709, 739.)

Again, they are found in Thessaly or Phthiotis, forwhen Mercury had deflowered Polymele, the daughterof Phylas a Thessalian, Echecles, a descendant ofActor, married her; and yet again, they are foundnear AspledonJ and the Minyeian Orchomenos, be-tween Boeotia and Phocise.

Again, the Pylian army halted, at a day's marchfrom the Alpheus, on the Minyeius, a river evidentlynamed from the Minyse of Peloponnesus. But therewas a Minya also in Thessalyf, of which the site wasnot precisely known in historic times : and the north-ern Orchomenos was called Minyeius&.

There is no part of Middle or of Southern Greecewhich so abounds in the local and personal notes ofconnection with Thessaly and the North as Elis and itsneighbourhood. Some indications of it have alreadybeen given, and many more might be added. As for

b II. ii. 592 et seqq. c II. ii. 596,621. d n. x v i . 189.e II. ii. 513. f Cramer's Greece, i. 449. g II. ii. 511.

504 II. Ethnology.

example, there was an Enipeush, a river of Elis, sothere was of Pieria and of Phthiotis. Doris, beneath(Eta, is reflected or prefigured in the Homeric Doriumof the Pylian territories: the Thessalian Larissa in aLarissa, and a river Larissus, of Elis. The Thessalianname (Echalia is repeated in the district, over whichNestor ruled at the epoch of the Troica; and there isan Arcadian Orchomenos as well as a northern one.Cyparissus in Elis corresponds, again, with a Cyparissusin Phocis. Some other more doubtful indications mayclose the list. The Parrhasie of Arcadia may be fromthe same root with the Ylvpaa-os1 of the dominions ofProtesilaus. Perhaps the Thessalian Helos and Pteleosmay be akin to Alos in the country of Peleusk. Theresemblance of names is not confined to the extremitiesof the line, but is scattered along the path of migrationfrom north to south. It extends also to Laconia.

Nestor in his youth is summoned all the way fromPylos (rr)\6Qev), to fight with Pirithous and others inThessaly; (from whence Polypoetes, the son of Pirithous,led a division of the Greek army,) against the <&?pe?.

Thus far we find some presumptions as to the de-scent of Augeias, as to his connection with the Hellic in-stitution of the games, and as to the relation betweenElis, over which he reigned, and the line northwardsinto Thessaly; all tending, together with the evidentlyHellic character of the Epeans, to shew that he was therepresentative of one of their ruling tribes.

But he also bears a distinct local mark, the natureof which I shall now endeavour to investigate.

The chieftainship of Agamemnon has been traced

11 Thuc. iv. 76. Strabo, 356, 432. Cramer's Greece, i. 207,399.i II. ii. 608, 695. k I], ii. 682.

The name of Ephyre. 505

and identified, by means of his Achaean connection,without any assistance from local or territorial namesconnected with the abode of his family.

In such a case as his, we could not look for aid ofthat description : for his house had only been possessedfor two generations of their dominions: we have no pre-cise knowledge before that time of the place of theirsojourn: and when they rose to power, it was in a ter-ritory, and in cities, which appear to have been alreadyof historic fame. It was not therefore likely that theirabodes should bear names such as, if they had come inthe characters of founders and not of inheritors, theywould probably have affixed to them.

In the case of the Dardan house, we have found,among other indications of their Hellic affinities, thetwo evidently Hellic names of the Hellespont and theRiver Selleeis.

There is another local name in Homer of paramountimportance as a key to the question respecting theruling Hellic tribes, the name of Ephyre (Ecpvp>]).

Let us endeavour to collect the scattered lightswhich either the etymology, or the use and associationsof the term in Homer, may supply.

And, first, we may notice in Homer a large clusterof names which are found running over Greece, andwhich are evidently in etymological association withone another: I will bring these together, before en-deavouring to estimate their relation to the nameEphyre.

1. Qapis, II. ii. 582. In Lacedsemon.2. Qepal, II. ii. 711. In Thessaly.3. &ypt], II. v. 543. Between Pylus and Sparta.4. <J>i?pa(, II. ix. 151, 293. Od.iii.488. The same.

506 II. Ethnology.

5. <&ea), Od. xv. 296'. Otherwise read $epal, and,according to the Scholiast, the same with Qrjpai. Thesite is on the sea, between Pylus and Sparta.

6. $eia, II. vii. 135. On the Iardanus: and probablyalso on the Arcadian frontier towards Pylus: but, inthe opinion of the Scholiast™, the same with <l>ea/.

Besides these names of places, we have also,1. $>ripi]Tia§ris, II. ii. 763. xxiii. 376, the name of Eu-

rnelus; who was the son of Admetus, the lord of Qepalin II. ii. 711.

1. Qiptis, one of the sons of Cretheus, a Thessalianking, Od. xi. 259.

3. The ^(Oey, termed opea-Kwoi in II. i. 268, and Xa^vt]-ein-e? in II. ii. 743 ; the shaggy mountaineers, on whomPirithous made war, when he was attended by Nestor.

With respect to the six local names, and the twofirst of the three personal names, there can be littledoubt of their identity in root. I t is directly probablefrom the text, that ^npn and ^rjpal were the same place.The name of Eumelus, who lives at <&epa), and who isthe grandson of $>epw, yet is called <$>ripr)TidSi)s, clearlyestablishes the etymological relationship. This thereis, again, no difficulty whatever in recognising betweenQepal and <3>ee«, or again between <&eai and <J>e/aj; and itis in the manner of Homer to give the name of thesame country both in the singular and in the plural, asMvicyvri, II. iv. 52, and MvKt]va\, I l . i i .569. <&apis, theonly remaining name, gives us the Doric or iEolic a fortj, and an altered form of declension. This however is notat all incompatible with the manner of Homer, who notonly uses Ti.rjveK6irt] and II^eAoVeta,' A.<TTV6J(TI and'Aarii-

elrj (according to one reading), II. ii. 766, and

1 Strabo, b. viii. p. 351.m Schol. II. vii. 135. Od. xv. 297. Cramer, Geogr. Gr. iii. 87.

Its cognate names. 507

Tlieptr), Od. V. 50, but 'EpfJLtjs and 'E/>ywe/a?, TlarpoicXeris

and TlarpoKXoi; and for towns, the Qpvov of II. ii. 591appears again as Qpvoeo-aa in II. xi. 711.

In general it is to be remembered that the instru-ment of language, at the time when Homer lived wasas yet in a highly elastic state: it was in the state asit were of gristle; it had not yet hardened into bone,nor assumed the strict conventional forms which a formedliterature requires. And for the same reasons that ithas presented variations as between one time and an-other, it could not but do the like as between oneplace and another.

The very same causes which made change a law oflanguage would give to that course of change in oneplace a greater, and in another a less velocity, olderforms succumbing at a given time in one place, andyet surviving in another. Such a state of facts aroundhim would give great liberty to a poet, independentlyof the exigencies of his verse; which appear indeed tohave caused to such a man, and with such a language,little difficulty.

But we hardly require the benefit of these general con-siderations to cover the case of a varying declension forthe name of a town. The true explanation probably isthe very simple one, that in one declension it has beenused substantively, and in the other adjectively. Andthis will be the more plain if we consider that thename of the town would usually be the representativeof an idea, either in conjunction with a person, or di-rectly. Thus Qpvov is a rush, and Opvoeh rushy. Thetown Qpvov in the Catalogue is at the ford of the Al-pheus, and in II. xi. 711 it is TJ? Qpvoecrcra TTOXIS, alireiaKoXwvrj, which exhibits to us the adjective use in anactual example. So again by analogy we might have

508 II. Ethnology.

from $VjOa or ^/Oifc as Trdrpis from irarpa, ava\ic)s

fromWe have a curious extra-Homeric remnant of geo-

graphical evidence with respect to this Pharis. Pausa-nias" relates to us, that the place where it was reportedto have stood was in his time called Alesiae, and that nearit there was a river bearing the peculiar name of Phel-lias; which it seems most natural to regard as a cor-rupted form of the Homeric name 2e\\>?e/?. This con-nection of Pharis with Selleeis becomes in its turn anargument for relationship between Pharis and Ephyre,with which Selleeis is associated in the places whereHomer mentions it as the name of a Greek river.

Nor are we without other traces, in this region, ofthat name which so often attends upon Ephyre: forLaconia had for its key on the north the town of Sel-lasia°. The Upoo-eXijvoi of Arcadia should also here beborne in mind.

Thus then we appear to find the name of Ephyre ac-cording to one or other of its forms in Laconia, in Pylus,and in that part of Thessaly which was ruled by Adine-tus. The ruling race in the two former was Achaean,and therefore Hellic. Admetus was himself an ara£avSpwv, and his Hellic origin will be shown presently.So far, therefore, we have a presumption established thatthe name of Ephyre signifies some peculiar connectionwith the Helli.

Etymologically it is obvious to connect these wordswith epa as their root, and to suppose that they retainthe prefix, which it had lost in the common Greekusage even before the days of Homer, as he employsepa^e without the digamma: and which prefix we findreproduced in the Latin terra.

n Paus. Lac. b. III. c. xx. 5, 3. 0 Cramer iii. 221.

The <t>rjpey. 509

Le t us now pass on to the ^ijpes.

The $»?/)es of Homer are, like the"EAAoi, a mountainpeople, II. i. 268, rude in manners (ii. 743), and aggres-sive upon the inhabitants of the plains; for the war inwhich Nestor engaged was evidently retributive, as theexpression used is eTierarof, Pirithous 'paid them of;''

and he was sovereign of a part of the plain country,called Pelasgic Argos. Nor does any adverse presump-tion arise from our finding a Hellic tribe (if such theywere) of the mountains, making war on tribes of similarorigin in the plain : any more than we are surprised atwar between the Pylians and the Epeans, both appar-ently Hellic, though probably not both Achaean.

I t may be well to remember, that the Dardans ofHomer are often included in Trojans; as well as oftenseparately designated : and that the Cephallenians arealso apparently included among his 'A^ato/. Nei therof these pairs of names are terri torial: while in eachpair one probably indicates a subdivision of the other.

The $>jpeg thus resembling the "EXAot, we are led bytheir designation to another link between the name ofQiipa.i with its cognates and the Hellic race. I t seemsthus far as if ^pai were the appropriate name of asettlement formed by $>>jpes.

Having proceeded thus far, we may now observe therelation of the word Qyp,

1. To the Greek epa, which evidently, from its pass-ing into the Latin terra, had at one time a Greekprefix. W i t h this we may probably associate the Greekeap, and the Latin ver.

1. To the Greek 6hp, a wild beast.3 . To the La t in / e r a , with the same meaning.4 . To the Latin terra, meaning the earth.

p II. ii. 743.

510 II. Ethnology.

5. To the Italian terra, the old classical name, in thatbeautiful tongue, not for a district, but for an inclosed,walled, or fortified place. This word seems in Italianto be rarely, if at all, used for a district, but so gene-rally for a town, that it is difficult to suppose the signi-fication was derived in the same manner as Argos inGreek, from the tract of country in which it was situ-ated. In Italian terra seems often to mean tellus,often humus, very rarely ager, constantly oppidum orcastrum. Thus in Dante (Inferno, C, v. 97), * Siedela terra, dove nata fui.'

This being so, it is natural to suppose that, while thecorrelative of the Greek epa became in Latin terra, so asdirectly to signify tellus or humus, that of the GreekQripa. became in Italian terra, so as to signify a walledplace; or, in other words, that the original word, what-ever it was, of the common mother language, which be-came <&ripa in Greek, in Italy became terra for this lat-ter purpose. The exchange of 6 for t we see in ea-Qhibecoming vestis: and of t for f ( = (p) in rpvydw com-pared with fruc/es.

This sense of terra seems to have dropped altogetherout of the Latin, and especially Pelasgian, branch ofthe old Italian tongue.

The relation between <Pr)p and drip, the one applica-ble to men, and the other to wild beasts, appears evi-dently to throw us back upon that which the mountaintribes of men had in common with animals, namely, awild and savage life, and the free possession of theearth. Thus the two stand in a common and nearrelation to the word epa, the earth, and they seem tohave ep or r]p for their common root.

Before passing on to 'E<pvprj, I would remark that inthis instance again we seem to derive light from Ho-

Etymology of'E(pvpr]. 511

mer's unequalled point and precision in the use ofepithets. His Qijpes appear to be in fact the rude anduncombed mountaineers, who also have the name of"EXXot in the same or other tribes. These Qrjpes areXaxyrjevres, shaggy. They come down to the plains, andacquire settled and civilised habits : from Qrjpes theyare become 'Amatol, but their long hair has not leftthem, and from Aa^ijej/Te?, they are now Ka.prjKo/u.6wvTe?.

Now we find the word 'E^U'JOJ? used many times inHomer: and once we have the name"E(^!Y>ot, appliedto a people apparently Thessalian, on whom Mars'*,with his son &6(3os, makes war from out of Thrace.

Can we then presume an etymological connectionbetween the word 'Ecpvptj, and that group of wordswhich we have been discussing, and which we havefound to show marks of connection with the Helli ?

For if so, then we shall be supported by variousother reasons, which, as we shall find, connect the wordEphyre with the Hellic races in a very remarkablemanner.

What we have here to consider is,i . The prefix e.i. The change of e or n for v.

Dr. Donaldson1" has given a list of Greek words whichhave, as prefixes unconnected with the root, sometimesthe letter a, sometimes e, sometimes o.

Such in the second class arei-picpoo, whence roof.e-\ev6epos, whence liber.i-pvdpos, whence ruber, rufus.i-peTfj.09, whence remus.

This point being disposed of, how are we to accountfor finding (pvpq, instead of cpeptj or §npn ?

q II. xiii. 301. r New Cratylus iii. 1. p. 282, 286.

512 II. Ethnology.

Can it be because, in cases of Greek syllabic aug-ment, there is a tendency to avoid reduplication, as intxTirdWu) for araTaWw ? In but a small proportion ofthe cases given in Dr. Donaldson's table is the vowelprefix the same with the vowel following.

Can it be from that tendency of what we call com-prehensively the digamma to lapse into the v, whichHeyne has observed8?

Or, shall we found it on the principles laid down byBopp', in his Comparative Grammar, that the a has atendency to weaken itself into v, and that liquids havinga preference for that latter vowel, influence the gene-ration of it ? the conditions of interchange between aand v resting, as he says, upon the laws of gravity orvocal equilibrium.

It must be observed that the original vowel of theroot may, in this case, have been the a which we findin <papis.

It is not only a that we may find supplanted by v.The e suffers the same fate in the Italian Siculus, whichappears as the representative of the Greek 2/*reXo?.Again we have, in the Latin, the kindred words furoandifera. Perhaps I am wrong in dealing thus scrupu-lously with the variation from e to v, as if capable of af-fecting vitally the question of identity in the root. Forin examining another root (that of Ke(pd\>]), we haveseen that its derivatives appear to include the whole, ornearly the whole range of the vowels of the alphabet.

Upon the whole it appears not unsafe, without pre-tending to any authoritative solution of a questionfitted for philological scholars, among whom I cannotpretend to rank, to suppose that 'Ecpvpr) and ^pal may

8 Heyne Exc. iii. ad Horn. II. xix. vol. vii. p. 770.1 Comp. Gram. sect. 490.

Its probable signification. 513

be drawn etyinologically from the same root. If so, thatroot will be probably the same with that of epa, and of<pnp, of which we have ascertained that it is related tothe Hellic races: and upon these suppositions we mayalready be prepared, I do not say to conclude, but tosuspect that 'E<pvpr; and Qepal may properly denote,and may be the original and proper Hellic name forthe terre (Ital.), or walled places, founded by theHellic races; as "Apyos signifies the open districts inwhich the Pelasgians were given to settling KMfxrjSbv, foragricultural purposes.

I do not mean by this that the Pelasgian settlementscontained no aggregations of houses, or that the Hellicwere not connected with the cultivation of the soil.On the contrary, as the Pelasgians apparently builttheir Larissas for defence, so we seem to have indica-tions connecting the name Ephyre with a fertile soil.When Homer represents the "Hcpvpoi as objects of in-vasion by Mars from Thrace, he probably means by thename the inhabitants of a settled country in the plains,on whom predatory incursions were made by the Thra-cian highlanders. So that if we shall succeed in shew-ing a special connection between the local name Ephyreand the Hellic tribes, we may, by the reflected light ofthat conclusion, even venture to understand the wordEphyri as meaning Helli, who had come down into thelow country, made settlements, and acquired somethingat least of the habits of civilized life.

Nor are we without further Homeric evidence tothe effect that, wherever an Ephyre is found, there isusually an abundance of rich pasture and cultivableland, so that the name is well adapted to mark thosespots which a conquering race would be apt to choosefor its abodes.

Ll

514 II. Ethnology.

For example, Elis has its Ephyre : and from the factthat Elis was the scene of the national chariot-races,we might at once conclude that it was famous for itshorses, and if so, that it abounded in good soil andpasture, and in open country. Wherever in Homerwe find the horse conspicuous, we find also good landsand opulence, whether it be in Troas, in the Thracecalled epifia>\a£a, in Thessaly, or in Elis. For Homergives us, as to the last, direct evidence of the fact, byhis epithets evpv-^opo<i, open, and /7nro'/3oTo?, horse-pas-turingv. Elis, in fact, was most probably for Pelopon-nesus what Boeotia was for Middle Greece: the firsthalting place, from its fertile soil, of those who enteredthe region; the scene, accordingly, of rapid successions,and therefore frequent revolutions, but also the placebearing the strongest marks, through nomenclature, ofthe country from which the new-comers had proceeded.

Again, the Ephyre of the Odyssey is expressly called(Od. ii.32,8), irleipav apovpav. And when Hercules tookAstyoche from Ephyre (Il.ii.659), after despoiling thatwith many other cities, we may clearly infer, that theywere rich, and not poor places which he plundered, there-fore that this Ephyre also was rich; and if so, rich in itssoil, the only wealth, for regions, then known to Greece.Again, the Ephyre of Sisyphus (U. vi. 152) becameCorinth, and Corinth was even in Homer's time calleda<pveios. This epithet is referred by some to its fa-vourable position for commerce. But such an explana-tion is wholly unsuited to the age of Homer. For thecommercial prominence of Corinth belongs to a laterperiod; and we have nothing to support the idea, thatcommercial opulence existed in Greece at this period

u See II. xi. 222. xx. 485. compared with x. 436, 545-7.v Od.'iv. 635; and xxi. 347.

Its probable signification. 515

at all. The natural explanation seems to be, the fer-tility of the soil of the plain between the rock ofGorinth and Sicyon. This seems to have become, inafter-time, the subject of a proverb. Hence the xpwv-o-Xoyos in the Aves of Aristophanes says (Av. 968),

dAA' orav oiK^(7W(ri XVKOL iro\ial re KOpdvai,

kv rauTcj) TO /xera£ii KoplvOov KCU 2,IKV&VOS.

In the same sense as where Shakespeare says,When Birnam wood shall move to Dunsinane.

The Scholiast gives two explanations, of which thebest is eucpopos yap avrtj % ^wpa.

Again, it is certainly confirmatory of the suppositionthat 'Ecpvpq was the name of the primitive Hellic, as"Apyos was of the Pelasgic settlement, when we findthat the first, though clearly meaning a settled place,has etymologically no reference to agricultural labour,while the second is entirely based upon that idea;since these significations of the word chosen to denotesettlement, in the two cases agree, in their reciprocaldifference, with the different specific character of theHellic and Pelasgic tribes, the former emerging fromthe mountains, predatory and poor, ardent, bold, andenterprising; the latter peaceful in their habits, andlooking to nothing beyond the cultivation of the soil.

So much for the root of Ephyre and Pherse, and forthe relation between the two.

Now the Homeric testimony to the prevalence ofthese names is exactly such as most effectually esta-blishes the connection between them on the one hand,and Thessaly with the Hellic races on the other.

First as to Ephyre.1. Five generations before the Trojan war, Sisyphus,

a son or descendant of iEolus, was settled, apparently asa subordinate prince or lord, in an Ephyre, which was

L 1 %

516 II. Ethnologxj.

near the territory of Proetus, and was situated"Apyeoi iTnroftoToio. Bellerophon, the grandson of Sisy-phus, was driven out by Proetus, king of the Argives;and was a i Vo? of (Eneus, the ancestor of Diomed.These circumstances, combined with the tradition thatattached the name of Ephyre to the site of Corinth,leave no doubt that Homer means to place Sisyphus inwhat was afterwards Corinthw. There was no otherknown Ephyre in a nook of "Apyos, or what may betermed within reach of Proetus and of (Eneus: whereasthis Ephyre lay upon the pass that communicated withthe North from that part of the Peloponnesus.

But the line of Sisyphus had been displaced in theperson of Bellerophon, two generations before the Tro-jan war. Together with this line the old name ofEphyre had disappeared: we hear of it in the Iliadonly as Corinth, and as part of the Mycenian domi-nions. Now tradition connects the ^Eolid title parti-cularly with Thessaly, the ^Eolids always having beenrecognised as one of the great primitive Greek races.And Homer gives us JEolids in Thessaly, as well as inPeloponnesus. In the time of Sisyphus then we seethis iEolid name, which is Eteo-Hellenic, conjoinedwith the local name Ephyre : at the epoch of the Tro-jan war, both have disappeared from the spot.

The traditional name Ephyre remained, indeed, inmany parts of Greece down to later times. Strabo(p. 338) reckons one in Elis, one in Thesprotia, andone in Thessaly, besides Corinth: and also five KWfAalof the name. But even in Homer's time, either thesesettlements had decayed, or else, which is more likely,the particular form 'E<pvpij had never acquired the pre-

w Compare Propertius, b. ii. El. v. 1.Ephyrem Laidos cedes.

Places bearing the name in Homer. 517

cise force of a proper name, but remained rather in thecategory of a descriptive word: for otherwise it couldhardly have happened, but that one or other of theEphyres must have been named in the Catalogue ofHomer. If a descriptive word, it was in all likelihoodsimply descriptive of primitive settlement for the Hellicrace. Probably these ^(pvpai were rude and small; andwere, properly speaking, collections of a few buildings,rather than cities regularly formed.

i. That passage of the Thirteenth Iliad has alreadybeen mentioned, which places this name in the North.The Poet says, speaking of Mars and his son <J>o'/3of,

T<o fiiv ap ZK ©PJJKJJS ^E<j)vpovs jue'ra daprjaaeadov,

Two circumstances warrant our placing thesein Thessaly: the first, that the name of Thrace doesnot extend farther southward : and the second, thathere is the only known seat of the Phlegyse.

3. It may be convenient next to take the Ephyre,which is mentioned twice in the Odyssey.

In the first of these passages Pallas, in the characterof Mentes, Lord of the Taphians, remembers Ulysses inthe days when he undertook other journeys before hisTrojan one: remembers him,

avCovra Trap' "l\ov Mep/*epi'8ao.

yap Kal xeiae dorjs em vrjbs 'Obvvtrevs

And again, when the Suitors apprehend that Telema-chus meditates mischief, they ask whether he willbring allies from Pylus, or even from Sparta (whichwas more remote).

rj TITOS e»c TIv\ov a£ei afxvvTopas rifjia66evTos

i] oye Kal STrdprrj^ez/, eirei vv rrep I'erat alvais'

r/e Kal els 'Ecpijprjv kQiku, nUipav apovpav

ZkOelv, 8(pp ivOiv 6v)j,o<p66pa <f>app:aK eveCKrj2.x Ver. 301. y Od. i. 259. z Od. ii. 326.

518 II. Ethnology.

For several reasons it appears probable that theEphyre here meant was in Elis, and was therefore theEphyre of Augeias.

1. Geographically it would appear likely to be in thePeloponnesus. Telemachus was little likely to makeany more extended voyage. The intercourse of hisfamily was generally with the Iasian Argos, or WesternPeloponnesus. Hence it is said of Penelopea, ' Couldall the Achseans of Iasian Argos see thee.' Andhence, in the Twenty-fourth Odysseyb, the enemies ofUlysses anticipate that, unless prevented by them, hewill resort either to Pylus or to Elis, where are theEpeans, for assistance. Hence, again, it is that, in theSecond Odyssey, we find Ephyre joined with Pylus andSparta (which last is mentioned as an extreme point, SyBye Kal ^Trdprridev,) as the quarters to which he mightrepair for aid. The names of Elis and the Epeans donot appear : and this of itself amounts nearly to a de-monstration that Ephyre not only lay in, but actuallystands in lieu of, Elis in this place.

We may however note one or two secondary points.2. Corinth had now lost the name of Ephyre, that

is to say, a new name had overshadowed the old one.But this Ephyre, if not Corinth, could only be the ElianEphyre.

3. Post-Homeric tradition places an Ephyre in Elis.We have already seen that Augeias was lord of Elis,

that he ruled over an Hellenic race, that he is an aVa£avSpwv : was this Ephyre the seat of his empire ?

Even from the bare fact of being in Elis, it standsin significant connection with Augeias: but more espe-cially, it seems impossible not to connect the peculiarknowledge of drugs, preserved at the Ephyre to whichUlysses repaired, with the former fame of Agamede,

a Od. xviii. 245. b Qd. xxiv. 430.

Summary of the evidence for Angelas. 519

the daughter of Augeias (II. xi. 740), from whom ithad, in all probability, been handed down to the nextfollowing generation.

It may be asked, what place had Uus, the son ofMermerusc, in an Ephyre, where Augeias had been kingor lord ? We can give at least this negative answer :the Catalogue shews that Elis, in the time of theTrojan war, was no longer patriarchally ruled ; for theEpeans had four coordinate leaders ; of whom thegrandson of Augeias was but one. Therefore an Ilusmay have been in the time of Ulysses possessed of theplace, which belonged to Augeias in Nestor's boyhood:and we may observe, that no Epean or Elian chief, con-temporary with the Troica, appears in Homer under thetitle of ava^ avSpwv.

Upon combining all these circumstances, we appearto have the strongest warrant for believing that Au-geias was lord of Ephyre ; that he was the head of oneof the ruling families which, derived themselves by aknown and recorded lineage from Hellas and a Hellictribe; and consequently that the archaic title of ava^dv-SpHov was applied to him, not casually, but with a defi-nite meaning, and in conformity to an established rule.

The following brief synopsis will, after what hasbeen said, serve to indicate the chief presumptivegrounds of the title of Augeias to ava.% dvSpwv.

1. Augeias is connected with the <pdp/j.aKa, II. xi.739—41.

1. The (pa.pfx.aKa with Ephyre, Od. i. 259.3. Ephyre with Sisyphus, II. vi. 152, 3.4. Sisyphus is the son of iEolus, II. vi. 154.5. iEolus is Eteo-Hellenic, as the common ancestor

c Od. i. 251.

520 II. Ethnology.

of several of the great Greek houses, and the lineal an-cestor of at least one ava% dvSpwv6.

6. JEolus is also of divine descent, for his descendantBellerophon is 6eoO yovos, II. vi. 191.

7. That is to say, he is a son of Jupiter; for Oeos com-monly means Jupiter, when there is no particular refer-ence to any other deity in the context, and when apersonal act or attribute is described.

The extra-Homeric tradition entirely supports thisbelief, for it makes Augeias the son of Salmoneus, andSalmoneus the son of iEolus.

And now, after we have considered so fully the term'~E<pvpri and its kindred words, we shall do well tonotice that at least the dominions of Agamemnon arenot void of some relation to this family of names;inasmuch as Qapts, in the Catalogue, is one of thetowns that provide his forces, and &rjpai, in the NinthIliad, is one of the towns of which he promises tomake Achilles lord. Of Phellias and Sellasia we havealready treated.

V. Case of EupJietes.

I proceed to the case of Euphetes.He is mentioned only once in the Homeric Poems.

It is when, in the Fifteenth Iliad, Dolops strikes atMeges, son of Phyleus,who is saved by his stout breast-plate : by that breastplate,

TOV wore 4>i/Aeus

rjyayev i£ 'Etyvpris, TtOTa^ov aitb SeWrjevros.£eivos yap ol $Sa>Kev avag avbp&v EvQrJTrp C.

This case, as it stands, is very simple. Euphetes ismanifestly the king of Ephyre : the name of the placesupplies the connection with the cradle of the Helle-

d Eumelus, sup. p. 428. e n xv_

Case o/Huphetes. 621

nes ; the link is doubled by the name of the river2e\X»;etV, and his rank presumably stamps him as of aruling race in the country ; for he is a £«Vo? to a sove-reign, and the xenial relation appears to have beenalways one between persons equal, or nearly so.

The passage, however, affords us no aid towardsdetermining where this Ephyre lay; for it does nottell us where to look for the residence of Phyleus.

Was it the Ephyre of Elis, or was it another Ephyre,mentioned in a passage that we have not yet ex-amined ? To this passage let us now turn.

In the Greek Catalogue, Tlepolemus, the son ofHercules, commands nine ships from Rhodes, whitherhe had migrated, on account of having slain his granduncle Licymnius. His birth is described as follows,—

bv Tfnev ^A(TTvo\eia {Hrj 'HpaKXjjet?;"TTJV ayer e£ 'E^pTjy, -noraixov airo SeWtjivTos,nepaas aarea iroWa AioTpecpeav alCji&v*.

Hercules then led off Astyocheia from Ephyre be-side Selleeis, after having devastated many cities. Theopinion may perhaps be sustained from this passage,that the Ephyre mentioned in it is not the Ephyre ofElis, for the following reasons.

i. Tlepolemus £ emigrates to Rhodes in consequenceof homicide. He is more likely to have done thisfrom Thessaly than Elis, for we see no signs of com-munication between western Peloponnesus and theislands of Asia Minor near the base of the JEgean.

i. If Astyocheia, the mother of Tlepolemus, wasalso the Astyoche who bore to Mars Ascalaphus andIalmenus (Il.ii.513), then he was more likely to be Thes-salian than Elian; for Mars, dwelling in Thrace, borderedupon Thessaly, but is not heard of in Southern Greece;

f II. ii. 658. S II. ii. 667.

522 II. Ethnology.

and these princes ruled over the Minyeian Orchome-nus, which is far from the Peloponnesus, but nearSouthern Thessaly.

3. Again, Nestor, in the Eleventh Bookh, where hesets forth the depression into which the Pylians hadfallen, through the depredations of their neighboursthe Elians, states that they had been unable to defendthemselves against those ravages, because Hercules haddevastated their country and slain their princes. Nowhe would hardly have said this, if the Elian Ephyre andits neighbourhood had likewise been devastated by Her-cules, since his account would then have failed to ex-plain the relative inferiority of the Pylians. But if itwas not the Elian Ephyre, and since the situation ofthe Isthmus and its state make the passage inapplicableto the Corinthian Ephyre, then, still looking for somecountry known in connection with the exploits of Her-cules, we must naturally take it to be the Ephyre ofThessaly, where the name Selleeis, as that of a neigh-bouring stream, would most naturally of all be lookedfor.

It is true that the geographers give us no record ofa river Selleeis near the Thessalian Ephyre. But thefugitive character of the name Ephyre is manifestfrom the fact that, though there were several Ephyresin Homer's time, none of them was of sufficient im-portance to furnish a military contingent worthnaming. If by Ephyre was meant the first site of a newcolony, that name might naturally disappear, not onlywith a removal to a more secure or convenient spot,but even perhaps on the growth of a mere group ofinclosed buildings into a walled town. It is thereforeno wonder if the site of many of these towns has been

h II. xi. 688-95.

The site of his Ephyre. 523

forgotten, or if the neighbouring streams in consequencecannot be identified.

There is a tradition, external to Homer, but not atvariance with him, that the Astyocheia whom Herculescarried off was the daughter of Phylas; and if so,Phylas was of course lord of the Ephyre, from whichshe was carried off. If we assume the veracity of thistradition, we can determine the seat of the Ephyre ofAstyocheia to have been in Thessaly. For the fivecommanders under Achilles were of course all drawnfrom that country. But among them is Eudorus, theson of Polymele and grandson of Phylas1.

It may here be asked, by the way, why is not thisEudorus an ava'£ dvSpav ? even his name is of the formto which the phrase is so well suited. The answer isthat, though he was the son of Polymele, and the grand-son of Phylas on the female side, his reputed father wasMercury, and he was therefore not descended in themale line from, and could not be called, the chieftainof a tribe.

If then Phylas was lord of the Thessalian Ephyre,and Euphetes was also lord of the Thessalian Ephyre,in what relation to one another are we to presume themto have stood as to time ? There is here no appear-ance of discrepancy. Phyleus, as the father of Meges,was the £etVo? of Euphetes one generation before theTrojan war. Tlepolemus, contemporary of Meges, wasby our supposition the grandson of Phylas. Phylas,lord of Ephyre, was therefore probably one generationearlier than Euphetes, and may have been his father.

Nor is it an objection to this reasoning, that Meges,son of Phyleus, was lord of Dulichium, and that we

i II. xvi. 179.

524 II. Ethnology.

cannot suppose Phyleus to have been the %eivos of onedwelling so far off as the Thessalian Ephyre. For first*Nestor the Pylian had fought in Thessaly. And next,Meges had been a fugitive from his father's dwellingon account of a feud with him : which makes it evenprobable that he would remove to a distance, as we seethat Tlepolemus went on a similar account from Thes-saly, or at least from some part of Greece, to Rhodes.

If then Euphetes, who was an ava^ dvSpwv, go-verned an Ephyre, and particularly if it was in Thes-saly, the special seat of the Helli, we can have littledifficulty in concluding that he bore the title as a pa-triarchal one, in right of his descent.

On the other hand, the Ephyre of Tlepolemus iscertainly in the general opinion presumed to be theEphyre of Elis. If this opinion be correct, it is stillmore easy to connect him with the title of ava£ dvSpwv.Augeias lives two generations before the Trojan war,rules in Ephyre, and is ava£ dvSpwv. Euphetes is contem-porary with the father of Meges,who fights in the war;and he is therefore one generation after Augeias, whilehe rules in the same place, and bears the same title.If then the Ephyre of Euphetes was Elian, it seemsimpossible to escape the presumption that Eupheteswas the son of Augeias.

This view as to the Ephyre of Euphetes on thewhole will more completely satisfy the Homeric text.For we find Meges in the Thirteenth Book fighting atthe head of Epean troopsk. But the troops he led toTroy were from Dulichium and the Echinades1. So wecan only conclude one of two things. Either Megescommanded the Epeans of Elis in virtue of the con-

k II- xiii- 692. 1 II. ii. 625-30.

The site of his Ephyre. 525

nection of his family with that country; or he com-manded Epeans, whom his father Phyleus bad takenwith him from Elis across the Corinthian gulf. Eitherway a relation between Elis and the family of Meges ismade good, which tends to place Euphetes, as thefriend of that family, in the Ephyre of Elis.

There is yet another supposition open. Homer hastold us that Phyleus was Au <p[\os,—a distinction hevery rarely confers,—and that he migrated, as he im-plies rather than asserts, from Elis, on account of aquarrel with his father:

os 7rore Aov\(\i6v 8' aTtevaaaaro Tiarpl )(oA<o0eis.

He does not mention the cause; but this abrupt allu-sion to the father of Phyleus implies that he was aperson of note. Strabo1" may therefore only be fillingup a void in Homer, when he tells us, of course fromsome tradition, that Augeias was the father of Phyleus.

If this were so, we have to ask, why is not Phyleusan ava£ avSpwv ? and who, upon this supposition, couldEuphetes be ?

As we must infer from the Catalogue that the Eliankingdom of Augeias was broken up at the epoch of theTroica, and as in consequence we do not find Polyxei-nus, his grandson, called by the title in question, soneither need we expect it of Phyleus.

If Phyleus was the son of Augeias, Euphetes cannothave been sovereign of the Elian Ephyre, for theywould in this case not have been ^elvoi, but brothers.

But he might still have been sovereign either of theEphyre mentioned by Homer, /xv-^w "Apyeos, whichappears as Corinth in the Catalogue : or possibly of theTliesprotian Ephyre with which we become acquaintedin Strabo.

m Strabo p. 459.

526 II. Ethnology.

If Euphetes represented, with the title of S.va.% avSpwv,one of the old Hellic chieftaincies at either of theseplaces, nothing could be more natural than that thetie of hostship should subsist between him and Phy-leus, the son of another Hellic chieftain of the sameclass.

In any case, though the Homeric evidence is palpablyincomplete, yet by connecting the title of ava£ avtywvwith the highly characteristic local title of Ephyre, andthe name of the river Selleeis, it unequivocally supportsthe interpretation of that title as one indicating an ori-ginal and purely Hellic chieftaincy.

VI. Case of Eumelus.It now only remains to consider the case of Eume-

lus, the last of the six persons to whom Homer givesthe peculiar title of <iVa£ avSpwv.

He is introduced to us in the Catalogue as the (plXosirais" (<pl\os meaning probably either the eldest or onlyson) of Admetus, who is never mentioned except inthe oblique cases, and to whom therefore, consistentlywith his usage, Homer never applies the title ava% av-Spoov. He is in command of his father's forces; and,as Pherae is the city first named in this list, we mayinfer that this was his principal city.

In the first place I would remark, that we have forthis Pherse a sign of wealth, which has been alreadynoticed, the excellence, namely, of its breed of horses.There is also abundant evidence of the wealth and im-portance of Pherae in the historic times0. This markthen accords with the hypothesis, that it was probablyone of the primitive lowland settlements made by theHellic race in Thessaly. In fact, Pherse stands relatively

n II. ii. 711-15. 0 Cramer's Greece, vol. i. p. 392.

Case of Eumelus. 527

to Admetus, as Ephyre does relatively to Augeias, Eu-phetes, and the older iEolid, Sisyphus.

Through the medium of the name Pherse we connectthis family with 'Ecpvpt], as its cognate name, and asthe name which we have found, in the cases of Euphe-tes and Augeias, to be eminently characteristic of set-tlements under an ava£ avSpwv.

Next it appears, that the father or ancestor of Ad-metus took his name from the place which he inha-bited, and was called Pheres, for says the poet,

"ITTTTOI jikv jxiy apurrat 'iaav <t>r)prjTiabao,

ras EvfxrjXos ekavveP.

The union between the names of the place and theperson affords another sign of primitive settlement.Pheres was probably the founder of the town Qqpal.

Next, a passage in the Odyssey gives us an accountof this Pheresq. He was the son of Cretheus, byTyro:

Toils 8' kripovs Kpr]drj'i T4K(V j3aa(Xeia yvvaiK&v,

Ala-ova T fjbe ^?ipr]T 'A/xvOdova T' lirmoy&piM)v.

Now Cretheus was a son or descendant of iEolus:4>fi be KprjOijos yvvr\ eixpevai Alo\Cbaor.

And we have already seen the iEolids of Homer di-rectly connected with the characteristic name of Ephyrein the person of Sisyphus (II. vi. 152, 2,11). Outsidethe Homeric text, all tradition ascribes to the iEolians,not less than the Achaeans, an Eteo-Hellenic origin.Again, we may observe, that among the Greek genea-logies of Homer, the longest are those of the iEolids.From TEolus to Glaucus II, in the Sixth Iliad, are sixgenerations: and here in like manner from Cretheus

p II. ii. 763. i Od. xi. 258.r Ibid. xi. 237.

528 II. Ethnology.

to Eumelus are four, which number will be increased tofive or to six, according as we take Cretheus to be theson or the grandson of iEolus, or estimate the age ofEumelus. According to the Homeric force of the pa-tronymic, he may be either. Eumelus, however, him-self was, as we have seen, presumably not young at thetime of the Troica; since he was wedded to Iphthime,the sister of Penelope, who must be taken to stand,with her husband Ulysses (II. xxiii. 791), as above theaverage age of the army.

To sum up; it thus far appears,1. That Eumelus was heir to Admetus, a reigning

prince of Thessaly or Hellas.2. That the capital of this prince bore testimony

by its name to its primitive or Eteo-Hellenic cha-racter.

3. That Eumelus was a descendant in the maleline from iEolus, of whose lineage several, according toHomer, seem to have possessed the character and bornethe title of the ava£ avdpwv.

4. In virtue of his descent from iEolus, he is sprungfrom Jupiter.

To estimate fully the force of the evidence, it maybe well to observe, that a great many Thessalianprinces and leaders are noticed in the Catalogue be-sides Eumelus; to the last alone, however, the title ofava^ avSpwv is applied. But no one of the others bearsany mark, personal or local, of the peculiar descent andsocial position to which this title appears to belong:although among them are found Podaleirius and Ma-chaon, the sons of Asclepius; Polypcetes, the son ofPirithous, and grandson of Jupiter; Eurypylus, the dis-tinguished warrior; Protesilaus and Philoctetes, eachthe subject of distinct historical notices.

The &va$ avbp&v descended from Jupiter. 529

Again, I would, from the case of Eumelus, illustratethe phrase ava% avSpwv in another point of view.

He was descended by his mother Alcestis from Nep-tune. She was the daughter of Pelias, the son whomTyro bore to the fabled ruler of the seas. This descenton the mother's side is mentioned in the Catalogue,where a total silence is observed as to his paternallineage from iEolus and Cretheus.

EvixrjXos, TOV int' !A8jU7jrft) T4KS bia yvvaiK&v,

AXKTJVTIS, TleXCao Ovyarp&v eiSos apiary.

But it is plain that his descent from Jupiter by thefather's side was more worthy of notice than his de-scent from Neptune through the bastard Pelias. YetHomer has nowhere taken notice of the descent fromJupiter, in the case of Eumelus, unless it is implied inthe meaning of the term ava% avSpwv, though we knowthe descent as a fact: surely a strong proof that it ispart of the meaning of the phrase aW£ avSpS>v, and is athing not only inseparable from it, but conveyed by it.

With regard to the divine descent of the Homericchieftains bearing this title, our direct evidence fromthe Poet stands as follows:

i. That the Dardan line springs originally fromJupiter.

a. That Tyro, being called evTraripeia in commonwith Helen only, is evidently meant to be described assprung from that deity.

3. That Bellerophon, also an iEolid, is also 6eovyovos, therefore himself a descendant of Jupiter.

4. And if so, then Eumelus, who was iEolid too, fallswithin the same description.

5. Augeias in like manner attains to the same honourby the Homeric presumptions which make him aniEolid, as well as by all extra-Homeric tradition.

M m

530 II. Ethnology.

6. With regard to Euphetes and Agamemnon, wehave no direct evidence. But we have seen strongreason to suppose, that Euphetes was himself an iEolid :and no inconsiderable presumption that Tantalus wasaccording to Homer what the later tradition makeshim, a son of Jupiter, and that Agamemnon was de-scended from Tantalus.

Perhaps also, without venturing to attach any con-clusive weight to such a sign, we may interpret theannexation of Aiorpe(pris and Aioyev^ to Hellic king-ship, as a sign that the earliest Hellic kingship, beingalso that which conveyed the title of ava£ dvSpwv, wasalways associated with divine descent.

Among those who bear the title of ava£ avSpwv, wefind no case of a descent from Jupiter reputed to berecent. The two lines in which the title is mostclearly transmitted, those of .ZEolus and of Dardanus,are among the oldest genealogies in Homer. That ofAgamemnon, apparently the shortest, interposes at theleast four generations between Jupiter and him.

The line of Dardanus is apparently by one generationlonger than any of the others belonging to an ava.% dv-Spwv. But nothing can be more natural: for any set-tlement, made by the Helli on the Hellespont duringtheir eastward movement, would naturally precede bysome time their descent from Olympus and the Thra-cian hills into Thessaly ; so that the earlier date of theprimary ancestor is a witness for, rather than againstthe relationship.

It cannot, however, be too carefully borne in mind,that the divine descent of the ava£ dvSpwv from Jupiteris widely different from that of the more recent heroes,like Sarpedon or Hercules. We may suppose that insuch cases as these the divine parent either screens the

Four notes of the ava£ avhp&v. 531

result of unlawful love, or perhaps indicates the suddenrise into eminence of a family previously obscure : withthe ava£ dvSpwv the case is quite distinct. The poeticalmeaning here is, that backward there lay nothing of fa-mily history beyond the ancestor from whom he claimeddescent, whether it were Dardanns, or iEolus, or Tanta-lus : as if aiming at the effect legitimately produced bythose words in the Gospel of St. Luke, with which theupward line of the genealogy given by him closes ;' which was the son of Adam, which was the son ofGods.' And the historic basis of the allegory mayprobably be this, that the person indicated was one ofsome ruling house, who, with his followers or kindred,separated from the migratory race of Helli as it sweptwestward along the hills, and founded a stable settle-ment, and a society more or less organized in ordersand employments, in which his name became thesymbol at once of sovereign rank, of the national pointof origin, and of affinity in blood with a ruling race.

To conclude then : the notes of the ava£ avSpwv inHomer, probable or demonstrative, are these:

i. He must be born of Jupiter ab antique.i. He must hold a sovereignty, either paramount or

secondary, and either in whole, or, like iEneas, by de-volution in part, over some given place or tribe.

3. His family must have held this sovereignty conti-nuously from the time of the primary ancestor.

4. He must be the head of a ruling tribe or house ofthe original Hellenic stock: and must be connectedwith marks of the presence of Hellenic settlement.These marks may, as in the case of Agamemnon, besupplied by a race or tribe : or they may be territorial,

s St. Luke iii. 38.M m a

532 II. Ethnology.

such as those afforded by the name of the river Selleeis,and more especially by the name Ephyre, and thefamily of cognate words.

Now each of the six persons, to whom alone Homergives the title ava.% avSpwv, partakes, by evidence eitherdemonstrative or probable, of every one of thesenotes.

Among negative evidences that the title aVa£ av§pu>vconveys a peculiar sense, we may place the following:

i. The position of Priam in Troas, where he was thegreatest man of North-western Asia, II. xxiv. 543-6,and of Hector, or else Paris, as his heir, were such ascalled for the highest epithets of dignity. He had evena regular court of yepovres, of whom it seems plain, thatsome at least, such as Antenor, were invested with somekind of sovereignty. Yet none of the Ilian family arecalled by the name of ava£ avSpwv.

a. Alcinous in the Odyssey affords another exampleof a lord over lords, who does not belong to thehistorical Greek stem, and who therefore is not calledava% avSpwv. The example may appear weak, becauseof the divine descent of the Phseacians. But if thisphrase had, like tcpelwv, been one of merely general or-nament, why should it not have been applied to him asKpelwv is, or to his brother Rhexenor, or his father Nau-sithous? If the divine descent of the Phaeacians fromNeptune renders the phrase inapplicable to them, thisis of itself a proof of its very specific nature.

3. Again; it may be asked why Glaucus was not anava£ dvSpaiv, as he was descended from an iEolid sove-reign. The answer is, he was no longer the chieftainof any Hellenic clan. His grandfather Bellerophon hadmigrated simply as an individual fugitive into a South-Asian country, of which the people had no immediate

Negative proofs. 533

ties of race with him; and, while apart from his originaltribe, he could not inherit a title as its head.

4. Sarpedon was under the same disqualification asGlaucus his brother king. Besides this, he was notdescended in the male line from iEolus, but onlythrough his mother Hippodamia.

5. Again, among the Greeks. Why, it may be asked,was not Peleus, or why was not Achilles an ava^ dv-Spwv ? Here was a throne above thrones: for Patrocluswas not only an ava%, but was called Aioyevrjs, which im-plies sovereignty; therefore Mencetius his father was thesame: but Mencetius was in attendance at the court ofPeleus. Phoenix again was tutor to that chief, thoughhe ruled over the Dolopians by the gift of Peleus, ashe tells us,

Kai JX acpveibv eOrjuf, TTO\VV 8e IXOL Smaue Xabv,

vaiov 81 ea-^aririv QOirjs, Aokoireaaiv avaavatv*1-

Besides that he occupied a great position, and was ofthe highest descent, I think it is clear from the Cata-logue that the Myrmidons, over whom Peleus reigned,were Achseans, and therefore a strictly Hellic race.

And again, the character of Achilles makes it quiteclear that his family were from the Hellic stock. Forit is in him that Homer has chosen to exhibit theprime and foremost pattern of the whole Greek nation :and he could surely never have chosen for such a pur-pose any family of foreign, or of doubtful blood.

It is not however in every Hellic race or family,but only among the known representatives by descentof the principal or senior branches, that we are justifiedin expecting to find the patriarchal title. And still lessdo we know whether the Myrmidons, even thoughHellic and Achaean, were a principal tribe of that stock.

* II. ix. 483.

534 II. Ethnology.

The evidence as to the descent of Achilles may throwfurther light upon this part of the subject.

In those cases where a long line of ancestry pur-ported to begin with Jupiter, as, for instance, theTrojan genealogy, it is doubtless natural to treat this asa sort of necessary introduction to a period, beyondwhich the memory of man, unaided as it was, did notrun.

But when we find the paternity of a person contem-porary with the Trojan war, or of some near ancestor ofhis, referred to Jupiter, the most proper interpretationof this legendary statement seems to be, that they were,so to speak, novi homines, who having come suddenlyinto the blaze of celebrity, and living among a nationaccustomed to ask of every passing stranger who werehis parents, yet having no parents to quote, or noneworth quoting, gilded their origin by claiming somegreat deity for their father. I do not speak now of thedistinct and yet cognate case, where a similar pretextwas used to shield illegitimacy: as for example, not totravel from the line before us, in the instance of the sonof Polydora", sister to Achilles himself. But the sameprinciple applies to both: divine progenitorship wasused to keep from view something that it was desirableto hide, whether this were the shame of a noblemaiden, or the undistinguished ancestry of a greathouse or hero. Such a hero perhaps, according to thisrule, was Hercules : such a house more clearly wasthat of the iEacids; for iEacus, grandfather of Achilles,was son of Jnpiterx. He did not therefore represent apatriarchal family, and could not bear the title.

According to extra-Homeric tradition, the Myrmi-dons fled from vEgiua to Thessaly under Peleus?.

« II. xvi. .75. * II. xxi. 189. v s t r a 1 ) 0 ; x 5 p 433_

Negative proofs. 535

6. Further examples may be taken from the Pelopidfamily. The Menelans of the Iliad belongs to thehighest order: he is more kingly than the other kings2.In the Odyssey he desires to transplant Ulysses to aportion of his dominions (Od. iv. 174). And iEgisthusactually occupies for years, during the exile of Orestes,the Pelopid throne: the name of either Menelaus oriEgisthus is of the metrical value most convenient forunion with the ava^ avSpwv: but neither the one northe other was the representative of the great Achaeanhouse of Pelops, and accordingly neither the one northe other receives the title.

7. Diomed is a Greek of the very highest descent:of him alone, among the kings before Troy, we mayconfidently say, that he was himself a hero, had a herofor his father, a hero for his uncle, and a hero for hisgrandfather. CEneus, Tydeus, Meleager, are threenames not easily to be matched in early Greek story.They were likewise near the stock, as we may probablyinfer from the name of the founder of the race, Por-theus, the Destroyer. He was father of CEneus and alsoof "Aypios the Rude, and Me'Xa? the Swarthy, all namesindicating that the first stage of arrival within the pre-cinct of civilization had not yet been passed. Hecommanded, too, one of the largest contingents : yetneither he nor his uncle Meleager, the Achilles of hisday, is ever called ava% avSpwv.

The reason doubtless is that, in the case of theCEneid family, there is no connection with a leadingGreek ancestry. They are neither iEolid nor Pelopid;and they stand in no relation to the characteristicnames of Ephyre and the Selleeis.

8. Let me notice, lastly, the case of Nestor. He1 II. x. 239.

536 II. Ethnology.

had been a warrior of the first class. His rich domin-ions supplied a contingent of ninety ships to the war ;larger even than that of Diomed, or of any chief what-ever, except Agamemnon, who had one hundred. Hisfather, Neleus, was of great fame. He had actuallymore influence in council than any other chief, andalways took the lead there. He was descended fromNeptune, who indeed was but his grandfather: whilehis grandmother, Tyro, was probably, as we have found,a granddaughter of iEolus.

But he could not be ava^ avSpwv, because not inlineal male descent from the primary ancestor iEolus :nor was he the tribal head of the Hellenic raceamong which he ruled, which was an Achaean one (11.xi. 759), since the Achseans owned the Pelopids fortheir chiefs. Also his father Neleus, apparently theyounger twin, had migrated from the North, leavingPelias the elder, as is probable, in possession. ThusNestor presents none of the four notes of the ava£avSpwv. Yet this title attached to an insignificant rela-tive, Eumelus, his first cousin once removed, doubtlessbecause he possessed them.

It is certainly true that there are a few cases whereHomer has not applied the title of aVa£ avSpwv to par-ticular persons, to whom he might have given it con-sistently with the suppositions, as to its meaning, ofwhich I have attempted to show the truth. They are,in one word, the ancestors of the persons to whom hehas actually given the title. But all of these, such asPelops and his line, Dardanus with his line as far asTros, and the earlier descendants of iEolus, are personsmentioned in the poems for the most part but once,and rarely more than twice or thrice. Now, as Homermentions frequently without the prefix, aW£ avSpwv,

Persons with the notes yet without the title. 537

those to whom on other occasions he gives it, we arenot entitled to require its application to all personscapable of bearing it, whom he mentions but once.

And again, if I am right in holding that this wasstrictly a title attaching to lineage, then it was whollyneedless, when he had designated a particular person,as an ava£ avSpiSv, to grace his predecessors also with thetitle, because, as a matter of course, inasmuch as theywere his predecessors, it attached to them. No histo-ric aim then was involved, and no purpose would havebeen gained if Admetus, for example, had been men-tioned with this title as well as his son Eumelus.

But, I confess, it appears to me to afford no smallconfirmation to the arguments and the conclusions ofthese pages, when we remember that not only do thefour rules for the sense of the phrase suit, as far as wecan tell, all the six persons to whom it is applied, butthat there is absolutely no other living person namedin the poems, whom they would not effectually ex-clude, with the insignificant exceptions, first of Adme-tus, who has just been mentioned, and next of Orestes.In the Iliad, Orestes is only named in one single passage(twice repeated), of the Ninth Booka. In the Odysseyhe is named several times, but the title of ava^ avSpwvis less suitable to the political state of Greece as it ap-pears in this poem, and also to the subject. It neverappears, except retrospectively.

A few words may perhaps be due to the case ofPolyxeinus, grandson of Augeias, who, it is just possi-ble, though unlikely, may have retained the position ofhis grandfather. It is just possible, because we are notassured of the contrary; but most unlikely, becauseAugeias appears as lord of the Epeans, Polyxeinus only

a II. ix. 142, 284.

538 II. Ethnology.

as commanding a division of them. Again, Polyxeinusis only once mentioned. It is also evident that theloss of his grandfather's throne, by a revolution in Elis,might naturally put an end to the application of thetitle in his particular case, by a process exactly thesame with that to which its general and final extinc-tion, now so speedily to arrive, was due.

It might indeed be of some interest to inquire whyit is that, when Homer makes no practical or effectiveuse of the phrase for any one except Agamemnon, hehas notwithstanding been careful to register, as itwere, a title to it on behalf of five other persons? Norcan I doubt that the just answer would be, that he didthis because, with his historic aims, he may have deemedit a matter of national interest to record a title of suchpeculiar and primitive significance.

But of all the negative arguments that tend to showava.% avSpwv not to have been a merely vague title,there is none on which I dwell with more confidencethan its total disappearance with the Homeric age.For it was not so with the other less peculiar forms,fiaa-iXeug, ava%, and Kpelwv. Although they were sup-planted in actual use by the term rvpawos, which be-came for the Greeks the type of supreme power in thehands of a single person, yet the idea of them wastraditionally retained. Accordingly, even the name/3a<n\evs was applied by Greek writers to contemporarykings out of Greece, and to the old bygone Greekmonarchies: and Thucydides has given it to them as aclass, where he describes the -n-aTpiKai /3ao-(Xe?aib. Butthe phrase ava% avSpwv, the most specific of them all,disappears even from retrospective use : and the infer-ence is, that its proper meaning had ceased to be

b Thuc. i. 13.

Its disappearance with Homer. 539

represented in the institutions either of Greece or ofthe known world beyond the Greek borders; that ithad passed away with the archaic system, of which itwas the peculiar token.

Even independently of direct testimony, we might beassured that the patriarchal and highland constitutionof society could not very long survive the multiplica-tion of settlements in the plains. For the wealth,which these settlements created through the increasedefficiency of labour, the greater bounty of the earth, andthe augmented means of communication and exchange,could not but bring with it at once new temptations,and new sources of disturbance; whereas the art of con-trolling these evils was but painfully and slowly, andmost incompletely learned. Among highland tribes,there might be war and pillage with a view to imme-diate wants: but stored wealth could not be stolen,where, except in its simplest forms, it did not exist:and men do not overturn hereditary power, or dragsociety into revolutions, without an object.

But the Catalogue, as well as other parts of theHomeric poems, show us how the causes thus indicatedhad already worked. Of the Greek States comprisedin that invaluable enumeration, some were, as is plainlyasserted or implied, monarchically governed: for ex-ample, the Mycenians, the Spartans, the Pylians, theMyrmidons, the Arcadians, the Euboeansc, and theiEtolians. We may reasonably infer the same withregard to the followers of those great chiefs, who aretreated as Ba<nXei? in the body of the poems: the Sa-laminians and Locrians, each under their Ajax, theCephallenians under Ulysses, the Cretans, or else a por-tion of them, under Idomeneus, the Argives under

c Compare II. ii. 540 with iv. 363.

540 II. Ethnology.

Diomed. In each of these cases, either there is but asingle leader, or, as in the two last, the text makes it ob-vious that the chief first named is supreme in rank. Wemay probably infer that monarchy prevailed in all the in-stances, including the Athenians, when only a single ge-neral appears. The expression Stj/mos, applied to Athens, isperfectly compatible with kingship in Homer. But thereremain six cases, where there are a plurality of leaders,apparently on an equal footing. These are the cases of

i. The Boeotians.a. The people of Aspledon and the Minyeian Orcho-

menus; who are in fact a second Boeotian contingent.3. The Phocians.4. The Elians or Epeans: who differ from the

others in being formally distributed into four divisions,under four leaders, and who are therefore strictly ace-phalous.

5. The Nisurians, &c.6. The people of Tricce, Ithome, and (Echalia, under

the sons of Asclepius.It is observable with respect to the four first of

these, that they were all in the comparatively open, andrich country; liable, therefore, to the influences which,as Thucydides observes11, made Boeotia, Thessaly, andmost of Peloponnesus peculiarly liable to revolutions ;and whence doubtless it is, that Homer has been led totell us that Amphion and Zethus built walls for Thebes,because they could not hold it without them.

With respect to the Nisurians, in stating that theywere under Pheidippus and Antiphus, Homer addsthat these were (II. ii. 679)

&eaaakov vie bva> 'Hpaickeibao avaxros.

On which we may observed Thuc. i. 2.

Signs of political disorganisation. 541

i. That the power divided between them had ap-parently been monarchical in the preceding generation.

a. That the name of their father points to his havingbeen born in Thessalye, which from its richness waspeculiarly open to revolutions.

3. That he was the son of Hercules, with whosename disturbance and convulsion are so much asso-ciated.

In the case of the sous of Asclepius, there is thesame presumption that they divided a power whichhad been monarchical: and although the epithet K\CO-fiaKoetro-a given to Ithome, the site of which is un-knownf, may suggest rough and broken ground, yet theterritory is within the limits of ThessalyS, and on theriver Peneus. Tricce was known in the historic times;and it is mentioned in Homer with the epithet ITTTTO-

/8OTO?, indicating fertility.Here, then, and particularly in the Boeotian and

Elian cases, we have considerable signs of the weak-ening and gradual breaking up of the old highland in-stitutions : I distinguish between those two and therest, because where the division is only between twobrothers, it may have implied little deviation from themonarchical form. Still that little might be the firststage of a deviation which was soon to grow indefinitelylarge.

There are other signs to the same effect, both in theIliad, and to a greater extent in the Odyssey.

e The name of Thessaly is not loponnesus, this Thessalid branchfound in Homer; and it is marked of the Heraclidse, which had mi-by Thucydides as modern : 17 vvv grated to the south-east, wentGco-o-aXi'a Kokovfievr). May it not be back thither, and imparted to itreasonably conjectured, that when the name of their ancestor 1the great Dorian tribe had eva- f Cramer i. 360.cuated Hellas to reconquer thePe- S II. iv. 202.

542 II. Ethnology.

For example : the dynasty of the (Eneids had disap-peared among the iEtolians11: the dynasty of the S o -lids, and the name Ephyre, from Corinth1: Polyxeinus,the grandson of Augeias, an ava% avSpwv, is not describedas an ava%, or lord, at all: Hercules had laid waste thecities about Ephyre, and the cities about Pylosk: Tle-polemus, at war with his Heraclid relations, had beendriven to emigrate to Rhodes : and all this since thefamily of the Perseids had disappeared before thePelopids.

The changes observable in the Odyssey are such asconnect themselves with a species of deluge, which hadapparently overspread the face of the political societyof Greece. They would merit a full examination, inconnection with a view of the relation of that poemto the Iliad. Here it need only be observed, that theava.% avSpwv appears nowhere in the action of the Odys-sey : the phrase is used but twice, and then only withreference to the dead Agamemnon : and that the par-tial disappearance of the word from the later work ofHomer evidently accompanies a great approach towardsdisorganisation of the old order of things and ideas inthe political state of Greece.

I may now collect the results, as far as they arerelated to the present subject, of our whole ethnolo-gical inquiry.

i. From the Homeric text, the phrase ava£ avSpwvappears not to have belonged to political preeminenceor power, or to personal heroism, or to the distinctionof wealth, or to divine descent as such;' but to thearchaic form of sovereignty which united it conti-nuously with the headship in blood of a ruling family

h II. ii. 641. i II. vi. 152, compared with ii. 570.k II. ii. 659,60, and xi. 689,91.

Summary of the whole. 543

or clan, inhabiting the country which was the reputedcradle of the nation, or able to trace lineally its deriva-tion from that country. A tradition of original descentfrom Jupiter attached in all cases essentially to thepossession of the title.

2. In each of the six instances where Homer employsit, he appears to do so in strict conformity with therules thus indicated.

3. The immediate cradle of those Greek-races, whichpossessed this primitive title and descent, was Thessaly;and of Thessaly Hellas was either a synonym, or apart.

4. The origin of the races thus ruling Hellas is to besought among the Helli, who dwelt in the mountainsaround Dodona, apparently with those institutionswhich have ever been characteristic of mountaineers;and who represent, more faithfully than the inhabitantsof lowlands, the earliest type of human society, castat a time when its relationship to the family was stillpalpable and near.

5. The resemblances of the Helli and the Dardansafford, together with the probabilities of the case, strongevidence of their having some common affinity to thesame branch of the great stem, from which a largepart of Europe was peopled with its ruling race.

6. Finally, we may with reasonable grounds con-jecture, that the patriarchal system denoted by thepatriarchal chieftaincies, which had been shaken beforethe Trojan war, was further and violently disturbed byit, and by its direct and indirect political consequences;and that this system had vanished before the line ofthe post-Homeric Greek poets, to be reckoned fromHesiod, had begun. Thus, the basis of the title being

544 II. Ethnology.

removed, the title itself naturally disappeared fromliterature as well as history; and if we find, that inlater times the key to its meaning had been lost, it isbut a new mark of the abruptness and width of thebreach that lies between Homer and his successors,of the paucity of continuous traditions, and of thelimited means possessed by the Greeks of the historicages for research into the earlier periods of theirnational existence.

545

SECT. X.

On the connection of the Hellenes and Achaans with

the East.

W E have reached the close of this inquiry, so far asit regards the origin, character, and pursuits of thePelasgians; the character of the Hellenic tribes, andtheir relations to the Pelasgians; and the position ofthe Achseans among the Hellenes, as the first nationalrepresentatives of the Hellenic stock. But who werethese Achseans, and whence did they come ? We haveat present been able only to describe them by nega-tives. They were not the descendants of a legendaryAchaeus: they did not take their name from a Greekterritory, nor from any pursuit that they followed; andthe word has no apparent root in the etymology of theGreek tongue.

But we have seen manifest indications that theHellic name did not first come into being on thewestern side of the Dardanelles: and if the Achsei werethe first leaders of the Helli, why should we not tracethem too beyond the Straits, and thus follow perhapsthe Helli also, by their means, and as represented inthem, up to a fountain-head ?

At the same time, if I presume to affiliate the Hellicnation upon any Eastern parentage, and, again, to sug-gest relationships between that nation and others, which

N 11

546 II. Ethnology.

had also migrated from the first nurseries of man towardsthe West, it will, I hope, be understood, that all suchpropositions are asserted, not only as not demonstrable,but as likewise being, even within their own limits,those of merely probable truth, subject, by an admissiontacitly carried all along, to every kind of qualification.The succession and intermixture of races, the combina-tions of language, the sympathetic and imitative com-munication of ideas and institutions, form a mass ofphenomena complex enough, and difficult to describe,even by contemporaries; how much more so by the aidonly of those faint and scattered rays that we can nowfind cast upon them.

Let us then proceed to consider what aid can be hadfrom other sources in support of those presumptions,arising out of the text of Homer, which tend to connectthe Hellenes of his day, and the Achseans as theirleading tribe, with the East.

And here we may look first, as far as regards thegeneral outlines of race and language, to the ethnolo-gical evidences afforded by the course of migrationfrom Central Asia over Europe.

Next, to the evidence of those among ancient au-thors, who have taken notice of this diffusion in sucha manner as in any degree to guide us towards thesources of the great factors of the Greek nation.

After that, we will inquire whether the names them-selves, which are employed in Homer for the contem-porary Greeks, can, by comparison with cognate nameselsewhere, afford us any light.

And lastly, whether in the quarter to which theselines of information would lead us, we can discover anyof those resemblances of manners and character with theGreeks which, if found, would afford the most satisfac-

High German and Low German races. 547

tory corroboration to the argument in favour of thederivation of one from the other.

The labours of ethnologists have associated togetherin one great family, at first called Indo-Germanic, andthen Indo-European, but threatening to expand evenbeyond the scope of that comprehensive name, a massof leading languages from the Celtic regions in thewest to the plains of India in the east.

This great family, says Dr. Donaldsona, divides itselfinto two groups. To these two groups respectivelybelong the Low German and the High Germantongues: the former spoken in the plain countries tothe north of Europe, the latter in the more moun-tainous countries to the south. The Low Germanlanguages contain evidence of greater antiquity, andtbose who speak them appear to have been driven on-ward in their migrations by the High Germans follow-ing them: the latter entering Europe by Asia Minor,the former to the north of the Euxine.

The distinction runs back to the earlier seat of therace in Ariana or Iran, a portion of Asia which may beloosely defined as lying between the Caspian and theIndian ocean to the north and south, the Indus and theEuphrates to the east and west. Within these limitsare to be found two forms of larguage, holding the samerelation to one another as that which subsists betweenthe High German and Low German tongues; the first,corresponding with the High German, was spoken amongthe countries of the south-west, where lies Persia pro-per, and the other in its more northern and easternportions, of which Media formed a central part. Thepopulation of this great tract issued forth in the direc-

a New Cratylus, ch. iv. p. 77.N 11 3

548 II. Ethnology.

tion of the south-east, over the northern parts of India;and again towards Asia Minor and Europe, in the di-rection of the north-west. Those who came first pro-ceeded from Media, and supplied the base of what havebeen called, the Low German nations: Sarmatians,Saxons, Getae (or Scythians or Goths). The languageof these emigrants was that which, when it assumed anorganized or classical form, and with due allowance forchanges which the lapse of time must have introduced,became the tongue now best represented, at least as aliterary language, by the Sanscrit.

The whole course of history seems to indicate astruggle of races in that quarter of the world, whichmay be used to illustrate the present inquiry. To a cer-tain extent the scene of that struggle may be pointedout on the map. From the Caspian towards the south,and from the head of the Persian Gulf towards thenorth, the land soon rises to a great general elevation,but with marked and also highly diversified inequa-lities. Media would appear to have occupied the prin-cipal part of the great central space, defined by themountains which form the outer line of this elevation.It corresponds with what is now the Province of Irak,and Ispahan is its principal city. Here, says Malcolmb,we find the happiest climate that Persia can boast. Tothe south, near the Gulf, the summer heat is over-powering : as the country rises towards Shiraz the cli-mate becomes temperate, and further improves as weadvance northward, until we approach the hills thatdivide Irak from Mazenderan on the Caspian, where itdeteriorates.

Immediately to the south of Irak, and touching the

b Hist, of Persia, ii. 507.

The Province of Fars or Persia proper. 549

Persian gulf, a little to the east of the Karoon andJerokh, which are the eastern tributaries of the greatcentral rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, is the Province ofFars, which ascends the hills to its capital town Shiraz,and then extends in a north-easterly direction towardsthe sandy deserts. This is the province0 where thePersian race is still to be found in its greatest purity;and from this tract the name of Persia, attached byEuropeans to the empire of Iran, is supposed to be de-rivedd. From Fars or Pars, for both forms are under-stood to exist, is drawn the name Parsee, borne by thefire-worshippers, who migrated for safety into India: andthe same root appears to be clearly traceable in the greatPersian tribe of Pasargadse, named by Herodotuse as theleading tribe of the country. But though the provinceof Fars now embraces a considerable range of countryand diversity of climate, all that is recorded of the an-cient Persians would seem to connect them particularlywith its ruder and more mountainous parts: for wehave every reason to believe that Herodotus spoketruly when he described the Persians, properly socalled, as poor, and their country as hard and barrenin comparison with the rich valleys of Media, which atan early date attracted and repaid the labours of agri-culture. It was inhabited, as Herodotus^ says, KaraKd/uas, that is, in the Pelasgian fashion, at the timewhen Dejoces acquired the throne.

The conflict of race between a bold highland peopleof superior energies, and the more advanced, but alsomore relaxed inhabitants of the more favoured district.

Quart. Eev. vol. 101. p. 503. e Herod, i. 125.Malcolm's Hist. chap. i. p, f Ibid. 96.

550 II. Ethnology.

is indicated even amidst the indistinctness of the ear-liest efforts of history. Ethnologically the generalcharacter of the movement is that of a pressure, toadopt the language of Dr. Donaldson?, of the Highupon the Low Iranians; I would be understood, how-ever, to signify by the terms High and Low a distinc-tion in language and not one in altitude of site. Theoverthrow of the Median empire by the Persians, re-lated in different forms by Ctesias and Herodotus, andagain in Holy Scripture, whatever be its chronologicalepoch, may be taken as a great crisis in the struggle, atwhich the High Iranians established themselves in thecountry of the Low, and in permanent political ascend-ancy among them. The Magian revolution, doubtlessa great reaction against this ascendancy, was of shortduration. The invasion of Media by the Scythians,which Herodotus has reported as proceeding from be-yond the Euxine and the Palus Mseotis, but which wasmore probably from the east of the Caspian11, indicates,it is probable, another form of this reaction. This in-vasion took place under Cyaxares, the grandson of De-joces: and we may perhaps consider Media as havingat this time received Persian influences, possibly bythe immigration of groups of Persian families, beforethe general ascendancy of that race, just as we seethe iEolid houses, and the family of Perseus, findingtheir way into Southern Greece before the days of theAchaean race, and of the general Hellenic ascendancyin the country.

The resemblance of the modern Persian to the mo-dern High German language has been observed': and

s New Cratylus, p. 86. i New Cratylus, chap. iv. ash Blakesley on Herod, i. 104. above.

Relation of Germans to Celts. 551

it has even been thought probable, for reasons whichwill presently be considered, that the German namemay have been derived from that quarter. The Hellicingredient of the Greek tongue is referred to a similarorigin. On the other hand, we are told that a traveller14,taking a popular rather than a scientific view of lan-guage, has noticed the strong resemblance between theLatin and the modern Sclavonian forms. Again, thestructure of the Latin language, from its repelling cer-tain more modern tendencies of the Greek, is taken toindicate an antiquity beyond that of the Greek : andthere is also an opinion that the older Greek forms,like the Latin, bear marks of correspondence with theSclavonic. All this would tend to sustain the beliefthat the Pelasgians, who formed the older portion, andthe basis, of the population of Italy and Greece, wereoffshoots from the old, or Low Iranian tribes: andthat the more recent element was High Iranian orPersian.

Ethnological affinities, illustrative of what has herebeen advanced, have not escaped the attention of theGreek and Roman writers. What Strabo has said onthis subject is particularly deserving of notice. Hisderivation of the German name from the Latin wordGermanus may indeed be passed by as a notion whichcannot be maintained, although it is supported by theopinion of Tacitus1, that the name was recent: sinceeven Roman inscriptions show, that it existed threehundred years before that historian. It is however veryremarkable, that Strabo asserts the Germans and theCelts to have been nearly associated: /uwcpov e^aWdr-TOVTCS TOV J$.e\TiKov (pvXov Tip r e TrXeovaa'/j.iS r^y aypio-

k New Cratylus, p. 92. ' Tac. Germ. c. 2. and Brotier's note.

552 II. Ethnology.

TrjTO<;, Kail TOV fieyeOov?, KCU Ttj? ^avOoTtjTos, raWa Se

Trapairkricnoi Kai fnop(pai<s, KOU r/Qem, ical filoi? oi>Te?m.

Now, the result of all that we have drawn fromHomer thus far would be to connect the Celts with thePelasgi, with Media, and with the Low Iranian coun-tries : the ' Germans' with the Helli and with Persia.Observe, then, how the differences, noted by Strabo be-tween Celts and ' Germans,' correspond with the Ho-meric differences between Helli and Pelasgi. First, asto aypi6r>i<;: let us call to mind the history of the name'Apyetos', the use of "Ayptos as an early Hellic propername ; the absence of names of this class among thePelasgians ; the rude manners of the Helli and thePheres; the pacific habits, wealth, and advanced agri-culture of the Pelasgian populations. Then as tostature: how this gift has Diana for its goddess, how itis a standing and essential element of beauty for womenas well as men, how the Greek Chiefs in the Third Iliadare distinguished from the crowd by size,

&s [J.oi /ecu roi'5' avhpa TreXiApwv k£ovoixrjvys,

OIJTIS 08' kcrriv 'A^aio? avr\p r\vs re fiiyas r e n ,

and how Achilles, the bravest and mightiest chief ofthis army, was the first also in beauty and in size; forAjax is always recorded as next to him, and at thesame time as before all others0; except Nireus, whowas beautiful, but who as a soldier was mere trash.

And, lastly, as to the auburn hair, which was withHomer in such esteem. Menelaus is £av66<; (passim);so is Meleager (II. ii. 642); so is Rhadamanthus (Od.iv. 564); Agamede (U. xi. 739); Ulysses (Od. xiii. 399,431); lastly, Achilles (II. i. 197). But never once, I

m Strabo vii. 2. p. 290. n n jj; ^ 5 cf 22^0 Od. xi. 469.

And to Hellenes. 553

think, does Homer bestow this epithet upon a Pelasgianname. None of the Trojan royal family, so renownedfor beauty, are %avOol: none of the Chiefs, not evenEuphorbusP, of whose flowing hair the Poet has givenus so beautiful and even so impassioned a description.Nothing Pelasgian, but Ceres'!, the KaWnrXoKafios, isadmitted to the honour of the epithet. It could hardlybe denied to the goddess of the ruddy harvest:

Excutit et flavas aurea terra comasr.Now Tacitus, describing the Germani, gives them

truces et ccerulei oculi, rutUce comes, magna corpora5.His treatise supplies many other points of comparison.

It is obvious, to compare the names of Scythse, Getse,Gothi, Massagetse, Moesi, Mysi, as carrying the marksof their own relationship; and the reader will find inDr. Donaldson's New Cratylus* the various indicationsrecorded by ancient writers of the extension of theMedians over Northern Egypt: namely, from Herodotus(v. 9), Pliny (Hist.Nat. vi. 7), and Diodorus (ii. 43). Thelast of these authors recognises the similarity of tonguebetween Greeks and Hyperboreans (ii. 47): and Cle-mens Alexandrinus, after reciting a series of inven-tions which the Greeks owed to the barbarians, recordsamong them the saying of Anacharsis, whom some ofthe Greeks placed among their ' seven wise men,' anda d d s e/Aoi Se Trdvres "EWrjves ~£KV81J£OV<TI U.

And again, Herodotus (i. 125) gives us a list ofnames belonging to the different tribes of Persia: thePersia, that is to say, of his own day. Six of these aresettled or agricultural, and four nomad. Of the six,

P II. xvii. 51. ' New Cratylus, p. 91.q II. v. 500. n Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 299 C,«• Propertius. and 308 A (Ed. Coloniie 1688).s Tac. Germ. i. 4.

554 II. Ethnology.

the Pasargadse are the first. Then come theand Mda-Tnoi. Three more follow, of whom one isnamed Tepudnoi. The precise correspondence of nameimmediately suggests that the modern Germans derivetheir appellation from this Persian tribe. But it iscustomary to derive that name from wehr and man, orfrom heer and man, thus giving it a military sense: andit is also observed x that, if it had borne this sense in thetime of Herodotus, he would probably have assigned toit a higher place in his list. But he does not give us tounderstand, that he means to point out these tribal namesas being the descriptive names of the various classes inone and the same homogeneous community, or as having,in any degree, the character of caste. To the first three,indeed, he assigns a political supremacy : for they werethe tribes by whose means Cyrus effected his designs. Butthe idea of particular employments, and social duties,does not seem to belong even to these, and there is nosign of it with the others. It may have been that theTepudviot meant martial, as Ke(paX\yves seems to havemeant Head or Chief Hellenes, and yet that, as the latterwere not the chiefs of all the Hellenes, so the formerwere not the soldiery of all Persia. Again, as the Ao>pieesof Homer lay undistinguished in the Hellenic mass,yet afterwards, and on the very same arena, attained toa long-lived supremacy, so, and yet more naturally,may it have happened that a tribe, secondary in Persiaitself, may have taken or acquired the lead in a north-ward and westward migration from it, and may havegiven its name to the people, which afterwards coagu-lated (so to speak) around that migration.

There are not wanting either Homeric or post-Ho-meric traces of a connection between early Greece and

x Blakesley on Herod, i. 125.

Traces in Homer of the Persian name. 555

Persia. In Homer, Perseus, father of a line of Pelo-ponnesian kings, is the son of Jupiter and Danae^. Ason of Nestor bears the same namez. We have alsothe name Uepcrecpoveia, wife of Aidoneus or Pluto, andPerse, daughter of Oceanus, who bears Circe andiEetes to 'He'Xto?, the Suna.

When Homer makes Perseus the son of Jupiter, hecertainly implies of this sovereign, as of Minos, that hehad no known paternal ancestry, and perhaps that hefalsely claimed a maternal one, in the country wherehe attained to fame. But further, it very decidedlyappears from the use of the word 'Apyeloi for the sub-jects of the Perseids, and from the intense attachmentof the Homeric Juno to that family, that they were anHellenic house, following upon the probably Egyptiandynasty of the Danaids. With them appears to beginwhat Homer esteems to be the really national history.Perseus therefore probably may have brought his namedirect from among the Hellenes of the north. Whyshould it not have come to the Helli from Persia?Let it be recollected that we have two other linkswith the east supplied: one in Perse, daughter of theEastern Oceanus, and bride of the Sun, the other inPersephoneia, whose a\a-ea, as I hope to show in treat-ing of the Outer Geography, are in the same quarter.

In Herodotus we find a tradition that Perseus visitedCepheusb, the Persian king, at the period when thepeople were called by the Greeks Cephenes; that he mar-ried his daughter Andromeda, and had a son, Perses, whoremained behind him, succeeded Cepheus, and gave hisname to the country. This tale has the appearance ofa palpable fiction, intended to cover what may have

y II. xiv. 319. a Od. ix. 139.z Od. iii. 414, 444. b Herod, vii. 61.

556 II. Ethnology.

been a fact; that Perseus—who in Homer has himselfall the appearance of an immigrant into Peloponnesus•—was a stranger, and derived his name from that of thePersians. Now this was the version current amongthe Persians; who reported that Perseus, born one ofthemselves, became an Hellene, but that his ancestorshad not been Hellenes. To this Persian account Hero-dotus appears to give his own adhesion: and he statesthat the Greeks reckoned Hellenic kings up to Perseusc,but that before him they were Egyptian. This is in entireharmony with what can be gathered from the indirect,but consistent and converging, notices supplied byHomer. And again, the whole mass of the later reportsconcerning Perseus keep him in close relation withthat outer circle of traditions, which I have designatedas Phoenician ; with the Gorgons of Hades, with Tartes-sus on the Ocean, with ^Ethiopia and Atlas. Lastly;the continuance of the name as a royal name, downto the very extinction of nationality in Greece—for thelast Macedonian king was a Perseus—may probably beconnected with a stream of tradition, that drew fromPersia the oldest of the national monarchs.

Again, we find that the name 'A^atot was the greatdescriptive name of the Hellic races in the Homeric age.Yet it is without any note of an Hellic or Europeanorigin. Let us therefore see, whether in the East wecan find anything that stands, even though at firstsight disguisedly, in affinity with it. Now Herodotustells us, that in the leading tribe of Pasargadse therewas a family (<fiprJTpri), from which came the Persiankings ; the family of the 'A^ai/W^at. Even if it werenot easy to trace the mode of the relationship, it would

e Herod, vi. 53, 4.

The Achaean name in Persia. 557

seem inevitable to recognise a connection between thename 'A^a^eVjjy, or whatever is the proper Persianroot of this Greek patronymic, and those'A^atoJ whomwe find at the head of the Greek races. This connec-tion receives a singular illustration from Strabo, whoin describing the Asiatic country called Aria, whichgives a name to the Arian race, states that it has threecities called after their founders, Artacaeua, Alexandria,and Achaia. Artacaes was a distinguished Persian, ofthe army of Xerxes. The name of Alexander speaksfor itself. With respect to either of these, Strabomay be understood to speak of what may, from therespective dates, have been genuine historical traditions.But he knew and could know nothing of a PersianAchseus, as the'founder of the third city. And theGreek Achaeus, if he existed at all, belonged to anothercountry, and to a pre-historic antiquity. The real forceof the tradition which reports that these cities bore thenames of their founders, seems, however, to be prettyobvious. It must surely mean this : that they had bornethe same names at all times within the memory of man.Thus we have the Achaean name thrown back, by a localtestimony subsisting in Strabo's time, to a remote anti-quity : thei'e it finds a holding-ground in the Achse-menidae of Herodotus : and both these authors becomewitnesses, I think, to the derivation of the 'Amatol ofHomer from Persia0. I do not mean that the Achae-menes, who, according to the Behistun Inscription, gavehis name to the Achaemenidae, was the father of theAchaeans of the poems, for he appears to have livedonly five generations before Darius. But the coinci-dence of name between the ruling family in Persia,and the dominant race in Greece, bears witness, in

c Strabo xi. 10. p. 516.

558 II. Ethnology.

harmony with other testimonies, to a presumptiveidentity of origin.

It appears, too, that the name thus viewed may wellhave had its root in the ancient Arian language, if wejudge from its extant forms. The word signifying' friends,' according to Sir H. Rawlinson, is in Sanscritsakhd, and in Persian hakhd.

"The name Achaemenes signifies 'friendly,' or 'possessingfriends/ being formed of a Persian word hcikha, correspondingto the Sanscrit sakha, and an attributive affix equivalent to theSanscrit mat, which forms the nominative in man. H. R.c"

The word, then, if we may rely on this high authority,undergoes no other change, on passing into the Greektongue, than the loss of the initial aspirate, (while thesecond is retained in yj) and the addition of the Greektermination oy or to?. In this description of a rulingrace by their common bond as associates, there issomething that resembles the European and feudalname of peers.

There is indeed another name still existing in Persia,that of the Eelliats or itinerant tribes, the form ofwhich, and the circumstances under which it appears,will shortly be noticedd.

We have now obtained various lights, which pointout to us the Persians as the probable ancestry of theGreeks. It still remains to learn, whether from thehistory of ancient Persia we can raise a presumptionthat there were, through resemblances subsisting there,marked signs of affinity between the two.

Herodotus has given us a remarkable, and apparentlya careful, account of the ancient Persians, both as toreligion and as to manners, which upon the whole both

c Eev. G. Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. i. p. 264. note 5.d Inf. p. 571.

The Persians according to Herodotus. 559

exhibits striking points of resemblance to Greece, andlikewise tends to attach that resemblance to the Hellicrather than the Pelasgian race.

In making the comparison, we must allow speciallyfor two sources of error. The Hellic tribes of Homer'stime had been probably for not less than eight or tengenerations (since we trace the Dardanians on theirown ground for seven generations, the Perseids and.ZEolids for six) detached from the parent stock, andmight well have modified their character and customs,especially since they had mingled with the Pelasgiansin the plains. And again, the account of Herodotus islater probably by 500 years or more, than the mannersdescribed in Homer. The Persians of his day had longbeen mixed with* the Medes : and had, as he tells use,adopted their costume: probably much else alongwith it.

The Persians, says Herodotusf, have no temples,altars, nor statues of the gods. Tacituss gives a likeaccount of the Germans. Of these Homer only enablesus to trace altars with clearness as having been adoptedby the Hellenic races at the period of the Troica. Butthe tendency to sacerdotal development among thePelasgi may have had its counterpart in ' the symbolismand complicated ceremonial of Media11.'

They worship Jupiter from high places. So did Hec-tor. We have no reason to make the same assertion ofthe Trojans generally: but the place given to Jupiteron Ida, and the whole Olympian fabric, probably alsothe plan of scaling heaven by heaping mountains one onanother, all belong to the same train of thought.

They, if we are to adopt the statement, call thee vi. 54. f Herod, i. 113. h Blakesley's Herodotus,vol. i.a Tac. Germ. c. 9. 428. Exc. on iii. 74.

560 II. Ethnology.

whole circuit of the heaven by the name of Jupiter.This same is the share of the universe, which, in theHomeric mythology, falls to the lot of Jupiter, and thename Zeus is said to be identical with the SanscritDyaus, meaning 'the sky':' a sense which we find inthe sub dio and sub Jove of the Latin writers, belong-ing to the Augustan age. This elemental conception ofhim, however, is probably more Median than Persian.

They did not originally worship Venus (ap-^dev); butthey learned the worship of her from others, apparentlythe Medes or Assyrians. This remarkably accords withthe case of the Hellenes of Homer, who seem only tohave been drawing towards, rather than to have acceptedfully, the worship of Venus in his timek.

They considered fire to be a god': differing in thisfrom the Egyptians, who held it to be an animal.

So we find that the worship of Vulcan appears to beHellic more than Pelasgian, and that the fable of hisorigin distinctly points to what was for Homer the far-thest east"1.

They paid a particular reverence to rivers". Of this wehave the amplest evidence in Homer among the Greeksas to Alpheus, Spercheus, and the River of Scheria:rivers, too, were honoured by a more distinct personifi-cation than was attributed to other natural objects. TheScamander is, indeed, similarly treated. But this is anexception to the general mode of representation : andno other Trojan River is actively personified0. Simoisis addressed (II. xxi. 308) by Scamander; but is him-self a mute.

» Miiller's Comparative Mytho- 1 iii. 16.l°gy> P- 45, in Oxford Essays for m U. x vi i i . 394, e t seqq.1856. n ;. I 3 8 .

k Inf. Keligion and Morals, ° This subject will be resumedsect. 3. in treating of the Trojans.

The comparison as to religious belief. 561

These, however, are particular points: let us alsoconsider more at large the general outline whichHerodotus has given us of the Persian religion.

They did not, he says, consider as the Greeks didthat the gods were (avOpwiroipveas) anthropophuisticP.They called the entire circle of heaven by the name ofJupiter. They originally worshipped no gods exceptthe sun, the moon, the earth, fire, water, and thewinds. Afterwards they learned from the Assyriansand Arabians to worship Ovpavlrj under the name ofMitra.

I shall not attempt in this place to discuss the diffi-cult subject of the Persian or Magian religions as theyare in themselves; farther than to observe, that theyappear to have been different. Here we have only toconsider the relation, if any, between that system whichthe sketch by Herodotus describes, and the religionof heroic Greece.

It appears that the religion of the Persians'!, eitheras anterior to, or as independent of that of Zoroasterand the Magi, embraced, (i) the belief in one Supremeand incorporeal God, and (2) the worship of the hostof heaven.

The sketch of Herodotus appears to be a represen-tation of this religion : it contains no evidence of dual-ism, and fire-worship appears in it only as a subordinatecharacteristic. Only it would appear as if the historianhad reflected upon Persia the leading idea of the Greekmythology, namely, that which invested Jupiter, as thesupreme deity, especially with the charge of the skyand atmosphere : and that when he says the Persianscall the heavens Jupiter, he probably means that they

P Herod, i. 131. 1 Malcolm's Persia, vol. i. p- 185.

0 o

562 II. Ethnology.

consider the Supreme Being not to be circumscribed,but to pervade all space. The powers of outwardNature were doubtless worshipped by them, in the firstinstance, as organs of the Supreme Being.

In this sketch there is something to remind us of aprimitive religion, or at least to suggest the traditionalforms in which that religion was conveyed: it teachesthe unity of God, and then steps only into the mostnatural and proximate form of deviation. It is wellcalled by Dr. Dollinger ' a monotheism with polythe-istic elements1'.'

It is unlike the Homeric religion, inasmuch as itdoes not contain any evidences of traditive derivationnearly so abundant or so specific as, I think, we shallfind manifest in the Homeric system8. But then wemust remember that it is junior, by many centuries, tothe system of Homer: and that these evidences hadbecome far less palpable, at the epoch when Herodotuslived, in the contemporary religion of Greece.

On the other hand, with respect to its human, in-ventive, and polytheistic element, it is evidently akinto the Homeric religion ; under which Nature is every-where animated and uplifted, and teems at every porewith some expression of divinity. The Greek schemeis indeed still more human, (for it takes everywhere thehuman dress,) more poetical and imaginative, than thePersian one; but the generative principle is one andthe same, namely, the impersonation, though not ne-cessarily in both cases alike under human conditions,of all powers observed and felt in outward nature. Thewhole group may well remind us, both in letter and in

r Dollinger's Heidenthum und Judenthum, vi. 2.s See 'The Religion of the Homeric Age,' sect. ii. * II. iii. 276.

As to ritual and other resemblances. 563

spirit, of the .invocation of Agamemnon, which afterJupiter enumerates the sun, the rivers, and the earth :though it also adds the infernal gods'. We find fromanother place in Herodotus, that he knew the Persiansto believe in an infernal deity, to whom they offeredhuman sacrifices".

If we conceive the Persians moving westward, andgathering mental and imaginative, as well as warlikeand political energy, on their way, we shall see thatthey are only enlarging the scheme reported in Hero-dotus by a consistent application of its principles, andfollowing them out in an imaginative and dramaticspirit to their results, when they people every meadow,wood, and fountain with deity, and when they con-struct the great Olympian court for heaven, with itsseveral reflections; in the sea, around the throne of Ne-reus, and, in the nether world, under the gloomy swayof Aidoneus and Persephone.

Herodotusx also gives us a sketch of the Persiansystem as to ritual. Each person sacrificed for him-self : without libation, music, garlands, or cakes: onlyin a becoming spot, and having the tiara wreathedusually with myrtle. When he had performed theessential part of the function, a Magus recited a reli-gious chant; and no one could perform sacrifice exceptin presence of a Magus. It is plain that we see here,if not, as Mr. Blakesley thinks^, the confusion, at anyrate the combination, of the genuine Persian with theMedian ritual. The presence of the Magian was re-quired, or let us suppose that it was simply usual: yethe did not offer the sacrifice. This was perhaps thecompromise between the sacerdotal system of the

u Herod, vii. 114. * i. 132. y In loc.0 0 2

564 II. Ethnology.

Pelasgians, and the independent or patriarchal prin-ciple of the Hellenes, who exhibit to us first viroffirai,then navTies and OVOO-KOOI, but who seem to know no-thing, as among themselves, of priests.

Like the Hellic races, the Persians of old were re-markable for personal modesty. They did not practiceany unnatural vice, until they learned it from Greece2.They placed an extremely high value on their ownrace, which they esteemed far before all othersa.Different social relations among those who were inti-mate were marked by differences in the kissb. Equalskissed with the mouths, unequals by the mouth of oneon the cheek of the other: while persons greatly infe-rior fell prostrate. In the Odyssey, Ulysses kisses hisson Telemachus (doubtless on the face) (Od. xvi. 190),and Penelope kisses Telemachus on the head and eyes(xvii. 39); but Ulysses kisses the king of Egypt, when heis a suppliant (xiv. 2,79) on the knees, and the slave Doliuson the hands (xxiv. 398): he kisses Eumaeus and Phi-Icetius on the head and hands, while they embrace, butdo not kiss him (xxi.224,5). Dolius held the hand, andno more, of Ulysses. But the chief is kissed on thehead and eyes by his grandmother (Od. xix. 417.)

Like the Greeks, the Persians shore the hair inmourning. They held lying to be the most disgracefulof all things. It was also disgraceful to be called awoman0. Again, the Persians in the time of Croesuswere highlandersd, destitute of all the comforts of life,just as Achilles describes the Helli round Dodona.Like the KaptiKo/xoccvres 'Amatol, they wore their hairlonge.

* Herod i. 133, 135. c H. a 2 3 S .a Ibid. 134. d Herod, i. 71, and ix. 122.b Ibid. e Herod, vii. 19.

Evidence of the Behistun Inscription. 565

All these are points of similarity. Upon the otherhand, there are two points of discrepancy, which maybe noticed. The Persians had many wives and concu-bines : and they did not burn their dead. Upon thefirst of these points of discrepancy with the Greeks,the Persians were in harmony with, at least, the rulingrace of Troas ; and polygamy must always be an affairof ruling races, or of a select few.

A fragment of the old historian Xanthusf wouldlead us to suppose that they derived this habit fromthe Medes, who, according to that author, had no lawof incest, and freely exchanged their wives.

On the second point, they differed from Troy: forthe Trojans, like the Greeks, burned their dead.

It was also the Persian custom to introduce womento their banquets &. There is, however, a trace of thislast-named practice at least in the Olympian banquetsof Homer. And it is plain that Arete, the queen ofAlcinous, was at the Phseacian banquet (Od. vii. 49, 50,147, 8): but this may have been due to the unusualhonour in which she was held (Od. vii. 67). Moreordinarily the Greek women do not appear at mealswith men.

Thus far we seem to be carried by the text of He-rodotus standing alone. .And it should be borne inmind, that Ctesias, as he. is reported in Photiush,though he condemns Herodotus as a teller of untruth,and contradicts him in his narrative, does not questionhis account of religion and manners.

But the discovery and deciphering by Rawlinson ofthe Behistun Inscription throws an additional lightupon this question, and one highly confirmatory of the

f Kawlinson's Herodotus, Life, e Herod, i. 135. iii. 16. v. 18.p. cxlviii. n. h Photii Biblioth. Cod. lxxii.

566 II. Ethnology.

general conclusions towards which we have tended. TheMagian, called Smerdis' by Herodotus, appears in thisInscription under the name of Gomates: and it is nowdemonstrated, that the revolution which he wrought,or of which he took advantage, and which was reversedby Darius, was religious as well as political. For, saysthe Inscription, ' when Cambyses had proceeded toEgypt, the state became irreligious.' It is then relatedthat Gomates obtained the empire. But, says Darius,c I adored Ormuzd. Ormuzd brought me aid.' ' Thendid I, with faithful men, slay Gomates the Magian . . .By the grace of Ormuzd I became king. Ormuzd gave

me the empire The rites which Gomates theMagian had introduced I prohibited. I restored thechants, and the worship, to the State, and to thosefamilies, which Gomates the Magian had deprived ofthem.' Thus Darius represents in this great transac-tion the Persian party and its religion, as against theMedians and the Magi. Hence arises a direct pre-sumption that the Magi were properly a Median class,and were adopted into the Persian system, only inconsequence of the connection and political amalga-mation of the Persians with the Medes.

Again, in a political point of view, we have the Per-sians clearly exhibited as standing in the same relationto the Medes, which the Helli held to the Pelasgi. Theneedy highlandersk come down upon and overpowerthe richer and more advanced inhabitants of the centralvalleys: under the Magian upstart, the latter take ad-vantage of the absence of the sovereign to rebel, butthey are, after a short interval, finally put down.

Darius, having obtained the throne, and establishedi See Blakesley's Excursus on Herod, iii. 74.

k Herod, ix. 122.

The political system of Darius. 567

the Persian supremacy, proceeded to organize the em-pire; and he appears to have displayed in this greatsphere the same thoroughly political mind as the Hel-lenic races exhibited in their diminutive, but still extra-ordinary polities. He divided the empire by a cadastralsystem, under provincial governors; and he establishedeverywhere fixed rates of tribute. These were great de-partures from the old Greek form of sovereignty: butwe are now five centuries later than the heroic age:and, besides, we must remember that the paternal andeverywhere fixed forms of government, which will sufficefor very small states, are not always applicable to largeones. Yet, as we learn from Herodotus, the innova-tions of Darius were much resented by the Persians,who under Cyrus, and even under Cambyses, knew no-thing of fixed rates of taxation, but offered benevolences(Swpa) to the throne1; and a saying came into vogue,that Cyrus was a father, Cambyses an autocrat (Sea-vo-TJ??), and Darius a tradesman (/ca7r \o?).

' Landlord of England art thou now, not King m.J

We seem to have here an emphatic testimony to theoriginal identity of the Persian and Hellic, or Hellenicideas of government.

It is also worthy of remark, that in the case ofMinos, who seems to have held a large and disjointedempire, we have traditional, and even Homeric indica-tions of some proceeding not wholly unlike this of Da-rius. For this prince, according to Thucydides, governedthe islands through his sons, that is, by a provincialorganization under local officers"; in Homer we findRhadamanthus acting at a distance, probably on his

1 Herod, iii. 89. m Shakspeare's Kichard II.» Thuc. i. 4.

568 II. Ethnology.

behalf; and we may perhaps hence conceive, that therewas truth in the tradition, afterwards so odious, that heimposed tribute upon the then Pelasgian Attica.Minos indeed was a reputed Phoenician: but in Homerthe Phoenician and Persian traditions are closely com-bined, and the poet appears to have treated Phoeniciaas the medium, perhaps even the symbol, of much thatwas Persian. Even geographically I believe that heplaced the two countries in very close proximity.

It seems probable also, that we may consider thelong continued application of the term BacnXeuy by theGreeks to the Persian kings, as having reference to anoriginal identity of race and manners. It had beentheir own original name for a monarch. When the an-cient monarchies passed away, so did the name fromtheir usage; and the possessor of singlehanded poweramong the Greeks, having in all cases obtained it bythe suppression of liberty, Came to be called rvpawo^;but the word Bao-tXeu? continued to be used with re-ference to Persia, where the chain of traditions had notbeen broken, and where monarchy had never ceased toprevail; so that there had been no reason for a changeof usage, or for a deviation from the ancient respectand reverence towards the possessor of a throne. Again,the traditional throne of Lacedaemon continued to beheld by Ba<ri\ei$o.

For the word BacriKevs was one of no ordinary force;and clown to a very late date it must have been sur-rounded with venerable recollections. It was borne bythe emperors of Constantinople, and even at timesstickled for by them, as a title distinguishing them fromthe emperors of the West. Though essentially Greek, it

0 Ar. Pol. III. xiv. 3.

Hellenic traits in modern Persia. 569

was also written in the Latin character. Unlike theword Rex, it appears never to have been applied to anyruler who exercised a merely derivative power. It tra-velled so far westward as to our own island : and KingEdgar, in a charter, calls himself Anglorum Basileus,omniurnque Regum, Insularum, Oceanique Britanniamcircumjacentis, cunctarumque nationum, qucs infra earnincluduntur, Imperator et Dominus?.

Even now, after so many centuries of vicissitude, thePersian presents numerous points of resemblance, per-haps more than we can find in Modern Greece itself,to the primitive and heroic Greek of Homer. Uponthe whole, without doubt, he stands upon a lower level.Lying, drunkenness, unnatural vicei, the degradation ofwomen, are all now rife in Persia. But such thingswere to be expected after so many ages of estrange-ment from the revealed knowledge of God, of moralcontamination, and of political depression and mis-government. But with allowance on these accounts,and on the score of the changes to Magianism andMahometanism, the old features are still retained, andthey present to our view abundant presumptions ofidentity.

The Persians^ are still noted for hospitality and loveof display: for highly refined manners and great per-sonal beauty. They have still an intense love of poetry,of song, and also of music, while their practice of thisart is. rude and simple: they still associate poetry(sometimes licentious, as in the Eighth Odyssey) with

P Selden's Titles of Honour, r The traits mentioned in thechap. ii. text, where there is no special

1 Malcolm's Persia, ii. 585. reference, are drawn from the631, 6. Quarterly Review, vol. three last chapters of Malcolm's101. p. 510. Persia.

570 II. Ethnology.

recitation and the banquet; and, when Malcolm wrote,printing was still unknown among the useful arts of thecountry. They are passionately fond of horses, muchgiven to the chase and to the practice of horse-racing1".Men of letters are esteemed, and their society valued,even as in the Odyssey the Bard is among those whommen are accustomed to invite to dinners. On theoccasion of a marriage they celebrate prolonged feastsof three days for the poor, and from that up to thirty orforty days for the highest classes. Amidst great de-pravity, much of filial piety and of maternal influenceremains*. It is observed' that they do not usually alludeto women by name". There is an approach to this ab-stinence in the Homeric poems ; where names of men,and likewise of goddesses, in the vocative are frequent,but I am not sure that we have any instances of awoman addressed by her proper name throughout theIliad or Odyssey. But certainly one of the most curiousnotes of similarity is that, together with their high andrefined politeness, they retain a liability, when undergreat excitement, to a sort of cannibal ferocity. Arecent writer states" the following anecdotes. A fewyears ago, the chieftain of a tribe slew in a feud thechieftain of another. Shortly afterwards he was attackedwhile on a journey, taken after vigorous resistance, andput to death. His heart, if we may believe the recital,was then roasted, and was eaten by the mother of hisformer victim. And again ; the husband of a beautifulyoung woman had been slain by a rival chief. The

r Malcolm's Persia, ii. 550, t ibid. 616, and Quart. Eev.558,566,611. P-5°9-

s Ibid. 576. Grote's History u Quart. Rev. vol. 101. p.of Greece, P. I. c. xxi. vol. ii. 509 n.P' *9<S n. x Q u a r t . Re v v o l l 6 l p g o

The Eelliats: Media and the Pelasgi. 571

widow, who had been much attached to the dead war-rior, would minutely describe the incidents of the ca-tastrophe, and then, lifting up her hands to heaven,would pray to Ali to deliver the murderer into herhands, ' that having cut out his heart, I may make itinto kibabs, and eat it before I die.' These arecertainly most pointed proofs that Homer has pro-ceeded with his usual veracity, as an observer andchronicler of man, when he shocks us by makingAchilles wish he could eat Hector, and Hecuba wishshe could eat Achilles; nay, even when he yet furtherproves that this idea was familiar to his race and age,by making Jupiter tell Juno, she would, he believes, bewell content to eat Priam and all his sons.

To appreciate fully, however, the resemblances ofGreek and Persian, we must take the latter as he isfound in the military tribes of the province of Pars orFars. The members of these tribes are chiefly horse-men, all soldiers, and all brigands. But they abhorthe name and character of thief; plunder is redeemedby violence in their eyes, and it is evidently accompa-nied with the practice of a generous and delicatehospitality. Elsewhere in Persia many degrading cus-toms prevail, and women are regarded chiefly with aview to sensual use; but among these military tribesthey are more highly valued, and are of remarkablemodesty and chastity; yet they have an innocent free-dom in their good offices to strangers J, which at oncerecalls the Greek maidens of the Odyssey. Adulteryis capitally punishable. Alexander the Great endea-voured to bring these tribes to settle, and to adopt agri-cultural habits; but they have defied his efforts, and still

y Malcolm, ii. 613.

572 II. Ethnology.

remain like the old Helli of the hills, when they hungover the Pelasgians of the valleys. It is to be observed,that they are particularly mentioned in the Eteo-Per-sian province of Fars: and further, that they bear thename Eelleat2, which at least presents a striking resem-blance to that of the Helli. The aspirate would passinto the doubled e, like fikio? into j?e\to?, or e$va intoeeSva. So Helli is the equivalent of Eelli.

In sum, the ancient Persians, like the Helli, were ofArian race, of highland character and habits, inhabit-ants of a rude country : apparently children of Japhet,akin closely to the Hellenes, and less palpably to theOsci and Umbri.

The Medians were civilly in a more advanced stageof social life, and were possessed of greater wealth, butendowed with inferior energies. They are presumed bymany to have been of the race of Ham : to have peopledEgypt, and to be akin to the ancient Sicani, to theBasques, the Esthonians, the Lapps, and the Finns ofmodern Europe. For the purposes of this inquiry, theyare to be regarded as in all likelihood the immediatefountain-head of the wide-spread Pelasgian races.

We began under the warning of Mr. Grote: and Ifear that we end under the implied ban of anothervery able and recent writer, Dr. Lathama. He considersthat we have been put in possession of no facts withrespect to the Pelasgi more than those three, so slightand so incapable of effective combination, which arerecognised by Mr. Groteb. But the principle he laysdown is that, by which I wish to be tried. He says,the scholar finds a TTOV O-TW in the dictum of this or

z Malcolm, i. 369. ii. 597, 634, grations, pp. 33-6.638- b History of Greece, vol. ii.

a Latham's Man and his Mi- p. 352.

The Eelliats: Media and the Pelasgi. 578

that author, but the sound ethnologist ' on the last tes-tified fact:' he demands for his basis ' the existingstate of things as either known to ourselves, or knownto contemporaries capable of learning them at theperiod nearest the time under consideration.' It ap-pears to me that the text of Homer, so far as it goes,answers this demand: that his accounts of Pelasgian,Hellene, and Achaean, when we can get at them, andwhen we take into view his epoch and means of informa-tion, come clearly within the meaning of'testified facts'in regard to that particular subject matter. I admit that,from their incidental and often unconscious nature, thereis a great liability to error in the attempt to elicit them :but my assertion is, that the ground under foot is sound;and that, though we may go astray while travelling it,yet we are not attempting to tread upon a quicksand.As to the success with which this principle has herebeen applied, I am not too sanguine; but I contendearnestly for the principle itself, because I believe thatit will, when admitted, legitimately work out its ownresults, and that they will make no unimportant addi-tion to the primary facts of that great branch of philo-sophy, the history, and most of all the early history, ofman.

ADDENDA.

Page 106. On the possible migration of the Dodonaeanoracle, see below, p. 338.

P. 136. On the theory of Curtius respecting the Ionians, seep. 480.

P. 153. The wealth of Egyptian Thebes was known toAchilles ; see II. ix. 381.

P. 167. The Birth of Minos will, be more fully discussed inconnection with the Outer Geography of the Odyssey. On theancient and extensive influence of Phoenicia upon Crete, seeHock's Creta, vol. i. pp. 68 and seqq.

P. 186. On the word lupus, see Miiller's Dorians, II. vi.-8,9,for its relation to \CVKOS, Ai>/a), kvKrj-yevris, or light-born, andlux.

P. 306. In general confirmation of what has been said aboveon the subject of language, I may refer to the Romische Qe-schichte* of Momnisen, which had not come under my eyewhen the Seventh Section went to press.

His conclusions are ;1. That the Greek and mid-Italian languages correspond, in

what touches the rudiments of the material life of man.2. That in the higher region of the mind, of religion, and

of advanced polity, this correspondence wholly fails.3. That the Grseco -Italic agrees with the Sanscrit down to

the pastoral stage of society only, and ceases with the com-mencement of the agricultural and settled stage.

4. That the abstract genius of the Roman religion bears arelation to the Greek anthropophuism, like that of the full-

* Leipsic, 1854, vol. i, ch.ii.

A D D E N D A . 575

formed Indian mythology to the metaphysical scheme of theZendavesta.

He appears to me to cast the balance overmuch on the Romanside : but his statement will well repay an attentive consider-ation.

He supplies the following words, which I would add to thelists I have given above. They generally corroborate theconclusions at which I have arrived.

Xopros hortus.cicer.milium.

TTOXTOS puls.

mola.

axis.

•noivrj poena.Kp(va>, Kpl\i.a ... cr imen.Ta\aa> talio.yironv tunica.

And, belonging to the higher domain—

(TKVTOS scutum (with an alteration,or progression of sense).

\6y\r] lancea.refievos templum.

Among these, the relationship of rifxevos and templum seemsto require further proof.

I have to add the word KTJAOD, which seems to be in nearercorrespondence than /3eAos is with telum. On the other side,I may note aop, for a sword, and ox°s, oxVH-a, for a chariot,as among the words not in correspondence.

P. 3 IT. Add <J>ei8i7T7ro?. II. ii. 768.

P. 313. The statement as to the persons slain by Hectorand Mars is inaccurate. The seven first names are, so far asthe text informs us, undistinguished, except Teuthras, who iscalled avriOeos; and among these seven we have no name,

576 A D D E N D A .

which is clearly of Hellic etymology. But the nine othersbelong to a different part of the action (II. xi. 301-4), and areexpressly called f/yenoves (or officers, II. ii. 365): and amongthese, while we have four names of Hellic complexion, Dolopsand Opheltius are the only two which can be positively as-signed to the Pelasgian class.

P. 380. While I have stated the second sense of the word"Apyos according to what appears to me to be the balance ofthe evidence, I admit it to be a doubtful point whether weought rather, with Strabo (p. 365), to understand it preferablyas capable of meaning the entire Peloponnesus.