Wednesday, December 19, 2012

If Aquinas had had to present the theory of Dörpfeld: Ulisses' Ithaca was Leucada


First of all - why such an exercise? Do Dörpfeld's and Walter Leaf's arguments become more holy by being presented in the format used by a saint? Of course not. St Thomas Aquinas is not canonised for using the format of Quaestiones and Articuli and he is not using it in all his works. He is not canonised despite using the format either. He is canonied because he used it to defend truth.

Now, the format of an articulus in a quaestio (or, if there are no other articuli in a quaestio: the format of a one articulus quaestio) is good because it is short and gives an overview of arguments for and against, and because it separates explanations of problems used as arguments against the arguments against the thesis from the other arguments that are directly for it. And the theory of Dörpfeld and of Walter Leaf is a good one. I am thus not wasting a good format on a bad matter just for the sake of exercising it.

Utrum Ulixis Ithaca eadem insula fuerit quam nunc appellamus Leucada?
Whether Ulisses' Ithaca was the same island which now we call Leucada?

To this we proceed as follows:

Primo... /in the first place tradition says that Ithaca was what we call Thiaki. Tradition is a good guide and place names are not usually transferred from one place to another.

Secondo... /in the second place Strabo and Livy both say that Leucada was not always an island, but that a channel separating Leucada from the main land was dug out in post-Homeric times. If Ithaca was a paeninsula, why does Homer call it an island?

Sed contra est... /but on the other hand a cowherd and a heifer and three goats are ferried across to the Ithaca of Ulisses, as Homer states in xx.185ff.

Respondeo esse dicendum... /I answer that one ought to say that an island can be defined in more than one way, so that one cannot say that it is impossible for something to both already be an island and to become one. If by island you mean you cannot from there get to the mainland or walking on your feet and keeping them dry, that is one thing, but if by island you mean you must be able to sail around it in a ship, that is another thing. Already in Ulisses time, however, Leucada as we call it now must have been separated by shallow waters from the main land, since these would not have been the result from the later channel, that allowed a ship to sail or row between it and the main land. And if shallow waters do not call for transport in ships, they easily provoke transport in very shallow ferries, indeed rafts serving as ferries. So when we see a cowherd arriving in a ferry (or transported by ferrymen - πoρθμηεc, and the singular porthmeus is translated portitor, both words, the Greek and the Latin, are used of Charon in Latin) with an heifer and three goats, we know this is possible for Leucada but unbelievable for Thiaki. There are some other reasons for believing that Ithaca was what we call Leucada. When Ulisses describes his realm, in ix.21-26 it consists of Ithaca, Same, Doulichion and Zakynthos, and no one has doubted that Zakynthos is rightly identified as Zante but this description says about "Ithaca" what is truer about Leucada than about Thiaki: it is furthest North-West πανυπερτατη, πρoc ζoφoν and it is in some sense "low" χθαμαλη where Modern Greek uses χαμηλα for "low in the sea" = close to land. And from xxi.344-7 we learn that other islands of the four are from it πρoc Hλιδoc. In at least two places the question of coming by foot (including a short trip on cattle ferry or even wading) arises precisely on Ithaca. We have Telemachus' words to Mentes in i.156 ff and as for Telemachus and Eumaeus Walter Leaf asks us to confer xuj.57-9 with xiu 185-190. And between Leucada and Thiaki, but closest to Leucada we have an Arkudhi, which has a small natural port, such as we know that Asteris, between Ithaca and Same but closest to Ithaca must have had: iu.844 ff.

Ad primum... /answering the first objection we see that the modern traditional names give us three islands rather than the four we need. Unless you take for Doulichion the one identified by Strabo as Doliche, now Makri. Walter Leaf concedes this is likely for the Doulichion of Meges, but not for the Doulichion in Ulisses' realm. Therefore we can see there is some trouble in the human tradition about Thiaki being Ithaca. The solution proposed is that Ithaca's population fled from invaders to Same, whis population was in turn transferred to part of Doulichion, where we now have Samos as one of its promontories. The whole of Doulichion then became Kephallenia. Victor Brérard says that a similar thing happened about Pylos. When it comes to Taphos (which Walter Leaf considers - arguing from its naval and military importance blocking Achaeans from the West - as having been Corfu) we know that Taphians fled south as well, and two places in the four islands concerned remind us that Ulisses' realm was part of where they fled to.

Ad secundum... /answering the second objection we conceed that Strabo tells us how Leucada became more of an island than it was, but not that it was no island at all or in any sense before that artificial channel. As said in corpore/in the body of the article. But if you want to argue that Homer described Ithaca as totally an island, you must show where a ship commanded by a kybernetes rather than a ferry manned by a porthmeus goes anywhere between Ithaca and Main Land.

If I were to make a quaestio of several articuli, I would of course use as other articuli problems like what Doulichia there are, one Doulichion or two Doulichia, alternatively "whether Ulisses or Meges ruled Doulichion" arguing they had one each, whether Taphos was Corfu, et c. But since Walter Leaf mainly has answered these questions in his book, and since I only wanted to give a taste of his arguments, precisely where they are constested, i e identifying Iθακα with Leucada and Thiaki with Cαμη, I now leave you the task to read Walter Leaf's Homer and History in entirety or in the chapter The Realm of Odysseus. Only adding that previous and following chapters to my mind, as already stated, include a misunderstanding of what the commanders in the ship catalogue were.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi Georges Pompidou
Blessed Urban V, Pope
19-XII-2012

7 comments:

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

Read up in Victor Berard on this yesterday, could onlyskim due to uncomfortable library chair and physical exhaustion.

However:

- Berard does not mention xx.185 ff. as far as I could see, ad I seem to recall that the neighbouring island to Thiaki (Kephallonia, which Berard identifies with Same), though maybe close enough for a ferry, was too high for this to function, will have to look up Walter Leaf later (it is obvious one can use no ferry between mainland and Thiaki).

- Berard's argument is that "in the Mediterranean never is there any example of one site moving to another and keeping its name", but that is his very generalising view of the Mediterranean. In 1970 Grängesberg the mining town was abandoned and a new Grängesberg built a few kilometers away, and more historically we have Gamla Uppsala, abandoned with Christianity moved to Uppsala the Christian Episcopal See, also a few kilometers away.

- Berard seems to miss a point about Dörpfeld's observation on coming by foot. In at least two places the question of coming by foot ... arises precisely on Ithaca. Has any other island in the Homeric world used that joke in the Homeric texts?

My words "including a short trip on cattle ferry or even wading" are of course only applicable if it is not a very tall joke. That is why I put them in parenthesis, they do not add to the argument.

- Finally there is a disagreement on Arkudhi. Asteris is described as ου μεγαλη and Berard takes this very literally. Not relative, but literally.

In the other context of χθαμαλη about Ithaca he sees no problem saying it means low "relative to Same", i e on his view, to Kephallenia, although in itself Thiaki is high rather than χθαμαλη.

So, Berard says Arkoudhi is too big for Asteris, whereas Dörpfeld argues Daskalio is too small for Asteris, the ones lying in wait for Telemachus would have had no place to hide in. Will have to look this also up in Walter Leaf though.

Best would be to get there in person, check if ferrying cattle from Kephallenia to Thiaki is feasible or whether one must take that as ferrying from mainland to Leukada.

Berard has one point though: Leukada would correspond to a White Stone (Leukos=White) that is not identical to Ithaca but rather a frontier to the unknown in Achaean times. He however thinks that the swamp like "wet isthmus" of Leukada is the result of the channel digging, after Ulysses' times. Dörpfeld that the channel was such as to possibilitate a small ship passing between former Ithaca present Leukada and the land and thatthe wet isthmus existed before that channel.

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

Checked: Leaf states that Thiaki cannot possibly be reached by anything other than a boat, not a small ferry.

Moreover, Bérard argued from a Classical quote saying Leukada is a peninsula, where the word for peninsula is ακτη. Thus, not an island. Thus, not Ithaca.

Song 13, Odysseus asks the disguised Athena where he is.

"Is this either some-one of the islands ... or an ακτη of the fertile mainland?"

13:234

And Athena gives a description which avoids the issue (I think), but identifies the land - whether island or peninsula - as Ithaca.

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

Then Minerva came up to him disguised as a young shepherd of delicate and princely mien, with a good cloak folded double about her shoulders; she had sandals on her comely feet and held a javelin in her hand. Ulysses was glad when he saw her, and went straight up to her.

"My friend," said he, "you are the first person whom I have met with in this country; I salute you, therefore, and beg you to be will disposed towards me. Protect these my goods, and myself too, for I embrace your knees and pray to you as though you were a god. Tell me, then, and tell me truly, what land and country is this? Who are its inhabitants? Am I on an island, or is this the sea board of some continent?"

Minerva answered, "Stranger, you must be very simple, or must have come from somewhere a long way off, not to know what country this is. It is a very celebrated place, and everybody knows it East and West. It is rugged and not a good driving country, but it is by no means a bid island for what there is of it. It grows any quantity of corn and also wine, for it is watered both by rain and dew; it breeds cattle also and goats; all kinds of timber grow here, and there are watering places where the water never runs dry; so, sir, the name of Ithaca is known even as far as Troy, which I understand to be a long way off from this Achaean country."


(Butler's translation)

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

"νήπιός εἰς, ὦ ξεῖν', ἢ τηλόθεν εἰλήλουθας,
εἰ δὴ τήνδε τε γαῖαν ἀνείρεαι. οὐδέ τι λίην
οὕτω νώνυμός ἐστιν· ἴσασι δέ μιν μάλα πολλοί,
ἠμὲν ὅσοι ναίουσι πρὸς ἠῶ τ' ἠέλιόν τε, 240
ἠδ' ὅσσοι μετόπισθε ποτὶ ζόφον ἠερόεντα.
ἦ τοι μὲν τρηχεῖα καὶ οὐχ ἱππήλατός ἐστιν
οὐδὲ λίην λυπρή, ἀτὰρ οὐδ' εὐρεῖα τέτυκται.
ἐν μὲν γάρ οἱ σῖτος ἀθέσφατος, ἐν δέ τε οἶνος
γίνεται· αἰεὶ δ' ὄμβρος ἔχει τεθαλυῖά τ' ἐέρση.
αἰγίβοτος δ' ἀγαθὴ καὶ βούβοτος· ἔστι μὲν ὕλη
παντοίη, ἐν δ' ἀρδμοὶ ἐπηετανοὶ παρέασι.
τῶ τοι, ξεῖν', Ἰθάκης γε καὶ ἐς Τροίην ὄνομ' ἵκει,
τήν περ τηλοῦ φασὶν Ἀχαιΐδος ἔμμεναι αἴης."

(Original text. Both cited from Wikisource)

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

Here is the Greek for the question Odysseus asks, with bold letters for the words that are missing, both of them, in the response:

η πoυ τις νησων ευδειελoς ηε τις ακτη
κειθ' 'αλι κεκλιμενη εριβωλακο ηπειροιο;

I am not sure if I have not heard this argument already from my former Professor of Old Greek, Jerker Blomqvist, University of Lund. If not, this might then not even be his position, it is at least reminiscent of him./HGL

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

It seems, the same argument would also favour Paliki, an island that later became a cape of Kephalonia.

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

GEO n°518
https://www.prismashop.fr/vn/les-archives-de-geo/VNGEO518.html


Special issue on Greece.