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87 On the Homeric use of the word ''Hjoco?. 87 the wordj we are to recollect that it is a substantive ; and therefore we cannot treat it like such words as jueyciOvixoi or even 'nriroKopvcfTri^^ of which it may he said that, from being distinguishing epithets at first, they came into common use, to amplify the diction and give it a dignified tone. We never could have had avTap bye ixeyadvixo^^ or avTap 6y iTTTro/cojOi/cr- Ti]S) as we have avrap oy rjpio^. 1. The title ought to be common to the whole Xao? at Troy, all the av^pe^ dcnncTTai^ whether ^avaol or 'A^caol ; I think we may also add 'ApyeToi^ on the strength of the passage cited in note 82. 2. It ought to be applicable to other fighters, or, in some character or other, to the Lapithae, and to the Trojans generally. 3. It ought to be applicable to men of consequence, who were not Greeks or Trojans, as kings, princes, people of the ruling rank, where such a rank can be found. It ought to include, if not all the people of Ithaca, the 'A-^aiol or ruling rank there. Rank is a safer word than caste. 4. I think we may add that, however wide its ap- plication, the word is never applied when the general eff*ect of the sentiment is contempt. 5. The hypothesis must be compatible with the cir- cumstance that the word afterwards disappeared from common use, and became mythological. Had I succeeded in extracting a satisfactory explanation of the word from the Homeric poems, I might, as I suggested at the beginning, have applied it to our speculations on the state of society, and the relations, of the different Greek tribes in the Homeric age. Having failed to do this, I can only have recourse to the inverse method. I have already illustrated it, as far as I can, from the manners and habits of the Homeric time. Let us now take a very short view of the state in which the Greeks then stood, as to their con- stituent national families. We know of nothing earlier in Greece than the preva- lence of the Pelasgians, unless indeed we are to except the Upoa-eXrjuoL of Aristotle, mentioned by the scholiast upon Aris- tophanes '' Among the Homeric Greeks, I assume the name 92 Nub. 397. (Kuster.)