TheCatalogue of Ships (Ancient Greek:νεῶν κατάλογος,neōn katálogos) is anepic catalogue in Book 2 ofHomer'sIliad (2.494–759), which lists the contingents of theAchaean army that sailed toTroy.[1] The catalogue gives the names of the leaders of each contingent, lists the settlements in the kingdom represented by the contingent, sometimes with a descriptiveepithet that fills out a half-verse or articulates the flow of names and parentage and place, and gives the number of ships required to transport the men to Troy, offering further differentiations of weightiness. A similar, though shorter,Catalogue of the Trojans and their allies follows (2.816–877). A similar catalogue appears in thePseudo-ApollodoranBibliotheca.
In the debate since antiquity over the Catalogue of Ships, the core questions have concerned the extent of historical credibility of the account, whether it was composed by Homer himself, to what extent it reflects a pre-Homeric document or memorized tradition, surviving perhaps in part fromMycenaean times, or whether it is a result of post-Homeric development.[2]Dörpfeld notes that while in theOdyssey Odysseus's kingdom includes Ithaca, Same, Dulichium, and Zacynthus, the Catalogue of Ships contains a different list of islands, again Ithaca, Same, and Zacynthus but now also Neritum, Krocylea, and Aegilips. The separate debate over the identity of Homer and the authorship of theIliad and theOdyssey is conventionally termed "theHomeric Question".
The consensus before the mid-twentieth century was that the Catalogue of Ships was not the work of the man who composed theIliad,[a] though great pains had been taken to render it a work of art;[b] furthermore, that the material of the text is essentially Mycenaean or sub-Mycenaean, while disagreement centers largely on the extent of later additions.
If taken to be an accurate account, the Catalogue provides a rare summary of the geopolitical situation in early Greece at some time between theLate Bronze Age and the eighth century BCE. FollowingMilman Parry's theory of Homericoral poetry, some scholars, such asDenys Page, argue that it represents a pre-Homeric recitation incorporated into the epic by Homer.[6]
In the most recent extended study of the Catalogue, Edzard Visser, of the University of Basel, concludes that the Catalogue is compatible with the rest of theIliad in its techniques of verse improvisation, that the order of the names is meaningful and that the geographical epithets evince concrete geographical knowledge. Visser argues that this knowledge was transmitted by the heroic myth, elements of which introduce each geographical section.[7] W. W. Minton places the catalogue within similar "enumerations" in Homer andHesiod, and suggests that part of their purpose was to impress the audience with a display of the performer's memory.[8]
The Catalogue was an important source for solving geopolitical matters. When the Athenians claimedSalamis they cited the Catalogue of Ships which listed it among the Athenian troops, as proof of its moral allegiance to Athens.[9]
In theIliad, the Greek Catalogue lists twenty-nine contingents under 46 captains, accounting for a total of 1,186 ships.[10] Using the Boeotian figure of 120 men per ship results in a total of 142,320 men transported to the Troad. They are named by variousethnonyms and had lived in 164 places described bytoponyms. The majority of these places have been identified and were occupied in theLate Bronze Age. The termsDanaans,Argives andAchaeans or the sons of the Achaeans are used for the army as a whole. In hisLibrary, Apollodorus lists thirty contingents under 43 leaders with a total of 1013 ships,[11]Hyginus lists 1154 ships, although the total is given as only 245 ships.[12]
Some scholars debate whether the Catalogue of Ships was a later addition to theIliad from some time after the composition of the main work. Evidence for this, they suggest, is the inconsistencies between the Catalogue and the rest of the text, and also the odd way it is inserted into the poem.[9]
^Succinctly expressed byC.M. Bowra (1933),[3] which is a review ofF. Jacoby'sThe introduction of the Ships Catalogue into the Iliad (1932).[4]
^Crossett (1969) discusses the dramatic function of theCatalogue in the place that it occupies.[5]
^The dramatic time of the catalogue is early in the war; the place, the shores of theTroad. Captains of those contingents outside the time and place of the catalogue are parenthesized; they are not in the catalogue.
^The Anglicised spellings and diacritical marks of the names in the table are as they are in Britannica,Great Books of the Western World, Volume 4. The order of contingents is that of the catalogue.
^Probably ancient Isos in the vicinity of modernPyrgos, already in ruins by the time of Strabo[13]
^Compare to Book 1, verse 230[15] where Odysseus' kingdom includes Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus and Ithaca.
Jacoby, Felix (1932). "Homerisches II: Die Einschaltung des Schiffkatalogs in die Ilias" [Homerical II: The introduction of theShips Catalogue into theIliad].Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse (in German).24. Berlin:Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften:572–617.OCLC176744621.
Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857)."Argura".Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray. p. 209(Smith identifies "Argissa" with "Argura" and cites several theories as to its location.)