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[681] It is hardly possible to read this and the two following lines without feeling that originally Achilles was the leader of the whole of the Thessalians, and that his restriction to three paltry towns in 682 is merely a device to make room for the localization of other Thessalian heroes. As it stands, the effect is almost like ‘all the peoples of Britain, who dwelt in Greenwich and Woolwich and Blackheath, and were named Saxons and English and Danes.’ The Pelasgian Argos, properly the central plain of Thessaly about Larissa, a long way from Phthia, is in the sequel stretched to comprise Thessaly in the widest sense, and even Dodona in Aitolia. There can be little doubt that Hellenes, Myrmidons, and Achaians were originally three distinct tribal names of Thessaly, all under the suzerainty of Achilles, as the South was under the suzerainty of Agamemnon. In 9.447 Hellas, the home of Phoinix, is clearly distinct from Phthia, the home of Achilles. But in 9.395 the Achaians seem to include the inhabitants of both Phthia and Hellas, a first step to the use of the Achaian name for all prae-Dorian Greeks. Similarly the Myrmidons are identical with the inhabitants of Hellas and Phthia in Od. 11.496. The confusion that reigns in the use of the names is a reflexion of the intermixture consequent on the great migrations from North to South, of which the Dorian and Thessalian invasions were a part. See Bury in J. H. S. xv. 217 ff. This is the only case in H. where the name Hellenes occurs, except in 530 “Πανέλληνες”. The introductory words νῦν αὖ are evidently used to mark a new and important section of the whole. τούς is used as though the poet meant to continue with “ἔσπετε” or “ἐρέω”.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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