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
While the Achæan name is thus exclusively applied to the Suitors, and
apparently to them because they formed the aristocracy, the people,
when assembled, are invariably addressed as Ἰθακήσιοι. It is said
indeed, that the Achæans[726] were summoned by the heralds to the
Assembly of the Second Book: but it seems to have been customary
to send a special summons only to principal persons, as we find in
Scheria[727]; though all classes were expected to attend, and did
attend.
I do not, however, venture to treat it as certain, that the word Ἀχαιοὶ
is not applied to the population of Ithaca generally. When Euripides
addresses the Assembly, and incites the people to revenge the death of
the Suitors, we are told that οἶκτος δ’ ἕλε πάντας Ἀχαιούς. This may
mean the aristocratic party in the Assembly, as we know that there were
two sections very differently minded. At any rate, if the whole people
be meant, it is by the rarest possible exception. The name is applied,
as we should expect, to the soldiers who sailed with Ulysses to Troy:
but within Ithaca it seems clear that the name properly denotes the
nobles. And upon the whole it seems most probable, that these Ἀχαιοὶ,
in the Twenty-third Book, are the party of the Suitors, with reference
rather to their position in society than their extraction: while the
minority, who do not join in the movement against Ulysses, are probably
the old population of the island, who have no cause of quarrel to make
them take up arms against him, and yet no such tie with him, either
of race or of ancient subordination, as to induce them to move in his
favour.
Ithaca was ill fitted for tillage, or for feeding anything but sheep
and goats. And Ithacus, its eponymist, being a very modern personage,
it seems highly probable that, whether Achæan or not, he and his race
were Hellenic, and gave to the population that peculiar name of
Cephallenes, under which Laertes describes them as his subjects. But
there were probably anterior inhabitants of the old Pelasgian stock,
submerged beneath two Hellenic immigrations, caring little which of
their lords was uppermost, and forming the supine minority of the final
Assembly.
The use of the Achæan name in Ithaca, in broad separation from the
Ithacesian, must then prove either its connection with a race, or its
bias towards a class, and may prove both. But quitting the latter as
sufficiently demonstrated, I now proceed to trace the local use of the
Achæan name.
And, first of all, we find it locally used in the North; in that
Thessaly, where the name of Hellas came into being, and from whence it
extended itself to the Southward; therefore in the closest connection
with the Hellic stem.
We are told in the Catalogue, with respect to the division under
Achilles, after the names of the districts and places from which they
came,
Μυρμίδονες δὲ καλεῦντο, καὶ Ἕλληνες, καὶ Ἀχαιοί[728].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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