And in (9), where the shade of Achilles asks whether his father Peleus is still in the enjoyment of kingly power in the populous country of the Myrmidons, or whether he is deprived and despised through the range of Hellas and Phthia.
But among these four passages there is a distinction. In (1), (5), and (9) Hellas is combined with Phthia. Now we have seen, that there were Phthians beyond the dominions of Peleus: if the territorial name Phthia was similarly extended, then the presumption would arise that Hellas also might mean something more than lay within those dominions. But there are many passages where Phthia is used without Hellas; and in them all it is used to express the district where Peleus reigned. It is not unlikely therefore, at first sight, that Hellas has the limited sense of a part of the kingdom in these passages. And in the passage relating to Bathycles, the son of Chalcon, the limited sense is yet more strongly suggested; yet, as we may hereafter see more clearly, it is by no means positively required either in that or in any of these four places.
And it is abundantly clear, from the remainder of the passages, that the name Hellas had already, in Homer’s time, begun to bear a more extended sense.
In proof of this, let us take, firstly, the two passages in which it stands alone. In Il. ix. 444-8, Phœnix tells us that nothing would induce him to quit Achilles; no, not even if the gods, brushing off his old age, were to make him young and vigorous again, such as he was when first he left Hellas, the land of fair women, flying from his feud with his father Amyntor. Now this passage absolutely proves that the word Hellas was used by Homer, at least occasionally, for some limited district, and not (as in after times) for the entire country; inasmuch as Phœnix could not otherwise have said he left Hellas on this occasion. But on the other hand it demonstrates, that the limits of Hellas were not so narrow, as the passages heretofore considered might permit us to suppose. For Phœnix goes on to describe the cause of quarrel; and (478-80) says he took his course through broad open Hellas, and came into fertile Phthia, to Peleus the king. The supposition most consistent with the wording of these passages is, that Phthia comprised the principal district of the dominions of Peleus, while a portion of them may have fallen (as we elsewhere see was perhaps the case) under the name of Hellas: but they absolutely place the abode of Amyntor outside the realm of Peleus; and therefore, in saying that Phœnix left Hellas, and that he fled from his home through Hellas, they imply necessarily that Hellas, the region from which he fled, was, in part at least, outside of that realm to which he fled.
But these passages will harmonise perfectly with each other, and with those formerly examined, if we suppose that Hellas meant the whole of Northern Greece generally, but that a particular portion of it had been more definitely stamped with the name of Phthia, as the chief seat of Peleus and the Myrmidons. For then the original abode of Phœnix might be in Hellas, as he says (in ix. 447) that it was: and yet he would pursue his way through Hellas, as he says (ibid. 478) that he did: and he would also leave Hellas, namely by coming into Phthia: and moreover the dominions of Peleus might go beyond what was commonly known by the particular designation of Phthia, and might include some portion of Hellas, as, from Il. ii. 683, they evidently did.
This supposition is recommended to us, not only by its conforming to all the requisite conditions, and furnishing a convenient construction for all the passages we have examined, but by the fact that Phthia, and Phthia alone, is commonly mentioned in the poem as the home of Achilles and the Myrmidons: which shows that they had a more special relation to the territory known by that name, than to Hellas.
If any thing be still wanting, the proof is brought to completeness by two other passages: the one (Il. x. 261-7), which tells us that this Amyntor, son of Ormenus, dwelt in Eleon; dwelt there permanently, since Autolycus stole from him an helmet, by breaking into his substantial well-built house,
πύκινον δόμον ἀντιτορήσας[498]:
and the other the verse of the Catalogue[499], which places Eleon in Bœotia. These passages therefore clearly appear to carry the name Hellas as far as Bœotia, and to make it reach continuously from thence to Phthia. And if Hellas comes down to Bœotia, then it includes Locris; and the various tribes of these regions may be included in the general name of Hellenes, though to all appearance they were not as yet familiarly and ordinarily so called. And if Locris and Bœotia, with part of Southern Thessaly (the dominions of Peleus), are included within the range of the name Hellas, we can have no difficulty in supposing that it included Northern Thessaly also, which must have been the pathway of the Helli to the South.