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
supplying no less than two contingents of allies: one in the Catalogue,
and another which had just arrived at the period of the Δολώνεια[257].
These two appear to be entirely distinct tribes: because no connection
is mentioned between them; because the first contingent is described
as being composed not of all the Thracians, but of all the Thracians
within the Hellespont: and lastly, because the new comers have their
own βασιλεὺς with them, as the first contingent had its leaders,
Acamas and Peirous. The Hellespont meant here seems to be the strait,
because it is ἀγαρρόος. And it is therefore possible, that while the
first contingent was supplied by the nearer tribes, the second may have
been composed of those Thracians who lay nearer the Greek border.
Notwithstanding that Mars, who is so inseparably associated with
Thrace, fights on the Trojan side, we have no evidence from Homer which
would warrant the assumption that he intended to connect the Thracians
more intimately with the Pelasgians than with the Hellenes. It may be
that the poet’s ethnical knowledge failed him. The wavering of Mars
seems to indicate a corresponding uncertainty in his own mind. Perhaps
with both the Thracian and Pelasgian names it was the breadth of their
range that constituted the difficulty. Some part of Thrace is with him
ἐριβώλαξ[258]; it is the part from which the first contingent came, as
the son of Peirous belonged to it. And that part is less mountainous
than the quarter which I have presumed may have supplied the contingent
of Rhesus. The epithet is the very same as is applied to the Pelasgian
Larissa[259]: and the Larissan Pelasgians are placed next to the first
Thracian contingent in the Trojan Catalogue.
The most probable supposition for Thracians as well as Pelasgians
is, that they had affinities in both directions; that they existed
among the Greeks diffusively, and were absorbed in names of greater
splendour: but that on the Trojan side they still had distinct national
existence, and therefore they are named on that side, while to avoid
confusion silence is studiously maintained about them on the other.
The whole race, says Grote, present a character more Asiatic than
European[260].
_Caucones and Leleges._
Many other races have been recorded in the later traditions as having
in pre-historic times inhabited various parts of Greece. Such are
Temnices, Aones, Hyantes, Teleboi. Of these Homer makes no mention.
But there are two other races whom he names, the Leleges and Caucones,
and with respect to whom Strabo[261] has affirmed, that they were
extensively diffused over Greece as well as over Asia Minor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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