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
The Trojan force was in two main portions, each with many subdivisions:
first, the army of Priam, with those of his kindred or subordinate
princes: and, secondly, the allies, with their numerous and widely
dispersed races. In the passage just quoted, the word _Leleges_ must
either mean the great body of allies, or else it must, conjointly with
_Troes_, signify the whole mass of what we may call the indigenous
troops. Now the former is highly improbable. Such differences as are
implied in the combination of Thracians, Lycians, and Pelasgians, could
not well be, and nowhere else are comprehended by Homer under a single
name as one race or nation, though the Lycians, on account of their
excellence, are sometimes[266] taken to represent the whole body of
the allies. And again, if the Leleges meant the whole body of allies,
the Pelasgians would appear as a branch of them, which is contrary to
all evidence and likelihood. If then the two words together represent
those indigenous troops, as contradistinguished from the allies, who
were arrayed in the five divisions that are enumerated in vv. 816-39 of
the Second book, the question is, how is the sense to be distributed
between them. And here there is not much room for doubt. The name Τρῶες
had been assumed four generations before the war from King Tros, and
was therefore a political or dynastic name, not a name of race. It most
probably therefore indicates either the inhabitants of Priam’s own
city and immediate dominions, or else the ruling race, who held power
here, as elsewhere, among a subject population. In either case we must
conclude that the word Leleges is meant to indicate the blood, and also
the blood-name (so to speak) of the bulk of the population through a
considerable tract of country: and it will be observed that in the
fourth and fifth of the divisions[267] in the Trojan Catalogue Homer
specifies no blood-name or name of race whatever.
This being so, we find an important light cast upon the meaning of
the word Leleges. As we proceed with these inquiries, we shall find
accumulating evidence of the Pelasgianism of the mass of the population
on the Trojan side: and thus when it appears that that mass or a very
great part of it was Lelegian, it also appears probable that the
Leleges were at least akin to the Pelasgians, though some have taken
them to be distinct[268].
In answer therefore to the question, who were these Caucones and these
Leleges, while we are deficient in the means of detailed and particular
reply, we may, I think, fall back with tolerable security upon the
words used by Bishop Thirlwall in closing an ethnological survey:
“The review we have just taken of the Pelasgian settlements in Greece
appears inevitably to lead to the conclusion that the name Pelasgians
was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni: but that
each of the Pelasgian tribes had also one peculiar to itself[269].”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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