[gothic-l] Danaoi, Illiad

Thu Jul 5 19:57:12 UTC 2001

Hi all,
--- In gothic-l at y..., "Nikolai" <gothologist at y...> wrote:
> "Homer wasn't the only author to use the term Danai (or 
> actually "Danaoi").  He may have the overwhelming majority of 
> instances, but check out this list of search results. 
> http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/psearch?phrase=%2Adanaoi%
> 2F&auth=Perseus%3Acorpus%3Aperseus%2CGreek%20Texts&lang=greek
Great Site!, I haven't had the time to go through all the hits yet, 
but from what I looked at, until now I haven't (yet) found a passage 
where the term danaoi is used for greeks in general, except in 
connection with the trojan war.

However, here it seems as if the term is used as an opposite to the 
achaeans and Menelaos (Or am I misunderstading the passage 
completely?):
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Eur.+Hel.+1122
**
Many of the Achaeans have breathed out their last amid the spears and 
hurling stones and have gone to unhappy Hades; their wives have cut 
off their hair in sorrow, [1125]  and their homes are left without a 
bride; an Achaean man, who had only a single ship, lit a blazing 
beacon on sea-girt Euboia, and destroyed many of them, casting them 
onto the rocks of Kaphareus [1130]  and the sea-shores of the Aegean, 
by the treacherous flame he kindled. The mountains of Malea provided 
no harbor, in the gusts of the storm, when Menelaos sped far away 
from his country, bearing on his ships a prize of the barbarian 
expedition, no prize but strife [1135]  with the Danaans, Hera's holy 
phantom
**

Opposite to the achaeans is also what the danes/danai/daci say their 
ancestors were, according to Dudo since "boast that they are 
descending from Antenor."
Regardless whether the Illiad is truth or not, at least this is what 
they seem to wish to point out( if Dudo is not lying). Homers use 
of "Danaoi" does complicate things a bit, but to me it looks like 
Homer in using D. for the greeks is trying to make the greeks look 
more honourable in using the name for the apparently ruling type of 
tribe ( Dan-), just as the Hebrews did and later possibly the 
Danes.     

I also fond this:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?
doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0004:id%3Dtenea
*Tenea
town of Argolis: Paus. 2.5.4
inhabitants claim to be Trojans: Paus. 2.5.4*

Argolis is the area where Danaos is said to have ended up.

What language(s) the Danaans originally spoke is of course hard to say
( I learn from AncientBibleHistory among other sources), (but I have 
my theories). They could have spoken greek or some other language. 
Only In Crete e.g were spoken quite a few languages according to 
Homer, among others eteocretan, which we do not know "anything" about 
yet( although lots of people have many different theories). I think 
the most accepted theory is that the Dan Sea people were at least 
bilingual and then began to speak the local language wherever they 
came.

BTW according to Snorri 12( #12 again)languages were spoken in Troy. 
He(or someone else) also gives away the geneaology of "Priamus" in 
the Ole Wormius manuscript of the prologue of the Edda: Saturnus-
Jupiter-Dardanus-Herikon-Lamedon. Here Saturnus and Jupiter comes 
from "Krit".
Also a very interesting mix of the Io and Europa/Pasiphae myths  can 
be found here.

I translate from Åke Ohlmarks swedish translation:

* 
Once he (Saturnus)went by ship to Greece, for there was a king's 
daughter, which he fancied. He got her in such a way, that one day 
when she was out whith her maids, then he turned himself into a yong 
bull an lay on her way in the fores, so fair that it shone of gold of 
each of his hairs. when the king's daughter saw him she stroke him by 
the nose beard, but then he quickly rose and threw off the bull's 
disguise and carried her to the ship and sailed home with her to 
Krit. This his wife Juna got to know about; then he turned the girl 
into a heifer and sent her eastwards to the arms of the River, where 
a slave by the name of Argulus was put to watch her. There she was 
for twelve months, before he arranged for her to come back again.
* 

The interesting thing about this is:
Why the heck  is everything taking place on Crete, and not in Greece, 
which would be more natural if the person who wrote this had used the 
most common sources for these myths? 
He could possibly have used bits of the cretan version/ the Pasiphae 
myth but I haven't read anywhere else that Saturnus were from (or on) 
Crete!
And why Crete in particular?

And another (off topic) quetion for the listmembers:
I read in "Nordisk familjebok" that Dan(n) in Dannebrogen is said to 
possibly mean "red" (and brog "piece of cloth")and  Dan in 
Danmark, "plain (wet)ground" (mark; "forest(ed)"). 
Can someone pleas help me with more sources on this? Or tell me if 
it's completely wrong?

I'm beginning to investigate a (VERY PERSONAL) theory that the 
ethymology could be linked to the that of the Edom domain in Canaan 
i. e. from words meaning "red colour" and , "ground" like the 
hebrew  'adam.
"The plain of Adana" in the Karatepe inscription could be one of the 
pieces in the puzzle in that case.

N>M transitions does seem to be very common in both semitic and 
germanic languages.  

tangentially

Anders M

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