[470] Prof. Meyer (Gesch. d. Alt.2, I p. 680 ff.) has pointed out that, while Thucydides seems to have regarded Minos as a Greek, Herodotus apparently held a different view. Such is certainly the natural inference to be drawn from the language of the two historians, though the evidence is perhaps not quite conclusive in either case. But Herodotus, at all events in VII 171, clearly derived his information from the people of Praisos—a community which cannot have been wholly Greek even in his time. Their account seems to have been due to an attempt to reconcile Greek and native traditions, Homeric influence being shown by the sentence τρίτῃ δὲ γενεῇ μετὰ Μίνωα τελευτήσαντα γενέσθαι τὰ Τρωϊκά, κ.τ.λ. We may compare the Egyptian story of Helen (cf. p. [266]). In the Homeric poems themselves Idomeneus is descended from Minos, and no hint is given that either of them was regarded as non-Greek. The same remark appears to be true of Greek tradition elsewhere.
[471] Cf. Petrie, History of Egypt, III 197 ff.; Breasted, Ancient Records (Egypt), IV 274 ff. Prof. Breasted believes that this document is Wenamon's authentic report of his expedition.
[472] In the course of an adventurous journey the envoy was intercepted by some ships of the Zakar (Tchakaray), a people mentioned among the Aegean confederates who fought against Rameses III (cf. p. [188] ff.). These Zakar brought him before the prince of Byblos and demanded that he should be arrested. Prof. Petrie speaks of them as Cretan 'pirates,' but neither their own behaviour nor that of the prince seems to me to be reconcilable with such a view. According to Prof. Breasted's reconstruction of the story—where the papyrus is defective—the envoy had himself been guilty of lawless conduct previously. Incidentally it appears from the story that a considerable amount of traffic was being carried on at this time both in Egyptian and Syrian ships.
[473] Herhor is mentioned in the story, but not as king.
NOTE VII. THE BATTLE OF KOSSOVO IN SERVIAN POETRY.
It has been mentioned above (p. [310]) that for the story of the Iliad a fairly close parallel is to be found in those Servian poems which deal with the battle of Kossovo[474]. This parallelism has long been noticed, but unfortunately it has given rise to an unnecessary controversy. Servian writers, inspired by patriotic zeal, have sought to make an 'Iliad' by stringing their national poems together, while scholars of other nations have denied that the Servians possess anything which deserves to be called epic poetry. We need not concern ourselves here with a discussion about terms. It is clear enough that Servian heroic poetry bears little resemblance to the Homeric poems as we have them. But we may strongly suspect that at an earlier stage in the history of Homeric poetry the resemblance would be much closer, although the art of heroic poetry in Greece had doubtless been elaborated for centuries to a far higher degree than was ever attained by Servian poets.
It is to the treatment of the story however, and not to the qualities of the poetry, that I wish to call attention. Beowulf, Finn, Waldhere and the Hildebrandslied all deal with fighting of various kinds, but we do not know how early Teutonic poetry treated a story of actual war. The Servian poems resemble the Iliad chiefly in the comparatively large number of prominent characters which they introduce and in the fact that they deal with a series of more or less distinct episodes, in which various heroes from time to time play the leading part. Lazar's council or court furnishes an interesting parallel to that of Agamemnon—the more instructive because we can here check the evidence of the poems by historical records, some of which are practically contemporary, while many date from within a century of the battle.
King Lazar himself and his opponent, Sultan Murad I, are of course well-known historical persons. There is no doubt also with regard to Vuk Branković, the chief of Lazar's followers or allies. In the poems he is represented as the husband of Mara (Maria), the king's daughter; but in this case there may be some confusion. According to Ducas (p. [17][475]) Lazar had a daughter of this name who was married to Bajazet, the son and successor of Murad, after the conclusion of the war. Vuk Branković was however a son-in-law of Lazar according to Laonicos Chalcocondylas (p. [53]). Again, Jug Bogdan, represented in the poems as Lazar's father-in-law[476], is believed to be identical with a certain prince named Μπόγδανος (Πόγδανος), who, according to Laonicos (p. [28]), was granted by Dušan the territories between Pherrai and the Axios (Vardar), and who about 1372 submitted to Murad together with the other Servian princes in this region. To these we may add the vojvoda Vladeta; for there can be little doubt that this person is to be identified with that Vlathico Vlagenichio who, according to the anonymous translation of Ducas' history (p. [352]), was sent by his uncle Iuathco (Tvrtko), king of Bosnia, to support Lazar with 20,000 men.