Trojan Battle Order
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The Trojan Battle Order or Trojan Catalogue is a section of the second book of the Iliad (lines 816-877). It is a list of the allied contingents that fought for Troy in the Trojan War.
Structurally the Trojan Battle Order is evidently inserted to balance the preceding Catalogue of Ships (i.e. the list of Greek contingents). It is, however, much shorter, and some scholars who have accepted the antiquity of the information in the Greek catalogue have doubted whether any real historical knowledge is incorporated in the Trojan catalogue.
The list includes the Trojans themselves, led by Hector, and various allies. As observed by G. S. Kirk, it follows a geographical pattern comparable to that of the Greek catalogue, dealing first with Troy, then with the Troad, then radiating outwards on four successive routes, the most distant peoples on each route being described as "from far away".[1] The allied contingents are said to have spoken multiple languages, requiring orders to be translated by their individual commanders.[2] Nothing is said of the Trojan language; the Carians are specifically said to be barbarian-speaking, possibly because their language was distinct from the current lingua franca of western Anatolia.[3]
The classical Greek historian Demetrius of Scepsis, native of Scepsis in the hills above Troy, wrote a vast study of the "Trojan Battle Order" under that title (Greek Trōikos diakosmos). The work is lost; brief extracts from it are quoted by Athenaeus and Pausanias, while Strabo cites it frequently in his own discussion of the geography of northwestern Anatolia.[4]
Contents |
[edit] The catalogue in detail
The catalogue lists sixteen contingents from twelve different ethnonyms under 26 leaders.[5] They lived in 33 places identified by toponyms.
Tabular Catalog[6]
| Line | Ethnic Identity | Leaders | Settlements |
|---|---|---|---|
| II.815 | Trojans | Hector | None stated (Troy) |
| II.819 | Dardanians | Aeneas, Archelochus, Acamas | None stated. |
| II.824 | Trojans of Mt. Ida | Pandarus | Zeleia |
| II.828 | No name given. | Adrestus, Amphius | Adresteia, Apaesus, Pityeia, Mt. Tereia |
| II.835 | No name given. | Asius | Percote, Practius, Sestus, Abydus, Arisbe |
| II.840 | Pelasgians, who were spearmen | Hippothous, Pylaeus | Larisa |
| II.844 | Thracians bounded by the Hellespont | Acamas, Peiroüs | None stated. |
| II.846 | Ciconians, who were spearmen | Euphemus | None stated. |
| II.848 | Paeonians, archers, "from far away" | Pyraechmes | Amydon, river Axius |
| II.851 | Paphlagonians | Pylaemenes of the Eneti | Cytorus, Sesamus, along the river Parthenius, Cromna, Aegialus, Erythini |
| II.856 | Halizones "from far away" | Odius, Epistrophus | Alybe |
| II.858 | Mysians | Chromis, Ennomus | None stated. |
| II.862 | Phrygians | Phorcys, Ascanius | "Far-off" Ascania |
| II.864 | Maeonians | Mesthles, Antiphus | Under Mt. Tmolus |
| II.867 | Carians | Nastes, Amphimachus | Miletus, Mt. Phthires, streams of the Maeander, crest of Mycale |
| II.875 | Lycians "from far away" | Sarpedon, Glaucus | River Xanthus |
[edit] Notes
- ^ (Kirk 1985, p. 250)
- ^ Iliad 2.803-806. Kirk considers this "quite fantastic" (Kirk 1985, p. 245) though it seems a normal feature of fighting forces brought together from several nationalities.
- ^ The lingua franca would have been Luwian, though the poet has no name for it. Alternatively, Carian may earn this epithet as the most familiar foreign ("barbarian") language to a Greek of the eastern Aegean when the Iliad was composed (Dalby 2006, p. 132).
- ^ Strabo, Geography book 13.
- ^ For this count see (Luce 1975).
- ^ The Anglicised spellings of the names in the table are generally as in (Rieu 1950). The order of contingents is that of the catalogue.
[edit] References
- Dalby, Andrew (2006), Rediscovering Homer, New York, London: Norton, ISBN 0393057887
- Kirk, G. S. (1985), The Iliad: a commentary. Vol. 1: books 1-4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521281717
- Luce, J. V. (1975), Homer and the Homeric Age, New York: Harper & Row, ISBN 0060127228
- Rieu, E. V., tr. (1950), Homer: The Iliad, Harmondsworth, Baltimore: Penguin
- Calvert Watkins, "The language of the Trojans" in Troy and the Trojan War: a symposium held at Bryn Mawr College, October 1984 ed. M. J. Mellink (Bryn Mawr, 1986).
