First we have the remote and wintry Dodona of Thessaly, the most ancient and most awful seat of the religious worship of the Greeks; in connection with which Achilles invokes Jupiter for the success and safe return of Patroclus.
Around Dodona dwell the Selli or Helli. The special veneration paid to the place points it out as the oldest site of the national worship; and the possession of this oldest site again points out the tribe as the mother-tribe of that wonderful Greek race, whose fame is graven ineffaceably upon the rock with a pen of iron.
From among the Helli of the mountains, who nowhere appear among the contingents of the Greek army, must have proceeded the migratory bands who gave to the Thessalian plain the name of Hellas. Their descendants fix themselves as settlers there. Beguiled into civilization, they become Hellenes; they spread, by their inborn elastic energies, towards the south, and carry with them, only a little in their rear, the very title of their Hellenic origin, as well as their own peculiar name.
The ruling families of their septs or clans give each to its actual head, if not to its heir, the dignity of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, and this title they carry forth with them to the southern provinces in which they plant themselves.
One of these ruling families, the head of the great sept of the Achæans, carries the right to this title in the case of Agamemnon: and inasmuch as it betokens what is both oldest and highest in descent and in civil authority in the whole group of the Hellenic tribes, it forms an appropriate and characteristic designation for their chief ruler and leader.
Having thus considered the case of Agamemnon, the great Achæan chieftain, in this view, we may proceed to the other cases of Anchises and Æneas, of Augeias, Euphetes, and Eumelus.
In none of these cases, however, have we the same right to assume in limine the character of chieftainship by known lineage from an Hellenic family, as in the case of the Achæans. The cases of Anchises and Æneas may indeed be treated on grounds of their own. In the other instances, we must inquire what ground Homer furnishes for especially connecting these persons with the headship of ruling families, and with Hellas or Thessaly.
This I shall do, subject to the general rule, that if in any particular case there can be found a special mark of connection with Thessaly or Hellas in or about a particular spot, it is thereupon to be inferred that in that particular place the connection was known and commemorated. If, for example, we find at a given point an ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, reason binds us to presume that, as the local name might show the derivation from the first seat of the race, so by this title the lineal descent from a ruling family there was meant to be commemorated and marked.
The Cases of Anchises and Æneas.
But first for Anchises and Æneas.