Homer has proceeded, with respect to the Caucones, exactly in the same way as with respect to the Pelasgi. In the Iliad he names them[262] among the Trojan allies, and is wholly silent about them in dealing with the Greek races. But in the Odyssey, where he had no national distinctions to keep in view, he names them as a people apparently Greek, and dwelling on the western side of Greece. The pseudo-Mentor is going among them on business, to obtain payment of a debt[263]: and the manner in which they are mentioned, without explanation, shows that the name must have been familiar to Nestor and the other persons addressed. Probably therefore they were a neighbouring tribe: certainly a Greek tribe, for we do not find proof that the Homeric Greeks carried on commerce except with their own race.
The poet names them with a laudatory epithet: they are the Καύκωνες μεγάθυμοι. This may remind us of his bounty in the same kind to the Pelasgians: and it seems as though he had had a reverence for the remains of the ancient possessors of the country.
We have abundant signs of the Leleges on the Trojan side in the war. In the Tenth Book they appear as a contingent: but besides this, Priam had for one of his wives Laothee, daughter of Altes, king of the Lelegians, who are here called φιλοπτόλεμοι[264]. What is more important, we find the expressions Λέλεγες καὶ Τρῶες[265] used together in such a way, as implies the wide extension of the former as a race. In the Twentieth Iliad, Æneas in speaking of Achilles refers to his former escape from the great warrior. He fought, says Æneas, under the auspices of Minerva: who shed light before him, and bid him slay Lelegians and Trojans,
ἠδ’ ἐκέλευεν
ἔγχεï χαλκείῳ Λέλεγας καὶ Τρῶας ἐναίρειν.
The Trojan force was in two main portions, each with many subdivisions: first, the army of Priam, with those of his kindred or subordinate princes: and, secondly, the allies, with their numerous and widely dispersed races. In the passage just quoted, the word Leleges must either mean the great body of allies, or else it must, conjointly with Troes, signify the whole mass of what we may call the indigenous troops. Now the former is highly improbable. Such differences as are implied in the combination of Thracians, Lycians, and Pelasgians, could not well be, and nowhere else are comprehended by Homer under a single name as one race or nation, though the Lycians, on account of their excellence, are sometimes[266] taken to represent the whole body of the allies. And again, if the Leleges meant the whole body of allies, the Pelasgians would appear as a branch of them, which is contrary to all evidence and likelihood. If then the two words together represent those indigenous troops, as contradistinguished from the allies, who were arrayed in the five divisions that are enumerated in vv. 816-39 of the Second book, the question is, how is the sense to be distributed between them. And here there is not much room for doubt. The name Τρῶες had been assumed four generations before the war from King Tros, and was therefore a political or dynastic name, not a name of race. It most probably therefore indicates either the inhabitants of Priam’s own city and immediate dominions, or else the ruling race, who held power here, as elsewhere, among a subject population. In either case we must conclude that the word Leleges is meant to indicate the blood, and also the blood-name (so to speak) of the bulk of the population through a considerable tract of country: and it will be observed that in the fourth and fifth of the divisions[267] in the Trojan Catalogue Homer specifies no blood-name or name of race whatever.
This being so, we find an important light cast upon the meaning of the word Leleges. As we proceed with these inquiries, we shall find accumulating evidence of the Pelasgianism of the mass of the population on the Trojan side: and thus when it appears that that mass or a very great part of it was Lelegian, it also appears probable that the Leleges were at least akin to the Pelasgians, though some have taken them to be distinct[268].
In answer therefore to the question, who were these Caucones and these Leleges, while we are deficient in the means of detailed and particular reply, we may, I think, fall back with tolerable security upon the words used by Bishop Thirlwall in closing an ethnological survey:
“The review we have just taken of the Pelasgian settlements in Greece appears inevitably to lead to the conclusion that the name Pelasgians was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni: but that each of the Pelasgian tribes had also one peculiar to itself[269].”
Upon our finding, as we find, the Pelasgian name in certain apparent relations with others, such as Leleges and Caucones, it appears more reasonable to presume a relationship between them, than the reverse: for nothing can be more improbable than the simultaneous presence at that early period of a multitude of races, radically distinct from each other, and yet diffused intermixedly over the same country upon equal terms, and if there was a relationship, it would most probably be that of subdivision, under which Leleges and Caucones might be branches of the widely spread Pelasgian family.
This opinion is supported, not only by presumptions, but by much indirect evidence. It is indisputable that various names were applied, by the custom of the Homeric age, to the same people, and at the same period. The poet calls the inhabitants of Elis both Elians and Epeans. The people of Ithaca are Ithacesians (Ἰθακήσιοι), but there are also Ἀχαιοί[270], and in the Catalogue they are included under the Cephallenians[271]. The Dolopians in the speech of Phœnix[272] are included under the Phthians; and are also within the scope of the other names applied by the Catalogue to the followers of Achilles, who were called by the name of Myrmidons, or of Hellens, or of Achæans. Of these the first seems to be the denomination, which the ruling race of that particular district had brought with it into the country. The third probably belongs to the Myrmidons, as members of that tribe, of Hellic origin, which at the time predominated in Greece generally. The second, as we shall find, was the common name for all Greek tribes of that origin, and was the name which ultimately gained a complete ascendancy in the country. Of the five nations of Crete in the Seventeenth Odyssey[273], either all or several are probably included in the Κρῆτες of the Second Iliad[274]. Nay, we may now declare it to be at least highly probable[275], that the Ionian name was a sub-designation of the Pelasgians. Thus we have abundant instances of plurality in the designations of tribes. On the whole, we shall do best to assume that the names in question of Leleges and Caucones indicated Pelasgian subdivision. The inquiry is, however, one of ethnical antiquarianism only; these names are historically insignificant, for, apart from the Pelasgian, they carry no distinctive character or special function in reference to Greece.