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The History of the Names Hellas, Hellenes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

It has sometimes occurred that a specious explanation of a fact, or a specious amendment of an error, has established itself so firmly in the court of history, that no one dreamed of disputing its claim to be unquestionably correct. At last, by accident, a doubt arises in some one's mind; and, after enjoying a long protracted success, the universally received solution, when its antecedents are investigated and its implications realized, turns out to be wholly ‘impossible.’ It may be easily shown, I think, that such is the case with the traditional explanation of the extension of the names Hellas and Hellen to the wide signification which they bore since the seventh century B.C. This explanation has had the inestimable advantage of resting on the authority of Thucydides; and it belongs to that class of explanations which merely require to be stated in order to recommend themselves, and which the human mind is accordingly inclined to accept unreflectingly. It has come to be regarded as a commonplace historical fact; yet it is noteworthy that in some recent histories of Greece it is simply stated that the Greeks adopted Hellenes as a common name, without any suggestion of an answer to the obvious question why that name was chosen rather than another. The authors apparently felt some difficulty in accepting the exposition of Thucydides. E. Meyer seems to have realized the difficulty more fully, and some remarks which he offers on the point will call for notice. In this paper I propose to exhibit the difficulties which render the received view untenable, and to put forward another explanation in its stead.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1895

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References

1 i. 3.

2 Busolt, , Gr. Gesch. vol. 1 2nd ed. p. 197Google Scholar; Beloch, , Gr. Gesch. vol. i. p. 272Google Scholar.

3 Gesch. des Alterthums, ii. p. 534.

4 On the rout of Telemachus and Pisistratus see the recent investigations of Pernice, M., Mittheilungen 1894Google Scholar.

5 9—42; cp. 10 and 14, 15

6 v. 80 sqq.

7 of course marks the apodosis (so schol. h, ). It is not scientific to regard an understood as a distinct way of construing (Hayman); for an understood is simply the explanation of apodotic ‘well—but, in that case,’ &c.— Aristarchus gave another construction which is clearly wrong. He punctuated after and explained as imperative. Mr. Hayman ascribes this to a perception of a certain want of connexion in and remarks that the remedy is ‘at some expense of propriety in the sense.’ The clause will demand some attention at a later stage of our discussion. In the paraphrase which I have given above, I have abstained from insisting on its precise meaning. In 487 the apodosis is expressed by the action which immediately follows But here is ‘since you wish.’

8 Mr. Hayman assigns as the motive the opportunities which Telemachus would have, on such a tour, of prosecuting inquiries about his father. But the poet does not hint at this inducement.

9 It was clearly intended by Menelaus that Pisistratus should return straight to Pylos with Nestor's chariot. This is rightly noted by Hayman, ad loc.

10 Compare Merry, note ad loc. and ad a 344.

11 In his Homerische Untersuchungen.

12 344, The same line, (with a necessary variation for ), has been interpolated twice in (726 and 816).

13 75, compare Hentze's note ‘der südlichste und nördlichste Landstrich formelhaft für das gesamte Griechenland.’ Such geographical abbreviations seem most unlikely. It is worth while noting that this line may not be due to the author of but may have been borrowed of him from a much older epic poem, a true Achilleid, in which—as shows—it would have referred to the northern Argos which was contiguous to Achaiis, It has been suggested by a German commentator (Ameis) that the northern Argos is meant in 437, where Hermes, personating a follower of Achilles, says to Priam, Our judgment on this point will depend on our view of the date of

14 That Ἃργος is used in this sense will be shown hereafter.

15 There are however no passages where such a meaning is necessary.

16 Tenable so far as the Greek is concerned, and on the theory that Hellas is either Thessalian Hellas or Northern Greece. It is not, however, the true explanation—as might indeed be suspected from the fact that it does not take into account the same phrase (Ἃργεϊμέσσψ) in Z 224.

17 Menelaus exacting presents for Telemachus from the subordinate would be exactly like Alcinous ordering the other twelve of Scheria to give presents to Odysseus 386 sqq., cf v 12. The kings replenished their coffers by impositions on the v 14

18 See the ‘Map to illustrate the Catalogue of the Ships’ in Mr. Monro's edit, of the Iliad, Books i.—xii., where Lacedaemon (including western Messenia) and Argos are marked as one dominion. But it excludes by a red line Corinth, Sicyon, and the cities of the north coast (Pellene, Aigion, &c), so that this map might correspond to an older state of things, which the writer of the Catalogue indicates by in 1. 572: The authority of Agamemnon in the south is marked by his proposal in ix. 149 to give seven Messenian fortresses to Achilles. The common or joint rule of the Atridae is also implied very clearly in the Catalogue. The poet assumes that his heroes would expect to find Agamemnon and Menelaus commanding joint forces, and therefore deems it necessary to state expressly that the Lacedaemonians were mustered separately: 1. 585 The association of Menelaus and Helen with Argos is indicated by the phrase (which seems prior to the connexion with Sparta), and possibly the mention of in 562.

19 δ 534. The death of Aegisthus and accession of Orestes have been described in γ 304 sqq., and are implied in δ 546.

20 This innovation was rendered possible by the circumstance that in the older epic the town of Argos did not occur; it was therefore open for Diomede to occupy. In 180 it is not necessary to take of the town; but in any case Diomede must be conceived as a within the dominion of the Atridae. In 260 (in a context which is certainly not an original part of the Telemachy) our texts have— a description of what would have happened to Aegisthus if Menelaus had been at home. is nonsense; (a) it cannot mean the land, for ex hypothesi both Menelaus and Aegisthus would have been in the land; (b) it cannot mean the town, for Mycenae, not Argos, was in question. The right reading is surely the variant; which means that Aegisthus would not have had burial in one of the royal tombs around the acropolis of Mycenae. The reading is an emendation for one having fallen out and being taken for The passage was composed in Ionia at a time when had fallen out of use.

21 1 149.

22 Pylos in the stricter sense as Nestor's realm. The name had also the wider sense of all the land between Mt. Taygetns and the Ionian sea; it answered, in fact, to the later Messenia. This use is found I 153, where the strongholds Kardamyle, Pherae, etc., are described as

23 γ 588.

24 Mr. Hayman interprets Hellas of Thessaly only. Ad loc.: ‘Thessaly and Peloponnesus’ are intended. My argument is of equal force against this interpretation,—which in my opinion is more plausible than ‘Northern Greece.’

25 It is hard to find definite and complete statements. I have deduced what I may be permitted to call the current view from a number of statements and implications in the obvious books. As a rule, of course, the proposition is vague: the name ‘gradually’ spread. For example, in the Student's Greece, which in England, I suppose, is the most widely used educational handbook on Greek history, we read (p. 2): ‘From this district [in Thessaly] the people, and along with them their name, gradually spread over the whole country south of the Cambunian mountains’ (a statement which is otherwise most misleading. I quote from the ed. of 1881).

26 I am not prepared to go into the derivation of its possible connexion with or the possibility of an older in the region of Dodona. For which see Aristotle, Meteorol. i. 12, 9,

27 I 484

28 Ι 395.

29 λ 495.

30 Π 595.

31 So Mr. Monro in his note on B. 683 says: ‘The Ἑλλάς of Il. 9,477 ff. appears to be further to the north.’ He adds ‘Outside the kingdom of Peleus.’ This raises an interesting point. If we take the narrative of Phoenix by itself, we naturally suppose Hellas to be outside the kingdom of Peleus. But if we take it in connexion with the speech of Achilles, we infer that Amyntor was a βασιλεύς dependent on Peleus. To discuss this would take us further into the borders of the Homeric question than is needful for the present purpose.

32 The verse is quoted by Strabo, 370 = viii. 6, 6.—We may compare the use of пαναχαιοί in Homer for Ἀχαιοί in the sense of the whole host.

33 On the other hand, E. Meyer thinks that was older than in that sense. But which seems a con sequence of the wider use of would point the other way.

34 Strabo, 370, Works and Days 528, (in one of the later strata of the poem).

35 B 530. ‘It has been supposed, with some reason, that the two lines 529, 530 are an interpolation’ (Monro).

36 Where Hellas cannot mean anything but Greece. I suspect that the verse may have been borrowed from an old epic, where it would have referred to the original Hellas and the followers of Achilles.

37 Strabo, 370, (‘used Hellenes in a universal sense’)

38 Thucydides, i. 3.

39 Meyer, E., Gesch. des Alterthums, ii. 635Google Scholar, has misapprehended this. He derives the Panhellenic force of Hellenes from the mythical position of Hellen as son of Deucalion, the primitive man. But the myth of Hellen was the consequence, not the cause. This must be assumed, unless it can be strictly proved that the genealogy was older than the Hesiodic school of the seventh century.

40 δ 9.

41 It is marked in Mr. Monro's map of Homeric Greece in his ed. of the Iliad. There is no trustworthy evidence for its existence, so far as I can see; nor yet for the town Phthia, which is sometimes assumed. The existence of a κατεσκαμμένη πόλις sixty stades from Pharsalus, of course, proves nothing. Leake considers the question (Travels in Northern Greece, iv. p. 532) and comes to the conclusion that Hellas and Phthia were countries not cities.

42 Strabo 431— 2 = Bk. ix. 5, 6. Three questions are mentioned here as matters of controversy: (1) whether Phthia, Hellas and Achaia are the same or not; (2) whether Hellas and Phthia are countries or cities in Homer; (3) whether if Hellas was a city it is to be identified with a ruin sixty stades from Pharsalus, or with another ten stades from Melite.

43 See Leake, 's Travels in Northern, Greece, vol. iv. p. 532Google Scholar: ‘The kingdom of Achilles, or rather of Peleus, comprehended at its southern extremity not only Trachinia but also a portion of what was afterwards Locris. To this was added all the fertile valley of the Spercheios, which river still bears the name Elládha ol that applied by Homer to the country itself, together with the hilly country northward of that river as far as the plains of Thessaliotis.’ Thus Leake placed Hellas south of Phthia.

44 See foregoing note, and Leake, vol. ii. c. x. passim. Lolling, in Baedeker's Greece, mentions the name Helláda. Did he hear it, or did he take it from Leake?

45 It is worthy of attention that the Ozolian Locrians do not appear in Homer. We may infer that they were unknown to the earlier, and ignored by the later, poets. Yet Phocis appears in the Homeric map, and western Locris was a consequence of Phocis.

46 Strabo 682 = Bk. xiv. 6,3.

47 Hesychius,

48 Athenaeus viii. 360.

49 After the death of Ramses ii. (1280 B.C.) in the 5th year of Mernptah. The identification of Aqaiwascha with Ἀχαιοί seems probable; at least, there is nothing against it, since it has been established that the words of the Egyptian inscription imply not that they were circumcised but the reverse. See Müller, W. Max, Asien und Europa, p. 357, 371Google Scholar.

50 Assuming Aqaiwascha = Ἀχαιοί, we need not suppose that the Achaeans were the only Greeks among the invaders. There may have been ‘Mycenaeans’ too. The Egyptians would naturally choose the name of one Greek people to designate all. In the second and greater invasion, about three-quarters of a century later, the name Aqaiwascha does not occur, but Danauna appears. This is supposed to represent Δαναοί The equation is as probable, intrinsically, as the other; but we do not accept it so easily, because we know more about the Achaeans than about the Danai. Δαναοί is one of the most closely locked secrets of early Greece. It is associated only with Argolis and Egypt. If we remember that Ἀργεῖοι is not properly a national name, but merely ‘the people who lived in Ἃργος’ we may feel strongly inclined to believe that Δαναοί really was the proper name of the Argive portion of Agamemnon's subjects. One of the clearest points about the history of epic poetry is that in the older ἕπη Thessalian legend was the foundation, and that the prominence of Peloponnesian Argos was later. This order would correspond to prominence of the Aqaiwascha in the earlier, and that; of Danauna in the later, invasion of Lower Egypt.

51 I 141 (repeated 283).

52 T 115. (The insertion runs from 1. 90 to 136.)

53 251 It seems very doubtful whether this account of Agamemnon's death is an original part of the Telemachy. The story is told again (in the mouth of Proteus) by Menelaus to Telemachus ( 519 sqq.). In 251 the use of the genitive seems quite impossible. The words ought to mean ‘was he not of, did he not belong to, Achaean Argos? was it not his home?’ and the parallel passages cited would only support this meaning. But the sense required by the context is ‘was he not, at that time, in Achaean Argos?’

54 The inscriptions (edited by Fick, , in Collitz, , Sammlung ii. p. 34—46)Google Scholar conic from Lamia, Melitaia, Thaumakoi, Tteleon, Alos, Thcbac, and date chiefly from 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. It is important to remember that the Achaean dialect did not approximate to the group in which wc include the Thessaliau and the Acolic. The Achaean heroes of the Aeolian epic did not speak Aeolic or anything like it, any more than the Peloponuesian. And yet the Achaeans were adjacent to men who spoke that dialect which was adopted by the Thessaliau invaders, and which has so many points of contact with Aeolic

55 B 573–575.

56 δ 562.

57 δ 174.

58 Z 152. Some lines below (158) the phrase occurs Where has the limited sense.

59 B 108—clearly inconsistent with the view suggested by the Catalogue that Diomede had a kingdom independent of Agamemnon.

60 It seems to me probable that the ‘many islands’ included, not only the strictly Argolic —Calauria, Hydra, Spetza—, but Aegina and Salamis. Aegina appears as part of Diomede's kingdom in the Catalogue (562), but the independence of Diomede is nowhere implied except in this passage, which is clearly ‘tendenziös.’ Salamis was, possibly ruled by the lords of the Palace (Megara), who were probably included, as well as Corinth, in the Mycenaean realm. It is hard to see any serious objection to the view that Salamis (which may have got its name from pre-Greek, Carian settlers; cp. Salma-cis) did, as the legend says, take part in the colonization of Cyprus and give its name to a town there. This would not imply that the settlement consisted entirely, or even mainly, of Salaminians.

61 The expression might, however, be otherwise explained as a subtle psychological touch. Agamemnon is thinking of his own case, and wishing that he had died far from his home, which was Argos. His thoughts are running on Argos and so he congratulates Achilles on having fallen far from Argos, where he should have said, from Achilles' point of view, Phthia. But I question whether this will be considered probable.

62 Z 224.

62a It may be said that the author of the Telemaehy ignored, or was ignorant of, geography. The journey of Telemaehus from Pylos to Sparta, by chariot and in two days, has been dwelt on, for example, by ProfessorMahaffy, (Greek Lit., vol. i. cap. 4)Google Scholar. This was of course a poetic license. But such a liberty (or ignorance) in a smaller matter is very different from the ignoring of the general geography of Greece implied in the view which I have tried to refute. Real geography (though sometimes erroneous in detail) is one of the features of the Telemaehy, in contrast with the mythical geography of the older parts of the Odyssey.

63 Also, Petelia, Seylaeium, Caulonia.

64 Terina, Temesa, Laus, Posidonia.

65 The name does not occur in any early extant document; but we know that it was in use in the latter half of the 6th century from Polybius, who clearly found it in his authorities. The passage is (ii. 39):

66 See Pliny 3, 95. Compare Athenaeus xii. p. 523 He explains the name by the populousness of the colonies. His statement is interesting, for he evidently had before him an old authority, in which was used in its original sense, of the toe. Strabo is, of course, wrong when he includes Sicily under the name,—perhaps from some sense of the difficulty in explaining the appellation; p. 253 = Bk vi. 1, 2.

67 A suggestion of this kind was put forward by E. Meyer, Philol., N.F. 1889, p. 274. He does not repeat it in his Gesch. des Altertums but it met with Busolt's approval.

68 Apropos: the derivation of from the full form has puzzled philologists. It should certainly be explained as a ‘Koseform.’ There seems some tendency now, and it seems to me justifiable, to go back to the old view which connected the original Iavones, who gave their name to all the colonies between certain limits on the Asiatic coast, with a Western district in the Peloponnesus. (The complication of this connexion by the further connexion with Attica seems extremely doubtful. ) If so, we might conjecture that in their old home, where their name was completely forgotten, there had prevailed another hypocoristic abridgement, in which the but not the was lengthened: and that from them the Ionian Sea, derived its name. with the two hypocoristica and would be pretty. I take this opportunity of observing that the mention of the Ionians (Yevana) among the allies of the Hittites, in the epic of Ramses ii., has not been duly appreciated. Three inferences are possible, and any of these would be very important. (1) The Ionians had already begun to settle in Asia Minor by the end of the fourteenth century B.C. (2) The Ionians were still in the Peloponnesus, and took no part in the war, but their name was so well known that the poet included them (cf. W. Max Müller, Asien und Europa, 370 ‘Diese Erwähnung besagt keineswegs dass die Ionier zu den Kleinasiaten oder gar zum Hetitcrreich zu rechnen sind. Der Dichter zählt wohl alle ihm bekannten Westländer unter den “Genossen” des siegreichen Königs’). (3) Ionians used at this time to cross the seas and hire themselves out as mercenary soldiers.

69 Helbig, Das hom. Epos, appendix. Busolt, , Gr. Gesch. i. 247Google Scholar.

70 Pansanias, v. 9, 4, states that in 580 two officers of this name were appointed, there having been one heretofore. This statement, if sound, gives a posterior limit for the Elean inscription in which one is mentioned (Collitz, Sammlung i. no. 1152).