Leleger

As Leleges ( Greek  Λέλεγες , Latin Leleges ) was in the antiquity a population of Greece and Asia Minor referred to as the Pelasgians did not speak Greek and probably the pre-Indo- counted residents. In ancient Greece, Leleges also meant Achaean Greeks from Asia Minor.

Leleges as a tribe

According to the earliest Greek authors and traditions, the Lelegs were mainly in West and Southwest Asia Minor, where they lived next to the Karern . Later sources also name Lelegers as very early inhabitants of some Greek regions or places. Modern research assumes that the name Leleger is not an autochthonous but a Greek name. However, the library of Apollodorus gives the native name of a king Lelex as the origin . The numerous mentions by ancient authors show that in classical times a population with a non-Greek idiom was still comprehensible in some areas of Greece (see Aegean languages ).

Leleger in Asia Minor

Homer's Iliad indicates the Lelegs as allies of the Trojans , although they are not mentioned again in the catalog of Trojans in the Iliad and their origin is not mentioned. In general, a distinction from other peoples is not always clear. Therefore the question arises whether the Lelegs are perhaps identical with the pre-Indo-European Pelasgians or other Indo-European peoples of Asia Minor such as the Luwians , Lydians or Phrygians .

Leleges in Greece and the Aegean Sea

After Hesiod , the Lelegs were also based in Lokris in central Greece. Herodotus , who himself came from Ionia / Caria , claims that the Lelegs were connected with Minos on Crete and were expelled to Southwest Asia Minor by the immigrating Greek tribes of the Dorians and Ionians and later referred to as Carians .

Other authors of the 4th century also settle the Lelegs in Boeotia , Leukas , Thessaly , Euboia , Megara , Lacedaemon and Messenia . This led various authors to assume immigration. Others have concluded that the Lelegs are remnants of a pre-Indo-European autochthonous population in the eastern Mediterranean.

literature

• Wolfgang Aly : Karer and Leleger . In: Philologus 68 . Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1909, p. 428-444 ( online [accessed June 22, 2014]).
• E. Curtius: Greek History. Vol. 1. Berlin 1878, Phaidon, Essen 1997. ISBN 3-88851-229-8 (defines a "Lelegic" period in the emergence of the Aegean culture.)
• Karl Wilhelm Deimling: The Leleger . An ethnographic treatise. BG Teubner, Leipzig 1862 ( online [accessed June 22, 2014]).
• Fritz Geyer : Leleger . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XII, 2, Stuttgart 1925, Sp. 1890-1893.

Remarks

1. ^ Hesiod in Strabo 7, 7, 2.
2. ↑ Herodotus in Strabo 12, 8, 5; see. Herodotus 1, 171.
3. ^ Strabo 9, 2, 2.
4. ↑ Aristotle in Strabo 7, 7, 2.
5. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1:17 .
6. ↑ Skymnos 571.
7. ↑ Pausanias 1, 39, 6; 1, 44, 3; Aristotle in Strabo 7, 7, 2.
8. ↑ Pausanias 3, 1, 1; 3, 12, 5; 4, 1, 1; Stephanos of Byzantium sv Λακεδαίμον ; Libraries of Apollodorus 3, 10, 3.
9. ^ Pausanias 4, 1, 5.