Μυρμίδονες δὲ καλεῦντο καὶ Ἕλληνες καὶ Ἀχαιοί.
We find an exclusive use[501] of the word Myrmidons for the force of Achilles throughout the Iliad, except in this one place; notwithstanding that Phœnix, who was lord of the Dolopes, commanded one of the five divisions[502], and that we may therefore presume a certain part of the force to have been Dolopian. From this exclusive use, we cannot doubt that the name of Myrmidons was that which appertained to them in particular, as the ruling tribe among the subjects of Peleus.
Had we found reason to construe the word Ἕλλας in the preceding line as meaning only a district of his dominions, it would have followed, that Ἕλληνες meant the inhabitants of that district; and that a part of the soldiers of Achilles were Hellenes rather than Myrmidons, in virtue of a local name. But it follows from what we have already concluded about Hellas, that the name of Hellenes was applicable to all the Myrmidons as being themselves inhabitants of Hellas, that is, of Phthia, which belonged to Hellas.
And in passing it should be noticed that, although the Myrmidons inhabited Phthia, they are never called Phthians; nor do we ever hear of Phthians at all in Homer, except only in that passage where they are described as engaged with Locrians and others in repelling the Trojan assault[503]. They are there described as under the command of Medon and Podarces. But in the Catalogue Podarces and Medon[504], as substitutes for Protesilaus and Philoctetes respectively, command the second and fourth Thessalian contingents, which came from districts lying near the kingdom of Peleus. Either therefore the Phthian name extended beyond the limits of Phthia, or the Phthians were those whom the Myrmidons had recently driven out, and whose lands they had occupied.
We cannot conclusively settle the sense of the word Ἀχαιοὶ in this passage, except by anticipating the results of an examination, on which we have not yet entered. But it may be observed even at this point, that the bearings of the passage are somewhat adverse to a merely local construction for it. If Myrmidon was the strictly proper name, then Achæan must have been a designation which was not proper to the Myrmidons only, but which they enjoyed in common with others. And yet, on the other hand, not in common with all the Greeks, but in some sense more restricted than that, in which it is habitually applied to the whole army. For in that large and general sense every contingent of the army was Achæan, and Homer would certainly therefore not have mentioned the Achæan name with respect to one in particular. It can hardly escape observation that, studying great clearness and precision in the Catalogue, he systematically avoids the introduction of his general names for the army. We never read of Danaans or Argeians in it at all, and of Achæans only twice[505]. So far then as the passage itself guides us, it points to the supposition that those who were called Myrmidons properly, to distinguish them from all others, and Hellenes because they were (in common with others) inhabitants of Hellas, belonged likewise to a particular class or race of Greeks, to whom the name of Ἀχαιοὶ was applicable in some distinctive sense. The three appellations, accordingly, are not so many synonyms; but each has probably its own proper scope.
Thucydides[506] speaks with his usual accuracy, when he says that Homer has given the name of Hellenes to no portion of the army except the troops of Achilles from Phthiotis. He does not however go beyond the assertion that this word had not yet grown into an appellation for the Greeks universally, an assertion which, as far as Homer’s evidence goes, is undeniable. But it does not require us also to deny that the Hellas of Homer extends beyond Phthia, and that the name of Hellenes may even then have been beginning to attach to the inhabitants of other parts of Hellas, though perhaps less fixedly, as yet, than to the Myrmidons.
The Panhellenes of Homer.
With these facts in view, I am wholly unable to follow those who have condemned, upon internal evidence, that verse of the Catalogue in which we find mention of the Panhellenes.
Speaking of Oilean Ajax, commander of the Locrians, the poet says (Il. ii. 530),
ἐγχείῃ δ’ ἐκέκαστο Πανέλληνας καὶ Ἀχαιούς.