THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

favdaaovTai
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WHO WERE THE MAKERS ?
Ill
112 WHO WERE THE MAKKRS ?
store of gifts brought back by Meuelaus from his wanderings that
the two young princes were lost in adnjiration at the embellishments
of gold, silver, ivory and amber, our answer is ready.
Such palaces were known elsewhere in Homer's world. The
palace of Alcinous is indeed splendid, with its four pillars round
the great hearth in the centre of the Megaron, and its fiieze of
blue glass (dptyKo^ Kvdvoio). But the Phaeacians are certainly
not Acheans. They build with huge stones which have to be
dragged {pvroi XlOol). This fact seems to link their architecture
to the Cyclopean masonry of Mycenae and Tiryns\ But
we shall have to return to them later on.
Now if we take the house of Odysseus as the type of the
Achean chieftain's palace, how different is it from that of
Meuelaus and Alcinous !
There is no sumptuous adornment of
cyanus or amber or ivory.
The most elaborate article in it is
the great bedstead formed out of an olive tree, and carved
by Odysseus himself, which was built into his bedchamber.
The stage of art is totally different in each, if we contrast the
sumptuous decoration of Spartan and Phaeacian chambers with
the wood-carving of the other. Moreover, the incorporation of
a living tree into the structure of the house recalls the
primitive house-building of the tribes of upper Europe, such as
the Argippaeans, who in winter reared a wigwam round the
great trees under which they always dwelt'-'.
There is also another curious piece
of evidence which
indicates that the Acheans are but new-conuirs in Laconia.
Meuelaus tells Telemachus that his desii-e has been t(j
bring
Odysseus fioni Ithaca with all his fjlk, and to settk' him ni'ar
hims('lf, after having laid waste for this ])ur})ose some neighbouring
city
ai Trepii'aierdouai
,
/jLi'ai'
TToXiv e^aXaird^as'
o e/xoL avrco .
It camiot be meant that Meuelaus would destroy a fi'ee
Achean town, occupied by his own followers; but if there was
an older ixtjiulatiou, lately half subdued, yielding a sullen
homage, and always a source of danger, we can well understand
the desire of Menelaus to bring in Achean chiefs with
their followers to occupy and garrison the country. The
evidence then points in favour of an older race
of great power
and civilization in Sparta before the Acheans got possession.
We have now seen the positive evidence from Homer and
the Greek traditions as given by Aeschylus and others for the
existence of a pre- Achean race in Peloponnesus,
a race which
Aeschylus knew as the Pelasgians. Let us now see how far
this is
compatible with the legends which embody the earliest
history of the Acheans and their first entry into the Peloponnesus.
Achaeus, the eponymous hero of the race, was
the son of Xuthus, the son of Hellen, the son of ])eucalion,
king of Thessaly Achaeus however in some stories '. appears
with very different parentage and accompaniments. According
to Dionysius of Halicarnassus"-', Achaeus, Phthius, and Pelasgus
are sons of Poseidon and Larisa.
They migrate from Pelopi^nnesus
into Thessaly and distribute' the Thessalian territory
between them, giving their names to the principal divisions.
Their descendants six generations later were driven out of
Thessaly by Deucalion.
This was, says Grote, " to provide an Eponymus
for the
Acheans in the southern districts of Thessaly." Pausanias
accomplishes the same object b\^ a different means, representing
Achaeus, the son of Xuthus, as having gone back to Thessaly
and occupied the portion of it to which his father was entitled.
Then, by way of explaining how it was that there were
Acheans at Sparta and not at Argos, he tells us that
Ai'chander and Ai'chiteles, the sons of Achaeus, came fi'om
Tliessaly to P(>lo))oiinesus and married twM) daughters of
Danaus. 'I'hcy ac(iuired great inthiencc at Aigos and Sparta,
and gave to tiie jx'opic the name of Aclieans.
Herodotus also iin'iitions Ai'chander, son of Phthius and
trraiidson of Achaeus, who married the dauehtei' of Danaus.
Stral)o, following Kphorus, says that "the Achaean
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I'aus. Ml. 1, 1 H.
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()(t. VI. -iC)?.
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Htrotl. IV.
-JH.
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1. 17. fiUrisa as iiinllicr iiulicatrs that they catn(> from Larisa in Arj^'os.
(hi. IV. 17f..
II.
lis.