--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:
>
> In Iliad, "land of Tricca, Nurse of proud steeds", could Trikka bear a suffix -ikka, "horse"? Perhaps *Tri-h1ek^w-eh2 "place of three horses", or *Dru-h1ek^w-h2 "place of strong horses", cf. Drvaspa ?
>
The iota has hidden quantity in the acc. _Trikke:n_ (Il. 2:729), but the monokappatic gen. _Trike:s_ (Il. 4:202) requires a short iota by scansion:
la:o:n, /hoi hoi he/ponto Tri/ke:s ex /hippobo/toio.
-- / -^^ / -^^ / -- / -^^ / -(^)
A mute plus liquid seldom makes position in Homer, but if it did here and _Tri:ke:s_ were read, what follows _hipp-_ would be metrically impossible. We must conclude that the iota is short, and the geminate is genuine, shortened metri gratia in 4:202 just as _Odusseus_ sometimes becomes _Oduseus_. (Inscriptions, such as the pure Attic _Olutteus_ on vases, show that the geminate is genuine in this personal name.)
If the place-name _Trikke:_ indeed had long iota, it might be understood as a bahuvri:hi 'three-horse(d)', Old Illyrian *tri-hikkWa: > K-Illyrian *tri:kka(:), and one might draw some interesting conclusions. Unfortunately I see no principled way to infer that the iota was ever long, so this place-name probably has nothing to do with 'horse'. The epithet 'horse-nourishing' is fairly common in Homer and distinguishes rich lands from poor ones, the latter characteristic of most of Greece proper, which could not support horse-breeding.
DGK