First mention of Asia / Europe?
The closest we get in Greek sources to the original ‘Europe’ and ‘Asia’ as geographical terms is in two poems of the 7th and 6th centuries BCE.
First: Asia appears in Homer as a place in western Anatolia (Iliad 2.461). The line refers to the ‘Kaystrian river in the meadow of Asias’, or possibly ‘in an Asian meadow’. The Kaystros (modern Küçük Menderes) is a river in western Anatolia to the south of Izmir. In antiquity it had the city of Ephesus at its mouth.
And second: Europe appears as a relatively small region in northern Greece in the Hymn to Apollo. Cynaethus put the Hymn in its final form in the 520s BCE, but it’s pretty clear he used large chunks of older poetry. The Hymn refers twice to the people who live in the rich Peloponnesos, and those in Europe, and in the islands surrounded by sea Cynaethus, Hymn to Apollo 250–251 = 290–291.
This checklist seems to indicate the original state of things. Cynaethus isn’t listing continents, but chunks of the Greek mainland and the islands. The Peloponnesos and Europe are the southern and northern mainland respectively.
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From another post elsewhere, from 2020:
Rediscovering Homer: Inside the Origins of the Epic, Andrew Dalby, c. 2006.
Finally, a book that really, really explains how we got from the oral version of the Iliad and the Odyssey to the written works.
For the "reader's digest" version, two links:
The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War, Caroline Alexander, c. 2009.
Preface.
Note to the Reader
The Things They Carried
Chain of Command
- Agamemnon: first among equals
- they were all kings; but they looked to Agamemnon as their leader
- but that did not mean Achilles followed him blindly
- some say Achilles "sulked and went back to his tent." Caroline Alexander views Achilles' actions completely different.
Agamemnon was first among equals, but both Agamemnon and Achilles were kings. I see
General Eisenhower (US) : General Bernard Montgomery (UK) :: King Agamemnon : King Achilles
King Achilles: He is king of Phthia, or 'Hellas and Phthia', in southern Thessaly, and his people are the Myrmidons.
King Agamemnon: king of Mycenae or Argos. Mycenae and Argos are though to be different names for same area. Just a bit southwest of Athens.
Posted not for the Peloponnesian War, but for the map:
Terms of Engagement
Agamemnon: Iphigenia sacrifice; prayers to Zeus; Nestor reminds Agamemnon of his duties; Athene, the warrior goddess, sweeps through the Achaeans; prepare for battle
Käystrian waters: see above; in western Turkey; near Izmir.
The Skamandros River, also western Turkey.
"host": the Greek army
description of the aegis
"The descent of Athene to the field and the shadow of her terrifying aegis -- like the rousing speeches of Nestor and Odysseus -- are part of Zeus' plan to honor his vow to Thetis.
Change of images -- p. 40 - 41.
"The Catalogue of Ships": 226 verses: names each of the 29 contingents that make up the Achaean army.
The list is a bit confusing according to the author -- p. 42.
Aulis: from where the Achaean armada was launched -- p. 42.
1,186 ships cited; 44 named leaders. With average complement of a ship estimated at 50, the Achaen force was at a minimum ~60,000.
Who was the bravest of the men, and the men's horses, who went with the sons of Atreus (Agamemnon and Menelaus). Bests by far among the horses were the mares of Eumelos ...
Does not list the horses; begs the question ... was their originally a list that has disappeared?
"Among the men far the best was Telamonian Aias.
Ajax or Aias is a Greek mythological hero, the son of King Telamon and Periboea, and the half-brother of Teucer.
f
Enemy Lines
Land of My Fathers
In God We Trust
Man Down
No Hostages
The Death of Hektor
The Everlasting Glory
Acknowledgments
Notes: pp. 229 - 272
Selected Further Reading: pp. 273 - 277
Index: pp. 279 - 296
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