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 the introduction of the Phoenician 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, 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,3 occupied in later times the south of Thessaly, but at a much earlier period, along with the Selli, dwelt in the mountainous tracts about Dodona, where they were known under the name of Greeks or mountaineers, 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

5

See, however, the question discussed in Palmerius, Gr. Ant. p. 49. sqq. Conf. Eustath. ad Il.

B. 841.

2 Plin. vii. 56. Tacit. Annal.

xi. 14. et Rupert ad loc. Hygin. Fab. 277. p. 336.

3 Serv. ad Æn. ii. 4.

4 Aristot. Meteorol. i. 14. p. 39. 5 Palm. Gr. Ant. 5.

states distinctly that they were a fragment of the Pelasgi.1

It will be seen that I have hitherto made no allusion to the received fables about Egyptian and Phonician colonies. Nevertheless it is quite possible that on many occasions certain fugitives, both from Phoenicia 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, Phoenicians, 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.

1 I. 58.

2 See Mitford (Hist. of Greece, 81. ff.) who is full of these colo

nies. Herod. i. 2. Conf. Thirl. i. 185. Keightley, Hist of Greece, p. 11. Müll. Dor. i. 16.

29

CHAPTER II.

CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.

HAVING in the foregoing chapter endeavoured to ascertain by what races Greece was originally peopled, we shall next speak of the character and physical organisation of its inhabitants. In doing this it may be useful to consider them in three different stages of their progress: first, in the heroic and poetical times; secondly, in the historical and flourishing ages of the Hellenic commonwealth; thirdly, in their corrupt and degenerate state under the dominion of the Macedonians and Romans.

The most distinguishing characteristic of the Hellenes, when poetry first places them before us, is a profound veneration for the divinity and every thing connected with the service of religion. By the force of imagination heaven and earth were brought near each other, not so much, indeed, by elevating the latter, as by bringing down the former within the sphere of humanity. Gods and men moved together over the earth, cooperated in bringing about events, keeping up a constant interchange of beneficence; the god aiding, the mortal repaying his aid with gratitude; the god guiding, the mortal submitting to be directed, until, sometimes, as in the case of Odysseus and Athena, the feeling of grace and favour on the one side, and of veneration and gratitude on the other, ripened into something like friendship and affection.

No man entered on any important enterprise without first consulting the gods, and throwing himself

1 Cf. Plut. Pericl. § 13.

upon their protection, by sacrifice, divination, and prayer. They conceived, according to the best lights afforded them by their rude creed, that although means existed of warping the judgment, perverting the affections, and vitiating the decisions of their divinities, yet upon the whole and in the natural order of things they were just and beneficent, mercifully caring for the poor and the stranger, the guardians of friendship and hospitality, and avenging severely the offences committed against their laws. Habitually, when not provoked to vengeance by impiety or crimes, the gods they believed were not only beneficent towards mankind, but given among themselves to cheerfulness and mirth, loving music, songs, and laughter, feasting jovially together in a joy serene and almost imperturbable, save when interrupted by solicitude for some favoured mortal. Philosophy, in more intellectual times, condemned this rude conception of divine things; but men's ideas, like their offerings, belong to the state of society in which they live, and the Greeks of the heroic ages unquestionably attributed to their gods the qualities most in esteem among themselves.

Next to religion the most prominent feeling in the mind of the early Greeks was filial piety. Nowhere among men were parents held in higher honour. The reverence paid to them partook largely of the religious sentiment. Regarded as the instruments by which God had communicated the mysterious and sacred gift of life, they were supposed by their children to be for ever invested with a high degree of sanctity as ministers and representatives of the Creator. Hence the anxiety experienced to obtain a father's blessing and the indescribable dread of his curse. A peculiar set of divinities, the terrible Erinnyes, all but implacable and unsparing, were entrusted with the guardianship of a

'See Man. Moschop. ap Arist. Nubb. 982.

2

Respect for old age is still a remarkable feature in the Greek character. Thiersch. Etat. Actuel

de la Grèce, i. 292. On the same trait in their ancestors see Mitf. i. 186. Odyss. w. 254. Plat. Repub. vi. p. 6. f. Esch. cont. Tim. § 7.

parent's rights, and indescribable were the pangs and anguish supposed to seize upon transgressors. These were the powers who tracked about the matricides Orestes and Alemæon, scaring them with spectral terrors and filling their palaces with the alarms and agonies of Tartaros. On the other hand, nothing can be more beautiful than the pictures of filial piety exhibited by the nobler characters of heroic times. The examples are innumerable, but none is so striking or complete as that of Achilles towards his father Peleus. Fierce, vehement, stern in the ordinary relations of life, towards his aged father he is gentle as a child. His heart yearns to him with a strength of feeling incomprehensible to a meaner nature. He submits to his sway and authority not from any apprehension of his power, not even from the fear of offending him, but from the fulness of his love, from the natural excellence and purity of his heart. He would erect his valour and the might of his arm into a rampart round the old man, to protect him from injury and insult; and even in the cold region of shadows beyond the grave this feeling is represented as still alive, so that in death, as in life, the uppermost anxiety of the hero's soul is for the happiness of his father. Even in the government of his impetuous passions during his mortal career, in the choice of the object of his love, Achilles expresses a desire to render his feelings subordinate to those of his parent, thus verging on the utmost limits of self-denial and self-control conceivable in a state of nature. Homer understood his Countrymen well when he gave these qualities to his hero. Without them, he knew that no degree of courage or wisdom would have sufficed to render him popular, and, therefore, we find him not only preeminent for his piety towards the gods, but at the same time the most affectionate and dutiful of sons, the warmest, most disinterested, and unchangeable of friends.

And this leads us to consider another remarkable feature of the Greek character,-its peculiar apti