Гомер и история Восточного Средиземноморья

In Chapter 6, The Luwians at Troy, the authors substantiate their hypothesis concerning the survival of certain parts of the early Luwian tribes, which still existed in Homeric Troy; their forefathers during the epoch of Troy II (2600-2300 B.C.) were moving southward from the city, to the place of historic abode of the Luwians. It seems probable that during the pre-Anatolian period of their history, those tribes (after they had come from the area of Black Sea steppes lying northwest of the Balkans) coexisted for some time with proto-Thracian ethnic units within the Eastern Balkan area. Therefore we have every right to consider the so-called pr

Other Luwian tribes had had a Trojan phase in their prehistory as well. Thus, the name of Sarpedon, the hero-protector of the people speaking Lucian A language, derives from the name of a headland situated in the south of Aegean Thracia, opposite Troad. Homeric figure of Sarpedon fighting the Achaeans for Troy returns this image to its historical and geographic origins. Another Luwian tribe, Cilicians, is known to Homer as a people that once inhabited the south of Troad. The authors explain their name as a derivative of their sanctuary’s name KCXAa < Hitt.-Luw. hila «courtyard»; cf. Lyc. qla «temple’s fence». Luwian archaic terms of special kind are represented by the name of the mountain near Trojan Lycia ITeipGioadc, and the figure of its eponym mentioned by Homer - that of the supposedly coming from Thracia stone-throwing hero ITetpaJc; the terms in question continue the Hittite-Luwian series: Hitt.-Luw. pirwa «rock», Pirwa, name of the god worshipped on the rocks, Luw. PirwaSSa «something belonging to Pirwa». Undoubtedly, the Luwians who came to Anatolia from the north in the 3rd millenium B.C. left a noticeable trace in Troad’s tradition (e.g. the name-title IIp(ap.oc < Luw. prijama «the first, the best»), and it is likely that a certain remainder of the Luwians still lived to the epoch of the Troian war in the northern and southern periphery of the area - in the Trojan Lycia and in settlements of the Trojan Cilicians whence comes the Homeric heroine Andromache.

Chapter 7, The Hittites in the Trojan Myths of Greeks, occupies in this part of the book a special place, since the Hittites have not been inhabitants of Troad. However, Greek tradition which places in Mysia (in Caicos) during the time immediately following the events of the «Pseudo-Iliad» the powerful people of the Ceteans/Keteioi (Kt^tclol), fully corresponds to the evidence of the Hittite annals concerning Hittite army’s entry in the River Seha Country from where Ahhijawa’s king had just been ousted. Homer’s words (Od. XI.5I9-521) concerning the Ceteans coming at the close of the war to Troy’s help and perishing «because of the women’s gifts» remarkably tally with the prescription of Hittite law about a «payment to a woman» ($A SAL kuSSan) which was given to a widow of a killed mercenary. In Posthomerica by Quintus of Smyrna (that writing reflects the cyclical tradition) the Ceteans emerge as a powerful people ruled by the «great king» (n^yac (îaaiAeüç = Hitt. LUGAL GAL). The Ceteans appearing on stage, the Trojans as Greeks’ adversaries fade into the background. It is not impossible that tradition about the Ceteans reflects an unsuccessful attempt of the Hittites to affect the course of the Trojan war at its final stage.

However, this historical reminiscence is complicated by mythological motifs whose provenance is to be sought in Asia Minor. Thus, tradition makes the Cetean king Eurypylus a son of the Mysian demigod Telephus who was a hero participating in the events of «Pseudo-Iliad». Telephus while fighting the Achaeans gets his feet entangled in a vine and being severely wounded in the thigh, flees overseas to Greece to show the Greeks the way to Troy in exchange for their healing his wound. The above story is doublessly a Greek revision of the Western Anatolian version of the Hattie and Hittite myth about the fertility god Telepi/Telepinus who shuns tie world, sick and getting healed, furious and then placated. Under the influence of this calendar myth intruding in thé historical legend, the «women’s gifts» for which the Ceteans-Hittites perish, turn into the fabulous golden grapevine which had supposedly been presented by Priam to the Cetean queen and became the bane of Eurypylus. The memory about the fighting between the Greeks and their fell Hittite foes (cf. the story of Hercules fighting the KfjToc-monster) merges with the motifs which had come to Greeks from traditions of the peoples of Asia Minor living near Troy.