III. Bochart. Phaleg. BOOK was found, as the learned Bochartus hath demonstrated from several authors. This is now the substance of the generally received account concerning the planta1. iii. c. 10. tion of Greece from the posterity of Noah; which if it be taken as to that people which did at length possess Greece, I see no reason to disapprove it; but, if it be extended to the first plantation of Greece, I see as little to embrace it. That we may therefore judge more freely of the first inhabitants of Greece, it is requisite we take an account of it from those who profess themselves most versed in their own antiquities, who may in a matter of this nature, which is attested by the common consent of the most learned antiquaries of Greece, be the more credited, in that what they thus deliver may be supposed to come from an ancient and undoubted tradition. XI. It is evident therefore, from the judgment of the most learned and judicious even of the Greeks themselves, that Greece was first inhabited by a people by them called barbarous, i. e. a people different from them in language and manners. So Ephorus, whom Polybius commends as the best writer of the Greek antiquities, saith that Greece was inhabited by a barbarous people before the Hellens came into it. And Hecatæus Milesius, cited by Strabo concerning Peloponnesus, ὅτι πρὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ᾤκησαν αὐτὴν βάρβαροι, which Strabo himself not only believes of Peloponnesus, but of all Greece, that it was κατοικία βαρβάρων τὸ V. Schol. Táλatov, anciently a plantation of barbarians. The same is affirmed by Aristotle, writing of the commonwealth of the Tegeates concerning Arcadia, that before its being possessed by the Arcadians it was inhabited by a barbarous people, who, because they were expulsed their country before moon-rising, the Arcadians called themselves #poσéλnvo. Whether that be the Strabo, 1. vii. p. 222. in Apollon. iv. 262. IV. ground of that vain-glorious boast, (of which many CHAP. reasons are given by learned men,) I here dispute not; it is sufficient that we find the Grecians were not the first who peopled any of these several places; which is likewise attested by Herodotus, Thucydides, and others, whose testimonies we shall afterwards produce. It being then evident that the Grecians were not the first who inhabited that country after from them called Greece, it follows to be inquired what this barbarous people was, and from whence they came. Strabo hath given us in a large catalogue of the names of many of them; as the Dryopes, Caucones, Leleges, besides the Aones, Tembices, Hyantes, and many others; but these seem not to have been that ancient people, but rather some latter castlings of the Carians, who, as Thucydides tells us, did very often make inroads upon the quarters of Greece. That people which had the largest spread, and greatest antiquity, was the Pelasgi: thence Peloponnesus was anciently called Пeλaoyía; Stephanus Byzantius Πελοποννήσου τρεῖς ἐπωνυμίαι, ̓Απία, Πελασγία, and "Apyos; and Apollodorus saith, that the Peloponnesians were anciently called Pelasgi; and Euripides, Πελασγιώτας ώνομασμένους τὸ πρὶν Δαναούς. And elsewhere, Πρῶτον Πελασγοί, Δαναΐδαι τὸ δεύτερον. These Pelasgi were not only in Peloponnesus, but in Attica too, as appears by Strabo, where he saith the nation of the Pelasgi did inhabit; and by the Athenians (that is after their mixture) they were called πελαρyol, Storks, dia Thν λá, for their frequent removals Strabo, 1. from place to place: and Pausanias mentions their be-ed. Caing under the Acronoli at Athens: that they were in Thessaly, is evident from Hesychius. Heλaoyoì, oi Oeσσαλοί· καὶ ἔνιοι τῶν βαρβάρων, καὶ γένος ἀπὸ Πελασγοῦ τοῦ ix. p. 273. saub. BOOK JII. ΒΟΟΚ Αρκάδος γενόμενον πολυπλάνητον. Arcadia seems to have been the first or chief place of their residence; for the Arcadians, who were accounted παλαιότατα ἔθνη τῶν ἑλλή Arcad. Strabo, 1. xiii. 427. p. νων, do vindicate the founder of this nation, whom they call Pelasgus, to themselves, and say he was an autóxwv among them, that is, the first who came into that country; for all those, whose original they knew not, Pausan. in they called Terræ Filios, and Genuinos Terræ. Pausanias rightly conjectures that he was the first man among them, not as though he was alone, but because the chief ruler and commander among them, and that brought them into the country; but though they might fix themselves about Arcadia, it is evident they spread further, for Menecrates Eleates, in his book of the founders of cities, affirms, that all the sea-coasts of Greece called Ionica, beginning from Mycale, were first Idem, 1. vii. inhabited by the Pelasgi: nay, we find them yet much higher in Epirus, who were, as Strabo tells us, the first founders of the famous oracle of Dodona; for so Ephorus in him saith it was Πελασγῶν ἵδρυμα, and that these were τῶν περὶ τὴν ἑλλάδα δυναστευόντων ἀρχαιότατοι : thence the poet, p. 226. Iliad. '. 233. Hesiod. ed. Oxon. Iliad. '. 234. And Hesiod, Ζεῦ ἄνα, Δωδωναῖς, Πελασγικέ. Δωδώνην φηγόν τε Πελασγῶν ἕδρανον ἦν. Strabo further makes it evident that they were a barbarous people, which lived about Dodona, from the description Homer gives of them, ἀμφὶ δὲ Σελλοὶ Σοὶ ναίουσ ̓ ὑποφῆται, ἀνιπτόποδες, χαμαιεῦναι. Philostr. in Which Philostratus best interprets, when he saith they were αὐτοσχέδιοι τινες καὶ οὔτε κατεσκευασμένοι τὸν βίον, such Imag. that thought the gods were best pleased with their simplicity and severity of life, and therein far different from the Grecian humour. Suidas in Thessalicis (cited IV. likewise by Strabo) saith that the temple of Dodona CHAP. was removed from Scotusa in Pelasgia to Thessala; which is confirmed by Herodotus in Euterpe, where he largely speaks of the temple and oracle at Dodona. These Pelasgi confined not themselves to Greece neither, but were dispersed into the neighbour islands, as Chios, Crete, Lesbos, Lemnos, Imbro, Samos, as will appear afterwards; and at last came into Italy, as is well known, and are thought to be the same with the Tyrrhenians, and by some conceived to be the first founders of Rome. We see what a large spread the Pelasgi had over Greece, which was divided, after the Hellens began to appear, into τὸ πελασγικόν and τὸ ἑλλη VIKOV, as Herodotus witnesseth; and so these two appear to be a very different people from one another, and not the same, under different names, as is commonly thought. Herod. 1. i. ed. Wess. Which sufficiently appears from their language, XII. which was quite different from one another. So He- c. 21. rodotus, Ησαν οἱ Πελασγοί βάρβαρον γλῶσσαν ἵεντες, they used a barbarous language, i. e. a language not understood by the Hellens, who at first had their chief residence in Thessaly; from whence by degrees they came forwards into Greece, as Thucydides shews. For although the name of Hellens at last spread itself over all the people of Greece, yet it was at first peculiar to that part of Thessaly called Pthiotis; and thence Homer calls them properly Hellens which followed Achilles from thence: and it appears by Homer, that there was a city there called "Exλas, which, as Stephanus de Urbibus tells us, was there built by "Eλans ; although he will not have him to be Hellen the son of Deucalion, but the son Phthius, wherein he is mistaken; for Thucydides plainly shews that it was from Hellen, the son of Deucalion, that the name “Eλλŋves BOOK came; and this Hellen lived in Phthiotis. But al III. though they were first in Phthiotis, yet they daily increasing in numbers and power, by degrees they got all Thessaly into their hands, of which one part was called Пeλaσyitis; afterwards under Dorus, the son of Hellen, they conquered Hestiæctis, that part of Thessaly which lies under the mountains Ossa and Olympus; from thence they were beaten back by the Cadmeans into Pindus, where the Greeks were first called Makeovol, as Herodotus tells us; from hence they went into Dryopis, and thence into Peloponnesus, and there had the name Dorians; but before their coming hither, they had first secured themselves of the Hellens lying between Thessaly and Peloponnesus, and there they dispossessed the Pelasgi in all the Attic region, who were now forced to submit or to fly. They who submitted, as most of them did, were incorporated into the Greeks, and became one people with them; and so by degrees lost that former language which was peculiar to themselves, and wholly distinct from the Greek tongue. That the Hellens did thus gradually come into Peloponnesus, is evident from the names of people and places common to Thessaly and Peloponnesus ; which came from hence, that though the Greeks left the cities behind them, yet they carried most of the names along with them. Thus the Achæi, Ionians, and Æolians, and Dorians in Peloponnesus came from those of the same names in Thessaly; and so likewise the names of these following regions and cities were common to both, as Ellopia, Estiæa, Eretria, and Oropos, Graia, Larissa, Psophis, Iton, Echalia, and very Salmas. de many others. Salmasius seems to be of opinion, that the Pelasgi never used any language distinct from the Hellens; but besides that it is directly contrary to the testimony of Herodotus, the arguments he produceth Hellen. P. 315. |