first obtained a promise of the help they wanted; but that, after they had departed, there was a change of resolution. Hence messengers were sent to acquaint Tydeus, and apparently to recall the force. The expression is (Il. iv. 384), ἐνθ' αὖτ ̓ ἀγγελίην ἐπὶ Τύδῃ στεῖλαν ̓Αχαιοί. An allusion to this occurrence is again put into the mouth of Minerva in Il. v. 800-7. The resemblance in the names used is so precise as to be almost precisian. Again, the Mycenians are named once, and named as 'Axauoi. Again, the Thebans are named twice, and once it is as Καδμείοι, once as Καδμείωνες. These two instances fortify one another to such a degree by their concurrence, that, as I would submit, they would, even if they stood alone, amount to a demonstration that Homer had regard to the times and circumstances under which the several races prevailed, in those passages of his work which refer to particular incidents of prior history, personal and local. But there is no lack of other evidence. First, we have other pieces of prior history, which affect the same portion of Greece. The first of these probably preceded the Troica by only two, or, at the utmost, two and a half generations. It is the account of the birth of Eurystheus, given by Agamemnon himself in the Nineteenth Book. The scene of it is described as "Apyos 'Axauκóv. He calls it indeed by the name, which it still bore at the time when he spoke, and which was understood by the hearers, for it remained the same country as it had been in former times. But the same people, who in the time of Tydeus, living under the Pelopids, were 'Axaoì, in the time of Eurystheus, and therefore before the predomi nance of the Pelopids, are described as 'Apyeîoi. In Il. xix. 122, Juno thus speaks of the birth of Eurystheus ἤδη ἀνὴρ γέγον ̓ ἐσθλὸς, ὃς ̓Αργείοισιν ἀνάξει. And again, v. 124, the same term is used. Again, it appears from the Sixth Iliad that Protus, who expelled Bellerophon about the same time, was king of the 'Apyeîoɩ (Il. vi. 158); ὅς ρ' ἐκ δήμου ἔλασσεν, ἐπεὶ πολὺ φέρτερος δεν ̓Αργείων. According to extra-Homeric tradition, Protus was the brother of Eurystheus. According to Homer, his power extends over Ephyre, and over the Argives: and as Æolid dynasties were then ruling in the west, it is the country afterwards called the Argos of the Achæans, within some part of which he must have ruled. But in telling both the story of Protus, and the story of Eurystheus, with reference to the same side of Peloponnesus, and entirely out of connection with one another, the text of Homer, true to itself, calls the subjects of each at that period, only by the name 'Apyeîoi, never Δαναοί or 'Αχαιοί. Thus, one generation before the Troica he calls people Achæans, and calls them by that name only, whom one or two generations earlier he describes, and repeatedly and uniformly describes, as having been Argives. There can hardly be stronger circumstantial evidence of the fact, that to each term he attached its own special meaning. And yet it is not simply that Homer has made the Argive the more ancient, and the Achæan the more recent, name. On the contrary, he uses both the one and the other with marked respect to place as well as to time. For at the great Argive epoch he has Achæans and at the great Achæan epoch, that of the poems, he has Argive associations, and a local Argive designation, still remaining. In the Eleventh Book, Nestor detains Patroclus with a speech of great length. In the beginning of this harangue, he refers to the circumstances of the moment, and, having ended his preface, he travels back to his own early youth, indeed almost his childhood, to give the story of a war, or foray, between the Epeans and the Pylians. When he has ended this tale, he returns to the actual position of affairs before Troy. In the narrative of this raidd, he commonly terms the one side Epeans, and the other Pylians. But he once calls the Epeans, who were inhabitants of Elis, Elians. This is natural enough for as the Elian name afterwards (and so soon as in the time of Homer) prevailed in that race and country, it might very well have been already beginning to come into use. But he also calls the Pylians Achæans; and he uses the name distinctively, for it is where he is speaking of them as the conquering partye. For this there is clearly no corresponding reason. It is equally clear that Homer does not call the Pylians 'Axauoi, simply in the sense of being Greeks, for then the name would not have been distinctive the enemy too would have been included with them, which would turn the passage into nonsense. Homer, then, (there is no other alternative) means to say that the Pylians were, in some particular sense, of the Achæan race. This is the more worthy of remark, when we look to the preamble and peroration of the speech. For in both of these, which refer to the whole body of the Greeks and to the Trojan epoch, he employs his usual names, and calls them both Danaans (Aavaŵv où κýde d Il. xi. 670-761. e v. 759. Taι, v. 665, also vid. 797), and Argives ('Apyeiwv àékyti, v. 667): finally Achæans (vies 'Axaι@v, 800). Thus then he calls the Pylians Achæans at the time of the Argive predominance: for this local war could hardly have been more than ten or twenty years after the birth of Eurystheus, and must therefore have been before, or else during his reign; that is to say, at a time when his own subjects are called 'Apyeol. Again. Homer uses the word 'Apycios in the feminine singular fifteen times. Twice it is with reference to Juno. Of course this application of the term is figurative. But though it be figurative, the figure is evidently founded on her close and intimate relation, not to the Greeks at large only, but to the Argive name; and to the persons, but more particularly to the place, that was so specially associated with it. In all the other thirteen places, the epithet is joined with the name of Helen. Does it for her mean simply Greek, or something special and beyond this? Now if it meant simply Greek, it would be strange that she is never called, I will not say Aavan, because the Danaan name has no singular use in Homer, but certainly 'Axain or 'Axalis. Especially as the word 'Axaiòs is used as an epithet, be it remembered, many times oftener, than is 'Apyeios and it alone is used to describe the women of Greece generally. Again, if the epithet Argive, as applied to Helen, meant simply Greek, it might be suitable enough in the mouth of a Trojan speaking among Trojans, but it would have been weak and unmeaning, and therefore most unlike Homer, in the mouth of a Greek or a friend of Greeks; or when, as in the Odyssey, Helen is no longer among strangers, but at home. Yet it is used f Inf. p. 392. g Od. iv. 184, 296. A a in the following passages among others, (1) by Juno to Minerva, Il. ii. 161, (2) by Minerva to Ulysses, Il.ii. 177; and here in a near juxtaposition with the Achæan appellative, which goes far to prove of itself that 'Apyein has a meaning more specific than merely Greek. The passage is, ̓Αργείην Ελένην, ἧς εἵνεκα πολλοὶ ̓Αχαιῶν ἐν Τροίῃ ἀπόλοντο. I doubt whether Homer ever places in such proximity the two epithets with the same meaning for each §. The tautology would be gross, if Achæan and Argeian each meant neither more nor less than Greek: but if 'Apyein have the local sense, nothing awkward remains. (3) It is used by Agamemnon, Il.iii.458, in addressing the Trojans; (4) Il. iv. 174, in addressing Menelaus; (5) Il. ix. 140, in addressing the Greek Council. It seems quite clear, from even this enumeration, that 'Apycin, as applied to Helen, must mean something different from the mere fact that she belonged to the Greek nation at large. Nor is it difficult to find a meaning. Homer indeed leaves us but narrow information as to the extraction of Helen. He calls her sometimes evraтépeia h, and many times Διὸς ἐκγεγαυία ί. In the Third Iliad he shows her to be the sister of Castor and Pollux, and in the Eleventh Odyssey he shows them to be the children of Tyndareus and Leda. Who Tyndareus was we do not know from him. But the common tradition, which makes him a sovereign in Eastern Peloponnesus, is thoroughly accordant with the slight notices in Homer. For, as we see from the cases of Eurystheus and Protus, it was in Eastern Peloponnesus that the Argive g See inf. sect. ix. h Il. vi. 292. Od. xxii. 227. j Il. iii. 236. Od. xi. 298. |