(i) Any attempt to track down this ubiquitous but evasive people must start from the vestiges of Pelasgians in the Homeric epics, which will here be treated as a single authority on the assumption that, whatever may be the secret of their composition, they preserve a consistent record of authentic traditions of the Heroic Age.

The Trojan Catalogue (Il. ii. 811 seqq.), having put the Trojans of Ilium of course at the head of its list, recites the contingents from their kinsfolk and nearest neighbours. To most of them it assigns a seat—to the Trojans led by Pandarus Zelea and the valley of the Aesepus; to the men under the sons of Merops the coast of the Propontis west of the Aesepus with the Adrastean plain and doubtless the valley of the Granicus; to the followers of Asius the Hellespontine shore down to the Narrows below Abydus and including Sestus on the opposite side of the straits. But the Dardanians, next after the Ilians on the list, are left without a home. Dardanus on the Hellespont south of Abydus is impossible; it has far too exiguous an ager, is never mentioned in the Homeric poems, and is incompatible with the indications to be found in them. We must seek Dardania elsewhere.