Now the name of a river Selleeis at once suggests a connection with the tribe of Selli or Helli: and further on we shall find, that Ephyre is a sign of the Helli, as Larissa is of the Pelasgi, and that one at least of the Ephyres of Greece, probably one situated in Thessaly, was by a river Selleeis. In later times Sicyon[827], and in Homer Elis, if not Thessaly, show each their Ephyre with a river Selleeis.
It has been already noticed, that in the Games of the Twenty-third Iliad, Homer tells us that the σόλος, or ball of iron given by Achilles as a prize, had previously been hurled by the strong arm of king Eetion. And as all the traces of gymnastic exercises in Homer lead us to refer them to Hellic families, we may perhaps be justified in taking this as an indication that Eetion, the father of Andromache, belonged to this stock.
The Hellespont of Homer.
Another trace of the name of the Helli is found in the grammatical structure of the ancient Homeric word Hellespont. Its composition declares it to be the sea of Helle. Helle would be the descriptive name of a woman of the tribe of Helli. Nor could any thing be more natural, than that the Strait and neighbouring water should take its appellation from the tribe of Helli, or even from a person of that tribe, when we have every reason to believe they made the passage in the course of their migration westward.
In later times, the name Hellespont has been restricted to the narrow strait between the Sea of Marmora and the Archipelago. In Homer it bore this sense, at least occasionally or inclusively, because he calls it ἀγάῤῥοος[828]. At other times he calls it πλατὺς, and the commentators have been much puzzled to show how a narrow strait could be a broad one, while the interpretation salt has also been suggested for the epithet. It is just possible, that this adjective might apply to what was afterwards known as the Hellespont, and might describe it as broad, in comparison with the bay in which lay the Greek ships: but it is much more natural to construe it more freely, and to understand by it the broad Hellespont, in opposition to the narrow Hellespont; that is, the open sea, in opposition to the ἀγάῤῥοος, which signifies the Strait. The expression πλατὺς Ἑλλήσποντος is used but thrice; once[829] for the water near the part of the camp occupied by Achilles, which we know was by the open sea[830], and twice[831] with reference to the sepulchral mounds which were to be erected there, and for which the most conspicuous spot would of course be chosen. What πλατὺς suggests, another epithet, ἀπείρων[832], surely requires: for it is incredible that this word should be applied to the mere Strait. And in truth, independently of epithets, it is demonstrable that the word in Homer sometimes means, not the strait, but the Archipelago. For Achilles, announcing his intention to sail home, says he will be seen passing Ἑλλήσποντον ἐπ’ ἰχθυόεντα[833], over the Hellespont, which, having his vessels already at the mouth of it, he clearly could not do if it meant the strait only. And, in truth, the etymology of the word speaks for itself: the Greeks never would have given the name πόντος at all to a narrow strip of water. The connection, which was thus established between this quarter and Greece through the medium of the name Helle, was recognised by the later Greeks: but they naturally altered its form, by keeping to their own country the honours of the fountain-head, while they made the eastward traces of the name to be secondary and derivative. In Apollonius, Phryxus and Helle are the children of Athamas, and grandchildren of Æolus: and they are carried from Thessaly on the back of a ram to the Troic sea, where she is dropped, and gives her name to it. This tradition is summed up in the argument to the Argonautica, and exhibits the belief of the Greeks in the early relationship of the countries.
All this marks the Helli not only as a people who had crossed the straits, but as one which had left its name associated with the northern coast of the Ægean, and moreover upon the country in the neighbourhood of the straits, up to the river Selleeis; a stream which we see must have been at a considerable distance beyond Troy, because all the rivers that descended from Mount Ida were employed in clearing away the Greek earthworks, and this one is not among them[834].
The gift of Echepolus.
We find an insulated yet remarkable note of kin between the Dardan house and the Greeks in the case of Echepolus. He was a son of Anchises, and he resided in Sicyon. He was possessed of great wealth, and apparently he had also the fine breed of horses which was in his family: for he presented Agamemnon with the mare Αἴθη[835], as a consideration for not being required to follow him against Troy.
Now there was evidently at this time no commercial class formed in Greece. Echepolus must therefore have had a territorial fortune. To find a wealthy member of the Dardan house domesticated in Greece, and peacefully remaining there during the expedition, must excite some surprise. It seems to supply a new and strong presumption of the Hellic origin of the royal families of Troas. The name too, and the gift of a horse, are in remarkable conformity with the horse-rearing and horse-breaking pursuits of the highest Trojans.