The country of the Hellenes, which, in imitation of the Romans, we denominate Greece, was to its own inhabitants known by the name of Hellas. But the signification of this term was not fixed, being sometimes confined to Greece Proper, at others, comprehending likewise the possessions of the Hellenes in Asia; that is, Hellas within and beyond the Ægæan, as we now say, India within and beyond the Ganges.[3] The progress of the name seems to have been as follows: it designated, originally,[4] a city of Thessaly, built by Hellen son of Deucalion; next, Phthiotis; the whole of Thessaly; all Greece, with the exception sometimes of Peloponnesos, sometimes of Macedonia, sometimes,—which is very remarkable,—of Thessaly itself; sometimes of Epeiros; then all Greece within the Ægæan; afterwards all countries inhabited by Greeks in whatever part of the world; and, lastly, it would appear to have been occasionally employed to signify Athens alone.[5] The most ancient name, Pelasgia, sprang from the race who first, perhaps, peopled that part of Europe.
Nearly all writers who treat of Grecian history or antiquities, have ventured more or less upon inquiries respecting the original inhabitants of the country, some contending that it was peopled by many independent races, while others content themselves with supposing one primary stock. To arrive at certainty in such investigations is scarcely to be hoped for, since, over the whole field, facts have moved in so close a conjunction with fables, “that the most which remaineth to be seen, is the show of dark and obscure steps where some part of the truth hath gone.”[6] It appears, however, to be a fact established, that the Hellenes were not the first who occupied Greece. They were preceded by a number of tribes all apparently of Pelasgian origin. But who and what the Pelasgians were, how and whence they came into the country, and by what gradations and influences they were ripened into Hellenes, or were by these expelled from the land, are questions to which no satisfactory answers have ever been given, but must still be discussed whatever the result of the investigation may be.
Even the name of this people has opened up an endless labyrinth of conjecture, at least among the moderns, for the ancients when such points were to be cleared up, easily removed the difficulty by inventing a hero or a demigod, with an appellation exactly suited to their purpose. Thus from Hellen they derived the name of the Hellenes, from Heracles that of Heracleidæ, from Ion that of the Ionians, and from Pelasgos, the son sometimes of Zeus, sometimes of Poseidon, sometimes of Triops or Inachos or Lycaon or Palachthon or of the earth itself,[7] that of the Pelasgi. An Attic writer, familiar with this question, and hinting at a part of the theory which I have adopted, imagines the name of Pelasgi to have been at first bestowed on the race because they usually made their appearance on the shores of Hellas like migratory birds in spring.[8] But though conjecture in such matters may amuse, it is not likely, at this distance of time, to lead to truth.
The ancients had evidently formed no theory as to whence the Pelasgi came, but were satisfied with the notion of their autochthoneïty,[9] which we cannot adopt. It must be acknowledged, however, that we are little able to trace them with certainty beyond the limits of Greece, before their arrival in that country. My own opinion is, that when the migrations began from that vast and lofty table land of Central Asia, which formed the primitive abode of mankind, and where the mother language of the Sanskrit, the Greek, and many other dialects was first spoken, the illustrious race, afterwards known under the name of Pelasgi, moved westward by the Caspian, along the Caucasian range, through Armenia and Kourdistân, until they descended into the plains of Asia Minor. Here we seem to touch upon the obscurest verge of Grecian fable, for the tradition which sent Argo to Colchis, at the Eastern extremity of the Black Sea, evidently contemplated the people of the land as a kindred race, of similar faith, character, and manners. By what precise channel the stream of population rolled westward, cannot be determined: but here and there, on the southern shores of the Euxine, we discover some obscure footsteps of the parents of the Greeks, as they continued their journeyings towards the land which they were afterwards to encircle with glory. Moving through Pontos, Paphlagonia, and Bithynia, they appear everywhere to have made settlements on the coast, until they reached the narrow stream of the Bosporos, over which they threw themselves into Europe.
Up to this point we have little whereon to build our conclusions, save what is supplied by the general theory of ancient migrations, and what appear to be facts dimly seen within the extreme orbit of mythology. The ancients themselves seem to have obtained some uncertain glimpses of links connecting their ancestors with Asiatic Scythia, for there were those among them who represented the Caucons of Paphlagonia stretching along the banks of the Parthenios, and between the Maryandinians and the sea, as a nation of Scythian origin. Now the Caucons were undoubtedly Pelasgians, as were the Phrygians, the Carians, and the Leleges, who, united by the ties of blood, flocked to the defence of Troy.[10] In a much remoter age, the heroes of the traditional Argo were, it is said, confounded by night at Cyzicos,[11] in Mysia, with the warlike Pelasgi, even then masters of the sea, and accustomed with their galleys to vex the coast and plunder the settled inhabitants. I regard the working of the gold and silver mines on the southern shores of the Euxine, anterior to the Trojan war, as another proof of the settlement of the Pelasgi in that part of Asia Minor;[12] and who but they, at a period beyond the reach of tradition, could have opened those gold mines on the shores of Thrace, which on his conquest of the country Philip of Macedon found to have been long ago worked and abandoned by some unknown people?[13]
Be this as it may, it was over the Bosporos and through Thrace that the Pelasgi seem to have made their earliest approaches towards Greece. The Thracians themselves were of Pelasgian origin. Thracians inhabited both sides of the Bosporos; traces of Pelasgian settlements and Pelasgian names are likewise found on both sides. The stream of knowledge unquestionably poured through Thrace into Greece; and it is highly probable that the stream of population had, at a remoter period, flowed in the same channel. Once in Macedonia, the adventurers would be tempted southward by the beauty of the climate and country; so that while some moved up the valley of the Haliacmon, others, perhaps, took possession of the ridge of Olympos, Ossa and Pelion, where they were known under the names of Centaurs and Lapithæ.[14] From these lofty ridges they looked down upon the great lake which in those ages covered the whole plain of Thessaly, and, following the ramifications of the mountains, peopled Pelasgian Argos, Phthiotis, and the roots of Œta, while the lowlands were still under water: thence, too, they crossed over into Eubœa, where they assumed the names of Macrones[15] and Curetes. This latter tribe settling at Chalcis,[16] and having been worsted in a contest for the Lalantian plain, fled across the Euripos, and traversing the whole of Bœotia, founded a new settlement about Pleuron in Ætolia, and gave the name of Curetis to the whole country. Hence, also, in process of time, they were driven by the Ætolians from Pisa in Elis, upon which they took refuge in Acarnania.[17]
But the principal tribe, and that which subsequently spread throughout Greece, after filling with population the valley of the Haliacmon, traversing the Caulavian range, and descending along the course of the Aoös, seem on the banks of the Celydnos, to have turned their faces southward. Following that stream upwards towards its source, they found themselves in Epeiros, a land abounding with water brooks, with lovely mountains, and lovelier valleys, and at length settled, and erected themselves lasting habitations in the sacred neighbourhood of Dodona,[18] where the first oracle known to the Hellenes flourished under the protection of the Pelasgian Zeus.[19]
Up to this point we have been treading, with little or no light to guide us, over a soil shifting, unsure, and treacherous; but here we touch upon comparatively firm ground, while the light of poetry dawns around, and enables us to direct our footsteps towards the luminous terra firma of history.
It must not be denied that much of the foregoing theory is erected on inference and conjecture. Nevertheless, it rests in part on facts which an historian ought not to reject. For example, though it be nowhere, perhaps, distinctly stated that the Thracians were entirely of Pelasgian origin, we are compelled by various circumstances to believe that such was the case: first, Samothrace on the coast was undoubtedly peopled by Pelasgi;[20] secondly, the Macedonians, plainly of the same stock with the Thracians, are acknowledged to have been Pelasgi;[21] and since the Illyrians likewise were a kindred people,[22] we have a line of Pelasgian settlements stretching along the whole northern frontier of Greece, the Ægæan, the Hellespont, and the Propontis, from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. The chain of proofs, indeed, is not complete, but appears and disappears alternately, like the stream of the Alpheios, though little doubt can be entertained of the existence of the links which happen to lie out of sight. In nearly every part of Macedonia the footsteps of the Pelasgi are clearly discernible; at Crestona,[23] on the Echidoros in Pœonia; in Emathea, and Bottiœa;[24] and looking at the language of the country, we find it at all times to have been identical with that of Greece. That the same thing must be predicated of Thrace, even in the remotest ages, appears indisputably from this, that her bards, Thamyris and Orpheus traversed the whole of Hellas, and sang their wisdom to its inhabitants; while Olen coming from Lycia, a Pelasgian settlement,[25] likewise brought his kindred songs to the same tolerant and hospitable land.
But to follow the movements of the Pelasgi through Greece itself, where, though no chronology of events can be attempted, our views rest on a stable foundation. Much, however, of our reasoning will be confused or perhaps unintelligible, if it be not borne in mind that the name of the Pelasgi, like that of the Tartars or Arabs, was a general appellation applied to the whole race, while the several tribes bore separate denominations; as the Chaones,[26] the Dryopes, the Leleges, the Caucons, the Cranaans, with many others,[27] precisely as among the Arabs, we find the Ababde, the Mahazi, the Beni Sakker, &c. The Pelasgian tribe which first made its appearance, and became powerful in Epeiros, a country not to be separated from Greece, was that of the Chaones, whose chief seat was Cheimera,[28] at the foot of the Ceraunian mountains. An obscure scholiast, indeed, denominates them barbarians;[29] but as from the best authority we know them to have been Pelasgi, this shows the value of the term in the mouth of the later writers. Another class,—the Levites, perhaps, of those primitive people,—settled amid the oak forests which surrounded the lovely lake of Dodona, where under the name of Selli,[30] they founded the most celebrated oracle of early antiquity. In their habits they remind us of the Sanyasis, and other religious anchorites of India, living from views of penance with unwashed feet, and sleeping on the bare ground. Other tribes renowned of old in Epeiros, and all Pelasgian,[31] were the Thesprotians, the Molossians, the Perrhæbians, and the Dolopians, the last rough mountaineers inhabiting both the eastern and western slopes of Pindos.[32]
When Epeiros had been thus thickly sprinkled with settlements, an earthquake appears to have produced in the range of Pelion the narrow precipitous gap, afterwards known as Tempe, by which the waters of the Thessalian lake discharged themselves into the sea. This happened, we are told, while one Pelasigos[33] reigned over the mountaineers in the district of Hæmonia. They were celebrating a great feast, when a certain slave named Peloros, brought them tidings of what had come to pass, speaking with admiration of the vast plains which were appearing through the ebbing waters. In gratitude for the news he communicated, they caused the man to seat himself at table while both the king and his attendants, in the joy and fulness of their hearts ministered to him. This, it is said, was the origin of the Pelorian festival, afterwards, down to a very late period, celebrated with great pomp and magnificence in Thessaly, where, for the day, masters changed condition with their slaves, and became their servants.[34] The same festival in the Pelasgian settlements of Italy was known down to the latest times, under the name of Saturnalia.
On the interior of Thessaly becoming thus habitable, the Pelasgian tribes of Epeiros, beginning to be straitened for room, and feeling still the original wandering impulse, poured over the heights of Pindos into the valleys of Histiæotis, and moved eastward along the foot of the Cambunian mountains, settling every where as they advanced. The tribe which took this direction bore the name of Perrhæbians, and left traces of their movements in the great Perrhæbian forest, stretching to the foot of Olympos, and in the name of the whole district extending from the Peneios to the northern limits of Thessaly. In this rich and fertile tract they became powerful, spreading their dominion along the banks of the Peneios, quite down to the sea. But the Lapithæ rising into consequence and overcoming the Perrhæbians in battle, reduced a portion of the tribes under their yoke, while the remainder, enamoured of independence, retreated inland, again crossed the Pindos, and established themselves in the upper valley of the Acheloös. About the same time, perhaps, a fragment of this tribe traversing the whole of Thessaly crossed over into Eubœa, where they subdued and took possession of Histiæotis. It was possibly the entrance of these adventurers into the island, pushing fresh waves of population southward, that caused the contest for the Lalantian plain, and the emigration of the Curetes to the continent.
Other Pelasgian tribes established themselves, and became illustrious in Thessaly. The Centaurs, for example, a Lelegian clan inhabiting Mount Pelion, where they were, perhaps, the first tamers of the horse, whence the fable of their double form. Other sections of the Leleges were also found in Thessaly,[35] as were also the Dryopes. In this country,[36] notwithstanding that it must be regarded upon the whole as only the second stage of the Pelasgians in their migrations southward, we find more traces of their power and influence than anywhere else in Northern Greece. Here were two cities, called Larissa; here was Pelasgian Argos;[37] here, too, was a great district known by the name of Pelasgiotis, while that of Pelasgia seems to have preceded Thessaly as the appellation of the whole province.[38] This people, like most others, seem to have had a number of names, to which they were peculiarly attached, which we nearly always find reappearing wherever they formed a settlement. Generally, too, it may be regarded as certain that the more northern were the most ancient: thus we find Pelagonia in the kingdom of Macedon and in Thessaly; Larissa[39] on the Peneios; Larissa Cremaste near the shore. The Dryopes,[40] again, appear first in Epeiros, not far from Dodona; next we find them in Thessaly, then in Doris, finally in Peloponnesos; and Strabo is careful to remark that the last-mentioned were an off-shoot from those in the north.
From Thessaly the tide of population rolled southward;[41] different tribes of Pelasgi, under the name of Leleges, Hyantes, Aones, and Dryopes taking possession of the mountains and valleys of Doris, Locris, Phocis, and extending their migrations into the plains of Bœotia. From thence, across the isthmus, some few straggling hordes appear to have found their way into Peloponnesos, where, as shepherds, they gradually diffused themselves over its rich plains. All the Pelasgi in fact appear like the Arabs and Tartars to have been originally Nomades, different tribes of whom, as they were tempted by the beauty of particular regions, quitted their wandering life, as the Arabs have done in Egypt, Yemen, and elsewhere, and from shepherds became husbandmen. In process of time, the descendants of the settlers, accustomed to the easy and luxurious life of cities, learned to look back upon their wandering ancestors as a wretched and a barbarous race. Indeed, they sometimes speak of them[42] after their arrival in Peloponnesos as cannibals, naked, houseless, ignorant of the use of fire, on a level, in short, with the fiercest and most brutal savages existing in the islands of the Pacific. But these erroneous ideas evidently arose from the theory of autochthoneïty which supposes man to have gradually ripened out of a beast into a man; whereas, the low savages discovered in various parts of the world, do not represent the original state of mankind, but are mere instances of extreme degeneracy. In fact, a different set of traditions also prevailed among the Greeks, which, referring evidently to the period when their ancestors were Nomades, spoke with rapture and enthusiasm of their happy and tranquil life, when, following their flocks from vale to vale and from stream to stream, they fed upon the spontaneous productions which nature spread before them. On this period the poets bestowed the name of the Golden Age, and, perhaps, if examined philosophically, there is no stage in the history of civilisation at which there is so much to enjoy and so little to suffer, as when the whole nation are shepherds, and happen to light upon a land where, as yet too few to inconvenience each other, they can live unmolested by foreign tribes.
It has now been shown how Hellas might have been entirely peopled from the north; but certain traditions, prevailing from the earliest times, compel us to admit that some portion, at least, of its population reached it by a different route; that is, through Asia Minor and the islands. I have already alluded briefly to the existence of a Pelasgian tribe in Paphlagonia,[43] that is to say, the Caucons, whose establishment in this region supplies a link in the chain of proofs by which we endeavour to connect the Pelasgi with the Scythians of Central Asia; for the Caucons are admitted to have been of Pelasgian origin, and an opinion prevailed among the ancients that they were likewise Scythians.[44] Thus we find that certain Scythians settled in Paphlagonia, were called Caucons, that the Caucons were Pelasgi, and that the Pelasgi peopled Greece. The Greeks, therefore, by this account, traced their origin to Scythia. Circumstances connected with the geography of Asia Minor and of Hellas, seem to furnish traces of the route of the Pelasgi westward. It appears to have been among the primitive articles of their creed, that the deity delighted to abide on the summits of lofty and even of snowy mountains; and whenever in their settlements the features of the earth presented any such towering eminence, they seem to have bestowed on it the name of Olympos, or Celestial Mansion.[45] Immediately south of the Cauconian settlements, on the limits of Bithynia and Galacia, we accordingly find a mountain of this name; again, travelling westward, we have another Mount Olympos, on the northern confines of Phrygia; a third meets us in the island of Lesbos;[46] a fourth in Cypros, a fifth in Arcadia,[47] a sixth in Elis, and a seventh, best known of all, near the cradle of the Hellenes in Thessaly. In Mysia,[48] the footsteps of the race are numerous; Pelasgian cities—Placia, Scylace, Cyzicos, Antandros—studded the coast; inland there was a Larissa;[49] and the lovely-leafed evergreen, which shaded the slopes and crags of the Trojan Ida, was named the Pelasgian laurel.[50] Other facts there are connecting the Trojans with the Pelasgian stock: thus the Caucons, whom we find among their allies in Homer, are called a Trojan tribe; the language of Troy was evidently a Pelasgian dialect, closely allied to the Greek,[51] which may likewise be predicated of the Phrygian, the Lydian, the Carian, the Lycian extending along the whole western coast of Asia Minor. The gods, oracles, rites, ceremonies of all these people appear in early times to have been identical with those of Hellas, and mythology represents the heroes of both continents as sprung from the same gods. Nay, positive testimony describes the Pelasgi as a great nation, holding the whole western coast of Asia Minor, from Mycale to the Hellespont;[52] and speaks of the Leleges as inhabiting a part of Caria, where their deserted fortifications, called Lelegia,[53] apparently of Cyclopian construction, were still found in the time of Strabo,[54] together with their tombs, probably barrows, resembling those scattered through Peloponnesos, and called the “Tombs of the Phrygians.”[55] Similar sepulchral relics of Carian dominion were found and opened by the Athenians in the purification of Delos.[56] Possibly, too, the tumuli, existing to this day in Tartary, and occasionally rifled by the Siberians, mark the original seat of the Pelasgi in Asia; though similar monuments are found in other parts of the East, as in Nubia, where I counted a cluster of ten or twelve, and nearly all over Europe. Homer speaks of one on the plains of Troy, and the Greeks themselves cast up barrows over their heroes, as Ajax, where
Not to omit any material facts, on which my view of Pelasgian history is founded, I shall proceed to mention in order the principal points on the Asiatic shore where the footsteps of the Pelasgi appear. We find, then, that they occupied the greater part of Lydia,[57] and at the time of the Ionian migration held the citadel of Ephesos. They, too, in conjunction with the Nymphs were the founders of the temple of Hera at Samos,[58] and crossing the Mæander they re-appear again at Miletos on the coast of Caria. Indeed this city[59] was originally, from its inhabitants, called Lelegeis, though it afterwards was known under a variety of names, as Pituoussa from the surrounding pine woods, Anactoria, and lastly, Miletos. A little further southward was another Lelegian settlement at Pedasos on the Satneios.[60] From a passage in Homer it has been supposed that the Carians and Lelegians were distinct races, but in reality the Carians were a Lelegian tribe;[61] that is Pelasgi, who like the Hellenes in Greece, gradually acquired power and dominion, and eclipsed their brethren. This they were enabled to do by applying themselves passionately to the use of arms, a circumstance which at a later period led them to make a traffic of their valour and hire their swords to the best bidder. In earlier and better times they achieved conquests for themselves, and rivalling the Phœnicians in maritime enterprise and success, reduced under their sway the greater number of the Ægæan islands,[62] and even some portion of the Hellenic continent itself.[63] Certain clans of this martial race sought an outlet for their restless daring by joining the Cilicians[64] in their piratical enterprises, and probably it was in this character that they first obtained possession of some of the smaller isles. Positive historical testimony there seems to be none for fixing the Pelasgi in Cypros,[65] though we cannot doubt that it was included in their dominions, from the ruins of Cyclopian fortresses still found there, and the Olympian Mount already mentioned. In Rhodes, however, and Samos antiquity speaks of their settlements;[66] they, too, were the earliest inhabitants of Chios,[67] whence they sent forth a colony to Lesbos,[68] which received from them the name of Pelasgia. They expelled the Minyans from Lemnos,[69] which afterwards, through fear of Darius, their king ceded to the Athenians,[70] and held Imbros[71] and Samothrace[72] in the north; Scyros, too, was originally named Pelasgia.[73] Andros was peopled by one[74] of their colonies, and Delos, as we have already seen, held their bones until they were cast forth by the Athenians. But it is unnecessary to enumerate each separate point, since we know generally that all the Ægæan isles were anciently in their possession,[75] and that even the great island of Crete formed, in remote ages, a portion of their empire. Here under the names of Curetes, Corybantes, Telchines and Dactyli,[76] they flourished in the mythical times, and were the reputed preservers and nurses of the infant Zeus, a god pre-eminently Pelasgian, so that wherever his worship was found I regard it as a proof that the Pelasgi had settled there.
Passing thus from island to island in the very infancy of navigation, the Pelasgi appear by way of the Sporades and Cycladæ, to have migrated into Peloponnesos, first landing at Argos. Probably on their arrival they found there some few inhabitants who by the isthmus had entered and scattered themselves at leisure over the peninsula. But whether this was so or not, certain it is that the oldest legends of Hellenic mythology allude to the peopling of Argos by sea, representing Inachos, its first ruler, as a son of the ocean.[77] From this chief, whether historical or fabulous, the principal river of Argos received its appellation, and members of his family bestowed their names on Argolis first, and afterwards on the whole of Peloponnesos, which from Apis was denominated Apia;[78] from Pelasgos, Pelasgia;[79] and from another prince so called, it received the name of Argos.[80] In this division of Hellas, which the rays of poetry and mythology unite to render luminous, the Pelasgi[81] seem early to have struck deep root, and made a rapid progress in civilisation. Here, accordingly, in historical times were found the most numerous monuments of their power and grandeur; and here, in the treasury of Atreus and the walls of Tiryns denominated Cyclopian, we still may contemplate proofs of their opulence and progress in the arts. Among them would appear to have existed a class or caste named Cyclops, addicted extremely to handicrafts, particularly building. These it was who erected the walls and citadel of Argos,[82] on which they bestowed the name of Larissa, together with certain labyrinths, said to have existed in the neighbourhood of Nauplia. Mycenæ appears to have been the most ancient capital of the country, built while the site of Argos was yet a marsh,[83] or perhaps under water; then came Tiryns, and lastly Argos. Other early seats of the Pelasgi were at Epidauros and Hermione.[84]
But the province of Peloponnesos which the Pelasgi most delighted to consider their home, was the rough, wild, and elevated table land of Arcadia,[85] resembling on a small scale their original seat in central Asia; belted round by mountains with many streams and rivers pouring down their sides: here long shut out from commerce with the rest of mankind they multiplied in ease and security, and became a great nation,[86] who, to express the idea of their own extreme antiquity, professed themselves to be older than the moon.[87] Having lost all tradition of their arrival in the country, they looked upon themselves as autochthons, and regarded their mountain-girt land as the great reservoir of Pelasgian population,[88] whence its colonies like streams, flowed outwards, and peopled the rest of Hellas; and probably it was thence that the first emigrants descended into the valley of the Eurotas, spread themselves through Laconia, and found a mountain on which they bestowed the holy name of Olympos. In this province one of the most famous of the Pelasgian tribes, is by some traditions said to have had its origin; for Lelex,[89] who gave his name to the Leleges, they fabled to have been an autochthon of Laconia, and down even to the times of Pausanias an heroum was shown at Sparta erected in honour of his name. Undoubtedly a mythical legend connected with this hero was deeply interwoven with the fabulous history of Laconia. His son Eurotas was the father of Sparta, wife of Lacedæmon, who gave his name to the country. He had two daughters, Amycla and Eurydice, the latter of whom became the wife of Acrisios.[90] The Acarnanians, however, had among them a tradition which made Lelex an autochthon of Leucadia,[91] and the people of Megara spoke of one Lelex[92] who arrived in their country by sea from Egypt.
To proceed, however, with the traces of the Pelasgi in Peloponnesos. It has sometimes been supposed that no proof exists of their having held any part of this peninsula excepting Argos, Achaia and Arcadia;[93] but erroneously, for we have seen the Leleges, a Pelasgian tribe, in Laconia; and we find a settlement of the Pelasgi in Messenia. Here also at Andania flourished the Pelasgian worship of the Dii Kabyri from Samothrace;[94] colony of Leleges, under Pylos, son of Cleison, settled at Pylos on the Coryphasian promontory.[95] The Caucons held Cyparissos;[96] that is both in the interior of Messenia and along the sea coast we find settlements of the race which peopled the whole peninsula. Passing northward into Elis, we immediately on crossing the Neda find Caucons in the Lepreatis,[97] where, probably, in proof that the tribe originated there, they showed in Strabo’s[98] time the tomb of Caucon. They had likewise a river Caucon[99] in the north of Elis, and in short the whole country from the Neda to the Larissos bore anciently the name of Cauconia.[100] Some, however, maintain that they were found only at three points on the coast, that is, in the south of Triphylia,[101] in the north near Dyme, and at Hollow Elis on the Peneios, which Aristotle considered their chief seat.[102] Nevertheless Antimachos regarded the Epeians as Caucons,[103] and since these inhabited the whole western coast from Messenia northward, we must consider Elis as the principal though not the original seat of this tribe; for we find them represented as issuing from Arcadia, and we have already shown that they were settled in Paphlagonia, and were denominated a Trojan tribe.
Turning our faces eastward from the promontory Araxos, we discover along the coast a chain of Pelasgian settlements founded by Ionians from Athens.[104] To complete our list of proofs that there was no spot in all Hellas not possessed by the Pelasgi, we find a prince of that race, and named Pelasgos, receiving the goddess Demeter at Corinth in the remotest periods of the mythology.[105]
Thus, then, we have traced this illustrious people under various names through every region of Greece, save Attica; and there also they were found, but whether they arrived by land or sea, I profess myself wholly unable to determine. A modern historian[106] who experienced the same difficulty, observes, that the Ionians appear to have dropped from heaven into Attica. Unquestionably we do not know whence they came, and as their own legends represent them as autochthons[107] we can expect no aid from tradition. The most probable supposition is, that when the migratory hordes were pushing southward from Thessaly, some clans, more fortunate than the rest, traversing the heights of Cithæron soon found themselves in possession of this unfertile but lovely land, covered in those ages with forests, diversified by hill and dale, and breathing perfume from every thicket. The succeeding tide of emigration breaking against the ridge of Cithæron seems to have turned westward and flowed into the Peloponnesos, leaving Attica unmolested. Some have regarded its own barrenness as the rampart which protected it from invasion. But why may we not suppose that the inhabitants finding themselves thriving and tranquil, resolved early to fight for their possessions, and hedged themselves from invasion by courage and arms? be this as it may, Attica was the first part of Hellas that enjoyed permanent exemption from war, so that the olive, its principal ornament and riches, became in all after ages the emblem of peace. Once settled in this country the Pelasgi were never driven thence,[108] nor did they ever receive any considerable mixture of foreign settlers. Individuals from time to time were permitted to take up their abode among them; but, in this favoured spot, unalloyed by foreign mixture, the Pelasgic genius completely developed itself, and reached the highest pitch of civilisation known to the ancient world.
The earliest name bestowed on the Pelasgian tribe which held Attica was that of Cranaans;[109] but whether they were so distinguished before their migration thither, or, which is more probable, derived their appellation from the rocky nature[110] of their country, does not appear. Like most of the ancient nations, however, they frequently changed their name: at first perhaps simply Pelasgi, next Cranaans, then Cecropidæ and Ionians; afterwards, under the reign of Erechtheus they obtained from their patron divinity the name of Athenians, by which they have been known down to the present day. Among the fables of the mythology we discover traces of several attempts at disputing with the Aborigines the sovereignty of Attica. Thus Eumolpos, with a colony of Thracians, is by one tradition said to have obtained possession of the whole country,[111] while another and more probable legend represents him as settling with a small band at Eleusis, where his family during the whole existence of Paganism exercised the office of priests of Demeter.[112] The Cretans again under Minos sought to obtain a footing in the country; but the close of the tradition which speaks of this invasion shows that though disgraceful to Attica it was without any permanent result. Afterwards, when the unsettled Pelasgi had degenerated into pirates and freebooters, a powerful band of them appears to have found its way thither, and obtained a settlement in the immediate neighbourhood of the capital,[113] on condition, apparently, of labouring at the erection of walls round the Acropolis. A portion of the fortifications is said to have been completed by these marauders, and to have obtained from them the name of the Pelasgian wall. But even these strangers were not suffered to remain; quarrels arising either about the land which the Pelasgi had obtained on the slopes of Hymettos, or on account of violence offered to certain Athenian maidens descending to the fountain of Callirrhoë for water. The emigrants were expelled and took refuge in Lemnos. In revenge for what they regarded as an injury, they carried away a number of Attic virgins who were celebrating the festival of Artemis at Brauron, which led in after times to the capture of Lemnos by Miltiades.
It seems to result from the above inquiry that every district in Hellas was originally peopled by the Pelasgi, which the poets in after ages expressed by saying that a king of that nation reigned over the whole country as far northward as the Strymon in Thrace.[114]
We have shown that their dominions extended much further, and included not Thrace only, beyond the limits of Greece, but a great part likewise of Asia Minor and nearly every island in the Ægæan. But even these spacious limits were not wide enough to containcontain the whole Pelasgian population; for traversing the Adriatic, they penetrated into Etruria, and there and elsewhere in Italy, under the name of Tyrrhenians, erected Cyclopian cities, and deposited the germs of its future civilisation.[115] Hence the great resemblance which historians and antiquaries have observed between the Etruscans and the Greeks. Both were offshoots from the great Pelasgic stem; though the simplicity of the original race in religion and manners maintained longer its ground in Italy than under the warmer skies of Greece. In these more western settlements, however, new tribes sprang up, who in glory eclipsed the mother race, which they learned to regard with contempt, so that they bestowed the name of Pelasgi on their slaves. A similar circumstance had previously occurred in Asia Minor, where the Carians reduced to servitude such of their brethren as in later times retained the name of Leleges.[116]
If now we cast a rapid glance over the sciences and civilisation of the Pelasgi, we shall probably have acquired as complete an idea of that ancient people as existing monuments enable us to frame.[117] Tradition attributed to them the invention of several arts of primary necessity, as those of building houses and manufacturing clothing, which they did from the skins of wild boars, the animals first slain by man for food. A relic of this primitive style of dress remained, we are told, to a very late age among the rustics of Phocis and Eubœa.[118] Other traditions will have it that mankind fed on grass and herbs until the Pelasgi taught them the greater refinement of feeding upon acorns. But leaving these poetical fancies, we shall find in many genuine monuments and facts undisputed proofs of the power and knowledge of the Pelasgi. In the first place, they it was who bequeathed to their Hellenic descendants some knowledge, though imperfect and obscure, of the true God.[119] In their minds the recognition of the unity of the Divine Being formed the basis of theology, and the philosophers of after ages who reasoned best and thought most correctly rose no higher on these points than their rude ancestors.
But the natural tendency of the human mind to error soon disturbed the simplicity of their faith; for as the tribes separated, each taking a different direction, they all in turns learned to consider the God as their patron, so that speedily there were as many gods as tribes, and polytheism was created. Thus the Pelasgi, who had at first like the polished nations of modern times no name for the gods, because they believed in but one, degenerated in the course of time, and invented that system of divinities and heroes which afterwards prevailed in Greece. They, too, it was, who in the developement of their superstition made the first steps towards the arts by setting up rude images of the powers they worshipped, and to them accordingly the introduction of the Hermæan statues at Athens is attributed.[120] There was likewise in a temple of Demeter between mount Eboras and Taygetos, a wooden statue of Orpheus, supposed to be the workmanship of the Pelasgi.[121] Evidently too, the worship of Demeter, and of all the rural gods grew up originally among them, as did likewise the adoration of supreme power and supreme wisdom in Zeus and Athena.[122]
Usually the Pelasgi are considered as a much wandering people,[123] though it would be more correct to represent them, like the Anglo-Saxon race in modern times, as the prolific parents of many settlements, spreading widely, but taking root wherever they spread. A proof of this still exists in the vast structures[124] which they reared, whose ruins are yet found scattered through Asia, Greece, and Italy. These Cyclopian buildings, palaces, treasuries, fortresses, barrows, were not the works of nomadic hordes, but of a people attached to the soil and resolute in defending it. Navigation, likewise, they cultivated, and were among the earliest nations who possessed a power at sea,[125] which led necessarily to the study of astronomy, together with the occult science of the stars.[126] Of their progress in the more ordinary arts of utility we have very little knowledge, but we find in the Iliad a Pelasgian woman staining ivory to be used as ornaments of a war-horse;[127] the invention of the shepherd’s crook was attributed to them; so likewise was the religious dance called Hyporchema;[128] their proficiency in music is spoken of;[129] and their pre-eminence in war was signified by representing them as inventors of the shield.[130]
On the language of the Pelasgi various opinions are entertained. Some, relying on particular passages in ancient writers, have imagined that it was very different from the Greek,[131] but although in support of such an opinion much ingenuity may be exhibited there are circumstances which compel us to reject it. The Athenians and Arcadians, for example, though of Pelasgian origin, spoke, and that from the remotest times, the same language with the rest of the Greeks; and though the Æolic dialect,[132] the most ancient in Arcadia, or indeed in all Greece, was transformed to Latin in Italy, we are not on that account to infer that Latin bore a closer resemblance than the Greek to the mother tongue of both. The Pelasgian language indeed appears to have been the Hellenic in the earlier stages of its formation, just as the Pelasgi themselves were Greeks under another name and in a ruder state of civilisation. Whether they possessed any knowledge of written characters before[133] the introduction of the Phœnician we have now no means of ascertaining, the passages usually brought forward in behalf of such an opinion being of small authority. To them, however, tradition attributes the introduction of letters into Latium,[134] and there can be no doubt that the use of written characters was known in Greece before its inhabitants had ceased to be called Pelasgi.
I have now, I imagine, proved that the Pelasgi whencesoever they came, occupied, under one name or another, the whole continent of Greece and most of the islands. The Athenians, and consequently the Ionians, are on all hands acknowledged to have sprung from the Pelasgian stock. It only remains to be shown that the Dorians also traced their origin to this people, and we shall be satisfied that the whole of the illustrious nation, known to history under the name of Greeks, flowed from one and the same source. The Hellenes, of whom the Dorians were a tribe,[135] occupied in later times the south of Thessaly, but at a much earlier period, along with the Selli,[136] dwelt in the mountainous tracts about Dodona, where they were known under the name of Greeks or mountaineers,[137] which was the original signification of the term. This district of Epeiros, it has been shown, was among the very earliest of the Pelasgian settlements, from which of itself it might be inferred that the Hellenes were Pelasgi. We are not left to rely in this matter on mere inference, since Herodotus states distinctly that they were a fragment of the Pelasgi.[138]
It will be seen that I have hitherto made no allusion to the received fables about Egyptian and Phœnician colonies.[139] Nevertheless it is quite possible that on many occasions certain fugitives, both from Phœnicia and Egypt, may have taken refuge in Greece, and been permitted, as in after ages, to settle there. These persons, coming from countries farther advanced in civilisation, would undoubtedly bring along with them a superior degree of knowledge in many useful arts, which, in gratitude for their hospitable reception, they would undoubtedly communicate to the inhabitants. But the most active agent in the diffusion of civilisation was probably commerce, which, by bringing neighbouring nations into close contact, by enlarging the sphere of their experience, and teaching them the advantages to be derived from peaceful intercourse, has in all ages softened and refined mankind. When the use of letters began first to prevail in the East is not known, but it was probably communicated early to the Pelasgi, along with the materials for writing; and whatever inventions were made on either side of the Mediterranean passed rapidly from shore to shore, so that the civilisation of the Egyptians, Phœnicians, and Greeks, advanced simultaneously, though the beginnings of improvement were undoubtedly more ancient on the banks of the Nile and among the maritime Arabs than in Hellas. The amount, however, of eastern influences I conceive was not great, and as to colonies, properly so called, with the exception of those already described from Asia Minor, I believe there never were any.