Chapter 4. The Troad and Lycia

Since the Trojans are fighting in their own country, it is hardly surprising that places in Asia Minor are less often narratively exploited than specific areas of mainland Greece. A few places in the wider Troad, though, are thematized, as they are either tied to the fate of specific heroes or belong to the central core of the epic’s plot. Apart from some less important areas in Asia Minor that are briefly mentioned, the Iliad has at its disposal an extremely fertile field for spatial thematization: Lycia. Among the chief allies of the Trojans are some heroes of high esteem and significance for the Iliad, such as Sarpedon, Glaukos, and Pandaros, who are narratively exploited at great length. These two categories of space (Troad and Lycia) with respect to Asia Minor will be the subject of the two following sections, since they represent distinct spaces that the tradition of the Iliad constantly uses for different purposes.

The Troad includes a number of rather small cities, some of which the Achaeans have sacked during the Trojan War, and certainly before the events narrated in the Iliad. [1] The Iliad treats these cities more or less in the same way they are presented in the Cypria, as targets of small-scale expeditions or raids led by the Achaeans during the nine long years of the war. I begin my investigation by looking at the relevant material from the plot of the Cypria, according to the summary offered by Proclus’ Chrestomathy: According to the Iliad, the Achaeans have sacked four cities in the Troad (Hypoplakian Thebes, Lurnessos, Pedasos, and Khruse). Each of these cities is linked to the plot mainly by a single character, whom the epic will narratively exploit more or less at length. In particular, Andromakhe comes from Hypoplakian Thebes, [2] Briseis from Lurnessos, [3] and Lukaon from Pedasos, [4] while Khruseis, who was taken captive during the sack of Hypoplakian Thebes, [5] is narratively anchored to the city of Khruse through the famous episode with her father in Iliad  I. [6]

This one-to-one correspondence is of paramount importance for comprehending the function of these locations within the Iliadic plot, the more so since they seem to have been selected in preference to other variants. According to a scholium (T) on Iliad XVI 57, Briseis was captured during the sack of Pedasos in the Cypria, but during the sack of Lurnessos in the Iliad: Τὴν Πήδασον οἱ τῶν Κυπρίων ποιηταί, αὐτὸς δὲ Λυρνησ<σ>όν (“The poets of the Cypria [refer] to Pedasos, but he [Homer] [refers] to Lurnessos”). Moreover, Aineias, who seems to have his personal epic tradition in the Troad, [7] declares that Achilles has sacked both Lurnessos and Pedasos (Iliad XX 87–92). Dué argues that the Panhellenic tradition of the Iliad systematically downplays local versions, [8] and fosters a narrative where Achilles looms large, not as a person who gets emotionally involved with various slave-girls, but one who treats them, and especially Briseis, as the emblem of his heroic status among the Achaean army. In fact, the Iliad deliberately employs for the raids made by Achilles in the cities surrounding Troy the same subthemes that Achilles himself has verbalized in Iliad I 152–157, where he explicitly says for the Trojans: The opposition between the proximity of the cities surrounding Troy and the remoteness of Phthia, as well as between the destructiveness of Achilles and the harmlessness of the Trojans, is strongly thematized by the Iliadic tradition, which turns these locations in the Troad into the backdrop for measuring Achilles’ dramatic function in the epic. Hypoplakian Thebes, Lurnessos, Pedasos, and Khruse are not simply places on a notional mythical map, but variations on the emotional turbulence of Achilles, who fights a war against a people who have never harmed him.

Apart from the interplay between the remoteness of Phthia and the proximity of these cities, the Iliad exploits the spatial aspect of size, in order to hint at the difference between the ease with which Achilles sacks all these small cities in the Troad and his failure to take the great city of Troy. Moreover, although the Achaeans take various women captive, they cannot succeed in getting Helen, [9] the one person for whom this whole expedition was organized. This emphatic contrast reveals that space is used here with respect to both distance and size, in order to deepen our understanding of the situation Achilles has been facing in the epic.

Furthermore, these cities supply the poem with rather secondary characters, who are either linked to other prime figures of the epic or represent distinct phases in the development of the plot. To be more specific, the four figures mentioned earlier—Khruseis, Briseis, Andromakhe, and Lukaon—encapsulate Achilles’ role in the Iliad. Khruseis is the reason for all the Achaeans’ troubles, Briseis symbolizes the “apple of discord” between Agamemnon and Achilles, [10] Andromakhe is closely associated with the presentation and drama of Hektor, and Lukaon’s encounter with Achilles is a dramatic reenactment of his first captivity during the sack of Pedasos. Four different cities in the Troad are thus linked to four distinct characters who thematically epitomize the evolution of Achilles within the poem.

The small cities of the Troad are therefore thematized spaces within a larger framework. They spatially contextualize Achilles and dramatize his own role: ironically but tellingly, the great Achaean warrior is also a captive, not of some mighty hero, but of the Iliad’s perception and thematic exploitation of space. He will neither return to Phthia nor sack Troy, but remains the figurative prisoner of the very tradition that depends so much on his unsurpassed fighting skills.

Lycia is mentioned eighteen times in character text and only twice in narrator text. [11] The sheer size of this difference shows that Iliadic characters use Lycia mainly as an embedded story space. Its function differs according to ethnic group (Lycians, Trojans, [12] Achaeans) and the mortal/divine dichotomy that epic regularly exploits.

One of the main features of Lycian identity in the Iliad is conditioned by the geographical location of Lycia. Described as the land of the “swirling river Xanthos” (Iliad II 877 Ξάνθου ἄπο δινήεντος), Lycia is placed far away from the Troad (877 τηλόθεν ἐκ Λυκίης), which is, of course, the theater of all war operations. This important point often passes unnoticed, but as I argued above, the Iliad capitalizes on the antithesis between less important Trojan allies coming from the nearby Troad and first-rank Lycians coming from faraway Lycia. In fact, the geographical location of Lycia filters the identity and function of Lycians in the Iliadic plot to such an extent that it becomes the measure of their bravery. The interpretive implications of this narrative strategy are far-reaching, for the chief Lycian heroes constitute an indispensable and crucial part of the Iliadic plot. Since the death of Sarpedon at the hands of Patroklos corresponds to the killing of Memnon by Achilles, as neoanalysis showed long ago, [13] it is likely that the “coming from afar” motif pertaining to the Lycians in the Iliad was modeled upon an Aethiopis tradition that featured Memnon coming from distant Aethiopia and being killed by Achilles. [14]

As is often the case, the tradition of the Iliad transforms inherited material through dramatization and intensification. In V 478–481, the “coming from afar” motif is expanded by means of two distinct additions that lend the passage a clear Iliadic tone: Sarpedon adds two important details to the “coming from afar” motif: First, his reference to his wife and children echoes Hektor, and thus portrays Sarpedon as a tragic hero who has left his family behind. [15] The mention of a son is a dramatic tour de force on the part of the Iliad, since having only a single son intensifies the tragedy of a father’s not coming back home alive, adding to the grief of loss the further sufferings awaiting an orphan, as they are eloquently described for Astuanax in Andromakhe’s γόος (Iliad XXII 484–506). [16] Second, the detail about Sarpedon’s wealth (V 481 κὰδ δὲ κτήματα πολλά) creates an antithesis to the formula concerning Menelaos’ possessions that Paris stole from Sparta (III 91 ἀμφ’ Ἑλένῃ καὶ κτήμασι πᾶσι μάχεσθαι). The point is effectively made by means of similar diction: in contrast with the Trojan prince who stole Menelaos’ treasures and his wife, who for her part abandoned her own daughter (III 174–175 υἱέϊ σῷ ἑπόμην, θάλαμον γνωτούς τε λιποῦσα / παῖδά τε τηλυγέτην καὶ ὁμηλικίην ἐρατεινήν), Sarpedon has left behind his wife and baby son (V 480 ἔνθ’ ἄλοχόν τε φίλην ἔλιπον καὶ νήπιον υἱόν), and his possessions which have been eyed by other men in need, to come to Troy and fight a war that is not his. [17] Thus we see that Sarpedon uses Lycia as a thematized space that allows him to occasionally accuse the Trojans, more or less in the way Achilles uses Phthia and the life he has left behind to help Agamemnon, whom he accuses similarly in Iliad I. Both heroes employ distant space, Lycia and Phthia respectively, to promote a rhetoric of space that highlights their participation and excellence in a war that is not really their own. In terms of the wider analogy between the Aethiopis tradition and the Iliadic tradition, it becomes plausible that this feature was not taken from the former and used in the latter, since in the Aethiopis Memnon is clearly the chief anti-Achaean warrior and foremost enemy, and there is no Trojan of Hektor’s stature against whom Memnon’s potential accusation could be directed. This is firm evidence, I maintain, that the tradition of the Iliad has expanded the “coming from afar” motif by dramatizing it around two of the main figures of the epic’s plot, Sarpedon and Achilles. Distant space thus becomes a vehicle both for expressing complaints or accusations against one’s comrades-in-arms and for evaluating heroic κλέος in terms of human sacrifice and loss. At the same time, remote space like Lycia and Phthia allows the Iliad to present as emotionally close to its audience’s feelings what is geographically remote and distant: the beloved members of Sarpedon’s and Achilles’ families who are located in areas far from Troy are the ones who awaken the audience’s sympathy and compassion.

Sarpedon’s exhortation to Glaukos in Iliad XII 310–328 is one of the rare glimpses offered by the epic at a specific geographical location. [18] Lycia is described not by its landscape, but in terms of social space, through a brief description of the life and status of Lycian princes. The most telling part of Sarpedon’s speech are the following lines: By reminding Glaukos of the privileges Lycian kings possess and enjoy in Lycia (honorary places in symposia, best portion of food, cups full of wine, special piece of land along the banks of Xanthos), Sarpedon offers an internal picture of royal life in Lycia in terms of the social space occupied by kings. This brief but impressive list of privileges demarcates a space that exercises its own influence on the unique heroic attitude of Sarpedon. [19] Despite Hainsworth’s use in this connection of the term “social contract,” since honor can be achieved through manhood, [20] little attention has been paid to its constituent parts. Sarpedon’s list of privileges can be divided into smaller groups, pertaining to the banquet on the one hand and to the τέμενος on the other.

The banquet is often used as the symbolic locus where the ἄριστοι, or the leaders of the army in the Iliad, reaffirm their participation in the ideology of the heroic society. The inherent theatricality of the symposium, [21] with the importance assigned to setting, food, and drink, makes an effective metaphor for the representation and reenactment of status and authority. The banquet, with its tightly choreographed framework, can be considered an emblem of society—a society Sarpedon returns to after his “temporary” sojourn in the bestialized world of the simile that precedes it, where he is compared to a ferocious lion whose “valiant heart [Iliad XII 300 θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ] incited him to attack a well-built stable [301 πυκινὸν δόμον] just as the king’s heart excites him to attack the Achaean wall,” who is “willing to be wounded in the front ranks [306 ἐν πρώτοισι] just as he is ready to do now [315, 321, 324 Λυκίοισι μέτα πρώτοισι; ἐνὶ πρώτοισι],” and who “was needing meat, just as he, as a king, consumes abundant meat [300 κρειῶν, 311 κρέασιν].” Sarpedon’s “return” to the main narrative has not lost all of its leonine echoes, [22] but it is their reappropriation within the context of human civilization that gives to this passage its own distinctive tone. [23] According to Durkheim, society at large is a huge organization based on the principle of classification, which is nothing else than a manifestation of space. [24] Sarpedon’s strong emphasis on the special place reserved for the Lycian kings in the symposium (a communal activity par excellence), as well as the offering of the best portion of food and drink, for all its conventionality, [25] reveals that the banquet is a miniature of society at large, since it reaffirms and solidifies classification and priority even during one of the most relaxed human activities. [26] Being reserved for the elite, the banquet mirrors class structure, dividing individuals into upper classes and commoners. Sarpedon’s specific description of a banquet, though, accentuates an internal, intraconvivial dichotomy between the kings and the other members of the elite. This intensification of the class division reflects a clear spatialization of authority and status, [27] which is immediately paralleled by the spatialized presentation of authority and valor between those fighting in the first ranks and those standing behind, among the mass of warriors. [28] The same is the case, mutatis mutandis, with the apportioning of choice meat and the detail about the kings’ full wine cups. Within the universe of Greek myth, meat constitutes a means of recognizing authority that goes back to older beliefs about sacrifice. [29] By offering a look inside Lycia, and in particular at the secluded and privileged world of a banquet, [30] Sarpedon associates royal identity and obligations (noblesse oblige) not with territory at large (as he has done in the past when he used the motif of “coming from afar”), but with a specific activity of a given social group. Seen from this angle, banquet and war are presented as two parallel and complementary aspects of heroic and royal identity: since the Lycian kings occupy a privileged social space in the former, they also have to occupy an equivalent military space in the latter.

The same is true of the τέμενος (Iliad XII 313–314 καὶ τέμενος νεμόμεσθα μέγα Ξάνθοιο παρ’ ὄχθας, / καλὸν φυταλιῆς καὶ ἀρούρης πυροφόροιο [“‘and we are appointed a great piece of land by the banks of Xanthos, / good land, orchard and vineyard, and ploughland for the planting of wheat’”]). It may be that locating the τέμενος along the banks of Xanthos results from the Iliad’s identification of Lycia with the Xanthos region, that is, by the only landscape feature it is aware of from this geographical area. We should not forget that a τέμενος, like cult in general, [31] is defined locally, [32] and that (as the etymology of the word indicates) these are pieces of land “cut off” and demarcated by boundary stones to keep out the βέβηλοι, literally and metaphorically. In this light, the τέμενος situated along the banks of the river Xanthos, that is, in a fertile area so that it may be used as an “orchard and vineyard, and ploughland for the planting of wheat,” reinforces the notion of exclusive space that we have seen before, translating the traditional diction with which Sarpedon describes the privileged place reserved for the kings in Lycian society into an epic sociology of space.

Compared with Sarpedon and Glaukos, the famous archer Pandaros represents a special case of Lycian identity. How are we to explain his claim that he has come to Troy from distant Lycia (Iliad V 105), even though he has been presented (II 824–827) as the leader of the Trojans coming from Troy’s neighboring city of Zeleia?

Historical interpretations [33] have tried to explain Pandaros’ double identity as reflecting a more general perplexity, stemming from an incomplete conflation of older and more recent traditions linked to a southward movement of a population group coming from the northeast. [34] In this light, the Iliadic tradition may reflect the existence of a small pocket of Lukka people near Troy (in Zeleia), who later moved towards Lycia and were associated with the Lycians. Later on, when “original” Lycians like Sarpedon and Glaukos were introduced in the Trojan saga, they dragged along with them the Trojan-Lycian Pandaros, whose inconsistent  [35] identity in the Iliad—involving an older, stronger Zeleian and a weaker, more recent Lycian connection—reflects the dynamic nature and function of oral song. The conflation of various lays led to a new form of symbiosis, in which the adaptation of older material to later beliefs and practices is only partial, leaving ruptures on the surface of the epic text. [36] It is likely that the Greek oral traditions knew, probably from as early as the late Bronze Age, the ancestors of the Lycians, the Lukka people, who were dispersed in a vast area of western Anatolia and had become for the Greeks a by-word for other Luwian-speaking populations. [37]

Despite its appeal, this theory is unfounded for a number of reasons: First, it is based on the argument that “Lukka” appears first in a list of western Anatolian states that formed the so-called Assuwa Confederacy, an alliance stretching from Lycia in the south to the Troad in the north. This list, though, which has come down to us through the Hittite annals of Tudhaliya I (c. 1420–1400 BC), mentions not Lukka but the “[country of Artu]cca.” [38] Second, the Luwian language is so widespread in the second millennium BC that any special connection with the Lycians is biased, as Lycian is only one dialect of Luwian, next to hieroglyphic Luwian, cuneiform Luwian, and Milyan. Finally, although it is likely that in early Greek poetic memory the Lukka people and the Lycians were associated, at least on the grounds of the similarity of their names, Pandaros’ double identity in the Iliad can be effectively explained internally, with respect to the plot of this epic and the Trojan War saga in general. [39] The important question, though, with respect to our topic is whether, and if so how, the tradition of the Iliad has used Pandaros’ double origin to poetic effect. In other words, it is worth exploring whether Pandaros’ role in the plot is conditioned by his ambiguous identity.

Pandaros features as the leader of the contingent from Zeleia in Iliad II 824–827, where it is explicitly stated that he is in charge of the Trojans who live in Zeleia, a city next to the river Aisepos, at the foot of Mount Ida. He is described as the son of Lukaon and the owner of a bow given to him by Apollo. In IV 100–103, Athena incites Pandaros to break the truce and be the first offender by shooting an arrow at Menelaos. She explicitly tells him that he should pray to the archer-god, Apollo the Lycian, promising to offer him a great sacrifice of lambs upon his return to sacred Zeleia. Pandaros follows her advice, and after praying to Apollo (IV 119–121) shoots an arrow and wounds Menelaos. As a result, the truce is broken, the Trojans being considered the offenders, and fighting resumes. In V 101–105, Pandaros, who has wounded Diomedes, tries to encourage the Trojans, and says explicitly that it was Apollo who brought him to Troy from Lycia. Finally, in Iliad V 169–178 Aineias praises Pandaros by reminding him that he is the best archer in Lycia, and they subsequently decide to attack Diomedes.

A careful examination of these passages shows that Pandaros is not associated with Lycia in general, but only when his excellence as an archer is emphasized. Bryce  [40] argues that Apollo’s epithet Λυκηγενής (Iliad IV 101, 119) means “wolf-born” or “light-born,” and that contrary to the scholia (on Iliad IV 101b1 [T] ἐν Λυκίᾳ γενομένῳ), if it were associated with Lycia it should have been Λυκιηγενής. [41] I disagree with this approach, since the false association works well on a poetic level, in both the figure of Pandaros and Lycia. In other words, the connection between Apollo the archer-god (see Iliad I), [42] Lycian excellence in archery, [43] the Apolline origin of Pandaros’ own bow (minutely described in IV 105–111), [44] and the fact that Pandaros was sent to Troy by Apollo the Lycian and archer-god (V 101–105), constitute a whole nexus of associations pointing to one conclusion: the Iliadic tradition, through a series of historically inaccurate but poetically effective associations, stressed that Pandaros came from Lycia when his skill as an archer was accentuated.

This interpretive suggestion paves the way for one more, significant question: why, after all, did the tradition of the Iliad present Pandaros as an archer? The answer has been partly anticipated by some scholars, but I think we can add one more item to the already rich storehouse of arguments. It has been suggested  [45] that Pandaros is a kind of Paris-like figure in the Iliad, whose poet is well known for his tendency to create partial doublets of certain figures. [46] Pandaros and Paris are associated through their skill as archers; they both receive the help of Apollo in fighting against the Achaeans, Pandaros in the Iliad by means of his bow (which is Apollo’s gift and functions as a link between his own presentation in the Catalogue of Ships and the rest of the epic), [47] and Paris in the Aethiopis where he kills Achilles with the god’s help (§62 Kullmann = 191–192 Severyns = Allen 106.7–9 τρεψάμενος δ’ Ἀχιλλεὺς τοὺς Τρῶας καὶ εἰς τὴν πόλιν συνεισπεσὼν ὑπὸ Πάριδος ἀναιρεῖται καὶ Ἀπόλλωνος); last, and most important, they both break oaths and laws: the former the truce, the later of hospitality. The episode presenting Pandaros breaking the truce and wounding Menelaos, who has almost defeated Paris, is a very strong argument for this interpretation. It is as if the Iliad deliberately creates the conditions for Menelaos’ revenge for Paris’ violation of the laws of hospitality in Sparta and the abduction of Helen, only to keep it suspended and entertain the possibility of reversing it by means of Paris’ doublet, Pandaros, who nearly kills Menelaos. Moreover, when Pandaros and Aineias decide to attack Diomedes and the Achaeans, the picture is enlarged. In Taplin’s words: In this light, the Iliad’s presentation of Pandaros as a famous archer (and famous archers come traditionally from Lycia) falls within the epic’s larger aim of creating a partial doublet of Paris. In Pandaros, the Iliadic tradition has not just thematized geography: it has subordinated it to the larger goal of reenacting the beginning of the Trojan War, by recalling Paris’ violation of the laws of hospitality. This time, Lycia is evoked as a second-level associative allusion, since it shaped the identity of a character (Pandaros) who was then used to conjure up another character (Paris), and in particular his insolent behavior in the events preceding the plot of the Iliad. Space is here the means that enables the association of Pandaros with archery; at a later stage, this association led to a new one with another archer, whose name, and most of all whose role as a violator of oaths, was central to the Trojan War epic tradition.

A certain uneasiness between the Trojans and the Lycians is evident both in the accusations of cowardice Glaukos makes against the Trojans and in Hektor’s subsequent reply. In the midst of the fighting over Patroklos’ body, when Ajax emerges as one of the chief Achaean leaders who struggle to save the corpse from the rage of its slayer, Glaukos rebukes Hektor (Iliad XVII 142–168), threatening to take the Lycians and return home: This is the first time that Hektor will reply to the rebukes of the Lycian leaders. In both Iliad V 493 and XVI 548, he has refrained from responding to Sarpedon and Glaukos respectively. This time, things are very different, since Sarpedon is dead and Glaukos’ accusations aim at exchanging the body and armor of Patroklos for those of Sarpedon (XVII 160–165). This is the only time a mutual exchange of bodies and armor is suggested. [49]

Hektor’s reply begins by expressing his disappointment at Glaukos’ rebukes: In this case, Lycia features in both Glaukos’ and Hektor’s speeches. While the former (as the sole Lycian leader alive after Sarpedon’s death) threatens to take his Lycians and return home, the latter virtually says that he is let down by Glaukos’ bitter words, the more so since he regarded him as the wisest man in Lycia. Both references to Lycia are inscribed within the larger framework of distant places employed as thematized space. Glaukos’ words recall Achilles’ speech in Iliad I, in which he too threatened Agamemnon with the possibility of taking his army and returning to Phthia. Both warriors and leaders of their own armies, the Myrmidons and the Lycians respectively, are (or at least feel) dishonored by their allies for whose sake the war is fought. Hektor is for Glaukos what Agamemnon is for Achilles, that is, the brother of the hero (Paris and Menelaos respectively) who claims Helen as his wife and for whose sake he (Glaukos and Achilles respectively) came to Troy. Both Glaukos and Achilles turn distance into an argument, place into space. Thus they offer a balanced presentation of remote places by tailoring them to their own rhetoric, the rhetoric of an ally who feels betrayed, or at least let down, by those for whom he is fighting this war. A closer look at Achilles’ verbalization of his threat to Agamemnon yields interesting results: The similarities in the diction employed by both Achilles in Iliad I and Glaukos in Iliad XVII indicate that a common pattern is used, which includes the following elements: (1) spatial misdirection is temporarily entertained by means of a potential return home (νῦν δ’ εἶμι Φθίηνδ’, ἐπεὶ ἦ πολὺ φέρτερόν ἐστιν / οἴκαδ’ ἴμεν - νῦν … / οἴκαδ’ ἴμεν); (2) both heroes play with the idea of convincing the army to act, although Achilles uses this theme to rebuke Agamemnon (πῶς τίς τοι πρόφρων ἔπεσιν πείθηται Ἀχαιῶν / ἠ’ ὁδὸν ἐλθέμεναι ἠ’ ἀνδράσιν ἶφι μάχεσθαι), whereas Glaukos employs it with respect to himself (τὼ νῦν, εἴ τις ἐμοὶ Λυκίων ἐπιπείσεται ἀνδρῶν, / οἴκαδ’ ἴμεν).

Given that Achilles’ rebuke of Agamemnon is based on his losing his war-prize (γέρας), and by extension his heroic honor, and that Glaukos’ accusations hurled at Hektor stem from his fear of losing the body and armor of Sarpedon, it becomes clear that Lycia, as the spatialized doublet of Phthia, thematizes heroic concerns and also functions as an “anti-Troy.” This being said, the audience, ancient and modern alike, is invited to realize the sophisticated construction of the Iliadic plot: the initial theme of the epic is so intricately interwoven into its texture that it has almost come full circle.

From this perspective, the idea of exchanging Sarpedon’s body with that of Patroklos reminds the listeners that Glaukos threatens to be a Lycian Achilles, who will abandon his Trojan allies and return home. But just as Achilles’ threat was only a spatial misdirection, so Glaukos’ menace will soon be forgotten. The audience should not fail to remember that although Glaukos has lost his companion Sarpedon, just as Achilles has lost his companion Patroklos, he also lost Sarpedon because of Patroklos and before expressing his threat. The doublet or mirror story is tellingly misleading. Lycia may be considered another Phthia, but Hektor (as the addressee of Glaukos’ rebuke) is not Agamemnon; and certainly Glaukos, who will not even abstain from war, is not a second Achilles. Μῆνις does not become the Lycians.

The episode between Tlepolemos and Sarpedon in Iliad V 627–698, [50] together with a scholium on V 639.1 (bT) referring to the continuous enmity between the Lycians and the Rhodians, has given rise to the theory of a lost Lycian-Rhodian source, a pre-Homeric epic featuring a war between the Lycians and the Rhodians. The theory has numerous and eminent supporters, [51] despite the problems of chronology that stem from it. [52] The Lycian-Rhodian epic saga may well satisfy scholarly excitement concerning the “discovery” of lost sources or even epics, but hardly has a bearing on the function of this episode within the Iliadic plot. Aceti has made this point quite strongly with respect to the importance of the Lycians in the entire Iliad: [53] I do not disagree with a possible Lycian-Rhodian source, though serious difficulties arise when we try to describe it. I simply reiterate Aceti’s observation that the emphasis on both the genealogical link between Sarpedon and Tlepolemos on their paternal side (the former being the son of Zeus, the latter his grandson) and their connection to the city of Ephura on their maternal side (the former through his uncle Bellerophon, the latter through his mother) [55] shows that the Lycian-Rhodian source, if it existed, had been epicized to such an extent that Sarpedon could be incorporated into the Greek heroic world. [56]

This being said, Tlepolemos’ address to Sarpedon is revealing: Tlepolemos’ rhetoric follows a carefully constructed plan: after quickly defaming his opponent’s fighting skills (Iliad V 633–634), he attempts to reject Sarpedon’s divine parentage on the grounds of his enemy’s cowardice (635–637). He then switches from Sarpedon to himself, boasting of his father Herakles [57] who sacked the city of Ilion [58] because of the horses Laomedon had promised but failed to give him (638–642). In the third and last part of his speech, the Rhodian prince adds one important feature to the negative portrait of Sarpedon: he will not be able to save the Trojans, though he comes from Lycia, but will soon be killed at his opponent’s hands (643–646).

The reference to Sarpedon’s coming from Lycia must be interpreted within both the immediate context of the reference to the Trojans and the framework of the antithesis Tlepolemos paints between his own and his enemy’s pedigrees. The phrase ἐλθόντ’ ἐκ Λυκίης is not a mere line-filler, but aims to be heard in contrast with the help Sarpedon was supposed to give to the Trojans. It is as if Tlepolemos is telling Sarpedon that for all his Lycian origin, he cannot help his allies. This line of thought accords with the contrast between the two heroes’ genealogical status in the previous part of the speech. Tlepolemos’ rhetoric aims at the very heart of the Iliadic conception and presentation of the chief Lycian leaders Sarpedon and Glaukos, who as we saw have been “dragged” into the Greek heroic world by virtue of their genealogy and their connection to the city of Ephura. By casting doubt on his opponent’s divine parentage, while emphasizing his own, Tlepolemos tries to deauthorize Sarpedon’s status and prestige: “he cannot possibly be the son of Zeus, since he behaves as a coward.” It is in this context that Lycia is brought into the picture, in an attempt to deprive Sarpedon of his other heroic argument, the one that the Lycians systematically use to praise themselves: namely that they are coming from afar and are fighting not for their own country but for their Trojan allies.

Tlepolemos meticulously rejects all the components of Lycian heroic rhetoric and deauthorizes Sarpedon’s claim to self-esteem and honor. From the Rhodian’s point of view, Lycia is not a thematized space, not a source of pride and glory, not even an argument for heroic valor, but a mere topographical detail, a simple point of geography.

The encounter between Diomedes and Glaukos in Iliad VI includes the most noteworthy reference to Lycia, as the location of part of the embedded story of Bellerophon. [59] Being only a single place within the large mythical landscape delineated by Bellerophon’s hodologically determined adventures, Lycia has to be examined within the complex nexus of this locale’s associations. This being said, attention should be also paid to the general role of space, which seems to play a key role in this episode for two reasons: first because it is clearly inscribed within a genealogical framework, and second because it is marked by the strong antithesis between a limited physical space (the particular area of the battlefield where Diomedes and Glaukos meet) and a vast embedded story space. Given that both Diomedes’ and Glaukos’ insistence on their genealogical pedigrees is a way to acquire authority and legitimization, [60] the extended embedded story space they delineate may be seen as an effort to designate their proper historical space. Genealogies, after all, are maps of both time and space, since they allow the organization of collective memory into temporal and spatial terms and help communities reconsider their identity and shape it in social terms. [61]

The embedded narratives of Diomedes and Glaukos map out a mythical geography extending from Thrace to Ephura, then to Lycia and finally to Aetolia. In particular, the mythological paradigm employed by Diomedes refers to Lukourgos, and takes place on Mount Nuseion in Thrace; the first part of Bellerophon’s story occurs in horse-pasturing Argos and the second part in faraway Lycia; [62] and finally, Diomedes’ reference to the hospitality offered by Oineus to Bellerophon is placed at Kaludon in Aetolia.

The placement of the mythological paradigm of Lukourgos in Mount Nuseion (Νυσήϊον: Iliad VI 133) in Thrace stems both from the studied alliteration of this word with the epic form of Dionysus’ name (Διωνύσοιο) mentioned in the previous verse (Iliad VI 132) and from the general staging of the meeting between Diomedes and Glaukos. Thrace, which (like Phrygia) represents one of the most typical areas from where the cult of Dionysus was diffused in Greece, points to an otherness symbolizing danger and peril, since for the Greeks this region stood metonymically for the unknown, the unexplored, and the irrational. In cases like this, space must be perceived in terms of cultural topography rather than geographical accuracy. In the story of Lukourgos, the landscape emphasizes the notion of otherness even further: the internal setting where Lukourgos’ persecution of Dionysus and his maenads takes place is that of the mountain, of wild, untamed nature, far from the civilized world of the city. The embedded story of Lukourgos sheds light on a peripheral, marginalized, and inhospitable world, [63] from which the haunted god is saved by plunging into the sea, into the welcoming embrace of Thetis.

Seen from this angle, the embedded story space delineated in the parable offered by Diomedes stands in contrast to the story space of the entire scene: the absence of landscape markers in the narrator text has given way to specific markers in character text; these markers pertain both to the Greeks’ notion of cultural geography and to a metonymic polarity between mountain and sea. [64]

The embedded story narrated by Glaukos is divided into two parts, the former taking place in mainland Greece, [65] the latter in Lycia. These two distinct parts are organized around the figure of Bellerophon, who is the common thread among these three different mythical lays which seem to have been imperfectly conflated. The first refers to a king who decided to exile from his kingdom a young hero who could potentially become a threat to his throne; the second is a variant of the well-known story of Potiphar’s wife: [66] the wife of the king falls in love with a younger man, who in some versions is a potential usurper of the throne, and systematically slanders him after he rejects her love offers; the third lay refers to the contests and dangers a hero must overcome in order to be allowed to marry the king’s daughter. The clearly pleonastic explanation of Bellerophon’s exile from Argos (for reasons pertaining to both the first and the second lays), as well as his reward upon his arrival in Lycia, indicate that all three lays have been imperfectly merged into the Iliadic version. The final punishment of Bellerophon is a strong antiphonal echo of the punishment of Lukourgos, both being expressed in a similar formulaic manner: Iliad VI 140 … ἐπεὶ ἀθανάτοισιν ἀπήχθετο πᾶσι θεοῖσιν; VI 200 … καὶ κεῖνος ἀπήχθετο πᾶσι θεοῖσιν. [67]

In the first part of Bellerophon’s story, embedded story space is designated by means of the typologically established opening of an embedded tale: ἔστι πόλις Ἐφύρη μυχῶι Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο (Iliad VI 152). [68] As soon as specific geographical features have been given, a genealogy follows, starting from Sisuphos, continuing with Glaukos (the grandfather of the Iliadic Glaukos) and then with his son Bellerophon, who is characterized as favored by the gods with beauty and manhood. [69] The designation of space, which is done by means of place-names, is invigorated by Bellerophon’s pedigree, and especially by the designation of Sisuphos, son of Aiolos (Iliad VI 154 Σίσυφος Αἰολίδης), as his great-grandfather. [70]

The mention of Proitos recalls one of the three royal families of Argos, [71] the Proitids/Anaxagorids, from whom Sthenelos descends (the other two being the Melampodids and the Biantids, from whom come Eurualos and Diomedes). In Glaukos’ embedded narrative, Argos is more or less the domestic space of the palace of Proitos, from which Bellerophon is exiled. In the second part, space is designated through a series of changes: first the dangerous countryside of Lycia (after a brief scene of ξενία in the palace of the Lycian king, who remains deliberately unnamed) where Bellerophon fights against Khimaira, [72] the Solumoi, the Amazons (the symbol of untamed, savage female nature), and an ambush organized against him by the king of Lycia himself with a group of elite warriors; [73] then, upon Bellerophon’s victory and subsequent marriage to the king’s daughter, the hero moves to friendly space, the best τέμενος offered to him by the people of Lycia; [74] finally, Bellerophon is found, without any explanation on the part of Glaukos who narrates the story, wandering alone in the field of Aleion. [75]

The two parts of the story of Bellerophon constitute a bipolar organization of embedded story space: on the one hand, the historical and mythical geography of mainland Greece and Lycia, and on the other the systematic interplay between friendly and enemy space that continuously alternate: Proitos’ palace—Lycian countryside—fertile τέμενος—Aleion field.

With Diomedes’ final story we are brought back to the civilized world of the palace, though not this time in the Peloponnese, but in the city of Kaludon in Aetolia, in the palace of Diomedes’ grandfather Oineus, who is also known to the Iliadic tradition from the famous mythological example of Meleager. The shift of the action to the palace positively accentuates the theme of ξενία offered to Bellerophon by Oineus, and highlights the importance of the gifts of hospitality (ξεινήϊα), which foreshadow the exchange of gifts between Diomedes and Glaukos at the end of the episode. [76]

Lycia’s function in this episode is conditioned by its integration in a chain of locations comprising a mythical landscape, which connotes a shift of narrative settings on the basis of the following polar opposites:

The staging of the entire meeting of Diomedes and Glaukos is organized on the basis of the interaction between simple story space and embedded story space, which allows for the intersection of two basic themes of the entire episode: the relation between gods and men, and hospitality. Although the mythological example narrated by Diomedes focuses on the predictability and rationalization of divine-human interaction, by implying that divine penalties are imposed on mortals for their disrespect towards the gods, whereas that of Glaukos emphasizes the unpredictability of divine favor and anger, they have as a common denominator the motif of ξενία (hospitality), which is a prerequisite for the establishment of long-term relations and whose violation results in divine punishment. Given that the motif of ξενία [77] is implicitly linked to the place where hospitality will take place, the sophisticated interaction between simple story space and embedded story space in this episode results in their narrative merger, and explains the paradox of a friendly encounter on the field of combat. In particular, the limited simple story space is expanded by the extended embedded story space to such a degree that the former merges with or is even absorbed by the latter, so that the entire scene can end with a ξενία, through the exchange of gifts, and not with a formal duel. The meeting between Diomedes and Glaukos in Iliad VI marks the transformation of the primary military space of the battlefield into the vicarious, secondary space of a ξενία. This transformation, not surprisingly, will be short-lived. When Lycia features outside the mythical landscape of an embedded story, as with Glaukos’ rebuke of Hektor in Iliad XVII 142–168, then things are dramatically different: there is no exchange of weapons or of the corpses of the two fallen heroes Sarpedon and Patroklos. The mythical landscape has given way to the physical reality of the battlefield, where warriors come close only to kill.

The transfer of Sarpedon’s corpse to Lycia by Hupnos and Thanatos is one of the highlights of the Iliad, although one of the most influential schools of Homeric criticism, neonalysis, has argued that it was transferred to the Iliad from the story of Memnon, whose body was also removed from the battlefield by Hupnos and Thanatos, and the Aethiopian hero was subsequently immortalized. This view is based partly on iconographic evidence, [78] though the picture seems to be rather blurred, as Hupnos and Thanatos are shown in iconography sometimes with Sarpedon and sometimes with Memnon. [79] Neoanalysts unanimously argue for the priority of the Memnon story, based on both the fact that Hupnos and Thanatos signify that the deceased’s body will awaken from its sleep and become immortalized (which is true only of Memnon) and the genealogy of Hupnos and Thanatos, who are brothers of Eos, Memnon’s mother. This is sufficient proof of the priority of the Aithiopisstoff, [80] where Hupnos and Thanatos are brothers of Eos and therefore their role is primary, not secondary as with Sarpedon in the Iliad. [81] Clarke and Coulson also favor the same interpretation, [82] arguing that since a number of vases depict the removal of Sarpedon’s body by Hupnos and Thanatos in a manner that does not follow the Iliad (they add other figures not present in the Iliadic rendering of this episode), then it may be that they are following the Memnon story. [83] Burgess, on the other hand, is skeptical, since the genealogy of Hupnos and Thanatos is not unanimous in our sources [84] and the iconographic material does not favor one or the other interpretation. [85] Davies is equally skeptical of the argument supporting the priority of the motif in Memnon’s story, since he thinks that Memnon is already immortalized and hence the removal of his body by Thanatos is paradoxical. [86] There is also another line of reasoning, put forward by West, who argues that Memnon is “a new-comer to mythology, with no accomplishments to his name before he came to Troy and met his death,” [87] and so his story could not have influenced that of Sarpedon. On the contrary, Nagy favors the idea of parallel stories that have grown independently; in this interpretation their similarities are due to the fact that they are thematic variants, each one being what Nagy has labeled, in oralist terminology, a multiform. [88] Aceti argues that similarities detected between certain Iliadic episodes and some elements in the Memnon story should be explained not as the result of imitation of a lost *Memnonis by the Iliad, but as a by-product of the links between the narrative sequences pertaining to the fate of Achilles after the duel with Hektor. [89]

One of the crucial questions surrounding this thorny problem is the role of Lycia, to where Sarpedon’s body is transferred. This aspect of the problem has not been studied before, but is directly relevant to the problem at hand. First, let me reiterate an argument that has passed unnoticed by those who argue for the priority of the Sarpedon story.

J. Kakridis has shown that the delay in the burning of Patroklos’ pyre in Iliad XXIII, which is resolved by Iris’ journey to the Winds, who finally decide to blow, reflects an episode in a pre-Homeric epic tradition (a lost *Achilleis) where the Winds (as children of Eos) refused to burn Achilles’ pyre, since Achilles had killed their brother Memnon (§60 Kullmann = 189 Severyns = Allen 106.5–6). In this epic, “Zeus’ action would be fully justified when ‘to honour Thetis’ he sends a messenger―either Hermes [90] or Iris―and orders the Winds not to leave unburnt the body of the great hero who was the son of a goddess and loved by the gods.” [91] This is a strong argument pointing to the motif of “Eos receiving help from two assistants,” both her sons, the Winds Boreas and Zephuros, and her brothers Hupnos and Thanatos: the former with Achilles’ pyre, the latter with the removal of Memnon’s body. W. Kullmann, in fact, has shown that since we are dealing with the goddess of Dawn (Eos), Hupnos and Thanatos may be representing her temporal aspect, while Boreas and Zephuros her spatial or cosmological one (they are hardly ever placed in the East, where Eos’ seat is). [92] Finally, with respect to the confusing genealogy of Hupnos and Thanatos, Kullmann suggests [93] that we are dealing with the contamination of two distinct mythological ways of thinking: Eos is the daughter of Nux, when the idea of the “course of time” is emphasized, whereas Hupnos and Thanatos are the children of Nux when the notion of “human fate” is highlighted. [94]

If the motif of the removal of Sarpedon’s corpse by Hupnos and Thanatos is secondary to the Iliad and primary to a pre-Homeric epic tradition about Memnon, then the same should be true of the place where the corpse is to be finally deposited. In other words, where was Memnon’s body placed after being removed by Hupnos and Thanatos in the Memnon story? Quintus of Smyrna (Posthomerica 2.585–591) explicitly says that the body was placed along the banks of the river Aisepos, in the beautiful grove of the Nymphs, where the daughters of Aisepos later made a huge σῆμα. This detail becomes all the more interesting given that in the Posthomerica the entire Aethiopean army is removed from the battlefield and covered in divine mist, so as to follow the corpse of their dead king to the streams of the river Aisepos. This last is obviously a late feature of the story, which is reflected in the future metamorphosis of the Aethiopians into birds (Posthomerica 2.643–655). [95] Still, the removal of Memnon’s body to the nearby site of the river Aisepos may indicate that the older mythical material at Quintus’ disposal designated only the place to where Memnon was removed by Eos: a wooded area not far from the battlefield, where she washes his body and anoints and dresses him, [96] as can be seen in the kylix of Pamphaios. This view may be surmised by considering that in contrast with Sarpedon, whose tomb is always located in his homeland Lycia, later sources disagree on the placement of Memnon’s grave on the river Aisepos in Asia Minor, the river Badas in Syria, in Belas, or even in Susa. Some authors say either that there was no grave for Memnon (Philostratus Imagines I 7.2) or that his tomb on the Aisepos is a cenotaph (Aelian On the Nature of Animals V 1). What matters here is the antithesis between the way later sources speak of the graves of two mythical heroes, so closely linked by the motif of the removal of their corpses from the battlefield by Hupnos and Thanatos.

There is, though, one more point to be considered. Given that the place where the first part of the lamentation and caring for the deceased’s body had to be close to the battlefield, Quintus followed the tradition of both the *Memnonis/Aethiopis and the Iliad that the corpses of Memnon and Sarpedon respectively were removed first to a neighboring wooded and watered area (a river). This is a significant detail: it seems that what was done in both the *Memnonis and in the Iliad in two phases—first a transfer by Eos and Apollo respectively to a nearby watered area for the initial caring for the body, and then the same gods’ calling on Hupnos and Thanatos to carry the bodies of Memnon and Sarpedon respectively—has been combined in a single transfer of two groups of people (Memnon and the Aethiopes). [97] In his reconstruction of the plot of the *Memnonis, Schadewaldt suggests that Hupnos and Thanatos transferred Memnon’s corpse to his homeland of Aethiopia, although he does not cite even a single source. He obviously thinks that this would be the only reasonable place for Memnon’s body after his death. Such a view cannot explain the divergence between the unanimous agreement of later sources as to the location of Sarpedon’s grave and the wide disagreement over Memnon’s tomb. Nor does it take into account that the name Sarpedon was known in the Lycian language as zrppudeine [98] and that there was a local tradition narrating the death of Sarpedon at the hands of Tlepolemos in Lycia. [99] In other words, the transfer of Sarpedon’s body to Lycia and the funeral it receives there together with the building of a tomb and a stele is more linked to Sarpedon’s hero-cult than to Memnon’s story. This is because Memnon was immortalized in the *Memnonis, while Sarpedon was not in the Iliad. It was Hera who suggested, against Zeus’ entertaining the possibility of averting Sarpedon’s death, that his body be transferred to Lycia and buried there. Since “hero-cult is a localized phenomenon in archaic Greek religion” [100] and Sarpedon is closely associated in the Iliad with the δῆμος of the Lycians (Iliad XVI 455; 673, cf. XVI 683), it may be that the motif of his transfer by Hupnos and Thanatos does after all reflect the *Memnonis, but the emphasis on Lycia where Sarpedon’s relatives and comrades will give him a proper burial is due to a local tradition. The fate of Memnon’s body is obscure: it apparently had to be transferred somewhere by Hupnos and Thanatos, but the hero’s immortalization (cf. §61 Kullmann = 189–190 Severyns = Allen 106.6–7 καὶ τούτῳ μὲν Ἠὼς παρὰ Διὸς αἰτησαμένη ἀθανασίαν δίδωσι) excludes his homeland, for one cannot be immortalized among the living. In the light of the Aethiopis (§66 Kullmann = 199–200 Severyns = Allen 106.14–15), where Thetis snatches Achilles’ body from the pyre and brings it to the White Island (Λευκὴ νῆσος), it may be that Hupnos and Thanatos carried Memnon’s body beyond the borders of the human world, though I am hesitant about the possibility that both Memnon and Achilles would be immortalized on the White Island. Perhaps the Islands of the Blessed (Μακάρων νῆσοι) are a good alternative. [101]

In the scene of the transfer of Sarpedon’s body by the twins Hupnos and Thanatos, Lycia plays a role determined by Sarpedon’s hero-cult, and reflects a tradition about his burial in Lycia after his death at the hands of the Rhodian Tlepolemos, in a local epic lay featuring the struggles between Lycians and Rhodians. [102] Lycia in this scene is the space of a hero’s future cult, the space where sleep and death, that is, fainting and dying, will cease to operate not by the immortalization of Zeus’ son, as with Memnon and Achilles, but through a cultural process, namely the tomb and σῆμα that his countrymen will built for him. The removal of a hero’s body after his death does not guarantee immortalization; it is the difference between human and semidivine space that does.

Having explored the function of place-names in the Iliad, we can summarize the results of our analysis briefly as follows:

1. The CS and the CT&A represent the main section of the epic in which the narrator reserves the use of place-names for himself. In this globalizing view of the Greek and Trojans-and-allies worlds, he offers a programmatic outlook in the Iliad by associating heroes with specific geographical regions. By combining two mental processes, the map and the tour, the storyteller is able to present a panorama of the forces involved in the war at the lowest possible cognitive cost.
2. Having accomplished this task, the storyteller lets the characters of the plot, much more often than he does himself, employ place-names in their speeches. Embedded story space is thus left to the various heroes, who function as cognizers, thinking agents whose epic storage determines the way they act in the story-world. In this light, place-names are transformed from mere locations on a map into thematized spaces by means of which each hero’s epic-mythical agenda is channeled into the Iliad. Phthia, Argos, Pylos, and Boeotian Thebes on the one hand, and the Troad and Lycia on the other are not just places linked to key figures of the plot. To a large extent, they constitute an integral part of the personalities of Achilles, Agamemnon, Nestor, Diomedes-Sthenelos, Hektor, Sarpedon, and Glaukos respectively. Being embedded in typical dichotomies of κλέος and νόστος and praise and blame, geography is turned into space that represents each hero’s “epic home,” the notional center around which his past, present, and future constantly evolve.