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 for example, 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 the _Troica_; 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 the Πύρασος[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 the
Φῆρες.
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 traced and 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 read Φεραὶ, and, according to the
Scholiast, the same with Φῆραι. 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 with Φεαί.
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 of Φεραὶ in Il. ii. 711.
2. Φέρης, one of the sons of Cretheus, a Thessalian king, Od. xi. 259.
3. The Φῆρες, termed ὀρέσκῳοι in Il. i. 268, and λαχνηέντες in 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, that Φήρη and Φηραὶ were the
same place. The name of Eumelus, who lives at Φεραὶ, and who is the
grandson of Φέρης, yet is called Φηρητιάδης, clearly establishes the
etymological relationship. Thus there is, again, no difficulty whatever
in recognising between Φεραὶ and Φεαὶ, or again between Φεαὶ and Φείαι;
and it is in the manner of Homer to give the name of the same country
both in the singular and in the plural, as Μυκήνη, Il. iv. 52, and
Μυκηναὶ, Il. ii. 569. Φᾶρις, the only remaining name, gives us the
Doric or Æolic α for η, and an altered form of declension. This however
is not at all incompatible with the manner of Homer, who not only uses
Πηνελόπη and Πηνελόπεια, Ἀστυόχη and Ἀστυόχεια, Πηρείη (according
to one reading), Il. ii. 766, and Πιερίη, Od. v. 50, but Ἑρμῆς and
Ἑρμείας, Πατροκλέης and Πατρόκλος; and for towns, the Θρύον of Il. ii.
591 appears again as Θρυόεσσα in 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. Thus θρύον is _a rush_, and θρυοεὶς _rushy_. The
town Θρύον in the Catalogue is at the ford of the Alpheus, and in Il.
xi. 711 it is τις Θρυόεσσα πόλις, αἰπεῖα κολώνη, which exhibits to us
the adjective use in an actual example. So again by analogy we might
have Φῆρις from Φήρα or Φήρη, as πάτρις from πάτρα, ἀναλκὶς from ἄλκη.
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 name Σελληείς. 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]. The Προέληνοι of 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 an ἄναξ 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 with ἔρα as 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 employs
ἔραζε without the digamma: and which prefix we find reproduced in the
Latin _terra_.
_The Φῆρες._
Let us now pass on to the Φῆρες.
The Φῆρες of Homer are, like the Ἕλλοι, 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 is ἐτίσατο[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 his Ἀχαιοί.
Neither of these pairs of names are territorial: while in each pair one
probably indicates a subdivision of the other.
The Φῆρες thus resembling the Ἕλλοι, we are led by their designation
to another link between the name of Φῆραι with its cognates and the
Hellic race. It seems thus far as if Φηραὶ were the appropriate name of
a settlement formed by Φῆρες.
Having proceeded thus far, we may now observe the relation of the word
Φὴρ,
1. To the Greek ἔρα, which evidently, from its passing into the Latin
_terra_, had at one time a Greek prefix. With this we may probably
associate the Greek ἔαρ, and the Latin _ver_.
2. To the Greek θὴρ, a wild beast.
3. To the Latin _fera_, with the same meaning.
4. To the Latin _terra_, meaning the earth.
5. To the Italian _terra_, 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 Italian _terra_
seems often to mean _tellus_, often _humus_, very rarely _ager_,
constantly _oppidum_ or _castrum_. Thus in Dante (Inferno, C., v. 97),
‘_Siede_ la terra, dove nata fui.’
This being so, it is natural to suppose that, while the correlative
of the Greek ἔρα became in Latin _terra_, so as directly to signify
_tellus_ or _humus_, that of the Greek Φηρὰ became in Italian _terra_,
so as to signify a walled place; or, in other words, that the original
word, whatever it was, of the common mother language, which became Φηρὰ
in Greek, in Italy became _terra_ for this latter purpose. The exchange
of θ for _t_ we see in ἐσθὴς becoming _vestis_: and of _t_ for _f_ (=
φ) in τρυγάω compared with _fruges_.
This sense of _terra_ seems to have dropped altogether out of the
Latin, and especially Pelasgian, branch of the old Italian tongue.
The relation between Φὴρ and θὴρ, 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 word ἔρα, the earth, and
they seem to have ἐρ or ἠρ for their common root.
Before passing on to Ἐφύρη, 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. His Φῆρες appear to be in fact the rude and
uncombed mountaineers, who also have the name of Ἕλλοι in the same or
other tribes. These Φῆρες are λαχνηέντες, shaggy. They come down to
the plains, and acquire settled and civilised habits: from Φῆρες they
are become Ἀχαιοὶ, but their long hair has not left them, and from
λαχνηέντες they are now καρηκομόωντες.
Now we find the word Ἐφύρη used many times in Homer: and once we have
the name Ἔφυροι, applied to a people apparently Thessalian, on whom
Mars[851], with his son Φόβος, makes war from out of Thrace.
_Etymology of Ἐφύρη._
Can we then presume an etymological connection between the word Ἐφύρη,
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 prefix ε.
2. The change of ε or η for υ.
Dr. Donaldson[852] has given a list of Greek words which have, as
prefixes unconnected with the root, sometimes the letter α, sometimes
ε, sometimes ο.
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 finding φυρη,
instead of φερη or φηρη?
Can it be because, in cases of Greek syllabic augment, there is a
tendency to avoid reduplication, as in ἀτιτάλλω for ἀτατάλλω? 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 the υ, which Heyne has observed[853]?
Or, shall we found it on the principles laid down by Bopp[854], in his
Comparative Grammar, that the α has a tendency to weaken itself into υ,
and that liquids having a preference for that latter vowel, influence
the generation of it? the conditions of interchange between α and υ
resting, 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 the α which we find in φᾶρις.
It is not only α that we may find supplanted by υ. The ε suffers the
same fate in the Italian _Siculus_, which appears as the representative
of the Greek Σίκελος. Again we have, in the Latin, the kindred words
_furo_ and _fera_. Perhaps I am wrong in dealing thus scrupulously
with the variation from ε to υ, as if capable of affecting vitally the
question of identity in the root. For in examining another root (that
of κεφάλη), 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 that Ἐφύρη and Φηραὶ
may be drawn etymologically from the same root. If so, that root will
be probably the same with that of ἔρα, and of φῆρ of 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 that Ἐφύρη and Φεραὶ may properly denote, and may be the
original and proper Hellic name for the _terre_ (Ital.), or walled
places, founded by the Hellic races; as Ἄργος signifies the open
districts in which the Pelasgians were given to settling κωμηδὸν, 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
the Ἔφυροι as 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 called ἐριβώλαξ[855], in Thessaly, or in Elis.
For Homer gives us, as to the last, direct evidence of the fact, by
his epithets εὐρύχορος, open, and ἱππόβοτος, 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 called ἄφνειος. 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 period at 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 the χρησμόλογος in the Aves
of Aristophanes says (Av. 968),
ἀλλ’ ὅταν οἰκήσωσι λύκοι πολιαί τε κορώναι
ἐν ταυτῷ τὸ μεταξὺ Κορίνθου καὶ Σικυῶνος.
In the same sense as where Shakespeare says,
When Birnam wood shall move to Dunsinane.
The Scholiast gives two explanations, of which the best is εὔφορος γὰρ
αὕτη ἡ χώρα.
Again, it is certainly confirmatory of the supposition that Ἐφύρη
was the name of the primitive Hellic, as Ἄργος was 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 was near the territory of Prœtus, and
was situated μύχῳ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο. Bellerophon, the grandson of
Sisyphus, was driven out by Prœtus, king of the Argives; and was a
ξεῖνος of 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 of
Ἄργος, 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 five κωμαὶ
of the name. But even in Homer’s time, either these settlements had
decayed, or else, which is more likely, the particular form Ἐφύρη had
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 these Ἐφύραι were 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 son Φόβος,
τὼ μὲν ἄρ’ ἐκ Θρῄκης Ἐφύρους μέτα θωρήσσεσθον,
ἠὲ μετὰ Φλέγυας μεγαλήτορας[858].
Two circumstances warrant our placing these Ἔφυροι in 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 Ὀδυσσεὺς
φάρμακον 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 ἠμαθόεντος
ἢ 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.