Of these only Perseus would not at once fall within the class; and this is evidently a most noble name, taken from a great Greek hero. Indeed it must itself stand as a conspicuous example of the rule, if we shall hereafter be able to show[561] a relationship between the Hellic races and Persia as their fountain-head.
Lastly, let us take the Myrmidon leaders and commanders. These were,
| 1. Patroclus; son of | and after him the heads of the five divisions. |
2. Menœtius.
3. Menesthius.
4. Eudorus.
5. Peisander, son of
6. Maimalus, from μαιμάω.
| 7. Phœnix. | This name may represent, (1) Phœnician extraction or connection; (2) The palm tree; (3) The colour of red or purple, akin to φόνος, and to blood, which the colour φοίνιξ is supposed to betoken. In any of these three aspects, it will fall into the Hellic class. |
8. Alcimedon, son of Laerces.
9. Automedon.
All these names belong to the higher categories. It is therefore the general result of our inquiry, that wherever we have reason on other grounds to presume a Pelasgian origin, we find in the proper names of persons, unless they chance to be merely descriptive of the country they inhabited, a decided tendency to represent peaceful, profitable, and laborious pursuits, or the lower qualities and conditions of mankind. But wherever from other causes we are entitled to presume an Hellic relationship, there, so far as a simple etymology will carry us, the personal appellatives appear to run upon ideas derived from intellect, power, command, policy, fame, the great qualities and achievements of war; in short, apart from religion, which does not appear to enter into the composition of nomenclature at all, all the ideas that appeal most strongly to those masculine faculties of our race, in which its perfection was so vividly conceived by the Greeks to reside.
Evidence from political and martial ideas.
One among the most remarkable features of the Homeric Poems is, their highly forward development of political ideas in a very early stage of society[562]. It seems hardly necessary to argue that these were of Hellic origin; because the fact is before us, that they make their appearance in Homer simultaneously with the universal ascendancy of the Hellic over the Pelasgian tribes wherever they were in contact; and because, in comparing the two nations together, we shall have occasion to note the greater backwardness, and indocility, so to speak, of the Trojans[563] in this respect. I assume, therefore, without detailed argument, the peculiar relation between the Hellic stock and the political institutions of Greece.
For similar reasons I shall touch very briefly the relation of the Hellic tribes to the martial character of Greece.