Abstract
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Κηφισὸν δ’ ἄρ’ ἔπειτα κιχήσαο καλλιρέεθρον,
ὅς τε Λιλαίηθεν προχέει καλλίρροον ὕδωρ·
τὸν διαβὰς Ἑκάεργε καὶ Ὠκαλέην πολύπυργον
ἔνθεν ἄρ’ εἰς Ἁλίαρτον ἀφίκεο ποιήεντα.
You went forward from there, far-shooting Apollo,
and then you came to the Kephisos with beautiful streams,
which pours forth its beautiful-flowing water from Lilaia.
And, worker from afar, you crossed it and many-towered Okalea,
and from there you came to grassy Haliartos.
ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα Πυλοιγενέας τ’ ἀνθρώπους
ἔπλεον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσι συνήνετο Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων.
They sailed in a black ship for barter and goods,
And Phoebus Apollo went to meet them.
After the dramatic appearance of Apollo on board the ship in the form of a dolphin, and the acquiescence of the Cretan sailors in Apollo’s command, the ship continues on its course, which is described in selective detail: the ship rounds cape Malea and passes the Laconian land and cape Tainaron; the sailors try to land at cape Tainaron, where the flocks of Helios graze, but the ship no longer obeys them. It sails onward keeping the Peloponnesos at a distance until it reaches the region of the Alpheios river. We should note in passing that nothing whatever is said about Messenia, which represents most of what the ship passes between Tainaron and the Alpheios; Messenia is a blank in this story, and Pylos, the original goal of the Cretan sailors, is located north of the Alpheios river, in what was historically Elis (Hymn to Apollo 418–424):
ἀλλὰ παρὲκ Πελοπόννησον πίειραν ἔχουσα
ἤϊ’ ὁδόν, πνοιῇ δὲ ἄναξ ἑκάεργος Ἀπόλλων
ῥηϊδίως ἴθυν’· ἡ δὲ πρήσσουσα κέλευθον
Ἀρήνην ἵκανε καὶ Ἀργυφέην ἐρατεινὴν
καὶ Θρύον Ἀλφειοῖο πόρον καὶ ἐΰκτιτον Αἶπυ
καὶ Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα Πυλοιγενέας τ’ ἀνθρώπους.
but keeping away from the fertile Peloponnesos
it went its way as with the breeze the far-shooting lord Apollo
easily steered it. It traversed its path
and came to Arene and lovely Argyphea
and Thryon, ford of the Alpheios, and well-built Aipy,
and sandy Pylos and its native dwellers.
καὶ Θρύον Ἀλφειοῖο πόρον καὶ ἐΰκτιτον Αἶπυ…
and Thryon, ford of the Alpheios, and well-built Aipy… [16]
The Homeric catalogue does not list these towns in geographic order, for that is not its purpose. The hymn, on the other hand, describes a voyage, and the order in which the towns are named is the order of their appearance, from south to north; the principle is the same as in Apollo’s journey from Olympos to Krisa, where the order is strictly geographic. The line borrowed from the catalogue of ships names the Alpheios river, and this feature of the landscape is a key point in the hymn, dividing what lies south of it from what lies north of it. The ship comes first to Arene, which was later identified with Samikon, a Hellenistic fortress some 12 kilometers south of the Alpheios, an identification that is also generally accepted today. [17] Since Argyphea occurs only in this passage of the hymn we do not know its location; in all likelihood it is named less because of a well known location (it cannot have been a very significant place) than to show a certain independence from the Homeric catalogue of ships: the poet does not simply repeat what he finds in Homer, but is an expert in his own right. [18] Thryon, ‘ford of the Alpheios’ (Ἀλφειοῖο πόρον), was on the river itself; this town serves to bring the Alpheios, which is all important to the hymn, into the picture. Aipy, named in the same line with Thryon, was perhaps on the Alpheios as well, but this is only an ancient guess; the location of the town was no more known to ancient scholars than it is to us. [19] The uncertainty does not matter much, however, for the purpose of the hymn’s list of five places is to put Pylos north of the Alpheios, and the order of three of the five places – Arene, Thryon-on-Alpheios, Pylos – does this unmistakably. We should note the poet’s skill in establishing the point: he has simply taken the first two lines of the Pylian entry to the catalogue of ships and shifted Pylos from first position to last position (and put Argyphea in for good measure); since the order in the catalogue is not geographic, Homer has in no way been violated by this rearrangement.
ἠδὲ παρ’ Ἤλιδα δῖαν ὅθι κρατέουσιν Ἐπειοί.
and past splendid Elis, where the Epeians hold sway.
The poet clearly intends to archaize with this location of Elis in western Achaea: the voyage of the Cretans must be imagined as taking place in primeval times, before the Eleians had reached their historical homeland; at this early time the future land of Elis was as yet home to only two obscure places, Khalkis and Krounoi, and, just to the south, to Nestor’s kingdom. [23]
ἡ δὲ Φεὰς ἐπέβαλλεν ἐπειγομένη Διὸς οὔρῳ,
ἠδὲ παρ’ Ἤλιδα δῖαν, ὅθι κρατέουσιν Ἐπειοί.
ἔνθεν δ’ αὖ νήσοισιν ἐπιπροέηκε θοῇσιν,
ὁρμαίνων, ἤ κεν θάνατον φύγοι ἦ κεν ἁλοίη.
The ship headed for Pheai, pressed on by the wind from Zeus,
and past splendid Elis, where the Epeians rule.
And from there Telemachus struck out for the swift islands,
pondering whether he would escape death or be killed.
In this voyage it is the town of Pheai that is fatal to a location of Pylos in Elis: Pheai is too close to the Alpheios river for Nestor’s kingdom to lie in between the two. [24] Pylos must be south of the Alpheios, and the impression given by the narrative is that it is well south of the Alpheios. If the Hymn to Apollo respects the Homeric poems, it must do something about the town of Pheai in Odyssey 15.297 – and it does: it contests this town outright. We see this in the next stage of the Cretan sailors’ voyage. In a line that closely resembles Odyssey 15.297, the Cretans’ ship, after passing Dyme and what once was Elis, heads not for Pheai, but for Pherai, a town beyond Dyme in Achaea; [25] that this version of the line is meant to show that Pherai is also the correct name in Odyssey 15.297 is immediately clear from the close correspondence between the two lines, and it becomes doubly clear in the next line of the hymn, when, for no apparent reason, Ithaka suddenly appears out of the clouds to the sailors at just this point in the voyage (Hymn to Apollo 427–29):
καί σφιν ὑπὲκ νεφέων Ἰθάκης τ’ ὄρος αἰπὺ πέφαντο,
Δουλίχιόν τε Σάμη τε καὶ ὑλήεσσα Ζάκυνθος.
the lofty mountain of Ithaka appeared to them from under the clouds,
and also Doulichion and Same and wooded Zakynthos.
It was from this point in his voyage, we are meant to understand, that Telemachus struck out across the open sea for Ithaka. [26] It does not matter that the Cretan ship has been sailing eastward, away from Ithaka and the three other named islands, for more than 20 kilometers when it passes Dyme and heads for Pherai; Ithaka appears to the sailors at this point in their voyage not for geographical verisimilitude, but despite it, in order to establish the true course of Telemachus’ voyage. With this purpose achieved the rest of the Cretans’ voyage, into the gulf of Krisa and onward to Delphi, passes quickly and without further complication. At the end of the voyage the poet once again reminds us of Telemachus’ voyage, echoing the passage in which Telemachus first sets sail from Pylos and Athena sends a favorable wind (Odyssey 15.292–294):
λάβρον ἐπαιγίζοντα δι’ αἰθέρος, ὄφρα τάχιστα
νηῦς ἀνύσειε θέουσα θαλάσσης ἁλμυρὸν ὕδωρ.
rushing vehemently through the bright sky, so that with greatest speed
the ship might reach its goal running across the salt water of the sea.
The last two lines occur in the hymn nearly verbatim, but here Zeus replaces Athena in sending the wind, and the wind itself is said to be from the west, so that it follows the ship as it sails through the gulf of Krisa to Delphi (Hymn to Apollo 430–439):
καὶ δὴ ἐπὶ Κρίσης κατεφαίνετο κόλπος ἀπείρων
ὅς τε διὲκ Πελοπόννησον πίειραν ἐέργει,
ἦλθ’ ἄνεμος ζέφυρος μέγας αἴθριος ἐκ Διὸς αἴσης
λάβρος ἐπαιγίζων ἐξ αἰθέρος, ὄφρα τάχιστα
νηῦς ἀνύσειε θέουσα θαλάσσης ἁλμυρὸν ὕδωρ.
ἄψορροι δὴ ἔπειτα πρὸς ἠῶ τ’ ἠέλιόν τε
ἔπλεον, ἡγεμόνευε δ’ ἄναξ Διὸς υἱὸς Ἀπόλλων·
ἷξον δ’ ἐς Κρίσην εὐδείελον ἀμπελόεσσαν
ἐς λιμέν’, ἡ δ’ ἀμάθοισιν ἐχρίμψατο ποντοπόρος νηῦς.
and ahead appeared the boundless gulf of Krisa
which divides the fertile Peloponnesos from the mainland,
there came, decreed by Zeus, a great and fair west wind
rushing vehemently from the bright sky, so that with greatest speed
the ship might reach its goal running across the salt water of the sea.
They then sailed back toward the dawn and the sun,
and the lord Apollo, son of Zeus, led them
until they came into bright Krisa, rich in vineyards,
into the harbor, where the seafaring ship grounded on the sands.
The echo of Homer’s language in this passage is loud and clear, [27] as it is in the earlier mention of the Alpheios river when the ship first approaches Pylos, and as it is again when Ithaka appears to the Cretan sailors as they head for Pherai. This language is not used for mere convenience, or because the poet could not express himself otherwise, but to make a point: the Pylos from which Telemachus departs in Odyssey 15 is in Elis, not further south. [28]
ἠδὲ παρ’ Ἤλιδα δῖαν, ὅθι κρατέουσιν Ἐπειοί.
and past splendid Elis, where the Epeians rule.
With this two-line sequence Pherai can no longer well replace Pheai, for Pherai would push Elis too far east; Elis in the second line is clearly meant to follow Pheai in the first line and to occupy its known historical location. The line with Elis thus reflects the viewpoint of those who did not accept the new location of Homeric Pylos in Elis. The same line occurs in the Hymn to Apollo, as we have seen: in the hymn it serves to shift the location of Elis eastward past Dyme in western Achaea. The line seems to have been introduced into the Odyssey secondarily to counter the hymn: not only does it protect the name Pheas in the line before, but it also restores Elis to its known location. In doing so it attempts to use the Hymn to Apollo against itself. For the question of priority it is significant that the line sits comfortably in the Hymn to Apollo, but in the Odyssey it is connected only very loosely with what precedes. [30] Before the controversy caused Elis to enter the text of Odyssey 15 in this way, Telemachus’ voyage was a simpler matter: he headed along the coast for cape Pheai, and from there he struck out across open sea for the islands. [31]
ἀγρόμενοι Πύλιοί τε καὶ Ἀρκάδες ἐγχεσίμωροι
Φειᾶς πὰρ τείχεσσιν Ἰαρδάνου ἀμφὶ ῥέεθρα.
τοῖσι δ’ Ἐρευθαλίων πρόμος ἵστατο ἰσόθεος φὼς.
The assembled Pylians and the Arcadians raging with spears,
Before the walls of Pheia, by the streams of the Iardanos.
In front of them stood their champion Ereuthalion, a godlike man.
The location of the battle beside two different rivers has long been regarded with suspicion, and the presence of Pheia in the story has seemed wholly inexplicable: how can Pheia, eight miles north of the Alpheios river on the coast of Elis, have been the site of a battle between Pylos and Arcadia? [32] The answer, however, is clear: the Pylos envisaged by Iliad 7.135 lay in Elis, north of the Alpehios, and also north of Pheia, just as it does in the Hymn to Apollo. When the Arcadians attacked this Pylos, they first had to pass by Pheia, where Nestor stopped them by slaying their champion. Iliad 7.135 is an expansion of Nestor’s story, which is intended to change the site of his battle from Arcadia to the coast of Elis. [33] The presence of the town Pheia in Iliad 7.135 must be viewed together with the absence of the town Pheai in the manuscript tradition of Odyssey 15.297: Pheia is meant to be a correction of Pheai both as to the form of the name, and as to the town’s location relative to Nestor’s Pylos, south of it rather than north of it. The one-line expansion of Nestor’s story in Iliad 7 and the one-word change in Telemachus’ voyage home in Odyssey 15.297 constitute the entire reworking of Homer with respect to the location of Pylos in Elis. Everything else in the poems stayed the same because no other change was needed.