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Homer and History Homer and History. By Walter Leaf. Pp. 375, with maps. 9″ × 6″. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. 12s. net.

A. Shewan

The Classical Review / Volume 30 / Issue 03 / May 1916, pp 80 - 83 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00010088, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00010088

How to cite this article: A. Shewan (1916). The Classical Review, 30, pp 80-83 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00010088

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 128.122.253.212 on 19 May 2015 8o THE CLASSICAL REVIEW the editor not having examined closely attempted for any play of Aristophanes r enough the interrelations of the MSS., with fuller collations of the MSS., and a. the Aldine, and quotations, in con- very useful reproduction of V in full; sequence of which he assigns consider- he has also given a long and learned ably too much weight to the evidence introduction on the old Greek com- of V alone, while I fear that a large mentary, containing many facts which proportion of the 300 new readings pro- will be new to most readers; and I posed can only be regarded as possible congratulate Dr. White on having given rather than proved; but on the other to the world a learned edition which hand he has given us a far fuller and will long be indispensable to all serious more learned edition of the scholia of students of the scholia of Aristophanes. the Aves than has been previously RICHARD T. ELLIOTT.

HOMER AND HISTORY. Homer and History. By WALTER LEAF. marked, do little in the War worthy of Pp. 375, with maps. 9* x 6". London: the tantus hiatus of their introduction), Macmillan and Co., Ltd. 12s. net. and to the dominions of Peleus, Odys- seus and Agamemnon. The Cataloguer, DR. LEAF has proved in his Troy that as he is called, is found to have de- the Trojan War is a historical fact. parted from the court tradition. He As the effect of this is to confirm the has cut about and rearranged these tradition in its most vital point, he feels areas, with the objects of legitimating justified in using it as a guide in further the old tribal system, of giving to later tests of the historical value of the Greece the share in the Troica which Homeric record. To the process of belonged to the Achaeans alone, and of ascertaining how much of the accumu- consolidating the elements of his day lations with which this good solid into a single nation. He succeeded foundation is now overlaid is spurious only in producing a fictitious state of accretion, or, perhaps more accurately, Greece which never existed. His Cata- to the initial stage of it, the present logue must be a late development, which volume is devoted. originated in a later world of new ideas. After making his position clear on It has been ' faked' into the Iliad from certain preliminary points, Dr. Leaf a poem, presumably the work of the provides, in a chapter on the Coming Cataloguer, describing a review at of the Achaeans, an interesting and Aulis. vivid sketch of their appropriation of The volume ends with chapters on Greece as he conceives it to have taken the Fusion of Races and the Achaean place, and then turns to the prosecution Epos. An Appendix is chiefly con- of his task. This brings him at once cerned with lively reprobation of a to consideration of the two Catalogues recent exposition of the Catalogue, and in the second Iliad, as documents which of some anti-Dorpfeldian views on are at least ostensibly historical. The Leukas-Ithaka. Trojan Catalogue he has already ac- The assault on the Catalogue is the cepted as part of, or founded on, the most formidable that that much as- genuine tradition. In regard to the saulted document has yet had to meet, Greek, he comes to a very different con- and it is too comprehensive for full clusion. He resuscitates the view of notice here. The Homeric geographer Niese and others that it does not suit will doubtless have much to say in reply. the Iliad, and could not have been com- On the literary side, a good deal of the posed for it, shows that it differs essen- matter in the indictment is familiar, tially from the rest of the poem and and the answer will be as before. Niese from the Odyssey, and exhibits the himself lived to see and confess that a divergence at length in regard to the number of his conclusions could not Boeotians, (who, as others have re- stand. They were, of course, largely THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 81 due to the Zeitgeist. There is much say the least of it, when basing infer- authority for the opinion that the ences on physical conditions, to assume Catalogue was not Boeotian in origin that these were in Mycenaean days just and never a work by itself. And forty what they are now or were in classical years of fruitful archaeological enquiry times. Can we be sure that the con- have only served to strengthen the view, dition of the sea-bed off the coast of the urged by Dr. Monro in a paper that is Plain of Argos was 3,000 years ago as classic, that its contents are genuine unfavourable to navigation as it is now ? ancientry. It was Messrs. Wace and Or again, can we argue from absence Thompson, fresh from their explora- of water-supply, or from the stony nature tions, who said that Niese's views on of districts in these days ? One must the Thessalian section implied that the surely think of the Greece of the Cataloguer was a fool,1 and the difficulty Achaeans as almost a virgin area, with will be to reconcile Dr. Leaf's conclu- more forest and with springs and run- sions regarding him with archaeological ning water more abundant most of the discoveries. These prove that the Cata- year than in later times. Denudation loguer has given an accurate account of slopes and the ruin which is the of prehistoric Thessaly, and Mr. Thomp- certain result would be only incipient. son has shown, in a striking paper which The probable ancient condition of the Dr. Leaf does not appear to notice, country and its present plight may be that his enumeration corresponds very seen in tracts adjoining each other in closely with the limits of Mycenaean some parts of the modern world. And Greece. This is surely strange if his secondly, surely too much is always floruit was as late as now suggested. made of enclaves. These are common Dr. Leaf does not expressly repeat his enough. In British India there are old belief that the Cataloguer composed localities where there is an absolute for the Cycle, but he seems to go further jumble of jurisdictions, and the com- and to make him contemporary with mixture is a legacy from just such a • the Logographers, and we cannot sup- period of commotion as was that of the pose he would have any more know- Achaean settlement. ledge of prehistoric Greece than his For the rest, nihil est simul inventum contemporaries and successors had. etperfectum, and the argument often atfKolKol ol apxaloi. He would describe leaves the impression that conclusions the Greece he knew, and that he did are drawn too hastily. The discussion know it intimately his Catalogue abun- which issues in the elimination of dantly shows. But instead, i/cv/ca TTJP Homeric Corinth requires us to con- TLWdSa. With fine audacity, almost, cede a good deal. Here, as elsewhere, as Gemoll once said of him, with malevo- Dr. Leaf ventures on a prediction to lence, he produced a mere fiction, and help us to believe—rd icev #eo? rj reXi- one which, in spite of its novelty and aeiev, r) ic' arekeo-r' etr).2 All will not its disregard of the tradition, rose, and agree that the inference from the terms rose at once, to canonical authority, of the references in the Catalogue to after securing incorporation in the great Philoctetes and Protesilaus is mcon- national poem of Greece. Add to this testably self-evident. It may be that that the individual who ' faked' into Thucydides was wriggling out of a the Iliad this fiction which fits the difficulty about the Boeotians, but the Mycenaean world so well did his work difficulty was caused by his own rash badly, as late intruders were wont to chronological venture. The inference do, and the new theory becomes hard from another phrase, Tu%??Corfu. It is a very attractive theory, Ithaka controversy. It is part of Dr. persuasively stated, but there is much to Leafs case that S. Maura is Homer's question. We are to suppose that with Ithaka, but that can never be proved the west, ' towards the gloom,' though now. All the evidence has been pro- there was Mycenaean influence there, duced, and fails to convince. His sur- there was no trade. As trade did not vey of the ' larger considerations' is follow the flag in this case, it must have little more than an enumeration of the been prevented. By whom ? Obviously old difficulties in regard to Thiaki. by some power in Corfu, past which, it But a plaintiff in ejectment cannot rely is hastily assumed, all trade must have on the weakness of the opposing title. gone. Now the Taphians of Homer Beati possidentes, and he must show a are to Dr. Leaf a great maritime people, better one himself. That the Leuka- capable of just such a domination over dists cannot do. They rely greatly on Achaean movements, so they must be Arkoudi with its twin havens; but placed in Corfu. But the poet and Arkoudi is really the rock on which the archaeologists alike show that there hypothesis breaks. Professor Manly, was intercourse with the west.1 And who inspected the havens after hearing Agamemnon, who to Dr. Leaf is ' no Dorpfeld expound his case, would none mere primus inter pares' but ' supreme of them. Did it ever occur to anyone monarch of Greece,' would never have before Dorpfeld to think or speak of tolerated this exclusion from Italy and Arkoudi as ' in a strait' between Thiaki Sicily, while the excluders themselves and S. Maura ? Would it occur to any roamed at will through the great em- stranger to the controversy now ? And peror's waters and along his coasts and then the fantastic tricks the Leukadists far beyond. And if the Achaeans had have played. Dorpfeld, said Wilamo- been barred via Corfu, they would surely witz, ignoriert eben alle Grammatik, alle have gone direct. Such a voyage would Kritik, alle Geschichte. Witness the be a short one compared with one of juggling with 7TO/>0/AO? and irokvfievdris, five days across the open sea from Crete or that impossible voyage outside Cefa- to the Nile. Further, the indications lonia, or the Dorian thrust, of which in the epic are exaggerated. These do there is admittedly no evidence, which not raise the Taphians' operations to drove the people of Leukas only a few the level of what has been called' inter- miles away, but which must be assumed national piracy.' They were simple in order to complete the theory. Nor freebooters, like all their neighbours, does Dr. Leaf help the cause by his including Odysseus himself. Then the quite new translation of e«a? vtfcrav in narrative of Athene-Mentes' visit to Athene's advice to Telemachus, viz. Telemachus is made to support the new ' clear of islands.' It would be strange theory, but it is quite in harmony with .advice to a voyager at any time—(never the old view. The Ephyre mentioned mind shoals or currents or headlands, was probably not the Thesprotian, but but do) keep clear of islands ; to a man the Elean; Merry and Riddell state the about to sail to Vlicho in S. Maura, relevant considerations. That Temese past one archipelago and through .another, it would be very puzzling. As a piece of positive evidence, a point 1 With Tempsa, for instance, as argued below, is made of the impossibility of ferrying and see Od. -ax.. 383. It seems quite an ordinary cattle from Thiaki to the mainland. thing to kidnap a man and sell him across the seas to the Sikels ' for a good price.' ft

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW was Tamassos in Cyprus is against the which Homerists of all shades of creed evidence. The names cannot be re- will be very grateful. Dr. Leaf is clear, garded offhand as identical, by any bold and independent in investigation, means. Again, Tamassos is in the very selects for discussion the things that middle of Cyprus, and a Taphian could matter, and writes with delightful fresh- no more speak of ' sailing over the sea ness. The method is unimpeachable ; to Tamassos for copper' than a captain ' Homer from Homer,' supplemented by of Riga of sailing to Leeds for woollens. archaeological results and the facts of It is very doubtful if eV aXko0poov<}geography, with no room for the myriad avOpanrovs would have been used in imaginings too often indulged in. And those days of Cyprus; it certainly could one is glad to infer from a number of of Temesa (or Tempsa) in Italy. Author- indications that there is more to follow, ities tell of Mycenaean colonisation in the ultimate object being the presenta- Cyprus, and Od. xvii. 443 is, as Sir tion of a formula of reconciliation for Arthur Evans has observed, a significant extreme views on the Homeric Question. line. And Strabo, who no doubt relied Dr. Leafs own prepossessions as to the on Posidonius, who knew W. Europe, composition of the poems are left aside decides for Tempsa. There were copper for the present. Resurgent, and his workings there, and Mosso quotes a readers will be curious to know how far modern geologist in confirmation. Much his recent researches have modified or interest attaches, Dr. Leaf thinks, to confirmed them. The old Adam is the cargo of iron in the story, but his certainly not dead. Meantime, while inferences seem to be too liberal. There he has given the defenders of unity much was doubtless a centre of distribution to ponder furiously, his view of the value I up the Adriatic, but Dorpfeld is said to of the poems as history and of their have discovered iron in Acarnania. The geographical accuracy* will be no small epithet aWav is against unwrought metal, comfort to them. And they will not be the quantity would certainly be small, sorry to see that several' old shroretide for a little would go a long way in the cocks ' get shrewd knocks. Sagenver- purchase of copper, and it might, as has schiebungen and the Faded God surely been observed, have been acquired by receive their quietus. Prof. Murray is piracy. Then there is the ancient shown how the Epos may be regarded belief that Corfu was the Scheria of as expurgated without having undergone the Odyssey. Beiard's demonstration an expurgative process. The merit of of their identity, which Dr. Leaf the anthropologico-mythological school dismisses with few words, is over- is duly acknowledged and utilised. whelmingly strong, and has not been There is ' a soul of truth in things invalidated by Champault's extrava- erroneous.' Prof. Ridgeway and the ganza. Dr. Leaf further suggests that opponents of his theory of the Origin of Scheria is a fairy-land, and that Homer Tragedy are told they may live in peace is describing the lost island, Atlantis, together. And finally, it is a great ' built to music,' like Camelot, on pleasure to see the debt which Homer memories of Minoan Crete. But the owes to Mr. Chadwick'sHeroic Age fully discrepancies between Homer's picture recognised. and the archaeologists' reconstruction are serious, and what is the fairyism of The maps are a valuable addition to Phaeacia compared with its humanness? the work, but the small one of Corfu Thucydides tells us the Corcyraeans and the mouth of the Adriatic on p. 186 believed themselves descended from the is spoiled by the quadruple coast line. Phaeacians, there is never a word in It would have been a boon to students literature about this former Taphian if the map of Homeric Greece (after thalassocracy, and the name adhered to Leaf and Dorpfeld) had been made the islands between Leukas and Acar- complete. nania. A. SHEWAN. But, whatever one's opinion may be 1 But how the authorities on the Odyssey differ I Mr. Thomson makes the wild assertion on individual points in the book, there that' it is impossible to identify a single site is no question that it is a great contribu- described in the poem' (T/ie Greek Tradition, tion to the study of Homer, and one for 221).