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 mareΑἴθη[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 phraseἄναξ 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 aninfusion 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 theἄναξ ἀνδρῶνamong 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.
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 overthe 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 Αὐγείαςκάσχεθε.
τοὺς δ’ αὖθι ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Αὐγείαςκάσχεθε.
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].
The case of Augeias.
Nestor in the first fight had slain a warrior namedΜούλιος. 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.
ἣ τόσα φάρμακα ᾔδη, ὅσα τρέφει εὐρεῖα χθών.
K. O. Müller (Orchomenus, p. 355) infers from theCatalogue, 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 thisἄναξ 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 atthe time from Œchalia[837], in the valley of the Upper Peneus, a part of the Homeric Thessaly or Hellas proper. (Il. ii. 730.)
The nameΘρῂξ, 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 forexample, 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 theTroica; 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 theΠύρασος[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 theΦῆρες.
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 tracedand 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 readΦεραὶ, and, according to the Scholiast, the same withΦῆραι. 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 withΦεαί.
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 ofΦεραὶin Il. ii. 711.
2.Φέρης, one of the sons of Cretheus, a Thessalian king, Od. xi. 259.
3. TheΦῆρες, termedὀρέσκῳοιin Il. i. 268, andλαχνηέντεςin 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, thatΦήρηandΦηραὶwere the same place. The name of Eumelus, who lives atΦεραὶ, and who is the grandson ofΦέρης, yet is calledΦηρητιάδης, clearly establishes the etymological relationship. Thus there is, again, no difficulty whatever in recognising betweenΦεραὶandΦεαὶ, or again betweenΦεαὶandΦείαι; and it is in the manner of Homer to give the name of the same country both in the singular and in the plural, asΜυκήνη, Il. iv. 52, andΜυκηναὶ, Il. ii. 569.Φᾶρις, the only remaining name, gives us the Doric or Æolicαforη, and an altered form of declension. This however is not at all incompatible with the manner of Homer, who not only usesΠηνελόπηandΠηνελόπεια,ἈστυόχηandἈστυόχεια,Πηρείη(according to one reading), Il. ii. 766, andΠιερίη, Od. v. 50, butἙρμῆςandἙρμείας, ΠατροκλέηςandΠατρόκλος; and for towns, theΘρύονof Il. ii. 591 appears again asΘρυόεσσαin 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. Thusθρύονisa rush, andθρυοεὶςrushy. The townΘρύονin the Catalogue is at the ford of the Alpheus, and in Il. xi. 711 it isτις Θρυόεσσα πόλις, αἰπεῖα κολώνη, which exhibits to us the adjective use in an actual example. So again by analogy we might haveΦῆριςfromΦήραorΦήρη, asπάτριςfromπάτρα,ἀναλκὶςfromἄλκη.
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 nameΣελληείς. 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]. TheΠροέληνοιof 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 anἄναξ 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 withἔραas 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 employsἔραζεwithout the digamma: and which prefix we find reproduced in the Latinterra.
TheΦῆρες.
Let us now pass on to theΦῆρες.
TheΦῆρεςof Homer are, like theἝλλοι, 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 isἐτίσατο[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 hisἈχαιοί. Neither of these pairs of names are territorial: while in each pair one probably indicates a subdivision of the other.
TheΦῆρεςthus resembling theἝλλοι, we are led by their designation to another link between the name ofΦῆραιwith its cognates and the Hellic race. It seems thus far as ifΦηραὶwere the appropriate name of a settlement formed byΦῆρες.
Having proceeded thus far, we may now observe the relation of the wordΦὴρ,
1. To the Greekἔρα, which evidently, from its passing into the Latinterra, had at one time a Greek prefix. With this we may probably associate the Greekἔαρ, and the Latinver.
2. To the Greekθὴρ, a wild beast.
3. To the Latinfera, with the same meaning.
4. To the Latinterra, meaning the earth.
5. To the Italianterra, 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 Italianterraseems often to meantellus, oftenhumus, very rarelyager, constantlyoppidumorcastrum. Thus in Dante (Inferno, C., v. 97), ‘Siedela terra, dove nata fui.’
This being so, it is natural to suppose that, while the correlative of the Greekἔραbecame in Latinterra, so as directly to signifytellusorhumus, that of the GreekΦηρὰbecame in Italianterra, so as to signify a walled place; or, in other words, that the original word, whatever it was, of the common mother language, which becameΦηρὰin Greek, in Italy becameterrafor this latter purpose. The exchange ofθfortwe see inἐσθὴςbecomingvestis: and oftforf(=φ) inτρυγάωcompared withfruges.
This sense ofterraseems to have dropped altogether out of the Latin, and especially Pelasgian, branch of the old Italian tongue.
The relation betweenΦὴρandθὴρ, 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 wordἔρα, the earth, and they seem to haveἐρorἠρfor their common root.
Before passing on toἘφύρη, 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. HisΦῆρεςappear to be in fact the rude and uncombed mountaineers, who also have the name ofἝλλοιin the same or other tribes. TheseΦῆρεςareλαχνηέντες, shaggy. They come down to the plains, and acquire settled and civilised habits: fromΦῆρεςthey are becomeἈχαιοὶ, but their long hair has not left them, and fromλαχνηέντεςthey are nowκαρηκομόωντες.
Now we find the wordἘφύρηused many times in Homer: and once we have the nameἜφυροι, applied to a people apparently Thessalian, on whom Mars[851], with his sonΦόβος, makes war from out of Thrace.
Etymology ofἘφύρη.
Can we then presume an etymological connection between the wordἘφύρη, 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 prefixε.
2. The change ofεorηforυ.
Dr. Donaldson[852]has given a list of Greek words which have, as prefixes unconnected with the root, sometimes the letterα, sometimesε, sometimesο.
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 findingφυρη, instead ofφερηorφηρη?
Can it be because, in cases of Greek syllabic augment, there is a tendency to avoid reduplication, as inἀτιτάλλωforἀτατάλλω? 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 theυ, which Heyne has observed[853]?
Or, shall we found it on the principles laid down by Bopp[854], in his Comparative Grammar, that theαhas a tendency to weaken itself intoυ, and that liquids having a preference for that latter vowel, influence the generation of it? the conditions of interchange betweenαandυresting, 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 theαwhich we find inφᾶρις.
It is not onlyαthat we may find supplanted byυ. Theεsuffers the same fate in the ItalianSiculus, which appears as the representative of the GreekΣίκελος. Again we have, in the Latin, the kindred wordsfuroandfera. Perhaps I am wrong in dealing thus scrupulously with the variation fromεtoυ, as if capable of affecting vitally the question of identity in the root. For in examining another root (that ofκεφάλη), 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 thatἘφύρηandΦηραὶmaybe drawn etymologically from the same root. If so, that root will be probably the same with that ofἔρα, and ofφῆρof 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 thatἘφύρηandΦεραὶmay properly denote, and may be the original and proper Hellic name for theterre(Ital.), or walled places, founded by the Hellic races; asἌργοςsignifies the open districts in which the Pelasgians were given to settlingκωμηδὸν, 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 theἜφυροιas 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 calledἐριβώλαξ[855], in Thessaly, or in Elis. For Homer gives us, as to the last, direct evidence of the fact, by his epithetsεὐρύχορος, open, andἱππόβοτος, 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 calledἄφνειος. 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 periodat 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 theχρησμόλογοςin the Aves of Aristophanes says (Av. 968),
ἀλλ’ ὅταν οἰκήσωσι λύκοι πολιαί τε κορώναιἐν ταυτῷ τὸ μεταξὺ Κορίνθου καὶ Σικυῶνος.
ἀλλ’ ὅταν οἰκήσωσι λύκοι πολιαί τε κορώναιἐν ταυτῷ τὸ μεταξὺ Κορίνθου καὶ Σικυῶνος.
In the same sense as where Shakespeare says,
When Birnam wood shall move to Dunsinane.
When Birnam wood shall move to Dunsinane.
The Scholiast gives two explanations, of which the best isεὔφορος γὰρ αὕτη ἡ χώρα.
Again, it is certainly confirmatory of the supposition thatἘφύρηwas the name of the primitive Hellic, asἌργοςwas 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 wasnear the territory of Prœtus, and was situatedμύχῳ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο. Bellerophon, the grandson of Sisyphus, was driven out by Prœtus, king of the Argives; and was aξεῖνοςof 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 ofἌργος, 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 fiveκωμαὶof the name. But even in Homer’s time, either these settlements had decayed, or else, which is more likely, the particular formἘφύρηhad 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 theseἘφύραιwere 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 sonΦόβος,
τὼ μὲν ἄρ’ ἐκ Θρῄκης Ἐφύρους μέτα θωρήσσεσθον,ἠὲ μετὰ Φλέγυας μεγαλήτορας[858].
τὼ μὲν ἄρ’ ἐκ Θρῄκης Ἐφύρους μέτα θωρήσσεσθον,ἠὲ μετὰ Φλέγυας μεγαλήτορας[858].
Two circumstances warrant our placing theseἜφυροιin 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 Ὀδυσσεὺςφάρμακον ἀνδροφόνον διζήμενος[859].
ἐξ Ἐφύρης ἀνίοντα παρ’ Ἴλου Μερμερίδαο.ᾤχετο γὰρ καὶ κεῖσε θοῆς ἐπὶ νηὸς Ὀδυσσεὺςφάρμακον 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 ἠμαθόεντοςἢ ὅγε καὶ Σπάρτηθεν, ἐπεί νύ περ ἵεται αἰνῶς·ἠὲ καὶ εἰς Ἐφύρην ἐθέλει, πίειραν ἄρουραν·ἐλθεῖν, ὄφρ’ ἔνθεν θυμοφθόρα φάρμακ’ ἐνείκῃ[860].
ἤ τινας ἐκ Πύλου ἄξει ἀμύντορας ἠμαθόεντοςἢ 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 anἄναξ 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 theTroica, appears in Homer under the title ofἄναξ 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 ofἄναξ ἀνδρῶνwas applied to him, not casually, but with a definite meaning, and in conformity to an established rule.