The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

Additional note 1: Aeneas’ realm in
the Troad
In the preceding section, we have observed that Aeneas
and his Trojan followers boarded their ships in Antandros,
which is situated on the southern coast of the Troad, just
south of mount Ida, looking out over the Aiolian gulf.
Now, Aeneas is particularly linked up with the region of
mount Ida in the southern Troad, as this is the spot where
he is reported to have been conceived by Ankhises and
Aphrodite. 360 However, if we want to be more specific, it
is interesting to observe that according to a passage in
Homeros’ Iliad Aeneas is said at a time before the Trojan
war to have been driven from the Ida, where he guarded
the cattle herd, by Akhilleus, who next plundered Lyrnessos
and Pedasos in the plain of Adramytion – an attack
from which Aeneas is saved by the protection of Zeus. 361
This passage, then, seems to suggest an association of Aeneas,
not only with the region of mount Ida itself, but also
with the river valley to the south of it.
This very same region south of mount Ida with which
Aeneas seems to be associated, is also reported to be inhabited
by Leleges and/or Kilikes. Thus according to one
passage, Altes, the king of the Leleges, is stated to have his
residence in Pedasos along the river Satnioeis, 362 whereas
according to another Eëtion, king of the Kilikes, once lived
in Thebes at the foot of the wooded Plakos, where he was
killed by Akhilleus during the latter’s afore-mentioned raid
in the region. 363 Both the ethnonyms Leleges and Kilikes
are indicative of Luwian speaking population groups – the
Kilikes for their origin from Cilicia and the Leleges for
their being identified with Carians. 364 The latter inference
receives further confirmation from the fact that the region
south of mount Ida is characterized by place names in -ss-
360 Homeros, Iliad II, 819-21.
361 Homeros, Iliad XX, 89-93; 188-194. This ties in with an earlier
section of the Iliad, in which Akhilleus is stated to have captured
Briseïs in Lyrnessos and to have demolished the walls of
Thebes in the same plain, killing the local leaders Mynes and Epistrophos,
the sons of Euenos, Homeros, Iliad II, 688-93.
362 Homeros, Iliad XXI, 86-7.
363 Homeros, Iliad VI, 396-7; 415-6.
364 Herodotos, Histories I, 171.
93
(Lyrnessos) and -nth- (Sminthe). 365 Evidently, we are
dealing here with settlers from Luwian speaking areas to
the south and southeast, who moved across the language
border as determined by Dainis (< Luwian tini- “oily”)
being the indigenous name of later Greek Elaia (= harbor
of Pergamon) 366 into a presumably Thraco-Phrygian milieu.
367
If our association of Aeneas with a Luwian speaking
region south of mount Ida is correct, the information from
the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite that the Trojan language
as spoken by Aeneas’ father Ankhises is other than Phrygian
need not be representative for the entire Troad. 368
Furthermore, his later relationship to the Etruscans in Italy
receives a meaningful explanation as being one of a kinship
nature!
Additional note 2: Dardanians: a
form of Etruscan self-designation
Confirmation of our inference that the Etruscans considered
the Aeneas’ saga as part of their cultural heritage is
provided by a set of eight identical Etruscan inscriptions
on three boundary stones from Smindja in the territory of
Carthago. These inscribed boundary stones were set up by
the followers of the democratic consul Gn. Papirius Carbone
from the Etruscan city of Chiusi who fled from their
hometown to Africa in 82 BC after having sided with
Marius in the civil war between the latter and the ultimately
victorious Sulla. 369
The inscriptions run in retrograde direction and read
365 Woudhuizen 1989: 194, Fig. 2; 197. See also section 7, note
140 above.
366 Starke 1997: 457; Högemann 2000: 10.
367 For the Thraco-Phrygian nature of the Trojan language, see
Gindin 1999 and section 13, note 520 below. For another Luwian
speaking enclave in the Troas, cf. the Lycians under the leadership
of Pandaros along the Aisepos and in Zeleia, see Homeros, Iliad II,
824-7; IV, 88; 103; 121; for the Lycian nature of Pandaros, see
Homeros, Iliad V, 105 (Lukithen) and cf. Strabo, Geography
XIV, 3, 5 reporting his temenos at Pinara in the Xanthos valley;
furthermore, his name corresponds to Lycian *Pñtra- (Melchert
1993, s.v. Pñtreñne/i-). Both Luwian speaking areas are already
acknowledged by Gindin 1999: 261.
368 Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 111-5.
369 Heurgon 1969: 286; Colonna 1980: 4.