II. ETHNOLOGY.

These, he goes on to explain, were the men, partly slain in the Theban and Trojan wars, partly translated by Jupiter to the ends of the earth, the islands of the blest. After this, the scale drops, at once, to the lowest point, the Iron age, the age without eitherÎÎÎ¼ÎµÏƒÎ¹Ï‚orÎ‘á¼°Î´á½¼Ï‚, the age of sheer wickedness and corruption.

This very curious turn in the arrangement of the Hesiodic Ages, and especially the insertion, in a regular figurative series taken from the metals, of a completely heterogeneous passage, calls for explanation;and I venture to suggest that this passage should be construed as disclosing to us that brilliant halo, which the Homeric poems had cast over an age still recent, so as not only to hold it above the one that followed, but also to raise it even above that which had preceded it; above the age of Bellerophon, of Tantalus, of Sisyphus, of Minos, and even of Hercules. The splendour of the fame of heroes really depended on the Bard. The great Bard of Greece had lifted Achilles and Ulysses to a height surpassing that of the older Heroes, who remained unsung by him; and he had promised Menelaus, in the Fourth Odyssey[113], that very seat in the regions of the blest, to which allusion is here made by Hesiod. While the apparent poetic solecism of this passage is thus accounted for, it becomes, at once, both an emphatic testimony to the immense power exercised by the verse of Homer, and a distinct declaration by Hesiod of the wide social interval, by which he was himself separated from the heroic period; a declaration entirely accordant with the internal evidence of the poems of Hesiod generally, and amounting by implication to the double statement from this poet, that Homer belonged to the heroic age, and that he himself did not belong to it.

The tradition of Hellen and his sons, then, exhibits one of the cases in which we must take our choice between the testimony of Homer, and what are apparently the inventions of the later Greeks.

Another of these cases, which will be my second and last illustration, relates to Helen of Troy.

It has been much disputed whether this celebrated character is to be regarded as historical or fictitious. A writer of no less judgment and authority than theBishop of St. Davidâ€™s, adopts the latter alternative, upon various grounds. The strongest among them all, in his view, is, that â€˜in the abduction of Helen, Paris only repeats an exploit, also attributed to Theseus[114].â€™ This exploit, the Bishop thinks, was known to Homer, as he introduces Ã†thra, the mother of Theseus, in the company of Helen at Troy. And other writers have further developed these ideas, by finding absurdity in the Homeric tale of Helen, on the ground that she must have been eighty years old when the supposed abduction by Paris took place.

Now, the basis of these statements entirely depends upon the assumption that the later traditions are entitled to be treated either as upon a par, or, at any rate, as homogeneous with those of Homer. The tradition which assigns a rape of Helen to Theseus, is only available to discredit the tale of Homer, on the supposition that it rests upon authority like that of Homer. But if it was a late invention, then it is more probably to be regarded as a witness to the fame of the Homeric personages, and the anxiety of Attica to give her hero the advantage of similar embellishments, than as an original tradition which Homer copied, or as a twin report with that which he has handed down.

The tradition of the rape of Helen by Theseus is mentioned by Herodotus[115]as a tale current among the Athenians. He testifies apparently to the fact, that the Deceleans of Attica enjoyed certain immunities in Sparta, and were spared by the LacedÃ¦monian forces when they invaded Attica; which was ascribed by the Athenians to their having assisted in the recovery of Helen from Theseus, by pointing out to the TyndaridÃ¦the place of her concealment. Herodotus, however, does not affirm the cause stated by the Athenians, nor the abduction by Theseus, which afterwards became, or had even then become, an established tradition. Isocrates[116]handles it without misgiving, and it is methodized in Plutarch, with a multitude of other particulars, our acceptance of which absolutely requires the rejection of Homerâ€™s historical authority.

And so again with regard to Ã†thra, the daughter of Pittheus, whom the later ages have connected with Theseus. We have no right to treat her introduction in the company of Helen[117], as a proof that Homer knew of a story connecting Helen with Theseus, unless we knew, which we do not, from Homer, or from authority entitled to compete with Homer, that there was a relation between Ã†thra and Theseus.

Now, the story of Homer respecting Helen, is perfectly self-consistent: and so is his story respecting Theseus: but the two are separated by an interval of little less than two generations, or say fifty years. For Theseus[118]fought in the wars against theÎ¦á¿†ÏÎµÏ‚, in which Nestor took part: and he wooed and wedded Ariadne, the aunt of Idomeneus, who was himself nearly or quite one generation older than the Greek kings in general. On the other hand, Homer shows the age of Helen to have been in just proportion to that of Menelaus: for she had a daughter, Hermione, before the abduction, and might, so far as age was concerned, have borne children after their conjugal union was resumed[119]. Why, then, if Homer be the paramount authority, should we, upon testimony inferior to his, introduce conflict and absurdity into two traditions, which hegives us wide apart from one another and each self-consistent, by forging a connexion between them?

I have stated these two cases, not by way of begging the question as to the superiority in kind of Homerâ€™s testimony, but to show how important that question is; and in how many instances the history of the heroic age must be rewritten, if we adopt the principle, that Homer ought to be received as an original witness, contemporary with the manners, nay, perhaps, even with some of the persons he describes, and subject only to such deductions as other original witnesses are liable to suffer: whereas the later traditions rest only upon hearsay; so much so, that they can hardly be called evidence, and should never be opposed, on their own credit, to the testimony of Homer.

In bringing this discussion to a close, I will quote a passage respecting Homer, from the Earl of Aberdeenâ€™sInquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture, which, I think, expresses with great truth and simplicity the ground of Homerâ€™s general claim to authority, subject, of course, to any question respecting the genuineness of the received text:

In treating of an age far removed from the approach of regular history, it is fortunate that we are furnished with a guide so unerring as Homer, whose general accuracy of observation, and minuteness of description, are such as to afford a copious source of information respecting almost everything connected with the times in which he composed his work: and who, being nearly contemporary with the events which he relates, and, indeed, with the earliest matter for record in Greece, cannot fall into mistakes and anachronisms in arts, or manners, or government, as he might have done had he lived at a more advanced and refined period[120].

It was said of a certain Dorotheus, that he spent hiswhole life in endeavours to elucidate the meaning of the Homeric wordÎºÎ»Î¹ÏƒÎ¯Î·. Such a disproportion between labour and its aim is somewhat startling; yet it is hardly too much to say, that no exertion spent upon any of the great classics of the world, and attended with any amount of real result, is really thrown away. It is better to write one word upon the rock, than a thousand on the water or the sand: better to remove a single stray stone out of the path that mounts the hill of true culture, than to hew out miles of devious tracks, which mislead and bewilder us when we travel them, and make us more than content if we are fortunate enough to find, when we emerge out of their windings, that we have simply returned to the point in our age, from which, in sanguine youth, we set out.

As rules of the kind above propounded can only be fully understood when applied, the application of them has accordingly been attempted, in the work to which these pages form an Introduction. In this view, it may be regarded as their necessary sequel. I commit it to the press with no inconsiderable apprehension, and with due deference to the judgments of the learned: for I do not feel myself to have possessed either the fresh recollection and ready command of the treasures of ancient Greece, or the extended and systematic knowledge of the modern Homeric literature, which are among the essential requisites of qualification to deal in a satisfactory manner with the subject. I should further say, that the poems of Homer, to be rightly and thoroughly sounded, demand undoubtedly a disengaged mind, perhaps would repay even the study of a life. One plea only I can advance with confidence. The work, whatever else it be, is one whichhas been founded in good faith on the text of Homer. Whether in statement or in speculation, I have desired and endeavoured that it should lead me by the hand: and even my anticipations of what we might in any case expect it to contain have been formed by a reflex process from the suggestions it had itself supplied:

Oh degli altri poeti onore e lume!Vagliami il lungo studio, e il grande amoreChe mâ€™ ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume;Tu sei lo mio maestro, e il mio autore[121].

Finally, though sharing the dissatisfaction of others at the established preference given among us to the Latin names of deities originally Greek, and at some part of our orthography for Greek names, I have thought it best to adhere in general to the common custom, and only to deviate from it where a special object was in view. I fear that diversity, and even confusion, are more likely to arise than any benefit, from efforts at reform, made by individuals, and without the advantage either of authority or of a clear principle, as a groundwork for general consent. I am here disposed to say, â€˜Î¿á½Îº á¼€Î³Î±Î¸á½¸Î½ Ï€Î¿Î»Ï…ÎºÎ¿Î¹ÏÎ±Î½Î¯Î·;â€™ and again with Wordsworth,

â€˜Me this unchartered freedom tires.â€™

Yet I should gladly see the day when, under the authority of Scholars, and especially of those who bear rule in places of education, improvement might be effected, not only in the points above mentioned, but in our solitary and barbarous method of pronouncing both the Greek and the Latin language. In this one respect the European world may still with justice describe the English at least as thepenitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.

Scope of the Inquiry.

I now proceed to attempt, in a series of inquiries, the practical application of the principles which have been stated in the preliminary Essay. The first of these inquiries might on some grounds be deemed the most hazardous. It is an inquiry into the Early Ethnology and Ethnography of Greece: or the Composition of the Greek nation, and the succession and Distribution of its races, according to the text of Homer. The religion, the politics, the manners, the contemporary history, of the Iliad and Odyssey, may justly be considered to form essential parts of the plan of the Poet, and to have been distinctly contemplated by his intention. But into anterior legends he only dips at times: and of the subject of the succession and distribution of races it probably formed no part of his purpose to treat at all; so that in the endeavour to investigate it we are entirely dependent, so far as he is concerned, upon scattered and incidental notices.

But here it is, that the extraordinary sureness and precision of the mind of Homer stands us in such admirable stead. Wherever, amidst the cloud and chaos of pre-Homeric antiquity, he enables us to discern a luminous point, that point is a beacon, and indicates ground on which we may tread with confidence. The materials, which at a first glance appear upon the faceof the poems to be available for our purpose, may indeed be but slender. But the careful gathering together of many dispersed indications, and the strict observation of their relative bearings has this effect, that each fragment added to the stock may both receive illustration from what is already known, and may give it in return, by helping to explain and establish relations hitherto doubtful or obscure. And as the total or gross accumulation grows, the nett result increases in a more rapid ratio: as a single known point upon a plane tells us of nothing besides itself, but two enable us to draw a line, and three a triangle, and each further one as it is added to construct a multitude of figures: or as in the map-puzzles, constructed to provoke the ingenuity of children, when once a very few countries have been laid in their right places, they serve as keys to the rest, and we can lay out with confidence the general order. Even so I am not without hope that, as to some parts at least of this ethnical examination, the Homeric indications may, when brought together, warrant our applying to them words used by Cicero for another purpose:est enim admirabilis continuatio seriesque rerum, ut aliÃ¦ ex aliis nexÃ¦, et omnes inter se aptÃ¦ conligatÃ¦que videantur[122].

I must not, however, step over the threshold of the investigation without giving warning, that we have to meet at the outset an opinion broadly pronounced, and proceeding from a person of such high authority as Mr. Grote, our most recent historian of Greece, to the effect that these inquiries are futile. This intimation is so important that it shall stand in his own words. â€œIn going through historical Greece,â€ says Mr. Grote, â€œwe are compelled to accept the Hellenic aggregate withits constituent elements as a primary fact to start from, because the state of our information does not enable us to ascend any higher. By what circumstances, or out of what pre-existing elements, this aggregate was brought together and modified, we find no evidence entitled to credit[123].â€ And then, in condemnation particularly of Pelasgic inquiries, he resumes: â€œif any man is inclined to call the unknown ante-Hellenic period of Greece by the name of Pelasgic, it is open to him to do so: but this is a name carrying with it no assured predicates, no way enlarging our insight into real history, nor enabling us to explainâ€”what would be the real historical problemâ€”how or from whom the Hellens acquired that stock of dispositions, aptitudes, arts, &c. with which they began their career.... No attested facts are now present to usâ€”none were present to Herodotus and Thucydides even in their age, on which to build trustworthy affirmations respecting the ante-Hellenic Pelasgians.â€

In answer to these passages, which raise the question no less broadly than fairly, it may first be observed, that at least Herodotus and Thucydides did not think what we are thus invited to think for them, and that of the judgment of the latter, as an inquirer into matters of fact, Mr. Grote has himself justly expressed the highest opinion[124]. Mr. Grote, placing in one category all that relates to the legendary age, finds it as a whole intractable and unhistorical, with a predominance of sentimental attributes quite unlike the practical turn and powers of the Greek mind in later times[125]. But has not this disturbance of equilibrium happened chiefly because the genuine though slender historic materialsof the heroic age, supplied by the poems of Homer, have been overborne and flooded by the accumulations made by imagination, vanity, resentment, or patriotism, during a thousand years? Even of the unsifted mass of legend, to which the distinguished historian refers, it may be doubted, whether it is not, when viewed as a whole, bewildering, formless, and inconsistent, rather than sentimental. It has been everywhere darkened by cross purposes, and by the unauthorized meddling of generations, which had ceased to sympathize with the heroic age. At any rate, I crave permission to try what we can make of that age in the matter of history, by dealing first and foremost with him who handled it for the purposes of history, apart from those, I mean the after poets, tragedians, and logographers, to whom it was little more than a romance.

I trust that the recent examples of men so learned and able as Bishop Thirlwall and K. O. MÃ¼ller, neither of whom have thought subjects of this kind too uninviting to reward inquiry, may avail both to prevent the interposition of a preliminary bar to the discussion, and to protect it against an adverse prejudgment. By anticipation I can reasonably make no other answer to a condemnatory sentence, than that which is conveyed in the words â€˜let us try.â€™ But at any rate,est operÃ¦ pretium: the stake is worth the venture. He would be indeed a worthless biographer who did not, so far as his materials carried him, pursue the life of a hero back to the nursery or even the cradle: and the same faithful and well-grounded instincts invest with a surpassing interest all real elucidation of the facts and ideas, that make up the image of the Greek nation either in its infancy or even in its embryo.

There are three and only three names of ordinaryuse in the Iliad, by which the poet designates the people that had been banded together against Troy. This same people afterwards became famous in history, perhaps beyond all others, first by the name of Hellenes, which was self-applied; and secondly by the name of Greeks, which they acquired from their Italian conquerors and captives. Greece is now again become Hellas.

These names, prominent far beyond all others, are,

1.Î”Î±Î½Î±Î¿á½¶, Danaans.

2.á¼ˆÏÎ³Îµá¿–Î¿Î¹, Argeians or Argives.

3.á¼ˆÏ‡Î±Î¹Î¿á½¶, AchÃ¦ans.

They are commonly treated as synonymous. It appears at least to have been assumed that they are incapable of yielding any practical results to an attempt at historic analysis and distribution. To try this question fully, is a main part of my present purpose. Thus much at least is clear: that they seem to be the equivalents, for the Troic period, of the Hellenic name in later times.

But there are other names, of various classes, which on account of their relations to the foregoing ones it is material to bring into view.

First, there are found in Homer two other designations, which purport to have the same effect as the three already quoted. They are

1.Î Î±Î½Î±Ï‡Î±Î¹Î¿á½¶, PanachÃ¦ans.

2.Î Î±Î½ÎÎ»Î»Î·Î½ÎµÏ‚, Panhellenes.

Next come three names of races, whose relations to the foregoing appellations will demand scrutiny. These are

1.Î ÎµÎ»Î±ÏƒÎ³Î¿á½¶, Pelasgians.

2.á¼Î»Î»Î·Î½ÎµÏ‚, Hellenes.

3.Î˜Ïá¿‡ÎºÎµÏ‚, Thracians, or rather Thraces.

Lastly, there are a more numerous class of names,which are local in this sense, that Homer only mentions them in connection with particular parts of Greece, but which being clearly tribal and not territorial, stand clearly distinguished from the names which owed, or may have owed, their origin to the different cities or districts of the country, such as Phocian (Il. ii. 517), Rhodian (654), Elian (Il. xi. 670), or Ithacan (Odysseypassim): and likewise from the names which already were, or afterwards came to be, in established connection with those of districts, though they have no appearance of having been originally territorial: such as Arcadian (Il. ii. 603, 611), BÅ“otian (Il. ii. 494), Athenian (Il. ii. 546, 551).

Of the class now before us there are some which are of importance in various degrees with regard to the views of primitive history to be gathered from the Homeric poems. As such I rank

1.ÎšÎ±Î´Î¼Îµá¿–Î¿Î¹, Cadmeans, in Thebes, Il. iv. 388 and elsewhere: and with this, as an equivalent,ÎšÎ±Î´Î¼ÎµÎ¯Ï‰Î½ÎµÏ‚, Il. iv. 385 and elsewhere.

2.á¼¸Î¬Î¿Î½ÎµÏ‚, Ionians, in Athens, Il. xiii. 685.

3.Î”Ï‰ÏÎ¹ÎÎµÏ‚, Dorians, in Crete, Od. xix. 177. A town Dorion is also mentioned in the Catalogue as within the territories of Nestor, Il. ii. 594.

4.ÎšÎµÏ†Î¬Î»Î»Î·Î½ÎµÏ‚, Cephallenes, in the islands under Ulysses, Il. ii. 631.

5.á¼˜Ï†Ï…ÏÎ¿á½¶, Ephyri, in Thessaly, Il. xiii. 301.

6.Î£ÎµÎ»Î»Î¿á½¶orá¼™Î»Î»Î¿á½¶, Helli, in northern Thessaly, Il. xvi. 234.

7.ÎšÎ±ÏÎºÏ‰Î½ÎµÏ‚, Caucones, in southern Greece, Od. iii. 366: (and among the Trojan allies, Il. x. 429, xx. 329.)

8.á¼˜Ï€Îµá¿–Î¿Î¹, Epeans, in Elis, Il. ii. 619, and on the opposite or northern coast and islands of the Corinthian Gulf: compare Il. ii. 627, and xiii. 691.

9.á¼ŒÎ²Î±Î½Ï„ÎµÏ‚, Abantes, in EubÅ“a, Il. ii. 536.

10.ÎœÏ…ÏÎ¼Î¯Î´Î¿Î½ÎµÏ‚, Myrmidones, in Phthia, Il. ii. 684.

11.ÎšÎ¿Ï…Ïá¿†Ï„ÎµÏ‚, Curetes, in Ã†tolia, Il. ix. 529.

12.Î¦Î»ÎµÎ³ÏÎ±Î¹, PhlegyÃ¦, in Thessaly, Il. xiii. 301.

13.Î¦á¿†ÏÎµÏ‚, in Thessaly, Il. i. 267, 8, ii. 733, 4.

And lastly it may be mentioned that in the single wordÎ“ÏÎ±á¿–Î±, used (Il. ii. 498) to designate one of the numerous BÅ“otian towns, we have an isolated indication of the existence in the heroic times of the germ of the namesGreeceandGreek, which afterwards ascended to, and still retain, such extraordinary fame.

The Homeric text will afford us means of investigation, more or less, for the greater part of these names, but the main thread of the inquiry runs with these five; Pelasgians, Hellenes, Danaans, Argeians, AchÃ¦ans.

In conjunction with the present subject, I shall consider what light is thrown by Homer on the relations of the Greeks with other races not properly Greek: the Lycians, the PhÅ“nicians, the Sicels, the Egyptians, the people of Cyprus, and finally the Persians. The name of the Leleges will be considered in conjunction with that of the Caucones.

The Pelasgians; and with these,

a.Arcadians.b.Î“ÏÎ±Î¹ÎºÎ¿á½¶or GrÃ¦ci.c.Ionians.d.Athenians.e.Egyptians.f.Thraces.g.Caucones.h.Leleges.

It will be most convenient to begin with the case of the Pelasgians: and the questions we shall have to investigate will be substantially reducible to the following heads:

1. Are the Pelasgians essentially Greek?

2. If so, what is their relation to the Hellenes, and to the integral Greek nation?

3. What elements did they contribute to the formation of the composite body thus called?

4. What was their language?

5. What was the derivation of their name?

6. By what route did they come into Greece?

The direct evidence of the Homeric poems with respect to the Pelasgians is scattered and faint. It derives however material aid from various branches of tradition, partly conveyed in the Homeric poems, and partly extraneous to them, particularly religion, language, and pursuits. Evidence legitimately drawn from these latter sources, wherever it is in the nature of circumstantial proof, is far superior in authority to such literary traditions as are surrounded, at their visible source, with circumstances of uncertainty.

The Pelasgians.

I. The first passage, with which we have to deal, is that portion of the Catalogue of the Greek armament, where Homer introduces us to the contingent of Achilles in the following lines:

All evidence goes to show, that Thessaly stood in a most important relation to the infant life of the Greek races; whether we consider it as the seat of many most ancient legends; as dignified by the presence of Dodona, the highest seat of religious tradition and authority to the Greeks; as connected with the two ancient names of Helli and Pelasgi: or lastly in regard to the prominence it retained even down to and during the historic age in the constitution of the Amphictyonic Council[127]. All these indications are in harmony with the course of Greek ethnological tradition.

Now the Catalogue of the Greek armament is divided into three great sections.

The first comprises Continental Greece, with the islands immediately adjacent to the coast, and lying south of Thessaly. The second consists of the Greek islands of the Ã†gean. The third is wholly Thessalian: and it begins with the lines which have been quoted.

The Pelasgians: Pelasgic Argos.

What then does Homer mean us to understand by the phraseÏ„á½¸ Î ÎµÎ»Î±ÏƒÎ³Î¹Îºá½¸Î½ á¼ŒÏÎ³Î¿Ï‚in this passage? Is it

1. A mere town, or town and district, like Alos, Alope, and others which follow; or is it

2. A country comprising several or many such?

And if the latter, does it describe

1. That country only over which Peleus reigned, and which supplied the Myrmidon division; or

2. A more extended country?

First let us remark the use of the article. It is not the manner of Homer to employ the article with the proper names of places. We may be sure that it carries with it a distinctive force: as in the Trojan Catalogue he employs it to indicate a particular race or body of Pelasgians[128]apart from others. Now the distinctive force of the article here may have either or both of two bearings.

1. It may mark off the Argos of the Pelasgians from one or more other countries or places bearing the name of Argos.

2. Even independently of the epithet, the article may be rightly employed, if Argos itself be not strictly a proper name, but rather a descriptive word indicating the physical character of a given region. Thus â€˜Scotlandâ€™ is strictly a proper name, â€˜Lowlandsâ€™ a descriptive word of this nature: and the latter takes the article where the former does not require or even admit it. And now let us proceed to make our selection between the various alternatives before us.

Whichever of the two bearings we give to the article, it seems of itself to preclude the supposition that a mere town or single settlement can be here intended: for nowhere does Homer give the article to a name of that class.

Secondly, in almost every place where Homer speaks of an Argos, he makes it plain that he does not mean a mere town or single settlement, but a country including towns or settlements within it. The exceptions to this rule are rare. In Il. iv. 52 we have one of them, where he combines Argos with Sparta and MycenÃ¦, and calls all three by the name of cities.The line Il. ii. 559 probably supplies another. But in a later Section[129]the general rule will be fully illustrated.

It will also clearly appear, that the name Argos is in fact a descriptive word, not a proper name, and is nearly equivalent to our â€˜Lowlandsâ€™ or to the Italian â€˜campagna.â€™

Thirdly: in many other places of the Catalogue, Homer begins by placing in the front, as it were, the comprehensive name which overrides and includes the particular names that are to follow; and then, without any other distinctive mark than the use of the faint enclitic copulativeÏ„Îµ, proceeds to enumerate parts included within the whole which he has previously named. Thus for instance

v. 535, 6.

â€˜Those who held EubÅ“a, both Chalcis and Eretriaâ€™.... Or in the English idiom we may perhaps write more correctly, â€˜Those who held EubÅ“a, that is to say Chalcis, and Eretriaâ€™ ... and the rest.

Again,

v. 581, 2.

â€˜Those who held channelled Laconia, abounding in wild beasts, namely, the several settlements of Pharis and Sparta,â€™ and the rest.

So with Arcadia, v. 603, and Ithaca, v. 631.

We may therefore consider the verse 681,

as prefatory, and I print it, accordingly, so as to mark a pause.

But, again, is it prefatory only to the division of Achilles, and is it simply the integer expressing thewhole territory from which his contingent was drawn, or is it prefatory to the whole remainder of the Catalogue, ending at v. 759, and does it include all the nine territorial divisions described therein? There is no grammatical or other reason for the former alternative, while various considerations recommend the latter.

There is no sign in the poems of any connection between Achilles with his Myrmidons, or between the kingdom of his father Peleus, and any particular part of Thessaly under the name of Argos, or Pelasgic Argos. Although the division of Achilles did not embrace the whole of the Phthians[130], yet Phthia appears to be the proper description of his territory, so far as it has a collective name: and there are signs, which will be hereafter considered, that the name of Phthia itself was embraced and included within the wider range of another name.

Again, the Pelasgic name, as will be further observed, is not in Homer specially connected with the South of Thessaly, where the realm of Peleus lay, but rather with the North, the towns and settlements of which are enumerated, not in the first, but in the later paragraphs of this portion of the Catalogue.

In the invocation of the Sixteenth Book, to which reference will shortly be made, Achilles at once addresses Jupiter as Pelasgic, and as dwelling afar (Ï„Î·Î»ÏŒÎ¸Î¹ Î½Î±Î¯Ï‰Î½): therefore, the special Thessalian seat of the god could not be in the dominions of Peleus.

We have observed, again, in the earlier parts of the catalogue various collective names, afterwards explained distributively, for the various contingents: but there is not one of this class of names employed for any of the Eight Divisions which follow that of Achilles. Theyall seem to bear the form of particular distributive enumerations, belonging to the comprehensive head of Pelasgic Argos or Thessaly.

There is also something in the obvious break in the Catalogue, signified by the words

Î½á¿¦Î½ Î±á½– Ï„Î¿á½ºÏ‚ á½…ÏƒÏƒÎ¿Î¹ ...

which indicate, as it were, a completely new starting point. There is nothing else resembling them. They form the introduction to a new chapter of the lists, after a geographical transition from the islands: and there is no reason for these marked words, if Pelasgic Argos was either a mere town district, or a local sovereignty, but a very good reason, if Pelasgic Argos meant that great integral portion of the Greek territory, the vale of Thessaly, the particular parts of which the Poet was about to set forth in so much detail.

It may therefore be inferred, that the epithetÎ ÎµÎ»Î±ÏƒÎ³Î¹Îºá½¸Î½is applied by Homer to the Thessalian vale collectively, as it is contained between the mountains of Pindus to the west, Å’ta and Olympus to the north, Othrys to the south, and Ossa or the sea to the east. We might, without geographical error, translate the phraseÏ„á½¸ Î ÎµÎ»Î±ÏƒÎ³Î¹Îºá½¸Î½ á¼ŒÏÎ³Î¿Ï‚of the second Iliad by that name of Thessaly[131], which the country afterwards acquired: but the idea which it properly indicates to us, is,that Argos which had been settled by the Pelasgians.

It is the only geographical epithet which, applied to the name Argos, belongs to the north of Greece: and it is so applied by way of distinction and opposition to other uses of the name Argos in other parts of the poems, which we shall hereafter have to examine, namely, the Achaic and the Iasian Argos.

The Pelasgians: Dodona.

II. Perhaps the most solemn invocation of Jupiter as the great deity of the Greeks in the whole of the Poems is where Achilles, sending forth Patroclus to battle, prays that glory may be given him. It runs thus (Il. xvi. 233-5):

It seems not too much to say upon this remarkable passage, that it shows us, as it were, the nation pitching its first altar upon its first arrival in the country. It bears witness that those who brought the worship of DodonÃ¦an Jupiter were Pelasgians, as well as that the spot, which they chose for the principal seat of their worship, was Dodona. For the appeal of Achilles on this occasion is evidently the most forcible that he has it in his power to make, and is addressed to the highest source of Divine power that he knew.

It has been debated, but apparently without any conclusive result, what was the site of the Dodona so famous in the after-times of Greece[132]. It seems clear, however, that it was a Dodona to the westward of Pindus, and belonging to Thesprotia or Molossia. But this plainly was not the position of the Dodona we have now before us. For in a passage of the Catalogue Homer distinctly places this Dodona in Thessaly, giving it the same epithet,Î´Ï…ÏƒÏ‡ÎµÎ¯Î¼ÎµÏÎ¿Ï‚, as Achilles applies to it in Il. xvi. Gouneus, he says, was followed by the Enienes and PerrhÃ¦bi,

Both the name of the PerrhÃ¦bi and that of the river Titaresius fix the Dodona of Homer in the north of Thessaly. And the character assigned to this Titaresius, so near Dodona, as a branch of Styx, â€˜the mighty adjuration of the gods,â€™ well illustrates the close connection between that river, by which the other deities were to swear, and Jupiter, who was their chief, and was in a certain sense the administrator of justice among them. In the Odyssey, indeed, Ulysses, in his fictitious narrations to EumÃ¦us and Penelope, represents himself as having travelled from Thesprotia to consult the oracle of Jupiter, that was delivered from a lofty oak[134]. But no presumption of nearness can be founded on this passage such as to justify our assuming the existence of a separate Dodona westward of the mountains in the Homeric age: and there was no reason why Ulysses should not represent himself as travelling through the passes of Mount Pindus[135]from the Ambracian gulf into Thessaly to learn his fate. Nor upon the other hand is there any vast difficulty in adopting the supposition which the evidence in the case suggests, that the oracle of DodonÃ¦an Jupiter may have changed its seat before the historic age. The evidence of Homer places it in Thessaly, and Homer is, as we shall see, corroborated by Hesiod. After them, we hear nothing of a Dodona having its seat in Thessaly, but much of one on the western side of the peninsula. As in later times we find PerrhÃ¦bi and Dolopes to the westward of Pindus, whom Homer shows us only on the east, even so in the course of time the oracle may have travelled in the same direction[136]. It is highly improbable, from the manner inwhich the name is used, that there should have been two Greek Dodonas in the Homeric age.

However, the very passage before us indicates, that revolution had already laid its hand on this ancient seat of Greek religion. For though the Dodona of Homer was Pelasgic by its origin, its neighbourhood was now inhabited by a different race, the Selli or Helli, and these Helli were also theá½‘Ï€Î¿Ï†á¿†Ï„Î±Î¹or ministers of the deity. While their rude and filthy habits of life mark them as probably a people of recent arrival, who had not themselves yet emerged from their highland home, and from the struggle with want and difficulty, into civilized life, still they had begun to encroach upon the Pelasgians with their inviting possessions and more settled habits, and had acquired by force or otherwise the control of the temple, though without obliterating the tradition of its Pelasgic origin. The very fact, that the Helli were at the time the ministers of Jupiter, tends to confirm the belief that the Pelasgians were those who originally established it; for how otherwise could the name of the Pelasgian race have found its way into an Hellenic invocation?

Thus, as before we found that what we term Thessaly is to Homer â€˜the Argos of the Pelasgians,â€™ so we now find that people associated with the original and central worship of the Greek Jupiter, as having probably been the race to whom it owed its establishment.

And thus, though the Pelasgians were not politically predominant in Thessaly at the epoch of theTroica, yet Thessaly is Pelasgian Argos: though they were not possessed of the DodonÃ¦an oracle, yet Jupiter of Dodona is Pelasgian Jupiter: two branches of testimony, the first of which exhibits them as the earliest knowncolonisers of the country, and the second as the reputed founders of the prime article of its religion.

We must not quit this subject without referring to the evidence of Hesiod, which, though second in importance to that of Homer, is before any other literary testimony. He refers twice to Dodona. Neither time does he appear to carry it to the westward. In one passage he connects it immediately with the Pelasgians;

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