The World of Homer
existence.
About the relics of the earliest Ionian settlements in Asia,
archaeology now knows something. The excavations of Mr. Hogarth on the
earliest site of the Ionian temple of Artemis at Ephesus (700 B.C.?),
revealed thousands of votive offerings in gold, ivory, bone, paste,
crystal, and other materials. These had been "carefully laid between
the slabs for some hieratic purpose," probably under the central statue
of the goddess. Mr. Hogarth dates the deposit at about 700 B.C., "some
two centuries after the traditional landing of the colonists."
That date tells us little about the condition of the settlers at the
time of landing (we can only guess as to whether they had almost ceased
to be human at that moment), but many objects may be heirlooms of
earlier date; "in any case the elaborate execution and design of the
Ionian documents, notably the trinkets and jewels in electrum, imply a
long previous evolution of skilled craft"; and there are indications
"that this Primitive treasure was, in the main, made at Ephesus
itself." This is proved by the presence of goldsmiths' refuse in the
temple. The treasure has many analogies with that of Enkomi (Cyprus)
in the British Museum, which is of the period of the re-occupation of
the palace of Cnossos in Crete (dated about 1400), and is therefore of
the close of the age of bronze. The Ephesian treasure has also many
points of close analogy with the later Aegean remains at Mycenae and
Sparta in Attica. There are the gold jewels meant to be sewn on to the
robes; there are the clear crystals so common in the ancient graves of
the Mycenaean acropolis; the familiar double axe of Crete is still a
decorative motive; we find, as on the Lion Gate of Mycenae, two animals
opposed in heraldic fashion, and fibulae decorated with Baltic amber,
also the "spectacles" fibula-cover in ivory, common as far north as
Bosnia.
The general result of the archaeological evidence for early Ionia is
to show, in early Ionian work, the Aegean element stronger, and the
Danubian or central European element less strong, than in contemporary
Attica of the Dipylon period. In Attica of 1000-800 B.C. there was
the mixture of new northern and of old Aegean blood and civilisation;
but, says Mr. Hogarth, "the Aegean element was, I conceive, relatively
very much more numerous and potent in the Ionian land,"--in
Asia,--"although, to a very large extent, not indigenous there." The
Ionians, as far as archaeology shows, were more Aegean than the people
whom they left behind in Attica.
Thus the evidence, so far, is in favour of the mass of Ionian emigrants
having been of the older people,--whether we call it "Pelasgian of the
coast lands," or by any other name,--and of the older prae-Dipylon
school of art. "The first departure," says Mr. Hogarth, "may have been
due to the Achaean influx into Greece," though the later Dorian influx
may have presented a more powerful motive; for, by the Greek story, the
Achaeans driven from Argos and Laconia thrust the Ionians out of the
Peloponnesus. The archaeological evidence does not go back far enough
to enable us to estimate exactly the state of the Ionians when they
first landed in Asia. We only know that, some two centuries later,
their art was much more in the Aegean than in the Dipylon manner, and
had been so for long. They must have rapidly recovered from their
perfect oblivion of their ancient laws, rites, beliefs, and traditions.
Mr. Hogarth concludes: "Note that the date thus assigned" (for the
Greek migration, a prolonged movement) "fits with the indications
in Homer. The Epics, it has often been remarked, show not only no
knowledge of a Hellenic Asia, but also none of a Dorian conquest of
Peloponnesus. They were probably anterior in original composition to
the establishment of both these states of things," of Greeks in Asia,
Dorians in Peloponnesus.[11]
Now archaeology dates the Ephesian finds, which, in the main, are
still "Aegean" in character, during the very age when, according to
general opinion, the Ionian Cyclic Epics were composed. The early
Cyclic poems are usually dated about 770-730 B.C., when the Ephesian
treasure was being made.[12] Ionian art at Ephesus, and at that date,
was much more Aegean than the contemporary art in Attica. There is thus
a fair presumption that the Aegean element, Hellenised, was a strong
element in the Ionian population; and we are to demonstrate that the
Ionian Epics, though dealing with Achaean themes, abound in non-Achaean
traits of life and religion; in the traits which Mr. Murray assigns to
"the conquered races,"[13] apparently meaning the pre-Achaean Aegean
inhabitants of Greece. These traits are undeniably non-Homeric, and the
question must be faced, if the Ionian poets of the eighth and seventh
centuries are profuse in such matter, in the Cyclics; and if they
also added a great mass to the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ at the same
period, why did they keep their favourite themes out of the _Iliad_
and _Odyssey_? This question we study in "The Ionian Cyclic Poems";
but first we must prove that, whether the people of Attica and the
Ionians were apart in "race" from the Hellenes and Achaioi or not,
they certainly stood originally apart from and out of the cycle of
Achaean traditions. The Ionians and Attic tragedians were reduced to
inventing new legends and new points of contact between themselves and
the Achaeans.
NOTE
_Language or Languages of Prehistoric Greece_.--I have abjured all
attempts to discern the truth about races and languages in prehistoric
Greece. The two main theories appear to be that of the Greek
speculators from the seventh century onwards, and that of Mr. Ridgeway.
According to the Greeks, who varied among themselves, the original
population of prehistoric Greece was, at least mainly, "Pelasgian."
Among the Pelasgians came a more cultivated people, the "Hellenes,"
in contact with whom the "Pelasgians" developed into "Hellenes" in
language and culture. Granting an influx of Achaeans or Hellenes among
the pre-existing population which enjoyed the Aegean civilisation,
there is no doubt that this population, if spoken of by Greeks as
"Pelasgian," was much more advanced in material culture than the
Achaeans. This is proved absolutely by excavations in Crete, Greece,
and the isles.
On this point, then, that the Achaeans and Hellenes were more civilised
than the pre-existing "Pelasgians," the Greek thinkers were certainly
in the wrong. But what about language? Was Herodotus right in holding
that the "Pelasgians" spoke a "barbarous" language, and learned
Greek from the Hellenes? He admits that he could not speak with any
certainty about the language of the Pelasgians. But he infers from the
speech of actually contemporary Pelasgians, for example, at Creston in
Thrace, and at Placia and Scylace on the Hellespont, "and, in short,
of any other of the cities which have dropped the name, but are in
fact Pelasgian," that "the Pelasgians spoke a barbarous language"
(Herodotus, i. 56-58).
If so, unconquered Attica and unconquered mountainous Arcadia must
have spoken, in early times, "a barbarous language," and exchanged it
for the Hellenic, though with the Hellenes they were, according to
themselves, but slightly in contact. When we consider the pertinacity
of parts of Wales, Ireland, and the western Highlands in clinging to
Cymric and Gaelic, this theory of Herodotus seems highly improbable.
Mr. Ridgeway, on the other hand, holding that the Achaeans were "a
Celtic tribe" who passed from Epirus into Thessaly, concludes that
_their_ language was what the Hellenes of history would have called
"barbarous"; that they adopted the speech, Greek, of the Pelasgians
among whom they settled, and that the Homeric poems descend from
the lays of Pelasgian minstrels, who sang in Greek of the exploits
of Achaeans who were Celtic, but became merged in a Greek-speaking
Pelasgic population (_Early Age of Greece_, vol. i. p. 648). If so,
the minstrels had entirely absorbed the non-Pelasgian customs and
ideas, absence of ghosts, and hero-worship, of pollution, and ritual
purification, and human sacrifice, and the professed Olympian religion
of their Achaean lords.
To the objection that, if Homer's poetic Pelasgian predecessors had the
good Greek, no Pelasgians known to Herodotus spoke it, Mr. Ridgeway
can reply that "the Greeks considered Phrygians and Thracians to be
barbarous, though both spoke languages akin to Greek; so that, although
Herodotus thought the languages of Scylace and Placia" (and of _all_
cities which were, in fact, Pelasgian) "barbarous, this does not prove
that it was not closely cognate to Greek" (_Early Age of Greece_, vol.
i. p. 146).
Yes, but why had the language of the Pelasgian minstrels of the Achaean
lords, which was excellent Greek, become in the time of Herodotus
the language which, to him, was barbarous? I understand Mr. Ridgeway
to answer this question by saying that "there is no difficulty in
supposing that certain Pelasgians long settled in Etruria, whither they
had come from Thessaly, may have again emigrated" (out of Etruria)
"from some external or internal cause, and settled in various spots
around the Aegean, some of them going to Athens, and later to Lemnos."
See Herodotus, ii. 50, 51, for Pelasgians who, when the Athenians "were
just beginning to count as Hellenes," settled for a while in Attica.
For this fact Herodotus cites Hecataeus. These new-come Pelasgians were
unruly, and were banished to Lemnos (Hdt. vi. 137). They later came
back to raid Brauron in Attica (Hdt. vi. 138). Let these much-wandering
Pelasgians return to Thrace, or, at least, let the Pelasgians whom
Herodotus knew in Thrace (and all Pelasgians wherever he knew them)
have strolled from Thessaly to Etruria in Italy, and back again to the
Aegean, and north to Thrace, and it is certain that their original
language, Greek (like _jour_ as derived from _dies_), must have been
_diablement changé en route_, and quite unrecognisable as Greek by
Herodotus (see Ridgeway, vol. i. pp. 144-146, and p. 244; also "Who
were the Romans?" _Proceedings of the British Academy_, vol. iii.).
On the whole Pelasgian question, the most valuable analysis of the
evidence, such as it is, appears to me to be that of Mr. Myres in the
_Journal of the Hellenic Society_, vol. xxvii.
My only conclusion is that, whoever the Achaeans may have been, and
whatever their language, and whoever the pre-existing population may
have been, and whatever their language, the Achaeans imported a new,
lofty, and _brief-lived_ set of ideas, customs, a new tone and taste.
At the same time, Mr. Ridgeway's arguments in favour of his theory
that the pre-Achaean population of Greece spoke Greek, have my assent
for what it is worth, though I do not think that the evidence for the
hypothesis of Dionysius of Halicarnassus that Thessalian Pelasgians
went to Etruria, and that their descendants came back to the Aegean,
has valid historical evidence.
[1] _Pausanias_, vii. i. 11.
[2] "Athenians and Achaean traditions."
[3] Hdt. v. 57, 58, 61. The Cadmeians, till very recently, were
regarded as Phoenicians, Semites. Now the name "Phoenicians" ("red
men") is understood to mean men of the old Aegean race, and no traces
of Semitic import have been discovered in the soil of Boeotia. Thebes
itself was "Minoan," not Semitic. Evans, _Scripta Minoa,_ vol. i.
[4] Iliad, ii. 571, and Leaf's note, ii. 560. Hdt. i. 145.
[5] Thucydides, i. 2.
[6] _R, G. E_. 50-57.
[7] Hogarth. _Ionia and the East_, p. 12.
[8] Hogarth, p. 34.
[9] _Ibid._ pp. 34-36.
[10] Chipiez et Perrot, _La Grèce de l'Epopée_, pp. 235-246.
[11] Hogarth, p. 104.
[12] Mr. Murray, however, writes: "We know that the great mass of the