Chapter II: Ethnology (14)

9. In the Fifth Iliad we learn, that Jupiter presented some horses of a particular breed to Tros, as a compensation for the loss of his son Ganymedes. Anchises brought his mares to them in the time of Laomedon without leave, and thus got possession of the breed. And it is in this place that Homer calls him ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν[818]. It may also be observed that this was the act of a young man; for Laomedon, on whom he played this trick, was one generation higher in the family tree. It is here shown undoubtedly that the horses of Tros, the common ancestor, descended to the line of Priam; which was the more wealthy and powerful, and occupied the plain country, where the horses fed in great numbers (xx. 221); but again, does it not seem as if this very proceeding of Anchises may have had reference to a rivalry between the two houses, and a claim on his part to the headship of the family? especially from the use in this very narrative of the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν for Anchises (v. 268), and shortly after for his heir Æneas (v. 311).

_Summary of the Evidence._

To sum up the evidence. We find the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν applied to two persons only among the Trojans. Those two are a father advanced in years, and his heir apparent. The father is plainly enough the sovereign of Dardania, as well as descended from Dardanus; and Dardania, though secondary in power, was the original seat of the race. We cannot say positively whether Anchises represented the elder or the younger branch of the family: for precedence of name is sometimes given to one, and sometimes to the other line. But as Troy was powerful, and Dardania poor, we can understand the precedence of the Trojan line, even although it be supposed junior: whereas it seems difficult to account for the fact that the precedence is sometimes given to Æneas, or for the jealousy felt both towards him, and by him, except on the supposition that his family in its humbler circumstances either were the rightful representatives of Dardanus, whose sceptre, after the fall of Troy, Æneas and his sons were undoubtedly to transmit[819]; or at least were in a condition, whether by primogeniture in Assaracus, or whether by holding the original seat of the race, to make fair and plausible pretensions to the distinction.

It is important to bear in mind, that we have not the same clear assertion of the right of the elder branch to succeed to power in Asia, which the cases of Agamemnon, Protesilaus, Thrasymedes, and perhaps others, supply in Greece. On the contrary, we shall find Sarpedon first leader of the Lycians, though of a junior branch to Glaucus, and likewise representing only the female line. We shall also find great reason to question whether Hector, even if he was the heir expectant of the succession, was not, nevertheless, junior to Paris. This want of definiteness in the rule of succession is exactly what would bring it into dispute, and perhaps into prolonged dispute. And if the right of seniority was not fully acknowledged in Asia, this would at once explain, why Homer did not observe an uniform order in the genealogy: perhaps it might also explain his not being historically aware what that order was.

If this be so, the apparent anomaly of the application, on the Trojan side, to secondary persons only of the title so constantly given to the highest Greek, disappears, and becomes the consistent application of a rule. And Anchises with Æneas may then offer the most perfect model of the ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, as uniting with continued sovereignty not only known lineal descent from the first ancestor, and from Jupiter, but also the continued possession of the original seat.

It may however be asked, why, even if we allow that ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν is among the Greeks a title of patriarchal chieftaincy, should we therefore assume that it had the same defined meaning among a people of different blood and institutions?

Let me briefly answer this question.

It is to the Helli that we have looked back as the most probable source of those ideas and institutions of clanship, which gave rise to the title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. But the Helli were a mountain people, (for they were around the wintry Dodona,) and so were the Dardanians: and the institutions of highlanders in different parts, even at wide intervals of space and time, often present strong mutual resemblances. The limited means and pursuits of man in such a physical position check development, and tend to maintain uniformity.

The Dardan highlanders worshipped Jupiter on Ida, as the Helli worshipped him at Dodona. That it was the same Jupiter, we may infer with the greatest confidence, from the fact that Homer makes one formula of invocation common to his Trojans and his Greeks[820].

ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν Ἀχαιῶν τε Τρώων τε·
Ζεῦ πάτερ, Ἴδηθεν μεδέων, κύδιστε, μέγιστε, κ.τ.λ.

The bulk of the religion was nearly the same on both sides, as far as the principal deities were concerned.

_Signs of kin between Trojans and Greeks._

As the first among the proofs of affinity in blood, I should be inclined to cite that very visit of Paris to Menelaus, which gave occasion to the war. We have no other instance recorded in Homer of a foreign prince, received as such in domestic hospitality by a Greek chieftain. Nor can we, inversely, find that Greek chieftains were similarly entertained by foreigners. We have indeed an account of gifts received by Menelaus in Egypt[821]; and we have the kindly reception by the Egyptian king and his people of the Pseudo-Ulysses as a suppliant[822]; and the similar entertainment of Ulysses, again as a suppliant, in Scheria. But these cases fall greatly short of the case of Paris. Again, Homer calls the Egyptians ἀλλόθροοι ἄνθρωποι[823]: and that phrase is an usual one with him, evidently representing a familiar idea. But he never calls the Trojans ἀλλόθροοι, nor speaks of them as having different manners or religion from the Greeks. The strongest word applied to them is ἀλλοδάπος[824]. But this word seems to mean simply ‘from another place,’ and does not convey the proper and full idea of a foreigner. For not only the Lycian Sarpedon is an ἀλλοδάπος to the Trojans, but Greek pirates are usually said to attack ἀλλοδάποι, whereas they evidently were wont to plunder those of their own nation, even down to the time of Thucydides: and above all Eumæus, disgusted and worn out with the profligate misdeeds of the Suitors, thinks of moving off ἄνδρας ἐς ἀλλοδάπους, together with his oxen (ἰόντ’ αὐτῇσι βόεσσιν), by which he could not have meant more than a short passage to the Greek continent[825]. On the whole, I think that all this permits the supposition that the Trojans were admitted to be a kindred, though they were not a Greek people.

But further, the poems are full of testimony to the affinities between the Trojans and the Greeks. It is true they also bear witness to considerable differences: but both nations had been settled in the plain country for several generations before the Trojan War; and, with the growth of agriculture and trade, arts and wealth, they might well have diverged from the close parallelism of a ruder age.

At this point, however, we must call to mind some matters, which have been more largely discussed already.

Among these resemblances of a general character it may be observed, that there evidently are Pelasgi on both sides of the great quarrel. The Πελασγοὶ of the Trojans are among the ἐπίκουροι (Il. ii. 840): the Πελασγοὶ of the Greeks appear as one of the Cretan races, distinct from the Dorians and Achæans, and probably as the first founders of those lowland settlements in Thessaly (ii. 681), over which the Hellenic and Achæan names seem principally to have prevailed. Thus the Pelasgian name forms a decided bond of union between the two races: though, from the Poet’s mentioning it on the Trojan, and suppressing it on the Greek side, we at once infer that the Pelasgian element was stronger and more palpable among the Trojans.

_Signs connected with the Helli._

Next, it may be recollected that, according both to antecedent probability and to tradition, those Helli who colonized the tract about Dodona must have come from, that is, come by way of, Dardania. There is thus every likelihood of a similarity, either of race or of manners, between those who passed onwards, and those who dropped off the movement, and remained behind.

Nor are there wanting some indications, small in amount, but trustworthy in their nature, of primitive identity between the Dardans, or some portion of them, and the Helli.

The Trojan Catalogue divides itself into two principal parts. The latter of these (840-877) recites the names of the allied nations. The former (816-39) mentions no names of races but the Trojan and Dardanian; which were really one, and were even in name sometimes treated as identical: for Æneas is addressed, though commander of the Dardans[826], as

Αἰνεία, Τρώων βουλήφορε.

This division of the Catalogue is clearly indicated by the verse which introduces it,

ἔνθα τότε Τρῶές τε διέκριθεν ἠδ’ ἐπίκουροι·

where the word Τρῶες evidently includes the Dardanians.

And that every thing is Trojan, or Dardan, which lies within the division, vv. 816-839, may further be inferred from Dolon’s description of the bivouac of the ἐπίκουροι in Il. x. 428-31. He enumerates nine nations, some of whom appear among the eleven described in Il. ii. 840-77, but not one among those portions of the force which are described 816-839. I therefore gather, that every thing in this part of the Catalogue is strictly Trojan or Dardan. But here we have

Ἄσιος Ὑρτακίδης, ὃν Ἀρίσβηθεν φέρον ἵπποι
αἴθωνες μεγάλοι, ποταμοῦ ἀπὸ Σελλήεντος.

The mention of this river is repeated in Il. xii. 96, 7.

Now the name of a river Selleeis at once suggests a connection with the tribe of Selli or Helli: and further on we shall find, that Ephyre is a sign of the Helli, as Larissa is of the Pelasgi, and that one at least of the Ephyres of Greece, probably one situated in Thessaly, was by a river Selleeis. In later times Sicyon[827], and in Homer Elis, if not Thessaly, show each their Ephyre with a river Selleeis.

It has been already noticed, that in the Games of the Twenty-third Iliad, Homer tells us that the σόλος, or ball of iron given by Achilles as a prize, had previously been hurled by the strong arm of king Eetion. And as all the traces of gymnastic exercises in Homer lead us to refer them to Hellic families, we may perhaps be justified in taking this as an indication that Eetion, the father of Andromache, belonged to this stock.

_The Hellespont of Homer._

Another trace of the name of the Helli is found in the grammatical structure of the ancient Homeric word Hellespont. Its composition declares it to be the sea of Helle. Helle would be the descriptive name of a woman of the tribe of Helli. Nor could any thing be more natural, than that the Strait and neighbouring water should take its appellation from the tribe of Helli, or even from a person of that tribe, when we have every reason to believe they made the passage in the course of their migration westward.

In later times, the name Hellespont has been restricted to the narrow strait between the Sea of Marmora and the Archipelago. In Homer it bore this sense, at least occasionally or inclusively, because he calls it ἀγάῤῥοος[828]. At other times he calls it πλατὺς, and the commentators have been much puzzled to show how a narrow strait could be a broad one, while the interpretation _salt_ has also been suggested for the epithet. It is just possible, that this adjective might apply to what was afterwards known as the Hellespont, and might describe it as broad, in comparison with the bay in which lay the Greek ships: but it is much more natural to construe it more freely, and to understand by it the broad Hellespont, in opposition to the narrow Hellespont; that is, the open sea, in opposition to the ἀγάῤῥοος, which signifies the Strait. The expression πλατὺς Ἑλλήσποντος is used but thrice; once[829] for the water near the part of the camp occupied by Achilles, which we know was by the open sea[830], and twice[831] with reference to the sepulchral mounds which were to be erected there, and for which the most conspicuous spot would of course be chosen. What πλατὺς suggests, another epithet, ἀπείρων[832], surely requires: for it is incredible that this word should be applied to the mere Strait. And in truth, independently of epithets, it is demonstrable that the word in Homer sometimes means, not the strait, but the Archipelago. For Achilles, announcing his intention to sail home, says he will be seen passing Ἑλλήσποντον ἐπ’ ἰχθυόεντα[833], _over_ the Hellespont, which, having his vessels already at the mouth of it, he clearly could not do if it meant the strait only. And, in truth, the etymology of the word speaks for itself: the Greeks never would have given the name πόντος at all to a narrow strip of water. The connection, which was thus established between this quarter and Greece through the medium of the name Helle, was recognised by the later Greeks: but they naturally altered its form, by keeping to their own country the honours of the fountain-head, while they made the eastward traces of the name to be secondary and derivative. In Apollonius, Phryxus and Helle are the children of Athamas, and grandchildren of Æolus: and they are carried from Thessaly on the back of a ram to the Troic sea, where she is dropped, and gives her name to it. This tradition is summed up in the argument to the Argonautica, and exhibits the belief of the Greeks in the early relationship of the countries.

All this marks the Helli not only as a people who had crossed the straits, but as one which had left its name associated with the northern coast of the Ægean, and moreover upon the country in the neighbourhood of the straits, up to the river Selleeis; a stream which we see must have been at a considerable distance beyond Troy, because all the rivers that descended from Mount Ida were employed in clearing away the Greek earthworks, and this one is not among them[834].

_The gift of Echepolus._

We find an insulated yet remarkable note of kin between the Dardan house and the Greeks in the case of Echepolus. He was a son of Anchises, and he resided in Sicyon. He was possessed of great wealth, and apparently he had also the fine breed of horses which was in his family: for he presented Agamemnon with the mare Αἴθη[835], as a consideration for not being required to follow him against Troy.

Now there was evidently at this time no commercial class formed in Greece. Echepolus must therefore have had a territorial fortune. To find a wealthy member of the Dardan house domesticated in Greece, and peacefully remaining there during the expedition, must excite some surprise. It seems to supply a new and strong presumption of the Hellic origin of the royal families of Troas. The name too, and the gift of a horse, are in remarkable conformity with the horse-rearing and horse-breaking pursuits of the highest Trojans.

We have already seen stray signs of the Pelasgic affinities between the two contending parties: but it would now appear, that there were affinities in the Hellic line also: and if so, then this institution of chieftaincy, standing above merely political supremacy, and indicated by the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, may probably have subsisted among Trojans as well as Greeks.

The less warlike character of the Trojans, their more oriental manners, and their less multiform and imaginative religion, all point to considerable differences in the composition of the people. The Pelasgic ingredient was probably stronger in Troy: it appears to have had more influence over religion, manners, and institutions. But the circumstances mentioned above are tokens of an infusion of Hellic blood in the populations that inhabited Troas. Now this was nowhere so likely to be found as in the royal family; for we see the governing faculty everywhere accompanying the Hellic tribes through Greece, and asserting itself both by the acquisition of political power, and by the energetic use of it. Everywhere it rises, by a natural buoyancy, to the summit of society; and gives their first vent, in miniature, to those energies, which were afterwards to defy, or even to subdue the world.

At the same time, though it is in connection with the Hellic families alone that we find the ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν among the Greeks, we need not proceed so far as to deny the possibility that it might also have been a Pelasgic institution, and that its non-appearance, in connection with their name, might be sufficiently accounted for simply by their loss of political power. We have no reason to suppose the Pelasgi and Helli to have been families of mankind whose characters were in radical and absolute opposition to one another: the completeness of their fusion after a short period seems to prove, that, though with a different distribution of capacities and tendencies, they must have had many and important points of contact.

IV. _Case of Augeias._

Let us take next the case of Augeias.

He appears in three passages of the Iliad.

1. The Epeans, who inhabited Elis, with Bouprasium and other towns enumerated in the Catalogue, and lying in the north-western corner of the Peloponnesus, sent to the Trojan war forty ships, in four divisions, under four separate leaders, and without any head over the whole contingent. The fourth named of these is Polyxeinus, son of Agasthenes, himself a lord (ἄναξ), and the son of Augeias.

2. In the Eleventh Book, Nestor gives the curious history of the war of his boyhood or earliest youth, between the Elians (v. 671), called also Epeans (688), and the Pylians.

Neleus had sent to Elis a chariot with four horses to contend in the games, of which a tripod was the prize. The horses were detained by Augeias (v. 701).

τοὺς δ’ αὖθι ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Αὐγείας
κάσχεθε.

Nestor and the Pylians invaded Elis in return, and brought off an immense booty. The Elians then took arms and besieged Thryoessa (in the Catalogue Thryon), the border city of Pylos, at the ford of the Alpheus. Minerva brought the tidings to Pylos. The Pylian forces spent one night on the boundary river Minyeius, and marched to the Alpheus, beside which they spent a second night.

3. In the morning the battle was fought: the Epeans were defeated, and driven all the way to Bouprasium and the Olenian rock, upon the sea shore, in the western part of what was afterwards Achæa. There Pallas turned them back. The Pylians, who returned home, are called Achæans[836].

Nestor in the first fight had slain a warrior named Μούλιος. He was the son-in-law of Augeias, married to his eldest daughter Agamede, who was profoundly skilled in drugs (v. 741);

ἣ τόσα φάρμακα ᾔδη, ὅσα τρέφει εὐρεῖα χθών.

K. O. Müller (Orchomenus, p. 355) infers from the Catalogue, that Augeias was lord only of a fourth part of Elis. But this assumption seems quite gratuitous in connection with the passage in the Catalogue, and utterly in contradiction to the tenour of the history of the Pylian raid in B. xi. On the contrary, I infer with considerable confidence, from the acephalous state of the Elian division of the army, in which it differs from the other divisions, that there had been a revolution in that state since the time of Augeias; and if so, then indirectly the Catalogue confirms the Elian monarchy described in the Eleventh Book.

Thus then we find this ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, Augeias, lord of Elis two generations before the Trojan war. He is neighbour to Achæans, whom we have already traced in Hellas: and he appears to have belonged to the same national origin with them, because they sent their chariots to run races at his games. Again, the fact of his holding these games at all, and at a place which subsequently contended for and obtained the superintendence of the great national assemblages celebrated at Olympia, testifies to his known connection with the cradle of the race whose custom it was to celebrate them; because these festivities had a religious and national character, and as such could not but have depended very greatly upon traditionary title. This race we have previously found to be the Hellenic race.

_Notes of connection between Elis and the North._

We may however find other indications of the descent of Augeias from a ruling Hellenic family, in local and personal notices which connect Elis, his own territory, with the north, and with Thessaly in particular.

For example: it was at the Alpheus in Elis that Thamyris suffered his calamity: and he was coming at the time from Œchalia[837], in the valley of the Upper Peneus, a part of the Homeric Thessaly or Hellas proper. (Il. ii. 730.)

The name Θρῂξ, too, which is applied to him, never seems to have spread farther southwards than the hills about Thessaly.

Further, he was coming from Eurytus of Œchalia, who is again named as the lord, apparently, of that city, in ii. 730. But the name Eurytus was one current among the descendants of Actor[838], for a descendant of Actor who bore it is named in the Catalogue a little below: and this latter Eurytus was an Epean chief: and the descendants of Actor are found in the Epean or Elian army of the Eleventh Book. (xi. 709, 739.)

Again, they are found in Thessaly or Phthiotis, for when Mercury had deflowered Polymele, the daughter of Phylas a Thessalian, Echecles, a descendant of Actor, married her; and yet again, they are found near Aspledon[839] and the Minyeian Orchomenos, between Bœotia and Phocis[840].

Again, the Pylian army halted, at a day’s march from the Alpheus, on the Minyeius, a river evidently named from the Minyæ of Peloponnesus. But there was a Minya also in Thessaly[841], of which the site was not precisely known in historic times: and the northern Orchomenos was called Minyeius[842].

There is no part of Middle or of Southern Greece which so abounds in the local and personal notes of connection with Thessaly and the North as Elis and its neighbourhood. Some indications of it have already been given, and many more might be added. As for example, there was an Enipeus[843], a river of Elis, so there was of Pieria and of Phthiotis. Doris, beneath Œta, is reflected or prefigured in the Homeric Dorium of the Pylian territories: the Thessalian Larissa in a Larissa, and a river Larissus, of Elis. The Thessalian name Œchalia is repeated in the district, over which Nestor ruled at the epoch of the _Troica_; and there is an Arcadian Orchomenos as well as a northern one. Cyparissus in Elis corresponds, again, with a Cyparissus in Phocis. Some other more doubtful indications may close the list. The Parrhasie of Arcadia may be from the same root with the Πύρασος[844] of the dominions of Protesilaus. Perhaps the Thessalian Helos and Pteleos may be akin to Alos in the country of Peleus[845]. The resemblance of names is not confined to the extremities of the line, but is scattered along the path of migration from north to south. It extends also to Laconia.

Nestor in his youth is summoned all the way from Pylos (τηλόθεν), to fight with Pirithous and others in Thessaly; (from whence Polypœtes, the son of Pirithous, led a division of the Greek army,) against the Φῆρες.

Thus far we find some presumptions as to the descent of Augeias, as to his connection with the Hellic institution of the games, and as to the relation between Elis, over which he reigned, and the line northwards into Thessaly; all tending, together with the evidently Hellic character of the Epeans, to shew that he was the representative of one of their ruling tribes.

But he also bears a distinct local mark, the nature of which I shall now endeavour to investigate.

The chieftainship of Agamemnon has been traced and identified by means of his Achæan connection, without any assistance from local or territorial names connected with the abode of his family.

In such a case as his, we could not look for aid of that description: for his house had only been possessed for two generations of their dominions: we have no precise knowledge before that time of the place of their sojourn: and when they rose to power, it was in a territory, and in cities, which appear to have been already of historic fame. It was not therefore likely that their abodes should bear names such as, if they had come in the characters of founders and not of inheritors, they would probably have affixed to them.

In the case of the Dardan house, we have found, among other indications of their Hellic affinities, the two evidently Hellic names of the Hellespont and the River Selleeis.

_The name of Ephyre._

There is another local name in Homer of paramount importance as a key to the question respecting the ruling Hellic tribes, the name of Ephyre (Ἐφύρη).

Let us endeavour to collect the scattered lights which either the etymology, or the use and associations of the term in Homer, may supply.

_Its cognate names._

And, first, we may notice in Homer a large cluster of names which are found running over Greece, and which are evidently in etymological association with one another: I will bring these together, before endeavouring to estimate their relation to the name Ephyre.

1. Φᾶρις, Il. ii. 582. In Lacedæmon.

2. Φεραὶ, Il. ii. 711. In Thessaly.

3. Φήρη, Il. v. 543. Between Pylus and Sparta.

4. Φήραι, Il. ix. 151, 293. Od. iii. 488. The same.

5. Φεαὶ, Od. xv. 296[846]. Otherwise read Φεραὶ, and, according to the Scholiast, the same with Φῆραι. The site is on the sea, between Pylus and Sparta.

6. Φεῖα, Il. vii. 135. On the Iardanus: and probably also on the Arcadian frontier towards Pylus: but, in the opinion of the Scholiast[847], the same with Φεαί.

Besides these names of places, we have also,

1. Φηρητιάδης, Il. ii. 763. xxiii. 376, the name of Eumelus; who was the son of Admetus, the lord of Φεραὶ in Il. ii. 711.

2. Φέρης, one of the sons of Cretheus, a Thessalian king, Od. xi. 259.

3. The Φῆρες, termed ὀρέσκῳοι in Il. i. 268, and λαχνηέντες in Il. ii. 743; the shaggy mountaineers, on whom Pirithous made war, when he was attended by Nestor.

With respect to the six local names, and the two first of the three personal names, there can be little doubt of their identity in root. It is directly probable from the text, that Φήρη and Φηραὶ were the same place. The name of Eumelus, who lives at Φεραὶ, and who is the grandson of Φέρης, yet is called Φηρητιάδης, clearly establishes the etymological relationship. Thus there is, again, no difficulty whatever in recognising between Φεραὶ and Φεαὶ, or again between Φεαὶ and Φείαι; and it is in the manner of Homer to give the name of the same country both in the singular and in the plural, as Μυκήνη, Il. iv. 52, and Μυκηναὶ, Il. ii. 569. Φᾶρις, the only remaining name, gives us the Doric or Æolic α for η, and an altered form of declension. This however is not at all incompatible with the manner of Homer, who not only uses Πηνελόπη and Πηνελόπεια, Ἀστυόχη and Ἀστυόχεια, Πηρείη (according to one reading), Il. ii. 766, and Πιερίη, Od. v. 50, but Ἑρμῆς and Ἑρμείας, Πατροκλέης and Πατρόκλος; and for towns, the Θρύον of Il. ii. 591 appears again as Θρυόεσσα in Il. xi. 711.

In general it is to be remembered that the instrument of language, at the time when Homer lived was as yet in a highly elastic state: it was in the state as it were of gristle; it had not yet hardened into bone, nor assumed the strict conventional forms which a formed literature requires. And for the same reasons that it has presented variations as between one time and another, it could not but do the like as between one place and another.

The very same causes which made change a law of language would give to that course of change in one place a greater, and in another a less velocity, older forms succumbing at a given time in one place, and yet surviving in another. Such a state of facts around him would give great liberty to a poet, independently of the exigencies of his verse; which appear indeed to have caused to such a man, and with such a language, little difficulty.

But we hardly require the benefit of these general considerations to cover the case of a varying declension for the name of a town. The true explanation probably is the very simple one, that in one declension it has been used substantively, and in the other adjectively. And this will be the more plain if we consider that the name of the town would usually be the representative of an idea, either in conjunction with a person, or directly. Thus θρύον is _a rush_, and θρυοεὶς _rushy_. The town Θρύον in the Catalogue is at the ford of the Alpheus, and in Il. xi. 711 it is τις Θρυόεσσα πόλις, αἰπεῖα κολώνη, which exhibits to us the adjective use in an actual example. So again by analogy we might have Φῆρις from Φήρα or Φήρη, as πάτρις from πάτρα, ἀναλκὶς from ἄλκη.

We have a curious extra-Homeric remnant of geographical evidence with respect to this Pharis. Pausanias[848] relates to us, that the place where it was reported to have stood was in his time called Alesiæ, and that near it there was a river bearing the peculiar name of Phellias; which it seems most natural to regard as a corrupted form of the Homeric name Σελληείς. This connection of Pharis with Selleeis becomes in its turn an argument for relationship between Pharis and Ephyre, with which Selleeis is associated in the places where Homer mentions it as the name of a Greek river.

Nor are we without other traces, in this region, of that name which so often attends upon Ephyre: for Laconia had for its key on the north the town of Sellasia[849]. The Προέληνοι of Arcadia should also here be borne in mind.

Thus then we appear to find the name of Ephyre according to one or other of its forms in Laconia, in Pylus, and in that part of Thessaly which was ruled by Admetus. The ruling race in the two former was Achæan, and therefore Hellic. Admetus was himself an ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, and his Hellic origin will be shown presently. So far, therefore, we have a presumption established that the name of Ephyre signifies some peculiar connection with the Helli.

Etymologically it is obvious to connect these words with ἔρα as their root, and to suppose that they retain the prefix, which it had lost in the common Greek usage even before the days of Homer, as he employs ἔραζε without the digamma: and which prefix we find reproduced in the Latin _terra_.

_The Φῆρες._

Let us now pass on to the Φῆρες.

The Φῆρες of Homer are, like the Ἕλλοι, a mountain people, Il. i. 268, rude in manners (ii. 743), and aggressive upon the inhabitants of the plains; for the war in which Nestor engaged was evidently retributive, as the expression used is ἐτίσατο[850], Pirithous ‘_paid them off_;’ and he was sovereign of a part of the plain country, called Pelasgic Argos. Nor does any adverse presumption arise from our finding a Hellic tribe (if such they were) of the mountains, making war on tribes of similar origin in the plain: any more than we are surprised at war between the Pylians and the Epeans, both apparently Hellic, though probably not both Achæan.

It may be well to remember, that the Dardans of Homer are often included in Trojans; as well as often separately designated: and that the Cephallenians are also apparently included among his Ἀχαιοί. Neither of these pairs of names are territorial: while in each pair one probably indicates a subdivision of the other.

The Φῆρες thus resembling the Ἕλλοι, we are led by their designation to another link between the name of Φῆραι with its cognates and the Hellic race. It seems thus far as if Φηραὶ were the appropriate name of a settlement formed by Φῆρες.

Having proceeded thus far, we may now observe the relation of the word Φὴρ,

1. To the Greek ἔρα, which evidently, from its passing into the Latin _terra_, had at one time a Greek prefix. With this we may probably associate the Greek ἔαρ, and the Latin _ver_.

2. To the Greek θὴρ, a wild beast.

3. To the Latin _fera_, with the same meaning.

4. To the Latin _terra_, meaning the earth.

5. To the Italian _terra_, the old classical name, in that beautiful tongue, not for a district, but for an inclosed, walled, or fortified place. This word seems in Italian to be rarely, if at all, used for a district, but so generally for a town, that it is difficult to suppose the signification was derived in the same manner as Argos in Greek, from the tract of country in which it was situated. In Italian _terra_ seems often to mean _tellus_, often _humus_, very rarely _ager_, constantly _oppidum_ or _castrum_. Thus in Dante (Inferno, C., v. 97), ‘_Siede_ la terra, dove nata fui.’

This being so, it is natural to suppose that, while the correlative of the Greek ἔρα became in Latin _terra_, so as directly to signify _tellus_ or _humus_, that of the Greek Φηρὰ became in Italian _terra_, so as to signify a walled place; or, in other words, that the original word, whatever it was, of the common mother language, which became Φηρὰ in Greek, in Italy became _terra_ for this latter purpose. The exchange of θ for _t_ we see in ἐσθὴς becoming _vestis_: and of _t_ for _f_ (= φ) in τρυγάω compared with _fruges_.

This sense of _terra_ seems to have dropped altogether out of the Latin, and especially Pelasgian, branch of the old Italian tongue.

The relation between Φὴρ and θὴρ, the one applicable to men, and the other to wild beasts, appears evidently to throw us back upon that which the mountain tribes of men had in common with animals, namely, a wild and savage life, and the free possession of the earth. Thus the two stand in a common and near relation to the word ἔρα, the earth, and they seem to have ἐρ or ἠρ for their common root.

Before passing on to Ἐφύρη, I would remark that in this instance again we seem to derive light from Homer’s unequalled point and precision in the use of epithets. His Φῆρες appear to be in fact the rude and uncombed mountaineers, who also have the name of Ἕλλοι in the same or other tribes. These Φῆρες are λαχνηέντες, shaggy. They come down to the plains, and acquire settled and civilised habits: from Φῆρες they are become Ἀχαιοὶ, but their long hair has not left them, and from λαχνηέντες they are now καρηκομόωντες.

Now we find the word Ἐφύρη used many times in Homer: and once we have the name Ἔφυροι, applied to a people apparently Thessalian, on whom Mars[851], with his son Φόβος, makes war from out of Thrace.

_Etymology of Ἐφύρη._

Can we then presume an etymological connection between the word Ἐφύρη, and that group of words which we have been discussing, and which we have found to show marks of connection with the Helli?

For if so, then we shall be supported by various other reasons, which, as we shall find, connect the word Ephyre with the Hellic races in a very remarkable manner.

What we have here to consider is,

1. The prefix ε.

2. The change of ε or η for υ.

Dr. Donaldson[852] has given a list of Greek words which have, as prefixes unconnected with the root, sometimes the letter α, sometimes ε, sometimes ο.

Such in the second class are

ἐ-ρέφω, whence roof.
ἐ-λεύθερος, whence liber.
ἐ-ρυθρὸς, whence ruber, rufus.
ἐ-ρετμὸς, whence remus.

This point being disposed of, how are we to account for finding φυρη, instead of φερη or φηρη?

Can it be because, in cases of Greek syllabic augment, there is a tendency to avoid reduplication, as in ἀτιτάλλω for ἀτατάλλω? In but a small proportion of the cases given in Dr. Donaldson’s table is the vowel prefix the same with the vowel following.

Can it be from that tendency of what we call comprehensively the digamma to lapse into the υ, which Heyne has observed[853]?

Or, shall we found it on the principles laid down by Bopp[854], in his Comparative Grammar, that the α has a tendency to weaken itself into υ, and that liquids having a preference for that latter vowel, influence the generation of it? the conditions of interchange between α and υ resting, as he says, upon the laws of gravity or vocal equilibrium.

It must be observed that the original vowel of the root may, in this case, have been the α which we find in φᾶρις.

It is not only α that we may find supplanted by υ. The ε suffers the same fate in the Italian _Siculus_, which appears as the representative of the Greek Σίκελος. Again we have, in the Latin, the kindred words _furo_ and _fera_. Perhaps I am wrong in dealing thus scrupulously with the variation from ε to υ, as if capable of affecting vitally the question of identity in the root. For in examining another root (that of κεφάλη), we have seen that its derivatives appear to include the whole, or nearly the whole range of the vowels of the alphabet.

_Its probable signification._

Upon the whole it appears not unsafe, without pretending to any authoritative solution of a question fitted for philological scholars, among whom I cannot pretend to rank, to suppose that Ἐφύρη and Φηραὶ may be drawn etymologically from the same root. If so, that root will be probably the same with that of ἔρα, and of φῆρ of which we have ascertained that it is related to the Hellic races: and upon these suppositions we may already be prepared, I do not say to conclude, but to suspect that Ἐφύρη and Φεραὶ may properly denote, and may be the original and proper Hellic name for the _terre_ (Ital.), or walled places, founded by the Hellic races; as Ἄργος signifies the open districts in which the Pelasgians were given to settling κωμηδὸν, for agricultural purposes.

I do not mean by this that the Pelasgian settlements contained no aggregations of houses, or that the Hellic were not connected with the cultivation of the soil. On the contrary, as the Pelasgians apparently built their Larissas for defence, so we seem to have indications connecting the name Ephyre with a fertile soil. When Homer represents the Ἔφυροι as objects of invasion by Mars from Thrace, he probably means by the name the inhabitants of a settled country in the plains, on whom predatory incursions were made by the Thracian highlanders. So that if we shall succeed in shewing a special connection between the local name Ephyre and the Hellic tribes, we may, by the reflected light of that conclusion, even venture to understand the word Ephyri as meaning Helli, who had come down into the low country, made settlements, and acquired something at least of the habits of civilized life.

Nor are we without further Homeric evidence to the effect that, wherever an Ephyre is found, there is usually an abundance of rich pasture and cultivable land, so that the name is well adapted to mark those spots which a conquering race would be apt to choose for its abodes.

For example, Elis has its Ephyre: and from the fact that Elis was the scene of the national chariot-races, we might at once conclude that it was famous for its horses, and if so, that it abounded in good soil and pasture, and in open country. Wherever in Homer we find the horse conspicuous, we find also good lands and opulence, whether it be in Troas, in the Thrace called ἐριβώλαξ[855], in Thessaly, or in Elis. For Homer gives us, as to the last, direct evidence of the fact, by his epithets εὐρύχορος, open, and ἱππόβοτος, horse-pasturing[856]. Elis, in fact, was most probably for Peloponnesus what Bœotia was for Middle Greece: the first halting place, from its fertile soil, of those who entered the region; the scene, accordingly, of rapid successions, and therefore frequent revolutions, but also the place bearing the strongest marks, through nomenclature, of the country from which the new-comers had proceeded.

Again, the Ephyre of the Odyssey is expressly called (Od. ii. 328), πίειραν ἄρουραν. And when Hercules took Astyoche from Ephyre (Il. ii. 659), after despoiling that with many other cities, we may clearly infer, that they were rich, and not poor places which he plundered, therefore that this Ephyre also was rich, and if so, rich in its soil, the only wealth, for regions, then known to Greece. Again, the Ephyre of Sisyphus (Il. vi. 152) became Corinth, and Corinth was even in Homer’s time called ἄφνειος. This epithet is referred by some to its favourable position for commerce. But such an explanation is wholly unsuited to the age of Homer. For the commercial prominence of Corinth belongs to a later period; and we have nothing to support the idea, that commercial opulence existed in Greece at this period at all. The natural explanation seems to be, the fertility of the soil of the plain between the rock of Corinth and Sicyon. This seems to have become, in after-time, the subject of a proverb. Hence the χρησμόλογος in the Aves of Aristophanes says (Av. 968),

ἀλλ’ ὅταν οἰκήσωσι λύκοι πολιαί τε κορώναι
ἐν ταυτῷ τὸ μεταξὺ Κορίνθου καὶ Σικυῶνος.

In the same sense as where Shakespeare says,

When Birnam wood shall move to Dunsinane.

The Scholiast gives two explanations, of which the best is εὔφορος γὰρ αὕτη ἡ χώρα.

Again, it is certainly confirmatory of the supposition that Ἐφύρη was the name of the primitive Hellic, as Ἄργος was of the Pelasgic settlement, when we find that the first, though clearly meaning a settled place, has etymologically no reference to agricultural labour, while the second is entirely based upon that idea; since these significations of the word chosen to denote settlement, in the two cases agree, in their reciprocal difference, with the different specific character of the Hellic and Pelasgic tribes, the former emerging from the mountains, predatory and poor, ardent, bold, and enterprising; the latter peaceful in their habits, and looking to nothing beyond the cultivation of the soil.

So much for the root of Ephyre and Pheræ, and for the relation between the two.

_Places bearing the name in Homer._

Now the Homeric testimony to the prevalence of these names is exactly such as most effectually establishes the connection between them on the one hand, and Thessaly with the Hellic races on the other.

First as to Ephyre.

1. Five generations before the Trojan war, Sisyphus, a son or descendant of Æolus, was settled, apparently as a subordinate prince or lord, in an Ephyre, which was near the territory of Prœtus, and was situated μύχῳ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο. Bellerophon, the grandson of Sisyphus, was driven out by Prœtus, king of the Argives; and was a ξεῖνος of Œneus, the ancestor of Diomed. These circumstances, combined with the tradition that attached the name of Ephyre to the site of Corinth, leave no doubt that Homer means to place Sisyphus in what was afterwards Corinth[857]. There was no other known Ephyre in a nook of Ἄργος, or what may be termed within reach of Prœtus and Œneus: whereas this Ephyre lay upon the pass that communicated with the North from that part of the Peloponnesus.

But the line of Sisyphus had been displaced in the person of Bellerophon, two generations before the Trojan war. Together with this line the old name of Ephyre had disappeared: we hear of it in the Iliad only as Corinth, and as part of the Mycenian dominions. Now tradition connects the Æolid title particularly with Thessaly, the Æolids always having been recognised as one of the great primitive Greek races. And Homer gives us Æolids in Thessaly, as well as in Peloponnesus. In the time of Sisyphus then we see this Æolid name, which is Eteo-Hellenic, conjoined with the local name Ephyre: at the epoch of the Trojan war, both have disappeared from the spot.

The traditional name Ephyre remained, indeed, in many parts of Greece down to later times. Strabo (p. 338) reckons one in Elis, one in Thesprotia, and one in Thessaly, besides Corinth: and also five κωμαὶ of the name. But even in Homer’s time, either these settlements had decayed, or else, which is more likely, the particular form Ἐφύρη had never acquired the precise force of a proper name, but remained rather in the category of a descriptive word: for otherwise it could hardly have happened, but that one or other of the Ephyres must have been named in the Catalogue of Homer. If a descriptive word, it was in all likelihood simply descriptive of primitive settlement for the Hellic race. Probably these Ἐφύραι were rude and small; and were, properly speaking, collections of a few buildings, rather than cities regularly formed.

2. That passage of the Thirteenth Iliad has already been mentioned, which places this name in the North. The Poet says, speaking of Mars and his son Φόβος,

τὼ μὲν ἄρ’ ἐκ Θρῄκης Ἐφύρους μέτα θωρήσσεσθον,
ἠὲ μετὰ Φλέγυας μεγαλήτορας[858].

Two circumstances warrant our placing these Ἔφυροι in Thessaly: the first, that the name of Thrace does not extend farther southward: and the second, that here is the only known seat of the Phlegyæ.

3. It may be convenient next to take the Ephyre, which is mentioned twice in the Odyssey.

In the first of these passages Pallas, in the character of Mentes, Lord of the Taphians, remembers Ulysses in the days when he undertook other journeys before his Trojan one: remembers him,

ἐξ Ἐφύρης ἀνίοντα παρ’ Ἴλου Μερμερίδαο.
ᾤχετο γὰρ καὶ κεῖσε θοῆς ἐπὶ νηὸς Ὀδυσσεὺς
φάρμακον ἀνδροφόνον διζήμενος[859].

And again, when the Suitors apprehend that Telemachus meditates mischief, they ask whether he will bring allies from Pylus, or even from Sparta (which was more remote).

ἤ τινας ἐκ Πύλου ἄξει ἀμύντορας ἠμαθόεντος
ἢ ὅγε καὶ Σπάρτηθεν, ἐπεί νύ περ ἵεται αἰνῶς·
ἠὲ καὶ εἰς Ἐφύρην ἐθέλει, πίειραν ἄρουραν·
ἐλθεῖν, ὄφρ’ ἔνθεν θυμοφθόρα φάρμακ’ ἐνείκῃ[860].

For several reasons it appears probable that the Ephyre here meant was in Elis, and was therefore the Ephyre of Augeias.

1. Geographically it would appear likely to be in the Peloponnesus. Telemachus was little likely to make any more extended voyage. The intercourse of his family was generally with the Iasian Argos, or Western Peloponnesus. Hence it is said of Penelope[861], ‘Could all the Achæans of Iasian Argos see thee.’ And hence, in the Twenty-fourth Odyssey[862], the enemies of Ulysses anticipate that, unless prevented by them, he will resort either to Pylus or to Elis, where are the Epeans, for assistance. Hence, again, it is that, in the Second Odyssey, we find Ephyre joined with Pylus and Sparta (which last is mentioned as an extreme point, ἢ ὅγε καὶ Σπάρτηθεν,) as the quarters to which he might repair for aid. The names of Elis and the Epeans do not appear: and this of itself amounts nearly to a demonstration that Ephyre not only lay in, but actually stands in lieu of, Elis in this place.

We may however note one or two secondary points.

2. Corinth had now lost the name of Ephyre, that is to say, a new name had overshadowed the old one. But this Ephyre, if not Corinth, could only be the Elian Ephyre.

3. Post-Homeric tradition places an Ephyre in Elis.

We have already seen that Augeias was lord of Elis, that he ruled over an Hellenic race, that he is an ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν: was this Ephyre the seat of his empire?

Even from the bare fact of being in Elis, it stands in significant connection with Augeias: but more especially, it seems impossible not to connect the peculiar knowledge of drugs, preserved at the Ephyre to which Ulysses repaired, with the former fame of Agamede, the daughter of Augeias (Il. xi. 740), from whom it had, in all probability, been handed down to the next following generation.

It may be asked, what place had Ilus, the son of Mermerus[863], in an Ephyre, where Augeias had been king or lord? We can give at least this negative answer: the Catalogue shews that Elis, in the time of the Trojan war, was no longer patriarchally ruled; for the Epeans had four coordinate leaders; of whom the grandson of Augeias was but one. Therefore an Ilus may have been in the time of Ulysses possessed of the place, which belonged to Augeias in Nestor’s boyhood: and we may observe, that no Epean or Elian chief, contemporary with the _Troica_, appears in Homer under the title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν.

Upon combining all these circumstances, we appear to have the strongest warrant for believing that Augeias was lord of Ephyre; that he was the head of one of the ruling families which derived themselves by a known and recorded lineage from Hellas and a Hellic tribe; and consequently that the archaic title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν was applied to him, not casually, but with a definite meaning, and in conformity to an established rule.

_Summary of the evidence for Augeias._

The following brief synopsis will, after what has been said, serve to indicate the chief presumptive grounds of the title of Augeias to ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν.

1. Augeias is connected with the φάρμακα, Il. xi. 739-41.

2. The φάρμακα with Ephyre, Od. i. 259.

3. Ephyre with Sisyphus, Il. vi. 152, 3.

4. Sisyphus is the son of Æolus, Il. vi. 154.

5. Æolus is Eteo-Hellenic, as the common ancestor of several of the great Greek houses, and the lineal ancestor of at least one ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν[864].

6. Æolus is also of divine descent, for his descendant Bellerophon is θεοῦ γόνος, Il. vi. 191.

7. That is to say, he is a son of Jupiter; for θεὸς commonly means Jupiter, when there is no particular reference to any other deity in the context, and when a personal act or attribute is described.

The extra-Homeric tradition entirely supports this belief, for it makes Augeias the son of Salmoneus, and Salmoneus the son of Æolus.

And now, after we have considered so fully the term Ἐφύρη and its kindred words, we shall do well to notice that at least the dominions of Agamemnon are not void of some relation to this family of names; inasmuch as Φᾶρις, in the Catalogue, is one of the towns that provide his forces, and Φῆραι, in the Ninth Iliad, is one of the towns of which he promises to make Achilles lord. Of Phellias and Sellasia we have already treated.

V. _Case of Euphetes._

I proceed to the case of Euphetes.

He is mentioned only once in the Homeric Poems. It is when, in the Fifteenth Iliad, Dolops strikes at Meges, son of Phyleus, who is saved by his stout breastplate: by that breastplate,

τόν ποτε Φύλευς
ἤγαγεν ἐξ Ἐφύρης, ποταμοῦ ἀπὸ Σελλήεντος.
ξεῖνος γάρ οἱ ἔδωκεν ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Εὐφήτης[865].

This case, as it stands, is very simple. Euphetes is manifestly the king of Ephyre: the name of the place supplies the connection with the cradle of the Hellenes; the link is doubled by the name of the river Σελληείς, and his rank presumably stamps him as of a ruling race in the country; for he is a ξεῖνος to a sovereign, and the xenial relation appears to have been always one between persons equal, or nearly so.

The passage, however, affords us no aid towards determining where this Ephyre lay; for it does not tell us where to look for the residence of Phyleus.

Was it the Ephyre of Elis, or was it another Ephyre, mentioned in a passage that we have not yet examined? To this passage let us now turn.

In the Greek Catalogue, Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules, commands nine ships from Rhodes, whither he had migrated, on account of having slain his grand uncle Licymnius. His birth is described as follows,--

ὃν τέκεν Ἀστυόχεια βίῃ Ἡρακληείῃ·
τὴν ἄγετ’ ἐξ Ἐφύρης, ποταμοῦ ἀπὸ Σελληέντος,
πέρσας ἄστεα πολλὰ Διοτρεφέων αἰζηῶν[866].

Hercules then led off Astyocheia from Ephyre beside Selleeis, after having devastated many cities. The opinion may perhaps be sustained from this passage, that the Ephyre mentioned in it is not the Ephyre of Elis, for the following reasons.

1. Tlepolemus[867] emigrates to Rhodes in consequence of homicide. He is more likely to have done this from Thessaly than Elis, for we see no signs of communication between western Peloponnesus and the islands of Asia Minor near the base of the Ægean.