[598] Herodot. ii, 59-60.

[599] Herodot. ii, 35; Sophokl. Œdip. Colon. 332: where the passage cited by the Scholiast out of Nymphodôrus is a remarkable example of the habit of ingenious Greeks to represent all customs which they thought worthy of notice, as having emanated from the design of some great sovereign: here Nymphodôrus introduces Sesostris as the author of the custom in question, in order that the Egyptians might be rendered effeminate.

[600] The process of embalming is minutely described (Herod. ii, 85-90); the word which he uses for it is the same as that for salting meat and fish,—ταρίχευσις: compare Strabo, xvi, p. 764.

Perfect exactness of execution, mastery of the hardest stone, and undeviating obedience to certain rules of proportion, are general characteristics of Egyptian sculpture. There are yet seen in their quarries obelisks not severed from the rock, but having three of their sides already adorned with hieroglyphics; so certain were they of cutting off the fourth side with precision (Schnaase, Gesch. der Bild. Künste, i, p. 428).

All the nomes of Egypt, however, were not harmonious in their feelings respecting animals: particular animals were worshipped in some nomes which in other nomes were objects even of antipathy, especially the crocodile (Herod. ii, 69; Strabo, xvii, p. 817: see particularly the fifteenth Satire of Juvenal).

[601] Herodot. ii, 65-72; Diodor. i, 83-90; Plutarch, Isid. et Osir. p. 380.

Hasselquist identified all the birds carved on the obelisk near Matarea (Heliopolis), (Travels in Egypt, p. 99.)

[602] Herodot. ii, 82-83; iii, 1, 129. It is one of the points of distinction between Egyptians and Babylonians, that the latter had no surgeons or ἰατροί: they brought out the sick into the market-place, to profit by the sympathy and advice of the passers-by (Herodot. i, 197).

[603] Herodot. ii, 141.

[604] Herodot. iii, 177.

[605] Herodot. ii, 158. Read the account of the foundation of Petersburg by Peter the Great: “Au milieu de ces réformes, grandes et petites, qui faisaient les amusemens du czar, et de la guerre terrible qui l’occupoit contre Charles XII, il jeta les fondemens de l’importante ville et du port de Pétersbourg, en 1714, dans un marais où il n’y avait pas une cabane. Pierre travailla de ses mains à la première maison: rien ne le rebuta: des ouvriers furent forcés de venir sur ce bord de la mer Baltique, des frontières d’Astrachan, des bords de la Mer Noire et de la Mer Caspienne. Il périt plus de cent mille hommes dans les travaux qu’il fallut faire, et dans les fatigues et la disette qu’on essuya: mais enfin la ville existe.” (Voltaire, Anecdotes sur Pierre le Grand, en Œuvres Complètes, ed. Paris, 1825, tom. xxxi, p. 491.)

[606] Herodot. ii, 124-129. τὸν λέων τετρυμένον ἐς τὸ ἔσχατον κακοῦ. (Diodor. i, 63-64.)

Περὶ τῶν Πυραμίδων (Diodorus observes) οὐδὲν ὅλως οὐδὲ παρὰ τοῖς ἐγχωρίοις, οὐδὲ παρὰ τοῖς συγγραφεῦσιν, συμφωνεῖται. He then alludes to some of the discrepant stories about the date of the Pyramids, and the names of their constructors. This confession, of the complete want of trustworthy information respecting the most remarkable edifices of lower Egypt, forms a striking contrast with the statement which Diodorus had given (c. 44), that the priests possessed records, “continually handed down from reign to reign respecting four hundred and seventy Egyptian kings.”

[607] It appears that the lake of Mœris is, at least in great part, a natural reservoir, though improved by art for the purposes wanted, and connected with the river by an artificial canal, sluices, etc. (Kenrick ad Herodot. ii, 149.)

“The lake still exists, of diminished magnitude, being about sixty miles in circumference, but the communication with the Nile has ceased.” Herodotus gives the circumference as three thousand six hundred stadia, = between four hundred and four hundred and fifty miles.

I incline to believe that there was more of the hand of man in it than Mr. Kenrick supposes, though doubtless the receptacle was natural.

[608] Herodot. ii, 38-46, 65-72; iii, 27-30: Diodor. i, 83-90.

It is surprising to find Pindar introducing into one of his odes a plain mention of the monstrous circumstances connected with the worship of the goat in the Mendesian nome (Pindar, Fragm. Inc. 179, ed. Bergk). Pindar had also dwelt, in one of his Prosodia, upon the mythe of the gods having disguised themselves as animals, when seeking to escape Typhon; which was one of the tales told as an explanation of the consecration of animals in Egypt: see Pindar, Fragm. Inc. p. 61, ed. Bergk; Porphyr. de Abstinent. iii, p. 251, ed. Rhoer.

[609] Herodot. ii, 65. Diodorus does not feel the same reluctance to mention these ἀπόῤῥητα (i, 86).

[610] Diodor. i, 86-87; Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. p. 377, seq.

[611] On this early trade between Egypt, Phenicia, and Palestine, anterior to any acquaintance with the Greeks, see Josephus cont. Apion. i, 12.

[612] Herodotus notices the large importation of wine into Egypt in his day, from all Greece as well as from Phenicia, as well as the employment of the earthen vessels in which it was brought for the transport of water, in the journeys across the desert (iii, 6).

In later times, Alexandria was supplied with wine chiefly from Laodikeia, in Syria, near the mouth of the Orontes (Strabo, xvi, p. 751).

[613] Herodot. ii, 147-154. ἀπὸ Ψαμμητίχου,—πάντα καὶ τὰ ὕστερον ἐπιστάμεθα ἀτρεκέως.

[614] See these differences stated and considered in Boeckh, Manetho und die Hundssternperiode. pp. 326—336, of which some account is given in the Appendix to this chapter.

[615] Herodot. ii, 149-152. This narrative of Herodotus, however little satisfactory in an historical point of view, bears evident marks of being the genuine tale which he heard from the priests of Hephæstos. Diodorus gives an account more historically plausible, but he could not well have had any positive authorities for that period, and he gives us seemingly the ideas of Greek authors of the days of the Ptolemies. Psammetichus (he tells us), as one of the twelve kings, ruled at Saïs and in the neighboring part of the delta: he opened a trade, previously unknown in Egypt, with Greeks and Phenicians, so profitable that his eleven colleagues became jealous of his riches and combined to attack him. He raised an army of foreign mercenaries and defeated them (Diodor. i, 66-67). Polyænus gives a different story about Psammetichus and the Karian mercenaries (vii 3).

[616] Herodot. ii, 154.

[617] Strabo, xvii, p. 801. καὶ τὸ Μιλησίων τεῖχος· πλεύσαντες γὰρ ἐπὶ Ψαμμητίχου τριάκοντα ναυσὶν Μιλήσιοι κατὰ Κυαξάρη (οὗτος δὲ τῶν Μήδων) κάτεσχον εἰς τὸ στόμα τὸ Βολβίτινον· εἶτ᾽ ἐκβάντες ἐτείχισαν τὸ λεχθὲν κτίσμα· χρόνῳ δ᾽ ἀναπλεύσαντες εἰς τὸν Σαϊτικὸν νομὸν, καταναυμαχήσαντες Ἴναρον, πόλιν ἔκτισαν Ναύκρατιν οὐ πολὺ τῆς Σχεδίας ὕπερθεν.

What is meant by the allusion to Kyaxarês, or to Inarus, in this passage, I do not understand. We know nothing of any relations either between Kyaxarês and Psammetichus, or between Kyaxarês and the Milesians. moreover, if by κατὰ Κυαξάρη be meant in the time of Kyaxarês, as the translators render it, we have in immediate succession ἐπὶ Ψαμμητίχου—κατὰ Κυαξάρη, with the same meaning, which is, to say the least of it, a very awkward sentence. The words οὗτος δὲ τῶν Μήδων look not unlike a comment added by some early reader of Strabo, who could not understand why Kyaxarês should be here mentioned, and who noted his difficulty in words which have subsequently found their way into the text. Then again, Inarus belongs to the period between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars: at least we know no other person of that name than the chief of the Egyptian revolt against Persia (Thucyd. i, 114) who is spoken of as a “Libyan, the son of Psammetichus.” The mention of Kyaxarês, therefore, here appears unmeaning, while that of Inarus is an anachronism: possibly, the story that the Milesians founded Naukratis “after having worsted Inarus in a sea-flight,” may have grown out of the etymology of the name Naukratis, in the mind of one who found Inarus the son of Psammetichus mentioned two centuries afterwards, and identified the two Psammetichuses with each other.

The statement of Strabo has been copied by Steph. Byz. v. Ναύκρατις. Eusebius also announces (Chron. i, p. 168) the Milesians as the founders of Naukratis, but puts the event at 753 B. C., during what he calls the Milesian thalassokraty: see Mr. Fynes Clinton ad ann. 732 B. C. in the Fasti Hellenici.

[618] Herodot. ii, 166

[619] Herodot. ii, 30: Diodor. i, 67.

[620] Ἀπρίης—ὃς μετὰ Ψαμμήτιχον τὸν ἑωϋτοῦ προπάτορα ἐγένετο εὐδαιμονέστατος τῶν πρότερον βασιλέων (Herodot. ii, 161).

[621] Herodot. i, 105; ii, 157.

[622] The chronology of the Egyptian kings from Psammetichus to Amasis is given in some points differently by Herodotus and by Manetho:—

Diodorus gives 22 years for Apriês and 55 years for Amasis (i, 68).

Now the end of the reign of Amasis stands fixed for 526 B. C., and, therefore, the beginning of his reign (according to both Herodotus and Manetho) to 570 B. C. or 569 B. C. According to the chronology of the Old Testament, the battles of Megiddo and Carchemisch, fought by Nekôs, fall from 609-605 B. C., and this coincides with the reign of Nekôs as dated by Herodotus, but not as dated by Manetho. On the other hand, it appears from the evidence of certain Egyptian inscriptions recently discovered, that the real interval from the beginning of Nechao to the end of Uaphris is only forty years, and not forty-seven years, as the dates of Herodotus would make it (Boeckh, Manetho und die Hundsternperiode, pp. 341-348), which would place the accession of Nekôs in 610 or 609 B. C. Boeckh discusses at some length this discrepancy of dates, and inclines to the supposition that Nekôs reigned nine or ten years jointly with his father, and that Herodotus has counted these nine or ten years twice, once in the reign of Psammetichus, once in that of Nekôs. Certainly, Psammetichus can hardly have been very young when his reign began, and if he reigned fifty-four years, he must have reached an extreme old age, and may have been prominently aided by his son. Adopting the suppositions, therefore, that the last ten years of the reign of Psammetichus may be reckoned both for him and for Nekôs,—that for Nekôs separately only six years are to be reckoned,—and that the number of years from the beginning of Nekôs’s separate reign to the end of Uaphris is forty,—Boeckh places the beginning of Psammetichus in 654 B. C., and not in 670 B. C., as the data of Herodotus would make it (ib. pp. 342-350).

Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hellen. B. C. 616, follows Herodotus.

[623] Herodot. ii, 158. Respecting the canal of Nekôs, see the explanation of Mr. Kenrick on this chapter of Herodotus. From Bubastis to Suez the length would be about ninety miles.

[624] Herodot. ii, 159. Diodorus makes no mention of Nekôs.

The account of Herodotus coincides in the main with the history of the Old Testament about Pharaoh Necho and Josiah. The great city of Syria which he calls Κάδυτις seems to be Jerusalem, though Wesseling (ad Herodot. iii, 5) and other able critics dispute the identity. See Volney, Recherches sur l’Hist. Anc. vol. ii, ch. 13, p. 239: “Les Arabes ont conservé l’habitude d’appeler Jerusalem la Sainte par excellence, el Qods. Sans doute les Chaldéens et les Syriens lui donnèrent le même nom, qui dans leur dialecte est Qadouta, dont Hérodote rend bien l’orthographie quand il écrit Κάδυτις.”

[625] Jeremiah, xlvi, 2; 2d book of Kings, xxiii and xxiv; Josephus, Ant. J. x, 5, 1; x, 6, 1.

About Nebuchadnezzar, see the Fragment of Berosus ap. Joseph. cont. Apion. i, 19-20, and Antiqq. J. x, 11, 1, and Berosi Fragment. ed. Ritcher pp. 65-67.

[626] Menander ap. Joseph. Antiq. J. ix, 14, 2. Ἐπὶ Εἰθωβάλου τοῦ βασιλέως ἐπολιόρκησε Ναβουχοδονόσορος τὴν Τύρον ἐπ᾽ ἔτε δεκάτρια. That this siege of thirteen years ended in the storming, capitulation, or submission (we know not which, and Volney goes beyond the evidence when he says, “Les Tyriens furent emportés d’assaut par le roi de Babylone,” Recherches sur l’Histoire Ancienne, vol. ii, ch. 14, p. 250) of Tyre to the Chaldæan king, is quite certain from the mention which afterwards follows of the Tyrian princes being detained captive in Babylonia. Hengstenberg (De Rebus Tyriorum, pp. 34-77) heaps up a mass of arguments, most of them very inconclusive, to prove this point, about which the passage cited by Josephus from Menander leaves no doubt. What is not true, is, that Tyre was destroyed and laid desolate by Nebuchadnezzar: still less can it be believed that that king conquered Egypt and Libya, as Megasthenes, and even Berosus, so far as Egypt is concerned, would have us believe,—the argument of Larcher ad Herodot. ii, 168, is anything but satisfactory. The defeat of the Egyptian king at Carchemisch, and the stripping him of his foreign possessions in Judæa and Syria, have been exaggerated into a conquest of Egypt itself.

[627] Herodot. ii, 161. He simply mentions what I have stated in the text; while Diodorus tells us (i, 68) that the Egyptian king took Sidon by assault, terrified the other Phenician towns into submission, and defeated the Phenicians and Cyprians in a great naval battle, acquiring a vast spoil.

What authority Diodorus here followed, I do not know; but the measured statement of Herodotus is far the most worthy of credit.

[628] Herodot. iii, 19.

[629] Herodot. ii, 161; iv, 159.

[630] Herodot. ii, 162-169; Diodor. i, 68.

[631] Herodot. ii, 153.

[632] Herodot. ii, 178. The few words of the historian about these Greek establishments at Naukratis are highly valuable, and we can only wish that he had told us more: he speaks of them in the present tense, from personal knowledge—τὸ μὲν νῦν μέγιστον αὐτέων τέμενος καὶ οὐνομαστότατον ἐὸν καὶ χρησιμώτατον, καλεύμενον δὲ Ἑλλήνιον, αἵδε πόλις εἰσὶν αἱ ἱδρυμέναι—Τουτέων μέν ἐστι τοῦτο τὸ τέμενος, καὶ προστάτας τοῦ ἐμπορίου αὗται αἱ πόλις εἰσὶν αἱ παρέχουσαι. Ὅσαι δὲ ἄλλαι πόλις μεταποιεῦνται, οὐδέν σφι μετεὸν μεταποιεῦνται.

We are here let into a vein of commercial jealousy between the Greek cities about which we should have been glad to be farther informed.

[633] Herodot. ii, 179. Ἦν δὲ τοπαλαιὸν μούνη ἡ Ναύκρατις ἐμπόριον, καὶ ἄλλο οὐδὲν Αἰγύπτου.... Οὕτω δὴ Ναύκρατις ἐτετίμητο.

[634] The beautiful Thracian courtezan, Rhodôpis, was purchased by a Samian merchant named Xanthês, and conveyed to Naukratis, in order that he might make money by her (κατ᾽ ἐργασίην). The speculation proved a successful one, for Charaxus, brother of Sappho, going to Naukratis with a cargo of wine, became so captivated with Rhodôpis, that he purchased her for a very large sum of money, and gave her her freedom. She then carried on her profession at Naukratis on her own account, realized a handsome fortune, the tithe of which she employed in a votive offering at Delphi, and acquired so much renown, that the Egyptian Greeks ascribed to her the building of one of the pyramids,—a supposition, on the absurdity of which Herodotus makes proper comments, but which proves the great celebrity of the name of Rhodôpis (Herodot. ii, 134). Athenæus calls her Dôrichê, and distinguishes her from Rhodôpis (xiii. p. 596, compare Suidas, v. Ῥοδωπίδος ἀνάθημα). When Charaxus returned to Mitylênê, his sister Sappho composed a song, in which she greatly derided him for this proceeding,—a song which doubtless Herodotus knew, and which gives to the whole anecdote a complete authenticity.

Now we can hardly put the age of Sappho lower than 600-580 B. C. (see Mr. Clinton, Fasti Hellen ad ann. 595 B. C., and Ulrici, Geschichte der Griech. Lyrik, ch. xxiii, p. 360): Alkæus, too, her contemporary, had himself visited Egypt. (Alcæi Fragm. 103, ed. Bergk; Strabo, i, p. 63). The Greek settlement at Naukratis, therefore, must be decidedly older than Amasis, who began to reign in 570 B. C., and the residence of Rhodôpis in that town must have begun earlier than Amasis, though Herodotus calls her κατ᾽ Ἄμασιν ἀκμάζουσα (ii, 134). Nor can we construe the language of Herodotus strictly, when he says that it was Amasis who permitted the residence of Greeks at Naukratis (ii, 173).

[635] Herodot. ii, 181.

[636] Herodot. i, 77; iii, 39.

[637] Herodot. ii, 182, 154. κατοίκισε ἐς Μέμφιν, φυλακὴν ἑωϋτοῦ ποιεύμενος πρὸς Αἰγυπτίων.

[638] Herodot. ii, 175-177.

[639] Thucyd. i, 13.

[640] Herodot. iii, 107.

[641] The various statements or conjectures to be found in Greek authors (all comparatively recent) respecting the origin of the Greek alphabet, are collected by Franz, Epigraphicê Græca, s. iii, pp. 12-20: “Omnino Græci alphabeti ut certa primordia sunt in origine Phœniciâ, ita certus terminus in litteraturâ Ionicâ seu Simonideâ. Quæ inter utrumque a veteribus ponuntur, incerta omnia et fabulosa.... Non commoramur in iis quæ de litterarum origine et propagatione ex fabulosâ Pelasgorum historiâ (cf. Knight, pp. 119-123; Raoul Rochette, pp. 67-87) neque in iis quæ de Cadmo narrantur quem unquam fuisse hodie jam nemo crediderit.... Alphabeti Phœnicii omnes 22 literas cum antiquis Græcis congruere, hodie nemo est qui ignoret.” (pp. 14-15.) Franz gives valuable information respecting the changes gradually introduced into the Greek alphabet, and the erroneous statements of the Grammatici as to what letters were original, and what were subsequently added.

Kruse also, in his “Hellas,” (vol. i, p. 13, and in the first Beylage, annexed to that volume,) presents an instructive comparison of the Greek, Latin, and Phenician alphabets.

The Greek authors, as might be expected, were generally much more fond of referring the origin of letters to native heroes or gods, such as Palamêdês, Promêtheus, Musæus, Orpheus, Linus, etc., than to the Phenicians. The oldest known statement (that of Stêsichorus, Schol. ap. Bekker. Anecdot. ii, p. 786) ascribes them to Palamêdês.

Both Franz and Kruse contend strenuously for the existence and habit of writing among the Greeks in times long anterior to Homer: in which I dissent from them.

[642] See O. Müller, Die Etrusker (iv, 6), where there is much instruction on the Tuscan alphabet.

[643] This question is raised and discussed by Justus Olshausen, Ueber den Ursprung des Alphabetes (pp. 1-10), in the Kieler Philologische Studien, 1841.

[644] See Boeckh, Metrologie, chs. iv, v, vi; also the preceding volume of this History.

[645] Utica is said to have been founded 287 years earlier than Carthage; the author who states this, professing to draw his information from Phenician histories (Aristot. Mirab. Auscult. c. 134). Velleius Paterculus states Gadês to be older than Utica, and places the foundation of Carthage B. C. 819 (i, 2, 6). He seems to follow in the main the same authority as the composer of the Aristotelic compilation above cited. Other statements place the foundation of Carthage in 878 B. C. (Heeren, Ideen über den Verkehr, etc., part ii, b. i, p. 29). Appian states the date of the foundation as fifty years before the Trojan war (De Reb. Punic. c. 1); Philistus, as twenty-one years before the same event (Philist. Fragm. 50, ed. Göller); Timæus, as thirty-eight years earlier than the 1st Olympiad (Timæi Fragm. 21, ed. Didot); Justin, seventy-two years earlier than the foundation of Rome (xviii, 6).

The citation which Josephus gives from Menander’s work, extracted from Tyrian ἀναγραφαὶ, placed the foundation of Carthage 143 years after the building of the temple of Jerusalem (Joseph. cont. Apion. i, c. 17-18). Apion said that Carthage was founded in the first year of Olympiad 7 (B. C. 748), (Joseph. c. Apion. ii, 2.)

[646] “Quamdiu Carthago invicta fuit, pro Deâ culta est.” (Justin. xviii, 6; Virgil, Æneid, i, 340-370.) We trace this legend about Dido up to Timæus (Timæi Frag. 23, ed. Didot): Philistus seems to have followed a different story;—he said that Carthage had been founded by Azor and Karchêdôn (Philist. Fr. 50). Appian notices both stories (De Reb. Pun. 1): that of Dido was current both among the Romans and Carthaginians: of Zôrus (or Ezôrus) and Karchêdôn, the second is evidently of Greek coinage, the first seems genuine Phenician: see Josephus cont. Apion. i, c. 18-21.

[647] See Movers, Die Phönizier, pp. 609-616.

[648] Strabo, xvii, p. 826.

[649] Herodot. iii, 19.

[650] Thucyd. vi, 2; Philistus, Fragm. 3, ed. Göller, ap. Diodor. v, 6. Timæus adopted the opposite opinion (Diodor. l. c.), also Ephorus, if we may judge by an indistinct passage of Strabo (vi, p. 270). Dionysius of Halikarnassus follows Thucydidês (A. R. i, 22).

The opinion of Philistus is of much value on this point, since he was, or might have been, personally cognizant of Iberian mercenaries in the service of the elder Dionysius.

[651] Pherekyd. Fragm. 85, ed. Didot; Hellanik. Fr. 53, ed. Didot; Dionys. Halik. A. R. i, 11, 13, 22; Skymnus Chius, v. 362; Pausan. viii, 3, 5.

[652] Stephan. Byz. v. Χῖοι.

[653] Aristot. Polit. vii, 9, 3. Ὤκουν δὲ τὸ πρὸς τὴν Ἰαπυγίαν καὶ τὸν Ἰόνιον Χῶνες (or Χάονες) τὴν καλουμένην Σίριν· ἦσαν δὲ καὶ οἱ Χῶνες Οἰνωτροὶ τὸ γένος.

Antiochus Fr. 3, 4, 6, 7, ed. Didot; Strabo, vi, p. 254; Hesych. v. Χώνην, Dionys. Hal. A. R. i, 12.

[654] Livy, viii, 24.

[655] For the early habitation of Sikels or Siculi in Latium and Campania, see Dionys. Hal. A. R. i, 1-21: it is curious that Siculi and Sicani, whether the same or different, the primitive ante-Hellenic population of Sicily, are also numbered as the ante-Roman population of Rome: see Virgil, Æneid, viii, 328, and Servius ad Æneid. xi, 317.

The alleged ancient emigration of Evander from Arcadia to Latium forms a parallel to the emigration of Œnotrus from Arcadia to southern Italy as recounted by Pherekydês: it seems to have been mentioned even as early as in one of the Hesiodic poems (Servius ad Virg. Æn. viii, 138): compare Steph. Byz. v. Παλλάντιον. The earliest Latin authors appear all to have recognized Evander and his Arcadian emigrants: see Dionys. Hal. i, 31-32, ii, 9, and his references to Fabius Pictor and Ælius Tubero, i, 79-80; also Cato ap. Solinum, c. 2. If the old reading Ἀρκάδων, in Thucyd. vi, 2 (which Bekker has now altered into Σικελῶν), be retained, Thucydidês would also stand as witness for a migration from Arcadia into Italy. A third emigration of Pelasgi, from Peloponnesus to the river Sarnus in southern Italy (near Pompeii), was mentioned by Conon (ap. Servium ap. Virg. Æn. vii, 730).

[656] Herodotus (i, 24-167) includes Elea (or Velia) in Œnotria,—and Tarentum in Italia; while Antiochus considers Tarentum as in Iapygia, and the southern boundary of the Tarentine territory as the northern boundary of Italia: Dionysius of Halikarnassus (A. R. ii, 1) seems to copy from Antiochus when he extends the Œnotrians along the whole south-western corner of Italy, within the line drawn from Tarentum to Poseidonia, or Pæstum. Hence the appellation Οἰνωτρίδες νῆσοι to the two islands opposite Elea (Strabo, vi, p. 253). Skymnus Chius (v. 247) recognizes the same boundaries.

Twelve Œnotrian cities are cited by name (in Stephanus Byzantinus) from the Εὐρώπη of Hekatæus (Frag. 30-39, ed. Didot): Skylax in his Periplus does not name Œnotrians; he enumerates Campanians, Samnites, and Lucanians (cap. 9-13). The intimate connection between Milêtus and Sybaris would enable Hekatæus to inform himself about the interior Œnotrian country.

Œnotria and Italia together, as conceived by Antiochus and Herodotus, comprised what was known a century afterwards as Lucania and Bruttium: see Mannert, Geographie der Griech. und Römer, part ix, b. 9, ch. i, p. 86. Livy, speaking with reference to 317 B. C., when the Lucanian nation as well as the Bruttians were in full vigor, describes only the sea-coast of the lower sea as Grecian,—“cum omni orâ Græcorum inferi maris a Thuriis Neapolim et Cumas,” (ix, 19.) Verrius Flaccus considered the Sikels as Græci (Festus, v, Major Græcia, with Müller’s note).

[657] Sophoklês, Triptolem. Fr. 527, ed. Dindorf. He places the lake Avernus, which was close to the Campanian Cumæ, in Tyrrhenia: see Lexicon Sophocleum, ad calc. ed. Brunck, v. Ἄορνος. Euripidês (Medea, 1310-1326) seems to extend Tyrrhenia to the strait of Messina.

[658] Aristot. Polit. vii, 9, 3. ᾤκουν δὲ τὸ μὲν πρὸς τὴν Τυῤῥηνίαν Ὀπικοὶ, καὶ πρότερον καὶ νῦν καλούμενοι τὴν ἐπίκλησιν Αὔσονες. Festus: “Ausoniam appellavit Auson, Ulyssis et Calypsûs filius, eam primam partem Italiæ in quâ sunt urbes Beneventum et Cales: deinde paulatim tota quoque Italia quæ Apennino finitur, dicta est Ausonia,” etc. The original Ausonia would thus coincide nearly with the territory called Samnium, after the Sabine emigrants had conquered it: see Livy, viii, 16; Strabo, v, p. 250; Virg. Æn. vii, 727, with Servius. Skymnus Chius (v, 227) has copied from the same source as Festus. For the extension of Ausonians along various parts of the more southern coast of Italy, even to Rhegium, as well as to the Liparæan isles, see Diodor. v, 7-8; Cato, Origg. Fr. lib. iii, ap. Probum ad Virg. Bucol. v, 2. The Pythian priestess, in directing the Chalkidic emigrants to Rhegium, says to them,—Ἔνθα πόλιν οἴκιζε, διδοῖ δέ σοι Αὔσονα χώραν (Diodor. Fragm. xiii, p. 11, ap Scriptt. Vatic. ed. Maii). Temesa is Ausonian in Strabo, vi, p. 255.

[659] Thucyd. vi. 3; Aristot. ap. Dionys. Hal. A. R. i, 72. Ἀχαιῶν τινας τῶν ἀπὸ Τροίης ἀνακομιζομένων,—ἐλθεῖν εἰς τὸν τόπον τοῦτον τῆς Ὀπικῆς, ὃς καλεῖται Λάτιον.

Even in the time of Cato the elder, the Greeks comprehended the Romans under the general, and with them contemptuous, designation of Opici (Cato ap. Plin. H. N. xxii, 1: see Antiochus ap. Strab. v, p. 242).

[660] Thucyd. vi, 2. Σικελοὶ δὲ ἐξ Ἰταλίας φεύγοντες Ὀπικοὺς διέβησαν ἐς Σικελίαν (see a Fragment of the geographer Menippus of Pergamus, in Hudson’s Geogr. Minor. i, p. 76). Antiochus stated that the Sikels were driven out of Italy into Sicily by the Opicians and Œnotrians; but the Sikels themselves, according to him, were also Œnotrians (Dionys. H. i, 12-22). It is remarkable that Antiochus (who wrote at a time when the name of Rome had not begun to exercise that fascination over men’s minds which the Roman power afterwards occasioned), in setting forth the mythical antiquity of the Sikels and Œnotrians, represents the eponymous Sikelus as an exile from Rome, who came into the south of Italy to the king Morgês, successor of Italus,—Ἐπεὶ δὲ Ἰταλὸς κατεγήρα, Μόργης ἐβασίλευσεν. Ἐπὶ τούτου δὲ ἀνὴρ ἀφίκετο ἐκ Ῥώμης φυγὰς, Σικελὸς ὄνομα αὐτῷ (Antiochus ap. Dionys. H. i, 73: compare c. 12).

Philistus considered Sikelus to be a son of Italus: both he and Hellanikus believed in early migrations from Italy into Sicily, but described the emigrants differently (Philistus, Frag. 2, ed. Didot).

[661] See the learned observations upon the early languages of Italy and Sicily, which Müller has prefixed to his work on the Etruscans (Einleitung, i, 12). I transcribe the following summary of his views respecting the early Italian dialects and races: “The notions which we thus obtain respecting the early languages of Italy are as follows: the Sikel, a sister language, nearly allied to the Greek or Pelasgic; the Latin, compounded from the Sikel and from the rougher dialect of the men called Aborigines; the Oscan, akin to the Latin in both its two elements; the language spoken by the Sabine emigrants in their various conquered territories, Oscan; the Sabine proper, a distinct and peculiar language, yet nearly connected with the non-Grecian element in Latin and Oscan, as well as with the language of the oldest Ausonians and Aborigines.”

[N. B. This last statement, respecting the original Sabine language, is very imperfectly made out: it seems equally probable that the Sabellians may have differed from the Oscans no more than the Dorians from the Ionians: see Niebuhr, Röm. Gesch. tom. i, p. 69.]

“Such a comparison of languages presents to us a certain view, which I shall here briefly unfold, of the earliest history of the Italian races. At a period anterior to all records, a single people, akin to the Greeks, dwelling extended from the south of Tuscany down to the straits of Messina, occupies in the upper part of its territory only the valley of the Tiber,—lower down, occupies the mountainous districts also, and in the south, stretches across from sea to sea,—called Sikels, Œnotrians, or Peucetians. Other mountain tribes, powerful, though not widely extended, live in the northern Abruzzo and its neighborhood: in the east, the Sabines, southward from them the cognate Marsi, more to the west the Aborigines, and among them probably the old Ausonians or Oscans. About 1000 years prior to the Christian era, there arises among these tribes—from whom almost all the popular migrations in ancient Italy have proceeded—a movement whereby the Aborigines more northward, the Sikels more southward, are precipitated upon the Sikels of the plains beneath. Many thousands of the great Sikel nation withdraw to their brethren the Œnotrians, and by degrees still farther across the strait to the island of Sicily. Others of them remain stationary in their residences, and form, in conjunction with the Aborigines, the Latin nation,—in conjunction with the Ausonians, the Oscan nation: the latter extends itself over what was afterwards called Samnium and Campania. Still, the population and power of these mountain tribes, especially that of the Sabines, goes on perpetually on the increase: as they pressed onward towards the Tiber, at the period when Rome was only a single town, so they also advanced southwards, and conquered,—first, the mountainous Opica; next, some centuries later, the Opician plain, Campania; lastly, the ancient country of the Œnotrians, afterwards denominated Lucania.”

Compare Niebuhr, Römisch. Geschicht. vol. i, p. 80, 2d edit., and the first chapter of Mr. Donaldson’s Varronianus.

[662] Thucyd. vi, 2; Philistus, Frag. 2, ed. Didot.

[663] Strabo, v, p. 243; Velleius Patercul. i, 5; Eusebius, p 121. M. Raoul Rochette, assuming a different computation of the date of the Trojan war, pushes the date of Cumæ still farther back to 1139 B. C. (Histoire des Colonies Grecques, book iv, c. 12, p. 100.)

The mythes of Cumæ extended to a period preceding the Chalkidic settlement. See the stories of Aristæus and Dædalus ap. Sallust. Fragment. Incert. p. 204, ed. Delphin.; and Servius ad Virgil. Æneid. vi, 17. The fabulous Thespiadæ, or primitive Greek settlers in Sardinia, were supposed in early ages to have left that island and retired to Cumæ (Diodor. v, 15).

[664] Ephorus, Frag. 52, ed. Didot.

[665] Strabo, v, p. 243; Velleius Paterc. i, 5.

[666] See the site of Cumæ as described by Agathias (on occasion of the siege of the place by Narses, in 552 A. D.), Histor. i, 8-10; also by Strabo, v, p. 244.