Upon the whole it appears not unsafe, without pretending to any authoritative solution of a question fitted for philological scholars, among whom I cannot pretend to rank, to suppose that Ἐφύρη and Φηραὶ may be drawn etymologically from the same root. If so, that root will be probably the same with that of ἔρα, and of φῆρ of which we have ascertained that it is related to the Hellic races: and upon these suppositions we may already be prepared, I do not say to conclude, but to suspect that Ἐφύρη and Φεραὶ may properly denote, and may be the original and proper Hellic name for the terre (Ital.), or walled places, founded by the Hellic races; as Ἄργος signifies the open districts in which the Pelasgians were given to settling κωμηδὸν, for agricultural purposes.
I do not mean by this that the Pelasgian settlements contained no aggregations of houses, or that the Hellic were not connected with the cultivation of the soil. On the contrary, as the Pelasgians apparently built their Larissas for defence, so we seem to have indications connecting the name Ephyre with a fertile soil. When Homer represents the Ἔφυροι as objects of invasion by Mars from Thrace, he probably means by the name the inhabitants of a settled country in the plains, on whom predatory incursions were made by the Thracian highlanders. So that if we shall succeed in shewing a special connection between the local name Ephyre and the Hellic tribes, we may, by the reflected light of that conclusion, even venture to understand the word Ephyri as meaning Helli, who had come down into the low country, made settlements, and acquired something at least of the habits of civilized life.
Nor are we without further Homeric evidence to the effect that, wherever an Ephyre is found, there is usually an abundance of rich pasture and cultivable land, so that the name is well adapted to mark those spots which a conquering race would be apt to choose for its abodes.
For example, Elis has its Ephyre: and from the fact that Elis was the scene of the national chariot-races, we might at once conclude that it was famous for its horses, and if so, that it abounded in good soil and pasture, and in open country. Wherever in Homer we find the horse conspicuous, we find also good lands and opulence, whether it be in Troas, in the Thrace called ἐριβώλαξ[855], in Thessaly, or in Elis. For Homer gives us, as to the last, direct evidence of the fact, by his epithets εὐρύχορος, open, and ἱππόβοτος, horse-pasturing[856]. Elis, in fact, was most probably for Peloponnesus what Bœotia was for Middle Greece: the first halting place, from its fertile soil, of those who entered the region; the scene, accordingly, of rapid successions, and therefore frequent revolutions, but also the place bearing the strongest marks, through nomenclature, of the country from which the new-comers had proceeded.
Again, the Ephyre of the Odyssey is expressly called (Od. ii. 328), πίειραν ἄρουραν. And when Hercules took Astyoche from Ephyre (Il. ii. 659), after despoiling that with many other cities, we may clearly infer, that they were rich, and not poor places which he plundered, therefore that this Ephyre also was rich, and if so, rich in its soil, the only wealth, for regions, then known to Greece. Again, the Ephyre of Sisyphus (Il. vi. 152) became Corinth, and Corinth was even in Homer’s time called ἄφνειος. This epithet is referred by some to its favourable position for commerce. But such an explanation is wholly unsuited to the age of Homer. For the commercial prominence of Corinth belongs to a later period; and we have nothing to support the idea, that commercial opulence existed in Greece at this period at all. The natural explanation seems to be, the fertility of the soil of the plain between the rock of Corinth and Sicyon. This seems to have become, in after-time, the subject of a proverb. Hence the χρησμόλογος in the Aves of Aristophanes says (Av. 968),
ἀλλ’ ὅταν οἰκήσωσι λύκοι πολιαί τε κορώναι
ἐν ταυτῷ τὸ μεταξὺ Κορίνθου καὶ Σικυῶνος.
In the same sense as where Shakespeare says,
When Birnam wood shall move to Dunsinane.
The Scholiast gives two explanations, of which the best is εὔφορος γὰρ αὕτη ἡ χώρα.