DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16205#0028
HOMERIC PROBLEMS IN THE
were composed in Ionia, but the arguments in favor of this theory can be answered without great
difficulty,33 and there are positive objections to the view. Ionians are mentioned only once in the
Iliad and not at all in the Odyssey; there is no reference to Ephesus, Smyrna or Sardis; there is not a
single allusion to a Greek colony in Asia Minor; even in the Catalogue of Ships which is commonly rated
as a very late, even seventh century addition, Miletus is allied with Troy and is a city of the Carians,
" uncouth of speech," f}a<>fia(>6tpu)voi (II. II, 868). This passage is one of many which show that throughout
the two epics, the geography of Asia Minor and of Hellas proper is distinctly pre-Hellenic. The chief
cities are still Mycenae, Tiryns, Orchomenos. Thus internal evidence favors the view that the epics
originated in Greece, before the Dorian invasion brought in a new order of political importance.34
Concerning the early Ionians, many conflicting theories are held. The writer believes that in the
twelfth century B. C. there were no Ionians beyond the confines of Attica. A passage subsidiary to
the only one in which Homer mentions them (//. XIII, 685) seems to identify them
THE IONIANS with "the picked men of the Athenians." The bard gives them their old name
lavones with the epithet, "trailing-robed." This epithet might be thought to ill
describe a costume of Attica, where the people boasted of being autochthones, for the costumes
of the old stock, as known to us through Crete and Mycenae, are usually well off the ground; but we
have one striking example of long robes from neck to heel, worn by men and a woman of Minoan
Crete, as pictured on the famous terra-cotta sarcophagus found in 1904 by Italian archaeologists
at Aghia Triadha (L. M. I).35 The costume can never have been one for a military expedition, but if
it distinguished the lavones on ceremonial occasions, the origin of the epithet is readily understood.
Tradition makes Ion a son of Xuthus, an Achaean chieftain from Thessaly, and Creusa, daughter of
Erechtheus, the native king of Athens.3" Ion seems to have been a typical condottiere like his father.
The Ionian clan had northern blood in its veins and retained good fighting characteristics, as was shown
by its distinguished part in the war of Athens against Eleusis;37 but it identified itself closely with
the native population.'8 Attica as a whole must have held aloof from the Trojan expedition, for it
receives scant mention in the Homeric poems. We are told that Ionians went forth from Attica to
possess the land south of the gulf of Corinth, which was known as Achaia in classical times, but this
event must have taken place after the epics were composed, for Homer calls the land by its old name
Aigialos (II. II, 575), which the immigrants changed to Ionia. It is further said that the Ionians were
expelled from this district by Achaeans, who had been driven out from Argos and Laconia by Dorian
invaders. Attica was late in feeling the pressure of Dorians. It received back the adventurous clans-
33 To answer three arguments advanced by Professor Geddes, Problem of the Homeric Poems, p. 278 ff., and cited by H.
Brown, Handbook of Homeric Study, 1905, p. 126 ff.: (1) The phrase TCprjv Eu6otag describing Locris, II. II, 535, does
not imply that the verse originated in Asia Minor, if we use Liddell and Scott's translation'over against Euboea'; on the
other hand, if the phrase must mean 'beyond Euboea,' as Professor Geddes claimed, it signifies that the bard's mental
standpoint was the plain of Troy, where the hosts were gathering. The Homeric bards, like their brothers of all times and
nations, often transferred themselves in thought to the scene of the action they were describing, e. g. II. IX, 5. (2) The
passage in the Odyssey, XIX, 296, which describes the southeast wind Eurus as thawing snow which the northwest wind
Zephyrus has deposited on mountain tops, is hostile, not favorable, to the Ionic origin of the verse, as may be learned from
Hogarth's chapter on Climates in The Nearer East, p. 90, ff. Of the eastern shore of the Aegean Mr. Hogarth writes, "Open
to westward but screened from all other quarters by the high ribs of the Anatolian plateau, the deep bays and long low
valleys of western Asia Minor know neither frost nor snow" (p. 102), and if the snow were deposited on the uplands back
of Ionia, no east or southeast wind from across the Plateau would thaw it. In contrast to Asia Minor, "Greece and the
Isles . . . are in a very Cave of Aeolus and strong airs veering from northeast to northwest and southwest to south lash
their shores for three-fifths of the year." The southeast wind is not mentioned; it is a warm current of air blowing up
from Egypt into the gulfs of eastern and southern Greece, which all open toward that quarter; by way of the gulfs, it
penetrates inland, thawing the snow on the mountains (cf. Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, p. 643, in advocacy of this view).
(3) The "Icarian deep" and the "streams of the Cayster" are on too large a scale to serve as guide-posts towards Ionic
origin; archaeology has shown too wide a roving of Achaeans at the close of the Bronze Age for it to be strange that a band
of the mainland should know of the great river of Ionia and the sea that lies between Ionia and the Cyclades. Even as early
as 1250 B.C. the Achaeans figured among the peoples who invaded Egypt and were defeated by Merenptah. In the in-
scription of that pharaoh, they are called Akaiuasha, probably the kleinasialiscb or native Aegean version of 'Ayatot.
(Hall, Oldest Civilisation of Greece, p. 173). Moreover, evidence is accumulating daily to prove intercourse between pre-
historic Greece and the Islands and prehistoric Lydia, by means of which connections were maintained with the Hittite
kingdom and even distant Mesopotamia. Mr. Hogarth now suggests that the famous Siege Scene silver fragment (Perrot
et Chipiez, Histoire de VArt dans VAntiquile, VI, p. 774, fig. 365) from a shaft-grave at Mycenae is an example of oriental
tradition worked out by an Aegean artist, for the fortress represented is of an Assyrian type and the slingers are nude and
curly-haired like negroes—in no way resembling Aegeans. Such intercourse between Greece and Lydia would amply
account for knowledge of the Cayster and the " Icarian deep."
Finally, an argument advanced by the great scholar Fick to prove that the epics originated in Aeolis, vanishes
on examination. "Die Deutlichkeit mit welcher das Local der I lias (umschrieben Q, 544) hervortritt, eiklart sich nicht
vollig daraus, dass die Sage dort spielte, sondern setzt, wenn auch nicht durchweg Autopsie, sodoch jene genaue Kenntnis
voraus, welche schon in sehr alten Zeiten derselbe Stamm von den Sitzen seines Stammesgenossen zu haben pflegt," Die
Homertsche Odyssee, p. 6. The reference Q, 544, is in Myres' translation as follows: Achilles speaks to Priam—"And of
thee, old sire, we have heard how of old time thou wert happy, even how of all that Lesbos, seat of Makar, boundeth to
the north thereof and Phrygia farther up and the vast Hellespont, of all these folk, men say, thou wert the richest." Can
this be called such detailed and accurate (?) knowledge that only a native of Aeolis could possess it? Is it too much to
claim for a bard of another land if he sang for a people who had spent ten years fighting in the Troad?
34 Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece: "The weight of evidence is ... in favor of a European origin for the
two great Epics," p. 677. "All these considerations render it unlikely that the poems were originally composed at any
period later than 1000 B.C." p.678. The writer follows the view of Ridgeway (op. cit. p. 633) as to the early character
of the Catalogue of Ships. J. W. Allen (Class. Rev. XX, 193 ff.) has presented strong arguments for an early date: " In
itself, as a table, it bears every mark of venerable antiquity . . . What is the one simplest test of the antiquity of a docu-
ment of this sort? Surely the portrayal of a state of things, political and topographical, which never recurred in later
history; and which no one had any interest to invent, or even the means for inventing. This character is written all
over the Catalogue ..." (quoted by Seymour, Life in the Homeric Age, p. 65).
M R. Paribeni, Rendic. Lincei, ser. V, XII, 1903, p. 343 ff.
J* Paus. VII, 1; Eurip. Ion, 57-65, version given by Miss Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, p.lxxxi:
OF CRETAN DISCOVERIES
men, whom the Achaeans drove from the home they had won in the Peloponnese, and soon sent them
forth again with other landless folk to try their fortunes on the coast of Asia Minor.39
From this brief review, it is apparent that one who accepts a twelfth-century origin for the Iliad
and Odyssey, cannot ascribe any part in their creation to the ' Ionians.' We must trace to some other
source the so-called 'Ionisms' that stand firm in the Homeric poems, resisting translation into 'Aeolic,'
even in the stratum rated 'oldest' by the critics.40 The presence of'Ionisms' in the Arcadian dialect
may be due to some cause other than the supposed influence (prehistoric) of an Ionian population,
occupying a part of the east coast of the Peloponnese.41 The poems themselves teach us that under
Achaean domination, personal relations between chieftains brought the various parts of Greece into
closer social intercourse than ever existed between Greek city-states in historic times. In all proba-
bility the bards who created the Iliad and Odyssey were not all from one district of Greece, although
their views of life are remarkably consistent. It is reasonable to suppose that some came from north
of the Isthmus, some from south of it; that the mother speech of the former is represented by the
'Aeolic' group of to-day, and that the mother speech of the latter partially survives in the Arcado-
Cyprian group of dialects.42 The affinity of this latter group with Attic-Ionic, i.e., with the speech
of districts where the early Aegean population is known to have survived in force, points to a greater
strength of the Aegean strain in the mixed population of the Peloponnese, than in that of Thessaly,
and suggests the possibility that some ancient South-Achaean forms, present in the poems, have been
mistaken for 'Ionisms,' and that some real ' Ionisms' may be translations of South-Achaean forms which
are unknown to-day. The Homeric bards led as wandering a life as the mediaeval troubadours; in
all parts of Greece they found audiences. They appear to have learned from each other and from
their audiences and to have evolved a xoivy epic language,43 containing many alternate forms of ex-
pression, which were the common property of minstrelsy, understood in Thessaly and in Argos, in
Attica, Laconia, and Ithaca.
But although convinced that the language of the Greek epics is originally and essentially compos-
ite, that there is no difference in age between its two primary factors44 (namely, the 'Aeolic' of north-
ern Greece and a pre-Dorian form of Greek spoken in the Peloponnese, which has been partially con-
founded with Ionic), and that their fusion was a natural consequence of the conditions under which
the Iliad and Odyssey were created, the writer by no means rejects the view that one may detect
within the sagas themselves original differences of linguistic blend that are full of significance. For
a single authorship of the Homeric poems, we may substitute without stint of admiration a number
Kreousa, she, the mother of the boy,
Was wed to Xuthus, by this chance constrained.
'Gainst Athens and against Chalkodon's race,
That hold Euboea, came the roar of war;
And Xuthus strove, and helped them with the sword,
And had Kreousa guerdon of his aid.
No home-born hero he, but son of Zeus
And Aiolos, Achaean.
It will be noted that the writer accepts a more literal meaning for the verse than the one proposed by Miss Harrison.
37 Paus. II, 14, 2.
38 Herod. VIII, 44.
" Paus. VII, i, 2.
40 Note 22, p. 15, supra.
41 Buck, Class. Phil. II, 1907, p. 268; note 46.
42 A hard and fast line cannot be drawn between north and south. Tradition (Paus. VII, 1, 6; Strabo, 365)
would bid us group the inhabitants of Laconia and Argolis with those of Thessaly as, in a special sense, 'Achaeans,' pre-
sumably speaking the North Achaean or 'Aeolic' dialect, and the Homeric "Apyo? Ilek<xayiY.6v in Thessaly and "Apyo?
' A/aix-ov in the Peloponnese seem to confirm the tradition, but we have as yet too little guidance for the pre-Doric speech of
Laconia and Argolis, to feel any certainty on this point. Pausanias (II, 37, 3) quotes Arrhiphon as proving that before
the Dorian invasion, "the Argives spoke the same dialect as the Athenians," but the context shows that he meant only
that their speech was non-Doric.
43 What is meant by this rather awkward expression may be illustrated by the following observation. The writer
has had occasion many times to notice the intelligent interest shown by Greek peasants to-day in local variations of con-
struction and vocabulary within their own language. This interest was especially keen in our Epirot foreman, Aristides
Pappadhias, who acted as dragoman for the writer in Thessaly, Central Greece, and the Peloponnese, as well as from end to
end of Crete. He constantly picked up new words and expressions, compared them with his own, discussed them with
natives of the districts through which we traveled, and remembered them. He had no school education. If he were called
upon to express a thought, although his natural choice would be an Epirot phrase, he would not hesitate to use any other
in his memory, if it better filled his need. For some common things of daily life he had half a dozen names (all Greek)
at his command. I believe that much of the diversity of Homeric language was the outcome of the itinerant life of the
bards.
44 In spite of Fick's ingenious "calculation of chances" (Homeriscbe llias, p. 23) it is at least possible that the
occurrence of xs (Thess. Aeol. Cypr.) and av (Att.-Ion. Arcad.) side by side in the epics may mean what he admits
it appears to mean, namely, an original mixing of dialects: "Dieses Nebeneinander von av und y.e scheint eine urspriingliche
Mischung der beiden Mundarten zu beweisen; der Versuch, Homer auf eine urwiichsige und einheitliche Sprachform zuriick-
zufiihren, ware also als aussichtlos aufzugeben." For it must be remembered that one need not follow Fick in replacing
y.e for av wherever it is metrically possible, unless convinced that xs was the original form. Since av is Arcadian, a
dialect which is held to represent the pre-Dorian speech of the Peloponnese, and since it is probable that a considerable
part of the epics was composed in the pre-Dorian speech of the Peloponnese, I do not acknowledge the propriety of chang-
ing av to xe wherever it can be done. For %it\\jjx, fixed by position (because the y.i gives length to a preceding short
syllable) in a context which else can be changed to Aeolic, e.g. II. IX, 382, we may yet find an explanation less elaborate
than the one given by Fick (Homeriscbe llias, p. 387). The word may be of South-Achaean origin; it is much overworked
in Cretan speech to-day. Such an origin may lie behind the so-called ' Ionic' forms of the personal pronouns, e.g. ^[Asa?,
Tj^etq; unfortunately Arcado-Cyprian does not yet give us data with which to compare them (Buck, Class. Phil. II,
1907, p. 268). Infinitives of unthematic forms in vat (Att.-Ion. Cypr-Arcad., for which other dialects have ^sv-u.tjv—^stv—
u,£vat) are examples of what I think may be South-Achaean forms mistaken for' Ionic'
were composed in Ionia, but the arguments in favor of this theory can be answered without great
difficulty,33 and there are positive objections to the view. Ionians are mentioned only once in the
Iliad and not at all in the Odyssey; there is no reference to Ephesus, Smyrna or Sardis; there is not a
single allusion to a Greek colony in Asia Minor; even in the Catalogue of Ships which is commonly rated
as a very late, even seventh century addition, Miletus is allied with Troy and is a city of the Carians,
" uncouth of speech," f}a<>fia(>6tpu)voi (II. II, 868). This passage is one of many which show that throughout
the two epics, the geography of Asia Minor and of Hellas proper is distinctly pre-Hellenic. The chief
cities are still Mycenae, Tiryns, Orchomenos. Thus internal evidence favors the view that the epics
originated in Greece, before the Dorian invasion brought in a new order of political importance.34
Concerning the early Ionians, many conflicting theories are held. The writer believes that in the
twelfth century B. C. there were no Ionians beyond the confines of Attica. A passage subsidiary to
the only one in which Homer mentions them (//. XIII, 685) seems to identify them
THE IONIANS with "the picked men of the Athenians." The bard gives them their old name
lavones with the epithet, "trailing-robed." This epithet might be thought to ill
describe a costume of Attica, where the people boasted of being autochthones, for the costumes
of the old stock, as known to us through Crete and Mycenae, are usually well off the ground; but we
have one striking example of long robes from neck to heel, worn by men and a woman of Minoan
Crete, as pictured on the famous terra-cotta sarcophagus found in 1904 by Italian archaeologists
at Aghia Triadha (L. M. I).35 The costume can never have been one for a military expedition, but if
it distinguished the lavones on ceremonial occasions, the origin of the epithet is readily understood.
Tradition makes Ion a son of Xuthus, an Achaean chieftain from Thessaly, and Creusa, daughter of
Erechtheus, the native king of Athens.3" Ion seems to have been a typical condottiere like his father.
The Ionian clan had northern blood in its veins and retained good fighting characteristics, as was shown
by its distinguished part in the war of Athens against Eleusis;37 but it identified itself closely with
the native population.'8 Attica as a whole must have held aloof from the Trojan expedition, for it
receives scant mention in the Homeric poems. We are told that Ionians went forth from Attica to
possess the land south of the gulf of Corinth, which was known as Achaia in classical times, but this
event must have taken place after the epics were composed, for Homer calls the land by its old name
Aigialos (II. II, 575), which the immigrants changed to Ionia. It is further said that the Ionians were
expelled from this district by Achaeans, who had been driven out from Argos and Laconia by Dorian
invaders. Attica was late in feeling the pressure of Dorians. It received back the adventurous clans-
33 To answer three arguments advanced by Professor Geddes, Problem of the Homeric Poems, p. 278 ff., and cited by H.
Brown, Handbook of Homeric Study, 1905, p. 126 ff.: (1) The phrase TCprjv Eu6otag describing Locris, II. II, 535, does
not imply that the verse originated in Asia Minor, if we use Liddell and Scott's translation'over against Euboea'; on the
other hand, if the phrase must mean 'beyond Euboea,' as Professor Geddes claimed, it signifies that the bard's mental
standpoint was the plain of Troy, where the hosts were gathering. The Homeric bards, like their brothers of all times and
nations, often transferred themselves in thought to the scene of the action they were describing, e. g. II. IX, 5. (2) The
passage in the Odyssey, XIX, 296, which describes the southeast wind Eurus as thawing snow which the northwest wind
Zephyrus has deposited on mountain tops, is hostile, not favorable, to the Ionic origin of the verse, as may be learned from
Hogarth's chapter on Climates in The Nearer East, p. 90, ff. Of the eastern shore of the Aegean Mr. Hogarth writes, "Open
to westward but screened from all other quarters by the high ribs of the Anatolian plateau, the deep bays and long low
valleys of western Asia Minor know neither frost nor snow" (p. 102), and if the snow were deposited on the uplands back
of Ionia, no east or southeast wind from across the Plateau would thaw it. In contrast to Asia Minor, "Greece and the
Isles . . . are in a very Cave of Aeolus and strong airs veering from northeast to northwest and southwest to south lash
their shores for three-fifths of the year." The southeast wind is not mentioned; it is a warm current of air blowing up
from Egypt into the gulfs of eastern and southern Greece, which all open toward that quarter; by way of the gulfs, it
penetrates inland, thawing the snow on the mountains (cf. Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, p. 643, in advocacy of this view).
(3) The "Icarian deep" and the "streams of the Cayster" are on too large a scale to serve as guide-posts towards Ionic
origin; archaeology has shown too wide a roving of Achaeans at the close of the Bronze Age for it to be strange that a band
of the mainland should know of the great river of Ionia and the sea that lies between Ionia and the Cyclades. Even as early
as 1250 B.C. the Achaeans figured among the peoples who invaded Egypt and were defeated by Merenptah. In the in-
scription of that pharaoh, they are called Akaiuasha, probably the kleinasialiscb or native Aegean version of 'Ayatot.
(Hall, Oldest Civilisation of Greece, p. 173). Moreover, evidence is accumulating daily to prove intercourse between pre-
historic Greece and the Islands and prehistoric Lydia, by means of which connections were maintained with the Hittite
kingdom and even distant Mesopotamia. Mr. Hogarth now suggests that the famous Siege Scene silver fragment (Perrot
et Chipiez, Histoire de VArt dans VAntiquile, VI, p. 774, fig. 365) from a shaft-grave at Mycenae is an example of oriental
tradition worked out by an Aegean artist, for the fortress represented is of an Assyrian type and the slingers are nude and
curly-haired like negroes—in no way resembling Aegeans. Such intercourse between Greece and Lydia would amply
account for knowledge of the Cayster and the " Icarian deep."
Finally, an argument advanced by the great scholar Fick to prove that the epics originated in Aeolis, vanishes
on examination. "Die Deutlichkeit mit welcher das Local der I lias (umschrieben Q, 544) hervortritt, eiklart sich nicht
vollig daraus, dass die Sage dort spielte, sondern setzt, wenn auch nicht durchweg Autopsie, sodoch jene genaue Kenntnis
voraus, welche schon in sehr alten Zeiten derselbe Stamm von den Sitzen seines Stammesgenossen zu haben pflegt," Die
Homertsche Odyssee, p. 6. The reference Q, 544, is in Myres' translation as follows: Achilles speaks to Priam—"And of
thee, old sire, we have heard how of old time thou wert happy, even how of all that Lesbos, seat of Makar, boundeth to
the north thereof and Phrygia farther up and the vast Hellespont, of all these folk, men say, thou wert the richest." Can
this be called such detailed and accurate (?) knowledge that only a native of Aeolis could possess it? Is it too much to
claim for a bard of another land if he sang for a people who had spent ten years fighting in the Troad?
34 Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece: "The weight of evidence is ... in favor of a European origin for the
two great Epics," p. 677. "All these considerations render it unlikely that the poems were originally composed at any
period later than 1000 B.C." p.678. The writer follows the view of Ridgeway (op. cit. p. 633) as to the early character
of the Catalogue of Ships. J. W. Allen (Class. Rev. XX, 193 ff.) has presented strong arguments for an early date: " In
itself, as a table, it bears every mark of venerable antiquity . . . What is the one simplest test of the antiquity of a docu-
ment of this sort? Surely the portrayal of a state of things, political and topographical, which never recurred in later
history; and which no one had any interest to invent, or even the means for inventing. This character is written all
over the Catalogue ..." (quoted by Seymour, Life in the Homeric Age, p. 65).
M R. Paribeni, Rendic. Lincei, ser. V, XII, 1903, p. 343 ff.
J* Paus. VII, 1; Eurip. Ion, 57-65, version given by Miss Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, p.lxxxi:
OF CRETAN DISCOVERIES
men, whom the Achaeans drove from the home they had won in the Peloponnese, and soon sent them
forth again with other landless folk to try their fortunes on the coast of Asia Minor.39
From this brief review, it is apparent that one who accepts a twelfth-century origin for the Iliad
and Odyssey, cannot ascribe any part in their creation to the ' Ionians.' We must trace to some other
source the so-called 'Ionisms' that stand firm in the Homeric poems, resisting translation into 'Aeolic,'
even in the stratum rated 'oldest' by the critics.40 The presence of'Ionisms' in the Arcadian dialect
may be due to some cause other than the supposed influence (prehistoric) of an Ionian population,
occupying a part of the east coast of the Peloponnese.41 The poems themselves teach us that under
Achaean domination, personal relations between chieftains brought the various parts of Greece into
closer social intercourse than ever existed between Greek city-states in historic times. In all proba-
bility the bards who created the Iliad and Odyssey were not all from one district of Greece, although
their views of life are remarkably consistent. It is reasonable to suppose that some came from north
of the Isthmus, some from south of it; that the mother speech of the former is represented by the
'Aeolic' group of to-day, and that the mother speech of the latter partially survives in the Arcado-
Cyprian group of dialects.42 The affinity of this latter group with Attic-Ionic, i.e., with the speech
of districts where the early Aegean population is known to have survived in force, points to a greater
strength of the Aegean strain in the mixed population of the Peloponnese, than in that of Thessaly,
and suggests the possibility that some ancient South-Achaean forms, present in the poems, have been
mistaken for 'Ionisms,' and that some real ' Ionisms' may be translations of South-Achaean forms which
are unknown to-day. The Homeric bards led as wandering a life as the mediaeval troubadours; in
all parts of Greece they found audiences. They appear to have learned from each other and from
their audiences and to have evolved a xoivy epic language,43 containing many alternate forms of ex-
pression, which were the common property of minstrelsy, understood in Thessaly and in Argos, in
Attica, Laconia, and Ithaca.
But although convinced that the language of the Greek epics is originally and essentially compos-
ite, that there is no difference in age between its two primary factors44 (namely, the 'Aeolic' of north-
ern Greece and a pre-Dorian form of Greek spoken in the Peloponnese, which has been partially con-
founded with Ionic), and that their fusion was a natural consequence of the conditions under which
the Iliad and Odyssey were created, the writer by no means rejects the view that one may detect
within the sagas themselves original differences of linguistic blend that are full of significance. For
a single authorship of the Homeric poems, we may substitute without stint of admiration a number
Kreousa, she, the mother of the boy,
Was wed to Xuthus, by this chance constrained.
'Gainst Athens and against Chalkodon's race,
That hold Euboea, came the roar of war;
And Xuthus strove, and helped them with the sword,
And had Kreousa guerdon of his aid.
No home-born hero he, but son of Zeus
And Aiolos, Achaean.
It will be noted that the writer accepts a more literal meaning for the verse than the one proposed by Miss Harrison.
37 Paus. II, 14, 2.
38 Herod. VIII, 44.
" Paus. VII, i, 2.
40 Note 22, p. 15, supra.
41 Buck, Class. Phil. II, 1907, p. 268; note 46.
42 A hard and fast line cannot be drawn between north and south. Tradition (Paus. VII, 1, 6; Strabo, 365)
would bid us group the inhabitants of Laconia and Argolis with those of Thessaly as, in a special sense, 'Achaeans,' pre-
sumably speaking the North Achaean or 'Aeolic' dialect, and the Homeric "Apyo? Ilek<xayiY.6v in Thessaly and "Apyo?
' A/aix-ov in the Peloponnese seem to confirm the tradition, but we have as yet too little guidance for the pre-Doric speech of
Laconia and Argolis, to feel any certainty on this point. Pausanias (II, 37, 3) quotes Arrhiphon as proving that before
the Dorian invasion, "the Argives spoke the same dialect as the Athenians," but the context shows that he meant only
that their speech was non-Doric.
43 What is meant by this rather awkward expression may be illustrated by the following observation. The writer
has had occasion many times to notice the intelligent interest shown by Greek peasants to-day in local variations of con-
struction and vocabulary within their own language. This interest was especially keen in our Epirot foreman, Aristides
Pappadhias, who acted as dragoman for the writer in Thessaly, Central Greece, and the Peloponnese, as well as from end to
end of Crete. He constantly picked up new words and expressions, compared them with his own, discussed them with
natives of the districts through which we traveled, and remembered them. He had no school education. If he were called
upon to express a thought, although his natural choice would be an Epirot phrase, he would not hesitate to use any other
in his memory, if it better filled his need. For some common things of daily life he had half a dozen names (all Greek)
at his command. I believe that much of the diversity of Homeric language was the outcome of the itinerant life of the
bards.
44 In spite of Fick's ingenious "calculation of chances" (Homeriscbe llias, p. 23) it is at least possible that the
occurrence of xs (Thess. Aeol. Cypr.) and av (Att.-Ion. Arcad.) side by side in the epics may mean what he admits
it appears to mean, namely, an original mixing of dialects: "Dieses Nebeneinander von av und y.e scheint eine urspriingliche
Mischung der beiden Mundarten zu beweisen; der Versuch, Homer auf eine urwiichsige und einheitliche Sprachform zuriick-
zufiihren, ware also als aussichtlos aufzugeben." For it must be remembered that one need not follow Fick in replacing
y.e for av wherever it is metrically possible, unless convinced that xs was the original form. Since av is Arcadian, a
dialect which is held to represent the pre-Dorian speech of the Peloponnese, and since it is probable that a considerable
part of the epics was composed in the pre-Dorian speech of the Peloponnese, I do not acknowledge the propriety of chang-
ing av to xe wherever it can be done. For %it\\jjx, fixed by position (because the y.i gives length to a preceding short
syllable) in a context which else can be changed to Aeolic, e.g. II. IX, 382, we may yet find an explanation less elaborate
than the one given by Fick (Homeriscbe llias, p. 387). The word may be of South-Achaean origin; it is much overworked
in Cretan speech to-day. Such an origin may lie behind the so-called ' Ionic' forms of the personal pronouns, e.g. ^[Asa?,
Tj^etq; unfortunately Arcado-Cyprian does not yet give us data with which to compare them (Buck, Class. Phil. II,
1907, p. 268). Infinitives of unthematic forms in vat (Att.-Ion. Cypr-Arcad., for which other dialects have ^sv-u.tjv—^stv—
u,£vat) are examples of what I think may be South-Achaean forms mistaken for' Ionic'