Pre-Dorian geography in the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships

In ancient Greek legend, a series of migrations took place in between the Trojan War and the time of the 'now'. Here we look at how these migrations are reverted -- 'de-migrated' -- in the Catalogue of Ships in Iliad book 2.

Re-recording for YouTube of a paper given at the ASCS 39 Conference, Feb. 2017.

[DiomedesDioscuro]

Come on, pronouncing toponyms in modern Greek is not serious.

[YnEoS]

Algorithm waited 2 years to send this video out?

[kevinmurphy]

Great, at 62 I'm gonna have to read the Iliad and the Odyssey AGAIN!!! LOL. Well Done!

[lordofthemound]

The thing I always found fascinating about the Catalog of Ships is how out-of-place it seems—there is nothing else like it in Homer. That was, until I learned that lists such as this were exactly the type of writings found in Linear B. Could the Catalog of Ships be an actual pre-Dark Ages remnant that Homer (whoever he/they were) incorporated into the epic? Or, more likely, a deliberate pastiche of those documents?

[ibunjaku]

By far the best presentation, par excellence, to date.
A first-rate analysis of ancient history.
Thank you, gentlemen.
I enjoyed so much, so I could listened and watched, and reviewed with you for days.
The most educational and argumentative presentation I've heard and observed to date, it's magnificent.
Thank you again.

[goBadgersright]

Fascinating! Great use of visuals with outstanding narration. So interesting that they thought they knew, but we know that they didn’t know and we don’t know yet either.

[NikephorosAer]

Great, Sir ! what a lesson... Everything analysed and then synthesied rationally and simple. A Greek friend,
Demetrios Maniates.

[pattheplanter]

Those 186 ships weren't bothered about Helen, they just wanted a trip to foreign parts to get some nice new vegetables, medicinal herbs and fruit for their gardens. The war was a convenient excuse.

[giffica]

Fantastic video, and really well laid out. Do you have more on this subject I could watch/read? Historiography of Greek myths is a underdeveloped subject.

[xHASSUNAx]

I love how the monotony is aggressively British

[-_Nuke_-]

Kiwi Hellenist

Thank you so much! For pronouncing Greek cities correctly! I just subscribed for that reason alone.

[brunoparracho]

Thank you so much for this video, I love to learn about tribes migrations

[nmvhr]

I love the world. I was literally searching for this exact information just now.

[MeatGoblin]

Sir please write a book arguing against the historicity of the Iliad. You mentioned how there aren't any homer skeptic books in English because publishers don't want to touch them and people don't want to have their cope crushed.

[billthomas]

Thanks for the presentation. I hadn't thought much about the catalogue of ships before but I did read through it when I read a translation of the Iliad a few years ago. One thing I noticed from the Odyssey is that Homer seems to know something about the "sea people" invasions of Egypt based on the story that Menelaus tells Telemachus and also the story Odysseus tells the swineherd. Both stories are not far from the Egyptian accounts.

[neilreynolds]

They mostly ignore the Catalogue? How odd. It's fascinating on the face of it but you've added a whole other layer. Bravo!

[johnking]

Wonderful study of the early migrations of the Med, it fits nicely with the overall age of the Sea people stories, excellent video. Thx. Greek mythology was my early key to history. 👍

[BBQDad]

Thank you for this video. I will need to watch it a few more times. Fascinating. Subscribed.

I had no idea about the multiplicity of ethnicities in the Grecian region.

Truth to tell, I thought it was just Athens, Sparta, and "other Greeks."

[michaireneuszjakubowski]

First time seeing this gem. Instant like and subscribe, as well as a comment for the algorithm!

[panosts]

Great video and a good effort to understand the geography and the different tribes of Greeks during the Trojan war. The mistake everyone makes, is that they see archaic Greece geographically the same as classical known Greek city states, based on literature, so they see from Thesally and below. First of all, before Greeks called themselves Hellenes (and that came way later and not during ancient times, with one exception Leonidas), they called themselves Pelasgoi. The area the different tribes of Pelasgoi occupied were all the coastline of Greece and Asia Minor plus the islands of the Aegean. In the main land the old tribe of Arkadians were in Peloponnese, Macedonians on the North, Thracians North East and we have variations during the time and change of names during the centuries to the rest of mainland Greece. One is Graies (Graia means the old one) the name that the latins gave to all the Greeks for example. Achaioi and Ionians plus Aiolians are the main names as you presented. They do migrations from North to South and from West to East. Much later they do the same but this time from East to West and from South to North. So Achaioi for example occupy Crete at some time in the past before Trojan war and Peloponnese as well. All forget their previous name Pelasgoi and stick to the new ones Ioanian, Achaioi, Aiolians. So they stick to their group. After the Trojan war, Herodotus tells us that the troops returning from the war, called themselves Dorians and pillaged around Greece. After the dark ages (1200 to 800), they don't use those names anymore but they use the name of their city state or the regional name. Only Macedonians and Thracians kept their tribal names. By the way, Thracians and Asia Minor were allies with Troy, Thessaly and the southern mainland were with Achaioi and Macedonians because they were in the middle, they were Neutral. We know from other sources their answers for not participating the war. Same goes for Cyprus. The list of ships for many scholars, is a much more ancient list that Homer used for his poem. And actually we know 2 poets before Homer who wrote about the Trojan war but their work didn't survived. Another good source of info is the Cypriot epics (I don't know if the translation is correct). Trojan war was a great civil war, that changed the history of the Greek tribes but also the eastern Mediterranean, cause we know that Hittites participated on the side of Troy and after the fall, Achaioi went on an expedition and pillaged around the eastern Mediterranean sea. For me it's no surprise that we have the bronze age collapse during that time. Eastern Mediterranean was on fire.
Now about the name Hellenes. One of the tribes in Thessaly called themselves Hellenes and we see that from that list of ships. There are also Panhellenes in that list. And actually there is a city in central Greece called Hellas that participated. So they had the name of one of the kids of Defkalion.
Macedonia during that time was way smaller than today or during Alexander the Great, regionally speaking. Most of the area was called Thrace. In there (but now in Macedonia region) there was a city called Europa and were allies with the Trojans.
Please check about the things I wrote you. You will be amazed and probably you will change the way you look at some things that happened in history. And for sure make a video.