Chapter II: Ethnology (8)

But if the evidence goes to show, that the Pelasgian tongue supplied both the Latin and the Greek nations with most of the principal elementary words, and with those which express the main ideas connected with rural industry, the inference strongly arises, 1. That they 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 acquired the mastery among them, so that thenceforth they had to cultivate it under the government of others. The case of the Pelasgian vocabulary in the Latin and in the Greek languages would thus appear to resemble 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 also similarly to be inferred in the other.

_Evidence from names of persons._

No inconsiderable light may, I think, be thrown upon the character and pursuits of the Pelasgian and Hellenic races respectively, from an examination of the etymology of the names of persons contained in the Homeric poems. For the names of men, in the early stages of society, are so frequently drawn direct from their pursuits and habits, that the ideas, on which they are founded, may serve to guide us to a knowledge of the character and occupations of a people.

By way of summary proof that a connection prevailed (whether the names be fictitious or not, I care not, for this purpose, to inquire,) between the Homeric names, and the pursuits and habits of those who bear them, I may refer to the names of Phæacians and Ithacans. Of the latter, which are numerous, not one is derived from the horse; and we know[547] that no horses were used in Ithaca. The former are chiefly composed of words connected with the sea: in conformity with the fact that the pursuits of the people are represented by Homer as thoroughly maritime.

The names of persons in Homer are extremely numerous, amounting to many hundreds. It would be hazardous, as a general rule, to assume for them an historical character, except in the cases of such individuals as, from general eminence or local connection, or from some particular gift or circumstance, were likely to be held in remembrance. In some cases, as we have already seen[548], they bear the marks of invention upon them. But this question is little material for the present purpose: and indeed the probability that we ought, as a general rule, to regard the less distinguished names as fabricated for the purposes of the poem, makes it the more reasonable that we should turn to them to see how far they connect themselves with distinctions of pursuit, character, and race, and what properties and characteristics, when so connected, they appear to indicate as having been assigned by Homer to one race or to another.

We must not expect to arrive at anything better than general and approximate conclusions; for particular circumstances, unknown to us, may have varied the course of etymological nomenclature, and it may also happen, that in a great number of cases we cannot securely trace etymology at all.

Subject to these cautions, I would observe, first, that the evidence from other sources generally tends to show,

1. That the Trojans, except as to the royal house[549], and perhaps a few other distinguished families, were Pelasgian.

2. That the base of the Greek army and nation were Pelasgian: with an infusion of Hellenic tribes, not families merely, who held the governing power and probably formed the upper, that is, the proprietary and military, class of the community, in most parts of Greece.

3. That some parts of the Greek peninsula present little or no mark of Hellenic influences; particularly Attica and Arcadia.

4. That the Lycians appear to approximate more than the other races on the Trojan side to the high Greek type, and to present either the Hellenic element, or some element akin to it, in a marked form.

The investigation of individual names occurring singly would be endless, and often equivocal: but Homer frequently unites many names in a group under circumstances, which authorize us to assume a common origin and character for the persons designated: and others, though he may not collect them together in the same passage, are yet associated in virtue of palpable relations between them.

An examination of Homeric names, in the groups thus gathered, has brought me to the following results:

1. Where we have reason to presume an Hellenic extraction, a large proportion of those names, of which the etymology can be traced, appear to express ideas connected with glory, political power, mental fortitude, energy and ability, martial courage and strength, or military operations.

2. But where we may more reasonably suppose, in part or in whole, a Pelasgic stock, ideas of this kind are more rarely expressed, and another vein of etymology appears, founded on rural habits, abodes, and pursuits, or the creation and care of worldly goods, or on other properties or occupations less akin to political and martial pursuits, or to high birth and station.

It is at the same time worth remark that, among the slaves of the Odyssey, we find names of a more high-born cast than those most current among the Pelasgians. Such as Eumæus (μάω, to desire eagerly and strive after), Euryclea, (who moreover is daughter of Ops the son of Peisenor,) Eurymedusa (in Scheria), and Alcippe (at Sparta[550]). There were two causes, to which this might be referable: first, that high-born slaves were often obtained both by kidnapping and by war; Eumæus, as we know, was of this class. And secondly, that the names of their lords may then, as now, have been occasionally given them. So that the high significations connected with servile names do not constitute an objection to the rules which have been stated.

There is another class of names, which requires especial notice. They are those which have reference to the horse. The rearing and care of the horse are in Homer more connected with the Trojans, than with the Greeks: and his standing epithet, ἱπποδάμος, is more largely employed on the Trojan side[551]. The horse was not exclusively, perhaps not principally, employed in war and games. He was used in travelling also: he may have been employed as a beast of burden: he certainly drew the plough, though Homer informs us that in this occupation the mule was preferable.

The points at which we may expect to find names chiefly Pelasgian, besides those which are expressly given us as such, will be these three:

1. In connection with some particular parts of Greece, especially Attica or Arcadia.

2. Among the masses of the common Greek soldiery.

3. Still more unequivocally among the masses of the Trojan force, and of the auxiliaries generally; except the Lycians, whom we have seen reason to presume to have been less Pelasgian, and more allied, or at least more similar, to the Hellic races.

On the other hand we may presume Hellic blood, or what in Homer’s estimation was akin to it, among the Lycians, and likewise wherever we find, especially on the Greek side, any considerable collection of names appertaining to the higher class or aristocracy of the army, or of the country.

_Names of the Pelasgian Class._

The Homeric names, which are given us as expressly Pelasgian, are four only; and they belong to the Pelasgian force on the Trojan side.

1. Hippothous.
2. Pulæus.
3. Lethus.
4. Teutamus[552].

The etymology of the three first names seems obvious enough: and, though the persons are all rulers among their people, not one of them unequivocally presents the characteristics which we should regard as appropriate in Hellic names: although, from their being of the highest rank, we should be less surprised if the case were otherwise.

As regards the first of the four, upon examining the class of names relating to the horse in the poems, we find, as far as I have observed, only Hipponous[553] among the Greeks. This rank does not clearly appear: but νόος, the second factor of the word, supplies the higher element.

On the other side, in addition to Hippolochus, a name meaning horse-ambush, who was both Lycian and royal, we have Hippasus, Hippodamas, Hippodamus, Hippocoon, Hippomachus, and Hippotion. We have likewise,

Melanippus, (Il. xvi. 695.)
Echepolus, (Il. xvi. 417.)
Euippus, (Il. xvi. 417.)

Take again Pulæus, from πύλη. This name may mean porter or gate-keeper: it is scarcely susceptible of a high sense. In connection with the character of the Pelasgians as masons and builders of walled places, it is appropriate to them. Homer has three other names, and no more, which appear to be founded simply upon the term gate: Πύλων, Πυλάρτης, and Πυλαιμένης. They are all on the Trojan side.

Next, we have a larger class of names, where a strong infusion of the Pelasgic character may be expected: namely, those connected with Attica.

Among these, three belong to its royal house, and in them we find no certain features of the Pelasgian kind. They are,

1. Erechtheus, }
2. Peteos, } From Il. ii. 547-52.
3. Menestheus, }

The last of the three, however, seems, if derived from μένος, to belong to the higher class of names.

Besides these three there are,

4. Pheidas, }
5. Stichius, } Il. xiii. 690, 1.
6. Bias, }

7. Iasus, }
8. Sphelus, } Il. xv. 332, 7, 8.
9. Boucolus. }

Now the whole of these are commanders or officers; and yet four of them, Pheidas (φείδω), Stichius (στείχω), Sphelus (σφάλλω), and Boucolus (βούκολος), are in a marked manner of the Pelasgian class: Bias (βίη), may perhaps belong to it, as meaning mere physical force: and on the etymology of the ancient name Iasus I do not venture to speculate. Boucolus, like Boucolion, which we shall meet presently, deserves particular attention: we find nothing at all resembling it among the names which are (on other grounds) presumably Hellic.

Other names in the poems, which there may be some reason, from their local connection, to presume Pelasgian, are,

1. Lycoorgus, } From Il. vii. 136, 149, where
2. Ereuthalion, } 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 Ἰάονες.
5. An Apis, the early eponymist of the Peloponnesus, or a part of
it[554].

Now, though these are all rulers and great personages, the name Dmetor is the only one among them which seems in any degree to present Hellenic ideas: nor need that mean a subduer of men; it may as well mean simply a breaker of horses. Apis, we have every reason to suppose, means the ox. Lycoorgus, from Λυκὸς and ἔργον or its root, has all the appearance of being characteristically Pelasgian.

Let us now inquire if the rules laid down will bear the test of being applied to the lower order of the Greek soldiery.

In the Fifth Iliad Hector and Mars slay a batch of apparently undistinguished persons[555]. They are,

1. Teuthras.
2. Orestes.
3. Trechus.
4. Œnomaus.
5. Helenus (son of Œnops).
6. Orestius.

And again in the Eleventh Iliad Hector slays nine more;

1. Asæus.
2. Autonous.
3. Opites.
4. Dolops (son of Clytus).
5. Opheltius.
6. Agelaus.
7. Æsymnus.
8. Orus.
9. Hipponous.

Now out of the seventeen names here assembled,

Four, namely, Autonous, Clytus, Agelaus, and Æsymnus (from its connection with the word αἰσυμνητὴς, ruler), belong to what I term the Hellic class.

Three, namely, Teuthras, Asæus, and Helenus, do not immediately suggest a particular derivation.

Of Hipponous I have already spoken. The other nine appear to conform to the Pelasgian type. Œnomaus corresponds with the Latin Bibulus.

Again; the names of ordinary Trojans appear to belong generally to the same type.

When Patroclus commences his exploits in the Sixteenth book, he slays in succession,

1. Pronous.
2. Thestor, son of
3. Enops.
4. Erualus.
5. Erumas.
6. Amphoteros.
7. Epaltes.
8. Tlepolemus, son of
9. Damastor.
10. Echios.
11. Puris.
12. Ipheus.
13. Euippus, and
14. Polumelus, son of
15. Argeas.

Of these only Tlepolemus and Pronous can with certainty be assigned to the higher class. Damastor is doubtful, like Dmetor; but perhaps from its connection with Tlepolemus, we ought to place it in the same category. Still it must be observed that Homer takes care to bring into action against Patroclus and the Myrmidons his favourites the Lycians, as well as the Trojans[556]: and that therefore we are to presume in this list an intermixture of Lycian names.

The names of ordinary Trojans are for the most part of the same colour. But we must bear in mind that we cannot so easily trace the Trojan as the Greek commonalty. Homer rarely allows a Greek of high station or distinction to be slain: whereas the Greeks continually destroy Trojans of eminence. We may therefore be prepared to find names of the higher type somewhat more freely sprinkled among the Trojan than among the Greek slain.

In the Sixth Iliad[557] a number of the Greek heroes dispatch consecutively a list of Trojans, which supplies the following names:

1. Dresus.
2. Opheltius.
{ These two were sons of Boucolion,
{ an illegitimate son of Laomedon,
3. Æsepus { who apparently never was acknowledged,
{ but was brought up in the
4. Pedasus { lower 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.
12. Phylacus.
13. Melanthius.
14. Adrestus.

Among all these names there is not one which we can with confidence place in the higher category except Aretaon. Dresus (compare δρήστηρ, a domestic servant), Opheltius, Boucolion, Melanthius (from its use in the Odyssey, supported by Melantho, and both belonging to servants), are unequivocally of the Pelasgian class: probably Elatus (which however is found among the Ithacan suitors), Phylacus, Adrestus, should be similarly interpreted. Astualos (ἄστυ, ἃλς) has no contrary force: and of the rest the derivation is not obvious.

If we take the second batch of Trojans slain by Patroclus, it gives a somewhat different result. They are[558],

1. Adrestus.
2. Autonous.
3. Echeclus.
4. Perimus, son of Megas.
5. Epistor.
6. Melanippus.
7. Elasus.
8. Moulius.
9. Pulartes.

Of these Autonous and Epistor would seem clearly to belong to the higher class; to which we may add Echeclus, if it is derived (like Echecles, a Myrmidon chieftain) from ἔχω and κλέος: but even this is not a large proportion.

Now when we turn to the Lycians[559] slain consecutively by Ulysses, we find a material change. These are,

1. Koiranos.
2. Alastor.
3. Chromius.
4. Alcandros.
5. Halios.
6. Noemon.
7. Prutanis.

_Of the higher or Hellenic Class._

All of these seven visibly belong to the higher or Hellenic order of names, except Χρόμιος, which I presume may be akin to χρῶμα, and Ἅλιος, ‘mariner.’ But this last named designation is also somewhat Hellic: I doubt if we find among Pelasgian names any taken from maritime ideas or pursuits.

Again, when Achilles comes forth, there is provided for him a list of victims bearing distinguished names[560], though practically unknown as characters in the poem. At the end of the Twentieth book he slays,

1. Druops.
2. Demouchus, son of
3. Philetor.
4. Laogonus, and
5. Dardanus, sons of
6. Bias.
7. Tros, son of
8. Alastor.
9. Moulius.
10. Echeclus, son of
11. Agenor.
12. Deucalion.
13. Rigmos, son of
14. Peiroos, one of the Thracian leaders.
15. Areithous.

Now of these fifteen names none, if judged by the rules which we have laid down, would clearly fall into the Pelasgian, or more plebeian, class, except Dryops, perhaps Laogonus, and Bias: three only. Peiroos and Rigmos (probably akin to ῥῖγος) are Thracian, and may be put aside. Six, viz., Demuchus, Philetor, Alastor (contrast with this Lethus), Echeclus, Agenor, and Areithous, are of the Hellic class. The others, Dardanus, Tros, Moulius (Il. xi. 739), and Deucalion are repeated from eminent historical personages.

In this set of names we observe, in conjunction with a new instance of Homer’s ever wakeful care in doing supreme honour to Achilles, unequivocal evidence, as I think, that the poet did distribute his names with some special meaning among his minor, and, (so we must suppose,) generally or frequently, non-historical personages.

And the further inference may perhaps be drawn of a probable affinity of race between the highest Trojans and the Hellic tribes.

This inference may be supported by another example. The numerous sons of Antenor, whose names are collected from different parts of the poem, are as follows:

1. Agenor, Il. xi. 59.
2. Acamas, ii. 823. xi. 60. xii. 100, _et alibi_.
3. Archelochus, ii. 823. xiv. 464.
4. Coon, xi. 248.
5. Demoleon, xx. 395.
6. Echeclus, xx. 474.
7. Helicaon, iii. 123.
8. Iphidamas, xi. 221.
9. Laodamas, xv. 516.
10. Laodocus, iv. 87. and
11. Pedæus (νόθος), v. 70.

I apprehend Laodocus should be construed, after the manner of Demodocus, to signify having fame or repute among the λαός. If so, then of the ten legitimate sons, eight have names with an etymology that directly connects them with the higher signification. The name of the Bastard only is more doubtful.

Among the Suitors in Ithaca, who are the princes and chief men of the island, with their connections, and others of the same class, we have the following list of names of the high class:

Mentor.
Elatus. (cf. Il. xi. 701.)
Euryades.
Eurydamas.
Eurymachus.
Eurynomus.
Amphinomus.
Peisander.
Eupeithes.
Antinous.
Leiocritus.
Leiodes.
Agelaus.
Damastor.
Demoptolemus.
Euryades.
Mastor.
Euenor.
Phronius.
Noemon.

Nor are the names which have not been placed in this list of an opposite character. They are chiefly such as have not an obvious etymology. Two of them, Ægyptius and Polybus, were, as we know, great names in Egypt, and they probably indicate a Pelasgian or an Egyptian extraction. Others are, Halitherses, Melaneus, Ctesippus, Nisus, Antiphus, Peiræus. Of these, the two, or even the three, first may perhaps be regarded as properly Hellic.

Take again the six sons of Nestor:

1. Antilochus.
2. Stratius.
3. Thrasymedes.
4. Echephron.
5. Perseus.
6. Aretus (akin to ἀρέσκω, ἀρετή, and the Arete of Scheria).

Of these only Perseus would not at once fall within the class; and this is evidently a most noble name, taken from a great Greek hero. Indeed it must itself stand as a conspicuous example of the rule, if we shall hereafter be able to show[561] a relationship between the Hellic races and Persia as their fountain-head.

Lastly, let us take the Myrmidon leaders and commanders. These were,

1. Patroclus; { and after him the heads of the five
son of { divisions.
2. Menœtius.
3. Menesthius.
4. Eudorus.
5. Peisander, son of
6. Maimalus, from μαιμάω.
7. Phœnix. This name may represent, (1) Phœnician
extraction or connection; (2) The palm
tree; (3) The colour of red or purple, akin to
φόνος, and to blood, which the colour φοίνιξ is
supposed to betoken. In any of these three
aspects, it will fall into the Hellic class.
8. Alcimedon, son of Laerces.
9. Automedon.

All these names belong to the higher categories. It is therefore the general result of our inquiry, that wherever we have reason on other grounds to presume a Pelasgian origin, we find in the proper names of persons, unless they chance to be merely descriptive of the country they inhabited, a decided tendency to represent peaceful, profitable, and laborious pursuits, or the lower qualities and conditions of mankind. But wherever from other causes we are entitled to presume an Hellic relationship, there, so far as a simple etymology will carry us, the personal appellatives appear to run upon ideas derived from intellect, power, command, policy, fame, the great qualities and achievements of war; in short, apart from religion, which does not appear to enter into the composition of nomenclature at all, all the ideas that appeal most strongly to those masculine faculties of our race, in which its perfection was so vividly conceived by the Greeks to reside.

_Evidence from political and martial ideas._

One among the most remarkable features of the Homeric Poems is, their highly forward development of political ideas in a very early stage of society[562]. It seems hardly necessary to argue that these were of Hellic origin; because the fact is before us, that they make their appearance in Homer simultaneously with the universal ascendancy of the Hellic over the Pelasgian tribes wherever they were in contact; and because, in comparing the two nations together, we shall have occasion to note the greater backwardness, and indocility, so to speak, of the Trojans[563] in this respect. I assume, therefore, without detailed argument, the peculiar relation between the Hellic stock and the political institutions of Greece.

For similar reasons I shall touch very briefly the relation of the Hellic tribes to the martial character of Greece.

We may consider the whole Iliad, which represents a conflict between less Pelasgic and more Pelasgic races, 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 established historical character, in the comparison between the secondary military position of Athens in the Iliad, and its splendid distinctions in later times. It is true indeed, that the Athenian troops are mentioned specifically in the attack upon the ships, together with the Bœotians, Locrians, Phthians, and Epeans[564]. Of these the two latter are called respectively μεγάθυμοι and φαιδιμόεντες; the Athenians are the Ἰάονες ἑλκεχίτωνες, an epithet of most doubtful character as applied to soldiers. It seems to me plain that Homer by no means meant the particular notice of these five divisions for a mark of honour: they fought to be defeated, and he does not use his prime Greeks in that manner. No Peloponnesian forces are named as having been engaged on this occasion. Those probably were the flower of the army; and it is mentioned in the Catalogue that the troops of Agamemnon were the best[565]. Again, it will be seen, on reference to the Catalogue, that the whole force of Middle Greece is here in battle except the Ætolians, the contingent of Ulysses, and the Abantes (for whom see 542-4). These three are all distinguished races, whom he seems purposely to have excluded from a contest, where honour was not to be gained. The military contrast, then, between the earlier and the later Athens, may be taken to be established: and with it coincides that very marked, though normal and pacific, transition of Attica from the exclusively Pelasgic to the fullest development of the composite Greek character[566].

The passage of the seventh Iliad, which describes the war of the Pylians with the Arcadians, suggests a like conclusion.

Upon the whole, however, the _de facto_ Hellic ascendancy in Greece at the time is, with reference to war and the strong hand even more than to policy, a full presumption of their title to be regarded as having given birth to the splendid military genius of Greece.

When, for the business of the Trojan war, Homer divides the two great traditive deities[567], and assigns to the Greeks Pallas, the more political, energetic, and intellectual of the two, to the Trojans Apollo, we may take this as of itself involving an assertion, that the high arts of policy and war were peculiarly Hellenic.

_Evidence from Games._

We come now to the principle of what may be called corporal education, which found a development among the Greeks more fully than among any other nation; first, in gymnastic exercises, generally pursued, and, secondly, in the great national institution of the Games.

“There were,” says Grote[568], “two great holding points in common for every section of Greeks. One was the Amphictyonic Assembly, which met half yearly, alternately at Delphi and at Thermopylae; originally and chiefly for common religious purposes, but indirectly and occasionally embracing political and social objects along with them. The other was, the public festivals or games, of which the Olympic came first in importance; next, the Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian: institutions, which combined religious solemnities with recreative effusion and hearty sympathies, in a manner so imposing and so unparalleled. Amphictyon represents the first of these institutions, and Aethlius the second.”

This passage places in an extremely clear light the relative position of the Games and the Amphictyonic Assembly. The Council represented a religious institution, partaking also of a political character. The Games, on the other hand, were a gymnastic celebration, made available for national gatherings: placed, as a matter of prime public moment, under the guardianship of high religious solemnities, and referred for greater effect, in the later tradition, to some person of the highest rank and extraction, as their nominal founder. As the objects of the Games and the Council were distinct, so were their origin and history different; and this difference mounted up into the very earliest ages. This is clearly proved by the extra-historic and mythical names assigned to their founders, whose faint personality does not even serve to repress the suggestion of fiction, conveyed with irresistible force by etymological considerations. But the legend, though a legend only, conformed to the laws of probability, by assigning to Amphictyon a Thessalian birth, and by vindicating at the same time to Aethlius the higher honour of the immediate paternity of Jupiter; while, by placing him in Elis it secures his function as the institutor of the oldest, namely, the Olympic Games. In this legend, too, we see Hellenic imagination providing for its own ancestral honours in competition, as it were, with those of the sister institution, which may have been Pelasgian.

The foundation of Games _in genere_ appears to be traceable, with sufficient clearness and upon Homeric evidence, to the Hellic tribes.

The lengthened detail of the Twenty-third Iliad is of itself enough to prove their importance, as an institution founded in the national habits and manners. We must not, however, rely upon the absence of any similar celebrations, or even allusions to them, among the Trojans; since their condition, in the circumstances of the war, will of itself account for it. But we may observe how closely it belonged to the character of the greatest heroes to excel in every feat of gymnastic strength, as well as in the exercises of actual warfare. The kings and leading chiefs all act in the Games, with the qualified exception of Agamemnon, whose dignity could not allow him to be actually judged by his inferiors, but yet who appears as a nominal candidate, and receives the compliment of a prize, though spared the contest for it; and with the exception also of Achilles, who could not contend for his own prizes. Again, it is a piece of evidence in favour of the Hellic character of public Games, that, though there were three Athenian leaders alive during the action of the Twenty-third Book, none of them took any part. They were Menestheus, Pheidas, and Bias. Again, the speech of Ulysses to Euryalus, the saucy Phæacian[569], with the acts which followed it, strengthen the general testimony of the Iliad upon the point. So does the prosecution of these exercises, to the best of their power, even by the Phæacians, the kindred of the gods.

So much for the general idea of Games in Homer; but, to draw the distinction with any force between what is Hellic and what is Pelasgic, we must refer to those passages which afford glimpses of the earlier state of Greece, and see what light they afford us.

According to the Homeric text, Elis and Corinth were the portions of the Peloponnesus, where the early notes of the presence of the Hellenic races are most evident. Now of these Elis had the greatest and oldest Greek Games, while the Isthmian festival at Corinth was held to stand next to them.

The invention of these gymnastic exercises was ascribed in the later mythology to Mercury, who is in Homer a Hellenic, as opposed to Pelasgian, deity.

Mercurî, facunde nepos Atlantis,
Qui feros mores hominum recentum
Voce formasti catus, et decoræ
More palæstræ[570].

It has been observed, that the Hermes of Homer bears no trace of this function: but we have no proof in Homer of the formal institution of Games at all, although we have clear signs of them as a known and familiar practice; and the Mercury of the poems is even yet more Phœnician than he is Hellenic. Aristophanes[571] produces the Ἑρμῆς Ἐναγώνιος, and supplies a fresh link of connection by referring to ἀγῶνες in music, as well as in feats of corporal strength and skill. So does Pindar[572].

In truth, these Games were the exercise and pleasure of the highest orders only. For we see that, in Homer’s Twenty-third Book, not a single person takes a part in any of the eight matches that is not actually named among the ἡγεμόνες and κοίρανοι of the Catalogue, with three such exceptions as really confirm the rule. They are Antilochus, the heir apparent of Pylos, Teucer the brother of Ajax, and Epeus, (only however in the boxing match,) who appears from the Odyssey[573] to have been a person of importance, as he contrived the stratagem of the horse. Even the σόλος αὐτοχόωνος, the iron lump, part of the booty of Achilles, had formerly been used for the sport only of a king[574].

ὃν πρὶν μὲν ῥίπτασκε μέγα σθένος Ἠετίωνος.

The Greek Games presuppose leisure, and therefore the accumulation of property, or the concentrated possession of lands: but this comports much more with Hellenic than with what we know of Pelasgic society, in which we do not find the same signs as in the former, of an aristocracy occupying the middle place between the people at large, and the royal house. Let us now examine another part of the Homeric evidence.

In the Eleventh Iliad, Nestor’s legend acquaints us that, at the time of the war between Pylians and Elians, Neleus the king appropriated a part of the Pylian spoil, in respect of a ‘debt’ owed him in Elis, the nature of which he explains[575]:

τέσσαρες ἀθλοφόροι ἵπποι αὐτοῖσιν ὄχεσφιν,
ἐλθόντες μετ’ ἄεθλα· περὶ τρίποδος γὰρ ἔμελλον
θεύσεσθαι· τοὺς δ’ αὖθι ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Αὐγείας
κάσχεθε, τὸν δ’ ἐλατῆρ’ ἀφίει, ἀκαχήμενον ἵππων.

There were then, it is plain, chariot races regularly established (for the Games are here spoken of without explanation, as a matter familiarly known) in Olympia: and this was during the boyhood of Nestor, or about two generations before the Trojan war. The tribes, which we here see concerned in these Games, are first, the Pylians, and next the Elians, of whom Augeas was king. It will be seen in a subsequent part of this inquiry[576], that both of these tribes were Hellic, and not Pelasgian. Yet certainly there is nothing here to show directly the non-participation of Pelasgians in the games.

There is however another passage of our useful friend Nestor in the Twenty-third Book, which supplies in some degree even this form of evidence. ‘Would,’ says he in his usual phrase, ‘would I were young and strong[577],’

ὡς ὅποτε κρείοντ’ Ἀμαρυγκέα θάπτον Ἐπειοὶ
Βουπρασίῳ, παῖδες δ’ ἔθεσαν βασιλῆος ἄεθλα·

Here is a distinct testimony to the custom of funeral Games in Elis, nearly two generations before the _Troica_. They embraced, as we find further down in the record, 1. 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. There was no person present, says Nestor, equal to myself; and then he adds an exhaustive enumeration of the races that furnished the company:

οὔτ’ ἄρ’ Ἐπεῶν,
οὔτ’ αὐτῶν Πυλίων, οὔτ’ Αἰτώλων μεγαθύμων.

For the Epeans (or Elians) and Pylians, I repeat the reference already made. Nor can I doubt that the Ætolians, the subjects of Œneus and his illustrious family, belonged to the same stock. I do not inquire whether, as they were always in later times held to belong to the Æolian branch of the Greeks, so their name may have been radically akin to, or identical with, the name of Æolus, which is often with Homer Αἴωλος. But we find Meleager (independently of the reference to him, evidently as a great national hero, in the Catalogue[578],) selected by Phœnix for the subject of an episode of great length, and held out as a warning and example to Achilles[579]. It may safely be assumed he would have chosen no character for this purpose, except that of an hero of pure Hellic origin. And the description of Tydeus, the father of Diomed, by the epithet Αἰτώλιος[580], again serves to identify the Ætolian name with the Hellic races.

The tribes present, then, at the Games were all Hellic, and they were all conterminous: the Epean inhabitants, the Pylians, neighbours on the South, the Ætolians from the other side of the narrow strait, which was the most frequented passage into Peloponnesus. In fact, it was evidently an assemblage of the neighbouring tribes; but with a most remarkable exception, that of the eastern neighbours of Elis, those same Arcadians, whom by many signs we are enabled to conclude to have been Pelasgian.

A third instance in which Homer notices gymnastic exercises, is in Il. iv. 389. Here Tydeus, having gone to Thebes, finds a solemn banquet proceeding in the palace of Eteocles. Alone among many, and on questionable terms with his hosts, he nevertheless at once challenges them to gymnastic games, and beats them all.

ἀλλ’ ὅγ’ ἀεθλεύειν προκαλίζετο, πάντα δ’ ἐνίκα
ῥηιδίως· τοίη οἱ ἐπιρρόθος ἦεν Ἀθήνη.

Achæan, that is Hellene, himself, he is, if not among Hellenes, yet among the members and adherents of that Phœnician dynasty which had established itself, to all appearance, in Bœotia, at a somewhat early date: even as, at a period slightly later[581], Minos established from Phœnicia a Throne in Crete, which soon became wholly Greek in character.

And again, in Il. xxiii. 678-80, we are told, that Mecisteus, on the death of Œdipus, went to Thebes to the even then customary funeral Games, and there was victor over all the Καδμείωνες who opposed him, by the aid of Minerva. Euryalus, the son of Mecisteus, was an Argive, and was the colleague of Diomed and Sthenelus. The same observations are applicable here, as in the last case.

There is therefore nothing in any one of these cases to connect the gymnastic celebrations with the Pelasgian, but every thing to associate them with the Hellic races.

Of the Greek Games, the Pythian are those which, as being under Apollo, might most be suspected of Pelasgic origin. But these did not apparently begin as a national gymnastic festival until about 586 B. C.[582] The Olympic contests had then been regularly recorded for nearly two hundred years, since 776 B. C. And in the laws of Solon there was a reward of 500 drachms for every Athenian who should gain an Olympic prize, of 100 only for an Isthmian: while of the Nemean and Pythian Games, as being merely local, they take no notice. So these Games, besides being secondary, belonged to times much later, and also purely Hellenic.

The Panathenaic Games are apparently of similar date. And with this evidence from the earlier historic times before us, no importance can attach to a tradition so late as that of Pausanias, who makes Theseus found the Panathenaica, and Lycaon, son of Pelasgus, the Λύκαια[583]. But it is well worthy of remark, that in reporting this tradition he adds, that the Olympic Games were much older, that they mounted to the very highest antiquity of the human race, and that Κρόνος and Jupiter were said to have contended at them for prizes. Again, great fame attached to the Games said to have been celebrated by Acastus on the death of his father Pelias. Stesichorus, who lived in the seventh century, wrote a poem upon them; but Pelias, the brother of Neleus, and son of Tyro, (having Neptune for his father,) was of undoubted Hellic origin[584].

Minor instances of the addiction of the Hellic races to Games may be found in the constant practice of the Ithacan Suitors, and in the resort of the Myrmidons before Troy, during the seclusion of Achilles, to this method of beguiling their time[585].

The case stands only a little less distinctly as to song. There is an ἀοιδὸς in the palace of Priam, as well as in that of Ulysses; one in that of Agamemnon, and one in that of Alcinous. The Muses are Olympian Muses. Olympus geographically was quite as much Hellic as Pelasgian, and in every other sense, as I believe, far more. We may perhaps most fairly estimate its national character, by contrasting the Jupiter of Olympus with the Jupiter of Dodona, and the home of the large and varied group of Grecian gods with the solitary grandeur which affords a trace of the old Pelasgian worship. In this view Olympus and the Muses will be clearly Hellic. Further[586], Thamyris in his boast supposes the Muses to be contending against him at the public matches. If I have been correct in tracing such matches to an Hellic source, Thamyris must have regarded the Muses as Hellic when he made this supposition. Again, Thamyris himself is a Θρὴξ, that is to say, a highlander: this connects him with the Helli of the hills, not with the Pelasgians of the more open country. The place, too, where the punishment is inflicted upon Thamyris, is in the dominions of Pylus: which, at any rate for a term equal to three generations before the _Troica_, had been Achæan, that is, Hellic[587].

Apollo was doubtless an object of Pelasgian worship: the Apollo of Homer however is not confined to the Pelasgians, but is by many signs, scattered throughout the poems, placed in close as well as friendly relations with the whole Greek nation. Among these may be reckoned his acceptance of the propitiation and prayer offered by Calchas. In truth, though it is his business, as the organ of Jupiter, to assist the Trojans, he no where shows any of that hostility to their opponents, which Neptune and Juno show to them.

_As to poetry and music._

In later times, the traditions of Orpheus, Musæus, and Eumolpus, always Θρῇκες, supported the tradition which derives Greek song from the mountain tribes.

Why has Arcadia a muse of her own, but because the Pelasgian poetry is not the Hellic? and does not the reputed character of that muse oblige us to assign a Hellic origin to the higher national poetry?

Hesiod, as author of the Works and Days, is so enormously different from Homer in his frame of mind, as well as his diction, that it is hard to trace, even in the most general form, a complete national affinity between them. The Theogony, by its subject, brought him nearer to Homer, but it is quite destitute of the heroic power and fire: a calm and low-toned beauty, as in the legend of the Ages, is all to which Hesiod ever rises. To my conjecture, he seems to personify the one-stringed instrument which might suffice for Pelasgian song: while the Diapason of Homer, embracing with its immeasurable sweep things small and things great, things sublime and things homely, all objects that human experience had suggested, and all thoughts that the soul of man had imagined or received, presents to us that Greek mind, full, varied, energetic, lively, profound, exact, which was destined to give form for so many ages to the genius of the world.

I cannot however part from this subject, and leave the Hellenic races in possession of the honour of having principally contributed to mould the powerful imagination of the Greeks, without noticing the opposite conclusion of Mr. Fergusson, in his admirable ‘Handbook of Architecture.’

He treats the Greek nation as made up chiefly of two ingredients, the Dorian and the Pelasgian. He takes the Greeks of the Trojan Epoch to have been Pelasgian, and so to have continued until the return of the Heraclidæ. Then, according to him, began the Hellenic, which he treats as synonymous with the Doric, preponderance; and, having Sparta before him as the one great Hellic type, he observes that the race was far better adapted “for the arts of war and self-government, than for the softer arts of poetry and peace[588].”

But the supposition of a Pelasgic supremacy in Homeric Greece, is contrary to all the evidence afforded by the text of Homer, and, I think we may add, to the belief alike of ancient and of modern times. Even the limited part of the Homeric evidence which is connected with the names Ἕλλας and Ἕλληνες, seems large enough to overthrow any such hypothesis. Though the Dorian race was Hellenic, it was apparently a late outgrowth from the stock, and has no pretension whatever to be considered as the universal type of its products. In Sparta, the excessive development of policy was doubtless unfavourable to human excellence in other forms; among others, to poetry and art. Still, neither verse, music, nor architecture are disconnected from the Dorian name and race. It seems quite impossible to refer the war-poetry of the Iliad, the grandest in the world, for its origin to a people so unwarlike, in reference especially to the changeful, romantic, and poetic side 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 Pelasgic habits in the heroic age. Above all, that largeness and unimpaired universality of type, which belongs to human character as drawn by Homer, and especially to Achilles and Ulysses, demonstrate (I cannot use a weaker word) that all the materials of Grecian greatness were in his time fully ripened.

_Pelasgian sense of beauty._

At the same time it is not necessary to deny, that the Pelasgians may have been endowed with a high sense of beauty. Not that Homer appears to have had a vivid conception of beauty in connection with architecture, their great reputed accomplishment; for he seems, on the contrary, to have had little idea of ornament in buildings, beyond the blaze of plates of polished metal: far different here from what he shows himself to be in dealing with dress, or armour, or the forms of men and horses. But we have before us the fact that through Athens itself preeminently, and likewise through its colonies to the east, the Greek race earned in after-times the very highest honours in poetry and the fine arts. On the one hand, however, a large share of these honours, especially in early times, fell to the share of the race called Æolian, which was clearly Hellic, and a principal part of the Hellic family. On the other hand, Arcadia, which remained more purely Pelasgian, while Athens received all sorts of mixtures, never attained to high distinction in art, nor rose above a modest and tranquil strain of verse. The great tragedians and the great artists were of a race the most composite in all Greece. The natural inference would seem to be, that whatever the Pelasgians may have contributed to the general result, however they may have afforded for poetry and art (as also they did for war) a good raw material, it was only when in combination with other elements from other sources, that they could attain to great practical excellence. A lively sense of beauty is, doubtless, not only a condition, but even a foundation: yet a great organising power is as necessary for the production of the great works of imagination, as it was to Lycurgus for the Spartan constitution, or to Aristotle for philosophical analysis and construction; and this was the commanding and sovereign faculty in a mind such as that of Homer.

The connection between the Homeric Greeks and the traditions of huntsmen is, I think, sufficiently evident from Homer. His hunting legends, and the multitude of his hunting similes, are so many signs of it; and many indications, I think, concur towards forming a belief that the Greeks owed their fondness for the chace to their Hellic, not to their Pelasgic habits and blood.

I take first the relation between Achilles and his instructors. Chiron was the teacher of Achilles in the surgical art, while Phœnix had charge of his higher education. Surgery and war would obviously go together. But Chiron too gave his father the ashen spear from Pelion, which none but Achilles could wield: he was the most civilized (δικαιότατος) of the Centaurs, the one to whom the ideas of right, on which society is founded, were most congenial. But he seems to dwell on Mount Pelion, not like Phœnix, in the court of Peleus; he is, therefore, without doubt, a huntsman, and is in fact a link between the old and rude, and the new and more civilized life of the Hellic tribes.

Again. Of the Hellic legends of Homer, which are not in all very numerous, two have hunting for their subject: as,

1. That of the Calydonian Boar in Il. ix.

2. That of the visit of Ulysses to the court of Autolycus, in Od. xix.

Now these two legends are the only ones in the poems, that do not relate to war. Though the Trojans dwelt by Ida, we never hear of their hunts: but their princes feed sheep upon its slopes, or tend horses in the plain below.

_Evidence as to hunting._

Even apart from particular evidence, we might presume that, if the nation derived its warlike turn from a Hellic source, so it must likewise have been with hunting, which was next of kin to war.

Lastly, if this supposition be correct, it helps to account for what is otherwise an anomaly in the poems. Diana fights on the Trojan side: yet we find no evidence that she was worshipped among the Trojans, or even known to them in the character, in which she has the greatest mythical celebrity. She is mentioned but once, I think, among them; it is by Andromache, and that is as having put a period to her mother’s life[589], nowhere in her character as a huntress. But among the Greeks she constantly appears otherwise than as in connection with death. Her epithets, ἀγροτέρη, κελαδεινὴ, ἰοχέαιρα, are far more suitable to the huntress, than to the more solemn function of the ministry of Death among human beings. Again, Helen is compared to her in appearance. The calamities of the Kalydonians came upon them in consequence of their neglect as to her worship on a particular occasion[590]; and the particular punishment inflicted is the sending a wild boar upon them. Nausicaa[591] is elaborately compared to her, and in this simile she is described as hunting in Taygetus and Erymanthus. Thus while among the more Pelasgic Trojans, she appears only in virtue of the relation to death which (we shall find) she holds from a traditive source[592]; it is the Hellic influence, which superadds the mythical and imaginative attributes of the beautiful huntress: and which, in so doing, supplies a marked proof of the addiction of the Hellic tribes to that pursuit.

_Evidence as to navigation._

It is not easy to judge whether the turn of the Greeks for navigation ought to be referred in any degree to a Pelasgian source. Plainly, if there was such a source, it was not the main one. We have seen that only the most elementary words connected with propulsion by rowing, appear to bear any sign on them of proceeding from that stock. We cannot argue from the maritime excellence of the Athenians at a much later date to their nautical character in the time of Homer, on account of the important ethnical changes, which in the mean time they had gradually, but most thoroughly, undergone. On the other hand, our finding the pure Pelasgian population of Arcadia resorting to the inland country, and wholly destitute of ships, affords a negative indication. A stronger, and indeed very remarkable one, is supplied by the total want of ships among the Trojans, notwithstanding that their situation was one highly favourable to the acquisition of maritime power. Yet Paris needed to have ships built for him in order to effect his tour[593], and the building of them appears in the Iliad as having been an event of much note in Troy. On the other hand, Homer is full of indications of the locomotive tendencies of the Hellic races. Among these may be mentioned, the wide circle embraced in the adventures of Hercules: the offer of Menelaus[594] to accompany Telemachus on a journey about Greece: the sojourn of Neoptolemus[595] in Scyros: the frequent visits of Idomeneus[596] to Sparta before the war: the marriage of Theseus[597] to a daughter of the king of Crete: the journey of Nestor[598] into Thessaly: the pleasure visits of Autolycus to Ithaca, and of the young Ulysses[599] to Autolycus: the evident familiarity of the Poet with the idea of travelling to recover debts[600]: the existence of places of wide resort for Games and Oracles[601]: the custom of assembling from a group of districts at the funerals of great men[602]: nay, the very choice of the voyages of Ulysses for the subject of so great a part of the Odyssey, and the lengthened tour of Menelaus. And while the Pelasgians appear to be akin to the land-loving Egyptians, we have found the Hellenes to be strongly sympathetic in character with the Phœnicians, the great masters of navigation in the heroic age.

From the speech of the Pseudo-Ulysses in the Fourteenth Odyssey, we have the strongest evidence that navigation and agricultural pursuits, which were those of the Pelasgians, stood in sharp opposition to one another. He could not bear tillage, but loved ships and war[603].

ἔργον δέ μοι οὐ φίλον ἦεν,
οὐδ’ οἰκωφελίη, ἥτε τρέφει ἀγλαὰ τέκνα·
ἀλλά μοι αἰεὶ νῆες ἐπήρετμοι φίλοι ἦσαν
καὶ πόλεμοι καὶ ἄκοντες ἐΰξεστοι καὶ ὀïστοί.

It is also plain, from two circumstances at least, that Homer regarded travelling as one great means of mental and practical culture. One is, that he describes this benefit as attained in the case of his great hero Ulysses;

ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχθη ...
πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα, καὶ νόον ἔγνω[604].

The other is that, in the very remarkable simile of the Thought, he treats travelling as the great stimulus to the growth of the mind of man:

ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἀΐξῃ νόος ἀνέρος, ὅς τ’ ἐπὶ πολλήν
γαῖαν ἐληλουθὼς φρεσὶ πευκαλίμῃσι νοήσῃ·
ἔνθ’ εἴην, ἢ ἔνθα· μενοινήῃσί τε πολλά[605].

Both as to navigation then, and as to locomotion, which stand nearly related to each other, it would seem that we ought probably to regard the Hellic stock as the parent of the Greek accomplishment.

_Summary of the case._

After this laborious and microscopic investigation, we may now be justified in taking a survey more at ease of the ground which we have traversed so slowly, and in endeavouring to embody our general results in a rude sketch of the succession, places, and functions of the two great races of early Greece.

Relying, therefore, upon what has been produced in the way of proof, I will proceed to fill up its interstices with such conjectures as probable reasoning will supply.

The Greek nation was originally formed of two great coefficients, the Hellic and Pelasgic races respectively: and there is no evidence, that any other race entered largely into its composition, or modified it sensibly: although individual foreigners or companies of emigrants, which left little impression on the names of districts or races, may notwithstanding have exercised a powerful influence from time to time. We may consider the Leleges, Caucones, and other pre-Hellenic tribes as branches of the Pelasgian family, or as akin to it rather than to the Hellic stem.

There is Homeric and post-Homeric evidence, which seems to shew us the Pelasgians established through Greece from Macedonia in the north, to Crete in the south: as well as in Italy, and elsewhere beyond the borders of Greece.

It is on the whole most probable, that the Pelasgians principally entered Greece from the south by Crete; but they may have entered it in both directions. In either case, there is no other people to dispute with them in continental Greece the title of its first regular settlers. They chose their habitations in the plains, and were essentially a lowland people. It is even likely that they derive their name from this characteristic, and that it marks them at once as agriculturists.

As respects the religion of Greece, its most essential features were probably common to the two races: a principle illustrated by the fact that the Helli, by a kind of natural succession, become the wardens and interpreters of the great Pelasgian shrine of Jupiter at Dodona.