of Homer’s ever wakeful care in doing supreme honour to Achilles,
unequivocal evidence, as I think, that the poet did distribute his
names with some special meaning among his minor, and, (so we must
suppose,) generally or frequently, non-historical personages.
And the further inference may perhaps be drawn of a probable affinity
of race between the highest Trojans and the Hellic tribes.
This inference may be supported by another example. The numerous sons
of Antenor, whose names are collected from different parts of the poem,
are as follows:
1. Agenor, Il. xi. 59.
2. Acamas, ii. 823. xi. 60. xii. 100, _et alibi_.
3. Archelochus, ii. 823. xiv. 464.
4. Coon, xi. 248.
5. Demoleon, xx. 395.
6. Echeclus, xx. 474.
7. Helicaon, iii. 123.
8. Iphidamas, xi. 221.
9. Laodamas, xv. 516.
10. Laodocus, iv. 87. and
11. Pedæus (νόθος), v. 70.
I apprehend Laodocus should be construed, after the manner of
Demodocus, to signify having fame or repute among the λαός. If so, then
of the ten legitimate sons, eight have names with an etymology that
directly connects them with the higher signification. The name of the
Bastard only is more doubtful.
Among the Suitors in Ithaca, who are the princes and chief men of the
island, with their connections, and others of the same class, we have
the following list of names of the high class:
Mentor.
Elatus. (cf. Il. xi. 701.)
Euryades.
Eurydamas.
Eurymachus.
Eurynomus.
Amphinomus.
Peisander.
Eupeithes.
Antinous.
Leiocritus.
Leiodes.
Agelaus.
Damastor.
Demoptolemus.
Euryades.
Mastor.
Euenor.
Phronius.
Noemon.
Nor are the names which have not been placed in this list of an
opposite character. They are chiefly such as have not an obvious
etymology. Two of them, Ægyptius and Polybus, were, as we know, great
names in Egypt, and they probably indicate a Pelasgian or an Egyptian
extraction. Others are, Halitherses, Melaneus, Ctesippus, Nisus,
Antiphus, Peiræus. Of these, the two, or even the three, first may
perhaps be regarded as properly Hellic.
Take again the six sons of Nestor:
1. Antilochus.
2. Stratius.
3. Thrasymedes.
4. Echephron.
5. Perseus.
6. Aretus (akin to ἀρέσκω, ἀρετή, and the Arete of Scheria).
Of these only Perseus would not at once fall within the class; and this
is evidently a most noble name, taken from a great Greek hero. Indeed
it must itself stand as a conspicuous example of the rule, if we shall
hereafter be able to show[561] a relationship between the Hellic races
and Persia as their fountain-head.
Lastly, let us take the Myrmidon leaders and commanders. These were,
1. Patroclus; { and after him the heads of the five
son of { divisions.
2. Menœtius.
3. Menesthius.
4. Eudorus.
5. Peisander, son of
6. Maimalus, from μαιμάω.
7. Phœnix. This name may represent, (1) Phœnician
extraction or connection; (2) The palm
tree; (3) The colour of red or purple, akin to
φόνος, and to blood, which the colour φοίνιξ is
supposed to betoken. In any of these three
aspects, it will fall into the Hellic class.
8. Alcimedon, son of Laerces.
9. Automedon.
All these names belong to the higher categories. It is therefore the
general result of our inquiry, that wherever we have reason on other
grounds to presume a Pelasgian origin, we find in the proper names of
persons, unless they chance to be merely descriptive of the country
they inhabited, a decided tendency to represent peaceful, profitable,
and laborious pursuits, or the lower qualities and conditions of
mankind. But wherever from other causes we are entitled to presume an
Hellic relationship, there, so far as a simple etymology will carry
us, the personal appellatives appear to run upon ideas derived from
intellect, power, command, policy, fame, the great qualities and
achievements of war; in short, apart from religion, which does not
appear to enter into the composition of nomenclature at all, all the
ideas that appeal most strongly to those masculine faculties of our
race, in which its perfection was so vividly conceived by the Greeks to
reside.
_Evidence from political and martial ideas._
One among the most remarkable features of the Homeric Poems is, their
highly forward development of political ideas in a very early stage
of society[562]. It seems hardly necessary to argue that these were
of Hellic origin; because the fact is before us, that they make their
appearance in Homer simultaneously with the universal ascendancy of the
Hellic over the Pelasgian tribes wherever they were in contact; and
because, in comparing the two nations together, we shall have occasion
to note the greater backwardness, and indocility, so to speak, of the
Trojans[563] in this respect. I assume, therefore, without detailed
argument, the peculiar relation between the Hellic stock and the
political institutions of Greece.
For similar reasons I shall touch very briefly the relation of the
Hellic tribes to the martial character of Greece.
We may consider the whole Iliad, which represents a conflict between
less Pelasgic and more Pelasgic races, and which gives a clear
superiority to the former, as a general but decisive testimony to this
fact.
We find another such testimony, with a well established historical
character, in the comparison between the secondary military position
of Athens in the Iliad, and its splendid distinctions in later
times. It is true indeed, that the Athenian troops are mentioned
specifically in the attack upon the ships, together with the Bœotians,
Locrians, Phthians, and Epeans[564]. Of these the two latter are
called respectively μεγάθυμοι and φαιδιμόεντες; the Athenians are the
Ἰάονες ἑλκεχίτωνες, an epithet of most doubtful character as applied
to soldiers. It seems to me plain that Homer by no means meant the
particular notice of these five divisions for a mark of honour: they
fought to be defeated, and he does not use his prime Greeks in that
manner. No Peloponnesian forces are named as having been engaged on
this occasion. Those probably were the flower of the army; and it
is mentioned in the Catalogue that the troops of Agamemnon were the
best[565]. Again, it will be seen, on reference to the Catalogue,
that the whole force of Middle Greece is here in battle except the
Ætolians, the contingent of Ulysses, and the Abantes (for whom see
542-4). These three are all distinguished races, whom he seems
purposely to have excluded from a contest, where honour was not to be
gained. The military contrast, then, between the earlier and the later
Athens, may be taken to be established: and with it coincides that
very marked, though normal and pacific, transition of Attica from the
exclusively Pelasgic to the fullest development of the composite Greek
character[566].
The passage of the seventh Iliad, which describes the war of the
Pylians with the Arcadians, suggests a like conclusion.
Upon the whole, however, the _de facto_ Hellic ascendancy in Greece at
the time is, with reference to war and the strong hand even more than
to policy, a full presumption of their title to be regarded as having
given birth to the splendid military genius of Greece.
When, for the business of the Trojan war, Homer divides the two great
traditive deities[567], and assigns to the Greeks Pallas, the more
political, energetic, and intellectual of the two, to the Trojans
Apollo, we may take this as of itself involving an assertion, that the
high arts of policy and war were peculiarly Hellenic.
_Evidence from Games._
We come now to the principle of what may be called corporal education,
which found a development among the Greeks more fully than among any
other nation; first, in gymnastic exercises, generally pursued, and,
secondly, in the great national institution of the Games.
“There were,” says Grote[568], “two great holding points in common for
every section of Greeks. One was the Amphictyonic Assembly, which met
half yearly, alternately at Delphi and at Thermopylae; originally and
chiefly for common religious purposes, but indirectly and occasionally
embracing political and social objects along with them. The other
was, the public festivals or games, of which the Olympic came first
in importance; next, the Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian: institutions,
which combined religious solemnities with recreative effusion and
hearty sympathies, in a manner so imposing and so unparalleled.
Amphictyon represents the first of these institutions, and Aethlius the
second.”
This passage places in an extremely clear light the relative position
of the Games and the Amphictyonic Assembly. The Council represented
a religious institution, partaking also of a political character. The
Games, on the other hand, were a gymnastic celebration, made available
for national gatherings: placed, as a matter of prime public moment,
under the guardianship of high religious solemnities, and referred for
greater effect, in the later tradition, to some person of the highest
rank and extraction, as their nominal founder. As the objects of the
Games and the Council were distinct, so were their origin and history
different; and this difference mounted up into the very earliest
ages. This is clearly proved by the extra-historic and mythical names
assigned to their founders, whose faint personality does not even
serve to repress the suggestion of fiction, conveyed with irresistible
force by etymological considerations. But the legend, though a legend
only, conformed to the laws of probability, by assigning to Amphictyon
a Thessalian birth, and by vindicating at the same time to Aethlius
the higher honour of the immediate paternity of Jupiter; while, by
placing him in Elis it secures his function as the institutor of the
oldest, namely, the Olympic Games. In this legend, too, we see Hellenic
imagination providing for its own ancestral honours in competition,
as it were, with those of the sister institution, which may have been
Pelasgian.
The foundation of Games _in genere_ appears to be traceable, with
sufficient clearness and upon Homeric evidence, to the Hellic tribes.
The lengthened detail of the Twenty-third Iliad is of itself enough
to prove their importance, as an institution founded in the national
habits and manners. We must not, however, rely upon the absence of any
similar celebrations, or even allusions to them, among the Trojans;
since their condition, in the circumstances of the war, will of itself
account for it. But we may observe how closely it belonged to the
character of the greatest heroes to excel in every feat of gymnastic
strength, as well as in the exercises of actual warfare. The kings
and leading chiefs all act in the Games, with the qualified exception
of Agamemnon, whose dignity could not allow him to be actually judged
by his inferiors, but yet who appears as a nominal candidate, and
receives the compliment of a prize, though spared the contest for it;
and with the exception also of Achilles, who could not contend for his
own prizes. Again, it is a piece of evidence in favour of the Hellic
character of public Games, that, though there were three Athenian
leaders alive during the action of the Twenty-third Book, none of them
took any part. They were Menestheus, Pheidas, and Bias. Again, the
speech of Ulysses to Euryalus, the saucy Phæacian[569], with the acts
which followed it, strengthen the general testimony of the Iliad upon
the point. So does the prosecution of these exercises, to the best of
their power, even by the Phæacians, the kindred of the gods.
So much for the general idea of Games in Homer; but, to draw the
distinction with any force between what is Hellic and what is Pelasgic,
we must refer to those passages which afford glimpses of the earlier
state of Greece, and see what light they afford us.
According to the Homeric text, Elis and Corinth were the portions of
the Peloponnesus, where the early notes of the presence of the Hellenic
races are most evident. Now of these Elis had the greatest and oldest
Greek Games, while the Isthmian festival at Corinth was held to stand
next to them.
The invention of these gymnastic exercises was ascribed in the later
mythology to Mercury, who is in Homer a Hellenic, as opposed to
Pelasgian, deity.
Mercurî, facunde nepos Atlantis,
Qui feros mores hominum recentum
Voce formasti catus, et decoræ
More palæstræ[570].
It has been observed, that the Hermes of Homer bears no trace of this
function: but we have no proof in Homer of the formal institution of
Games at all, although we have clear signs of them as a known and
familiar practice; and the Mercury of the poems is even yet more
Phœnician than he is Hellenic. Aristophanes[571] produces the Ἑρμῆς
Ἐναγώνιος, and supplies a fresh link of connection by referring to
ἀγῶνες in music, as well as in feats of corporal strength and skill. So
does Pindar[572].
In truth, these Games were the exercise and pleasure of the highest
orders only. For we see that, in Homer’s Twenty-third Book, not a
single person takes a part in any of the eight matches that is not
actually named among the ἡγεμόνες and κοίρανοι of the Catalogue, with
three such exceptions as really confirm the rule. They are Antilochus,
the heir apparent of Pylos, Teucer the brother of Ajax, and Epeus,
(only however in the boxing match,) who appears from the Odyssey[573]
to have been a person of importance, as he contrived the stratagem of
the horse. Even the σόλος αὐτοχόωνος, the iron lump, part of the booty
of Achilles, had formerly been used for the sport only of a king[574].
ὃν πρὶν μὲν ῥίπτασκε μέγα σθένος Ἠετίωνος.
The Greek Games presuppose leisure, and therefore the accumulation of
property, or the concentrated possession of lands: but this comports
much more with Hellenic than with what we know of Pelasgic society, in
which we do not find the same signs as in the former, of an aristocracy
occupying the middle place between the people at large, and the royal
house. Let us now examine another part of the Homeric evidence.
In the Eleventh Iliad, Nestor’s legend acquaints us that, at the time
of the war between Pylians and Elians, Neleus the king appropriated a
part of the Pylian spoil, in respect of a ‘debt’ owed him in Elis, the
nature of which he explains[575]:
τέσσαρες ἀθλοφόροι ἵπποι αὐτοῖσιν ὄχεσφιν,
ἐλθόντες μετ’ ἄεθλα· περὶ τρίποδος γὰρ ἔμελλον
θεύσεσθαι· τοὺς δ’ αὖθι ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Αὐγείας
κάσχεθε, τὸν δ’ ἐλατῆρ’ ἀφίει, ἀκαχήμενον ἵππων.
There were then, it is plain, chariot races regularly established
(for the Games are here spoken of without explanation, as a matter
familiarly known) in Olympia: and this was during the boyhood of
Nestor, or about two generations before the Trojan war. The tribes,
which we here see concerned in these Games, are first, the Pylians,
and next the Elians, of whom Augeas was king. It will be seen in a
subsequent part of this inquiry[576], that both of these tribes were
Hellic, and not Pelasgian. Yet certainly there is nothing here to show
directly the non-participation of Pelasgians in the games.
There is however another passage of our useful friend Nestor in the
Twenty-third Book, which supplies in some degree even this form of
evidence. ‘Would,’ says he in his usual phrase, ‘would I were young and
strong[577],’
ὡς ὅποτε κρείοντ’ Ἀμαρυγκέα θάπτον Ἐπειοὶ
Βουπρασίῳ, παῖδες δ’ ἔθεσαν βασιλῆος ἄεθλα·
Here is a distinct testimony to the custom of funeral Games in Elis,
nearly two generations before the _Troica_. They embraced, as we find
further down in the record, 1. Chariot races, with the best prize; 2.
Boxing; 3. Wrestling; 4. Running; and 5. Hurling the spear. But we have
a further most valuable passage. There was no person present, says
Nestor, equal to myself; and then he adds an exhaustive enumeration of
the races that furnished the company:
οὔτ’ ἄρ’ Ἐπεῶν,
οὔτ’ αὐτῶν Πυλίων, οὔτ’ Αἰτώλων μεγαθύμων.
For the Epeans (or Elians) and Pylians, I repeat the reference already
made. Nor can I doubt that the Ætolians, the subjects of Œneus and
his illustrious family, belonged to the same stock. I do not inquire
whether, as they were always in later times held to belong to the
Æolian branch of the Greeks, so their name may have been radically akin
to, or identical with, the name of Æolus, which is often with Homer
Αἴωλος. But we find Meleager (independently of the reference to him,
evidently as a great national hero, in the Catalogue[578],) selected
by Phœnix for the subject of an episode of great length, and held out
as a warning and example to Achilles[579]. It may safely be assumed
he would have chosen no character for this purpose, except that of an
hero of pure Hellic origin. And the description of Tydeus, the father
of Diomed, by the epithet Αἰτώλιος[580], again serves to identify the
Ætolian name with the Hellic races.
The tribes present, then, at the Games were all Hellic, and they were
all conterminous: the Epean inhabitants, the Pylians, neighbours on the
South, the Ætolians from the other side of the narrow strait, which
was the most frequented passage into Peloponnesus. In fact, it was
evidently an assemblage of the neighbouring tribes; but with a most
remarkable exception, that of the eastern neighbours of Elis, those
same Arcadians, whom by many signs we are enabled to conclude to have
been Pelasgian.
A third instance in which Homer notices gymnastic exercises, is in
Il. iv. 389. Here Tydeus, having gone to Thebes, finds a solemn
banquet proceeding in the palace of Eteocles. Alone among many, and on
questionable terms with his hosts, he nevertheless at once challenges
them to gymnastic games, and beats them all.
ἀλλ’ ὅγ’ ἀεθλεύειν προκαλίζετο, πάντα δ’ ἐνίκα
ῥηιδίως· τοίη οἱ ἐπιρρόθος ἦεν Ἀθήνη.
Achæan, that is Hellene, himself, he is, if not among Hellenes, yet
among the members and adherents of that Phœnician dynasty which had
established itself, to all appearance, in Bœotia, at a somewhat early
date: even as, at a period slightly later[581], Minos established from
Phœnicia a Throne in Crete, which soon became wholly Greek in character.
And again, in Il. xxiii. 678-80, we are told, that Mecisteus, on the
death of Œdipus, went to Thebes to the even then customary funeral
Games, and there was victor over all the Καδμείωνες who opposed him, by
the aid of Minerva. Euryalus, the son of Mecisteus, was an Argive, and
was the colleague of Diomed and Sthenelus. The same observations are
applicable here, as in the last case.
There is therefore nothing in any one of these cases to connect the
gymnastic celebrations with the Pelasgian, but every thing to associate
them with the Hellic races.
Of the Greek Games, the Pythian are those which, as being under
Apollo, might most be suspected of Pelasgic origin. But these did
not apparently begin as a national gymnastic festival until about 586
B. C.[582] The Olympic contests had then been regularly recorded for
nearly two hundred years, since 776 B. C. And in the laws of Solon
there was a reward of 500 drachms for every Athenian who should gain
an Olympic prize, of 100 only for an Isthmian: while of the Nemean and
Pythian Games, as being merely local, they take no notice. So these
Games, besides being secondary, belonged to times much later, and also
purely Hellenic.
The Panathenaic Games are apparently of similar date. And with this
evidence from the earlier historic times before us, no importance can
attach to a tradition so late as that of Pausanias, who makes Theseus
found the Panathenaica, and Lycaon, son of Pelasgus, the Λύκαια[583].
But it is well worthy of remark, that in reporting this tradition he
adds, that the Olympic Games were much older, that they mounted to
the very highest antiquity of the human race, and that Κρόνος and
Jupiter were said to have contended at them for prizes. Again, great
fame attached to the Games said to have been celebrated by Acastus on
the death of his father Pelias. Stesichorus, who lived in the seventh
century, wrote a poem upon them; but Pelias, the brother of Neleus, and
son of Tyro, (having Neptune for his father,) was of undoubted Hellic
origin[584].
Minor instances of the addiction of the Hellic races to Games may be
found in the constant practice of the Ithacan Suitors, and in the
resort of the Myrmidons before Troy, during the seclusion of Achilles,
to this method of beguiling their time[585].
The case stands only a little less distinctly as to song. There is an
ἀοιδὸς in the palace of Priam, as well as in that of Ulysses; one in
that of Agamemnon, and one in that of Alcinous. The Muses are Olympian
Muses. Olympus geographically was quite as much Hellic as Pelasgian,
and in every other sense, as I believe, far more. We may perhaps most
fairly estimate its national character, by contrasting the Jupiter
of Olympus with the Jupiter of Dodona, and the home of the large and
varied group of Grecian gods with the solitary grandeur which affords a
trace of the old Pelasgian worship. In this view Olympus and the Muses
will be clearly Hellic. Further[586], Thamyris in his boast supposes
the Muses to be contending against him at the public matches. If I have
been correct in tracing such matches to an Hellic source, Thamyris must
have regarded the Muses as Hellic when he made this supposition. Again,
Thamyris himself is a Θρὴξ, that is to say, a highlander: this connects
him with the Helli of the hills, not with the Pelasgians of the more
open country. The place, too, where the punishment is inflicted upon
Thamyris, is in the dominions of Pylus: which, at any rate for a term
equal to three generations before the _Troica_, had been Achæan, that
is, Hellic[587].
Apollo was doubtless an object of Pelasgian worship: the Apollo of
Homer however is not confined to the Pelasgians, but is by many signs,
scattered throughout the poems, placed in close as well as friendly
relations with the whole Greek nation. Among these may be reckoned his
acceptance of the propitiation and prayer offered by Calchas. In truth,
though it is his business, as the organ of Jupiter, to assist the
Trojans, he no where shows any of that hostility to their opponents,
which Neptune and Juno show to them.
_As to poetry and music._
In later times, the traditions of Orpheus, Musæus, and Eumolpus, always
Θρῇκες, supported the tradition which derives Greek song from the
mountain tribes.
Why has Arcadia a muse of her own, but because the Pelasgian poetry is
not the Hellic? and does not the reputed character of that muse oblige
us to assign a Hellic origin to the higher national poetry?
Hesiod, as author of the Works and Days, is so enormously different
from Homer in his frame of mind, as well as his diction, that it is
hard to trace, even in the most general form, a complete national
affinity between them. The Theogony, by its subject, brought him nearer
to Homer, but it is quite destitute of the heroic power and fire: a
calm and low-toned beauty, as in the legend of the Ages, is all to
which Hesiod ever rises. To my conjecture, he seems to personify the
one-stringed instrument which might suffice for Pelasgian song: while
the Diapason of Homer, embracing with its immeasurable sweep things
small and things great, things sublime and things homely, all objects
that human experience had suggested, and all thoughts that the soul of
man had imagined or received, presents to us that Greek mind, full,
varied, energetic, lively, profound, exact, which was destined to give
form for so many ages to the genius of the world.
I cannot however part from this subject, and leave the Hellenic races
in possession of the honour of having principally contributed to
mould the powerful imagination of the Greeks, without noticing the
opposite conclusion of Mr. Fergusson, in his admirable ‘Handbook of
Architecture.’