TheLeleges (/ˈlɛlɪdʒiːz/;Ancient Greek:Λέλεγες) were an aboriginal people of theAegean region, before theGreeks arrived. They were distinct from another pre-Hellenic people of the region, thePelasgians. The exact areas to which they were native are uncertain, since they were apparently pre-literate and the only references to them are in ancient Greek sources. These references are casual and (it is alleged) sometimes fictitious.[1] Likewise, little is known about the language of theLeleges.
Many Greek authors link the Leleges to theCarians of south-west Anatolia.[2]Homer names the Leleges among theTrojan allies alongside the Carians, Pelasgians,Paeonians andGaucones.[3]
It is thought that the nameLeleges is anexonym, in a long-extinct language, rather than an endonym (or autonym). That is, during theBronze Age the wordlulahi apparently meaning "strangers" was used in theLuwian language and in otherAnatolian languages. For example, in aHittite cuneiform inscription, priests and temple servants are directed to avoid conversing withlulahi and foreign merchants.[4][dubious –discuss] According to the suggestion ofVitaly Shevoroshkin, an attempt to transliteratelulahi into Greek might result inleleges.[citation needed]
Late traditions reported in Pseudo-Apollodorus,Bibliotheke,[5] and byPausanias,[6] derive the name from aneponymous kingLelex; a comparable etymology, memorializing a legendary founder, is provided by Greek mythographers for virtually every tribe of Hellenes: "Lelex and the Leleges, whatever their historical significance, have acted as a blank sheet on which to drawLakonia and all it means," observesKen Dowden.[1][7]
InHomer'sIliad, theLeleges are allies of the Trojans (10.429), though they do not appear in the formalcatalogue of allies in Book II of the Iliad, and their homeland is not specified. They are distinguished from theCarians, with whom some later writers confused them; they have a king, Altes, and a cityPedasus which was sacked byAchilles. The topographical name "Pedasus" occurs in several ancient places: nearCyzicus, in theTroad on the Satniois River, inCaria, as well as inMessenia, according toEncyclopædia Britannica 1911.Gargara in theTroad was counted as Lelegian.Alcaeus (7th or 6th century BCE) callsAntandrus in theTroad "Lelegian", but laterHerodotus substitutes the epithet "Pelasgian", so perhaps the two designations were broadly synonymous for the Greeks.[8]
According toHomer, the Leleges were a distinct Anatolian tribe.[9] However,Herodotus states thatLeleges had been an early name for theCarians.[10]
Pherecydes of Athens (ca 480 BC) attributed to theLeleges the coast land of Caria, fromEphesus toPhocaea, with the islands ofSamos andChios, placing the true Carians farther south from Ephesus toMiletus.[8]
Pausanias was reminded that the temple of the goddess at Ephesus predated theIonian colony there, when it was rededicated to the goddess asArtemis. He states with certainty that it antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, being older even than the oracular shrine atDodona. He says that the pre-Ionic inhabitants of the city were Leleges andLydians (with a predominance of the latter) and that, although Androclus drove out of the land all those whom he found in the upper city, he did not interfere with those who dwelt about the sanctuary. By giving and receiving pledges he put these on a footing of neutrality. These remarks of Pausanias find confirmation in the form of the cult in historic times, centering on a many-breasted icon of the "Lady of Ephesus" whom Greeks called Artemis. Other cult aspects, being in all essentials non-Hellenic, suggest the indigenous cult was taken over by the Greek settlers.[citation needed]
Often historians assume, as a general rule, thatautochthonous inhabitants survive an invasion as an under-class where they do not retreat to mountain districts, so it is interesting to hear inDeipnosophistae thatPhilippus of Theangela (a 4th-century BC historian) referred toLeleges still surviving as serfs of the "true Carians",[11] and even laterStrabo[12] attributes to theLeleges a distinctive group of deserted forts and tombs in Caria that were still known in his day as "Lelegean forts"; theEncyclopædia Britannica 1911 identified these as ruins that could still be traced ranging from the neighborhood ofTheangela andHalicarnassus as far north as Miletus, the southern limit of the "true Carians" of Pherecydes. Plutarch also implies the historic existence of Lelegian serfs atTralles (nowAydın) in the interior.[8]
The fourth-century BC historian Philippus of Theangela suggested that the Leleges maintained connections toMessenia,Laconia,Locris and other regions in mainland Greece, after they were overcome by the Carians in Asia Minor.[13]
A single passage in the fragmentaryHesiodicCatalogue of Women[14] places "Leleges" inDeucalion's mythicized and archaic time inLocris in central Greece, identified as the rocks turned human that repopulated the earth after the great deluge.[15] Locris is also the refuge of some of thePelasgian inhabitants forced fromBoeotia byCadmus and his Phoenician adventurers.[citation needed] But not until the 4th century BCE does any other writer placeLeleges anywhere west of the Aegean. But the confusion of theLeleges with the Carians (immigrant conquerors akin toLydians andMysians) which first appears in a Cretan legend (quoted by Herodotus, but repudiated, as he says, by the Carians themselves) and is repeated byCallisthenes,Apollodorus,[citation needed] and other later writers, led easily to the suggestion of Callisthenes, thatLeleges joined the Carians in their (half legendary) raids on the coasts of Greece.[8]
Herodotus (1.171) says that theLeleges were a people who in old times dwelt in the islands of the Aegean and were subject toMinos of Crete (one of the historic references that led SirArthur Evans to name the pre-Hellenic Cretan culture "Minoan"); and that they were driven from their homes by theDorians and Ionians, after which they took refuge in Caria and were named Carians. Herodotus was a Dorian Greek born in Caria himself.
Meanwhile, other writers from the 4th century onwards claimed to discover them inBoeotia, westAcarnania (Leucas), and later again inThessaly,Euboea,Megara,Lacedaemon andMessenia. In Messenia, they were reputed to have been immigrant founders ofPylos, and were connected with the seafaringTaphians andTeleboans, and distinguished from the Pelasgians. However, in Lacedaemon and in Leucas they were believed to be aboriginal andDionysius of Halicarnassus mentions thatLeleges is the old name for the laterLocrians.[16] These EuropeanLeleges must be interpreted in connection with the recurrence of place names likePedasus,Physcus,Larymna andAbae, both in Caria, and in these "Lelegian" parts of Greece. Perhaps this is the result of some early migration; perhaps it is also the cause of these Lelegian theories;[8] perhaps there was a widespreadpre-Indo-European culture that loosely linked these regions, a possibility on which much modern hypothesis has been constructed.Germanic theorists of the 19th century who inspired modern heirs:
{{cite book}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)Let him avoid an early death, let him avoid the anger of the gods [and] the talk of the populace... of thelulahi-men [and] of the merchants...
the foreigner Lelex arrived from Egypt, according to Pausanias' informers
{{cite book}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)Philippus of Theangela, in his treatise on the Carians and Leleges, having made mention of the Helots of the Lacedaemonians and of the Thessalian Penestae, says, "The Carians also, both in former times, and down to the present day, use the Leleges as slaves.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Myres, John Linton (1911). "Leleges". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 406–407..jpg)
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