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The 'Trojan Battle Order' or 'Trojan Catalogue' is a section of the second book of the ''Iliad'' (lines 816-877). It is a list of the allied contingents that fought for Troy in the Trojan War.
Structurally the Trojan Battle Order is evidently inserted to balance the preceding Catalogue of Ships (i.e. the list of Greek contingents). It is, however, much shorter, and some scholars who have accepted the antiquity of the information in the Greek catalogue have doubted whether any real historical knowledge is incorporated in the Trojan catalogue.
The list includes the Trojans themselves, led by Hector, and various allies. As observed by G. S. Kirk, it follows a geographical pattern comparable to that of the Greek catalogue, dealing first with Troy, then with the Troad, then radiating outwards on four successive routes, the most distant peoples on each route being described as "from far away".^[1] The allied contingents are said to have spoken multiple languages, requiring orders to be translated by their individual commanders.^[2] Nothing is said of the Trojan language; the Carians are specifically said to be barbarian-speaking, possibly because their language was distinct from the current lingua franca of western Anatolia.^[3]
The classical Greek historian Demetrius of Scepsis, native of Scepsis in the hills above Troy, wrote a vast study of the "Trojan Battle Order" under that title (Greek ''Trōikos diakosmos''). The work is lost; brief extracts from it are quoted by Athenaeus and Pausanias, while Strabo cites it frequently in his own discussion of the geography of northwestern Anatolia.^[4]

Contents

The catalogue in detail

Notes

References

See also

The catalogue in detail

The catalogue lists sixteen contingents from twelve different ethnonyms under 26 leaders.^[5] They lived in 33 places identified by toponyms.

'Tabular Catalog'^[6]

'Line'	'Ethnic Identity'	'Leaders'	'Settlements'
II.815	Trojans	Hector	None stated (Troy)
II.819	Dardanians	Aeneas, Archelochus, Acamas	None stated.
II.824	Trojans of Mt. Ida	Pandarus	Zeleia
II.828	No name given.	Adrestus, Amphius	Adresteia, Apaesus, Pityeia, Mt. Tereia
II.835	No name given.	Asius	Percote, Practius, Sestus, Abydus, Arisbe
II.840	Pelasgians, who were spearmen	Hippothous, Pylaeus	Larisa
II.844	Thracians bounded by the Hellespont	Acamas, Peiroüs	None stated.
II.846	Ciconians, who were spearmen	Euphemus	None stated.
II.848	Paeonians, archers, "from far away"	Pyraechmes	Amydon, river Axius
II.851	Paphlagonians	Pylaemenes of the Eneti	Cytorus, Sesamus, along the river Parthenius, Cromna, Aegialus, Erythini
II.856	Halizones "from far away"	Odius, Epistrophus	Alybe
II.858	Mysians	Chromis, Ennomus	None stated.
II.862	Phrygians	Phorcys, Ascanius	"Far-off" Ascania
II.864	Maeonians	Mesthles, Antiphus	Under Mt. Tmolus
II.867	Carians	Nastes, Amphimachus	Miletus, Mt. Phthires, streams of the Maeander, crest of Mycale
II.875	Lycians "from far away"	Sarpedon, Glaucus	River Xanthus

Notes

1.
2. ''Iliad'' 2.803-806. Kirk considers this "quite fantastic" though it seems a normal feature of fighting forces brought together from several nationalities.
3. The lingua franca would have been Luwian, though the poet has no name for it. Alternatively, Carian may earn this epithet as the most familiar foreign ("barbarian") language to a Greek of the eastern Aegean when the ''Iliad'' was composed .
4. Strabo, ''Geography'' book 13.
5. For this count see .
6. The Anglicised spellings of the names in the table are generally as in . The order of contingents is that of the catalogue.

References

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★ Calvert Watkins, "The language of the Trojans" in ''Troy and the Trojan War: a symposium held at Bryn Mawr College, October 1984'' ed. M. J. Mellink (Bryn Mawr, 1986).

See also

★ Catalogue of Ships