Re: Etruscans and Herodotus

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MrCaws Wrote:
Herodotus puts the departure from Etruscans BEFORE the Trojan war.
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I've a slightly different take on this

Actually, Herodot did not place this tradition. When compared with
the traditional
History Herodot provides for early Lydian, it still just floats there.


See below:

Herodotus, The Histories

Chapter 7

[1] hê de hêgemoniê houtô periêlthe, eousa
Hêrakleideôn es to genos
to Kroisou, kaleomenous de Mermnadas. [2] ên Kandaulês, ton hoi
Hellênes Mursilon onomazousi, turannos Sardiôn, apogonos de
Alkaiou
tou Hêrakleos. Agrôn men gar ho Ninou tou Bêlou tou Alkaiou
prôtos
Hêrakleideôn basileus egeneto Sardiôn, Kandaulês de ho
Mursou
hustatos. [3] hoi de proteron Agrônos basileusantes tautês
tês chôrês
êsan apogonoi Ludou tou Atuos, ap' hoteu ho dêmos Ludios
eklêthê ho
pas houtos, proteron Mêiôn kaleomenos. [4] para toutôn
Hêrakleidai
epitraphthentes eschon tên archên ek theopropiou, ek doulês
te tês
Iardanou gegonotes kai Hêrakleos, arxantes men epi duo te kai
eikosi
geneas andrôn etea pente te kai pentakosia, pais para patros
ekdekomenos tên archên, mechri Kandauleô tou Mursou.

Rendering
Then, leadership revolved in the following manner, from [the]
Hêrakleïdeôn on to the kin of Kroisou, then called
Mermnadas. From
Kandaulês, who the Hellênes address as Mursilon, tyrant [of]
Sardiôn,
born of Alkaiou [son] of Hêrakleos. On the one hand Agrôn [son]
of
Ninou [son] of Bêlou [son] of Alkaiou [were] the first
Hêrakleïdeôn
kings to be [at] Sardiôn, then Kandaulês [son] of Mursou [was]
the
last. Formerly the dynasty [of] Agrônos gave way to [those] born
of
Ludou [son] of Atuos, from who everyone calls the entire Ludios
country, before [was] called Mêiôn. Together [the]
Hêrakleidai reared
up to take hold spurred on as prophesied, brought to being by the
enslaved Iardanou and Hêrakleos, [these] first followed [by] two
and
twenty generations, [in] human years five and 500 From the beginning
all taken of the father's folks, until Kandauleô [son] of Mursou.

Traditional Rendering
[1] Now the sovereign power that belonged to the descendants of
Heracles1 fell to the family of Croesus, called the Mermnadae, in the
following way. [2] Candaules, whom the Greeks call Myrsilus, was the
ruler of Sardis; he was descended from Alcaeus, son of Heracles;
Agron son of Ninus, son of Belus, son of Alcaeus, was the first
Heraclid king of Sardis and Candaules son of Myrsus was the last. [3]
The kings of this country before Agron were descendants of Lydus, son
of Atys, from whom this whole Lydian district got its name; before
that it was called the land of the Meii. [4] The Heraclidae,
descendants of Heracles and a female slave of Iardanus, received the
sovereignty from these and held it, because of an oracle; and they
ruled for twenty-two generations, or five hundred and five years, son
succeeding father, down to Candaules son of Myrsus.

I believe the problem is line 3:
hoi de proteron Agrônos basileusantes tautês tês
chôrês êsan apogonoi
Ludou tou Atuos

This is rendered as:
Formerly the dynasty [of] Agrônos gave way to [those] born of
Ludou
[son] of Atuos

However the traditional interpretation is:
The kings of this country before Agron were descendants of Lydus, son
of Atys

Here the tradition Herodot preserved is about two, possibly three,
early Meian-Lydian dynasties. The first Meian with Alkaiou to
Agrôn
who are called sons of Hercle, followed by the Lydian/Luwia Atuos to
Ludu. This tradition is not totally clear what relationship Myrsus
and Myrsilus had to Ludu, other than the latter being the last of a
list of 22 kings form Alkaiou.

However in a separate tradition Telephus is placed about 30 to 50
years before Ludu who was a contemporary of Tyrrhenus.

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MrCaws wrote:
Lydia was part of the space that made up the huge Assuwa league. This
league stretched down the entire Anatolian coast. These were
seafaring peoples. The Taruisa are listed among its members,
tentatively identified with the Etruscans. Here is where Herodotus
gets Lydia.
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Actually, Lydia appears to be Arzawa, possibly Razawa, and Yereth as
the Egytians rendered it, not Assuwan. Assuwan was a separate
district that seems to have been defeated and dismantled during the
Hittite period, but yes this name continued on to become Anatolia and
maybe greater Asia. From time to time, individual states that were
associated with the Assuwan league were allied with Arzawa. Arzawa
appears to reach its zenith during the reign of Amenhotep III. Its
capital was Apasas, possibly Ephesos.

Regardless, neither the Assuwan or Arzawa states appear to have been
around for more than a few generations. The tradition of longevity
and relative stability that Herodotus recorded could only have been
inspired by the Hatti state, which strangely enough appears to have
lasted about 22 generations.

JS Crary