Chapter II: Ethnology (6)

The Catalogue in the Second Book belongs more properly to the Geography, than to the Ethnology of the poems. But I advert to it here on account both of the historic matter it contains, and of the manner in which it illustrates the general historic designs of the Poet.

It is perhaps, in its own way, nearly as characteristic and remarkable a performance, as any among the loftier parts of the poem. Considered as a portion of the Iliad, it would be more justly termed the Array than the Catalogue; for it is a review, and not a mere enumeration. Considered with respect to history, its value can scarcely be overrated: it contains the highest title-deeds of whatever ancient honour the several States might claim, and is in truth the Doomsday Book of Greece.

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 splendid similes. When all is concluded and, as it were, marked off, he proceeds to append to it the Trojan Catalogue; a work of less extent and difficulty, as also of less penetrating interest to his hearers, but yet constructed with much of care, and with various descriptive embellishments.

The Preface contains the most formal invocation of the Muses among the few which are to be found in the poems. The others are,

Il. i. 1. Introduction to the Iliad: addressed to Θεά.

Il. ii. 761. In the Postscript to the Catalogue.

Il. xi. 218. Before the recital of the persons who were slain by
Agamemnon.

Il. xiv. 508. Before the recital of the Greek chiefs, who, on the
turn of the battle, slew various Trojans.

Il. xvi. 112. Before proceeding to relate, how the Trojans hurled the
firebrands at the Grecian ships.

Od. i. 1. Introduction to the Odyssey: addressed to Μοῦσα.

In the cases of the Eleventh and Fourteenth Books, the invocation of the Muse stands in connection with a particular effort of memory; for the recitals prefaced by it consist of names not connected by any natural tie one with the other. But it is here that the Poet’s appeal to the Muse most deserves attention.

If Homer was composing a written poem, the invocation is ill-timed and unmeaning. He has already, by a series of fine similes, elevated the subject to a proper level. Considered as a mere written Catalogue, it does not deserve or account for the prayer for aid: in this point of view, it was of necessity among the _sermoni propiora_, and was one of the easiest parts of the poem to compose. But if we consider the poem as a recitation, then the Catalogue was very difficult; because of the great multitude of details which are included in it, and which are not in themselves connected together by any natural or obvious link.

It is true that he begs the Muses to inform him, because they were omnipresent and omniscient, whereas he is dependent on report only (κλέος) for information. Now this was equally true of the whole material of the poem: but the reason why he introduces the statement of this truth in so marked a manner, must be from the arduous nature of the task he was beginning; nor could it be arduous in any other way, than as an effort of memory.

The invocation contains another proof that the poems were composed for recitation in the words (vv. 489, 90)

οὐδ’ εἴ μοι δέκα μὲν γλῶσσαι, δέκα δὲ στόματ’ εἶεν
φωνὴ δ’ ἄρρηκτος, χαλκέον δέ μοι ἦτορ ἐνείη.

Nothing can be more proper than to refer to the insufficient ability of the bodily organs of recitation, if he were about to recite: but nothing less proper, if he were engaged on a written poem. It has been a fashion however with poets to copy Homer in this passage, although the reason and circumstances on which it is founded had become wholly inapplicable: and their abusive imitation has blinded us to the significance of the passage as it stands in the Iliad.

Now as regards the list itself.

_The Greek Array._

In this Catalogue, he had to go through the different States of Greece, furnishing twenty-nine contingents of various strengths, all indicated by the number of ships, to the army. These contingents are under forty-five leaders, many of them with genealogies, and coming from one hundred and seventy-one Greek towns. The proper names of the Greek Catalogue, strictly so called, are three hundred and ninety-six, and those of the Trojan one hundred and five, making in all five hundred and one. These must have been a selection from a larger number, for there were Greek towns (for example Φηραὶ of the Peloponnesus, Od. iii. 488, and the various towns named Ἐφύρη) not named in the Catalogue; and this again increased the difficulty of keeping by memory to the list throughout. Again, it was difficult to adopt any arrangement that should not be wholly arbitrary, in displaying to us the parts of an army which comprised so many divisions, and which was drawn from sources so numerous, and dispersed over a territory of such extremely irregular formation.

_The principle of arrangement._

Homer has however with great ingenuity adopted a geographical arrangement in the Greek Catalogue, which, so far as the various divisions were concerned, has enabled him to combine them into a kind of whole.

The territory, which supplied the army, consisted partly of continent, and partly of islands: and the islands again were partly such as, lying about the coast of the mainland, might be most conveniently remembered in conjunction with it, partly such as formed a group of themselves.

If we take the continent and islands together, we shall find that they form part of a curvilinear figure, not indeed circular, but elliptical, and more nearly approaching a circle than that group of islands in the Ægean, which afterwards obtained the name of Cyclades. This name, taken from the rude approximation to a geometrical figure, may possibly have been at first suggested to the Greeks by Homer’s geometrical arrangement in the Catalogue. I speak of Homer’s arrangement as geometrical, because the principle he has adopted is that of mental figure drawing: it is of course of the rudest kind, and he perhaps did not even know the correct mode of constructing a circle.

The proportion of the figure formed by the mainland and islands is about two-thirds of a complete circumference: the ends of the curve being Thessaly to the north, and Calydnæ, with the other small islands, in the south-east.

Let us now proceed to notice, firstly, the primary division of the Catalogue into principal parts, and secondly, the subdivision in each of those parts.

It is worth while to remark, that the Poet has not adopted the mode of enumeration which might have been thought most obvious: namely, to begin at one of the extremities of this semicircle (so to call it), and then proceed towards the other. If the territorial subdivisions had been regular, this would have been convenient: but from their utter irregularity it would in this case have been wholly useless.

Again, he might have begun with Agamemnon, his immediate forces and dominion; and might then proceed through the States according to the political importance of their respective contingents. But to this course there were two objections. First, their order could not on this principle have been easily decided, especially after passing a few of the most considerable. But, secondly, he appears to have avoided, with a fixed purpose and with an extraordinary skill, both here and elsewhere, whatever could have excited feelings of jealousy as between the several States of Greece. Of course I do not refer to the admitted supremacy of Agamemnon: but if he had attempted to place the forces of Nestor, Diomed, Menelaus, of the Athenians, the Arcadians, the Phthians, in an order thus regulated, it would have been at variance with obvious prudence, and with his uniform rule of action. Perhaps, however, we may rightly consider, that if Homer had been writing his poems, he could not have failed to give Agamemnon the first place in this description. He has not then followed the general form of the territory, nor has he begun with the chief political member of the armament. Nor, lastly, has he even treated the Peloponnesus as a separate division of Greece: but he has introduced it, though it was the most important part of the country, between the eastern parts (Bœotia, with six other States) and the western parts (Ætolia, with two other States) of Middle Greece.

There are therefore various modes of arrangement, which either politically or geographically might be termed obvious, but which the Poet has passed by. Why has he passed them by? and why has he begun the Catalogue with the Bœotians? who were neither powerful, nor ancient, nor distinguished in a remarkable degree; nor did they lie at any one of the geographical extremities of the country.

Again, it might be asked, why has he not either divided all the islands from Continental Greece, or none? Instead of that, he reckons Eubœa, Cephallenia, Zacynthus, and Ithaca, in the same division with Continental Greece, but begins a new division with Crete.

Let us now carefully note what he has done, and see whether it does not suggest the reasons.

The three principal divisions of the Catalogue would appear to lie as follows:

I. Continental Greece south of mount Œta, including the Middle and the Southern division, with the islands immediately adjacent. This section furnishes sixteen contingents. (Il. ii. 494-644.)

II. Insular Greece, from Crete to Calydnæ: these islands furnish four contingents. (645-680.)

III. Thessalian Greece, from Œta and Othrys in the south, to Olympus in the north: which furnishes nine contingents. (681-759.)

These three divisions completely sever the line of the semicircular curve. It follows that in recitation he would be able to dispose of each part severally, as each forms a compact figure of itself: and this he could not have done, had he followed the seemingly more natural division into continent and islands. At the interval between the first and the second, he makes a spring from Ætolia to Crete: and another between the second and the third, from the Calydnæ to Thessaly.

The _desideratum_ obviously was, to assist memory by such a geographical disposition, that the different parts might be made by association each to suggest that which was immediately to follow. So distributed, they would supply a kind of _memoria technica_.

We see how he prepares for this operation by his distribution in chief, which gives him the three sections of Greece, as they succeed one another on the line of the (completed) figure.

And, though we may not yet have in view a reason for his beginning with the Bœotians, we seem now at least to have a reason before us for his beginning with the middle section instead of one of the extremes; namely, that it was the principal one, as it not only supplied the largest number of ships and men, and nearly all the greater commanders, but also as it contains the seat of sovereignty, and supplied the forces of the Chief of the army.

Having the three sections before us, let us now observe the manner in which he manages the sub-distribution, so as to make each district of territory lead him on to the next.

And here he seems evidently to proceed upon these two rules: first, never to pass over an intervening territory, though he may cross a strait or gulf.

And secondly, to throw the several States into rude circles or other figures, round the arc or along the line of which his recollection moves from point to point.

MAP I.

_FOR THE CATALOGUE._

The Sections are the main divisions.

_The Figures are the Sub-divisions._

_The islands I, II, III, IV, make up the Second Section and the Third Figure._ ]

MAP II.

_THE CATALOGUE._

FIGURE I.

I. Bœotia. (1)
II. Orchomenus,
(or Bœotia, 2.)
III. Phocis.
IV. Locris.
V. Eubœa.
VI. Attica.
VII. Salamis.
VIII. Argolis.
IX. Mycenæ.

FIGURE II.

I. Lacedæmon.
II. Pylus.
III. Arcadia.
IV. Elis.
V. Dulichians.
VI. Cephallenians.
VII. Ætolians.

FIGURE IV.

I. Territory of Achilles.
II. Protesilaus.
III. Eumelus.
IV. Philoctetes.

FIGURE V.

I. Podaleirius and Machaon.
II. Polypœtes.
III. Gouneus. (Perrhœbians and Dodona.)
IV. Prothous. (Magnesians.)

_N.B. A [cross] marks the place assigned by Müller to Ormenium, which is placed by Homer between I and II._ ]

His first figure may be called a circle, being elliptical[480]; and it includes nine contingents.

1. Bœotia.
2. Minyeian Orchomenus.
3. Phocis.
4. Locris.
5. Eubœa.
6. Attica.
7. Salamis.
8. Argolis.
9. Mycenæ.

His second is a zigzag, and includes seven contingents[481].

1. Lacedæmon.
2. Pylus.
3. Arcadia.
4. Elis.
5. The Dulichians.
6. The Cephallenians.
7. Ætolia.

We now part with the first section.

His third figure embraces the second section, or insular division of the Catalogue, and is again part of a rude circle or ellipse[482].

1. Crete.

2. Rhodes.

3. Syme.

4. Cos and other islands. Carpathus is included, which lay between Crete and Rhodes; being apparently in political union with Cos and the Calydnæ, and contributing to the same contingent, it could not but stand with them. Strabo observes that this principle of political division, according to what he terms δυνάστειαι[483], has been adopted by the Poet in his account of the Thessalian contingents.

By reference to the rude maps annexed, which mark the several contingents by figures, the nature of this contrivance will be clearly seen.

_The order for Thessaly._

It is more difficult to trace Homer’s method of proceeding with respect to Thessaly.

This country furnishes nine contingents, which may best be described by the names of their leaders. There is no difficulty as to the first four, except that some of the boundaries are indeterminate. They form, like the last or insular group, an incomplete circle[484]. The leaders are;

I. Achilles (681-94).

II. Protesilaus (695-710).

III. Eumelus (711-15).

IV. Philoctetes (716-28).

There is more difficulty in describing the arrangement of the remainder. Strabo, who has followed the Catalogue in Thessaly with great minuteness, seems to have noticed the circular arrangement: at least he speaks of the κύκλος τῆς Θετταλίας, and the περιόδεια τῆς χώρας[485]. But when he comes to the sixth division, that of Eurypylus, he appears to find it impossible to fix with any confidence the site of Ormenium: and says, καὶ ἄλλα δ’ ἐστὶν ἃ λέγοι τις ἂν, ἀλλ’ οὖν ὀκνῶ διατρίβειν ἐπὶ πλέον[486]. And further on he observes, that the displacements and changes of cities, and mixtures of races, have confounded the names and tribes[487], so as to make them in part unintelligible to men of his day: where we are anew reminded of the passage of Thucydides, in which he tells us, that the most fertile tracts underwent the most frequent changes of population[488].

The δυναστεία of Eurypylus is in our maps commonly placed on the sea coast, but as it appears, with little authority of any kind: while, after all the proof we have seen of continuous arrangement, it seems incredible that, in this instance alone, Homer could have followed an order such that the δυναστεία should not march either with that which precedes, or that which follows, but should be severed from them by a line of territories intervening, which he has already disposed of.

To judge from analogy with the otherwise uniform rule of the Catalogue, the dominions of Eurypylus must have been somewhere conterminous both with those of the Asclepiads, and with those of Polypœtes. Waiving however any effort to fix positively their site, we find the other four remaining contingents connected by a zigzag line[489], like that which was used in southern Greece. The leaders are as follows:

I. Podaleirius and Machaon (729-33). (Eurypylus 734-7, omitted.)

II. Polypœtes (738-47).

III. Gouneus (Enienes, Perrhæbi, 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: and in both cases one of them is curvilinear, in which the eastern parts are arranged: the other a zigzag, which includes the western portions.

I have described this geometrical arrangement, as of great interest in connection with the question, whether the poems were written or recited; and also as it seems to be in itself highly ingenious.

It seems to distribute in rude but real symmetry before the eye of the mind, an assemblage of objects between which it would at first sight appear almost impossible to frame any link of connection.

But in Homer, though there is much that is ingenious, there is nothing that is far-fetched: and the order he has followed might well, as to many parts at least of Greece, have been that of his own itinerancy as a minstrel. And, though complex in other respects, yet if it reduces a complex physical arrangement to the form, in which it becomes practically more manageable than in any other way for his purposes, it is evidently the one which may best be justified on the principles of common sense.

_Fresh proofs of historical intention._

The Greek Catalogue is also full of proofs of the historical intention of Homer.

In the first place, such proof is afforded by the immense amount of its details, which are _prima facie_ a load upon his verse, and which Homer seems to have so regarded, from the care he has taken to relieve the subject by the cluster of similes at the beginning. He must have had a purpose in facing this disadvantage. It is quite at variance with his own spirit, and the spirit of his age, to suppose that this purpose was merely to flatter the vanity of hearers by wholesale fiction.

The use of supernatural machinery is agreeable to the genius of the poet and his age, but not so the vulgar falsification of plain terrestrial facts. If the supposition of wholesale fiction cannot be maintained, there is no other alternative but that of an historical purpose.

Viewed at large, the Catalogue is an answer to that normal question, which expresses the anxiety of every Greek to make the acquaintance of a man first of all through what are colloquially termed his ‘belongings.’

Τίς; πόθεν εἶς ἀνδρῶν; πόθι τοι πόλις; ἠδὲ τοκῆες[490];

The chief indication of departure from this purpose is in the case of Nireus[491]. This paltry leader is almost the only person of legitimate birth, both of whose parents are named: and while he is evidently introduced for his beauty only, it is most suspicious that his father should be named Χάροψ, and likewise his mother Ἀγλαΐη. This savours of the names Δημόδοκος and Τερπιάδης, 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 considerate and serviceable Ithacan citizen[492]. With the insignificant island of Syme Homer might, for a special object, well take this liberty. And we may observe here, as elsewhere, that what is probably a departure from literal truth, may also be in a higher view historical: for doubtless his object is to commemorate impressively the wonderful beauty of Nireus, and this he does by inventing appropriate accessories.

Again, though an accurate geography would not of itself have proved the personal parts of the narrative to be historical, it is scarcely conceivable that he would have adopted one so minute and elaborate, as well as exact, if he had meant to combine with it a string of merely fictitious personalities.

_Genealogies of the Catalogue._

Thirdly, besides many simple patronymics, there are found thirteen minor genealogies in the Catalogue, ten of them Greek, and three foreign. They are of three generations only in every case, with the single exception of the Orchomenian leaders, who have four: and in every case they attach to secondary heroes, who are thus treated in a mass, while provision is made in other parts of the poem for making known to us the descent (with the exception of Ajax) of all the greater heroes, as occasion serves to state it for each of them singly. Now it is inconceivable, even on general grounds, that the poet should have invented this mass of names; for they could surely have excited no sort of interest among his hearers, except upon one ground. They must have been true genealogical records of persons, who had played a part in the great national drama; one not perhaps of high importance, yet sufficient to be the basis of such traditions, as are justly deemed worthy of local record among a people eminently strong in their municipal, as well as their general patriotism. Over and above this, many points of these minor genealogies coincide with, and illustrate other historical notices in other 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 Tlepolemus, Hercules being the father, v. 658.

4. Aglaie mother of Nireus, Charops the father, v. 672.

5. Alcestis mother of Eumelus, Admetus the father, v. 715.

6. Rhene mother of Medon, Oileus the father, v. 728.

7. Hippodamia mother of Polypœtes, Pirithous the father, v. 742.

8. Venus is mentioned as the mother of Æneas, Anchises being the father, v. 820.

The second of these cases, if we are to regard the passage containing it as Homeric, must not be considered as an account of parentage, but simply as a mode of asserting autochthonism. Again, the parents of Nireus, whether true persons or not, are evidently named with reference to the consideration of beauty only, which is the key to the whole passage.

And the parentage of Æneas may also perhaps be named for the sole purpose of embellishment.

Described by the words θεὰ βροτῷ εὐνηθεῖσα, it does not appear to stand in the same class, or to be susceptible of the same explanations, as those Greek cases where Greek chieftains born out of wedlock have gods for their fathers; nor is there any case, among the Greeks, of illegitimate birth from a goddess. Of the five other cases three (1, 3, and 6), are obviously illegitimate births, one at least of them with a fabulous father. This raises the presumption that the name of the mother was mentioned as the only remaining means of recording the descent: inasmuch as the persons would otherwise have been οὐτίδανοι. It may reasonably be conjectured, that all these births were out of wedlock.

The epithets of the Catalogue are so accurately descriptive of the country, that they have always been used as tests of the traditions respecting the situations of the places to which they refer. They are not less exactly in harmony with the descriptions in other parts of the poem, and this in minor cases, where purposed fiction can hardly be supposed, not less than in the greater ones. For instance, the Arcadians of Il. vii. 134, are ἐγχεσίμωροι: those of the Catalogue are ἀγχιμάχηται (604), and ἐπιστάμενοι πολεμίζειν (611). The Pelasgi of Il. x. 429 are δῖοι, those of the Catalogue (840) are ἐγχεσίμωροι. The Cephallenians of the Catalogue are μεγάθυμοι (631), those of Il. iv. 330 are στίχες οὐκ ἀλαπαδναί. The Crete of the Odyssey (xix. 174) has ἐννήκοντα πόληες, the Crete of the Catalogue (v. 649) is ἑκατόμπολις[493].

Single commands are in every instance assigned to those who in the rest of the poem appear as chiefs of the first order. In the case of Idomeneus alone is this in any way obscured; as the passage (645-51) runs: ‘Idomeneus led the Cretans.... Idomeneus led them, with Meriones.’ But it is very remarkable that Meriones holds just this sort of ambiguous relation to Idomeneus in the poem at large: sometimes he is called his θεράπων (xxiii. 113 _et alibi_), and his ὀπάων (x. 58 _et alibi_), while he stands among the nine first warriors of the army, who (vii. 161), volunteer for single combat with Hector; and when Idomeneus leads the van, he manages the rear (iv. 251-4). Again, though the opportunities afforded by the Catalogue are of necessity narrow, yet Homer has contrived within its limits to mark distinctly the character and position of nearly every great chieftain: certainly of Agamemnon, Achilles, Menelaus, Telamonian Ajax (v. 668), and Ulysses.

_The Epilogue._

The third portion, or epilogue, appears to be ascribable chiefly to the genial love of Homer for the horse. His arrangement of the army according to the number of ships, which conveyed each division, had shut out the mention of the chariots and the coursers who drew them, and he appears to have devised this closing invocation for the purpose of supplying the defect. It was certainly not necessary in order to fix the position of Achilles in the army, which the First Book had completely developed; and the passage is chiefly occupied with the horses of Eumelus, together with those of Achilles and his force.

It contains, however, two remarkable notes of historical veracity. The horses of Eumelus, a Thessalian, are proclaimed to have been by far the best (μέγ’ ἄρισται): and the Myrmidons, again a Thessalian contingent, are here spoken of as having a number of separate chariots and horses; we are told (773), ‘the soldiers played at games.... The horses stood feeding, each near his own chariot, and the chariots were in their sheds.’ This is never said of any other contingent in the army. In strict harmony with this picture, Thessaly was conspicuous throughout the historic times of Greece, for the excellence of its breeds of horses, and the high character of its cavalry.

If all this be so, we cannot wonder at the high estimation in which the Catalogue of Homer was held by the Greeks of after-ages, as the great and only systematic 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 public document. Under the laws of Solon, for example, it received the honour of public recitation on solemn occasions. It was also quoted for the decision of controversies. In the critical moment, which preceded the first Persian war, the Athenian and Spartan envoys apply on the part of Greece to Gelon for his aid. He claims the command. In resisting this claim and urging their own right to lead the fleet, unless that post be claimed by the Lacedæmonians, the Athenians found their pretensions on the magnitude of their fleet, their autochthonism, and, finally, the testimony of Homer to the merits of Menestheus[494].

_The Trojan Catalogue._

The Trojan Catalogue has less of organic connection than the Greek with the structure of the poem at large.

In proceeding to this portion of his work, the poet does not renew his ornamental similes, or his invocation to the Muse. He evidently meant to lower the tone of his strain: and moreover he was not about to tax memory as he had done in the former operation, the proper names being only about one fourth in number of those used for the Greeks, and none of them being arranged in long strings like the towns of Bœotia.

He now begins in what may be called a natural order: taking first that section of the army, which was supplied by the Troic sovereignties, principal and subordinate; and among these giving the first place to the troops of Ilion itself, as the most considerable, and as those chiefly concerned. The next is given to the Dardan forces, which were connected with the original seat of the race, and the following ones to the contingents supplied by the subordinate sovereigns of the rest of Troas.

His pursuit of this order reminds us, that the geographical distribution was in the case of the Trojan list simple, and did not require the aid of mental geometry, as he had only to follow, almost throughout, a single line of States along the European and Asiatic coasts. It also strengthens the presumption that, when Homer chose an order so different, and so much less natural and obvious, in the case of the Greeks, he must have been governed by some peculiar reason.

It will be observed that, of the eleven divisions of the Allies, the two first are the Pelasgians and the Thracians. As the blood of these two races flowed likewise in the veins of the Greeks, the precedence given to them may have been founded on this relationship. But this presumption is qualified by our finding that, doubtless on the ground of geographical order, the Lycian contingent, which had, at any rate, strong Greek affinities, comes last of all.

For a reason given elsewhere, we must consider the numbers assigned to the Greek contingents as approximate representations of their respective force: but the omission to particularize numbers at all in the Trojan Catalogue is itself an evidence of its historical character. The Trojan army was of a miscellaneous character: we also know that the allied contingents went and came, and that their absence from home, not prompted by the same powerful motives as that of the Greeks, was shortened by reliefs. Thus we find Rhesus with his Thracians just arrived in the Tenth Book[495]: Memnon comes to Troy after the death of Hector[496]: and we are told of the sons of Hippotion (Il. xiii. 792), who ἦλθον ἀμοιβοί, had come as reliefs, on the preceding day. An army thus collected piecemeal, and thus fluctuating in its composition, could not leave behind it the same accessible traditions. Again, the destruction of Troy itself obliterated what alone could have been their depository; nor had Homer, as a Greek bard, either the same motives or the same means for gathering detailed information, as he would naturally possess with reference to his own countrymen.

Hence, as the Trojan Catalogue is shorter, so also its scope is more limited. It contains no specification of forces: no anecdotes going farther back than the existing generation: scarcely any of what may be called specialties of character or position as to the chiefs. It shows a good deal of knowledge of the geography and products of the countries, but this knowledge is of a much more general and vague character, than that which he has displayed in almost every portion of the Greek Array. He gives here very few lists of towns at all, and never uses epithets requiring us to believe that he had a personal knowledge of their site and character. Only Ariste is δῖα, and Larissa is ἐριβώλαξ. In two or three cases he speaks of commercial products; a characteristic which it is obvious that he might have learned without any personal experience of the countries. He does not use this particular kind of sign at all in the descriptions of the Greek Catalogue: and we may perhaps correctly interpret it, where it appears, as a token of his want of vivid and experimental knowledge.

He also occasionally names a mountain or a river. But there is a general avoidance of particular and characteristic epithets, such as, (to refer to the Bœotian list alone,) πετρήεσσα given to Aulis, πολύκνημος to Eteonos, εὐρύχορος to Mycalesos, ἐϋκτίμενον to Medeon and Hypothebæ, πολυτρήρων to Thisbe, ποιήεις to Haliartos, πολυστάφυλος to Arne, ἐσχατόωσα to Anthedon, with perhaps one or two other cases.

Another material inference is suggested by the very different texture of the Trojan Catalogue.

Upon the whole, this vagueness of description cannot, I think, but be regarded as much in conflict with the belief that Homer was a Greek of Asia Minor, if at least his comparative knowledge of the two countries on the opposite sides of the Ægean is to be taken as a sign, either positive or negative, of his nativity.

FOOTNOTES:

[480] Fig. i. in Map.

[481] Fig. ii. in Map.

[482] Fig. iii. in Map.

[483] ix. 5. p. 430.

[484] Fig. iv. in Map.

[485] Strabo ix. p. 435.

[486] Ibid. p. 439.

[487] Ibid. p. 442.

[488] Thuc. i. 2.

[489] Fig. v. in Map.

[490] Od. i. 170, _et alibi_.

[491] I am not prepared to contend that the numbers of the ships are to be taken as literally correct: but this subject will be discussed in conjunction with his general mode of using number, in the ‘Studies on Poetry,’ sect. iii.

[492] Od. ii. 386.

[493] The reasons for treating this as a coincidence will be found in a paper on Homer’s use of number. (Studies on Poetry, sect. iii.)

[494] Herod. vii. 161.

[495] Il. x. 434.

[496] Od. xi. 521.

SECT. VI.

_On the Hellenes of Homer; and with them_,

Hellas; Panhellenes; Cephallenes; Helli or Selli.

_The Hellas of Homer._

We have next to inquire into the force of the Hellenic 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 principal are as follows:

1. Ἕλληνες, Il. ii. 684. }
2. Πανέλληνες, ibid. 530. } National or tribal names.
3. Σελλοὶ, Il. xvi. 234. }

And, lastly, the territorial name of

4. Ἕλλας.

Observing the order of derivation as it has been pointed out by Mure[497], we shall naturally look to the word Ἕλλας as a guide to the meaning of its derivatives, Ἕλληνες and Πανέλληνες. It is itself drawn from Ἑλλοὶ or Σελλοί: but as that name is only once used in the Poems, and as by far the largest body of evidence tells upon the word Ἕλλας, the decision upon the whole group of words will turn mainly upon the inquiry we shall have to make into the use of that word by Homer. With it therefore we shall commence. Is there, we have to ask, clear proof, that it went beyond the dominions of Peleus? If it went beyond them, how far did it go? and did it include that division of Greece, in which Locris lay, whose inhabitants a particular line of the Catalogue classes with the Panhellenes? For no suspicion of spuriousness can justly arise out of the fact (if it be one), that Homer calls by the name of Hellenes the inhabitants of any country, which was itself within the scope of the territorial name Hellas: inasmuch as this is little more than, the word Yorkshire being given, to make use also of the word Yorkshiremen.

At the outset, however, it is essential to observe, that a certain elasticity in the use of geographical as well as political names could not but belong to the age, in which Homer lived: first, because of the successive movements of tribes, like wave on wave, so that the use of any such name would ordinarily be either growing or declining, but not stationary: secondly, because of the indeterminate forms which political authority assumed, as resting on a mixture, in unknown proportions, of the various elements of custom, compact, reverence, and force: and, thirdly, because of the want of well-defined geographical boundaries.

We are not entitled to assume that the territory, which we call Greece, was, in Homer’s time, subdivided with precision between a given number of territorial names. We hear of Phthia, Ægialus, Elis, Arcadia: but these seem to be the exceptions rather than the rule. For many parts of it there are no local names whatever; and we must not look for any thing resembling the manner in which England is made up of its counties, France of its departments, or the later Greece of its individual states.

The passages in which the word Hellas is used by Homer stand as follows in the order of the Poems:

1. A verse in the Catalogue, Il. ii. 683:

οἵ τ’ εἶχον Φθίην ἠδ’ Ἑλλάδα καλλιγυναῖκα.

2. (Achilles _loquitur_), ix. 395:

πολλαὶ Ἀχαΐιδές εἰσιν ἀν’ Ἑλλάδα τε Φθίην τε.

3. (Phœnix _loq._), ibid. 447:

οἷον ὅτε πρῶτον λίπον Ἑλλάδα καλλιγυναῖκα.

4. (Phœnix _loq._), ibid. 478:

φεῦγον ἔπειτ’ ἀπάνευθε δι’ Ἑλλάδος εὐρυχόροιο,
Φθίην δ’ ἐξικόμην ἐριβώλακα.

5. (In the narrative), Il. xvi. 595:

Χάλκωνος φίλον υἱὸν, ὃς Ἑλλάδι οἴκια ναίων
ὄλβῳ τε πλούτῳ τε μετέπρεπε Μυρμιδόνεσσιν.

6. (Penelope _loq._), Od. i. 344:

μεμνημένη αἰεὶ
ἀνδρὸς, τοῦ κλέος εὐρὺ καθ’ Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος.

7. (Penelope _loq._), Od. iv. 724:

ἣ πρὶν μὲν πόσιν ἐσθλὸν ἀπώλεσα θυμολέοντα,
παντοίῃς ἀρέτῃσι κεκασμένον ἐν Δαναοῖσι,
ἐσθλὸν, τοῦ κλέος εὐρὺ καθ’ Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος.

8. Penelope repeats the same lines, Od. iv. 814-16.

9. (Achilles _loq._), Od. xi. 494:

εἶπε δέ μοι, Πηλῆος ἀμύμονος εἴ τι πέπυσσαι·
ἢ ἐτ’ ἔχει τιμὴν πολέσιν μετὰ Μυρμιδόνεσσιν
ἤ μιν ἀτιμάζουσιν ἀν’ Ἑλλάδα τε Φθίην τε.

10. (Menelaus _loq._), to Telemachus, Od. xv. 80:

εἰ δ’ ἐθέλεις τραφθῆναι ἀν’ Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος,
ὄφρα τοι αὐτὸς ἕπωμαι, ὑποζεύξω δέ τοι ἵππους,
ἄστεα δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἡγήσομαι.

Of these passages, there are some which admit for the word Hellas the contracted sense of the dominions of Peleus, or even of a simple portion of them. Namely the following:

In (1) we are reading part of the description of the country, from which the force of Achilles was drawn. Beginning from the line which precedes it, we may translate thus: ‘the inhabitants of Alos, and of Alope, and of Trachin, and those who occupied Phthia, and the Hellas of fair women.’ It is clear, on the face of the passage, that, whatever it may mean, the sense does not require it to mean more in this place than a particular district, forming part of the dominions of Peleus.

In (2), where Achilles says, there are many Achæan maids through Hellas and Phthia, any one of whom he can have for a wife.

In (5), where we are told that Bathycles, son of Chalcon, dwelt in Hellas, preeminent among the Myrmidons in prosperity and wealth.

And in (9), where the shade of Achilles asks whether his father Peleus is still in the enjoyment of kingly power in the populous country of the Myrmidons, or whether he is deprived and despised through the range of 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 the dominions of Peleus: if the territorial name Phthia was similarly extended, then the presumption would arise that Hellas also might mean something more than lay within those dominions. But there are many passages where Phthia is used without Hellas; and in them all it is used to express the district where Peleus reigned. It is not unlikely therefore, at first sight, that Hellas has the limited sense of a part of the kingdom in these passages. And in the passage relating to Bathycles, the son of Chalcon, the limited sense is yet more strongly suggested; yet, as we may hereafter see more clearly, it is by no means positively required either in that or in any of these four places.

And it is abundantly clear, from the remainder of the passages, that the name Hellas had already, in Homer’s time, begun to bear a more extended sense.

In proof of this, let us take, firstly, the two passages in which it stands alone. In Il. ix. 444-8, Phœnix tells us that nothing would induce him to quit Achilles; no, not even if the gods, brushing off his old age, were to make him young and vigorous again, such as he was when first he left Hellas, the land of fair women, flying from his feud with his father Amyntor. Now this passage absolutely proves that the word Hellas was used by Homer, at least occasionally, for some limited district, and not (as in after times) for the entire country; inasmuch as Phœnix could not otherwise have said he _left_ Hellas on this occasion. But on the other hand it demonstrates, that the limits of Hellas were not so narrow, as the passages heretofore considered might permit us to suppose. For Phœnix goes on to describe the cause of quarrel; and (478-80) says he took his course _through_ broad open Hellas, and came _into_ fertile Phthia, to Peleus the king. The supposition most consistent with the wording of these passages is, that Phthia comprised the principal district of the dominions of Peleus, while a portion of them may have fallen (as we elsewhere see was perhaps the case) under the name of Hellas: but they absolutely place the abode of Amyntor outside the realm of Peleus; and therefore, in saying that Phœnix left Hellas, and that he fled from his home through Hellas, they imply necessarily that Hellas, the region from which he fled, was, in part at least, outside of that realm to which he fled.

But these passages will harmonise perfectly with each other, and with those formerly examined, if we suppose that Hellas meant the whole of Northern Greece generally, but that a particular portion of it had been more definitely stamped with the name of Phthia, as the chief seat of Peleus and the Myrmidons. For then the original abode of Phœnix might be in Hellas, as he says (in ix. 447) that it was: and yet he would pursue his way through Hellas, as he says (ibid. 478) that he did: and he would also leave Hellas, namely by coming into Phthia: and moreover the dominions of Peleus might go beyond what was commonly known by the particular designation of Phthia, and might include some portion of Hellas, as, from Il. ii. 683, they evidently did.

This supposition is recommended to us, not only by its conforming to all the requisite conditions, and furnishing a convenient construction for all the passages we have examined, but by the fact that Phthia, and Phthia alone, is commonly mentioned in the poem as the home of Achilles and the Myrmidons: which shows that they had a more special relation to the territory known by that name, than to Hellas.

If any thing be still wanting, the proof is brought to completeness by two other passages: the one (Il. x. 261-7), which tells us that this Amyntor, son of Ormenus, dwelt in Eleon; dwelt there permanently, since Autolycus stole from him an helmet, by breaking into his substantial well-built house,

πύκινον δόμον ἀντιτορήσας[498]:

and the other the verse of the Catalogue[499], which places Eleon in Bœotia. These passages therefore clearly appear to carry the name Hellas as far as Bœotia, and to make it reach continuously from thence to Phthia. And if Hellas comes down to Bœotia, then it includes Locris; and the various tribes of these regions may be included in the general name of Hellenes, though to all appearance they were not as yet familiarly and ordinarily so called. And if Locris and Bœotia, with part of Southern Thessaly (the dominions of Peleus), are included within the range of the name Hellas, we can have no difficulty in supposing that it included Northern Thessaly also, which must have been the pathway of the Helli to the South.

But we find Ἕλλας in another combination besides that 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 suspicion, of which it is not worth while to scrutinise the justice: as the idea and force of it is just the same with that of Od. i. 344,

Ἀνδρὸς, τοῦ κλέος εὐρὺ καθ’ Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος.

This passage describes the fame of Ulysses as spread through the breadth of Hellas and mid-Argos; (or, from the heart of Argos to its extremities, right through or _all over_ Argos.) And again in Od. xv. 80, when Telemachus has proposed to return home forthwith from the court of Menelaus, his host gently dissuades him from haste, and counsels a more extended tour, καθ’ Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος; offering to take charge of his horses, and to shew him ‘the cities,’ or secured dwellings, ‘of men.’

The signification of the word Ἄργος will be considered hereafter: for the present purpose it is enough to observe that the word μέσον, as used by Menelaus, in combination with Hellas, of itself prevents our applying it simply to the narrow corner of the Peloponnesus in which the city of Argos was placed; and therefore that it can scarcely mean less than Peloponnesus. And it is not less plain, that whatever may be the force of the words when taken singly, their effect when taken together can hardly be less than this: Menelaus must mean to point to Greece at large, as the scene of the proposed excursion. For there is no assignable portion of Greece to which, consistently with the words and the sense, he can be held to confine his meaning. If we could suppose him to mean Peloponnesus only by the two names Hellas and Argos, which he employs in this place, we should but enlarge thereby the Homeric capacity of the word Hellas; for we have already brought it down from the north to Bœotia; and we should, in the way now proposed, carry it through the isthmus, and over Peloponnesus, or, at the least, over some part of it. But even if Menelaus means Peloponnesus only, which is most improbable, it is plainly incredible that such should be the meaning of Penelope in Od. i. 344. As a Greek, she _cannot_ mean to limit the renown of her husband to any sphere less wide than Greece.

We have already seen, that Hellas sometimes includes certainly the territory from Southern Thessaly to Bœotia, and probably Thessaly at large: and it is quite plain that, if it comes to Bœotia, it does not stop there, but applies to the whole of Middle Greece, the region between Thessaly and the isthmus: for the application of the term Hellas could not stop except at some great natural division of the country, and the isthmus is here the only one possible.

Now the name Argos is related to Thessaly[500], but much more specially related to the Peloponnesus, as we shall see from a number of passages. It has no relation at all in Homer to that division of the country in particular which we call Middle Greece.

Assuming it, then, to mean Peloponnesus, in that case Hellas means Middle with Northern Greece: and 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 Hellas a larger sense; in no case can it, as to this passage, admit of a more restricted one.

The foregoing argument is supported to a certain extent by the fact, that while territorial names are frequent for the Peloponnesian part of Greece, (we have Achaic Argos, Iasian Argos, Elis, Arcadia, Lacedæmon,) the continent to the north of the isthmus is generally without territorial names: Phthia and Pelasgic Argos are, I think, the only exceptions. There is thus before us a gap, which the name Hellas, as it has been here construed, seems conveniently to fill.

This construction of certain passages, in which the word Hellas is contained, is not one which should be adopted by the reader unawares. But if, like myself, after examining into it strictly he assents to its justice and necessity, then he will find that it is of the utmost importance to the elucidation of Homeric history; for it supplies a key to other much contested uses of the Hellenic name.

In the first place, I submit that if we now review the ten passages in which Homer speaks of Hellas, and bear in mind that in some among them it cannot be construed as meaning less than, with a certain amount of indeterminateness as to boundaries, Northern and Middle Greece generally, we shall also find, that there is not one of all those passages, in which it will not at least admit of the same sense. I do not deny that it is open to us to hold that the Hellas, in which Chalcon dwelt, was a mere district of Thessaly, and that Homer attaches in different places different senses to the word. But if there is a sense, substantially one, which will suit the word in every place where it is used, it seems most reasonable to adhere generally to that sense. Such a meaning we have, I think, found for Hellas, in concluding that it is used to signify Northern and Middle Greece. In this sense it overrides and includes Phthia, as France overrides Alsace or Burgundy. But as there was a time when Alsace and Burgundy might, before the present state of incorporation, have been either said to be in France or not in France, without an outrageous license of speech either way, so perhaps the land of Phthia was for Homer either a part of Hellas, or a province carved out of Hellas by the special occupation of the Myrmidons, as occasion might chance to demand. Not that he did not conform to the facts, but that the facts were themselves indeterminate. To our habits, under which every inch of ground belongs to somebody, this indefiniteness is wholly strange; but in times when only spots here and there were appropriated, and there was no universal occupation, it was thoroughly natural, and the thing really strange would be the absence of it. Accordingly, when Phœnix says he left Hellas, he gives to Phthia, the name of the place he reached, its exclusive force. When he says Chalcon dwelt in Hellas among the Myrmidons, he probably means in Phthia, but now regards Phthia as covered by the larger designation. When Homer tells us the soldiers of Achilles were those who inhabited Alos, and Alope, and Trachin, and who occupied Phthia and Hellas, we understand by the three first, particular spots which the Myrmidons had settled, by Phthia a larger district which they had so far dotted with their occupancy as to make it peculiarly theirs, and by Hellas the surrounding country, into which they had more or less ramified.

Assuming then the sense of the word Hellas to be now sufficiently ascertained, the next question is, how came this country, which has been described, to bear the name of Hellas? And the question admits of but one answer. It could only be called Hellas because tribes of Helli had become its masters, its governing race, the depositaries, through its various regions, of political and military power.

We must therefore understand that, according to Homer, tribes reputed to be of Hellic origin were so far distributed over this country, as to have begun at least to affix their name to it: though without having absolutely effaced every older name, like Πελασγικὸν Ἄργος and though not precluding the introduction of names perhaps more recent, certainly more specific, such as Phthia.

_The Hellenes of Homer._

We may now proceed to consider the force, according to Homer’s use, of the names derived from Hellas. These are, as commonly understood,

1. Ἕλληνες,

2. Πανέλληνες,

and to these I shall presume to add,

3. Κεφάλληνες.

The first of these is found only in Il. ii. 684. Here, after the description of the places from which the forces of Achilles came, the poet proceeds to give them their designation:

Μυρμίδονες δὲ καλεῦντο καὶ Ἕλληνες καὶ Ἀχαιοί.

We find an exclusive use[501] of the word Myrmidons for the force of Achilles throughout the Iliad, except in this one place; notwithstanding that Phœnix, who was lord of the Dolopes, commanded one of the five divisions[502], and that we may therefore presume a certain part of the force to have been Dolopian. From this exclusive use, we cannot doubt that the name of Myrmidons was that which appertained to them in particular, as the ruling tribe among the subjects of Peleus.

Had we found reason to construe the word Ἕλλας in the preceding line as meaning only a district of his dominions, it would have followed, that Ἕλληνες meant the inhabitants of that district; and that a part of the soldiers of Achilles were Hellenes rather than Myrmidons, in virtue of a local name. But it follows from what we have already concluded about Hellas, that the name of Hellenes was applicable to all the Myrmidons as being themselves inhabitants of Hellas, that is, of Phthia, which belonged to Hellas.

And in passing it should be noticed that, although the Myrmidons inhabited Phthia, they are never called Phthians; nor do we ever hear of Phthians at all in Homer, except only in that passage where they are described as engaged with Locrians and others in repelling the Trojan assault[503]. They are there described as under the command of Medon and Podarces. But in the Catalogue Podarces and Medon[504], as substitutes for Protesilaus and Philoctetes respectively, command the second and fourth Thessalian contingents, which came from districts lying near the kingdom of Peleus. Either therefore the Phthian name extended beyond the limits of Phthia, or the Phthians were those whom the Myrmidons had recently driven out, and whose lands they had occupied.