4. Besides the Æolid sovereignty, the etymology of the names of Lycian warriors connects itself not only with the Greek race, but with the Hellic element in that race[334].
5. On the other hand Apollo, whom we shall hereafter find to be the great Pelasgian, though also universal, god, is even, according to Homer, in close and peculiar connection with Lycia, although he is not localized there by Homer as he is in the later tradition. First as being λυκηγενής. Secondly as the great bowman: while Lycia was so eminent in this art, that Æneas, addressing Pandarus with a compliment on his skill, says no man before Troy can match him, and perhaps even in Lycia there may not be a better archer[335]. Thirdly, this Pandarus the archer, and son of Lycaon, received the gift of his bow from Apollo himself[336]: and says, that Apollo prompted or instructed him, as he came from Lycia[337]. It may, however, be reasonably questioned, whether we are here to understand the Lycia of the South, or the district of kindred name in Troas. In any case, Apollo in Lycia would be no more than the counterpart of Minerva in Pelasgian Athens.
6. The prevalence of that Lycian name in other quarters, such as Arcadia, of a marked Pelasgian character, further supports the supposition that Lycia had probably a Pelasgian race for the bulk of its population, holding the same subordinate relation to another race as we find in corresponding cases. In Arcadia[338] Pausanias reports a Lycaon son of Pelasgus; a Lycosura, the city he founded; Lyceon, the hill where it stood; and Lycea, the games he established.
All this evidence combines to show some correspondence between Lycia and Greece, as to the constituent elements of the population. The agreement could not have been perfect: for the records of the Lycian language, I believe, show a prevalence of other elements than the Greek. But we have thus a reason to suppose, that the community of architecture and other arts which has been found to subsist between the two countries, was not merely dependent on later colonisation, but was owing to an affinity of races and similarity of manners which dates from the heroic age.
Lastly, the fragments of Homeric evidence respecting the Lycians are combined by a later tradition, which links them to Crete, the main subject of our recent inquiry. According to this tradition, there was a Sarpedon earlier than the Sarpedon of the Troica, who, besides being son of Jupiter, was brother to Minos. He is said to have been expelled, with his adherents, by that sovereign from Crete; to have repaired to Lycia, and to have colonised that country, or a part of it. In the time of Herodotus, as we have seen, it retained laws of Cretan, that is to say of Greek, origin. And at two later periods of its history, far remote from Homer and from one another, its inhabitants signalised themselves by the most desperate valour in defence of Xanthus, its capital[339].
For the origin of the group of names, having Λύκος or some similar word for their root, it seems most natural to infer its identity with the Latin lucus, essentially the same with lupus, and to presume that it had a Pelasgic source, but that the word corresponding with it, probably Λύκος, meaning a wood or grove, had become obsolete in the later Hellenic tongue. There is every reason for a supposition of this kind, as these words, etymologically connected, evidently hang round some common centre, which centre has reference to primitive and to Pelasgic life, as well as to the somewhat specially Pelasgic deity Apollo. Nor is it strange that the root of a name associated with the Pelasgi should have been lost to the Greek tongue, while the name itself remains: we have another example in Larissa.
But if there was such a word, with such a meaning, the link, which may perhaps connect it with Pelasgic life, is evident. For the first agricultural settlers must often be, as such, in a greater or less degree, dwellers in woods. It may be said that in the United States, at the present day, the proper name for an agricultural settler is ‘backwoodsman.’ In British colonies of Australia, they, who pass beyond the limits of existing settlement, in order to extend it, are said to go into the bush. Thus the idea at the root of the Lycian name is in all probability twin, or rather elder brother, to that which properly would indicate the agricultural settler.
It is however plain, that we cannot look to any thing simply Pelasgian in the Lycian population, as supplying the motive which has induced Homer to give the Lycians a marked preference over other populations, themselves of a Pelasgian character. This preference must be due to the other element, which associates them especially with the Hellenic race. And we may not irrationally suppose it to be founded on any one of such causes as these: the special connection in the royal line between the two countries: a larger infusion of the more lordly blood into a subordinate Lelegian or Pelasgian body in Lycia, just as in Greece, than in Troas and Asia Minor generally: or lastly, a more palpable and near connection between the dominant caste in Lycia and those Persian highlanders, from among whom may have proceeded[340] the forefathers of the Hellenic tribes. Everywhere we see this race branching forth, and, by an intrinsic superiority, acquiring a predominance over the races in prior occupation. Whether the stock came to Lycia by land, or from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, it may be hard even to conjecture: but there is one particular note of relationship to Persia, which Lycia retains more clearly than Greece, and that is the high estimation in which, to judge from the connection with Apollo and from Il. v. 172, the use of the bow was held in that country. The case was the same in Persia. According to Herodotus, one of the three essential articles of education in Persia was the use of the bow[341]; and he is not contradicted by Ctesias, who calls him in most things a liar and a fabulist[342]. We must not, indeed, rely too strongly upon a circumstance like this. Cyaxares the Median had the art taught to his sons by Nomad Scythians[343]. We may however observe that alike on the Trojan and the Grecian side we never hear of the bow except in the hands of highborn persons, such as Paris, Pandarus, Teucer: and, in the games, Meriones[344].
In passing, it may deserve remark, that the Lycians alone, of all tribes or nations on either side, appear not under two leaders merely, but two kings, in the strict sense. I do not however believe that this indicates a political peculiarity. The origin of it may probably be found in the legend of Bellerophon, to whom, after his high exploits and great services, the reigning sovereign gave half his kingdom[345]. Now that king is nowhere stated to have had a son: and if we suppose a failure of issue in his own direct line, and the succession of one of the two descendants of his daughter to each moiety of the realm, it at once accounts for the exceptional position of Sarpedon and Glaucus.