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The Trojan Battle Order or Trojan Catalogue is an epic catalogue in the second book of the Iliad [1] listing the allied contingents that fought for Troy in the Trojan War. The catalogue is noted for its deficit of detail compared to the immediately preceding Catalogue of Ships, which lists the Greek contingents, and for the fact that only a few of the many Trojans mentioned in the Iliad appear there.
Structurally the Trojan Battle Order is evidently inserted to balance the preceding Catalogue of Ships. It is, however, much shorter. Denys Page summarizes the prevailing explanation that "the Catalogues are substantially Mycenaean compositions rather expanded than altered by the Ionians" ( Page 1963 , pp. 153–154). Noting that the Greek catalogue occupies 265 lines but the Trojan catalogue only 61, Page wonders why the Ionian authors know so little about their native land and concludes they are not describing it but are reforming poetry inherited in oral form from Mycenaean times ( Page 1963 , pp. 137–139).
Some examples of Mycenaean knowledge are ( Page 1963 , pp. 141–143):
There is also some internal evidence that the Trojan catalogue was not part of the Iliad but was a distinct composition pre-dating the Trojan War and incorporated later into the Iliad( Page 1963 , p. 140):
Page cites several more subtle instances of the disconnectedness of the Trojan catalog from the Iliad; neither is it connected to the catalog of Greek forces. Another like it appears in the Cypria ( Burgess 2004 , p. 138).
The catalogue lists 16 contingents from 12 ethnonyms under 26 leaders ( Luce 1975 ). They lived in 33 places identified by toponyms.
| Line | Ethnic Identity | Leaders | Settlements |
|---|---|---|---|
| II.815 | Trojans | Hector | None stated (Troy) |
| II.819 | Dardanians | Aeneas, Archelochus, Acamas | None stated. |
| II.824 | Trojans of Mt. Ida | Pandarus | Zeleia |
| II.828 | No name given | Adrestus, Amphius | Adresteia, Apaesus, Pityeia, Mount Tereia |
| II.835 | No name given | Asius | Percote, Practius, Sestus, Abydus, Arisbe |
| II.840 | Pelasgians, who were spearmen | Hippothous, Pylaeus | Larissa |
| II.844 | Thracians bounded by the Hellespont | Acamas, Peiroüs | None stated. |
| II.846 | Ciconians, who were spearmen | Euphemus | None stated. |
| II.848 | Paeonians, archers, "from far away" | Pyraechmes (Asteropaios is also recognized as a leader in book XXI) | Amydon, river Axius |
| II.851 | Paphlagonians | Pylaemenes of the Eneti | Cytorus, Sesamus, along the river Parthenius, Cromna, Aegialus, Erythini |
| II.856 | Halizones "from far away" | Odius, Epistrophus | Alybe |
| II.858 | Mysians | Chromis, Ennomus | None stated. |
| II.862 | Phrygians | Phorcys, Ascanius | "Far-off" Ascania |
| II.864 | Maeonians | Mesthles, Antiphus | Under Mt. Tmolus |
| II.867 | Carians | Nastes, Amphimachus | Miletus, Mt. Phthires, streams of the Maeander, crest of Mycale |
| II.875 | Lycians "from far away" | Sarpedon, Glaucus | River Xanthus |
The list includes the Trojans themselves, led by Hector, and various allies. As observed by G. S. Kirk, it follows a geographical pattern comparable to that of the Greek catalogue, dealing first with Troy, then with the Troad, then radiating outwards on four successive routes, the most distant peoples on each route being described as "from far away" ( Kirk 1985 , p. 250). The allied contingents are said to have spoken multiple languages, requiring orders to be translated by their individual commanders. [3] Nothing is said of the Trojan language; the Carians are specifically said to be barbarian-speaking, possibly because their language was distinct from the contemporaneous lingua franca of western Anatolia. [4]
The classical Greek historian Demetrius of Scepsis, native of Scepsis in the hills above Troy, wrote a vast study of the "Trojan Battle Order" under that title (Greek Trōikos diakosmos). The work is lost; brief extracts from it are quoted by Athenaeus and Pausanias, while Strabo cites it frequently in his own discussion of the geography of northwestern Anatolia. [5]
The Achaeans or Akhaians is one of the names in Homer which is used to refer to the Greeks collectively.
The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the 12th or 13th century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology, and it has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's Iliad. The core of the Iliad describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes. Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Roman poets including Virgil and Ovid.
Calchas is an Argive mantis, or "seer," dated to the Age of Legend, which is an aspect of Greek mythology. Calchas appears in the opening scenes of the Iliad, which is believed to have been based on a war conducted by the Achaeans against the powerful city of Troy in the Late Bronze Age.
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor. It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west, and the Propontis on the north. In ancient times it was inhabited by the Mysians, Phrygians, Aeolian Greeks and other groups.
The Carians were the ancient inhabitants of Caria in southwest Anatolia, who spoke the Carian language.
Mysians were the inhabitants of Mysia, a region in northwestern Asia Minor.
Thebe Hypoplakia, also Cilician Thebe and Placian Thebe, was a city in ancient Anatolia. Alternative names include Placia, Hypoplacia and Hypoplacian Thebe(s), referring to the city's position at the foot of Mount Placus. Near the local village "Tepeoba".
In Greek mythology Phthia was a city or district in ancient Thessaly. It is frequently mentioned in Homer's Iliad as the home of the Myrmidons, the contingent led by Achilles in the Trojan War. It was founded by Aeacus, grandfather of Achilles, and was the home of Achilles' father Peleus, mother Thetis, and son Neoptolemus.
The Caucones were an autochthonous tribe of Anatolia, who later migrated to parts of the Greek mainland.
The Leleges were an aboriginal people of the Aegean region, before the Greeks arrived. They were distinct from another pre-Hellenic people of the region, the Pelasgians. The exact areas to which they were native are uncertain, since they were apparently pre-literate and the only references to them are in ancient Greek sources. These references are casual and sometimes fictitious. Likewise, little is known about the language of the Leleges.
The Catalogue of Ships 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. 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.
The Epic Cycle was a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems, composed in dactylic hexameter and related to the story of the Trojan War, including the Cypria, the Aethiopis, the so-called Little Iliad, the Iliupersis, the Nostoi, and the Telegony. Scholars sometimes include the two Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, among the poems of the Epic Cycle, but the term is more often used to specify the non-Homeric poems as distinct from the Homeric ones.
The Dardanoi were a legendary people of the Troad, located in northwestern Anatolia. The Dardanoi were the descendants of Dardanus, the mythical founder of Dardanus, an ancient city in the Troad. A contingent of Dardanians figures among Troy's allies in the Trojan War. Homer makes a clear distinction between the Trojans and the Dardanoi, however, "Dardanoi"/"Dardanian" later became essentially metonymous–– or at least is commonly perceived to be so–– with "Trojan", especially in the works of Vergil such as the Aeneid.
The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and their historicity. The subject has its roots in classical antiquity and the scholarship of the Hellenistic period, but has flourished among Homeric scholars of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
The historicity of the Iliad or the Homeric Question has been a topic of scholarly debate for centuries. While researchers of the 18th century had largely rejected the story of the Trojan War as fable, the discoveries made by Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik reopened the question. The subsequent excavation of Troy VIIa and the discovery of the toponym "Wilusa" in cuneiform Hittite correspondence has made it plausible that the Trojan War cycle was at least remotely based on a historical conflict of the 12th century BC, even if the poems of Homer remembered the event only through the distortion of four centuries of oral tradition.
Ithaca was, in Greek mythology, the island home of the hero Odysseus. The specific location of the island, as it was described in Homer's Odyssey, is a matter for debate. There have been various theories about its location. Modern Ithaca has traditionally been accepted to be Homer's island.
Hyria is a toponym mentioned in Homer's Catalogue of Ships, where the leading position in the list is given to the contingents from Boeotia, where Hyria and stony Aulis, where the fleet assembled, lead the list.
Hestiaea of Alexandria, also Hestiaea, was a scholar who wrote a treatise on Homer's Iliad that discussed the question whether the Trojan War was fought near the city then called Ilium, and which was cited by Demetrius of Scepsis. None of her work is extant.
In Greek mythology, Sarpedon was a son of Zeus, who fought on the side of Troy in the Trojan War. Although in the Iliad, he was the son of Zeus and Laodamia, the daughter of Bellerophon, in the later standard tradition, he was the son of Zeus and Europa, and the brother of Minos and Rhadamanthus, while in other accounts the Sarpedon who fought at Troy was the grandson of the Sarpedon who was the brother of Minos.
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