Studies on Homer

Sect. VII. — On the Respective Contributions of the Pelasgian and Hellenic Factors to the Compound of the Greek Nation

Contributions to the mythology.

In this attempt at an ethnological survey, we have now come down to the point, at which the Greek Peninsula passes over from its old Pelasgian character, and becomes subject to predominating Hellenic influences.

Now therefore, and before we examine the relations and succession of the great Homeric appellations for the Hellenes, appears to be the time for considering how the account stands between these tribes and the Pelasgians, and what were, so far as by probable evidence we can ascertain it, the respective contributions from the two sources to the integral character of the Greeks and of their institutions.

In the case of Greece, as it is known to us in history, we have the most remarkable disproportion between moral and physical power, and between the green and the full grown product, which is offered to view in the whole range of human experience. A circumscribed country, with a small population, throws forth, without loss of vital power, to the East and to the West, colonies greatly transcending itself, as would appear, in wealth and population; continues for many centuries to exercise a primary influence in the world; at one time resists and repels, at another invades and terrifies, at a third overthrows and crushes to atoms the great colossus of Eastern empire, and continues to exercise, through the medium of mind, a singular mastery, enduring down to our own time, and likely still to endure, over civilized man. And even the miniature organization of Greece presents to us, within its own limits, diversities of character almost enough for a quarter of the globe.

Many of these diversities connect themselves with the ethnological formation of the different communities. In the course of that process, so far as can be discerned, certain admixtures of foreign influence were supplied direct from Phœnicia, Egypt, or elsewhere: but the grand component parts or factors in this composite product are two, the Hellenic and the Pelasgic. To this dual combination, perhaps the double invocation of Achilles (Il. xvi. 233, 4) is a witness.

The development of the national character is the most large and varied in Attica, where the population, from successive immigrations of bodies of refugees, and from the free general resort and reception of strangers, presented also the largest and most varied ethnical compound.

In analysing that national character which thus resulted from the amalgamation of ingredients chiefly Hellic and Pelasgic, we have now to ask how far its different elements are referable to the Pelasgic or to the Hellic root respectively? We have traced in some degree the course and local circumscription of the races: can we affiliate upon them any of the contributions which they severally made to the varied manners and to the institutions of Greece?

The proof, as far as it is specific, can be only that which probable and conjectural evidence afford: but that evidence is supported by the fact, that it tends, as a whole, to an orderly result.

While they proceed from different sources, and present visible and even permanent distinctions of character, there is no violent disparity between the Hellic and the Pelasgic races: they afford a good material for coalescence. We are not to suppose that whatever the one had, the other had not. Of what belongs historically to the Pelasgi, much may stand as theirs only through their priority of entrance into the country.

I propose to inquire what evidence can be drawn, either from philological sources, or from the text of Homer, to throw light on the several pursuits and tendencies of these races, under the heads of Religion, Policy, War, the Games, Poetry, the Chase, and Navigation.

Under some of these heads, however, we must in a measure anticipate results which will be only obtained in full from later inquiries.

The Poems afford us no complete and decisive test for discriminating between the Hellene and the Pelasgian contributions respectively to the Greek religion.

We shall, however, hereafter find many details of evidence bearing upon this subject.

For the present I must confine myself to two very general propositions, which are founded on the relations of the Greek religion with those of Troy and of Italy.

First, there seems to be a presumption, which may weigh with us to a certain extent in the absence of counter-evidence, that those parts of the Greek religion which were common to the Greeks with the Trojans were Pelasgian, and that those which were not common, were not Pelasgian. But of the parts which were common, and therefore Pelasgian, many may have been originally Hellene too.

Again, a relationship subsists between Greece and Italy, as to the component parts of their respective populations, which, without being unduly strained, will throw considerable light upon the question of Hellic and Pelasgic attributes.

The Greek or the Italian of the classic times could not be expected to own relationship with what lay to the northward, on each of those two peninsulas. The Roman, therefore, whose investigations led him to suppose there were Pelasgians in Italy, would only derive them from Greece. For us the case stands far otherwise; and we must simply consider the Pelasgians of Greece, and the Pelasgians of Italy, as two among a variety of branches, which struck out at different times from the main trunk of an extended race, probably diffusing itself over many parts of Asia and Europe. In Greece and Italy respectively these Pelasgic tribes entered into new combinations, probably not wholly different, nor, on the other hand, by any means in exact correspondence.

We may perhaps be found not to go beyond the limits of the modesty which the case requires, when we simply lay down this rule: that correspondences in religion or in language between Greece and ancient Italy raise a presumption, that those features of each country, in which the correspondence is observed, are of Pelasgic origin.

Something of such correspondence we may perceive in regard to religion. The religion of Homeric Greece differs from that of Rome, not only as to minor deities, but in the names given to many of the greater deities, and especially in the far more imaginative character of its traditions.

Those parts of the religion of Greece and Rome which were common to both were probably Pelasgian.

Let us take first the names which correspond, and then those which are different.

(I.) Names of deities that correspond in the Greek and Latin tongues:

1. Ζεύς Deus.
2. Ζεὺς-πάτηρ Jupiter.
3. Ἀπόλλων Apollo.
4. Ἱστιή Vesta.
5. Λήτω Latona.
6. Περσεφόνη Proserpina.
7. Ἄρης Mars or Mavors.

(II.) Names of deities which do not in any manner correspond in the Greek and Latin tongues:

1. Ἥρη Juno.
2. Ποσειδὼν Neptune.
3. Ἀιδώνευς Pluto.
4. Ἀθήνη Minerva.
5. Ἥφαιστος Vulcan.
6. Ἑρμῆς Mercury.
7. Ἀφροδίτη Venus.
8. Ἄρτεμις Diana.
9. Δημήτηρ Ceres.
10. Διόνυσος Bacchus.

Two remarks may be made on the deities of the first list.

First, that it comprehends generally the gods whom we shall find to bear marks of being the most ancient among the Greek deities; with the marked exception, however, of Minerva516.

Secondly, that in it we find no deity who takes part on the Greek, that is, the Pelasgian side, in the war of Troy. The only two names which do not appear on the Trojan side, are Vesta, who with Homer is not personified at all: and Proserpine, who from the seat of her dark dominion could not share in the wars waged upon earth.

On the other hand, when we turn to the second list of exclusively Greek names, we find that it contains all the deities who took part against Troy: and only two very secondary names of deities friendly to it.

Mars and Venus, both engaged on the Trojan side, and one standing in the first list, are the deities after whom, according to Ovid517, the two first months of the Roman year were named in the first age of the city.

It would not, however, be safe to depend implicitly upon the apparent reappearance of certain names in the Latin language, without a fuller knowledge of the laws of discrimination between the early mythology of the Romans, and the form which their religious system assumed at the period when they came into free communication with Greece and its colonies, from which, as they certainly borrowed some names of deities, such as Pallas and Phœbus, so they may have assumed others too. We have no proof, for example, that Apollo was prominent, or even that he was known, in the earliest Roman worship. Cicero518 says, Jam Apollinis nomen est Græcum. Still, a temple was raised to him in Rome519 as early as 430 B. C.; and the Trojan sympathies of most of the deities in the first list tend in some degree to show both that they were well known in the Pelasgian religion, and that many of the older portions of the mythology were common to the Trojans, the early Romans, and the Pelasgians of Greece.

Pelasgian Religion less imaginative.

We may more boldly rely upon a general indication, which is offered to us by the religious systems both of Rome and of Troy, in comparison with that of Greece.

The large account of Roman deities furnished by Saint Augustine, in his ‘De Civitate Dei,’ constitutes for us the principal representation of the great work of Varro, now lost, on the ‘Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum.’ Notwithstanding the multitudinous development of the theurgic system, the ‘De Civitate’ tends to support the belief that it was not vivified, like the system of the Greeks, by the intense pervading power of a vigorous and prolific imagination. The ‘Fasti’ of Ovid may perhaps be referred to as sustaining the same opinion. And Heyne in his commentary on Virgil has observed upon the comparative dulness and dryness of the early mythology of Rome: Italici mythi longe a Græcæ fabulæ suavitate absunt; nec varietas grata inest520.

In a later portion of this work521 I shall endeavour to show, that a similar character apparently attaches to the religious system of Troy: not so much a purity or simplicity, as a comparative poverty and hardness; and an indisposition in the inventions to assume those graceful forms, of which the Grecian Theo-mythology, as exhibited in Homer, is so full.

And again, when we pass from Homer to Hesiod, we find a great mass of religious fable, either added by the later poet, or grown up in the interval between the two. Hesiod’s depositories are much more numerously peopled: but we have passed at once from the poetry of a theogony to its merest prose, when we compare his manner of touch or handling, and his ideas on these subjects, with those of Homer. And, as on other grounds we may consider Hesiod to represent the Pelasgian side of the Greek mind, we seem justified in referring the distinctive tone of his mythology in some degree to his Pelasgian characteristics.

But independently of confirmation from the case of Troy, and from the tone of Hesiod, the character of the old Italian mythology, so devoid of imagination, force, and grace, leads us to ascribe these properties, when we find them abound in the Greek supernaturalism, to its non-Pelasgian, that is, to its Hellenic source.

Its ritual development fuller.

When, however, we turn to another form of development in religious systems, we find the case entirely different: I mean the development in positive observances of all kinds, and in fixed institutions of property and class. Here the religion of Rome was large and copious. Polybius has left upon record, in a most remarkable passage, his admiration of the Roman system of δεισιδαιμονία, which had, he says, been so got up, and carried to such a point, that it could not be exceeded. It was all done, in his opinion, on account of the multitude. Were States composed of the wise, the case would have been different: but as the people are full of levity and passion, λείπεται τοῖς ἀδήλοις φόβοις καὶ τῇ τοιαύτῃ τραγωδίᾳ τὰ πλήθη συνέχειν522.

Not less remarkable is the testimony of Dionysius; who, while he praises Romulus for the severe simplicity of what he caused to be taught and held concerning religion, and for the expulsion of immoral fables and practices, says that he arranged for his people all that concerned the temples of the gods, their consecrated lands, their altars, their images, their forms, their insignia, their prerogatives and their gifts to man, the sacrifices in which they delight, the feasts and assemblies to be celebrated, and the remissions of labour to be granted in their honour. In no other newly founded city could be shown such a multitude of priests and ministers of the gods523, who were chosen, too, from the most distinguished families524.

The Fasti of Ovid give an idea of the manner in which the Roman Calendar brought the ceremonial of religion to bear upon the course of life. For some centuries an acquaintance with the Calendar was the exclusive property of the sacred order525; and the priesthood turned to its own power and profit the knowledge, which afterwards filled the pages of that characteristic work.

Again, we shall have occasion, when considering the distinctive character of Troy, to notice that the political and ritual forms of religion appear to have been much more advanced there, than with the Greeks. This difference will naturally connect itself with the stronger Pelasgian infusion in the former case. We shall then find that of the two great kinds of sacred office, one only, that of the μάντις, and not that of the priest, seems at the time of Homer to have appertained to the Hellenic races.

And it is not a little curious to observe that, when Saint Paul arrives among the Athenians, the point which he selects for notice in their character and usages, after all the intermixtures they had undergone, is still this, that they are δεισιδαιμονέστεροι526, peculiarly disposed to religious observances; and that, not contented with the gods whom they suppose themselves to know, they have likewise a supernumerary altar for ‘the Unknown God.’ Nor are we the less warranted to connect this peculiarity with the original and long preserved Pelasgian character of Athens, because that city had, for centuries before, become a peculiarly apt representative of the full Greek compound: for a system of ritual observance has a fixity, which does not belong to mere opinion; and, when once rooted in a country, has powerful tendencies to assume such a solidity as survives vicissitude: perhaps in some degree on account of its neutral and pacific character, and of the power it leaves to men of separating between outward observance and inward act.

Although the opinion has been entertained, that from the earliest ages it was the exclusive privilege of the first-born to offer sacrifice, it appears most probable that the separate function of priesthood was, like other offices and professions, one of gradual formation. Whether the primitive institution of sacrifice was spontaneous or commanded, every man, that is to say, every head of a family, was, I shall assume, at first his own offerer or priest527. Then, as the household developed into the community, the priestly office, in the first stages of political society, as a matter of course appertained to the chief.

He, by the necessity of natural order, originally united in his own person the great functions of

1. Father.
2. Teacher.
3. Priest.
4. King.
5. Proprietor.
6. Commander.

The severance of these offices successively would arrive sooner or later, according as the progress made in numbers and wealth was rapid or slow. Concentration of employments in a single hand marks the primitive condition or retarded movement of society, while the division of labour is the sign of more speedy and more advanced development. Even the annals of the people of Israel furnish instances in which we trace, at periods when these offices had undergone division under divine authority, vestiges of their former union. It appears that, besides Moses, who consecrated Aaron and his sons by divine command, Joshua, Samuel, and Saul528 on certain occasions offered sacrifice. The exclusive character of priesthood has been impressed upon it, under Divine Revelation, by positive ordinance, and for a special purpose529.

Order of Priests not Hellenic.

The Hellenes in Homer appear to exhibit it in its earlier state of union with the office of civil government; and the Pelasgians to display it as a function which has indeed become special and professional, but only on that self-acting principle which, in the progress of society, leads to division of labour.

If we suppose the case of two races, one of them inhabiting a rude and barren country in a state of perpetual poverty and warfare, and then recently, by a descent upon more fertile soils, brought into contact with civilised life: the other of them addicted from a much earlier period to pursuits of peace and industry, inhabiting plains, and accustomed to form agricultural settlements; there will be no cause for wonder upon our also finding that the latter of these races has a professional priesthood, while the former has none; but that the sacrificial office remains in the private dwelling with the father of the family, and on public occasions with the head of the civil government.

This appears to have been the state of facts as between the Trojans of Homer who had a priesthood, and the Hellenes who had none: and the difference may be principally referable to the different condition and history of the Pelasgian and the Hellic races: while other causes, belonging to the respective characters of the races, may have contributed their share towards the production of this curious result. Partly the greater personal energy and self-reliance of the Hellic tribes, but partly also the earlier and older ease, wealth, and fixity of the Pelasgians, are the probable reasons why, at the point of time exhibited in the writings of Homer, we find priesthood properly a Pelasgian, but not yet properly an Hellenic, and only to a limited extent an adoptive, institution.

Thus far, then, we have a presumption, to be greatly strengthened as I trust hereafter, that the Greek religion owed to the Hellenes its imaginative, and to the Pelasgians its sacerdotal and ceremonial development. And this presumption is, I think, in entire accordance with what we should reasonably anticipate, from relations otherwise known to have subsisted between the two races. I now pass on to the subject of language.

Contributions to language.

In attempting to illustrate the relations of Pelasgians to Hellenes through the medium of the affinities and contrasts between the Greek and Latin languages, I am aware that I venture upon ground which requires to be trodden with great circumspection. For the Latin nation may possibly have contained within itself some ethnical element not dissimilar to the Hellenic, as well as one substantially corresponding with the Pelasgian, factor of the Greek people. And again, there is a very extended relation of the two languages to a common root in the Sanscrit. The number of words traceable to such a root has recently been stated at 339 in the Greek, and 319 in the Latin tongues530. We must not then, it will justly be observed, infer from the simple fact of resemblance between a Greek and a Latin word, that the one has been borrowed or directly modified from the other.

Let us begin by considering the just effect of these remarks, and inquiring whether they do not still leave space enough for an useful examination.

I begin from the assumption, that there was a deep and broad Pelasgian substratum both in the Greek and the Roman nations. It is thought, and it may perhaps be justly thought, that a dominant tribe of Oscans, who were a nation of warriors and hunters, came among the Pelasgi of Italy, as the Hellenes came among the Pelasgi of Greece. But while we may properly assume the identity of the Pelasgian factor in the two cases respectively, it is quite plain that the compounds or aggregate characters are broadly distinguished, and represent an assemblage and admixture either of different qualities, or else of the same qualities in very different proportions. Therefore we are justified in laying it down as a general rule, that whatever is found in the language of the two countries alike was most probably Pelasgian: since, if that portion of the aggregate language had been supplied from those elements in which the nations differed, it is likely that a corresponding difference would have been found to prevail between their modes of speech.

Again, I think we must distinguish between the simple fact of derivation from an original source in common, and those degrees or descriptions of resemblance which show that any given words not only had one source at first, but that they continued together up to a certain point in the formative process, so as to be capable, from their shape, of derivation, not only from that root, but also one from the other. For instance, the Greek ἐγὼ and the Latin ego are both stated to be derived from the Sanscrit aham. But here it is quite plain that they have not only set out from the same point, but travelled along the same road to their journey’s end, as the Greek and Latin words are identical. On the other hand, if we take the Greek τέσσαρες, and the Latin quatuor, both are referred to the same Sanscrit root, chatur: but neither of them can well have been derived from the other, and each is more nearly related to the root than it is to the other. Or if we take the Latin anser, the Greek χὴν, and the English ‘goose,’ these words scarcely appear to have a connecting link: but it is found, and a remote or mediate connection established, by means of the German gans. Instances might easily be multiplied.

In single cases, where the relationship of words is only of the kind last exemplified, it would not be safe to draw inferences to the effect of their being respectively due to this or that element in the composition of the nation.

But where there is such a similarity as to show either that the word has advanced nearly to its mature state before the Greek and Latin forms began to divaricate, or that the Latin form may have been derived from the Greek in an early stage of the history of the language, or vice versâ, then it seems just to refer the resemblance of terms to the existence of a powerful common element in the two peoples.

And further, if we shall find that the words standing in close kindred are capable of classification with reference to their sense, then, when we have once constituted a class of such words, it may be justifiable to add fresh words to it on the strength of a more remote affinity, in virtue of the presumption already created. For instance, if the names of the commonest objects and operations of inanimate nature are generally in close correspondence, we may infer a relation between other words which are in the same class as to meaning, though they may be not so nearly alike, with more confidence than if the reasoning as to this latter section were not supported by the former. On this principle I proceed in the collections of words given below.

Of course the utmost care must be taken to exclude those words which have been copied from Greek into Latin, after the literary ages of Rome had begun, and according to the practice which Horace has described and recommended531.

Niebuhr’s propositions.

Niebuhr was, I believe, the first person to draw from philological sources a conclusion as to the character and habits of the Pelasgians. He proceeded upon the threefold assertion, (1) that the words common to the two tongues are presumably Pelasgian, (2) that they for the most part refer to tillage and the gentler ways of life, and (3) that we may hence conclude that the Pelasgians were a people given to peace and husbandry. And conversely, that the words which widely differ in the two tongues are not Pelasgian, and that the pursuits which they indicate must have been more peculiarly characteristic of some other race, that contributed to make up the composition of the Roman nation. The principles thus assumed by Niebuhr532 appear, when placed under due limitation, to be sound; and the only question is, whether they are supported by the facts of the case. If in a given language we find the words indicative of a certain turn of life to have been derived from a particular race, which forms part of the nation speaking that language, while other words, referable to other habits and pursuits, have been supplied by other races also numbered among its constituent parts, it is just to read the characters of those races respectively through the character of the words that they contribute to the common tongue. For the question is really one of forces which may have been adjusted with as much accuracy, as if they had been purely mechanical. The ordinary reason why a word of Pelasgian origin prevails over a word of Hellenic origin with the same signification, or the reverse, is that it is in more or in less common use: and the commonness of use is likely to be determined by the degree in which the employment or state of life, with which the word is connected, may belong to the one race or the other.

The survey taken by Niebuhr appears to have been rapid; and the list of words supplied by him is very meagre. Bishop Marsh533 and other authors have, with a variety of views, supplied further materials. The most comprehensive list, to which my attention has been directed, is in the ‘Lateinische Synonyme und Etymologieen’ of Döderlein534. The subject is essentially one which hardly admits of a fixed criterion or authoritative rule, or of a full assurance that its limits have been reached. Mindful of the reserve which these considerations recommend, I should not wish to lay down inflexible propositions. But I venture to state generally, that those words of the Latin and Greek tongues, which are in the closest relationship, are connected

1. With the elementary structure of language, such as pronouns, prepositions, numerals.

2. With the earliest state of society.

3. With the pursuits of peaceful and rural industry, not of highly skilled labour.

Classes of words which agree.

Examples, numerous enough to show a most extensive agreement, will readily suggest themselves under the first head. To illustrate the other propositions, though it can only be done imperfectly, I will follow both the positive and the negative methods. The first, by comparing words which denote elementary objects, both of animate and inanimate nature, or the simplest products of human labour for the supply of human wants, or the members of the human body, or the rudiments of social order. The second, by contrasting the words which relate (1) to intelligence and mental operations, (2) to war, and (3) to the metals, the extended use of which denotes a certain degree of social advancement. It will I hope be borne in mind, on the one hand, that these lists are given by way of instance, and have no pretension to be exhaustive: and, on the other hand, that exceptions, discovered here and there, to the rule they seem to indicate, would in no way disprove its existence, but should themselves, if purely exceptions, be treated, provisionally at least, as accidental.

Class I — Elementary Objects of Inanimate Nature

ἔρα, terra
ἀήρ, aer
αἴθηρ, æther
αὖρα, aura

ἀστήρ		astrum
ἀστέρος		stella
		sterula

κοίλον, cælum
ἥλιος, sol
σε-λήνη, luna
νὺξ, nox
(Ζεὺς) Διὸς, dies
πόντος, pontus

ἃλς		sal
θάλασσα		salum

πόλος, polus

λυκὴ in λυκάβας, lux
λεύσσειν

χείμων, hyems
ἔαρ, ver
ὥρη, hora
ἑσπέρα, vesper

νέφος nubes
nebula

(νιψ) νιφος, nix, nivis
δρόσος, ros

ὕετος fluvius
pluvia

ῥῖγος, frigus
χάμαι, humus
πευκὴ, pix

κῆπος sepes
σῆκος

λακκὸς (a pit), lacus
λάχυς

ἄμπελος, pampinus
ὕλη, sylva
φύλλον, folium
ῥόδον, rosa
λαὰς, lapis
ἄγρος, ager
ἄρουρα, arvum
ἄντρον, antrum
φῦκος, fucus

σπέος spelunca
σπήλαιον

ἴον, viola
σκόπελος, scopulus
ὕδωρ, sudor.

Class II — Elementary Objects of Animated Nature

θὴρ, fera
λύκος, lupus
καπρὸς, aper
λέων, leo
ἔγχελυς, anguilla
ἴχθυς, piscis
ὠκύπτερος, accipiter
κύων, κύνος, canis
ὄϊς, ovis
βοὺς, bos
ταῦρος, taurus
ὓς, sus
ἵππος, equus
πῶλος, pullus
οὖθαρ, uber
ἄμνος, agnus
κριὸς, aries
ἀλώπηξ, vulpes.

Class III — Articles Immediately Related to Elementary Wants and to Labour

1. Dwellings

δόμος, domus
οἶκος, vicus
θύραι, fores
κληΐς, clavis
ἕδος, sedes
αἰθάλη, favilla
θάλαμος, thalamus
λέχος, lectus.

2. Food

οἶνος, vinum
ἔλαια, olea
ἔλαιον, oleum
ὦον, ovum
μῆλον, malum
σῦκον, ficus
τρύγη, fruges
ἀ-τρύγετος, triticum
σῖτος, cibus

γλάγος, lac, lactis
γάλα, γάλακτος

κάλαμος, calamus
κρέας, caro
μέλι, mel
δαὶς, dapes
κοινὴ, cœna.

3. Clothing

ἐσθὴς, vestis
χλαῖνα, læna.

4. Tools and Implements

ἄροτρον, aratrum

ζεῦγος jugum.
ζύγον

5. Navigation

ναῦς, navis
λίμην, limen
ἐρετμὸς, remus
κυβερνήτης, gubernator
ἀγκύρα, ancora
ποὺς, pes.

Class IV — The Constituent Parts of the Human Body, the Family, Society, and General Ideas

1. The Human Body

κεφαλὴ, caput
κόμη, coma
ὦμος, armus535
μῆρον, fe-mur, moris
παλάμη, palma
ποὺς, pes
ὄδους, οντος, dens, dentis
λάπτω, labrum
δείκνυμι, digitus
λὰξ, calx
ἦπαρ, jecur
ἔντερον, venter
ἕλκος, ulcus

κέαρ cor
καρδία

γόνυ, genu
μύελος, medulla
ὄστεον, os (ossis)
ὤψ, os (oris).

2. The Family

πατὴρ, pater
μήτηρ, mater
υἷος, filius

φρήτηρ frater
φρήτρη

ἕκυρος, socer

χήρη heres
χηρωστῆς

γένος gens
genus.

3. Society

(ῥέζειν) ῥέξας, rex536
ἐλεύθερος, liber
τέκτων (στέγω), cf. tectum (tego)
φὼρ, fur
παλλακὶς, pellex.

4. General Ideas

νεύω, numen
θεὸς, deus
ὄνομα, nomen
μόρφη, forma
ἲς, vis
ῥώμη, Roma, robur
κνίσση, nidor
ὄδμη, odor
φήμη, fama

φάτις fatum
φάτον

βίος, vita537
μόρος, mors
ὕπνος, somnus
ὀδύνη538, odium
ἄλγος, algor

γεύω, gustus
γεύσω

ἦνις, annus

λήθη lethum
λήτω

δόσις, dos
δῶρον, donum

φυγὴ fuga
φύζα

αἴων, ævum.

Class V — Adjectives of Constant Use in Daily Life

μέγας, magnus

παῦρος parvus
paucus

πλατὺς, latus

ἄγχος
ἄγκιστρον				uncus
or				angustus
ἄγοστος

κυρτὸς, curtus
γῦρος, curvus
πυρρὸς, furvus

ἐρυθρὸς ruber
rufus

παχὺς, pinguis
βραχὺς, brevis

βραδὺς tardus
βαρδὺς

χαὸς, cavus
τέρην, tener
πλέος, plenus
μείων, minor
μάσσων, major
νέος, novus
ἄλλος, alius
ὄρθος, ordo539
ὕπτιος, supinus
γραῦς, gravis

λεπτὸς levis
lentus

λεῖος, lævis
γενναῖος, gnavus
δέξιος, dexter
ὅλος, solus
ἡδὺς, suavis
πικρὸς, acris540.

Classes of words which differ.

A very extensive list of perhaps one hundred or more verbs might be added, which are either identical or nearly related in the Greek and Latin languages: but it would not, I think, materially enlarge or diminish the general effect of those words which have been enumerated. We have before us about one hundred and eighty words in the classes of substantive and adjective only. They might nearly form the primitive vocabulary of a rustic and pacific people. Two exceptions may be named, which may deserve remark. It will be observed, that the senses are inadequately represented, only two of them, smell and taste, being included. The other three are also connected in the two languages as follows: touch, by the relation of θιγγάνω and tango: sight, by εἴδω and video: hearing, by the evident connection of the Latin audire with the Greek αὔδη, the proper name in Homer for the voice.

The other marked exception is that of religion. With slender exceptions, such as θεὸς = deus, the connection of rex with ῥέζω, of numen with νεύω, of λοιβὴ with libo, and that of ἀράομαι, ἀρητὴρ with orare, orator, ara, there is a considerable want of correspondence in the leading words, such as ἱερὸς, ἅγιος, θύω, βῶμος, νῆον, ἄγαλμα, σέβω, μάντις, of the one tongue, and sacer, sanctus, pius, templum, vates, macto, mola, of the other. The greater part of the Pelasgian vocabulary must have been displaced on the one side or on the other: and as it is in Greece that we have much fuller and clearer evidence of the advent of a superior race, which gave its own impress to life and the mind in the higher departments of thought, we must conclude that this substitution probably took place in Greece, and was of Hellenic for Pelasgian words.

The proposition of Niebuhr with respect to terms of war, appears to me to be in the main well sustained by the facts. Let us take for example the following list: which appears to show that, in this department, with the exception of a pretty close relation between βέλος and telum, and a more remote one between πόλεμος and bellum, possibly also between lorica and θώρηξ, there is hardly in any case the faintest sign of relationship between the customary terms employed in the two languages for the respective objects.

telum				βέλος
ensis				ξίφος
gladius				φάσγανον
cuspis
mucro				αἰχμή
acies
galea				κυνέη
hasta				δόρυ
				ἔγχος
scutum541				ἄσπις
clypeus				σάκος
lorica				θώρηξ
ocrea				κνημίς
vagina				κολεός
bellum				Ἄρης
				πόλεμος
prælium				ὑσμίνη
pugna				μάχη
currus				δίφρος
rheda				ἅρμα
rota				κυκλός (Hom.)
terno				ῥυμὸς
tuba				σάλπιγξ
classicum
castra				κλισίαι
tabernaculum542				κλισίη
arcus				βιὸς
				τόξον
sagitta				ἰὸν
				ὀϊστός.

It can hardly, I think, be questioned, that this class of words presents on the whole a very marked contrast to those which were before exhibited. And as we see the highest martial energies of Greece manifestly represented in the Hellenes, we may the more confidently adopt that inference as to the habits of Hellenes and Pelasgians respectively, which the contrast between the two languages of itself vividly suggests.

Before quitting this head of the subject, let us notice the wide difference in the channels by which the two languages arrive at the words intended to represent the highest excellence. For ‘better’ the Greeks have βέλτερος, from βέλος, ‘a dart,’ and for ‘best,’ ἄριστος, from ἄρης, ‘war;’ while the Latins are contented with optimus, formed from a common root with opes, ‘wealth.’

There is almost as remarkable a want of correspondence between the two languages in respect to the higher ideas, both intellectual and moral, as in regard to war.

In three words indeed we may trace a clear etymological relationship, but in two of the cases with a total, and in the third with an important change in the meaning.

1. The μένος of the Greeks becomes the Latin mens; so that a particular quality, and that one belonging to the πάθη rather than the ἤθη of man, comes to stand for the entire mind.

2. The Greek ἄνεμος is evidently the Latin animus: or, that word which remains the symbol of a sensible object in Greek becomes the representative of mind in Latin. The adjective ἀνεμώλιος is indeed capable of a metaphysical application: but it means ‘of no account543.’

3. The θυμὸς of the Greeks is the fumus of the Latins: and the case last described is exactly reversed.

The three great words in the early Greek for the unseen or spiritual powers of man’s nature are νόος, φρὴν, and ψυχή. They perhaps correspond most nearly with the three Latin words mens, indoles, and vita544. There is not the slightest sign of conformity or common origin in any of the cases; although νόος is akin to nosco545.

In two other very important words we find perhaps derivation from a common root, but nothing like a near or direct relationship. The Greek ἀρετὴ may proceed from the same stock with the Latin virtus, and in like manner ἄτη may have the same source as vitium.

Upon the whole we may conclude, that in this important class of words the resemblances are scanty and remote. It will be seen that under the head of general ideas there is not included any clear case of correspondence in a mental quality; and all the resemblances appear to rest, mediately or immediately, upon sensible objects and phenomena.

As respects the terms employed in navigation, it will have been observed, that they are all connected with its rudest form, that of rowing; and that they do not include the words for mast, yard, or sail, in all of which the two tongues appear to be entirely separated.

Again, it may be stated generally, that society in its very earliest stages has little to do with the use of metals. This rule will be of various application, according to their abundance or scarcity in various countries, and according to the facility with which they are convertible to the uses of man. As the objects of enjoyment multiply with the continuance and growth of industry, the precious metals become more desirable with a view to exchange. But the principal metal for direct utility is iron: and of that, the quantity known and used by the Greeks would appear, even in the time of Homer, to have been extremely small. The use of metal for works of art, and probably also for commercial exchange, would seem to have been derived from Phœnician, not Pelasgian sources; and we have no proof that when Homer lived they had acquired the art in any high degree for themselves.

The absence of any great progress in the use of metals may thus be set down as a sign of Pelasgianism. And now let us compare the Greek and Roman names for the metals respectively:

1. χρυσὸς, aurum.
2. ἄργυρος, argentum.
3. χαλκὸς, æs.
4. σίδηρος, ferrum.
5. μόλιβος, plumbus: in later Greek μόλυβδος, the form nearest to the Latin.
6. κασσίτερος, stannum.

Here also there is a great want of correspondence. Only in iron and lead, and possibly in silver, are there signs of relationship: but in all it is remote. In the other metals it is entirely wanting; and in those which are nearest, it amounts only to presumptive derivation from a common root. The want of community in this class of terms seems to show, that the race which was the common factor of the two nations, was probably not advanced in the use of metals beyond their elementary purposes.

I will only further observe, that while so many names indicative of social and domestic relations are akin, nothing can be more clearly separate than the Greek δοῦλος and the Latin servus. From this fact it would be no improbable inference, that slavery was unknown to the Pelasgians: and their ignorance of it would, on the other hand, be in the closest harmony with their slight concern in warlike and in maritime pursuits; since captivity in the one, and kidnapping through the other, were the two great feeders of the institution. It is also in close correspondence with the further hypothesis, which represents the Pelasgians as probably the race that first occupied the Greek soil, and found no predecessors upon it over whom to establish political or proprietary dominion546.

It may, I think, deserve notice in confirmation of the general argument, that almost all those Greek words, which are in close affinity with the Latin, are found in Homer. For there can be little doubt that, after his time, the Greek tongue became more and more Hellenic: and the fact that a word is Homeric supplies the most probable token of a link with a Pelasgian origin.

And now let us sum up under this head of discussion.

It may be said with very general truth, that the words which have been quoted, and the classes to which they belong, have reference to the primary experience and to the elementary wants and productions of life: but that they do not touch the range of subjects belonging to civilization and the highest powers of man, such as war, art, policy, and song.

But if the evidence goes to show, that the Pelasgian tongue supplied both the Latin and the Greek nations with most of the principal elementary words, and with those which express the main ideas connected with rural industry, the inference strongly arises, 1. That they constituted the base of the Greek nation; and, 2. that, originally cultivators of the soil for themselves, there came upon them a time when other tribes acquired the mastery among them, so that thenceforth they had to cultivate it under the government of others. The case of the Pelasgian vocabulary in the Latin and in the Greek languages would thus appear to resemble the Saxon contribution to the English tongue: and it is likely that something like the general position, which we know to be denoted in the one case, is also similarly to be inferred in the other.

Evidence from names of persons.

No inconsiderable light may, I think, be thrown upon the character and pursuits of the Pelasgian and Hellenic races respectively, from an examination of the etymology of the names of persons contained in the Homeric poems. For the names of men, in the early stages of society, are so frequently drawn direct from their pursuits and habits, that the ideas, on which they are founded, may serve to guide us to a knowledge of the character and occupations of a people.

By way of summary proof that a connection prevailed (whether the names be fictitious or not, I care not, for this purpose, to inquire,) between the Homeric names, and the pursuits and habits of those who bear them, I may refer to the names of Phæacians and Ithacans. Of the latter, which are numerous, not one is derived from the horse; and we know547 that no horses were used in Ithaca. The former are chiefly composed of words connected with the sea: in conformity with the fact that the pursuits of the people are represented by Homer as thoroughly maritime.

The names of persons in Homer are extremely numerous, amounting to many hundreds. It would be hazardous, as a general rule, to assume for them an historical character, except in the cases of such individuals as, from general eminence or local connection, or from some particular gift or circumstance, were likely to be held in remembrance. In some cases, as we have already seen548, they bear the marks of invention upon them. But this question is little material for the present purpose: and indeed the probability that we ought, as a general rule, to regard the less distinguished names as fabricated for the purposes of the poem, makes it the more reasonable that we should turn to them to see how far they connect themselves with distinctions of pursuit, character, and race, and what properties and characteristics, when so connected, they appear to indicate as having been assigned by Homer to one race or to another.

We must not expect to arrive at anything better than general and approximate conclusions; for particular circumstances, unknown to us, may have varied the course of etymological nomenclature, and it may also happen, that in a great number of cases we cannot securely trace etymology at all.

Subject to these cautions, I would observe, first, that the evidence from other sources generally tends to show,

1. That the Trojans, except as to the royal house549, and perhaps a few other distinguished families, were Pelasgian.

2. That the base of the Greek army and nation were Pelasgian: with an infusion of Hellenic tribes, not families merely, who held the governing power and probably formed the upper, that is, the proprietary and military, class of the community, in most parts of Greece.

3. That some parts of the Greek peninsula present little or no mark of Hellenic influences; particularly Attica and Arcadia.

4. That the Lycians appear to approximate more than the other races on the Trojan side to the high Greek type, and to present either the Hellenic element, or some element akin to it, in a marked form.

The investigation of individual names occurring singly would be endless, and often equivocal: but Homer frequently unites many names in a group under circumstances, which authorize us to assume a common origin and character for the persons designated: and others, though he may not collect them together in the same passage, are yet associated in virtue of palpable relations between them.

An examination of Homeric names, in the groups thus gathered, has brought me to the following results:

1. Where we have reason to presume an Hellenic extraction, a large proportion of those names, of which the etymology can be traced, appear to express ideas connected with glory, political power, mental fortitude, energy and ability, martial courage and strength, or military operations.

2. But where we may more reasonably suppose, in part or in whole, a Pelasgic stock, ideas of this kind are more rarely expressed, and another vein of etymology appears, founded on rural habits, abodes, and pursuits, or the creation and care of worldly goods, or on other properties or occupations less akin to political and martial pursuits, or to high birth and station.

It is at the same time worth remark that, among the slaves of the Odyssey, we find names of a more high-born cast than those most current among the Pelasgians. Such as Eumæus (μάω, to desire eagerly and strive after), Euryclea, (who moreover is daughter of Ops the son of Peisenor,) Eurymedusa (in Scheria), and Alcippe (at Sparta550). There were two causes, to which this might be referable: first, that high-born slaves were often obtained both by kidnapping and by war; Eumæus, as we know, was of this class. And secondly, that the names of their lords may then, as now, have been occasionally given them. So that the high significations connected with servile names do not constitute an objection to the rules which have been stated.

There is another class of names, which requires especial notice. They are those which have reference to the horse. The rearing and care of the horse are in Homer more connected with the Trojans, than with the Greeks: and his standing epithet, ἱπποδάμος, is more largely employed on the Trojan side551. The horse was not exclusively, perhaps not principally, employed in war and games. He was used in travelling also: he may have been employed as a beast of burden: he certainly drew the plough, though Homer informs us that in this occupation the mule was preferable.

The points at which we may expect to find names chiefly Pelasgian, besides those which are expressly given us as such, will be these three:

1. In connection with some particular parts of Greece, especially Attica or Arcadia.

2. Among the masses of the common Greek soldiery.

3. Still more unequivocally among the masses of the Trojan force, and of the auxiliaries generally; except the Lycians, whom we have seen reason to presume to have been less Pelasgian, and more allied, or at least more similar, to the Hellic races.

On the other hand we may presume Hellic blood, or what in Homer’s estimation was akin to it, among the Lycians, and likewise wherever we find, especially on the Greek side, any considerable collection of names appertaining to the higher class or aristocracy of the army, or of the country.

Names of the Pelasgian Class.

The Homeric names, which are given us as expressly Pelasgian, are four only; and they belong to the Pelasgian force on the Trojan side.

1. Hippothous.
2. Pulæus.
3. Lethus.
4. Teutamus552.

The etymology of the three first names seems obvious enough: and, though the persons are all rulers among their people, not one of them unequivocally presents the characteristics which we should regard as appropriate in Hellic names: although, from their being of the highest rank, we should be less surprised if the case were otherwise.

As regards the first of the four, upon examining the class of names relating to the horse in the poems, we find, as far as I have observed, only Hipponous553 among the Greeks. This rank does not clearly appear: but νόος, the second factor of the word, supplies the higher element.

On the other side, in addition to Hippolochus, a name meaning horse-ambush, who was both Lycian and royal, we have Hippasus, Hippodamas, Hippodamus, Hippocoon, Hippomachus, and Hippotion. We have likewise,

Melanippus, (Il. xvi. 695.)
Echepolus, (Il. xvi. 417.)
Euippus, (Il. xvi. 417.)

Take again Pulæus, from πύλη. This name may mean porter or gate-keeper: it is scarcely susceptible of a high sense. In connection with the character of the Pelasgians as masons and builders of walled places, it is appropriate to them. Homer has three other names, and no more, which appear to be founded simply upon the term gate: Πύλων, Πυλάρτης, and Πυλαιμένης. They are all on the Trojan side.

Next, we have a larger class of names, where a strong infusion of the Pelasgic character may be expected: namely, those connected with Attica.

Among these, three belong to its royal house, and in them we find no certain features of the Pelasgian kind. They are,

1. Erechtheus,
2. Peteos,		From Il. ii. 547-52.
3. Menestheus,

The last of the three, however, seems, if derived from μένος, to belong to the higher class of names.

Besides these three there are,

4. Pheidas,
5. Stichius,		Il. xiii. 690, 1.
6. Bias,

7. Iasus,
8. Sphelus,		Il. xv. 332, 7, 8.
9. Boucolus.

Now the whole of these are commanders or officers; and yet four of them, Pheidas (φείδω), Stichius (στείχω), Sphelus (σφάλλω), and Boucolus (βούκολος), are in a marked manner of the Pelasgian class: Bias (βίη), may perhaps belong to it, as meaning mere physical force: and on the etymology of the ancient name Iasus I do not venture to speculate. Boucolus, like Boucolion, which we shall meet presently, deserves particular attention: we find nothing at all resembling it among the names which are (on other grounds) presumably Hellic.

Other names in the poems, which there may be some reason, from their local connection, to presume Pelasgian, are,

1. Lycoorgus, From Il. vii. 136, 149, where they are described as Arcadians. 2. Ereuthalion,

3. Dmetor, Lord of Cyprus, from Od. xvii. 443.

And perhaps we may add,

4. An Ion or Ian, as head of the Ἰάονες. 5. An Apis, the early eponymist of the Peloponnesus, or a part of it554.

Now, though these are all rulers and great personages, the name Dmetor is the only one among them which seems in any degree to present Hellenic ideas: nor need that mean a subduer of men; it may as well mean simply a breaker of horses. Apis, we have every reason to suppose, means the ox. Lycoorgus, from Λυκὸς and ἔργον or its root, has all the appearance of being characteristically Pelasgian.

Let us now inquire if the rules laid down will bear the test of being applied to the lower order of the Greek soldiery.

In the Fifth Iliad Hector and Mars slay a batch of apparently undistinguished persons555. They are,

1. Teuthras.
2. Orestes.
3. Trechus.
4. Œnomaus.
5. Helenus (son of Œnops).
6. Orestius.

And again in the Eleventh Iliad Hector slays nine more;

1. Asæus.
2. Autonous.
3. Opites.
4. Dolops (son of Clytus).
5. Opheltius.
6. Agelaus.
7. Æsymnus.
8. Orus.
9. Hipponous.

Now out of the seventeen names here assembled,

Four, namely, Autonous, Clytus, Agelaus, and Æsymnus (from its connection with the word αἰσυμνητὴς, ruler), belong to what I term the Hellic class.

Three, namely, Teuthras, Asæus, and Helenus, do not immediately suggest a particular derivation.

Of Hipponous I have already spoken. The other nine appear to conform to the Pelasgian type. Œnomaus corresponds with the Latin Bibulus.

Again; the names of ordinary Trojans appear to belong generally to the same type.

When Patroclus commences his exploits in the Sixteenth book, he slays in succession,

1. Pronous.
2. Thestor, son of
3. Enops.
4. Erualus.
5. Erumas.
6. Amphoteros.
7. Epaltes.
8. Tlepolemus, son of
9. Damastor.
10. Echios.
11. Puris.
12. Ipheus.
13. Euippus, and
14. Polumelus, son of
15. Argeas.

Of these only Tlepolemus and Pronous can with certainty be assigned to the higher class. Damastor is doubtful, like Dmetor; but perhaps from its connection with Tlepolemus, we ought to place it in the same category. Still it must be observed that Homer takes care to bring into action against Patroclus and the Myrmidons his favourites the Lycians, as well as the Trojans556: and that therefore we are to presume in this list an intermixture of Lycian names.

The names of ordinary Trojans are for the most part of the same colour. But we must bear in mind that we cannot so easily trace the Trojan as the Greek commonalty. Homer rarely allows a Greek of high station or distinction to be slain: whereas the Greeks continually destroy Trojans of eminence. We may therefore be prepared to find names of the higher type somewhat more freely sprinkled among the Trojan than among the Greek slain.

In the Sixth Iliad557 a number of the Greek heroes dispatch consecutively a list of Trojans, which supplies the following names:

1. Dresus.
2. Opheltius.

3. Æsepus		These two were sons of Boucolion, an illegitimate son of Laomedon, who apparently never was acknowledged, but was brought up in the lower class by his mother Abarbaree.
4. Pedasus		I add these names to the list:

5. Boucolion.
6. Abarbaree (mother of Boucolion).
7. Astualus.
8. Pidutes.
9. Aretaon.
10. Ableros.
11. Elatus.
12. Phylacus.
13. Melanthius.
14. Adrestus.

Among all these names there is not one which we can with confidence place in the higher category except Aretaon. Dresus (compare δρήστηρ, a domestic servant), Opheltius, Boucolion, Melanthius (from its use in the Odyssey, supported by Melantho, and both belonging to servants), are unequivocally of the Pelasgian class: probably Elatus (which however is found among the Ithacan suitors), Phylacus, Adrestus, should be similarly interpreted. Astualos (ἄστυ, ἃλς) has no contrary force: and of the rest the derivation is not obvious.

If we take the second batch of Trojans slain by Patroclus, it gives a somewhat different result. They are558,

1. Adrestus.
2. Autonous.
3. Echeclus.
4. Perimus, son of Megas.
5. Epistor.
6. Melanippus.
7. Elasus.
8. Moulius.
9. Pulartes.

Of these Autonous and Epistor would seem clearly to belong to the higher class; to which we may add Echeclus, if it is derived (like Echecles, a Myrmidon chieftain) from ἔχω and κλέος: but even this is not a large proportion.

Now when we turn to the Lycians559 slain consecutively by Ulysses, we find a material change. These are,

1. Koiranos.
2. Alastor.
3. Chromius.
4. Alcandros.
5. Halios.
6. Noemon.
7. Prutanis.

Of the higher or Hellenic Class.

All of these seven visibly belong to the higher or Hellenic order of names, except Χρόμιος, which I presume may be akin to χρῶμα, and Ἅλιος, ‘mariner.’ But this last named designation is also somewhat Hellic: I doubt if we find among Pelasgian names any taken from maritime ideas or pursuits.

Again, when Achilles comes forth, there is provided for him a list of victims bearing distinguished names560, though practically unknown as characters in the poem. At the end of the Twentieth book he slays,

1. Druops.
2. Demouchus, son of
3. Philetor.
4. Laogonus, and
5. Dardanus, sons of
6. Bias.
7. Tros, son of
8. Alastor.
9. Moulius.
10. Echeclus, son of
11. Agenor.
12. Deucalion.
13. Rigmos, son of
14. Peiroos, one of the Thracian leaders.
15. Areithous.

Now of these fifteen names none, if judged by the rules which we have laid down, would clearly fall into the Pelasgian, or more plebeian, class, except Dryops, perhaps Laogonus, and Bias: three only. Peiroos and Rigmos (probably akin to ῥῖγος) are Thracian, and may be put aside. Six, viz., Demuchus, Philetor, Alastor (contrast with this Lethus), Echeclus, Agenor, and Areithous, are of the Hellic class. The others, Dardanus, Tros, Moulius (Il. xi. 739), and Deucalion are repeated from eminent historical personages.

In this set of names we observe, in conjunction with a new instance of Homer’s ever wakeful care in doing supreme honour to Achilles, unequivocal evidence, as I think, that the poet did distribute his names with some special meaning among his minor, and, (so we must suppose,) generally or frequently, non-historical personages.

And the further inference may perhaps be drawn of a probable affinity of race between the highest Trojans and the Hellic tribes.

This inference may be supported by another example. The numerous sons of Antenor, whose names are collected from different parts of the poem, are as follows:

1. Agenor, Il. xi. 59.
2. Acamas, ii. 823. xi. 60. xii. 100, et alibi.
3. Archelochus, ii. 823. xiv. 464.
4. Coon, xi. 248.
5. Demoleon, xx. 395.
6. Echeclus, xx. 474.
7. Helicaon, iii. 123.
8. Iphidamas, xi. 221.
9. Laodamas, xv. 516.
10. Laodocus, iv. 87. and
11. Pedæus (νόθος), v. 70.

I apprehend Laodocus should be construed, after the manner of Demodocus, to signify having fame or repute among the λαός. If so, then of the ten legitimate sons, eight have names with an etymology that directly connects them with the higher signification. The name of the Bastard only is more doubtful.

Among the Suitors in Ithaca, who are the princes and chief men of the island, with their connections, and others of the same class, we have the following list of names of the high class:

Mentor.
Elatus. (cf. Il. xi. 701.)
Euryades.
Eurydamas.
Eurymachus.
Eurynomus.
Amphinomus.
Peisander.
Eupeithes.
Antinous.
Leiocritus.
Leiodes.
Agelaus.
Damastor.
Demoptolemus.
Euryades.
Mastor.
Euenor.
Phronius.
Noemon.

Nor are the names which have not been placed in this list of an opposite character. They are chiefly such as have not an obvious etymology. Two of them, Ægyptius and Polybus, were, as we know, great names in Egypt, and they probably indicate a Pelasgian or an Egyptian extraction. Others are, Halitherses, Melaneus, Ctesippus, Nisus, Antiphus, Peiræus. Of these, the two, or even the three, first may perhaps be regarded as properly Hellic.

Take again the six sons of Nestor:

1. Antilochus.
2. Stratius.
3. Thrasymedes.
4. Echephron.
5. Perseus.
6. Aretus (akin to ἀρέσκω, ἀρετή, and the Arete of Scheria).

Of these only Perseus would not at once fall within the class; and this is evidently a most noble name, taken from a great Greek hero. Indeed it must itself stand as a conspicuous example of the rule, if we shall hereafter be able to show561 a relationship between the Hellic races and Persia as their fountain-head.

Lastly, let us take the Myrmidon leaders and commanders. These were,

1. Patroclus;
son of and after him the heads of the five divisions.

2. Menœtius.
3. Menesthius.
4. Eudorus.
5. Peisander, son of
6. Maimalus, from μαιμάω.

7. Phœnix. This name may represent, (1) Phœnician extraction or connection; (2) The palm tree; (3) The colour of red or purple, akin to φόνος, and to blood, which the colour φοίνιξ is supposed to betoken. In any of these three aspects, it will fall into the Hellic class.

8. Alcimedon, son of Laerces.
9. Automedon.

All these names belong to the higher categories. It is therefore the general result of our inquiry, that wherever we have reason on other grounds to presume a Pelasgian origin, we find in the proper names of persons, unless they chance to be merely descriptive of the country they inhabited, a decided tendency to represent peaceful, profitable, and laborious pursuits, or the lower qualities and conditions of mankind. But wherever from other causes we are entitled to presume an Hellic relationship, there, so far as a simple etymology will carry us, the personal appellatives appear to run upon ideas derived from intellect, power, command, policy, fame, the great qualities and achievements of war; in short, apart from religion, which does not appear to enter into the composition of nomenclature at all, all the ideas that appeal most strongly to those masculine faculties of our race, in which its perfection was so vividly conceived by the Greeks to reside.

Evidence from political and martial ideas.

One among the most remarkable features of the Homeric Poems is, their highly forward development of political ideas in a very early stage of society562. It seems hardly necessary to argue that these were of Hellic origin; because the fact is before us, that they make their appearance in Homer simultaneously with the universal ascendancy of the Hellic over the Pelasgian tribes wherever they were in contact; and because, in comparing the two nations together, we shall have occasion to note the greater backwardness, and indocility, so to speak, of the Trojans563 in this respect. I assume, therefore, without detailed argument, the peculiar relation between the Hellic stock and the political institutions of Greece.

For similar reasons I shall touch very briefly the relation of the Hellic tribes to the martial character of Greece.

We may consider the whole Iliad, which represents a conflict between less Pelasgic and more Pelasgic races, and which gives a clear superiority to the former, as a general but decisive testimony to this fact.

We find another such testimony, with a well established historical character, in the comparison between the secondary military position of Athens in the Iliad, and its splendid distinctions in later times. It is true indeed, that the Athenian troops are mentioned specifically in the attack upon the ships, together with the Bœotians, Locrians, Phthians, and Epeans564. Of these the two latter are called respectively μεγάθυμοι and φαιδιμόεντες; the Athenians are the Ἰάονες ἑλκεχίτωνες, an epithet of most doubtful character as applied to soldiers. It seems to me plain that Homer by no means meant the particular notice of these five divisions for a mark of honour: they fought to be defeated, and he does not use his prime Greeks in that manner. No Peloponnesian forces are named as having been engaged on this occasion. Those probably were the flower of the army; and it is mentioned in the Catalogue that the troops of Agamemnon were the best565. Again, it will be seen, on reference to the Catalogue, that the whole force of Middle Greece is here in battle except the Ætolians, the contingent of Ulysses, and the Abantes (for whom see 542-4). These three are all distinguished races, whom he seems purposely to have excluded from a contest, where honour was not to be gained. The military contrast, then, between the earlier and the later Athens, may be taken to be established: and with it coincides that very marked, though normal and pacific, transition of Attica from the exclusively Pelasgic to the fullest development of the composite Greek character566.

The passage of the seventh Iliad, which describes the war of the Pylians with the Arcadians, suggests a like conclusion.

Upon the whole, however, the de facto Hellic ascendancy in Greece at the time is, with reference to war and the strong hand even more than to policy, a full presumption of their title to be regarded as having given birth to the splendid military genius of Greece.

When, for the business of the Trojan war, Homer divides the two great traditive deities567, and assigns to the Greeks Pallas, the more political, energetic, and intellectual of the two, to the Trojans Apollo, we may take this as of itself involving an assertion, that the high arts of policy and war were peculiarly Hellenic.

Evidence from Games.

We come now to the principle of what may be called corporal education, which found a development among the Greeks more fully than among any other nation; first, in gymnastic exercises, generally pursued, and, secondly, in the great national institution of the Games.

“There were,” says Grote568, “two great holding points in common for every section of Greeks. One was the Amphictyonic Assembly, which met half yearly, alternately at Delphi and at Thermopylae; originally and chiefly for common religious purposes, but indirectly and occasionally embracing political and social objects along with them. The other was, the public festivals or games, of which the Olympic came first in importance; next, the Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian: institutions, which combined religious solemnities with recreative effusion and hearty sympathies, in a manner so imposing and so unparalleled. Amphictyon represents the first of these institutions, and Aethlius the second.”

This passage places in an extremely clear light the relative position of the Games and the Amphictyonic Assembly. The Council represented a religious institution, partaking also of a political character. The Games, on the other hand, were a gymnastic celebration, made available for national gatherings: placed, as a matter of prime public moment, under the guardianship of high religious solemnities, and referred for greater effect, in the later tradition, to some person of the highest rank and extraction, as their nominal founder. As the objects of the Games and the Council were distinct, so were their origin and history different; and this difference mounted up into the very earliest ages. This is clearly proved by the extra-historic and mythical names assigned to their founders, whose faint personality does not even serve to repress the suggestion of fiction, conveyed with irresistible force by etymological considerations. But the legend, though a legend only, conformed to the laws of probability, by assigning to Amphictyon a Thessalian birth, and by vindicating at the same time to Aethlius the higher honour of the immediate paternity of Jupiter; while, by placing him in Elis it secures his function as the institutor of the oldest, namely, the Olympic Games. In this legend, too, we see Hellenic imagination providing for its own ancestral honours in competition, as it were, with those of the sister institution, which may have been Pelasgian.

The foundation of Games in genere appears to be traceable, with sufficient clearness and upon Homeric evidence, to the Hellic tribes.

The lengthened detail of the Twenty-third Iliad is of itself enough to prove their importance, as an institution founded in the national habits and manners. We must not, however, rely upon the absence of any similar celebrations, or even allusions to them, among the Trojans; since their condition, in the circumstances of the war, will of itself account for it. But we may observe how closely it belonged to the character of the greatest heroes to excel in every feat of gymnastic strength, as well as in the exercises of actual warfare. The kings and leading chiefs all act in the Games, with the qualified exception of Agamemnon, whose dignity could not allow him to be actually judged by his inferiors, but yet who appears as a nominal candidate, and receives the compliment of a prize, though spared the contest for it; and with the exception also of Achilles, who could not contend for his own prizes. Again, it is a piece of evidence in favour of the Hellic character of public Games, that, though there were three Athenian leaders alive during the action of the Twenty-third Book, none of them took any part. They were Menestheus, Pheidas, and Bias. Again, the speech of Ulysses to Euryalus, the saucy Phæacian569, with the acts which followed it, strengthen the general testimony of the Iliad upon the point. So does the prosecution of these exercises, to the best of their power, even by the Phæacians, the kindred of the gods.

So much for the general idea of Games in Homer; but, to draw the distinction with any force between what is Hellic and what is Pelasgic, we must refer to those passages which afford glimpses of the earlier state of Greece, and see what light they afford us.

According to the Homeric text, Elis and Corinth were the portions of the Peloponnesus, where the early notes of the presence of the Hellenic races are most evident. Now of these Elis had the greatest and oldest Greek Games, while the Isthmian festival at Corinth was held to stand next to them.

The invention of these gymnastic exercises was ascribed in the later mythology to Mercury, who is in Homer a Hellenic, as opposed to Pelasgian, deity.

Mercurî, facunde nepos Atlantis,
Qui feros mores hominum recentum
Voce formasti catus, et decoræ
      More palæstræ570.

It has been observed, that the Hermes of Homer bears no trace of this function: but we have no proof in Homer of the formal institution of Games at all, although we have clear signs of them as a known and familiar practice; and the Mercury of the poems is even yet more Phœnician than he is Hellenic. Aristophanes571 produces the Ἑρμῆς Ἐναγώνιος, and supplies a fresh link of connection by referring to ἀγῶνες in music, as well as in feats of corporal strength and skill. So does Pindar572.

In truth, these Games were the exercise and pleasure of the highest orders only. For we see that, in Homer’s Twenty-third Book, not a single person takes a part in any of the eight matches that is not actually named among the ἡγεμόνες and κοίρανοι of the Catalogue, with three such exceptions as really confirm the rule. They are Antilochus, the heir apparent of Pylos, Teucer the brother of Ajax, and Epeus, (only however in the boxing match,) who appears from the Odyssey573 to have been a person of importance, as he contrived the stratagem of the horse. Even the σόλος αὐτοχόωνος, the iron lump, part of the booty of Achilles, had formerly been used for the sport only of a king574.

ὃν πρὶν μὲν ῥίπτασκε μέγα σθένος Ἠετίωνος.

The Greek Games presuppose leisure, and therefore the accumulation of property, or the concentrated possession of lands: but this comports much more with Hellenic than with what we know of Pelasgic society, in which we do not find the same signs as in the former, of an aristocracy occupying the middle place between the people at large, and the royal house. Let us now examine another part of the Homeric evidence.

In the Eleventh Iliad, Nestor’s legend acquaints us that, at the time of the war between Pylians and Elians, Neleus the king appropriated a part of the Pylian spoil, in respect of a ‘debt’ owed him in Elis, the nature of which he explains575:

τέσσαρες ἀθλοφόροι ἵπποι αὐτοῖσιν ὄχεσφιν,
ἐλθόντες μετ’ ἄεθλα· περὶ τρίποδος γὰρ ἔμελλον
θεύσεσθαι· τοὺς δ’ αὖθι ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Αὐγείας
κάσχεθε, τὸν δ’ ἐλατῆρ’ ἀφίει, ἀκαχήμενον ἵππων.

There were then, it is plain, chariot races regularly established (for the Games are here spoken of without explanation, as a matter familiarly known) in Olympia: and this was during the boyhood of Nestor, or about two generations before the Trojan war. The tribes, which we here see concerned in these Games, are first, the Pylians, and next the Elians, of whom Augeas was king. It will be seen in a subsequent part of this inquiry576, that both of these tribes were Hellic, and not Pelasgian. Yet certainly there is nothing here to show directly the non-participation of Pelasgians in the games.

There is however another passage of our useful friend Nestor in the Twenty-third Book, which supplies in some degree even this form of evidence. ‘Would,’ says he in his usual phrase, ‘would I were young and strong577,’

ὡς ὅποτε κρείοντ’ Ἀμαρυγκέα θάπτον Ἐπειοὶ
Βουπρασίῳ, παῖδες δ’ ἔθεσαν βασιλῆος ἄεθλα·

Here is a distinct testimony to the custom of funeral Games in Elis, nearly two generations before the Troica. They embraced, as we find further down in the record, 1. Chariot races, with the best prize; 2. Boxing; 3. Wrestling; 4. Running; and 5. Hurling the spear. But we have a further most valuable passage. There was no person present, says Nestor, equal to myself; and then he adds an exhaustive enumeration of the races that furnished the company:

          οὔτ’ ἄρ’ Ἐπεῶν,
οὔτ’ αὐτῶν Πυλίων, οὔτ’ Αἰτώλων μεγαθύμων.

For the Epeans (or Elians) and Pylians, I repeat the reference already made. Nor can I doubt that the Ætolians, the subjects of Œneus and his illustrious family, belonged to the same stock. I do not inquire whether, as they were always in later times held to belong to the Æolian branch of the Greeks, so their name may have been radically akin to, or identical with, the name of Æolus, which is often with Homer Αἴωλος. But we find Meleager (independently of the reference to him, evidently as a great national hero, in the Catalogue578,) selected by Phœnix for the subject of an episode of great length, and held out as a warning and example to Achilles579. It may safely be assumed he would have chosen no character for this purpose, except that of an hero of pure Hellic origin. And the description of Tydeus, the father of Diomed, by the epithet Αἰτώλιος580, again serves to identify the Ætolian name with the Hellic races.

The tribes present, then, at the Games were all Hellic, and they were all conterminous: the Epean inhabitants, the Pylians, neighbours on the South, the Ætolians from the other side of the narrow strait, which was the most frequented passage into Peloponnesus. In fact, it was evidently an assemblage of the neighbouring tribes; but with a most remarkable exception, that of the eastern neighbours of Elis, those same Arcadians, whom by many signs we are enabled to conclude to have been Pelasgian.

A third instance in which Homer notices gymnastic exercises, is in Il. iv. 389. Here Tydeus, having gone to Thebes, finds a solemn banquet proceeding in the palace of Eteocles. Alone among many, and on questionable terms with his hosts, he nevertheless at once challenges them to gymnastic games, and beats them all.

ἀλλ’ ὅγ’ ἀεθλεύειν προκαλίζετο, πάντα δ’ ἐνίκα
ῥηιδίως· τοίη οἱ ἐπιρρόθος ἦεν Ἀθήνη.

Achæan, that is Hellene, himself, he is, if not among Hellenes, yet among the members and adherents of that Phœnician dynasty which had established itself, to all appearance, in Bœotia, at a somewhat early date: even as, at a period slightly later581, Minos established from Phœnicia a Throne in Crete, which soon became wholly Greek in character.

And again, in Il. xxiii. 678-80, we are told, that Mecisteus, on the death of Œdipus, went to Thebes to the even then customary funeral Games, and there was victor over all the Καδμείωνες who opposed him, by the aid of Minerva. Euryalus, the son of Mecisteus, was an Argive, and was the colleague of Diomed and Sthenelus. The same observations are applicable here, as in the last case.

There is therefore nothing in any one of these cases to connect the gymnastic celebrations with the Pelasgian, but every thing to associate them with the Hellic races.

Of the Greek Games, the Pythian are those which, as being under Apollo, might most be suspected of Pelasgic origin. But these did not apparently begin as a national gymnastic festival until about 586 B. C.582 The Olympic contests had then been regularly recorded for nearly two hundred years, since 776 B. C. And in the laws of Solon there was a reward of 500 drachms for every Athenian who should gain an Olympic prize, of 100 only for an Isthmian: while of the Nemean and Pythian Games, as being merely local, they take no notice. So these Games, besides being secondary, belonged to times much later, and also purely Hellenic.

The Panathenaic Games are apparently of similar date. And with this evidence from the earlier historic times before us, no importance can attach to a tradition so late as that of Pausanias, who makes Theseus found the Panathenaica, and Lycaon, son of Pelasgus, the Λύκαια583. But it is well worthy of remark, that in reporting this tradition he adds, that the Olympic Games were much older, that they mounted to the very highest antiquity of the human race, and that Κρόνος and Jupiter were said to have contended at them for prizes. Again, great fame attached to the Games said to have been celebrated by Acastus on the death of his father Pelias. Stesichorus, who lived in the seventh century, wrote a poem upon them; but Pelias, the brother of Neleus, and son of Tyro, (having Neptune for his father,) was of undoubted Hellic origin584.

Minor instances of the addiction of the Hellic races to Games may be found in the constant practice of the Ithacan Suitors, and in the resort of the Myrmidons before Troy, during the seclusion of Achilles, to this method of beguiling their time585.

The case stands only a little less distinctly as to song. There is an ἀοιδὸς in the palace of Priam, as well as in that of Ulysses; one in that of Agamemnon, and one in that of Alcinous. The Muses are Olympian Muses. Olympus geographically was quite as much Hellic as Pelasgian, and in every other sense, as I believe, far more. We may perhaps most fairly estimate its national character, by contrasting the Jupiter of Olympus with the Jupiter of Dodona, and the home of the large and varied group of Grecian gods with the solitary grandeur which affords a trace of the old Pelasgian worship. In this view Olympus and the Muses will be clearly Hellic. Further586, Thamyris in his boast supposes the Muses to be contending against him at the public matches. If I have been correct in tracing such matches to an Hellic source, Thamyris must have regarded the Muses as Hellic when he made this supposition. Again, Thamyris himself is a Θρὴξ, that is to say, a highlander: this connects him with the Helli of the hills, not with the Pelasgians of the more open country. The place, too, where the punishment is inflicted upon Thamyris, is in the dominions of Pylus: which, at any rate for a term equal to three generations before the Troica, had been Achæan, that is, Hellic587.

Apollo was doubtless an object of Pelasgian worship: the Apollo of Homer however is not confined to the Pelasgians, but is by many signs, scattered throughout the poems, placed in close as well as friendly relations with the whole Greek nation. Among these may be reckoned his acceptance of the propitiation and prayer offered by Calchas. In truth, though it is his business, as the organ of Jupiter, to assist the Trojans, he no where shows any of that hostility to their opponents, which Neptune and Juno show to them.

As to poetry and music.

In later times, the traditions of Orpheus, Musæus, and Eumolpus, always Θρῇκες, supported the tradition which derives Greek song from the mountain tribes.

Why has Arcadia a muse of her own, but because the Pelasgian poetry is not the Hellic? and does not the reputed character of that muse oblige us to assign a Hellic origin to the higher national poetry?

Hesiod, as author of the Works and Days, is so enormously different from Homer in his frame of mind, as well as his diction, that it is hard to trace, even in the most general form, a complete national affinity between them. The Theogony, by its subject, brought him nearer to Homer, but it is quite destitute of the heroic power and fire: a calm and low-toned beauty, as in the legend of the Ages, is all to which Hesiod ever rises. To my conjecture, he seems to personify the one-stringed instrument which might suffice for Pelasgian song: while the Diapason of Homer, embracing with its immeasurable sweep things small and things great, things sublime and things homely, all objects that human experience had suggested, and all thoughts that the soul of man had imagined or received, presents to us that Greek mind, full, varied, energetic, lively, profound, exact, which was destined to give form for so many ages to the genius of the world.

I cannot however part from this subject, and leave the Hellenic races in possession of the honour of having principally contributed to mould the powerful imagination of the Greeks, without noticing the opposite conclusion of Mr. Fergusson, in his admirable ‘Handbook of Architecture.’

He treats the Greek nation as made up chiefly of two ingredients, the Dorian and the Pelasgian. He takes the Greeks of the Trojan Epoch to have been Pelasgian, and so to have continued until the return of the Heraclidæ. Then, according to him, began the Hellenic, which he treats as synonymous with the Doric, preponderance; and, having Sparta before him as the one great Hellic type, he observes that the race was far better adapted “for the arts of war and self-government, than for the softer arts of poetry and peace588.”

But the supposition of a Pelasgic supremacy in Homeric Greece, is contrary to all the evidence afforded by the text of Homer, and, I think we may add, to the belief alike of ancient and of modern times. Even the limited part of the Homeric evidence which is connected with the names Ἕλλας and Ἕλληνες, seems large enough to overthrow any such hypothesis. Though the Dorian race was Hellenic, it was apparently a late outgrowth from the stock, and has no pretension whatever to be considered as the universal type of its products. In Sparta, the excessive development of policy was doubtless unfavourable to human excellence in other forms; among others, to poetry and art. Still, neither verse, music, nor architecture are disconnected from the Dorian name and race. It seems quite impossible to refer the war-poetry of the Iliad, the grandest in the world, for its origin to a people so unwarlike, in reference especially to the changeful, romantic, and poetic side of war, as the Pelasgi.

The adventurous tone and tenour of the Odyssey, and its wide range over the world, and over the sea, are as little in keeping with what we can see of Pelasgic habits in the heroic age. Above all, that largeness and unimpaired universality of type, which belongs to human character as drawn by Homer, and especially to Achilles and Ulysses, demonstrate (I cannot use a weaker word) that all the materials of Grecian greatness were in his time fully ripened.

Pelasgian sense of beauty.

At the same time it is not necessary to deny, that the Pelasgians may have been endowed with a high sense of beauty. Not that Homer appears to have had a vivid conception of beauty in connection with architecture, their great reputed accomplishment; for he seems, on the contrary, to have had little idea of ornament in buildings, beyond the blaze of plates of polished metal: far different here from what he shows himself to be in dealing with dress, or armour, or the forms of men and horses. But we have before us the fact that through Athens itself preeminently, and likewise through its colonies to the east, the Greek race earned in after-times the very highest honours in poetry and the fine arts. On the one hand, however, a large share of these honours, especially in early times, fell to the share of the race called Æolian, which was clearly Hellic, and a principal part of the Hellic family. On the other hand, Arcadia, which remained more purely Pelasgian, while Athens received all sorts of mixtures, never attained to high distinction in art, nor rose above a modest and tranquil strain of verse. The great tragedians and the great artists were of a race the most composite in all Greece. The natural inference would seem to be, that whatever the Pelasgians may have contributed to the general result, however they may have afforded for poetry and art (as also they did for war) a good raw material, it was only when in combination with other elements from other sources, that they could attain to great practical excellence. A lively sense of beauty is, doubtless, not only a condition, but even a foundation: yet a great organising power is as necessary for the production of the great works of imagination, as it was to Lycurgus for the Spartan constitution, or to Aristotle for philosophical analysis and construction; and this was the commanding and sovereign faculty in a mind such as that of Homer.

The connection between the Homeric Greeks and the traditions of huntsmen is, I think, sufficiently evident from Homer. His hunting legends, and the multitude of his hunting similes, are so many signs of it; and many indications, I think, concur towards forming a belief that the Greeks owed their fondness for the chace to their Hellic, not to their Pelasgic habits and blood.

I take first the relation between Achilles and his instructors. Chiron was the teacher of Achilles in the surgical art, while Phœnix had charge of his higher education. Surgery and war would obviously go together. But Chiron too gave his father the ashen spear from Pelion, which none but Achilles could wield: he was the most civilized (δικαιότατος) of the Centaurs, the one to whom the ideas of right, on which society is founded, were most congenial. But he seems to dwell on Mount Pelion, not like Phœnix, in the court of Peleus; he is, therefore, without doubt, a huntsman, and is in fact a link between the old and rude, and the new and more civilized life of the Hellic tribes.

Again. Of the Hellic legends of Homer, which are not in all very numerous, two have hunting for their subject: as,

1. That of the Calydonian Boar in Il. ix.

2. That of the visit of Ulysses to the court of Autolycus, in Od. xix.

Now these two legends are the only ones in the poems, that do not relate to war. Though the Trojans dwelt by Ida, we never hear of their hunts: but their princes feed sheep upon its slopes, or tend horses in the plain below.

Evidence as to hunting.

Even apart from particular evidence, we might presume that, if the nation derived its warlike turn from a Hellic source, so it must likewise have been with hunting, which was next of kin to war.

Lastly, if this supposition be correct, it helps to account for what is otherwise an anomaly in the poems. Diana fights on the Trojan side: yet we find no evidence that she was worshipped among the Trojans, or even known to them in the character, in which she has the greatest mythical celebrity. She is mentioned but once, I think, among them; it is by Andromache, and that is as having put a period to her mother’s life589, nowhere in her character as a huntress. But among the Greeks she constantly appears otherwise than as in connection with death. Her epithets, ἀγροτέρη, κελαδεινὴ, ἰοχέαιρα, are far more suitable to the huntress, than to the more solemn function of the ministry of Death among human beings. Again, Helen is compared to her in appearance. The calamities of the Kalydonians came upon them in consequence of their neglect as to her worship on a particular occasion590; and the particular punishment inflicted is the sending a wild boar upon them. Nausicaa591 is elaborately compared to her, and in this simile she is described as hunting in Taygetus and Erymanthus. Thus while among the more Pelasgic Trojans, she appears only in virtue of the relation to death which (we shall find) she holds from a traditive source592; it is the Hellic influence, which superadds the mythical and imaginative attributes of the beautiful huntress: and which, in so doing, supplies a marked proof of the addiction of the Hellic tribes to that pursuit.

Evidence as to navigation.

It is not easy to judge whether the turn of the Greeks for navigation ought to be referred in any degree to a Pelasgian source. Plainly, if there was such a source, it was not the main one. We have seen that only the most elementary words connected with propulsion by rowing, appear to bear any sign on them of proceeding from that stock. We cannot argue from the maritime excellence of the Athenians at a much later date to their nautical character in the time of Homer, on account of the important ethnical changes, which in the mean time they had gradually, but most thoroughly, undergone. On the other hand, our finding the pure Pelasgian population of Arcadia resorting to the inland country, and wholly destitute of ships, affords a negative indication. A stronger, and indeed very remarkable one, is supplied by the total want of ships among the Trojans, notwithstanding that their situation was one highly favourable to the acquisition of maritime power. Yet Paris needed to have ships built for him in order to effect his tour593, and the building of them appears in the Iliad as having been an event of much note in Troy. On the other hand, Homer is full of indications of the locomotive tendencies of the Hellic races. Among these may be mentioned, the wide circle embraced in the adventures of Hercules: the offer of Menelaus594 to accompany Telemachus on a journey about Greece: the sojourn of Neoptolemus595 in Scyros: the frequent visits of Idomeneus596 to Sparta before the war: the marriage of Theseus597 to a daughter of the king of Crete: the journey of Nestor598 into Thessaly: the pleasure visits of Autolycus to Ithaca, and of the young Ulysses599 to Autolycus: the evident familiarity of the Poet with the idea of travelling to recover debts600: the existence of places of wide resort for Games and Oracles601: the custom of assembling from a group of districts at the funerals of great men602: nay, the very choice of the voyages of Ulysses for the subject of so great a part of the Odyssey, and the lengthened tour of Menelaus. And while the Pelasgians appear to be akin to the land-loving Egyptians, we have found the Hellenes to be strongly sympathetic in character with the Phœnicians, the great masters of navigation in the heroic age.

From the speech of the Pseudo-Ulysses in the Fourteenth Odyssey, we have the strongest evidence that navigation and agricultural pursuits, which were those of the Pelasgians, stood in sharp opposition to one another. He could not bear tillage, but loved ships and war603.

          ἔργον δέ μοι οὐ φίλον ἦεν,
οὐδ’ οἰκωφελίη, ἥτε τρέφει ἀγλαὰ τέκνα·
ἀλλά μοι αἰεὶ νῆες ἐπήρετμοι φίλοι ἦσαν
καὶ πόλεμοι καὶ ἄκοντες ἐΰξεστοι καὶ ὀïστοί.

It is also plain, from two circumstances at least, that Homer regarded travelling as one great means of mental and practical culture. One is, that he describes this benefit as attained in the case of his great hero Ulysses;

          ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχθη...
πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα, καὶ νόον ἔγνω604.

The other is that, in the very remarkable simile of the Thought, he treats travelling as the great stimulus to the growth of the mind of man:

ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἀΐξῃ νόος ἀνέρος, ὅς τ’ ἐπὶ πολλήν
γαῖαν ἐληλουθὼς φρεσὶ πευκαλίμῃσι νοήσῃ·
ἔνθ’ εἴην, ἢ ἔνθα· μενοινήῃσί τε πολλά605.

Both as to navigation then, and as to locomotion, which stand nearly related to each other, it would seem that we ought probably to regard the Hellic stock as the parent of the Greek accomplishment.

Summary of the case.

After this laborious and microscopic investigation, we may now be justified in taking a survey more at ease of the ground which we have traversed so slowly, and in endeavouring to embody our general results in a rude sketch of the succession, places, and functions of the two great races of early Greece.

Relying, therefore, upon what has been produced in the way of proof, I will proceed to fill up its interstices with such conjectures as probable reasoning will supply.

The Greek nation was originally formed of two great coefficients, the Hellic and Pelasgic races respectively: and there is no evidence, that any other race entered largely into its composition, or modified it sensibly: although individual foreigners or companies of emigrants, which left little impression on the names of districts or races, may notwithstanding have exercised a powerful influence from time to time. We may consider the Leleges, Caucones, and other pre-Hellenic tribes as branches of the Pelasgian family, or as akin to it rather than to the Hellic stem.

There is Homeric and post-Homeric evidence, which seems to shew us the Pelasgians established through Greece from Macedonia in the north, to Crete in the south: as well as in Italy, and elsewhere beyond the borders of Greece.

It is on the whole most probable, that the Pelasgians principally entered Greece from the south by Crete; but they may have entered it in both directions. In either case, there is no other people to dispute with them in continental Greece the title of its first regular settlers. They chose their habitations in the plains, and were essentially a lowland people. It is even likely that they derive their name from this characteristic, and that it marks them at once as agriculturists.

As respects the religion of Greece, its most essential features were probably common to the two races: a principle illustrated by the fact that the Helli, by a kind of natural succession, become the wardens and interpreters of the great Pelasgian shrine of Jupiter at Dodona.

The first form of the religion of Greece was probably due to the Pelasgians; and moreover it would appear to be from them that it received, in the main, its ritual and hierarchical, as contradistinguished from its imaginative, development. They appear to have incorporated it in visible institutions, and to have given social order to the country; probably in that form in which men live sparsely, and not in the large aggregations of considerable cities. But social order in any form implies some means of defence against the lawless: and we must view the Pelasgians as having introduced the construction of works of this class, which were then of prime necessity to the existence of communities. Their standing pursuit was evidently that of agriculture: the only link of connection established by Homer between them and the beautiful in art, is the doubtful one of the epithets περικαλλέα and καλὰ606 applied to the architecture of the palaces of Priam and Paris respectively.

In general, the Pelasgian race, though without the vivid temperament of the Hellic tribes, yet would appear to have been both brave and solid in character.

The stream of Pelasgic immigration, flowing chiefly northward, is met by the counter-stream of Hellic tribes, proceeding from the highland nation of the Helli, which had taken its seat in the mountains to the north of Thessaly.

They in their southward course overspread the same countries which the Pelasgi had already occupied; successive tribes of immigrants going forth from the parent stock at different times, as the pressure of population on the means of subsistence required it, and under different names, taken in all likelihood from their leaders.

In the nest of mountaineers, barbarism, or at least rudeness, continues: but as the young broods go forth, and make their way into more favourable conditions of physical and social life, their great capacities for development find scope, and they rapidly assume a new character.

By their greater energy and activity, they became everywhere the dominant race. Policy and war fell into their hands: they supplied the more vigorous, intellectual, and imaginative element in the wonderful composition of the Greek mind. Of the Pelasgian imagination it is difficult to speak in a definite manner: but it probably had not that masculine tone, and energetic movement, when alone, which marks the mind of Greece.

Far more expansive than their Pelasgian antecessors, the Hellic tribes availed themselves of the great advantages which the country offers for extended navigation, which was so essential as a means both of communication, and of attracting the elements of civilization from abroad. They were apt pupils under apt instructors, the Phœnician mariners. They developed the Pelasgic religion into their more enlarged and diversified mythology: they idealized the visible world together with human nature, and established those peculiar and pervasively poetical relations between the seen and the unseen spheres of existence, which are the basis of the Greek mythology. Their keen sense of the beautiful led them to adorn both the body and the mind of man with the attributes of deity, while their imaginative power continually prompted them both to clothe celestial objects in shapes borrowed from the visible world, and to equip the gods with sentiments and passions drawn from the sphere of every day experience.

They likewise brought with them the gymnastic element of the Greek system, the education of the body; and they made provision for this education, in conjunction with a powerful means of national union, in the Games which became so famous through so many ages.

The same qualities which found employment in fashioning the relations of earth to heaven, were likewise busy in uniting the past with the present, by the agency of history in the form of song.

Of this race were the Achæans, who by their power and extension through Greece, gave to it and to its people their first famous designation, that which they bore in the Homeric times. From the same source proceeded all the Hellenes, derivatively so called, and the Myrmidons. Under the great Achæan name, understood in its special sense, are probably included with the Pelopids, the Pylians, Cephallenians, Epeans, Myrmidons, Loerians. Nor can we be certain that it did not also include those Æolid families whose power and extension subsequently impressed large portions of Greece with the Æolian name.

While imperial cares and aims, and the refinements and enjoyments, together with the stir, movement, and solicitude of life, fell to the Hellic portion of the Greek societies, and took its form from them, the Pelasgian element, though depressed below the surface, continued to live and act with vigour; it predominated in the classes which form the solid substratum of society, those on which rural industry, if not those on which mechanical pursuits depended, and from which the upper surface, when exhausted by the prolonged performance of its functions, may draw in every society successive stocks of new materials to renovate its vital forces.

While Homer himself seems to represent the unbounded wealth and fulness, and the manifold and versatile power, of the composite Greek mind, we appear to have, in the rural strains of Hesiod, if not in the unenlivened theogonic traditions ascribed to him, the just and natural exemplification of all that we might expect in a Pelasgic poet.

States especially Hellic or Pelasgic.

In later, as well as in Homeric times, the Arcadians seem in the most marked manner to have exhibited the Pelasgic aspect of the Greek mind and life: and they show it much in the same relation to the Hellic races, as that of the Saxons to the Norman chivalry. Like the Saxons, it was not in bravery that they failed: they were ἐγχεσίμωροι and ἐπιστάμενοι πολεμίζειν: but in energy and passion, and likewise in governing and organizing powers, they were beneath the competing race, and therefore they gave way: while, from their enduring and solid qualities, they were well qualified in after generations to supply the greater waste caused by a more vivid temperament and keener action in the soil above them.

Among the Spartans we find developed, in a very peculiar degree, two of the imperial elements of the Greek character. The first is that political faculty of the Hellic races, by which, as Strabo says, they preserved their ἡγεμονία from the time of Lycurgus, down to the fifth century.

And the second is, the idea of the education of the body, as an essential and main part of human training: a sentiment which to us may seem narrow, but we must remember that the Greeks kept fully in their view what we have dropped from our theories, though it may be hoped, not wholly from our practice, namely, the influence of bodily exercise and discipline in forming mental qualities and habits.

It was to Attica, however, that was reserved the offices of exhibiting in the fullest degree the manysidedness of the Greek character: and the efficient cause, by which she was fitted to fulfil this function, probably may have been that constant infusion of new blood by the successive immigrations of the different Greek races, without the absolute displacement of any of them on a large scale, which, as we have seen, Thucydides remarks to have been her special characteristic. Hence she always exhibited both the ancient and the fresh; both, too, in the highest degree; urging, like Arcadia, the autochthonic origin of her population, which must refer to its Pelasgic element; contending with that state, and with Argos607, for the honour of the traditions touching Pelasgus and the worship of Ceres; but richer at the same time than any other Greek State, in the varied aggregate of the qualities, which the composite or entire Greek mind appears to have owed to Hellic infusion. Hence the breadth of the transition which, according to Herodotus608, she had made from the Pelasgic to the Hellenic character: and yet she had made it without any visible breach in the continuity of her social and political traditions.

Though Thessaly was the country in which, to all appearance, the Hellic tribes, coming down from the poverty and rudeness of their highland life, first began to develope their amazing powers, and to acquire civilization, yet it was rather, so to speak, their caravansera or halting house, than their abode.

The Helli, thus travelling through Hellas, give it a name, and receive from it one in return; so that when they pass on to the southward, they are no longer Helli but Hellenes, and have only a secondary and derivative relation to their original home and stock. It is intelligible, that they should not wish to claim too close a kindred with the ἀνιπτόποδες χαμαίευναι of Homer609, although most ready to own the relationship in solemn appeals to the ancient seat of Jupiter. Even in Homer’s time, they had advanced very far ahead of the habits thus ascribed to them: for when the Greek chiefs return from the Doloneia, they first wash in the sea, then pass into the bath, and thirdly are anointed, before they begin their well-earned meal610.

The rapidity of their growth in numbers, and of their propagation southwards, might be due to their having settled on a fertile plain; while necessities, arising from the vicissitudes of climate, would be the probable and less copious cause of migration from the hills. But in any case, whether from the rapidity of their passage through Thessaly, or from their having actually occupied no more than a small portion of it, they left it in the Homeric, and apparently also in the Hesiodic period, still partly impressed, as they must have found it, with the Pelasgic name611. The prolonged existence of this appellation indicates in part perhaps the predominance of the Pelasgic element in this country, in part the fugacious character of the Hellic settlement, of which only the Achæan portion lived through the historic times in such a degree of force as to maintain its visible identity: this, too, according to post-Homeric tradition, was peopled by the Myrmidons from the south, and not directly from the region of the Helli.

Thessaly, then, was the nursery or cradle of the Hellic or Hellenic races, but it was no more. Consequently with the lapse of time, as it wanted the true mixture of ingredients, Thessaly became less and less Greek in its essential habits and sympathies: while from its preserving a federal constitution, under a federal head, the τάγος, we may also refer to its more Pelasgian character the apparent fact, that it was not so liable to political change, or νεωτέρισις, as were the less Pelasgian parts of Greece. When, after centuries of vicissitude, the outward notes of its original blood were almost gone, Pelasgian feeling still survived: for Thucydides relates that, when Brasidas entered Thessaly at the head of the Lacedæmonian army, he found the mass of the people attached by affection to the Athenian cause, and had to rely on aristocratic influence to furnish him with guides612.