Myths on Maps

I have checked from Iliad 2.1 to Iliad 2.485, where the Catalogue of Ships starts, to see if the terms "Achaeans," "Argives," "Danaans" and "Trojans" are reflecting and preserving the actual terms used in the Greek text. This is the case almost all of the time. I checked dozens of instances of "Achaeans" et al. in the Butler translation, and found only two cases where the English term was not an translation of the appropriate corresponding Greek term. At Il. 2.15, "Achaeans" is used to translate the Greek for Argives (Άργείοισιν), and at Il. 2.390, "Achaeans" is used for the Greek "Argives" again (Άργεῖοι).

When one of the Greek group names is used in the Greek text, it is not always reflected in the English translation. For example, it might be translated "the people" or "the army," or it might be omitted entirely. This is usually only done when the same term has been used in the Greek shortly before, and avoids repetition in the English translation. Therefore, although English does not reflect every single instance of each Greek term, it does give a fairly accurate sense of the frequency of each term and the environment in which each term appears.

I think it is worthwhile to preserve the distinction between these terms by listing them as separate groups, rather than merging them into one group and calling the other terms akas. It would still be useful, however, to have a way to see and refer to the Greek forces at Troy collectively. Is there a way to make them sub-groups of a group called "Greeks," for example?

As it stands in the Iliad, whenever someone is referred to as the "son of X," "X" is marked up, but "son" is not. This means that in a reference to, for example, "the son of Kronos," although Kronos' (dubious) presence in the text is signalled, Zeus' presence is not signalled, although he is the actual referrent of the expression "son of Kronos."

To solve this problem, I have decided that for the Iliad, where characters are very frequently referred to by their patronyms, phrases like "son of X" should be marked up to point to the son, and the markup that points to the father should be taken out. The father should show up in the son's family relationships.

The situation is Apollodorus is different, and the same approach should not be taken. Because Apollodorus is very often explicity describing genealogical relationships and is very concerned with genealogy, it is appropriate to mark up both parent and child separately in the phrase "son of X". Apollodorus does not use the phrase "son of X" to identify someone in lieu of their name, but in order to explain the genealogy of a person who has already been identified by name, as in "Bellerophon, son of Glaucus".

To be totally clear: in the Iliad, when "X, son of Y" shows up, both X and Y should be marked up on their own. But, as frequently happens, when the phrase is just "son of Y," and the name of X is not given in anywhere near the phrase, then "son of Y" should be marked up with the identity of X.

I will start making this change in Iliad 2.