Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 1 of 3: I. Prolegomena II. Achæis; or, the Ethnology of the Greek RacesGladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
History
Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 1 of 3: I. Prolegomena II. Achæis; or, the Ethnology of the Greek Races
Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
Civilization, Homeric; Epic poetry, Greek -- History and criticism; Homer
If, again, there were a distinct people of Pelasgians among the Trojan
auxiliaries, and on the Greek side a large but subordinate Pelasgic
element, this would be ample reason both for his naming the Pelasgic
allies of the Trojans, with a view to the truth of his recital, and for
his not using the Pelasgic name in connection with the Greeks; for in
no instance has he placed branches of the same race or tribe on both
sides in the struggle. Glaucus and Sarpedon, the transplanted Æolids,
cannot be considered as exceptions, first, from the old date of their
Greek extraction: and secondly, because they are individuals, whereas
we now speak of tribes and races. The name, too, was more suited to the
unmixed Pelasgians of the Trojan alliance, than to a people, among whom
it had grown pale beneath the greater splendour of famous dynasties and
of more energetic tribes.
The application of this reasoning to the Pelasgi is fortified by its
being applicable to other Homeric names.
_Thraces and Threicii._
It can hardly be doubted that the name Θρῇξ is akin to Τραχὶν and
τρῆχυς[252], that it means a highlander, or inhabitant of a rough
and mountainous country, and that it included the inhabitants of
territories clearly Greek. This extended signification of the term
explains the assertion of Herodotus[253], that the Thracians were the
most numerous of all nations, after the Indians.
Now Homer makes Thamyris the Bard a Thracian; yet it is clear from his
having to do with the Muses, and from the geographical points with
which Homer connects his name, that he must be a Greek[254]. They
are, Δώριον in the dominions of Pylos, where he met his calamity, and
the Œchalia of Eurytus in Thessaly, from whence he was making his
journey[255]. Strabo tells us that Pieria and Olympus were anciently
Thracian[256], and moreover, that the Thracians of Bœotia consecrated
Helicon to the Muses. Orpheus, Musæus, Eumolpus, were held to be
Thracians by tradition, yet it also made them write in Greek. I think
we may trace this descriptive character of the name Θρῇκες, and its not
yet having acquired fully the force of a proper name with Homer, in his
employment of it as an adjective, and not a substantive. It is very
frequently joined in the poems with the affix ἄνδρες, which he does
not employ with such proper names as are in familiar and established
use, such as Danaan, Argive, or Achæan. He says Achæan or Danaan
heroes, but never joins the names to the simple predicate ‘men.’ When
he says Ἀχαιὸς ἄνηρ, it is with a different force; it is in pointing
out an individual among a multitude. Indeed in Homer it is not Θρῇξ but
Θρηίκιος which means Thracian, of or belonging to the country called
Thrace, Θρῄκη. There is then sufficient evidence that Greeks of the
highlands might be Thraces; and there may very probably have been whole
tribes so called among the Greeks. Yet we never have Thracians named
by Homer on the Greek side, while on the Trojan side they appear as
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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