Αἰνείας, υἱὸς μεγαλήτορος Ἀγχίσαο.
Lastly, we have the prophecy of Neptune that the sceptre of Dardanus
should continue in the line of Anchises (Il. xx. 302-8).
And, as regards the application to Æneas of the title which properly
belonged to Anchises, this seems to connect itself with the practice
of the heroic age as to a devolution of sovereignty, either partial or
total, by aged men upon their heirs. We seem to find another example
of this in the case of Eumelus; and the instances of Achilles, and
especially of Ulysses, are also in point.
7. As the character of Æneas does not account for the jealousy felt
towards him, so neither does his conduct. He nowhere thwarts Hector by
opposition, or tries him by advice that he is not inclined to take. Of
this course of proceeding we have an instance; but it is in Polydamas.
If, then, neither the character nor the conduct of Æneas supply the
explanation, we must look for it in some claims that he was entitled
to make in virtue of lineage, and that consequently attracted jealousy
towards him.
8. Although it has been assumed that Priam was the head of the Trojan
race and federation, this is not stated by Homer. In Il. xxiv. 544
it is only said that he excelled the other princes of that region,
(1) in his wealth, and (2) in the number, or possibly it may mean the
excellence of his sons. On the contrary, it is doubtful, by the mere
words of the poem, whether Priam represented the senior or the junior
line, and when we compare and draw inferences from the text, we may
arrive at the conclusion that it was the junior line, quite as easily
as at an opposite one; especially if we shall find, that the rights of
seniority itself were less determinate in Troas, than in Greece.
In the genealogy of the Twentieth Book, we find no assistance towards
elucidating this question, except in the precedence given to names. The
three sons of Tros stand in the following order:
1. Ilus.
2. Assaracus.
3. Ganymedes.
Then (1) the fate of Ganymedes is described;
(2) the line of Ilus is traced down to Priam;
(3) that of Assaracus is traced to Anchises.
Here the line of Priam has precedence: but on the other hand, lastly,
Æneas proceeds to state his own birth from Anchises, before that of
Hector from Priam,
αὐτὰρ ἔμ’ Ἀγχίσης, Πρίαμος δ’ ἔτεχ’ Ἕκτορα δῖον[817].
9. In the Fifth Iliad we learn, that Jupiter presented some horses
of a particular breed to Tros, as a compensation for the loss of his
son Ganymedes. Anchises brought his mares to them in the time of
Laomedon without leave, and thus got possession of the breed. And it
is in this place that Homer calls him ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν[818]. It may also
be observed that this was the act of a young man; for Laomedon, on
whom he played this trick, was one generation higher in the family
tree. It is here shown undoubtedly that the horses of Tros, the common
ancestor, descended to the line of Priam; which was the more wealthy
and powerful, and occupied the plain country, where the horses fed in
great numbers (xx. 221); but again, does it not seem as if this very
proceeding of Anchises may have had reference to a rivalry between the
two houses, and a claim on his part to the headship of the family?
especially from the use in this very narrative of the phrase ἄναξ
ἀνδρῶν for Anchises (v. 268), and shortly after for his heir Æneas (v.
311).
_Summary of the Evidence._
To sum up the evidence. We find the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν applied to
two persons only among the Trojans. Those two are a father advanced
in years, and his heir apparent. The father is plainly enough the
sovereign of Dardania, as well as descended from Dardanus; and
Dardania, though secondary in power, was the original seat of the race.
We cannot say positively whether Anchises represented the elder or the
younger branch of the family: for precedence of name is sometimes given
to one, and sometimes to the other line. But as Troy was powerful, and
Dardania poor, we can understand the precedence of the Trojan line,
even although it be supposed junior: whereas it seems difficult to
account for the fact that the precedence is sometimes given to Æneas,
or for the jealousy felt both towards him, and by him, except on the
supposition that his family in its humbler circumstances either were
the rightful representatives of Dardanus, whose sceptre, after the
fall of Troy, Æneas and his sons were undoubtedly to transmit[819]; or
at least were in a condition, whether by primogeniture in Assaracus,
or whether by holding the original seat of the race, to make fair and
plausible pretensions to the distinction.
It is important to bear in mind, that we have not the same clear
assertion of the right of the elder branch to succeed to power in Asia,
which the cases of Agamemnon, Protesilaus, Thrasymedes, and perhaps
others, supply in Greece. On the contrary, we shall find Sarpedon
first leader of the Lycians, though of a junior branch to Glaucus, and
likewise representing only the female line. We shall also find great
reason to question whether Hector, even if he was the heir expectant
of the succession, was not, nevertheless, junior to Paris. This want
of definiteness in the rule of succession is exactly what would bring
it into dispute, and perhaps into prolonged dispute. And if the right
of seniority was not fully acknowledged in Asia, this would at once
explain, why Homer did not observe an uniform order in the genealogy:
perhaps it might also explain his not being historically aware what
that order was.
If this be so, the apparent anomaly of the application, on the Trojan
side, to secondary persons only of the title so constantly given to the
highest Greek, disappears, and becomes the consistent application of a
rule. And Anchises with Æneas may then offer the most perfect model of
the ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, as uniting with continued sovereignty not only known
lineal descent from the first ancestor, and from Jupiter, but also the
continued possession of the original seat.
It may however be asked, why, even if we allow that ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν
is among the Greeks a title of patriarchal chieftaincy, should we
therefore assume that it had the same defined meaning among a people of
different blood and institutions?
Let me briefly answer this question.
It is to the Helli that we have looked back as the most probable
source of those ideas and institutions of clanship, which gave rise
to the title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. But the Helli were a mountain people,
(for they were around the wintry Dodona,) and so were the Dardanians:
and the institutions of highlanders in different parts, even at wide
intervals of space and time, often present strong mutual resemblances.
The limited means and pursuits of man in such a physical position check
development, and tend to maintain uniformity.
The Dardan highlanders worshipped Jupiter on Ida, as the Helli
worshipped him at Dodona. That it was the same Jupiter, we may infer
with the greatest confidence, from the fact that Homer makes one
formula of invocation common to his Trojans and his Greeks[820].
ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν Ἀχαιῶν τε Τρώων τε·
Ζεῦ πάτερ, Ἴδηθεν μεδέων, κύδιστε, μέγιστε, κ.τ.λ.
The bulk of the religion was nearly the same on both sides, as far as
the principal deities were concerned.
_Signs of kin between Trojans and Greeks._
As the first among the proofs of affinity in blood, I should be
inclined to cite that very visit of Paris to Menelaus, which gave
occasion to the war. We have no other instance recorded in Homer
of a foreign prince, received as such in domestic hospitality by a
Greek chieftain. Nor can we, inversely, find that Greek chieftains
were similarly entertained by foreigners. We have indeed an account
of gifts received by Menelaus in Egypt[821]; and we have the kindly
reception by the Egyptian king and his people of the Pseudo-Ulysses as
a suppliant[822]; and the similar entertainment of Ulysses, again as a
suppliant, in Scheria. But these cases fall greatly short of the case
of Paris. Again, Homer calls the Egyptians ἀλλόθροοι ἄνθρωποι[823]: and
that phrase is an usual one with him, evidently representing a familiar
idea. But he never calls the Trojans ἀλλόθροοι, nor speaks of them as
having different manners or religion from the Greeks. The strongest
word applied to them is ἀλλοδάπος[824]. But this word seems to mean
simply ‘from another place,’ and does not convey the proper and full
idea of a foreigner. For not only the Lycian Sarpedon is an ἀλλοδάπος
to the Trojans, but Greek pirates are usually said to attack ἀλλοδάποι,
whereas they evidently were wont to plunder those of their own nation,
even down to the time of Thucydides: and above all Eumæus, disgusted
and worn out with the profligate misdeeds of the Suitors, thinks of
moving off ἄνδρας ἐς ἀλλοδάπους, together with his oxen (ἰόντ’ αὐτῇσι
βόεσσιν), by which he could not have meant more than a short passage to
the Greek continent[825]. On the whole, I think that all this permits
the supposition that the Trojans were admitted to be a kindred, though
they were not a Greek people.
But further, the poems are full of testimony to the affinities between
the Trojans and the Greeks. It is true they also bear witness to
considerable differences: but both nations had been settled in the
plain country for several generations before the Trojan War; and, with
the growth of agriculture and trade, arts and wealth, they might well
have diverged from the close parallelism of a ruder age.
At this point, however, we must call to mind some matters, which have
been more largely discussed already.
Among these resemblances of a general character it may be observed,
that there evidently are Pelasgi on both sides of the great quarrel.
The Πελασγοὶ of the Trojans are among the ἐπίκουροι (Il. ii. 840): the
Πελασγοὶ of the Greeks appear as one of the Cretan races, distinct from
the Dorians and Achæans, and probably as the first founders of those
lowland settlements in Thessaly (ii. 681), over which the Hellenic and
Achæan names seem principally to have prevailed. Thus the Pelasgian
name forms a decided bond of union between the two races: though, from
the Poet’s mentioning it on the Trojan, and suppressing it on the Greek
side, we at once infer that the Pelasgian element was stronger and more
palpable among the Trojans.
_Signs connected with the Helli._
Next, it may be recollected that, according both to antecedent
probability and to tradition, those Helli who colonized the tract
about Dodona must have come from, that is, come by way of, Dardania.
There is thus every likelihood of a similarity, either of race or of
manners, between those who passed onwards, and those who dropped off
the movement, and remained behind.
Nor are there wanting some indications, small in amount, but
trustworthy in their nature, of primitive identity between the Dardans,
or some portion of them, and the Helli.
The Trojan Catalogue divides itself into two principal parts. The
latter of these (840-877) recites the names of the allied nations.
The former (816-39) mentions no names of races but the Trojan and
Dardanian; which were really one, and were even in name sometimes
treated as identical: for Æneas is addressed, though commander of the
Dardans[826], as
Αἰνεία, Τρώων βουλήφορε.
This division of the Catalogue is clearly indicated by the verse which
introduces it,
ἔνθα τότε Τρῶές τε διέκριθεν ἠδ’ ἐπίκουροι·
where the word Τρῶες evidently includes the Dardanians.
And that every thing is Trojan, or Dardan, which lies within the
division, vv. 816-839, may further be inferred from Dolon’s description
of the bivouac of the ἐπίκουροι in Il. x. 428-31. He enumerates
nine nations, some of whom appear among the eleven described in Il.
ii. 840-77, but not one among those portions of the force which are
described 816-839. I therefore gather, that every thing in this part of
the Catalogue is strictly Trojan or Dardan. But here we have
Ἄσιος Ὑρτακίδης, ὃν Ἀρίσβηθεν φέρον ἵπποι
αἴθωνες μεγάλοι, ποταμοῦ ἀπὸ Σελλήεντος.
The mention of this river is repeated in Il. xii. 96, 7.
Now the name of a river Selleeis at once suggests a connection with the
tribe of Selli or Helli: and further on we shall find, that Ephyre is a
sign of the Helli, as Larissa is of the Pelasgi, and that one at least
of the Ephyres of Greece, probably one situated in Thessaly, was by a
river Selleeis. In later times Sicyon[827], and in Homer Elis, if not
Thessaly, show each their Ephyre with a river Selleeis.
It has been already noticed, that in the Games of the Twenty-third
Iliad, Homer tells us that the σόλος, or ball of iron given by Achilles
as a prize, had previously been hurled by the strong arm of king
Eetion. And as all the traces of gymnastic exercises in Homer lead us
to refer them to Hellic families, we may perhaps be justified in taking
this as an indication that Eetion, the father of Andromache, belonged
to this stock.
_The Hellespont of Homer._
Another trace of the name of the Helli is found in the grammatical
structure of the ancient Homeric word Hellespont. Its composition
declares it to be the sea of Helle. Helle would be the descriptive
name of a woman of the tribe of Helli. Nor could any thing be more
natural, than that the Strait and neighbouring water should take its
appellation from the tribe of Helli, or even from a person of that
tribe, when we have every reason to believe they made the passage in
the course of their migration westward.
In later times, the name Hellespont has been restricted to the narrow
strait between the Sea of Marmora and the Archipelago. In Homer it bore
this sense, at least occasionally or inclusively, because he calls it
ἀγάῤῥοος[828]. At other times he calls it πλατὺς, and the commentators
have been much puzzled to show how a narrow strait could be a broad
one, while the interpretation _salt_ has also been suggested for the
epithet. It is just possible, that this adjective might apply to what
was afterwards known as the Hellespont, and might describe it as broad,
in comparison with the bay in which lay the Greek ships: but it is much
more natural to construe it more freely, and to understand by it the
broad Hellespont, in opposition to the narrow Hellespont; that is, the
open sea, in opposition to the ἀγάῤῥοος, which signifies the Strait.
The expression πλατὺς Ἑλλήσποντος is used but thrice; once[829] for
the water near the part of the camp occupied by Achilles, which we
know was by the open sea[830], and twice[831] with reference to the
sepulchral mounds which were to be erected there, and for which the
most conspicuous spot would of course be chosen. What πλατὺς suggests,
another epithet, ἀπείρων[832], surely requires: for it is incredible
that this word should be applied to the mere Strait. And in truth,
independently of epithets, it is demonstrable that the word in Homer
sometimes means, not the strait, but the Archipelago. For Achilles,
announcing his intention to sail home, says he will be seen passing
Ἑλλήσποντον ἐπ’ ἰχθυόεντα[833], _over_ the Hellespont, which, having
his vessels already at the mouth of it, he clearly could not do if it
meant the strait only. And, in truth, the etymology of the word speaks
for itself: the Greeks never would have given the name πόντος at all
to a narrow strip of water. The connection, which was thus established
between this quarter and Greece through the medium of the name Helle,
was recognised by the later Greeks: but they naturally altered its
form, by keeping to their own country the honours of the fountain-head,
while they made the eastward traces of the name to be secondary and
derivative. In Apollonius, Phryxus and Helle are the children of
Athamas, and grandchildren of Æolus: and they are carried from Thessaly
on the back of a ram to the Troic sea, where she is dropped, and
gives her name to it. This tradition is summed up in the argument to
the Argonautica, and exhibits the belief of the Greeks in the early
relationship of the countries.
All this marks the Helli not only as a people who had crossed the
straits, but as one which had left its name associated with the
northern coast of the Ægean, and moreover upon the country in the
neighbourhood of the straits, up to the river Selleeis; a stream which
we see must have been at a considerable distance beyond Troy, because
all the rivers that descended from Mount Ida were employed in clearing
away the Greek earthworks, and this one is not among them[834].
_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 mare Αἴθη[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 phrase ἄναξ 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 an infusion 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 the ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν among 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.
IV. _Case of Augeias._
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 over
the 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 Αὐγείας
κάσχεθε.
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].
Nestor in the first fight had slain a warrior named Μούλιος. 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.
K. O. Müller (Orchomenus, p. 355) infers from the Catalogue, 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 this ἄναξ 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 at the time from Œchalia[837], in the
valley of the Upper Peneus, a part of the Homeric Thessaly or Hellas
proper. (Il. ii. 730.)
The name Θρῂξ, 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].