The Ionians.
The notices of the Ionians contained in Homer are faint and few: but they are in entire contradiction with the prevailing tradition.
The word Ἰάονες occurs only once in the poems, where we find the five contingents of Bœotians, Ionians, Locrians, Phthians, and Epeans, united in resisting, but ineffectually, Hector’s attack upon the ships. They are here termed ἑλκεχίτωνες[176], an epithet which is unfortunately nowhere else employed by the poet. The order in which they are named is,
1. Bœotians,
2. Ionians,
3. Locrians,
4. Phthians,
5. Epeans.
A description thus commences in three parts, of which the first is (689-91),
οἱ μὲν Ἀθηναίων προλελεγμένοι· ἐν δ’ ἄρα τοῖσιν
ἦρχ’ υἷος Πετεῶο, Μενεσθεύς· οἱ δ’ ἅμ’ ἕποντο
Φείδας τε Στιχίος τε, Βίας τ’ ἐΰς·
The second describes the leaders of the Epeans: the third of the Phthians, and these, it says, meaning apparently the Phthian force, fought in conjunction with the Bœotians, μετὰ Βοιωτῶν ἐμάχοντο (700). No Bœotian leaders are named: the absence of Oilean Ajax, who officially led the Locrians, is immediately accounted for by saying that he was with his inseparable friend, the Telamonian chief.
These Ἰάονες ἑλκεχίτωνες then were the προλελεγμένοι, a chosen band of the Athenian force; or else they were the force composed of men picked among the Athenians. But no distinguished quality or act of war is recounted of the Athenians, either here or elsewhere in the Iliad. They are simply called μηστῶρες ἀüτῆς,[177] but this is a mere general epithet, has no reference to any particular conduct, and is not sustained by any relation of their feats in arms. The five divisions above named fight in order to be beaten by the Trojans: and we may be sure that Homer does not produce the flower of the Greeks for such a purpose. Nor has the Athenian chief Menestheus any distinction whatever accorded to him, even in the much questioned passage of the Catalogue, except that of being excellent at marshalling forces.
The Athenians in the Catalogue.
The passage Il. ii. 546-56, describing the Athenians in the Catalogue, is of so much historical interest through the various points it involves, as to deserve a particular consideration, which it may best receive in this place. Upon it depends some part of the Homeric evidence relating to the signs of a Pelasgian origin.