Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/96

86 On the Homeric use of the word '^Hpcos. I mention this indiscriminateness in the application, be- cause, although in the two poems the general host of the Greeks is called indifferently by the words 'A^atoi, ' Apyeioi^ /avao^ yet the last two names are never applied to the people of Ithaca, or the predominant caste there, if such there be, while 'Ayaiol is very often so applied. • It is, I think, highly probable that the 'A^atoJ were a predominant race in Ithaca in the Homeric times. But in fact, as we have already seen in many instances, the title rjpw^ is not confined to the allied Greeks. We have seen it applied to the Phaeacians, a people who stand in a strange and scarcely intelligible relation to the Greeks of the Homeric times. Their royal family ^^ is the third generation from the Gigantes ; and Alcinous says that the gods shewed themselves to them, not disguised in human form, but in their own pro- per shapes, eireL acpicriv eyyvOev el/xeF, (hcnrep Kf/cXcoTre? T€ kuI aypia <pua TLyavTcoi^. Od. VII. 205. Their ships carried Rhadamanthus on his visitation to Tityus, Tai^iov vLov^^ ; these ships are instinct with motion and know- ledge^^; and the country and city seem a sort of fairy land. Adrestus, the commander of the Trojan allies from '^^ Adres- tia, Apsesus, Pityia, and mount Teria, is called a hero ^' ; and the same word is applied to a^^ Cetian (probably a Mysian, see schol. on Od. xi. 520, and Strabo, xiii. 6l5, 6.), to Trojans in many instances, to a Thracian, to a Thesprotian, and to a Sidonian. I before mentioned that the Lapithae are called heroes ^^ One cannot therefore be surprised that Greeks who were not on the Trojan expedition, such as Telemachus^^ and Pisistratus^^ should be called so. Before I mention the hypothesis which I propose to suggest, I will recapitulate the conditions which it ought to satisfy, as well as I can collect them from the instances of the use of the word already brought forward. I will first observe that, in weighing any conjecture as to the origin of «3 Od. VII. 56. sqq. ^* Od. vii. 324. 85 Qd. viii. 559. 86 11. II. 828. «^ II. VI. 63. ^« See above pp. 7B, 71^. ^^ Od. xxi. 299. so Od, tv. 21. ^' Od. III. 415.