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.

We have already seen stray signs of the Pelasgic affinities between the two contending parties: but it would now appear, that there were affinities in the Hellic line also: and if so, then this institution of chieftaincy, standing above merely political supremacy, and indicated by the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, may probably have subsisted among Trojans as well as Greeks.

The less warlike character of the Trojans, their more oriental manners, and their less multiform and imaginative religion, all point to considerable differences in the composition of the people. The Pelasgic ingredient was probably stronger in Troy: it appears to have had more influence over religion, manners, and institutions. But the circumstances mentioned above are tokens of an infusion of Hellic blood in the populations that inhabited Troas. Now this was nowhere so likely to be found as in the royal family; for we see the governing faculty everywhere accompanying the Hellic tribes through Greece, and asserting itself both by the acquisition of political power, and by the energetic use of it. Everywhere it rises, by a natural buoyancy, to the summit of society; and gives their first vent, in miniature, to those energies, which were afterwards to defy, or even to subdue the world.

At the same time, though it is in connection with the Hellic families alone that we find the ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν among the Greeks, we need not proceed so far as to deny the possibility that it might also have been a Pelasgic institution, and that its non-appearance, in connection with their name, might be sufficiently accounted for simply by their loss of political power. We have no reason to suppose the Pelasgi and Helli to have been families of mankind whose characters were in radical and absolute opposition to one another: the completeness of their fusion after a short period seems to prove, that, though with a different distribution of capacities and tendencies, they must have had many and important points of contact.

IV. Case of Augeias.

Let us take next the case of Augeias.

He appears in three passages of the Iliad.

1. The Epeans, who inhabited Elis, with Bouprasium and other towns enumerated in the Catalogue, and lying in the north-western corner of the Peloponnesus, sent to the Trojan war forty ships, in four divisions, under four separate leaders, and without any head over the whole contingent. The fourth named of these is Polyxeinus, son of Agasthenes, himself a lord (ἄναξ), and the son of Augeias.

2. In the Eleventh Book, Nestor gives the curious history of the war of his boyhood or earliest youth, between the Elians (v. 671), called also Epeans (688), and the Pylians.

Neleus had sent to Elis a chariot with four horses to contend in the games, of which a tripod was the prize. The horses were detained by Augeias (v. 701).

Nestor and the Pylians invaded Elis in return, and brought off an immense booty. The Elians then took arms and besieged Thryoessa (in the Catalogue Thryon), the border city of Pylos, at the ford of the Alpheus. Minerva brought the tidings to Pylos. The Pylian forces spent one night on the boundary river Minyeius, and marched to the Alpheus, beside which they spent a second night.

3. In the morning the battle was fought: the Epeans were defeated, and driven all the way to Bouprasium and the Olenian rock, upon the sea shore, in the western part of what was afterwards Achæa. There Pallas turned them back. The Pylians, who returned home, are called Achæans[836].

Nestor in the first fight had slain a warrior named Μούλιος. He was the son-in-law of Augeias, married to his eldest daughter Agamede, who was profoundly skilled in drugs (v. 741);

K. O. Müller (Orchomenus, p. 355) infers from the Catalogue, that Augeias was lord only of a fourth part of Elis. But this assumption seems quite gratuitous in connection with the passage in the Catalogue, and utterly in contradiction to the tenour of the history of the Pylian raid in B. xi. On the contrary, I infer with considerable confidence, from the acephalous state of the Elian division of the army, in which it differs from the other divisions, that there had been a revolution in that state since the time of Augeias; and if so, then indirectly the Catalogue confirms the Elian monarchy described in the Eleventh Book.

Thus then we find this ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, Augeias, lord of Elis two generations before the Trojan war. He is neighbour to Achæans, whom we have already traced in Hellas: and he appears to have belonged to the same national origin with them, because they sent their chariots to run races at his games. Again, the fact of his holding these games at all, and at a place which subsequently contended for and obtained the superintendence of the great national assemblages celebrated at Olympia, testifies to his known connection with the cradle of the race whose custom it was to celebrate them; because these festivities had a religious and national character, and as such could not but have depended very greatly upon traditionary title. This race we have previously found to be the Hellenic race.

We may however find other indications of the descent of Augeias from a ruling Hellenic family, in local and personal notices which connect Elis, his own territory, with the north, and with Thessaly in particular.

For example: it was at the Alpheus in Elis that Thamyris suffered his calamity: and he was coming at the time from Œchalia[837], in the valley of the Upper Peneus, a part of the Homeric Thessaly or Hellas proper. (Il. ii. 730.)

The name Θρῂξ, too, which is applied to him, never seems to have spread farther southwards than the hills about Thessaly.

Further, he was coming from Eurytus of Œchalia, who is again named as the lord, apparently, of that city, in ii. 730. But the name Eurytus was one current among the descendants of Actor[838], for a descendant of Actor who bore it is named in the Catalogue a little below: and this latter Eurytus was an Epean chief: and the descendants of Actor are found in the Epean or Elian army of the Eleventh Book. (xi. 709, 739.)

Again, they are found in Thessaly or Phthiotis, for when Mercury had deflowered Polymele, the daughter of Phylas a Thessalian, Echecles, a descendant of Actor, married her; and yet again, they are found near Aspledon[839] and the Minyeian Orchomenos, between Bœotia and Phocis[840].

Again, the Pylian army halted, at a day’s march from the Alpheus, on the Minyeius, a river evidently named from the Minyæ of Peloponnesus. But there was a Minya also in Thessaly[841], of which the site was not precisely known in historic times: and the northern Orchomenos was called Minyeius[842].

There is no part of Middle or of Southern Greece which so abounds in the local and personal notes of connection with Thessaly and the North as Elis and its neighbourhood. Some indications of it have already been given, and many more might be added. As for example, there was an Enipeus[843], a river of Elis, so there was of Pieria and of Phthiotis. Doris, beneath Œta, is reflected or prefigured in the Homeric Dorium of the Pylian territories: the Thessalian Larissa in a Larissa, and a river Larissus, of Elis. The Thessalian name Œchalia is repeated in the district, over which Nestor ruled at the epoch of the Troica; and there is an Arcadian Orchomenos as well as a northern one. Cyparissus in Elis corresponds, again, with a Cyparissus in Phocis. Some other more doubtful indications may close the list. The Parrhasie of Arcadia may be from the same root with the Πύρασος[844] of the dominions of Protesilaus. Perhaps the Thessalian Helos and Pteleos may be akin to Alos in the country of Peleus[845]. The resemblance of names is not confined to the extremities of the line, but is scattered along the path of migration from north to south. It extends also to Laconia.

Nestor in his youth is summoned all the way from Pylos (τηλόθεν), to fight with Pirithous and others in Thessaly; (from whence Polypœtes, the son of Pirithous, led a division of the Greek army,) against the Φῆρες.

Thus far we find some presumptions as to the descent of Augeias, as to his connection with the Hellic institution of the games, and as to the relation between Elis, over which he reigned, and the line northwards into Thessaly; all tending, together with the evidently Hellic character of the Epeans, to shew that he was the representative of one of their ruling tribes.

But he also bears a distinct local mark, the nature of which I shall now endeavour to investigate.

The chieftainship of Agamemnon has been traced and identified by means of his Achæan connection, without any assistance from local or territorial names connected with the abode of his family.

In such a case as his, we could not look for aid of that description: for his house had only been possessed for two generations of their dominions: we have no precise knowledge before that time of the place of their sojourn: and when they rose to power, it was in a territory, and in cities, which appear to have been already of historic fame. It was not therefore likely that their abodes should bear names such as, if they had come in the characters of founders and not of inheritors, they would probably have affixed to them.

In the case of the Dardan house, we have found, among other indications of their Hellic affinities, the two evidently Hellic names of the Hellespont and the River Selleeis.

There is another local name in Homer of paramount importance as a key to the question respecting the ruling Hellic tribes, the name of Ephyre (Ἐφύρη).

Let us endeavour to collect the scattered lights which either the etymology, or the use and associations of the term in Homer, may supply.

And, first, we may notice in Homer a large cluster of names which are found running over Greece, and which are evidently in etymological association with one another: I will bring these together, before endeavouring to estimate their relation to the name Ephyre.

1. Φᾶρις, Il. ii. 582. In Lacedæmon.

2. Φεραὶ, Il. ii. 711. In Thessaly.

3. Φήρη, Il. v. 543. Between Pylus and Sparta.

4. Φήραι, Il. ix. 151, 293. Od. iii. 488. The same.

5. Φεαὶ, Od. xv. 296[846]. Otherwise read Φεραὶ, and, according to the Scholiast, the same with Φῆραι. The site is on the sea, between Pylus and Sparta.

6. Φεῖα, Il. vii. 135. On the Iardanus: and probably also on the Arcadian frontier towards Pylus: but, in the opinion of the Scholiast[847], the same with Φεαί.

Besides these names of places, we have also,

1. Φηρητιάδης, Il. ii. 763. xxiii. 376, the name of Eumelus; who was the son of Admetus, the lord of Φεραὶ in Il. ii. 711.

2. Φέρης, one of the sons of Cretheus, a Thessalian king, Od. xi. 259.

3. The Φῆρες, termed ὀρέσκῳοι in Il. i. 268, and λαχνηέντες in Il. ii. 743; the shaggy mountaineers, on whom Pirithous made war, when he was attended by Nestor.

With respect to the six local names, and the two first of the three personal names, there can be little doubt of their identity in root. It is directly probable from the text, that Φήρη and Φηραὶ were the same place. The name of Eumelus, who lives at Φεραὶ, and who is the grandson of Φέρης, yet is called Φηρητιάδης, clearly establishes the etymological relationship. Thus there is, again, no difficulty whatever in recognising between Φεραὶ and Φεαὶ, or again between Φεαὶ and Φείαι; and it is in the manner of Homer to give the name of the same country both in the singular and in the plural, as Μυκήνη, Il. iv. 52, and Μυκηναὶ, Il. ii. 569. Φᾶρις, the only remaining name, gives us the Doric or Æolic α for η, and an altered form of declension. This however is not at all incompatible with the manner of Homer, who not only uses Πηνελόπη and Πηνελόπεια, Ἀστυόχη and Ἀστυόχεια, Πηρείη (according to one reading), Il. ii. 766, and Πιερίη, Od. v. 50, but Ἑρμῆς and Ἑρμείας, Πατροκλέης and Πατρόκλος; and for towns, the Θρύον of Il. ii. 591 appears again as Θρυόεσσα in Il. xi. 711.

In general it is to be remembered that the instrument of language, at the time when Homer lived was as yet in a highly elastic state: it was in the state as it were of gristle; it had not yet hardened into bone, nor assumed the strict conventional forms which a formed literature requires. And for the same reasons that it has presented variations as between one time and another, it could not but do the like as between one place and another.

The very same causes which made change a law of language would give to that course of change in one place a greater, and in another a less velocity, older forms succumbing at a given time in one place, and yet surviving in another. Such a state of facts around him would give great liberty to a poet, independently of the exigencies of his verse; which appear indeed to have caused to such a man, and with such a language, little difficulty.

But we hardly require the benefit of these general considerations to cover the case of a varying declension for the name of a town. The true explanation probably is the very simple one, that in one declension it has been used substantively, and in the other adjectively. And this will be the more plain if we consider that the name of the town would usually be the representative of an idea, either in conjunction with a person, or directly. Thus θρύον is a rush, and θρυοεὶς rushy. The town Θρύον in the Catalogue is at the ford of the Alpheus, and in Il. xi. 711 it is τις Θρυόεσσα πόλις, αἰπεῖα κολώνη, which exhibits to us the adjective use in an actual example. So again by analogy we might have Φῆρις from Φήρα or Φήρη, as πάτρις from πάτρα, ἀναλκὶς from ἄλκη.

We have a curious extra-Homeric remnant of geographical evidence with respect to this Pharis. Pausanias[848] relates to us, that the place where it was reported to have stood was in his time called Alesiæ, and that near it there was a river bearing the peculiar name of Phellias; which it seems most natural to regard as a corrupted form of the Homeric name Σελληείς. This connection of Pharis with Selleeis becomes in its turn an argument for relationship between Pharis and Ephyre, with which Selleeis is associated in the places where Homer mentions it as the name of a Greek river.

Nor are we without other traces, in this region, of that name which so often attends upon Ephyre: for Laconia had for its key on the north the town of Sellasia[849]. The Προέληνοι of Arcadia should also here be borne in mind.

Thus then we appear to find the name of Ephyre according to one or other of its forms in Laconia, in Pylus, and in that part of Thessaly which was ruled by Admetus. The ruling race in the two former was Achæan, and therefore Hellic. Admetus was himself an ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, and his Hellic origin will be shown presently. So far, therefore, we have a presumption established that the name of Ephyre signifies some peculiar connection with the Helli.

Etymologically it is obvious to connect these words with ἔρα as their root, and to suppose that they retain the prefix, which it had lost in the common Greek usage even before the days of Homer, as he employs ἔραζε without the digamma: and which prefix we find reproduced in the Latin terra.

Let us now pass on to the Φῆρες.

The Φῆρες of Homer are, like the Ἕλλοι, a mountain people, Il. i. 268, rude in manners (ii. 743), and aggressive upon the inhabitants of the plains; for the war in which Nestor engaged was evidently retributive, as the expression used is ἐτίσατο[850], Pirithous ‘paid them off;’ and he was sovereign of a part of the plain country, called Pelasgic Argos. Nor does any adverse presumption arise from our finding a Hellic tribe (if such they were) of the mountains, making war on tribes of similar origin in the plain: any more than we are surprised at war between the Pylians and the Epeans, both apparently Hellic, though probably not both Achæan.

It may be well to remember, that the Dardans of Homer are often included in Trojans; as well as often separately designated: and that the Cephallenians are also apparently included among his Ἀχαιοί. Neither of these pairs of names are territorial: while in each pair one probably indicates a subdivision of the other.

The Φῆρες thus resembling the Ἕλλοι, we are led by their designation to another link between the name of Φῆραι with its cognates and the Hellic race. It seems thus far as if Φηραὶ were the appropriate name of a settlement formed by Φῆρες.

Having proceeded thus far, we may now observe the relation of the word Φὴρ,

1. To the Greek ἔρα, which evidently, from its passing into the Latin terra, had at one time a Greek prefix. With this we may probably associate the Greek ἔαρ, and the Latin ver.

2. To the Greek θὴρ, a wild beast.

3. To the Latin fera, with the same meaning.

4. To the Latin terra, meaning the earth.

5. To the Italian terra, the old classical name, in that beautiful tongue, not for a district, but for an inclosed, walled, or fortified place. This word seems in Italian to be rarely, if at all, used for a district, but so generally for a town, that it is difficult to suppose the signification was derived in the same manner as Argos in Greek, from the tract of country in which it was situated. In Italian terra seems often to mean tellus, often humus, very rarely ager, constantly oppidum or castrum. Thus in Dante (Inferno, C., v. 97), ‘Siede la terra, dove nata fui.’

This being so, it is natural to suppose that, while the correlative of the Greek ἔρα became in Latin terra, so as directly to signify tellus or humus, that of the Greek Φηρὰ became in Italian terra, so as to signify a walled place; or, in other words, that the original word, whatever it was, of the common mother language, which became Φηρὰ in Greek, in Italy became terra for this latter purpose. The exchange of θ for t we see in ἐσθὴς becoming vestis: and of t for f (= φ) in τρυγάω compared with fruges.

This sense of terra seems to have dropped altogether out of the Latin, and especially Pelasgian, branch of the old Italian tongue.

The relation between Φὴρ and θὴρ, the one applicable to men, and the other to wild beasts, appears evidently to throw us back upon that which the mountain tribes of men had in common with animals, namely, a wild and savage life, and the free possession of the earth. Thus the two stand in a common and near relation to the word ἔρα, the earth, and they seem to have ἐρ or ἠρ for their common root.

Before passing on to Ἐφύρη, I would remark that in this instance again we seem to derive light from Homer’s unequalled point and precision in the use of epithets. His Φῆρες appear to be in fact the rude and uncombed mountaineers, who also have the name of Ἕλλοι in the same or other tribes. These Φῆρες are λαχνηέντες, shaggy. They come down to the plains, and acquire settled and civilised habits: from Φῆρες they are become Ἀχαιοὶ, but their long hair has not left them, and from λαχνηέντες they are now καρηκομόωντες.

Now we find the word Ἐφύρη used many times in Homer: and once we have the name Ἔφυροι, applied to a people apparently Thessalian, on whom Mars[851], with his son Φόβος, makes war from out of Thrace.

Can we then presume an etymological connection between the word Ἐφύρη, and that group of words which we have been discussing, and which we have found to show marks of connection with the Helli?

For if so, then we shall be supported by various other reasons, which, as we shall find, connect the word Ephyre with the Hellic races in a very remarkable manner.

What we have here to consider is,

1. The prefix ε.

2. The change of ε or η for υ.

Dr. Donaldson[852] has given a list of Greek words which have, as prefixes unconnected with the root, sometimes the letter α, sometimes ε, sometimes ο.

Such in the second class are

ἐ-ρέφω, whence roof.
ἐ-λεύθερος, whence liber.
ἐ-ρυθρὸς, whence ruber, rufus.
ἐ-ρετμὸς, whence remus.

This point being disposed of, how are we to account for finding φυρη, instead of φερη or φηρη?

Can it be because, in cases of Greek syllabic augment, there is a tendency to avoid reduplication, as in ἀτιτάλλω for ἀτατάλλω? In but a small proportion of the cases given in Dr. Donaldson’s table is the vowel prefix the same with the vowel following.

Can it be from that tendency of what we call comprehensively the digamma to lapse into the υ, which Heyne has observed[853]?

Or, shall we found it on the principles laid down by Bopp[854], in his Comparative Grammar, that the α has a tendency to weaken itself into υ, and that liquids having a preference for that latter vowel, influence the generation of it? the conditions of interchange between α and υ resting, as he says, upon the laws of gravity or vocal equilibrium.

It must be observed that the original vowel of the root may, in this case, have been the α which we find in φᾶρις.

It is not only α that we may find supplanted by υ. The ε suffers the same fate in the Italian Siculus, which appears as the representative of the Greek Σίκελος. Again we have, in the Latin, the kindred words furo and fera. Perhaps I am wrong in dealing thus scrupulously with the variation from ε to υ, as if capable of affecting vitally the question of identity in the root. For in examining another root (that of κεφάλη), we have seen that its derivatives appear to include the whole, or nearly the whole range of the vowels of the alphabet.

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),

In the same sense as where Shakespeare says,

The Scholiast gives two explanations, of which the best is εὔφορος γὰρ αὕτη ἡ χώρα.

Again, it is certainly confirmatory of the supposition that Ἐφύρη was the name of the primitive Hellic, as Ἄργος was of the Pelasgic settlement, when we find that the first, though clearly meaning a settled place, has etymologically no reference to agricultural labour, while the second is entirely based upon that idea; since these significations of the word chosen to denote settlement, in the two cases agree, in their reciprocal difference, with the different specific character of the Hellic and Pelasgic tribes, the former emerging from the mountains, predatory and poor, ardent, bold, and enterprising; the latter peaceful in their habits, and looking to nothing beyond the cultivation of the soil.

So much for the root of Ephyre and Pheræ, and for the relation between the two.

Now the Homeric testimony to the prevalence of these names is exactly such as most effectually establishes the connection between them on the one hand, and Thessaly with the Hellic races on the other.

First as to Ephyre.

1. Five generations before the Trojan war, Sisyphus, a son or descendant of Æolus, was settled, apparently as a subordinate prince or lord, in an Ephyre, which was near the territory of Prœtus, and was situated μύχῳ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο. Bellerophon, the grandson of Sisyphus, was driven out by Prœtus, king of the Argives; and was a ξεῖνος of Œneus, the ancestor of Diomed. These circumstances, combined with the tradition that attached the name of Ephyre to the site of Corinth, leave no doubt that Homer means to place Sisyphus in what was afterwards Corinth[857]. There was no other known Ephyre in a nook of Ἄργος, or what may be termed within reach of Prœtus and Œneus: whereas this Ephyre lay upon the pass that communicated with the North from that part of the Peloponnesus.

But the line of Sisyphus had been displaced in the person of Bellerophon, two generations before the Trojan war. Together with this line the old name of Ephyre had disappeared: we hear of it in the Iliad only as Corinth, and as part of the Mycenian dominions. Now tradition connects the Æolid title particularly with Thessaly, the Æolids always having been recognised as one of the great primitive Greek races. And Homer gives us Æolids in Thessaly, as well as in Peloponnesus. In the time of Sisyphus then we see this Æolid name, which is Eteo-Hellenic, conjoined with the local name Ephyre: at the epoch of the Trojan war, both have disappeared from the spot.

The traditional name Ephyre remained, indeed, in many parts of Greece down to later times. Strabo (p. 338) reckons one in Elis, one in Thesprotia, and one in Thessaly, besides Corinth: and also five κωμαὶ of the name. But even in Homer’s time, either these settlements had decayed, or else, which is more likely, the particular form Ἐφύρη had never acquired the precise force of a proper name, but remained rather in the category of a descriptive word: for otherwise it could hardly have happened, but that one or other of the Ephyres must have been named in the Catalogue of Homer. If a descriptive word, it was in all likelihood simply descriptive of primitive settlement for the Hellic race. Probably these Ἐφύραι were rude and small; and were, properly speaking, collections of a few buildings, rather than cities regularly formed.

2. That passage of the Thirteenth Iliad has already been mentioned, which places this name in the North. The Poet says, speaking of Mars and his son Φόβος,

Two circumstances warrant our placing these Ἔφυροι in Thessaly: the first, that the name of Thrace does not extend farther southward: and the second, that here is the only known seat of the Phlegyæ.

3. It may be convenient next to take the Ephyre, which is mentioned twice in the Odyssey.

In the first of these passages Pallas, in the character of Mentes, Lord of the Taphians, remembers Ulysses in the days when he undertook other journeys before his Trojan one: remembers him,

And again, when the Suitors apprehend that Telemachus meditates mischief, they ask whether he will bring allies from Pylus, or even from Sparta (which was more remote).

For several reasons it appears probable that the Ephyre here meant was in Elis, and was therefore the Ephyre of Augeias.

1. Geographically it would appear likely to be in the Peloponnesus. Telemachus was little likely to make any more extended voyage. The intercourse of his family was generally with the Iasian Argos, or Western Peloponnesus. Hence it is said of Penelope[861], ‘Could all the Achæans of Iasian Argos see thee.’ And hence, in the Twenty-fourth Odyssey[862], the enemies of Ulysses anticipate that, unless prevented by them, he will resort either to Pylus or to Elis, where are the Epeans, for assistance. Hence, again, it is that, in the Second Odyssey, we find Ephyre joined with Pylus and Sparta (which last is mentioned as an extreme point, ἢ ὅγε καὶ Σπάρτηθεν,) as the quarters to which he might repair for aid. The names of Elis and the Epeans do not appear: and this of itself amounts nearly to a demonstration that Ephyre not only lay in, but actually stands in lieu of, Elis in this place.

We may however note one or two secondary points.

2. Corinth had now lost the name of Ephyre, that is to say, a new name had overshadowed the old one. But this Ephyre, if not Corinth, could only be the Elian Ephyre.

3. Post-Homeric tradition places an Ephyre in Elis.

We have already seen that Augeias was lord of Elis, that he ruled over an Hellenic race, that he is an ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν: was this Ephyre the seat of his empire?

Even from the bare fact of being in Elis, it stands in significant connection with Augeias: but more especially, it seems impossible not to connect the peculiar knowledge of drugs, preserved at the Ephyre to which Ulysses repaired, with the former fame of Agamede, the daughter of Augeias (Il. xi. 740), from whom it had, in all probability, been handed down to the next following generation.

It may be asked, what place had Ilus, the son of Mermerus[863], in an Ephyre, where Augeias had been king or lord? We can give at least this negative answer: the Catalogue shews that Elis, in the time of the Trojan war, was no longer patriarchally ruled; for the Epeans had four coordinate leaders; of whom the grandson of Augeias was but one. Therefore an Ilus may have been in the time of Ulysses possessed of the place, which belonged to Augeias in Nestor’s boyhood: and we may observe, that no Epean or Elian chief, contemporary with the Troica, appears in Homer under the title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν.

Upon combining all these circumstances, we appear to have the strongest warrant for believing that Augeias was lord of Ephyre; that he was the head of one of the ruling families which derived themselves by a known and recorded lineage from Hellas and a Hellic tribe; and consequently that the archaic title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν was applied to him, not casually, but with a definite meaning, and in conformity to an established rule.