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[German version] [1] Name of one or more Greek tribes (Αἰολεῖς; Aioleîs). Gschnitzer, Fritz (Heidelberg) [German version] A. Etymology A. (Sg. Aioleus), older form Aiwolēwes (Sg. Aiwoleus), is the name of one or several Greek tribes and its (their) members, of which the first mention is probably in a late Mycenean text found in Cnossus (Ws 1707) and then next in Hesiod (Op. 636; fr. 9 M.-W.). The name of the tribe and the mythological personal name   Aeolus are both derived from the adjective αἰ()όλος, which was already in use in Mycenean times (as the name of a bull a3-wo-ro/ Aiwolos/KN Ch 8…

[German version] (Γραί; Graí, Γραικοί; Graikoí). In Latin the Greeks were called Graei (singular Graius) and (often in a form expanded by the ethnicon suffix -ko) Graeci. It seems reasonable that this name was originally applied to a tribe neighbouring an Italic one, i.e. probably a north-western Greek tribe. It is identified as the Graikoí of Thessaly who disappeared at an early date. Their eponym Graecus was considered by some to be a son of a sister of Hellen (Hes. Cat. 5), so that the Graikoí were not Greeks but their near relatives (much as according to Hes. Cat. 7 the Magn…

[German version] [1] H., Hellenes (Ἑλλάς; Hellás, Ἕλληνες; Héllēnes). The Hellenes (Homeric Ἕλλανες, Ionic-Attic Ἕλληνες) were a tribe in southern Thessaly at the time of Homer, more precisely, or at the most, confined to the area around the river Spercheus, the country named Hellas (Ἑλλάς) after them, adjacent to the territory of Phthia (Hom. Il. 2,683f.; 9,395, 447, 478; 16,595; Hom. Od. 11,496). Ancient and modern speculation that the Hellenes had originally settled around  Dodona are based on the un…

[German version] (Ἑλλοπία; Hellopía) is the name in the early Archaic period for the area around  Dodona and the modern Ioannina (Hes. Cat. 240), later a region in northern Euboea (Hdt. 8,23,2; Str. 10,1,3f.), a city of the  Dolopes and a valley near Thespiae in  Boeotia (Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἑ.). The Aetolian town of Hellopium (Pol. 11,7,4) can perhaps be equated with the H. of the Dolopians. These names are evidence of the settlings and wanderings of the Hellopes, a lost tribe, named only by Plin. HN 4,2 among the people of  Epirus, probably based on scholarly reconstruction. Gschnitzer, Fritz…

[German version] (Δωριεῖς; Dōrieîs, ‘Dorians’). The name D., documented in the Mycenaean as yet only in the personal name Dōrieús, describes in the Classical period on the one hand the inhabitants of a small nation state in central Greece in the uppermost section of the Cephissus valley, and on the other hand the entirety of the inhabitants ─ who according to legend set off from there ─ of the eastern and southern Peloponnese (Argolis with Sicyon, Corinth, Megara and Aegina, Laconice and Messenia), of the islands …

[German version] (Ἐρασῖνος; Erasînos). Name of several rivers in Greece, listed by Strabo (8,6,8): at Eretria in Euboea, Brauron in Attica, Bura in Achaea and in the south-western part of the plain of Argos. The last-named river, which is only some 5 km long but carries abundant water, takes the underground outflow from Lake Stymphalus, 35 km distant as the crow flies: this was already known in antiquity (Hdt. 6,76,1), and has now been confirmed by experiment. Gschnitzer, Fritz (Heidelberg) Bibliography R. Baladié, Le Péloponnèse de Strabon, 1980, 103ff.

[German version] (Λέλεγες; Léleges). Name of a non-Greek people in the early history of Greece and Asia Minor, attested from Homer, Hesiod and Alcaeus, primarily, however, in the historical and mythological literature from the classical period. At the beginning there were memories of a historical people with certain settlement areas; Greek scholars then shifted the people, because they were non-Greek (= pre-Greek), to the distant past beyond all the traditions so that the L. and their appellation L…

[German version] (Ἴωνες, Ionians). Name of a Greek tribe (older form Iāwones), first attested in a Cnossus text (B 164, l. 4) probably as the name of a foreign troop of warriors. Homer (Il. 13,685) applies the name to the Athenians, the Delphic hymn to Apollo (H. Hom. 5,147-155) refers to the Delphic festive gathering of the I., in the Amphiktyonia I. is the name of the tribe which is represented by Athens and the Euboean cities. In further sources of the archaic and classical periods I. in the narrower se…

[German version] (Πελασγοί/ Pelasgoí; Latin Pelasgi). People of archaic Greece and perhaps north-western Asia Minor, definitely Crete (Hom. Od. 19,177), Thessaly (from the name of the Thessalian Pelasgiotis and the expression τὸ Πελασγικὸν Ἄργος/ tò Pelasgikòn Árgos, Hom. Il. 2,681) and Epirus (reference to the Zeus of Dodona as 'Pelasgian', cf. Hom. Il. 16,233, cf. Hes. fr. 319 M.-W.). The P., who helped the Trojans (Troy) in the Iliad (Hom. Il. 2,840ff.; 10,429; 17,288ff.), cannot be precisely located; their capital, Larisa, may be the Pelasgiotic Larisa (whic…

[German version] (Δυμᾶνες; Dumânes). On the one hand, this name is borne by one of the three old Dorian phyles (D., Hylleis and Pamphyli); on the other, it is that of a small community in western Locris, probably in the vicinity of Physcus [2]. Both may go back to a tribe of this name from north-western Greece, the larger part of which in prehistoric times joined the  Dorieis, while a splinter group went up into western Locris. Gschnitzer, Fritz (Heidelberg) Bibliography 1 L. Lerat, Les Locriens de l'Ouest 1, 1952, 28f.