- possessions of Odysseus
- " Nestor
- " Menelaos
- " Agamemnon
- " Diomedes, etc.
- " Aias son of Telamon
- " Aias son of Oileus
- " Achilles
MAP OF GREECE
showing the distribution of the dialects in historical times
| Aeolic (Thessalian and Boeotian) | ▥ |
| Ionic (with Attic) | ▤ |
| Arcadian | ▨ |
| West Greek dialects not shaded. |
Hypothesis after hypothesis has been tried in order to claim an Aeolic or Ionic origin for most of these heroes. The plain fact is that all except one[446] belong to communities which in the fifth century were regarded as truly 'Hellenic'—or at all events to districts where dialects of the West Greek type prevailed in historical times. The leading Aeolic hero is Eurypylos; but he ranks only with Meriones, the Cretan second-in-command, Thoas the Aetolian and Nestor's sons. The other Aeolic and Ionic leaders are distinctly less prominent.
From the evidence at our disposal it seems to me that, if the poets of the Iliad, or rather their predecessors, were interested in any nationality at all, that nationality must have been West Greek or 'Hellenic.' Of the two chief leaders one belongs to Achaia Phthiotis, the other to the Peloponnesian Achaeans; the Catalogue of Ships (Il. II 569 ff.) assigns to him territories which in the main coincide with the later Achaia, though they cover a somewhat larger area. We have scarcely any evidence worth consideration that either Achaia Phthiotis or the Peloponnesian Achaia was ever held by a different nationality within the period embraced by history and tradition[447]. The territories of the other chief Peloponnesian leaders were occupied in historical times by the Dorians. But it was the unanimous belief of the ancient world that the Dorian period had been preceded by an age of Achaean domination in the east, south and west of the peninsula. Lastly, the Odyssey (XIX 175), in a passage which is commonly believed to preserve a true ethnographical record, speaks of the presence of Achaeans in Crete. Thus at least six[448] of the nine principal leaders come from regions with an Achaean population. In view of this fact is it any wonder that Ἀχαιοί is by far the commonest term applied in the poems to the Greeks collectively[449]? This then must be the nationality in which the poets were interested. But the Achaeans of historical times, as we have seen, everywhere used a form of language which is West Greek. Moreover, it is to the northern Achaeans that we first find the name Ἕλληνες applied (Il. II 684). The facts noted seem to indicate that the Achaeans were the dominant people of the West Greeks—indeed, we may say, of the Greeks generally—during the Heroic Age, a position in which they were eventually succeeded by the Dorians.
But the poems themselves are of Aeolic origin. It is this fact—supported by speculations of writers of the Roman period, who included under the term 'Aeolic' every dialect not obviously Doric, Ionic or Attic[450]—which has led to the unfortunate equation 'Achaean' = 'Aeolic.' In reality the heroes and the poems belong to two entirely different sections of the Greek nation. Shall we then set up another hypothesis—that the original poems were Achaean? But then we should only be repeating the old error of building hypothesis upon hypothesis. For it is a hypothesis, and nothing more, that the original poems were concerned with tribal or national interests; the poems which have come down to us deal with the fortunes of individuals. Moreover we should not thereby save the theory that the Iliad is a reflection of the Greek settlement of the north-western coast of Asia Minor; for that settlement was not Achaean but Aeolic. The truth is that the initial hypothesis is entirely unjustified. We have no more reason for supposing that the heroes must be Aeolic if the poems are Aeolic—or that the poems must be Achaean if the heroes are Achaean—than we have for assuming that the Anglo-Saxon poems were of Danish or Gothic origin because Danes and Goths figure in them more prominently than persons of English nationality. It is likely enough that poems once existed dealing with Aeolic heroes, such as Iason, perhaps also Peirithoos and others. But the reason for the prominence assigned to Achaean heroes, at all events in the poems which have survived, is to be found not in the national sympathies or interests of the poets, but in the fact that during the Heroic Age the Achaeans were the dominant people in Greece.