Catalogue of Ships

The Catalogue of Ships (Ancient Greek: νεῶν κατάλογος, neōn katálogos) is an epic catalogue in Book 2 of Homer's Iliad (2.494–759), which lists the contingents of the Achaean army that sailed to Troy.[1] The catalogue gives the names of the leaders of each contingent, lists the settlements in the kingdom represented by the contingent, sometimes with a descriptive epithet that fills out a half-verse or articulates the flow of names and parentage and place, and gives the number of ships required to transport the men to Troy, offering further differentiations of weightiness. A similar, though shorter, Catalogue of the Trojans and their allies follows (2.816–877). A similar catalogue appears in the Pseudo-Apollodoran Bibliotheca.

Trojan War
Achilles tending the wounded Patroclus
(Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BCE)
The war

Setting: Troy (modern Hisarlik, Turkey)
Period: Bronze Age
Traditional dating: c. 1194–1184 BCE
Modern dating: c. 1260–1180 BCE
Outcome: Greek victory, destruction of Troy

See also: Historicity of the Iliad
Literary sources
See also: Trojan War in popular culture
Episodes
Greeks and allies
See also: Catalogue of Ships
Trojans and allies
See also: Trojan Battle Order
Participant gods

Caused the war:

On the Greek side:

On the Trojan side:
Related topics

Historical background
Map of Homeric Greece

In the debate since antiquity over the Catalogue of Ships, the core questions have concerned the extent of historical credibility of the account, whether it was composed by Homer himself, to what extent it reflects a pre-Homeric document or memorized tradition, surviving perhaps in part from Mycenaean times, or whether it is a result of post-Homeric development.[2] Dörpfeld notes that while in Odyssey Odysseus's kingdom includes Ithaca, Same, Dulichium, and Zacynthus, the Catalogue of Ships contains a different list of islands, again Ithaca, Same, and Zacynthus but now also Neritum, Krocylea, and Aegilips. The separate debate over the identity of Homer and the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey is conventionally termed "the Homeric Question".

The consensus before the mid-twentieth century was that the Catalogue of Ships was not the work of the man who composed the Iliad,[3] though great pains had been taken to render it a work of art;[4] furthermore, that the material of the text is essentially Mycenaean or sub-Mycenaean, while disagreement centers largely on the extent of later additions.

If taken to be an accurate account, the Catalogue provides a rare summary of the geopolitical situation in early Greece at some time between the Late Bronze Age and the eighth century BCE. Following Milman Parry's theory of Homeric oral poetry, some scholars, such as Denys Page, argue that it represents a pre-Homeric recitation incorporated into the epic by Homer.[5] A few argue that parts of the recitation, such as the formulae describing places, date as early as the time of the Trojan War in the mid-13th century BCE, or possibly before. Others contend that the Catalogue is based on the time of Homer himself in the eighth century BCE and represents an anachronistic attempt to impose contemporary information to events five centuries earlier.

An intermediate theory is that the catalogue developed through a process of accretion during the poem's oral transmission and reflects gradual inclusion of the homelands of local sponsors by individual singers. In the most recent extended study of the Catalogue, Edzard Visser, of the University of Basel, concludes that the Catalogue is compatible with the rest of the Iliad in its techniques of verse improvisation, that the order of the names is meaningful and that the geographical epithets evince concrete geographical knowledge. Visser argues that this knowledge was transmitted by the heroic myth, elements of which introduce each geographical section.[6] W. W. Minton places the catalogue within similar "enumerations" in Homer and Hesiod, and suggests that part of their purpose was to impress the audience with a display of the performer's memory.[7]

The most striking feature of the catalogue's geography is that it does not portray Greece in the Iron Age, the time of Homer. By then a tribal identity called the Dorians had enveloped western Greece, the Peloponnesus and Crete, while the shores of Ionia were densely populated by a people claiming to descend from families in the now-Dorian regions of Greece. The whole northwestern part of Greece is not mentioned and it is these peoples (Epirotes, Macedonians, some Thessalians etc.) thought to be of Dorian descent.

Instead the catalogue portrays a loose union of city-states, mostly in mainland Greece, ruled by hereditary families under the overlordship of the High King (ἄναξ, ánax) of Mycenae. Hardly any of them are Dorian. The Ionian Greeks are mainly missing. This political snapshot is possibly one intended to be of Late Bronze Age Greece.

Catalogue

In the Iliad, the Greek Catalogue lists twenty-nine contingents under 46 captains, accounting for a total of 1,186 ships.[8] Using the Boeotian figure of 120 men per ship results in a total of 142,320 men transported to the Troad. They are named by various ethnonyms and had lived in 164 places described by toponyms. The majority of these places have been identified and were occupied in the Late Bronze Age. The terms Danaans, Argives and Achaeans or the sons of the Achaeans are used for the army as a whole. In his Library, Apollodorus lists thirty contingents under 43 leaders with a total of 1013 ships,[9] Hyginus lists 1154 ships, although the total is given as only 245 ships.[10]

Line Ethnic identity No. of ships Captains[11] Settlements
Tabular Catalog[12]
2.494 Boeotians 50 of 120 men each (First led by Thersander, then by:) Peneleōs, Leïtus, Arcesilaus, Prothoënor and Clonius Hyria, Aulis, Schoenus, Scolus, Eteonus, Thespeia, Graia, Mycalessus, Harma, Eilesium, Erythrae, Eleon, Hyle, Peteon, Ocalea, Medeon, Copae, Eutresis, Thisbe, Coronea, Haliartus, Plataea, Glisas, Thebes, Onchestus, Arne, Midea, Nisa,[13] Anthedon
2.511 Minyans 30 Ascalaphus, Ialmenus Aspledon, Orchomenus
2.517 Phocēans 40 Schedius, Epistrophus Cyparissus, Pytho, Crisa, Daulis, Panopeus, Anemorea, Hyampolis, river Cephissus, Lilaea
2.527 Locrians 40 Ajax the Lesser Kynos, Opoüs, Calliarus, Bessa, Scarphe, Augeae, Tarphe, Thronium
2.537 Abantes of Euboea 40 Elephenor Chalcis, Eretria, Histiaea, Cerinthus, Dium, Carystus, Styra
2.546 Athenians 50 Led first by Menestheus (then by later by Acamas and Demophon, the sons of Theseus) Athens
2.557 Salamineans 12 Telamonian Ajax Salamis
2.559 Argives 80 Diomedes with subordinates Sthenelus and Euryalus Argos, Tiryns, Hermione, Asine, Troezen, Eiones, Epidaurus, Aegina, Mases
2.569 Mycenaeans 100 Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, supreme commander Mycenae, Corinth, Cleonae, Orneae, Araethyrea, Sicyon, Hyperesia, Gonoessa, Pellene, Aegium, Helice
2.581 Lacedaemonians (or Laconians) 60 Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon, husband of Helen Pharis, Sparta, Messe, Bryseae, Augeae, Amyclae, Helos, Laas, Oetylus
2.592 No name given (Messenians) 90 Nestor Pylos, Arēne, Thryon, Aipy, Cyparisseis, Amphigenea, Pteleum, Helos, Dorium
2.603 Arcadians 60 Agapenor Cyllene, Pheneus, Orchomenus, Rhipae, Stratie, Enispe, Tegea, Mantinea, Stymphalos, Parrhasia
2.615 Epeans of Elis 40 Amphimachus, Thalpius, Diōres, Polyxenus Buprasium and the lands enclosed by Hyrmine, Myrsinus, Olene, Alesium
2.624 Men of Dulichium 40 Meges Dulichium, Echinean Islands
2.631 Cephallenians[14] 12 Odysseus (known in Latin as Ulysses) Ithaca, Neritum, Crocylea, Aegilips, Same, Zacynthus (islands with mainland opposite)[15]
2.638 Aetolians 40 Thoas Pleuron, Olenus, Pylene, Chalcis, Calydon
2.645 Cretans 80 Idomeneus, Meriones Cnossus, Gortys, Lyctus, Miletus, Lycastus, Phaestus, Rhytium, others up to 100
2.653 Rhodians 9 Tlepolemus Lindus, Ielysus, Cameirus
2.671 Symians 3 Nireus Symi
2.676 No name given. 30 Pheidippus, Antiphus Nisyrus, Crapathus, Casus, Cos, Calydnian Islands
2.681 Pelasgians, Myrmidons, Hellenes, Achaeans 50 Achilles (later by Neoptolemus) Pelasgic Argos, Alos, Alope, Trachis, Phthia
2.695 No name given. 40 Protesilaus, later by Podarces Phylace, Pyrasus, Iton, Antrium, Pteleum
2.711 No name given. 11 Eumelus Pherae, Boebe, Glaphyrae, Iolcus
2.716 No name given. 7, with 50 oarsmen each who were also archers Philoctetes, later by Medon Methone, Thaumacia, Meliboea, Olizon
2.729 No name given. 30 Podalirius, Machaon, two sons of Asclepius Tricca, Ithome, Oechalia
2.734 No name given. 40 Eurypylus Ormenius, Hypereia (fountain), Asterius, Titanus
2.738 (Lapiths) 40 Polypoetes, Leonteus Argissa,[16] Gyrtone, Orthe, Elone, Oloösson
2.748 Enienes, Peraebi 22 Guneus Cyphus, Dodona, Gonnos, banks of the Titaresius
2.756 Magnetes 40 Prothoüs About the Peneus and Mt. Pelion

See also

Notes
  1. Homer, Iliad 2.494–759
  2. J.K. Anderson, 1995. "The Geometric Catalogue of Ships," pp. 181–191 in Carter and Morris, editors, The Ages of Homer, (Austin: University of Texas Press).
  3. Succinctly expressed by C.M. Bowra in a review of F. Jacoby, Die Einschaltung des Schiffkatalogs in die Ilias in The Classical Review 47.5 (November 1933), p. 174.
  4. John Crossett, "The Art of Homer's Catalogue of Ships" The Classical Journal 64.6 (March 1969), pp. 241–245, discusses the dramatic function of the Catalogue in the place that it occupies.
  5. Page, pp. 132, 134.
  6. Visser, Edzard, 1997. Homers Katalog der Schiffe (Teubner).
  7. Minton, pp. 292–309.
  8. This count is taken from J.V. Luce, Homer and the Homeric Age, Harper & Row, 1975, ISBN 0-06-012722-8
  9. Apollodorus. Library. Trans. Smith, R. Scott and Trzaskoma, Stephen M. 3.11.
  10. Hyginus, Fabulae 97.
  11. The dramatic time of the catalogue is early in the war; the place, the shores of the Troad. Captains of those contingents outside the time and place of the catalogue are parenthesized; they are not in the catalogue.
  12. The Anglicised spellings and diacritical marks of the names in the table are as they are in Britannica, Great Books of the Western World, Volume 4. The order of contingents is that of the catalogue.
  13. Probably ancient Isos in the vicinity of modern Pyrgos, already in ruins by the time of Strabo; see Steve Reece, 2009. Homer's winged words, Brill, p. 172–180.
  14. Name of a clan who lived both on islands and on the mainland. See Κεφαλλῆνες in Homeric Dictionary by Georg Autenrieth.
  15. Compare to Hom. Od. 1.230 where Odysseus' kingdom includes Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus and Ithaca. This supports the hypothesis that the Catalogue of Ships could not have been composed by Homer himself.
  16.  Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Argura". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.

References
  • J.K. Anderson, 1995. "The Geometric Catalogue of Ships," pp. 181–191 in Carter and Morris, eds., The Ages of Homer, (Austin: University of Texas Press).
  • Austin, J. N. H. 1965. Catalogues and the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad, (Berkeley: University of California Press).
  • Page, D.L., 1959. History and the Homeric Iliad (Berkeley: University of California Press).
  • Visser, Edzard, 1997. Homers Katalog der Schiffe (Teubner).
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