Chapter 18

οἵη νῦν οὐκ ἔστι γύνη κατ’ Ἀχαίïδα γαῖανοὔτε Πύλου ἱερῆς, οὔτ’ Ἄργεος, οὔτε Μυκήνης,οὔτ’ αὐτῆς Ἰθάκης, οὔτ’ ἠπείροιο μελαίνης.

For here are clearly enumerated as among the parts ofἈχαίïς, several Peloponnesian states, the island of Ithaca, and the continent, evidently meaning that to the North of the Corinthian gulf.

And yet it may remain true that, though commonly meaning Greece at large,Ἀχαίïςmay still have a more special connection with the South, as the whole of this island is called Britain, whereas the name has been derived especially from its southern inhabitants.

But in the passages numbered (1) and (3) we find the whole of Greece designated by the use, not of one, but of two expressions: in the first case they are,

1.Ἕλλας.2.μέσον Ἄργος.

In the second they are,

1.Ἄργος.2.Ἀχαίïς.

And with these we may compare the expression, evidently meant to cover all the Greeks, in Il. ii. 530, under the names

1.Πανέλληνες.2.Ἀχαιοί.

Now there are here three ways in which the words may be used so as to convey their joint sense, which I assume to be that of Greeceentire: viz.

1. That each word should cover a part, the two parts together making up the whole,i.e.that the words should be used distributively.

2. That each should cover the whole, and that the words should be used cumulatively.

3. That one of the words should apply to a part of Greece only, and should be overlapped as it were by the other, that other meaning the whole.

Now asἈχαίïςuniformly means all Greece in eight passages where it stands alone, this will naturally govern its sense in the two passages, where it is joined copulatively withἌργος. We shall also hereafter see the local use of theἈχαιοὶso diffused, that it would hardly be possible to suppose any other meaning. Thus, then, we have one point fixed, from which to operate upon others.

But what does theἌργος ἱππόβοτονmean?

It is demonstrable that in Homer the wordἌργοςhas several meanings.

1. It is a city, as in Il. iv. 51,

ἤτοι ἐμοὶ τρεῖς μὲν πολὺ φίλταται εἰσὶ πόληεςἌργος τε, Σπάρτη τε, καὶ εὐρυάγυια Μυκήνη.τὰς διαπέρσαι κ.τ.λ.

2. It is a limited territory, probably such as was afterwards the State of Argolis. For when Telemachus is quitting Sparta, Theoclymenus joins him[648],φεύγων ἐξ Ἄργεος. And again, when Melampus quitted Pylos, he came to Argos:

ὁ δ’ ἄλλων ἵκετο δῆμονἌργος ἐς ἱππόβοτον[649].

The first proves that Sparta was not included in the geographical nameἌργος: the second proves the same of Pylos: and this too is theἌργος ἱππόβοτον.

The same phrase is used in Od. iii. 263, of Ægisthus, who endeavours to corrupt Clytemnestra,

μυχῷ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο.

Here Mycenæ is plainly meant by theμυχὸς, and theἌργος ἱππόβοτονis Argolis, or something like it.

This district, including Mycenæ, was the head quarter of the Greek power. Now we find that the whole dominion of Priam was namedΤροίη, while including many cities and much territory, and the nameΤροίηwas also sometimes applied to the capital, of which the proper name was Ilion. So Venezia at the present day means both a city and a territory, even though the city is outside the territory; the only distinction lying in the use or non-use of the article. Therefore it was sufficiently natural, that the Trojan herald should name the whole from the most excellent part, and so identify them: and on the other hand, it would not be otherwise than natural, were he to name the most excellent part, and likewise to name the whole, without verbally distinguishing them.

So that in Il. iii. 75, 258, the phraseἌργος ἐς ἱππόβοτον, according to what has preceded, may either mean,

1. The part of the Peloponnesus containing Argos and Mycenæ as its head quarter, (and then the line must be interpreted in the third of the modes above pointed out; as we might now say, ‘we visited Rome and Italy.’)

2. Or it may mean the whole of Greece, by transfer from its capital part, and then the line must be interpreted in the second mode, as might now be said, ‘to our Green Erin, our Ireland mother of the brave.’

The English ‘and’ would indeed mar the sense: but the Greekκαὶis much more elastic, and may be equivalent to the Italianossia, or to the sign =.

I doubt if there be any passage in Homer where the word Argos stands alone, or with a characteristic epithet such asἱππόβοτον, and where it requires any other sense than one of the three just given—the city—the north east of Peloponnesus—and (by metonymy) all Greece.

When Nestor (Il. ii. 348) denounces those Greeks who should think of returning home before the mind of Jupiter is known, and calls returningἌργοσδε ἰέναι, it seems indisputable that we must construeἌργοςGreece.

When Paris says he brought theκτήματαfrom Argos, the most natural construction is, as the place was Sparta, and therefore not Argos in the narrow sense, from which he took them, that he means by Argos to signify Greece.

When Sisyphus dwells at Ephyre,μυχῷ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο, the word means the north eastern district Peloponnesus[650].

The wordἌργοςin the Catalogue (ii. 559) most probably means the city only.

As it is plain that in some passages it cannot mean the Peloponnesus, and as that meaning does not appear to be supported by superior probability in any place, such a meaning ought not to be admitted.

Achaic and Iasian Argos.

It is another question how we ought to construe the phrasesμέσον Ἄργος—Ἀχαιïκὸν Ἄργος, used four times—andἼασον Ἄργος.

The two latter are evidently analogous toΠελασγικὸν Ἄργος, which we have already found to mean Thessaly.

Of the four passages where we read the phraseἈχαιïκὸν Ἄργος, the two first[651]relate to the return of Agamemnon and the Greeks, and appear to admit therefore either of the limited sense of a portion of Peloponnesus as the most eminent part, or of the extended one of all Greece, better than of the intermediate one of Peloponnesus itself, with which neither Agamemnon, nor the whole body of the Greeks, had any separate and defined relation, as they had with the dominions of Agamemnon in the capacity of their supreme Chief, and perhaps with those of the Pelopid family jointly, so as to include Menelaus.

In the third case it is used of Juno, as she goes to hasten the birth of Eurystheus[652],

καρπαλίμως δ’ ἵκετ’ Ἄργος Ἀχαιïκὸν, ἔνθ’ ἄρα ᾔδηἰφθίμην ἄλοχον Σθενέλου Περσηïάδαο.

This passage evidently admits the sense of the city, or a limited district, better than that of the Peloponnesus at large. Indeed, as the seat of the Perseid dominion is evidently intended, and as that dominion did not reach over all Peloponnesus, we may say that this could not be the meaning of the words.

But the fourth passage requires a larger signification for this phrase. It is the question of Telemachus, asking where Menelaus had been during all the time that Ægisthus was about his crime[653];

ποῦ Μενέλαος ἔην;ἢ οὐκ Ἄργεος ἦεν Ἀχαιïκοῦ, ἀλλὰ πῇ ἄλλῃπλάζετ’ ἐπ’ ἀνθρώπους;

This seems clearly to include Sparta in AchaicArgos; and, this being so, no meaning is so suitable to it in this place as Eastern Peloponnesus. This construction is also eminently suitable to the relation between Eastern Peloponnesus and the Achæan power, which had its central seat there.

Undoubtedly Strabo treatsἈχαιïκὸν Ἄργοςas meaning the whole of Peloponnesus (viii. 5. p. 365, ibid. 6. p. 369), but the argument from Homer’s text seems to be against him: and even he admits from Od. iii. 249, that the term applied also to Laconia in particular:ἀλλὰ καὶ ἰδίως τὴν Λακωνικὴν οὕτω προσαγορευθῆναι[654].

As then it appears that the sense of Eastern Peloponnesus will suit the phraseἌργος Ἀχαιïκὸνin all the four passages where it is employed, while the more extended meaning of the whole Peloponnesus is required by none, and could only be even admissible in one (Od. iii. 249), we may conclude that Eastern Peloponnesus is the proper meaning of the phrase.

Iasian Argos.

We now come toἼασον Ἄργος.

In Od. xviii. 245, Eurymachus the Suitor, in paying a compliment to the beauty of Penelope, says to her, you would have more suitors than you have,

εἰ παντές σε ἴδοιεν ἀν’ Ἴασον Ἄργος Ἀχαιοί.

Now it must first be admitted, that this does not refer to any country out of the Peloponnesus. For in the first place, that was the most distinguished part of the country, and the chief Achæan seat; so that the intention of this speech therefore most naturally bears upon it. But also we have nothing in Homer to connect any local use of the wordἌργοςwith Middle Greece.

But if Eurymachus means nothing to the North of Peloponnesus, it is again most probable that he refers to that part of Peloponnesus with which Ithaca had most intercourse, where lay its relations of business, and of hospitality. Now this part was Western Peloponnesus, as we see from the journey of Ulysses to Ephyre (Od. i. 260); from the journey of Telemachus which, as it were, spontaneously takes that direction; from the course of public transactions implied in his speech (Od. iii. 82, cf. 72); from theχρεῖος, which Ulysses went to recover in Messene (Od. xxi. 15); from Nestor’s being the person to visit Ithaca in the matter of the great Trojan quarrel; and from the apprehension felt by the party of the Suitors, that Ulysses would forthwith repair to Elis, or to Pylos for aid. (Od. xxiv. 431.)

Just so the relations of Crete were with Eastern Peloponnesus; and therefore Helen at Troy recognises Idomeneus, because she has often seen him in Sparta. And this, I may observe in passing, is probably the reason why Ulysses, in the fictitious accounts which he gives of himself in Ithaca, is so fond of making himself a Cretan, namely that he may avoid any risk of detection, by placing his own proper whereabout at a distance beyond the ordinary range of intercourse.

Nor are we wholly without information from Homer on the subject of the original Iasus himself, from whom the name appears to be derived; and whose name we find still subsisting in Attica at the time of theTroica[655].

For a passage in the Eleventh Odyssey informs us that Amphion, son of Iasus[656], was a powerful prince inMinyeian Orchomenus: that his youngest daughter, the beautiful Chloris, was queen of Pylos: and that Neleus, marrying her, founded there the dynasty of the Neleids. Thus through Pylos we connect a powerful Iasid family with Western Peloponnesus, possibly five generations before the Trojan war, and at a time when we find from Homer that the Danaids or Perseus must have been reigning in Eastern Peloponnesus. This seems enough to justify putting the sense of Western Peloponnesus upon the phraseἼασον Ἄργοςin the speech of Eurymachus.

We may justly inquire whether it is so certain, as seems to be taken for granted, that the Minyeian Orchomenus, where Amphion reigned, was the Orchomenus of Bœotia. For his daughter Chloris was sovereign of Pylos, and we must suppose that sovereignty to have been not acquired by herself, but inherited from her father. Now it is very improbable that Amphion could have been sovereign at the same time of Pylos and of the northern Orchomenos: between which intervened an Æolid family settled at the Isthmus, another race of Hellenic chiefs, the line of Portheus, in Ætolia, and perhaps also the dynasty of Cadmus in Bœotia. We have no instance in Homer of the possession by the same prince of territories not continuous. Now there was there a river Minyeius, between Pylos and Elis; in Arcadia as well as in Bœotia there was an Orchomenos at the period of Homer; it seems then probable, that the name of that town should be combined with the Minyeian name in Peloponnesus as well as in Bœotia. If it were so, the political connection with Pylos is natural, and the application of the Iasian name to Western Peloponnesus becomes still more easy of explication. But even though the Orchomenos here named be Bœotian, thecase remains sufficiently clear. For it was once, or formerly (τότε) that Amphion reigned in Orchomenus; and the meaning may well be, that having in earlier life reigned there, he had afterwards accompanied the southward movement of the time, perhaps being expelled from his fat soil; and that he established, or re-established the connection between Western Peloponnesus and the Iasian name.

Lastly, the placeμέσον Ἄργοςseems to be equivalent to the English expression, ‘through the breadth of Argos,’ orall overArgos; and though we may think thatἌργοςalone means one side of the Peloponnesus,μέσον Ἄργοςmay very well mean the whole. In the speech of Diomed[657]to Glaucus, it cannot mean less than this: on the other hand, from its being the counterpart of Lycia, it may perhaps not less probably signify the whole of settled Greece, and thus be the equivalent ofπᾶν Ἄργοςin Il. ii. 108. But the more convenient sense for Od. xv. 80 is plainly the Peloponnesus, because then it squares precisely with Hellas in the same passage, and the two together make up the whole of Greece. But without disturbing the signification of the word Hellas, as meaning Northern and Middle Greece, we might still give toμέσονArgos the force of ‘all Greece.’ The words of Menelaus would then stand as if an inhabitant of London said to his friend a foreigner, ‘I will take you through Scotland and all Britain.’ It is difficult, however, to decide absolutely between these two senses ofμέσον Ἄργος. What we see plainly is, that the wordἌργοςhad taken the deepest root, and a very wide range, in connection with Greek settlements, and with such settlements only.

And now with respect to the line so much criticised,

ἐγχείῃ δ’ ἐκέκαστο Πανέλληνας καὶ Ἀχαιούς[658].

The wordΠανέλληνεςmay, we have seen, either mean the tribes of Greece beyond the Isthmus, or those of all Greece: in which latter and more likely sense it is coextensive withἈχαιοί. I here finally touch upon this verse along with those properly geographical, on account of the important combination which it involves.

The Apian land.

We find in Il. i. 270, iii. 49, and in Od. vii. 25, xvi. 18, the expressionἀπίη γαίη, which some of the grammarians, and the common opinion mentioned by Strabo[659], have explained to mean the Peloponnesus, while modern scholars render it simply distant[660]. In the two passages of the Iliad, the former construction is certainly more suitable: and the combination withτηλόθενin Il. i. 270, is tautological, flat, and un-Homeric, ifἀπίηmean merely distant. In Od. xvi. 18 either sense will serve the passage. In Od. vii. 25 (when we again haveτηλόθεν) Ulysses states himself to have comeἐξ ἀπίης γαίης. As he had not come from Peloponnesus, it is assumed that this is not the meaning. I question the reasoning. Ulysses everywhere, when questioned, shows an immense fertility in fiction about himself: in every case, however, carefully reporting himself to be come from a distant spot. I see no reason therefore why we should not construeἈπίη γαῖαto mean the Peloponnesus; in conformity with the tradition which Æschylus[661]reports concerning Apis, and with the undoubted usage of the tragedians. As I interpret the Outer or Romance-geography of the Odyssey, the Peloponnesus would be understood by the Phæacians of Homer to be extremely remote from their country. The difference of quantity is no sufficient reason against this construction. PlainlyἈπίη γαίη, if it be a proper name at all, means the whole Peloponnesus, and not a part of it, for Nestor in Il. i. 270 uses it so as to include the Western side, and Hector, Il. iii. 49, so as to include the Eastern.

Geographical definitions.

I will now sum up the conclusions to which this inquiry has brought us, either by certain or by probable evidence, with respect to Homer’s geographical nomenclature for Greece at large, and for its principal members.

1.ἈχαïὶςἈχαïὶς γαῖαinvariably mean the whole of Greece.Ἀχαιῒς αἶα

2.Ἄργοςeither alone, or with epithets other than those which concern geographical extension, means

(1) The city only, as in Il. iv. 52, and probably in Il. ii. 559.(2) The immediate dominions of Agamemnon in the north and north-east of Peloponnesus, as in Od. iii. 263.But it is possible, though by no means certain, thatἌργοςin this sense should be held to include the whole Pelopid dominions, which were looked upon as having a certain political unity, and thus to be the equivalent ofἌργος Ἀχαιïκόν.(3) By metonymy from this supreme and metropolitan quarter of Greece, it means the whole country.

(1) The city only, as in Il. iv. 52, and probably in Il. ii. 559.

(2) The immediate dominions of Agamemnon in the north and north-east of Peloponnesus, as in Od. iii. 263.

But it is possible, though by no means certain, thatἌργοςin this sense should be held to include the whole Pelopid dominions, which were looked upon as having a certain political unity, and thus to be the equivalent ofἌργος Ἀχαιïκόν.

(3) By metonymy from this supreme and metropolitan quarter of Greece, it means the whole country.

3. The phraseπᾶν Ἄργοςin Il. ii. 108 means the whole of Continental Greece.

4. The phraseμέσον Ἄργοςmeans most probably the whole of Greece, or Greece at large; possibly the Peloponnesus only.

5.Πελασγικὸν Ἄργοςis Thessaly, from Macedonia to Œta.

6.Ἀχαιïκὸν Ἄργοςmeans the Pelopid dominions of the Troic time, or in general words, Eastern Peloponnesus.

7.Ἴασον Ἄργοςmeans Western Peloponnesus.

8. The wordἝλλαςmeans

(1) probably a portion of the dominions of Achilles, as in Il. ii. 683, ix. 395;(2) certainly the country outside them to the southward of Phthia, down to the Isthmus of Corinth, and probably reaching northward through the rest of Thessaly: Il. ix. 447 and elsewhere;(3) it is possible thatἝλλαςmay mean all Greece in Od. i. 344, and xv. 80; but more likely that the sense is the same as in (2).

(1) probably a portion of the dominions of Achilles, as in Il. ii. 683, ix. 395;

(2) certainly the country outside them to the southward of Phthia, down to the Isthmus of Corinth, and probably reaching northward through the rest of Thessaly: Il. ix. 447 and elsewhere;

(3) it is possible thatἝλλαςmay mean all Greece in Od. i. 344, and xv. 80; but more likely that the sense is the same as in (2).

9. The phraseἈπίη γαίηmost probably, though not certainly, means the entire Peloponnesus.

What then was this nameἌργος, which Homer uses so much more frequently, and with so much more elasticity and diversity of sense, than any other territorial name whatever?

In the first place let us remark how rarely it is used for a city; in the strict sense of the word, we cannot be said to find it more than once. Its proper meaning is evidently a tract of country.

From this it is limited to the city to which the tract of country belonged: or it is extended to the country at large, of which the particular tract was the capital or governing part. Both these significations are what are termed improper: the latter is also political, and has no relation to race, or to an eponymist, or to anyphysical features of soil or scenery, whether the wordἌργοςmay have had such reference or not, when used in its original, proper, and usual application, to mean a district.

As previously with populations, let us now set out the various descriptions of source, to which the Homeric names of countries and places owe their origin.

They appear to be derived either

1. From an individual eponymist, as Ithaca from Ithacus, Od. xvii. 207; Dardania from Dardanus, Il. xx. 216; Ascanie from Ascanius, Il. ii. 863; while we see the intermediate stage of the process in the nameἈπίη, joined withγαῖα, supposed to indicate the Peloponnesus, and to be derived from Apis.

2. From a race in occupation: as in the case ofἈχαïὶς γαῖαandἈχαïὶςsimply, from the Achæans;Ἕλλαςfrom theἝλλοι;ΚρήτηorΚρηταὶ(Od. xiv. 199) from theΚρῆτες.

3. From its physical features or circumstances directly, such asΑἰγίαλοςfrom being a narrow strip along the shore of the Corinthian gulf, between the mountains and the sea: there is also a townΑἰγίαλοςof the Paphlagonians, Il. ii. 855. Probably we may addΕὔβοια, Eubœa, from the adaptation of that fertile island to tillage, which afterwards made it the granary of Athens.

4. From some race occupying it: and in the cases where that race has been named from any feature of the country, then, not directly but derivatively, from the country itself.

For instance,ΘρῄκηfromΘρῇκες, Thracians, which word again must come from a common root withτρᾶχυς. The nameΤρηχῖνhas obviously a similar origin.

So again in the later Greek we find the oldΑἰγίαλοςnamedΑἰγιάλειαfrom the intermediate formationΑἰγιαλεῖς:and perhapsἌργολιςfrom theἈργεῖοι, who inhabited it, and took their name fromἌργος.

And so in Homer we haveΦθίη; from that apparently comesΦθῖοι, and from this again, in the later Greek, Phthiotis.

Such then are the ordinary sources, as far as we know, of the territorial names of Homer.

The three aids which we have for judging of the meaning of the nameἌργοςare, the Homeric text, etymology, and the later tradition.

Etymology of the word Argos.

None of these in any manner connect the nameἌργοςeither with an eponymist, or with a race of inhabitants, either mediately or immediately, as its root. We can only therefore look for its origin in something related to the physical features of the country, or countries, to which it was applied.

The wordἄργοςitself is frequently found in Homer otherwise than as a proper name. It is used as an adjective in the following combinations:

1.κύνες ἀργοὶIl. i. 50.

2.βόες ἀργοὶIl. xxiii. 30.

3.ἀργὴν χῆναOd. xv. 161.

So also we have the compoundsἀργὴς (κέραυνος) ἀργικέραυνος,ἀργεστὴς (Νότος),ἀργενναὶ (ὀΐες, ὀθόναι),ἀργινόεις (Κάμειρος),ἀργιόδοντες (ὕες),ἀργιπόδες (κύνες),Ποδάργης(horse of Achilles).

And it is usual to give to the wordἀργὸς[662]in these several forms the several senses of

1. Swift, as in swift dogs, swift thunderbolt.

2. White, as in white goose, white (chalky) Cameirus.

3. Sleek, shining, as in sleek oxen, with glistening coats.

It is said truly, that what is swift in motion gives an appearance of shining: and what shines is in some degree akin to whiteness. But it is neither easy to say, in this view of the matter, which is the primary, and which the secondary, meaning of the word, nor what is its etymology. Nor does it show the slightest resemblance to the local nameἌργος, which, from the variety of its applications, apart from any question of race or political connection, must have had some etymological signification.

Nor, as regards theβόες ἀργοὶin particular, is it very easy to believe in the sleekness of the oxen in Homer’s time, (this seems to be rather an idea borrowed from the processes and experience of modern times,) or of the camp oxen of any time. Nor is the matter mended by two forced attempts, one to construeβόες ἀργοὶas oxen having white fat within them, or again, as slow oxen. From these sources, then, we can at present obtain no light.

Now I submit that the just signification of the proper nameἌργοςis to be found by considering it as akin to the wordἔργον, which plainly appears in Homer to have agricultural labours for its primary object. And it seems pretty clear, that by the transposition of letters which so commonly occurs in popular speech, especially during the infant state of languages, the wordἄγρος, ‘a field,’ is no more than a form ofἌργος.

K. O. Müller, as we have seen, considers thatἌργοςwith the ancients means a plain[663]: I would add a plain, not as being a flat surface, but as being formedof cultivable ground, or else it means a settlement formed upon such ground.

In speaking of the wordplainas applied to Greece, we use it relatively, not as it would be employed in reference to Russia or Hungary, but as meaning the broader levels between the hills, and commonly towards the sea: such as those valleys of Scotland which are calledcarses, or those calledstraths.

Now in the first place I know no other meaning of the wordἌργοςwhich will suit its various uses in Homer as Pelasgic Argos, Achaic Argos, Iasian Argos. What is the one common physical feature of the several regions that accounts for the common factor in these three compound expressions, if it be not that of plain, that is to say, cultivable, and cultivated, or settled country?

Again, look at the relation ofἌργοςtoἈργεῖοι. What except a physical and geographical meaning, still adhering to the word, and holding it somewhat short of the mature and familiar use of a proper name, can account for the fact that we have in the history and geography of Greece so many cases of an Argos, without Argives, that is local or provincial Argives, belonging to it? Achaic Argos indeed hasἈργεῖοιbelonging to it, but Pelasgic and Iasian Argos have none. Just so we might speak of the Highlands of Saxony, or of the Lowlands of Switzerland; but the inhabitants of the first are not known as Highlanders, nor those of the latter as Lowlanders[664].

I believe there are no phrases, which more nearly translate the wordsἌργοςandἈργεῖοι, than Lowlandsand Lowlanders respectively. For the word Lowlands means land not only lying low, but both lying low, and also being favourable for cultivation: and these ideas more truly represent the land fitted for the sort of settlement calledἌργος, than the mere idea of level plains.

If this be the idea of the word Argos, we see the propriety of its application to the city of Argos and its district. For this city stood, as a city of the town and more open country, in a certain opposition to Mycenæ, which nestled among the hills; and which bore geographically much the same relation to Argos, as Dardania to Ilion. It afterwards fell also into the same political analogy.

In the phraseἈχαιïκὸν Ἄργος, Homer deals with a case where, as it is sometimes applied without an epithet,Ἄργοςmay justly be called a proper name, like the EuropeanPays-bas; but there is no evidence of this in his ‘Pelasgic Argos,’ and ‘Iasian Argos,’ and it seems likely that he rather intends in those phrases to employ the term Argos as a word simply descriptive, and to speak of the Pelasgian Lowlands, and the Iasian Lowlands. The difference of sense is just that which we should indicate in English by the absence of the capital letter.

There is evidence that the name had not exhausted its elasticity even after Homer’s time. In later ages we find an Argos of Orestis in Macedonia; an Argos of Amphilochia in Western Greece; an Argos near Larissa in Thessaly[665], and other cases more remote. Nothing but a geographical force still adhering to the word will account for this extension.

The same is the inference to be drawn from the epithets and quasi-epithets, or descriptive phrases, applied to it by Homer. With the exception of one passage, where he gives it the political epithet[666]κλυτὸν, they are all physical; beingἱππόβοτον,πολυδίψιον,πολύπυρον, andοὖθαρ ἀρούρης. Of these four epithets, the first is in Homer peculiarly connected with the specific form and character of the country: accordingly, while it is the standing epithet of Argos, being used with it eleven times out of only fifteen in which the word has any epithet or quasi-epithet attached to it, it is never found with Achæis, or with Hellas. And the proof of its physically descriptive character lies in the passage where Telemachus gives to Menelaus an account of Ithaca;

ἐν δ’ Ἰθάκῃ οὔτ’ ἀρ’ δρόμοι εὔρεες, οὔτε τι λείμων·αἰγίβοτος, καὶ μᾶλλον ἐπήρατος ἱπποβότοιο[667].

Theἱππόβοτοςof Homer, again, does not point merely to fertility, but also to labour and its results; not merely to pasture, but also to grain, for the horses of Homer are fed on this as well as on herbage,

κρῖ λευκὸν ἐρεπτόμενοι καὶ ὀλεύρας[668].

Now, in referring the wordἌργοςto a common root and significancy withἔργον, we are not bound to hold that it attains its initial vowel by junction with the particleἀused in its intensive sense. For we have the word, and also its derivatives, in this form, coming down to us from the old Greek. Among the four tribes of Attica which subsisted until the time of Cleisthenes[669], one was that of theἌργαδεςor husbandmen: and in the Elian inscription supposed to date about the Fortieth Olympiad[670], or more than 600 years B. C., we have the very wordἔργονin the formἄργον, with the digamma, in a passage which I copy,

ΑΙΤΕϜΕΠΟΣ ΑΙΤΕϜΑΡΓΟΝ

This inscription, says the Article in theMuseum Criticum, is of older date than any other which has either been brought in copy from Greece, or is to be found on the marbles. The matter of it is a public treaty, between the Elians and some of their neighbours, concluded for an hundred years.

Another good example of the interchange of the vowelsαandεis in the wordἀρόω, which it is obvious to derive fromἔρα, the earth. In the Latin we see both forms preserved, the one inaroto plough, the other inseroto sow. And this latter suggests the derivation of the Greekσπείρωfrom a similar source.

If then the meaning ofἌργοςbe an agricultural settlement, and its root the same with that ofἔργον, we need not now discuss at large whether that root be the old wordἔραor terra, which however appears to be probable, and which accounts both for the especial reference of the wordἔργονin Homer to tillage, the oldest industry, and for the subsequent extension of its meaning to labour and its results in general.

The etymology tested by kindred words.

Now, having this view of the wordsἌργοςandἔργον, we shall find, in the fundamental idea of labour itself, a meaning which will furnish a basis for the Homeric adjective, and for all its compounds in all their varied applications. That idea is always in relation with what is earnest, and (so to speak) strengthful; sometimes this takes the form of keenness, and thencomes in the idea of swiftness in conjunction with labour: sometimes, again, it takes the form of patience, and then labour suggests slowness. The labour of a dog is swift, that of an ox is patient: hence theκύνες ἄργοιare laborious dogs, therefore swift; and hence too theβόες ἄργοιare laborious oxen, therefore slow; the office of the one being to cover space, and of the other to overcome resistance. We may bring the two senses near without any loss in either case, by calling the oxen sturdy or sedulous, and the dogs strenuous or keen.

The third sense of whiteness legitimately attaches to the effect of rapid motion upon the eye.

The sense of sleekness does not appear to be required in Homer: but it may be a derivative from that of whiteness.

By one or more of the three first senses, or by the original sense of labour in its (so to speak) integral idea, all the Homeric words may be justly rendered. Some of them will bear either the sense of swift, or that of white: for instance,ἀργὴςwithκεραυνός. In Aristotle[671], de Mundo, c. 4, we haveτῶν κεραυνῶν ... οἱ ταχέως διάττοντες, ἀργῆτες λέγονται. And again,ἀργεστὴςwithΝότος. This may mean the fleet Notus: it may also mean white, as carrying the light white cloud from over the sea, in the sense taken by Horace, who appears to have been an accurate and careful observer of Homeric epithets; and who says,

Albus ut obscuro deterget nubila cœloSæpe Notus[672].

This sense of the word Argos will suit other uses of it which have not been yet named.

For instance, it will suit the ship Argo, which we mayconsider as swift, or, and perhaps preferably, as stout, strong, doing battle with the waves: as we now say, a good ship, or a gallant ship. Again, it suits the noble dog Argus of the Odyssey, whose character would be but inadequately represented by either patient, swift, or white. Considering this word as the adjective of the word which describes what has been well called by a writer of the present day, “noble, fruitful labour,” we at once see him before us, swift as he had been, and patient as he was, but also brave, faithful, trustful, and trustworthy. Argus the spy, named in theἈργειφόντηςof Homer, represents one side of the early meaning of the word[673]. The adjectiveἀργαλέος, exaggerating as well as isolating that element of difficulty which the root comprises, represents another: and the later wordἀργοῦντες[674], the idle, catching the idea of slowness at the point where it passes into inertness, similarly represents yet another.

Such being the case in regard to the nameἌργος, we shall now have an easy task in dealing withἈργεῖοι.

Homer employs this word in four places (to speak in round numbers) for three in which he usesΔαναοί.

He employs it as an epithet, sometimes with the name of Juno, and frequently with the name of Helen.

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