The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here 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 Request Permissions : Click here 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€<f>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-<roTepos) is compared by Sittl with TTJ- example in the old formula op^a/tos dvSpwv, \vytros and al<rv/j.vqTr)s, with the view of if opxafios is connected with ap^u, and the showing that the v may be original and not old epithet dpyei^dvn;?, assuming the deriva- an Aeolic variation. But the latter word tion from <f>aiv<j>, 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.<Dv with p-Syitos. (See the last edition of dtpo-os is an older form, rather than a dia- Curtius-' Grundziige.) Sittl rejects the ex- lectic variation, of Odpcros. (See Monro, in planation of eeiKOtrt, HeSva, itXSwp, as having the Journal of Philology, vol. ix. p. 264.) been originally formed with v replacing the Another Aeolic peculiarity (<f> 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 £<x to Sid in Sappho fr. 87, (Od. xi. 311) and one or two similar survivals £a 8' iXeijafiav ovap TS-VTrpoyevr/a.) Nor is of Aeolic verbs in -/u, but Curtius has shown there any relevancy in the comparison (cf. Monro's Homeric Grammar, § 19) that between the Ionic variation Xayos for Aayois, these forms are exactly parallel to the and the forms epos and ye'Aos (with dative Homeric <f>iXrj[Aevai, Ki^fievai, &c.