ii. 840-77, but not one among those portions of the force which are

described 816-839. I therefore gather, that every thing in this part of the Catalogue is strictly Trojan or Dardan. But here we have

Ἄσιος Ὑρτακίδης, ὃν Ἀρίσβηθεν φέρον ἵπποι αἴθωνες μεγάλοι, ποταμοῦ ἀπὸ Σελλήεντος.

The mention of this river is repeated in Il. xii. 96, 7.

Now the name of a river Selleeis at once suggests a connection with the tribe of Selli or Helli: and further on we shall find, that Ephyre is a sign of the Helli, as Larissa is of the Pelasgi, and that one at least of the Ephyres of Greece, probably one situated in Thessaly, was by a river Selleeis. In later times Sicyon[827], and in Homer Elis, if not Thessaly, show each their Ephyre with a river Selleeis.

It has been already noticed, that in the Games of the Twenty-third Iliad, Homer tells us that the σόλος, or ball of iron given by Achilles as a prize, had previously been hurled by the strong arm of king Eetion. And as all the traces of gymnastic exercises in Homer lead us to refer them to Hellic families, we may perhaps be justified in taking this as an indication that Eetion, the father of Andromache, belonged to this stock.

_The Hellespont of Homer._

Another trace of the name of the Helli is found in the grammatical structure of the ancient Homeric word Hellespont. Its composition declares it to be the sea of Helle. Helle would be the descriptive name of a woman of the tribe of Helli. Nor could any thing be more natural, than that the Strait and neighbouring water should take its appellation from the tribe of Helli, or even from a person of that tribe, when we have every reason to believe they made the passage in the course of their migration westward.

In later times, the name Hellespont has been restricted to the narrow strait between the Sea of Marmora and the Archipelago. In Homer it bore this sense, at least occasionally or inclusively, because he calls it ἀγάῤῥοος[828]. At other times he calls it πλατὺς, and the commentators have been much puzzled to show how a narrow strait could be a broad one, while the interpretation _salt_ has also been suggested for the epithet. It is just possible, that this adjective might apply to what was afterwards known as the Hellespont, and might describe it as broad, in comparison with the bay in which lay the Greek ships: but it is much more natural to construe it more freely, and to understand by it the broad Hellespont, in opposition to the narrow Hellespont; that is, the open sea, in opposition to the ἀγάῤῥοος, which signifies the Strait. The expression πλατὺς Ἑλλήσποντος is used but thrice; once[829] for the water near the part of the camp occupied by Achilles, which we know was by the open sea[830], and twice[831] with reference to the sepulchral mounds which were to be erected there, and for which the most conspicuous spot would of course be chosen. What πλατὺς suggests, another epithet, ἀπείρων[832], surely requires: for it is incredible that this word should be applied to the mere Strait. And in truth, independently of epithets, it is demonstrable that the word in Homer sometimes means, not the strait, but the Archipelago. For Achilles, announcing his intention to sail home, says he will be seen passing Ἑλλήσποντον ἐπ’ ἰχθυόεντα[833], _over_ the Hellespont, which, having his vessels already at the mouth of it, he clearly could not do if it meant the strait only. And, in truth, the etymology of the word speaks for itself: the Greeks never would have given the name πόντος at all to a narrow strip of water. The connection, which was thus established between this quarter and Greece through the medium of the name Helle, was recognised by the later Greeks: but they naturally altered its form, by keeping to their own country the honours of the fountain-head, while they made the eastward traces of the name to be secondary and derivative. In Apollonius, Phryxus and Helle are the children of Athamas, and grandchildren of Æolus: and they are carried from Thessaly on the back of a ram to the Troic sea, where she is dropped, and gives her name to it. This tradition is summed up in the argument to the Argonautica, and exhibits the belief of the Greeks in the early relationship of the countries.

All this marks the Helli not only as a people who had crossed the straits, but as one which had left its name associated with the northern coast of the Ægean, and moreover upon the country in the neighbourhood of the straits, up to the river Selleeis; a stream which we see must have been at a considerable distance beyond Troy, because all the rivers that descended from Mount Ida were employed in clearing away the Greek earthworks, and this one is not among them[834].

_The gift of Echepolus._

We find an insulated yet remarkable note of kin between the Dardan house and the Greeks in the case of Echepolus. He was a son of Anchises, and he resided in Sicyon. He was possessed of great wealth, and apparently he had also the fine breed of horses which was in his family: for he presented Agamemnon with the mare Αἴθη[835], as a consideration for not being required to follow him against Troy.

Now there was evidently at this time no commercial class formed in Greece. Echepolus must therefore have had a territorial fortune. To find a wealthy member of the Dardan house domesticated in Greece, and peacefully remaining there during the expedition, must excite some surprise. It seems to supply a new and strong presumption of the Hellic origin of the royal families of Troas. The name too, and the gift of a horse, are in remarkable conformity with the horse-rearing and horse-breaking pursuits of the highest Trojans.

We have already seen stray signs of the Pelasgic affinities between the two contending parties: but it would now appear, that there were affinities in the Hellic line also: and if so, then this institution of chieftaincy, standing above merely political supremacy, and indicated by the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, may probably have subsisted among Trojans as well as Greeks.

The less warlike character of the Trojans, their more oriental manners, and their less multiform and imaginative religion, all point to considerable differences in the composition of the people. The Pelasgic ingredient was probably stronger in Troy: it appears to have had more influence over religion, manners, and institutions. But the circumstances mentioned above are tokens of an infusion of Hellic blood in the populations that inhabited Troas. Now this was nowhere so likely to be found as in the royal family; for we see the governing faculty everywhere accompanying the Hellic tribes through Greece, and asserting itself both by the acquisition of political power, and by the energetic use of it. Everywhere it rises, by a natural buoyancy, to the summit of society; and gives their first vent, in miniature, to those energies, which were afterwards to defy, or even to subdue the world.

At the same time, though it is in connection with the Hellic families alone that we find the ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν among the Greeks, we need not proceed so far as to deny the possibility that it might also have been a Pelasgic institution, and that its non-appearance, in connection with their name, might be sufficiently accounted for simply by their loss of political power. We have no reason to suppose the Pelasgi and Helli to have been families of mankind whose characters were in radical and absolute opposition to one another: the completeness of their fusion after a short period seems to prove, that, though with a different distribution of capacities and tendencies, they must have had many and important points of contact.

IV. _Case of Augeias._

Let us take next the case of Augeias.

He appears in three passages of the Iliad.

1. The Epeans, who inhabited Elis, with Bouprasium and other towns enumerated in the Catalogue, and lying in the north-western corner of the Peloponnesus, sent to the Trojan war forty ships, in four divisions, under four separate leaders, and without any head over the whole contingent. The fourth named of these is Polyxeinus, son of Agasthenes, himself a lord (ἄναξ), and the son of Augeias.

2. In the Eleventh Book, Nestor gives the curious history of the war of his boyhood or earliest youth, between the Elians (v. 671), called also Epeans (688), and the Pylians.

Neleus had sent to Elis a chariot with four horses to contend in the games, of which a tripod was the prize. The horses were detained by Augeias (v. 701).

τοὺς δ’ αὖθι ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Αὐγείας κάσχεθε.

Nestor and the Pylians invaded Elis in return, and brought off an immense booty. The Elians then took arms and besieged Thryoessa (in the Catalogue Thryon), the border city of Pylos, at the ford of the Alpheus. Minerva brought the tidings to Pylos. The Pylian forces spent one night on the boundary river Minyeius, and marched to the Alpheus, beside which they spent a second night.

3. In the morning the battle was fought: the Epeans were defeated, and driven all the way to Bouprasium and the Olenian rock, upon the sea shore, in the western part of what was afterwards Achæa. There Pallas turned them back. The Pylians, who returned home, are called Achæans[836].

Nestor in the first fight had slain a warrior named Μούλιος. He was the son-in-law of Augeias, married to his eldest daughter Agamede, who was profoundly skilled in drugs (v. 741);

ἣ τόσα φάρμακα ᾔδη, ὅσα τρέφει εὐρεῖα χθών.

K. O. Müller (Orchomenus, p. 355) infers from the Catalogue, that Augeias was lord only of a fourth part of Elis. But this assumption seems quite gratuitous in connection with the passage in the Catalogue, and utterly in contradiction to the tenour of the history of the Pylian raid in B. xi. On the contrary, I infer with considerable confidence, from the acephalous state of the Elian division of the army, in which it differs from the other divisions, that there had been a revolution in that state since the time of Augeias; and if so, then indirectly the Catalogue confirms the Elian monarchy described in the Eleventh Book.

Thus then we find this ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, Augeias, lord of Elis two generations before the Trojan war. He is neighbour to Achæans, whom we have already traced in Hellas: and he appears to have belonged to the same national origin with them, because they sent their chariots to run races at his games. Again, the fact of his holding these games at all, and at a place which subsequently contended for and obtained the superintendence of the great national assemblages celebrated at Olympia, testifies to his known connection with the cradle of the race whose custom it was to celebrate them; because these festivities had a religious and national character, and as such could not but have depended very greatly upon traditionary title. This race we have previously found to be the Hellenic race.

_Notes of connection between Elis and the North._

We may however find other indications of the descent of Augeias from a ruling Hellenic family, in local and personal notices which connect Elis, his own territory, with the north, and with Thessaly in particular.

For example: it was at the Alpheus in Elis that Thamyris suffered his calamity: and he was coming at the time from Œchalia[837], in the valley of the Upper Peneus, a part of the Homeric Thessaly or Hellas proper. (Il. ii. 730.)

The name Θρῂξ, too, which is applied to him, never seems to have spread farther southwards than the hills about Thessaly.

Further, he was coming from Eurytus of Œchalia, who is again named as the lord, apparently, of that city, in ii. 730. But the name Eurytus was one current among the descendants of Actor[838], for a descendant of Actor who bore it is named in the Catalogue a little below: and this latter Eurytus was an Epean chief: and the descendants of Actor are found in the Epean or Elian army of the Eleventh Book. (xi. 709, 739.)

Again, they are found in Thessaly or Phthiotis, for when Mercury had deflowered Polymele, the daughter of Phylas a Thessalian, Echecles, a descendant of Actor, married her; and yet again, they are found near Aspledon[839] and the Minyeian Orchomenos, between Bœotia and Phocis[840].

Again, the Pylian army halted, at a day’s march from the Alpheus, on the Minyeius, a river evidently named from the Minyæ of Peloponnesus. But there was a Minya also in Thessaly[841], of which the site was not precisely known in historic times: and the northern Orchomenos was called Minyeius[842].

There is no part of Middle or of Southern Greece which so abounds in the local and personal notes of connection with Thessaly and the North as Elis and its neighbourhood. Some indications of it have already been given, and many more might be added. As for example, there was an Enipeus[843], a river of Elis, so there was of Pieria and of Phthiotis. Doris, beneath Œta, is reflected or prefigured in the Homeric Dorium of the Pylian territories: the Thessalian Larissa in a Larissa, and a river Larissus, of Elis. The Thessalian name Œchalia is repeated in the district, over which Nestor ruled at the epoch of the _Troica_; and there is an Arcadian Orchomenos as well as a northern one. Cyparissus in Elis corresponds, again, with a Cyparissus in Phocis. Some other more doubtful indications may close the list. The Parrhasie of Arcadia may be from the same root with the Πύρασος[844] of the dominions of Protesilaus. Perhaps the Thessalian Helos and Pteleos may be akin to Alos in the country of Peleus[845]. The resemblance of names is not confined to the extremities of the line, but is scattered along the path of migration from north to south. It extends also to Laconia.

Nestor in his youth is summoned all the way from Pylos (τηλόθεν), to fight with Pirithous and others in Thessaly; (from whence Polypœtes, the son of Pirithous, led a division of the Greek army,) against the Φῆρες.

Thus far we find some presumptions as to the descent of Augeias, as to his connection with the Hellic institution of the games, and as to the relation between Elis, over which he reigned, and the line northwards into Thessaly; all tending, together with the evidently Hellic character of the Epeans, to shew that he was the representative of one of their ruling tribes.

But he also bears a distinct local mark, the nature of which I shall now endeavour to investigate.

The chieftainship of Agamemnon has been traced and identified by means of his Achæan connection, without any assistance from local or territorial names connected with the abode of his family.

In such a case as his, we could not look for aid of that description: for his house had only been possessed for two generations of their dominions: we have no precise knowledge before that time of the place of their sojourn: and when they rose to power, it was in a territory, and in cities, which appear to have been already of historic fame. It was not therefore likely that their abodes should bear names such as, if they had come in the characters of founders and not of inheritors, they would probably have affixed to them.

In the case of the Dardan house, we have found, among other indications of their Hellic affinities, the two evidently Hellic names of the Hellespont and the River Selleeis.

_The name of Ephyre._

There is another local name in Homer of paramount importance as a key to the question respecting the ruling Hellic tribes, the name of Ephyre (Ἐφύρη).

Let us endeavour to collect the scattered lights which either the etymology, or the use and associations of the term in Homer, may supply.

_Its cognate names._

And, first, we may notice in Homer a large cluster of names which are found running over Greece, and which are evidently in etymological association with one another: I will bring these together, before endeavouring to estimate their relation to the name Ephyre.

1. Φᾶρις, Il. ii. 582. In Lacedæmon.

2. Φεραὶ, Il. ii. 711. In Thessaly.

3. Φήρη, Il. v. 543. Between Pylus and Sparta.

4. Φήραι, Il. ix. 151, 293. Od. iii. 488. The same.

5. Φεαὶ, Od. xv. 296[846]. Otherwise read Φεραὶ, and, according to the Scholiast, the same with Φῆραι. The site is on the sea, between Pylus and Sparta.

6. Φεῖα, Il. vii. 135. On the Iardanus: and probably also on the Arcadian frontier towards Pylus: but, in the opinion of the Scholiast[847], the same with Φεαί.

Besides these names of places, we have also,

1. Φηρητιάδης, Il. ii. 763. xxiii. 376, the name of Eumelus; who was the son of Admetus, the lord of Φεραὶ in Il. ii. 711.

2. Φέρης, one of the sons of Cretheus, a Thessalian king, Od. xi. 259.

3. The Φῆρες, termed ὀρέσκῳοι in Il. i. 268, and λαχνηέντες in Il. ii. 743; the shaggy mountaineers, on whom Pirithous made war, when he was attended by Nestor.

With respect to the six local names, and the two first of the three personal names, there can be little doubt of their identity in root. It is directly probable from the text, that Φήρη and Φηραὶ were the same place. The name of Eumelus, who lives at Φεραὶ, and who is the grandson of Φέρης, yet is called Φηρητιάδης, clearly establishes the etymological relationship. Thus there is, again, no difficulty whatever in recognising between Φεραὶ and Φεαὶ, or again between Φεαὶ and Φείαι; and it is in the manner of Homer to give the name of the same country both in the singular and in the plural, as Μυκήνη, Il. iv. 52, and Μυκηναὶ, Il. ii. 569. Φᾶρις, the only remaining name, gives us the Doric or Æolic α for η, and an altered form of declension. This however is not at all incompatible with the manner of Homer, who not only uses Πηνελόπη and Πηνελόπεια, Ἀστυόχη and Ἀστυόχεια, Πηρείη (according to one reading), Il. ii. 766, and Πιερίη, Od. v. 50, but Ἑρμῆς and Ἑρμείας, Πατροκλέης and Πατρόκλος; and for towns, the Θρύον of Il. ii. 591 appears again as Θρυόεσσα in Il. xi. 711.

In general it is to be remembered that the instrument of language, at the time when Homer lived was as yet in a highly elastic state: it was in the state as it were of gristle; it had not yet hardened into bone, nor assumed the strict conventional forms which a formed literature requires. And for the same reasons that it has presented variations as between one time and another, it could not but do the like as between one place and another.

The very same causes which made change a law of language would give to that course of change in one place a greater, and in another a less velocity, older forms succumbing at a given time in one place, and yet surviving in another. Such a state of facts around him would give great liberty to a poet, independently of the exigencies of his verse; which appear indeed to have caused to such a man, and with such a language, little difficulty.

But we hardly require the benefit of these general considerations to cover the case of a varying declension for the name of a town. The true explanation probably is the very simple one, that in one declension it has been used substantively, and in the other adjectively. And this will be the more plain if we consider that the name of the town would usually be the representative of an idea, either in conjunction with a person, or directly. Thus θρύον is _a rush_, and θρυοεὶς _rushy_. The town Θρύον in the Catalogue is at the ford of the Alpheus, and in Il.