Chapter 23

Duration of the name in Thessaly.

Here again history comes in to our aid. Throughout the historic times of Greece, and down to the era of Polybius, there were Achæans of Phthiotis. When, 205 years before Christ, Quintius, the Roman general, examined into the origin of the Greek cities, and madea classification of them[806], the Achæans of Phthiotis were declared to be Thessalians: and he appears to use the name for all Phthians, since he calls Phaxidas[807]an Achæan, seemingly for no other reason than that he was an inhabitant of Melitea, a city of Phthiotis.

I take it then to be sufficiently proved, that Agamemnon and his house were the proper heads of the Achæan race, which rose with them. The proof is doubled by the fact that they fell with it: for in the post-Homeric literature, all of which follows the Dorian conquest, the Achæan name has ceased to be a living name for the nation of the Greeks.

And as the Pelopids were the leaders of the Achæans, so I now assume it to be sufficiently shown from Homer, that the Achæans were in his time at the head of all the Hellenic families and tribes; of the Dorians, the Æolids, the Cephallenes, and whatever others came from the same stock, and were in fact, for their age, the proper type of Hellenism itself.

That most remarkable supremacy of Agamemnon over the Greek nation, which is so strongly marked on the page of Homer, and to the force of which Thucydides ascribes the wonderful movement of the Trojan war, left behind it a tradition which it was thought worth while by the ruling race of Dorians to appropriate, even after the shipwreck of the old political system.

Orestes came to the throne of Agamemnon, and Tisamenus to that of Orestes. He was cast out by the Heraclids with the Dorians, and they made Sparta the chief seat of their power. Thus established in the primacy of Greece, they held it, under the name ofἩγεμονία, contested sometimes, but only after the lapse of several ages, by Athens: never absolutelytaken away, until it passed, as Polybius says, unexpectedly, into the hands of the Thebans, in the fourth century before the Christian era.

Tisamenus and his Achæans went into Ægialus, and gave it their own name. But the imperial Spartans found it for their interest to put in their claim to the old Agamemnonian title. So, as Pausanias[808]informs us, even down to his day, the Tomb of Tisamenus was shown in Sparta, and hard by it the Lycurgian feast of Pheiditia was kept; with a tradition that their fathers, admonished by an oracle, had fetched the remains of the last Pelopid sovereign from Helice in Achæa. On the other hand, the Achæans, who in the time of Polybius[809]had not yet ceased to keep the image of their legendary ancestor Achæus, and whose claim to that image was recognised by the Roman general, likewise cherished a tradition that the family of Tisamenus had been continued, and had reigned among them down to the time of Ogygus[810], when their League was formed upon the basis of democratic institutions.

Dorians appropriate the Pelopid succession.

Now it is no more than we might expect, that the Achæans should, in their depressed fortunes, fondly cherish the recollections of their glory, by preserving and honouring the memory of the last of that race, who, through being their sovereigns, were also the heads of the Greek nation. But why did the Dorians exhibit an anxiety of a kind in their position so remarkable? Such a feeling could hardly have existed, had there not been a special character attaching to the Pelopid race, as possessed not only of an actual supremacy, but of some peculiar title by descent, to which it was worth the while of the Dorian sovereigns to lay claim, as a kind of heirs by adoption. We do not find that when the Pelopids came in with theirAchæans, they had shown any corresponding solicitude to connect themselves with the memory of Danaids or of Perseids: on the contrary, Homer expressly disconnects the dynasties, by assigning to the Pelopids a new sceptre, fresh by the hands of Mercury from Jupiter. It seems to follow, that in all likelihood the Pelopids had something which neither Danaids nor Perseids possessed before them, and which the Dorians too did not hold at all, or did not hold by so clear a title: the honour, namely, not of Hellenic blood alone, but of being ruled by a family which represented an original and primitive sovereignty over the Hellenic nation, through its foremost, or Achæan tribe.

This is the more remarkable, because the Dorian sovereigns of Sparta claimed Hercules, and through him Jupiter, for their progenitor. But the patriarchal chieftaincy, though not more directly connected with a divine stock, had superadded to it that accumulation of dignity, which depends upon the unbroken transmission of power from the most remote historic origin: and Hercules was modern in comparison with those to whom some of the Hellenic families were able (as we have seen) to trace their ancestry.

Were we to give credit to the common tradition respecting Hellen and his sons, I admit that it would raise a new difficulty in the way of the construction, which I propose to attach to theἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Instead of seeing Agamemnon invested with it because he is head of the Achæans, and highly favoured by a special, nay by an almost exclusive appropriation of it, because they are the foremost Hellenic tribe, we should have to own in them the youngest of all the branches from that stem, with Dorians, Æolians, and Ionians too, taking precedence of them: and we should have to look, and look in vain, for any trace or presumptionwhatever of his descent from that Achæus, whom the tradition feigns to have existed.

But with the acknowledgment of Homer’s historical authority, the credit of that tradition falls; as indeed it is etymologically self-convicted by the formation of its cardinal name Hellen.

The Achæan prominence in Homer rests on grounds sufficiently clear: over the Ionians, who appear to be not even an Hellenic race; over the Dorians, latent in the Pylian town of Dorion, or among the sister races of Crete, where they are as yet wholly undistinguished: over the Æolids, (for there are no Æolians,) because these are single shoots only, while the Achæans are a branch, a principal section of the Hellenic race; and also, as I think may be shown[811], because of all Hellenes they appear really to have had the most normal connection with the true fountain-head of their race.

Nowhere among the Dorians, and (of course, if the Ionians are Pelasgian,) nowhere among the Ionians, have we any trace of the nameἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, or of the thing indicated by it. May not this be the reason that the Dorian kings of Sparta sought (so to speak) to serve themselves heirs to the house of Agamemnon?

I may observe in passing, as to the Ionians, that it has recently been held that they are not only Hellenic, but the oldest Hellenes: that they parted from the rest of the race in Asia, came into Greece by the islands, and were its great sea-faring race. This theory, ably as it has been supported, is but doubtfully agreeable to the positive or negative evidence of Homer: still it is not less fatal to the current tradition of Hellen and his family, than that which views the Ionians as more nearly connected with the Pelasgians[812].

Only among Achæans, Æolids, and Dardanians, do we find the patriarchal title ofἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. The Dardan house fell with the Trojan war. The throne of Augeias had given way even before that great crisis. It is probable that the line of Euphetes was then no longer in existence; else we must have heard of it in the Catalogue, or during the action. The realm of Eumelus was remote and small, and if it had been wrecked in the convulsions of the period, it would leave nothing upon which the Dorians could lay hold as a point of junction with the past. But they had come into the very dominions of the family of Pelops, though with a transfer of the metropolis from Mycenæ to Sparta. Here was the true Greek Patriarchate, of which for purposes of policy they might well desire to become the ostensible representatives.

Spurious Tradition of the Hellenidæ.

The legend of the Hellenidæ might probably be meant to cooperate towards the same end. Its determinate form I have ventured to discard: but its spirit and intention have their importance in connection with the subject of the extraction of the Greeks. It affords early witness to the general belief in the derivation of the Greek races from Thessaly: and though it does not suffice of itself to prove that a Dorus or an Ion came from thence, yet it is of great importance as a testimony to their general connection with Thessaly, and it powerfully corroborates evidence such as Homer affords to that effect in the case of the Achæans. Nor are we entirely without Homeric evidence of a connection between the Dorians and the Achæans, and thus between the Dorians and Thessaly. For the Dorians are found in Crete together with the Achæans (Od. xix.), and in the dominions of Nestor peopled by Achæans we find the town calledΔώριον, Il. ii. 594. As, however, the greatDorian mass came into Peloponnesus not under a family of Dorian rulers, but under Heraclids, their connection with the old Hellas was not maintained by any regal tradition, and hence perhaps the need of the legend of Hellen to revive the memory of it.

Let us now endeavour to gather together the threads of the argument.

It is plain that Agamemnon was not calledἄναξ ἀνδρῶνon account of his great monarchy; because other great monarchs want the title, and, again, other insignificant lords hold it.

Nor did he possess it on the ground of autochthonism: for the Achæans were immigrants into the Peloponnesus, and not autochthons, and they had been preceded by other races.

Neither was it borne by him on the ground of a divine descent more direct or more illustrious than that of others: for his divine descent would in that case at least have been specifically stated, instead of being left to remote and hazardous inference. Nor is the title borne by Achilles, who was the great grandson of Jupiter, or by Hercules or Minos, who were his sons.

If sovereignty and antiquity be connected with the title, they are not of themselves sufficient to confer it: and if divine descent be a condition of it, this must be joined with other conditions.

These negatives, established in the case of Agamemnon, leave room, I believe, for but one supposition; namely, that theἄναξ ἀνδρῶνmust indicate chieftaincy, or in other words, the lineal headship, passing by seniority, of one among the ruling or royal houses, who represent the stem of a particular race, in his case the Achæan branch of the Hellenic family; and who govern, and have continuously governed, those of theirown name or branch. Of these royal houses there might be many, allied together by common derivation, at the same or different epochs, from a common stem.

Summary of the Evidence.

In sum, the Homeric picture appears to be as follows.

First we have the remote and wintry Dodona of Thessaly, the most ancient and most awful seat of the religious worship of the Greeks; in connection with which Achilles invokes Jupiter for the success and safe return of Patroclus.

Around Dodona dwell the Selli or Helli. The special veneration paid to the place points it out as the oldest site of the national worship; and the possession of this oldest site again points out the tribe as the mother-tribe of that wonderful Greek race, whose fame is graven ineffaceably upon the rock with a pen of iron.

From among the Helli of the mountains, who nowhere appear among the contingents of the Greek army, must have proceeded the migratory bands who gave to the Thessalian plain the name of Hellas. Their descendants fix themselves as settlers there. Beguiled into civilization, they become Hellenes; they spread, by their inborn elastic energies, towards the south, and carry with them, only a little in their rear, the very title of their Hellenic origin, as well as their own peculiar name.

The ruling families of their septs or clans give each to its actual head, if not to its heir, the dignity ofἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, and this title they carry forth with them to the southern provinces in which they plant themselves.

One of these ruling families, the head of the great sept of the Achæans, carries the right to this title in the case of Agamemnon: and inasmuch as it betokens what is both oldest and highest in descent and in civil authority in the whole group of the Hellenic tribes, itforms an appropriate and characteristic designation for their chief ruler and leader.

Having thus considered the case of Agamemnon, the great Achæan chieftain, in this view, we may proceed to the other cases of Anchises and Æneas, of Augeias, Euphetes, and Eumelus.

In none of these cases, however, have we the same right to assumein liminethe character of chieftainship by known lineage from an Hellenic family, as in the case of the Achæans. The cases of Anchises and Æneas may indeed be treated on grounds of their own. In the other instances, we must inquire what ground Homer furnishes for especially connecting these persons with the headship of ruling families, and with Hellas or Thessaly.

This I shall do, subject to the general rule, that if in any particular case there can be found a special mark of connection with Thessaly or Hellas in or about a particular spot, it is thereupon to be inferred that in that particular place the connection was known and commemorated. If, for example, we find at a given point anἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, reason binds us to presume that, as the local name might show the derivation from the first seat of the race, so by this title the lineal descent from a ruling family there was meant to be commemorated and marked.

But first for Anchises and Æneas.

Homer is the historian as well as the poet of Greece: but he is neither the poet nor the historian of Troy, further than as it was necessary for him to describe generally to the Greeks the race with whom they had been engaged in a death-struggle.

The strong resemblance between the two nations, and especially their partaking, to a certain extent, of a common lineage, seems to have constituted a difficulty in his way. Already in his time the sentiment of Greek nationality was strong. Whether he chiefly found or made it so, is nothing to the present purpose. This sentiment of nationality required to be circumscribed by a clear line, marking the extent of the Greek political organisation; and if it was unfavourable to the acknowledgment of relationship to any race beyond that line, especially was it so in the case of a race that the Greeks had conquered. Probably therefore the purpose of Homer required that he should instinctively as it were keep in special obscurity the notes of kindred between the two countries.

In the case of the Greeks, Homer has intelligibly pointed out the origin of the race among the hills of Northern Thessaly round the ancient Dodona, and near Olympus, its poetical counterpart, and the residence of Jupiter with his gorgeous train. Yet more clearly has he in the case of the Trojans enabled us to trace them to their fountain-head, again in the mountains, and beside the roots, of Ida, where they worshipped the Idæan Jove[813]. We have here the race without predecessors, residing in the very spot where they were planted by their divine progenitor, and coming down by a clear line of seven generations to the cousins Hector and Æneas.

Cases of Anchises and Æneas.

But although the conditions of chieftaincy are thus obviously fulfilled in the race of Dardanus, yet difficulty presents itself in a new form. Why is the termἄναξ ἀνδρῶνapplied to Anchises and to his son Æneas, but never to Priam, or to his son Hector, or to any of his family?

The answer to this question opens a curious chapter of Homeric history and speculation. In going through it I shall endeavour carefully to separate between positive statement, and interpretation or conjecture.

These facts then are on the face of the poem.

1. Anchises nowhere personally appears in it. And yet there was at Troy an assembly ofδημογέροντες(Il. iii. 146-8). Of the persons there mentioned, Lampus, Clytius, and Hiketaon were brothers of Priam; others, for example, Panthus and Antenor, were in the exercise of at the very least a subaltern sovereignty. They were present at Troy, while their sons fought in the Trojan ranks. The reason, therefore, of the absence of Anchises is not to be sought in his being represented by Æneas. Nor in the immunity of his dominions, through their being placed among the mountains, from war: for Æneas himself, before he came to Troy, had only been rescued by divine interposition from the hands of Achilles[814]. Why then does Anchises never appear? Either surely because of the high rank of his sovereignty, or because of some unexplained rivalry between the families.

Evidence as to Æneas.

2. It does not appear that Æneas took any part in the councils of the Trojans. But still he is always represented as a personage of the greatest importance. It is said of him, as of Hector,θεὸς δ’ ὡς τίετο δήμῳ[815]. Yet his character would seem to be wholly unmarked by any great or striking quality, such as we find in Sarpedon and in Polydamas. Something peculiar then in his birth and position must have been the cause of the importance attached to him, as it is not to be found in his personal qualities.

3. Accordingly, there are clear indications of ajealousy between Æneas himself and the Trojan royal family. In the great battle of B. x. 118, Deiphobus, wanting aid, goes to seek Æneas (459-61).

τὸν δ’ ὕστατον εὗρεν ὁμίλουἐστάοτ’· αἰεὶ γὰρ Πριάμῳ ἐπεμήνιε δίῳοὕνεκ’ ἀρ’, ἔσθλον ἔοντα μετ’ ἀνδράσιν, οὔτι τίεσκεν.

Now this aversion is wholly foreign to the character of Priam, which was genial and kindly: nor can it be accounted for by any thing in the very neutral character of Æneas. There is an opinion of some critics, that he and Anchises had given offence by advising the restoration of Helen. This, however, seems (B. iii. 159) to have been the general wish of theδημογέροντες, to whom it is expressly ascribed; and it is Antenor, who proposes it in the Assembly; why then should it not, if it existed, be mentioned by Homer in the case of Æneas and Anchises? Yet there is not the faintest reference to it. It would still, however, appear insufficient to account for the feeling imputed to Priam. Coupling it with the high position of Æneas, and the absence of Anchises, I cannot but think there is most probably a reference here to the headship of the family, which is designated by the termἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Nothing could be more natural than this jealousy between the recent and wealthy city of the plain on the one hand, and the ancient but comparatively poor city of the hills on the other, if the ruling family of Dardania claimed by seniority the chieftaincy of the race.

4. Another remarkable indication of the peculiar position of Æneas is afforded by the taunt of Achilles (Il. xx. 179-83),

ἦ σέ γε θυμὸς ἐμοὶ μαχέσασθαι ἀνώγειἐλπόμενον Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξειν ἱπποδάμοισιντιμῆς τῆς Πριάμου;

‘But you will not get it,’ he proceeds, ‘for Priam has children of his own, and is no fool.’

To this taunt Æneas makes no reply, except by stating his genealogy, for which Achilles had not asked. Is not this very like justifying his expectation of the throne? or what other connecting link can be pointed out between the taunt of Achilles, and the genealogy given in answer to the challenge it conveyed?

5. While Ilion, the city of Priam, was later by several generations, probably having been founded in the reign of Ilus, Anchises reigned in Dardania, the original seat (Il. xx. 216) of the race. The fact of his sovereignty there seems to be indicated by our finding Æneas in command of the Dardanians, with two sons of Antenor, who probably served as his lieutenants (ii. 819-23): by the connection which that passage establishes between Anchises and the hill country, inhabited (Il. xx. 216) by the Dardanians; by the division of the royal line at the point where the Ilian name first appears (Il. xx. 231); and by a number of places showing the high position in the army which Æneas held, as head of the Dardanian force.

6. The rank of Æneas was without any rival or parallel in the Trojan army, except Hector. Though strictly speaking Dardanian, he is addressed as

Αἰνεία, Τρώων βουλήφορε·

His name is often combined with that of Hector, and when so combined frequently precedes it. Thus we have (vi. 75),

εἰ μὴ ἄρ’ Αἰνείᾳ τε καὶ Ἕκτορι εἶπε κ.τ.λ.

To this are subjoined, by Helenus, words which assign to Æneas a parity of command with Hector:

Αἰνεία τε καὶ Ἕκτορ, ἐπεὶ πόνος ὔμμι μάλισταΤρώων καὶ Λυκίων ἐγκέκλιται[816].

If it be thought that metrical considerations had to do with putting Æneas in these places as well as in xx. 240, before Hector, so they might have to do with placing Ilus before Assaracus in the genealogy.

It is asserted of him by Mars in the person of Acamas, Il. v. 467,

κεῖται ἀνὴρ ὅντ’ ἶσον ἐτίομεν Ἕκτορι δίῳ,Αἰνείας, υἱὸς μεγαλήτορος Ἀγχίσαο.

Lastly, we have the prophecy of Neptune that the sceptre of Dardanus should continue in the line of Anchises (Il. xx. 302-8).

And, as regards the application to Æneas of the title which properly belonged to Anchises, this seems to connect itself with the practice of the heroic age as to a devolution of sovereignty, either partial or total, by aged men upon their heirs. We seem to find another example of this in the case of Eumelus; and the instances of Achilles, and especially of Ulysses, are also in point.

7. As the character of Æneas does not account for the jealousy felt towards him, so neither does his conduct. He nowhere thwarts Hector by opposition, or tries him by advice that he is not inclined to take. Of this course of proceeding we have an instance; but it is in Polydamas. If, then, neither the character nor the conduct of Æneas supply the explanation, we must look for it in some claims that he was entitled to make in virtue of lineage, and that consequently attracted jealousy towards him.

8. Although it has been assumed that Priam was the head of the Trojan race and federation, this is not stated by Homer. In Il. xxiv. 544 it is only said thathe excelled the other princes of that region, (1) in his wealth, and (2) in the number, or possibly it may mean the excellence of his sons. On the contrary, it is doubtful, by the mere words of the poem, whether Priam represented the senior or the junior line, and when we compare and draw inferences from the text, we may arrive at the conclusion that it was the junior line, quite as easily as at an opposite one; especially if we shall find, that the rights of seniority itself were less determinate in Troas, than in Greece.

In the genealogy of the Twentieth Book, we find no assistance towards elucidating this question, except in the precedence given to names. The three sons of Tros stand in the following order:

1. Ilus.2. Assaracus.3. Ganymedes.

Then (1) the fate of Ganymedes is described;

(2) the line of Ilus is traced down to Priam;

(3) that of Assaracus is traced to Anchises.

Here the line of Priam has precedence: but on the other hand, lastly, Æneas proceeds to state his own birth from Anchises, before that of Hector from Priam,

αὐτὰρ ἔμ’ Ἀγχίσης, Πρίαμος δ’ ἔτεχ’ Ἕκτορα δῖον[817].

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 himἄναξ 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; whichwas 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 phraseἄναξ ἀνδρῶνfor Anchises (v. 268), and shortly after for his heir Æneas (v. 311).

Summary of the Evidence.

To sum up the evidence. We find the phraseἄναξ ἀνδρῶνapplied 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 notthe 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 theἄναξ 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 thatἄναξ ἀνδρῶνis 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 ofἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Butthe 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 Egyptiansἀλλόθροοι ἄνθρωποι[823]: and that phrase is an usual one with him, evidently representing a familiar idea. But he never calls the Trojansἀλλόθροοι, norspeaks of them as having different manners or religion from the Greeks. The strongest word applied to them isἀλλοδάπος[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 anἀλλοδάποςto the Trojans, but Greek pirates are usually said to attackἀλλοδάποι, 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 offἄνδρας 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. TheΠελασγοὶof the Trojans are among theἐπίκουροι(Il. ii. 840): theΠελασγοὶof the Greeks appear as one of the Cretan races, distinct from the Dorians and Achæans, andprobably 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 wordΤρῶεςevidently 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 theἐπίκουροιin 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 ἵπποιαἴθωνες 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 theσόλος, 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 thesea 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 itἀγάῤῥοος[828]. At other times he calls itπλατὺς, and the commentators have been much puzzled to show how a narrow strait could be a broad one, while the interpretationsalthas 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 theἀγάῤῥοος, which signifies the Strait. The expressionπλατὺς Ἑλλήσποντοςis 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. Whatπλατὺςsuggests, 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 isdemonstrable 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 passingἙλλήσποντον ἐπ’ ἰχθυόεντα[833],overthe 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 nameπόντοςat 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].

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