Trojan Battle Order

The Trojan Battle Order or Trojan Catalogue is a section of the second book of the "Iliad" [Lines 816-877.] 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.

Historicity question

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" Harv|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 Harv|Page|1963|pp=137-139.

Some examples of Mycenaean knowledge are Harv|Page|1963|pp=141-143:
*Alybe in the catalog is the birthplace of silver, yet Hecataeus, the Ionian geographer, does not know where it is.
*The catalog mentions Mount Phthires near Miletus and the Maeander. Hecataeus supposes it was the prior name of Latmus.

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 Harv|Page|1963|p=140:
*Of the 26 Trojans in the catalog, only 5 appear among the Iliad's 216.
*The major Trojan leaders: Priam, Paris, Helenus and a few others do not appear in the catalog at all.
*In catalog Β858 [Standard scholarly convention letters the books of the Iliad with capital letters and of the Odyssey with small.] Mysians are commanded by Chromis and Ennomos; in Ξ511 ff. by Gyrtios.
*In catalog Β858 the Mysians live in Asia Minor; in Ν5, Thrace.
*In catalog Β827 Apollo gives Pandaros his bow; in Δ105 ff it is made by a craftsman.

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" Harv|Burgess|2004|p=138.

Analyses

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".Harv|Kirk|1985|p=250. The allied contingents are said to have spoken multiple languages, requiring orders to be translated by their individual commanders. [Β803-806. Kirk considers this "quite fantastic" Harv|Kirk|1985|p=245 though it seems a normal feature of fighting forces brought together from several nationalities.] 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. [The lingua franca would have been Luwian, though the poet has no name for it. Alternatively, Carian may earn this epithet as the most familiar foreign ("barbarian") language to a Greek of the eastern Aegean when the "Iliad" was composed Harv|Dalby|2006|p=132.]

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. [Strabo, "Geography" book 13.]

The catalogue in detail

The catalogue lists sixteen contingents from twelve different ethnonyms under 26 leaders Harv|Luce|1975. They lived in 33 places identified by toponyms.

Notes

References

*Harvard reference| Surname=Burgess | Given=Jonathan | Title=The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic | Publisher=John Hopkins University Press | Place=Baltimore | Year=2004 | ISBN=0801866529
*Harvard reference | Surname=Dalby | Given=Andrew | Title=Rediscovering Homer | Publisher=Norton | Place=New York, London | Year=2006 | ISBN=0393057887
*Harvard reference | Surname=Kirk | Given=G. S. | Authorlink=G. S. Kirk | Title=The Iliad: a commentary. Vol. 1: books 1-4 | Publisher=Cambridge University Press | Place=Cambridge | Year=1985 | ISBN=0521281717
*Harvard reference | Surname=Luce | Given=J. V. | Title=Homer and the Homeric Age | Publisher=Harper & Row | Place=New York | Year=1975 | ISBN=0060127228
*
*Harvard reference | Surname=Rieu | Given=E. V., tr. | Authorlink=E. V. Rieu | Title=Homer: The Iliad | Publisher=Penguin | Place=Harmondsworth, Baltimore | Year=1950
*Watkins, Calvert, "The language of the Trojans" in "Troy and the Trojan War: a symposium held at Bryn Mawr College, October 1984" ed. M. J. Mellink (Bryn Mawr, 1986).

See also

* Catalogue of Ships