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Of the Carians and Leleges may well be quoted the words of Strabo (322), when, after describing the wide diffusion of the Leleges, he says (speaking of north-west Greece): ‘Now that most of the land has become desolate, and the settlements and especially the cities have disappeared, even if a man could give a definite account, he would do nothing useful, owing to the uncertainty (ἀδοξία) and to the fact that the peoples have disappeared, a movement which began long since.’ The best English accounts are those of Myres and Paton, J. H. S. xvi. 264 seq., and (of the Leleges) of Holm, i. 63-4, 72. The following are the most important points as to the two races: I. In Asia Minor. (1) In Homer (Il. x. 428-9) Dolon places them both with the Lycians, Mysians, and Phrygians among the allies of Troy. In the Catalogue (ii. 867) the Carians are βαρβαρόφωνοι, and inhabit Miletus. (2) Leleges are placed by Homer at Pedasus in the Troad (Il. xxi. 86-7), but do not occur in ‘the Catalogue’. (3) Strabo (321, 611) tells us that ancient ‘tombs and forts’ in Caria were called ‘Lelegian’. (4) Philippus, a Carian writer of the third century B. C., makes the Leleges serfs of the Carians; Plutarch (Qu. Gr. 46; Mor. 302) says that the survivors of the Leleges were serfs at Tralles. We may conclude they were genuine tribes on the Anatolian coast, of whom the Carians were the later comers and the conquerors. The two races were often identified, especially as the Carians seem to have adopted the speech of their subjects; for two races in Caria cf. 171. 6. II. In Greece proper. (1) Carians are traced at Megara (citadel called ‘Caria’, Paus. i. 40. 6), in the Argolid at Epidaurus and Hermione (Strabo, 374, quoting Aristotle), at Athens (Isagoras, H. v. 66. 1). But the last instance proves nothing, and the first may be connected with the later military importance of the Carians. (2) Leleges are mentioned continually as early inhabitants, e.g. by Strabo, 321-2 (quoting Arist.), in Acarnania, Aetolia, Boeotia, &c. This is probably invention based (a) on the fact that the Leleges, like the Pelasgians, are merely a prehistoric stop-gap; where nothing was known they were put in; (b) on resemblances of placenames in Caria and in central Greece (Busolt, i. 185. 4 n.), e.g. Abae in Caria and in Phocis. We may conclude that there is no sufficient evidence for the presence of Carians and Leleges in Greece proper. III. But it is not unlikely that the primitive population of Greece and of Anatolia was really akin; we find place-names ending in -νθος, -nda (and perhaps -ασσος, -ασα) common to both regions, and a number of words ‘earthy of the soil’, e.g. βόλινθος, with a similar termination (cf. Conway's list, B. S. A. viii. 155). We may also compare the primitive cist-graves of Assarlik in Caria with the pre-Mycenaean graves in the Cyclades. So the double axe was a symbol of the Carians, but perhaps they and the Cretans borrowed it equally from some earlier people. (For this view generally cf. Mackenzie, B. S. A. xii, p. 217 seq.) The double axe seems to be the symbol also of the Hittite god, Tesub. IV. The races in the islands. Greek theory made the Carians native in the islands (171. 2; Thuc. i. 4. 1, 8. 1, though with differing details). Thucydides seeks to confirm this by archaeological evidence; but the weapons found in the island-graves do not resemble the Carian weapons of c. 171. Probably, therefore, the native tradition is right (171. 5), that they were originally a mainland people, and the Greek tradition is a mere inference from the Thalassocracy of Minos. There were Carians in the islands, however, in the ninth and eighth centuries (v. i.). V. The theory once maintained that the Carians were the authors of the Mycenaean culture (e.g. by Köhler and Dümmler) must be abandoned, in view of the facts that hardly any Mycenaean remains are found in Caria, and those found show the culture in its decadence (J. H. S. xvi. 265). VI. For the affinities of the Carians with the Indo-European races cf. App. I, § 4. The Carians seem to have been the advanced guard of the tribes that invaded Anatolia from the north at the end of the second millennium B. C. Conway (u. s. 156) thinks the Carian names may belong to the Indo-European family of speech. If this be denied (with Kretschmer), we may suppose the conquerors adopted the language of the conquered earlier population. It is to this later conquering element we must attribute: (1) The Carian Thalassocracy (Myres, J. H. S. xxvi. 107-9). There were Carians in the islands at the time of the Greek settlement (171. 5). (2) The characteristic Carian weapons (171. 4 n.). (3) The Carian mercenaries of the seventh century (ii. 152. 5).
τριξὰ ἐξευρήματα. This passage is of great importance for our knowledge of Greek armour. The difference between the weapons of Homeric and those of later times is well known; H. here attributes three changes to the Carians, who were prominent as mercenaries in the seventh and sixth centuries (cf. Helbig, Hom. Ep., p. 344; Archil. fr. 24; and ii. 152, 154, v. 111. 1). The statement is repeated by Strabo (661), who says (662) the Carians καθ᾽ ὅλην ἐπλανήθησαν τὴν Ἑλλάδα, μισθοῦ στρατεύοντες. Pliny (N. H. vii. 200） also credits the Carians with greaves. H. has grasped the difference between the huge body-covering shield (ἠύτε πύργος) [Lang, Homer and his Age, 110 f. compares the shields in the Bayeux Tapestry and refutes the theory that they were only used in a chariot] and the round shield of manageable size, borne on the left arm. Some (e.g. Tsountas, p. 193) think he is wrong as to the ‘badges’, and refer to the ‘stars’ on Mycenaean shields and the well-known shield of Achilles of Il. 18. Curtius, however (Ges. Abh. ii. 89), accepts the statement of H., who is probably referring to some particular form of badge, which was specially Carian. With regard to λόφος and ὄχανον Strabo (661) quotes from Alcaeus λόφον σείων Καρικόν, and from Anacreon, Καρικοεργὲς ὄχανον. The λόφος is frequent in Homer (Il. vi. 469, Hector's boy ἐκλίνθη . . . ταρβήσας χαλκόν τε ἰδε λόφον ἱππιοχαίτην), as H. must have known. Hence he may be referring to the later form of crest which fits right on the helmet, as opposed to the earlier form which was raised on a κύμβαχος (Il. xv. 536); the two forms of crests are seen in the Euphorbus plate (Brunn, Griech. Kunstg. (1893), fig. 114). With the later form comes in the more frequent use of cheek-pieces to the helmet, which, by hiding the face, would make ‘badges’ more necessary. The ὄχανον (or ὀχάνη) is used by the Schardana on the Egyptian monuments of the thirteenth century (Helbig, Hom. Ep., fig. 124, at Ipsambul); the ‘shield-band’, therefore, may have been borrowed by the Carians from an earlier Anatolian race. The ‘band’ (of metal, wood, or leather) was placed across the diameter of the shield from rim to rim (cf. picture in D. of A., s. v. ‘Clipeus’); the shield also had a grip (πόρπαξ) of leather running round inside the rim. Hence πόρπαξ and ὄχανον are used as convertible (Schol. to Arist. Eq. 849). They were, however, properly distinct; the conservative Spartans used only the πόρπαξ till the third century (Plut. Cleom. 11). The ὄχανα may be the Homeric κανόνες (Il. xiii. 407; Helb., pp. 324-57), but it is more probable these latter are the ῥάβδοι of Hesych. (s. v.), the stiffening rods in the centre of the leather shield. Cf. Leaf, Iliad, vol. i, App. B, for this and other points as to Homeric armour. περικείμενοι. We have a shield hung from the left shoulder (cf. Il. xvi. 106 “ὁ δ᾽ ἀριστερὸν ὦμον ἔκαμνεν ι ἔμπεδον αἰὲν ἔχων σάκος”) represented in the famous hunting scene on the dagger-blade from the fourth grave at Mycenae (Helbig, fig. 125); Reichel (Hom. Waff., p. 10) elaborately explains the working of the shield. In Il. v. 795-7 (cf. Il. v. 98), however, Diomede has his shield τελαμών on his right shoulder. This early shield also had a ‘grip’, which H. takes for granted; this omission hardly justifies Helbig's criticism, ‘H. either did not understand the old use or has expressed himself obscurely’ (p. 323). To περικείμενοι supply τελαμῶνας. The reason for placing the ‘shield belt’ on the left shoulder was that the sword belt had to be on the right one (Il. xiv. 404-5), as the sword itself was on the left side, so as to be drawn more easily.
ὕστερον: i. e. at the time of the Greek colonization, about 1000 B. C. τῷ αὐτῷ. The Greek story made them Leleges originally (§ 2).
For Ζεὺς Κάριος cf. v. 119. 2 n.; it is curious that while he is worshipped by Mysians and Lydians also (§ 6), Ζ. Στρατιος is Carian only.
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