II - ILIOS
THE TROJANS COMPARED AND CONTRASTED WITH THE GREEKS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2010
Summary
We have perhaps been accustomed to contemplate the Trojans too exclusively, either as enemies of the Greeks, or else as constituting, together with them, one homogeneous chapter of antiquity, which we might be content to examine as a whole, without taking notice of specific differences. Let us now endeavour to inquire what were the relations, other than those of mere antagonism in the war, between the two nations; what points they embraced, and what affinities or discords they disclose. The direct signs of kindred between Troy and Greece have already been considered ; but the examination into points of contrast and resemblance as respects religion, polity, and character, will assist us in judging how far a key to those affinities and discords is to be found in the different interfusion and proportion, in the two cases, of ethnical elements which they possessed in common.
We have seen in another placea that the Greeks, or Achseans, and the Trojans, were akin by the Hellic element, which appears to establish a connection chiefly as regarded the royal house, and other ruling houses, of Troy. On the other hand it has seemed clear, from many sources, that the main affinity between the bulk of the two nations was Pelasgian.
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- Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age , pp. 145 - 248Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1858