A 1st-Century bce/ce Greek Geographer Discusses What a “Barbarian” Language Is in Terms of Homer and the Carians

The fifth-century bce historian Thucydides, author of the History of the Pelo- ponnesian War, argued that Homer did not know of a “barbarian” identity as opposed to a unitarian Hellenic identity; however, the first-century geographer Strabo, when providing the most detailed extant treatment of the etymology and function of the word barbaros, explains the line as referring not to the Carian language proper, but—contrary to modern scholarly consensus—to the Carians’ inadequate command of Greek.