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The Aeolic Element in the Iliad and Odyssey

G. C. Warr

The Classical Review / Volume 1 / Issue 2-3 / April 1887, pp 35 - 38 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00182551, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00182551

How to cite this article: G. C. Warr (1887). The Aeolic Element in the Iliad and Odyssey. The Classical Review, 1, pp 35-38 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00182551

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 129.78.139.28 on 04 May 2015 THE CLASSICAL EEVIEW. 35 interesting are the two appendices on the better discipline than following the treat- ' Erotic discourses of Socrates,' and ' The ment of the philosopher's works by one philosophy of Isocrates.' whose insight into his spirit has hardly been In fine, the permanent value of Thomp- surpassed. Thompson was in his element son's work as a Platonic scholar is to be as an exponent of Plato. No other author found not in its extent, which is but mo- could have given such full scope to the derate, nor altogether in the amount of fastidious and subtle taste, to the clear positive instruction, great as that unques- logical thought, to the erudition free from tionably is, which may be derived from it; any shadow of pedantry, which are charac- but in the example he has left of an original teristic of the Master of Trinity's work; and powerful mind dealing with the most nor have afforded occasion for so successful fruitful literature of all time. It has been a combination of all the most solid qualities said, and said most truly, that Plato is his of learning and scholarship with a charm of own best interpreter : but he will interpret style which gives these writings, apart from only to him who has ' eyes in his soul.' their didactic value, a claim to rank as And for clearing and strengthening this English literature. mental vision, there could not be a much R D. AKCHEE-HIND.

THE AEOLIC ELEMENT IN THE ILIAD AND ODYSSEY.

Die Homerische Odyssee in der urspriinglichenwhile carefully distinguishing between Aeolic Sprachform wiederhergestellt von AUGUST and merely archaic forms, admit a con- FICK. Gbttingen, 1883. siderable residuum of the former, comprising Die Homerische Ilias nach ihrer EntsteJiung the pronouns a/jL/JLtg, a/M/xi, a/j./i,e, V/JL/JLC;, V/J./JU, betrachtet wad in der urspriinglichen Sprach-V/J./J.C, the adverbs d/ivSn and aAAvSis, £a for form vriederliergestellt von AUGUST FICK. Sta in £a#£os, £aTp€tfs, £<£KOTOS, &C, the suffix Gbttingen, 1885-6. -two for -etvo (ea-ivo), e.g. apytwos, Epe/JoWs, the vocalisation of the digamma in avtayoi Philologus, xliii. 1. Dr. K. SiM, 'Die (afia^oij, avepvaav (affepvfrav), eva8e (icrfaSe). Aolismen der Hornerischen Sprache.' ' Herr Meister (Die Griechischen Dialecte, p. 19) Dr. Karl Sittl und die Hornerischen Aolis- holds with Hinrichs that 'the origin of men' von DR. GUSTAV HINBICHS. Berlin, these Aeolisms must be sought in the oldest 1884. epic poems which appeared on Aeolian soil, Bezzenberger's Eeitrage zur Kunde derlndo- probably in Lesbos.' He does not doubt that among the predecessors of Sappho and germ. Sprachen. Vol. xi. ' Die Sprachform Alcaeus were Aeolian poets who, before der altionischen und altattischen Lyrik.' Homer, had celebrated the heroes of the A. FICK. Trojan war. THE peculiar structure of the Homeric Hinrichs has recently restated and de- dialect has been explained in two ways, fended the conclusions embodied in his viz. (1) as the result of a fusion of earlier work (De Homericae elocutionis vestigiis Aeolic ingredients with the Ionic dialect, Aeolicis) against an attack by K. Sittl (Ge- (2) as a combination of earlier and later schichte der griechischen Literatur, ch. ii. forms alike belonging to the Ionic dialect at pp. 34-44, and Philologus xliii. 1, p. 1-31), different stages of its growth. The former who has attempted to disprove the whole, view was long accepted without question, or nearly the whole, of the supposed Homeric and the Aeolic element was magnified in Aeolisms.1 In reference to the instances accordance with the prevailing idea, that the just quoted, he maintains that aAAvSts and Aeolic dialect was once common to nearly a/xuSis, though not actually found in the all Greece—an inference derived from Strabo extant fragments of Aeolic poetry, are and other writers, according to whom the strictly analogous to the Aeolic ruiSt, &c, whole country was at first ' Aeolian,' except nor is it at all probable that the grammarians the distinctively Dorian and Ionian districts. found aAAoSis and afwSis and 'Aeolised' On this supposition everything which ap- these forms. The Homeric eVaowrepos (for peared archaic in the Homeric language was termed an 'Aeolism.' Recent writers of 1 Herr Dr. Earl Sittl und die Homerischen such authority as Meister and Hinrichs, Aolismen, G. Hinrichs. Berlin, 3884. D 2 36 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW.

«rao-aiv, whether the word is inter- is probably of Aeolic origin and itself ex- preted ' swiftly appearing ' or ' making the emplifies the Aeolic v for o, since it is equi- light (or lightning) to appear.' The difficult valent, according to Curtius, to ala-ofivrjrr]'; dt^Xos (or aiSrjXos) may also be Aeolic. from alcra and the root fuva ('one who minds Hinrichs' interpretation ' ever visible ' the rights' of the competitors). As for (Aeolic at for dei, cf. aiTrdpOevos) gives the TqXvyeros (which may likewise be an old best sense in II. ii. 318. The original form Aeolic word), according to Savelsberg's would appear to have been dio^Aos, which highly probable explanation, it implies an was altered to distinguish it from aiSrjXos adjective TTJXVS = ' large' (njXuyeros, ' large- (' destructive'). The evidence of Aeolic e grown,' i.e. adult,cf.Tr7A.e7ruA.os, 'large-gated'), for a before p, which is deducible from but there is no such evidence of an adjective ©fpcrmjs and other proper names, is not to ao-crvs. The connection of £7rto-p.uy€pos with be set aside simply because similar names //.oyepos has been questioned; but there is occasionally appear in later times outside less room for dispute as to the connection of the Aeolian area ; though it is possible that dfj,vfi. for 6) seems initial digamma (iuKocri, veSva, viX8u>p). He to have survived in the Homeric <£i}pes for supposes that ei/cocri (8/ewcoo-i) was written #r;pes (cf. Latin /era.) The fact that this with e prefixed iSfeiKoari, but he is obliged form appears only as a personal name (of to assume that UBva, &c, are formed by the Centaurs) may serve to explain the erroneous analogy, the e being prefixed survival, but is no argument against the although no initial consonant has dropped Aeolic origin of the word. The conversion out. As regards the masculine nominatives of the digamma in raXavpivos equally implies in d (e.g. hnrora), which Sittl (here supported the Aeolic v for a, if the word is written by Meister) would account for as converted raAa-Zptvos and derived directly from r(a)Xa vocatives, Hinrichs adheres to the view that = ' to bear ' (' bearing a shield of ox-hide '). they are to be explained by the Aeolic ac- This substitution of v for / is undoubtedly centuation and the omission of final s, which characteristic of the Aeolic of Lesbos, and occurs in some Boeotian inscriptions. More- words of similar formation in Homer are over, as Mr. Monro observes (Homeric numerous (e.g. KaXavpoifr, cvXrjpa, ravavTrovi, Grammar, § 96), the other theory ' is not evKrjkos, besides those above mentioned). necessarily at variance with the Aeolic origin The Homeric text abounds in instances of of the forms. If the usage began as a piece the Aeolic prefix £a, occurring, just as might of ceremonial etiquette, it may well have be anticipated, in ancient epithets, and espe- been due to the influence of great Aeolic cially those of Aeolic towns. This evidence families.' Sittl objects to tarjv (Od. xi. 313), would remain equally applicable, even if it but there appears to be no valid reason could be proved that £a was not used by against classing it, as Ahrens does, with the itself as the equivalent of Sid in the Lesbian Aeolic accusatives Sv&fiivrjv, djiaKrjv, ificfreprjv,poetry, as Sittl contends. (He takes leave, &c. He would likewise correct airuXrJTrjv however, to alter £iXrj[Aevai, Ki^fievai, &c. He i£po)s , ycAo), and accusative Zpov, yeAov) which willing to allow that the Homeric irurupts are common to the Homeric and the Aeolic may be directly related to the Lesbian dialect, and are quite distinct in their for- •n-eWupes, but he suggests that the Ionians mation from the post-Homeric IpoiT- and borrowed the Aeolic form of the numeral ycA(«T~. through commercial intercourse. In regard to Aeolic o for a (before liquids), he demurs Fick's argument postulates these and to the evidence of 7rop8aAis (for TrapSaAis) for other occasional Aeolisms in the Homeric no better reason than that the word itself is dialect; but his special theory—that by far not of Greek origin. But we have a clear the greater portion both of the Iliad and Odyssey was originally composed in the THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 37 Aeolic dialect—depends, in the main, on the Catalogue of the Ships (which was those elements which belong to the very probably imported from the Cypria with ground-work of the Homeric language, such some alteration), the meeting of Glaucus as the alternative forms of the personal and Diomedes (II. vi. 119-236), the Embassy pronouns instanced above. Those who deny (bk. ix.), the Doloneia, the Shield of Achilles, the composite character of the dialect can and the Funeral Games. But the speech of only meet the argument, which these forms Phoenix in the Embassy, and the Mo^ supply, by maintaining that they co-existed 7rapa7roTa/u,tos (bk. xv.) likewise betray an with the others in the Ionic dialect, either Ionic hand, being ' stark mit Jesten ionismen as part of the ordinary speech or as poetical versetzt.' For the Odyssey, the portions varieties. Sittl attempts to diminish the which Fick would assign on linguistic evi- difficulty of this assumption, in reference to dence to Ionian authorship, prove to be the pronouns, by changing Pindar, of the extant Ionic poetry tells the wrong JVem. ii. 1. 'The name of Homeridae was way. originally given to the descendants of Homer, Pick includes in the Aeolic element other who continued the recitation of his poetry. forms, which must be regarded as funda- This was done subsequently by rhapsodists mental, e.g. the infinitive terminations -/j.cvai not connected with Homer by descent; and -/nev, the genitive endings -ao and -awv, among these were conspicuous Cynaethus and the genitives formed by the suffix -6f.v and his school, who are said to have com- (eyueOev, aeOev, fiOev), and the dative plural posed many of the verses and inserted them ending -eom, which occurs uniformly in in the poetry of Homer. This Cynaethus Aeolic and never in Ionic texts (except a was a native of Chios. He is said to have dubious fragment of Ananias, aXXk iraxrw composed the hymn to Apollo, the hymn iX&vecra-iv). This Aeolic element, he holdsthu, s entitled being one of the poems in- can only be explained on the supposition scribed as Homer's. This Cynaethus first that it represents the original text, on which rhapsodised the Epic poetry of Homer at the Ionic forms were engrafted by a simple Syracuse in the 69th Olympiad, according to process (' ganz roh und ausserlich ) of trans- Hippostratus.' The testimony of this writer lation. In order to test this theory, he has is valuable on the point in question, as his performed the reverse process—a retrans- special subject was Sicily. The other lation into the Aeolic dialect—with results, extracts collected by Carl Miiller show that which may be thus summed up : (1) The he compiled quasi-historical records in the intermixture of Aeolic and Ionic forms is form of genealogies, embodying the local determined by the metre. The Ionic forms traditions. One fragment, for example, are adhered to, as a rule, where the metre relates to the Cottytia, a festival celebrated allows; while the Aeolic forms are retained in Sicily and at Corinth. The statement chiefly as a matter of metrical necessity or that this rhapsodist was also the composer convenience. (2) Certain portions of the of the hymn to (the Delian) Apollo is sup- Iliad and Odyssey present obstacles to re- ported not only by Pliny (H.N. iv. 12, 22) translation, such as imply that the author but by the internal evidence of the alter- or authors of these sections composed them native conclusion (v. 14-18) adapted to a in the Ionic dialect, only copying the tra- Syracusan audience. That he was the ditional 'Epic' phrases. These additions reviser of the Odyssey is rendered very consist, for the Iliad, chiefly of passages probable by the interpolated reference to inserted as connecting links to unite various Ortygia (Od. v. 121-4), the forced allusion episodes with the body of the poem, the to the palm-tree by the altar of Apollo in episodes themselves having been composed Delos (vi. 161-7. Cf. the hymn, v. 18 and at a somewhat earlier date by poets,v perhaps v. 117), and the marked references to Sicily of Ionian extraction, but well versed in the and South Italy (i. 184, xx. 383, xxiv. 211, Aeolic dialect. The episodes in question are 338, 365 ff.). The completion of the Iliad 38 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. is ascribed to this poet partly on the evidence be prized even in aftertime." And I will of an interpolation in the Catalogue (II. ii. spread your renown upon the earth, as far 594—600), describing the blindness of Tha- as I roam among the fair-lying cities of men.' myris, the Thracian minstrel, whom the The whole tenour of this speech, as well as Homerids would claim as a predecessor, if the mention of the poet's migration, is not as an ancestor. The author of the hymn certainly appropriate to the rhapsodist, who makes particular mention of his blindness at had made his name famous by his additions the same time that he sings his own praise :—• to ' Homer.' The object for which, accord- ' Fare ye well, ladies all, and bethink ye of ing to Fick, these additions were made, was me hereafter, when any of earthly kind the competitive recitation by rhapsodists at coming hither, a stranger worn with travel, the Delian festival, introduced, perhaps, enquireth of you : " Damsels, what man about the time when the Ionian revolt was among the minstrels who resort hither is most preparing and the Ionians were drawn to- welcome unto you, and in whom do ye gether by an impulse of patriotism. (Cf. chiefly delight?" Then give ye a kindly Professor Sayce in the Academy, Nov. 15, answer, one and all: " 'Tis a blind man, and 1884). he dwelleth in rugged Chios. His song will G. C. WARB. (To be continued.')

EARLY CLASSICAL MSS. IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

THE starting of a Classical Review in Of the very few surviving classical Greek England affords an opportunity for attempt- works written on papyrus, the most import- ing a piece of work, which, if rightly carried ant have, one by one, found their way into out, will be of no small advantage to scholars the British Museum. This is matter for who may be engaged upon the texts of Greek consolation ; for the national collections are and Latin authors, and, it may be hoped, by no means strong in ancient copies of the also of interest to students in general. This Greek and Latin classics. In these days one work is the compilation of a brief catalogue cannot hope to make up much lost ground in of all existing MSS. of Greek and Latin this respect. The most precious vellum texts classical literature in the libraries of the are already safely housed in public libraries. United Kingdom. Such a scheme can only But papyri may still be unearthed from the be successfully accomplished by cooperation ; tombs of Egypt. The great collection of but it may be anticipated that there will be documents now at Vienna and Berlin, among no lack of assistance in the universities and which many rare fragments have already large central libraries where the greater been brought to light, and which are being number of MSS. are accumulated. It may subjected to the close labour of competent be objected that the catalogues of the several scholars, will probably yield important libraries should suffice; but, as every librarian results. And when we bear in mind that knows, older catalogues are far from accurate, the papyri, which it is proposed to form the particularly in the matter of assigning dates, subject of the present paper, have all been and in most large libraries the catalogues purchased within the last thirty years, we are inconveniently numerous, requiring in need not altogether despair of the future. some instances rather severe study for the The Greek classical papyri of the British digestion of their contents. Moreover, in Museum are five in number. Two contain some libraries the catalogues are still un- portions of two of the books of the Iliad : printed. To lead the way, then, in this three, the orations of Hyperides. They have proposal, I hope to contribute from time to all been described at some length in the time to the pages of the Classical Review Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the concise descriptions of the MSS. of early British Museum (part 1, Greek, London, Greek and Latin writers in the British 1881) ; I will briefly sketch their history and Museum. As an introduction to the work, palaeographical value. the present article may be devoted to a 1. The Harris Homer (Papyrus cvii.). notice of the classical papyri, which, from This papyrus is in two fragments which their great antiquity, occupy a preeminent were obtained by Mr. A. C. Harris of Alex- position of their own. andria on two different occasions, in 1849