weakened themselves by incessant quarrels and hostile conflicts, and at length entirely extirpated each other. Inachus, the last of their chiefs, was regarded by the Pelasgi as the founder of the kingdom of Argos. His son Phoroneus built the city of Argos, about 1856 B. C.; and another son, Egialeus, built Sicyon, making it the seat of a new government. To the Pelasgi are attributed the building of those most ancient remains called Cyclopian.* From the Peloponnesus, the Pelasgi extended themselves northwards to Attica, Boeotia, and Thessaly, which they are said to have entered under their leaders Achæus, Phthius, and Pelasgus. In Thessaly they applied themselves to agriculture; and remained for a hundred and fifty successive years, about 1700-1500 B. C.

3. In the time of Ŏgyges, king of Thebes, happened the extensive inundation in which it is said he perished, along with many of his subjects, about 1796 B. C. This inundation goes by the name of the Deluge of Ogyges; but well-informed authors consider it to have been merely an extraordinary overflowing of the lake Copais in Boeotia, which overspread a part of the low country, while the rest continued to be inhabited.

4. From the death of Ogyges until the arrival of Cecrops, the leader of the second colony from Egypt, a period of about 200 years, there is no series of kings recorded, nor any connected history of that period. Cecrops landed in Attica, from Sais in Egypt, about 1582 B. C., and, connecting himself with the last king (Acteus) by marrying his daughter, succeeded on his death to the sovereignty. He built twelve cities, amongst others, Athens originally called after himself Cecropia, and was eminent both as a lawgiver and politician. He is said to have introduced the cultivation of the olive, of different kinds of grain, and the rearing and feeding of cattle; and to have instituted the rites of marriage and of burial. He also established the court of Areopagus at Athens. The number of its judges varied at different periods from nine to fifty-one. They were chosen from among the wisest and most respectable of the citizens; and, in the latest times, consisted principally of such as had filled the highest dignities. They held their meetings in the open air, and determined all causes during the night.

5. The Grecian history derives some authenticity at this period from the Chronicle of Paros, preserved among the Arundelian marbles at Oxford. The authority of this chronicle has been questioned; but on a review of the whole controversy, we judge the arguments for its authenticity to preponderate. It fixes the dates of the most remarkable events in the history of Greece, from

* They are usualy composed of enormous rude masses piled upon one another, with small stones fitted in between the intertices to complete the work. Several of these stones are from ten to twelve feet in length, and of proportionate breadth and thick. These buildings were no doubt erected as fortresses, from the interior contrivances to protract the defence after the enemy had conquered the outer wall. Colonel Leak's Travels in the Morea contain the best account of the Cyclopian re. mains at Tirgus, Argos, and Mycenæ.

ness.

the time of Cecrops down to the age of Alexander the Great, 1582-354 B.C.*

6. Cecrops died childless, and was succeeded by Cranaus, in whose time happened two remarkable events, recorded in the Chronicle of Paros; the judgment of the Areopagus between Mars and Neptune, two princes of Thessaly; and the deluge of Deucalion. [Halirothius, the son of Neptune, had been put to death by Mars, for violating his daughter Alcippe; and to prevent a war, the cause was submitted to the Areopagus, which decreed that the revenge of Mars was justified by the outrage which he had sustained. Deucalion and his followers were at first located in Phocis, near Parnassus, from whence they were driven by a flood. This event is celebrated in antiquity as the deluge of Deucalion. He is confounded with Noah by the poets, and represented by them as the ancestor of the human race; and the other circumstances related only prove that the sacred writings were known to them, or else the tradition of the deluge, which they employed to embellish their narrative. The inundation which then happened was certainly nothing more than some similar occurrence to that in the time of Ogyges-probably an earthquake, which changed the course of the river Peneus.† That this inundation was only partial, is proved from the fact, that the succession of the kings of Argos, Athens, and Sicyon, that preceded the age of Deucalion is preserved, as well as the series of those who came after his time.]

7. [The Chronicle of Paros records that Deucalion, after escaping from the flood, retired to Athens, where he sacrificed to Jupiter Phryxius. He then migrated into Thessaly, and drove out the Pelasgi from that territory, about 1529 B. C. where his tribe increased in numbers and power. This tribe is afterwards known as the Hellenes, from Hellen, the son of Deucalion. They descended from Thessaly, spreading themselves over Greece, and expelling the Pelasgi from almost every place. The latter tribe maintained their ground only in Arcadia and Dodona; whilst some of them migrated to Italy, to Crete, and other islands.‡

The Arundelian marbles, in their perfect state, contained a chronological detail of the principal events of Greece during a period of 1318 years, beginning with Cecrops (1582 B c.), and ending with the Archonship of Diognetus (264 B.C.); but the chronicle of the last 90 years is lost, so that the part remaining ends at the Archonship of Diotimus, 354 B.C. They were brought to England in 1629, and placed in the gardens belonging to Arundel House in London, where some of them were broken and effaced, and others taken away and used for ordinary building purposes. + Those partial inundations were frequent in Greece. Xenophone numerates five; and Diodorus Siculus mentions a sixth, which happened after them.

It has been generally admitted that the Pelasgians occupied Greece, and penetrated into central Italy, long before the establishment of the Hellenic colonies in Magna Græcia-that is, the southern portion of the Italian peninsula. Herodotus, Thucydides, and Strabo, state that the Pelasgians came originally from Thessaly into Greece; and as Thessaly was anciently a part of Thrace, Pinkerton (on the Origin of the Scythians and Goths) contends that the Pelasgians were Thracians-that is, Scythians or Goths. According to him, ancient Pelasgia included Macedonia, Epirus, and afterwards the country which in later times was called Hellas or Greece; and he follows the opinion of the majority of the learned, in holding that Pelasgi and Hellenes

8. The Hellenic tribe subdivided into four principal branches, the Eolians, Ionians, Dorians, and Achæans, which continued afterwards to be distinguished and separated by many peculiarities of speech, customs, and political government. These four tribes, although they must not be considered as comprising all the slender ramifications of the nation, are derived by tradition from Deucalion's immediate posterity,-with whose personal history, therefore, the history of the tribes themselves and their migrations is interwoven. This derivation of the tribes will be better understood by the following genealogical table :

DEUCALION.

HELLEN.

:

9. Dorus followed his father Hellen into Estiœotis, from whence the tribe was driven, after the death of Dorus, by the Perrhœbi. It then spread over Macedonia and Crete. A part of the tribe returned, and settled in Tetrapolis Dorica, where they remained until they migrated into Peloponnesus, under the guidance of the Heraclidæ, about B.C. 1100. Xuthus, expelled by

were but different names for one and the same people. The Hellenes being a tribe that migrated from Thessaly at a later period, under their chieftain Hellen, and afterwards acquired the ascendancy over all the others.

Of all marks or proofs of the origin of nations, that of language is the most certain. The language and manners of the whole of Hellas, from Thrace to the Ionian sea, according to Pinkerton, were Thracian or Scythian. In Homer's time, the name of Barbarians was not applied to the Thracians, who appear to have spoken the same language with the Hellenes; and Diodorus Siculus states that the Scythe Hyperborei, or most distant Scythians, used a form of speech akin to that of Athens and Delos-in other words, Pelasgic or Gothic. The similarity between the Greek and Gothic language is attested by Ovid:

Exercent illi socia commercia linguæ,

Graiaque quod Getico victa loquela sono est. (Tristia, lib. 5: 10.) Modern scholars and antiquaries have pronounced the Greek and Gothic to be merely dialects of the same original language, though some of them have fallen into the mistake of deriving the latter from the former. In corroboration of the same general view, Bibliander states, that in the German, which is a dialect of the Gothic, eight hundred out of two thousand radicals are common to the Greek and Latin as well as the German; and as to the Latin, every scholar knows that, originally, it was merely the Æolic dialect of the Greek. From these coincidences, and other circumstances, Pinkerton concludes that the Pelasgians, the ancestors of the Greeks, afterwards called Hellenes, from the leader of the last tribe that arrived, were originally settled in Macedonia and Thessaly; that they were Thracians, and that the Thracians were Scythians or Goths. See article "Pelasgi," Ency.

Britan. 7th edition.

his brothers, migrated to Athens, where he married Creusa. daughter of Erectheus, by whom he had Ion and Achæus. Ion and his tribe, driven out of Athens, settled in that part of Peloponnesus called Egialus (a name which, by them, was converted into Ionia, and in later times exchanged for Achaia), preserved their footing in Laconia and Argos until the time of the Dorian migration. Æolus, in the time of his father, settled in Philistis, and became the founder of the Æolian tribe, which spread from thence over Western Greece, Acarnania, Etolia, Phocis, Locris, Elis in the Peloponnesus, and likewise over the Western Islands. 10. Besides these original colonists, other colonies came into Greece at the same early period, from civilized countries—from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Mysia. The settlements of these strangers occurred probably between, B.C. 1600-1400. Danaus brought a colony from Egypt, and settled in Argos, about 1500. The colony of Cadmus, from Phoenicia, settled in Boeotia, about 1500; and the colony of Pelops, from Mysia, settled in Argos, about 1400, and afterwards acquired such paramount influence, as to give the name of their leader to the whole Peninsula.

11. When the tribes ceased to migrate, the first important step towards civilization was made. The next, when they discovered the necessity of a law of nations, and a confederation for their mutual protection against the Phoenicians, Carians, and Egeans, who at first made the art of navigation subservient to piracy rather than commerce. The Amphictyonic league was formed for that purpose by Amphictyon, who reigned at Thermopylæ, P. c. 1522. He was the contemporary of Cranaus, the successor of Cecrops, and must have possessed extensive political views. This council, from a league of twelve cities, became the representative assembly of the states of Greece, and had the most admirable political effect in uniting the nation and giving it a common interest. The states united in this general council were the Ionians; the Athenians; the Dorians; the Perrhæbians; the Baotians; Magnesians; Achæans; Phthians; Malians; Dolopians; Enianians; Delphians; and Phocians. They met in spring and autumn; and on extraordinary occasions, at any time of the year, or even continued sitting all the year round. Two deputies attended from each state; and in their deliberations and resolutions, all were on a footing of equality.

12. Cadmus, about 1519 B.C., introduced alphabetic writing into Greece from Phoenicia.-The alphabet had then only sixteen letters, and the ancient Greeks had no more for many centuries afterwards; whilst the mode of writing (termed Boustrophedon, from its resemblance to the furrows described in ploughing a field) was alternately from left to right, and right to left. He also brought with him a knowledge of all the arts and sciences which were practised and cultivated in that early civilized country. From this period, the Greeks made rapid advances in civilization.]

SECTION XV.

REFLECTIONS ON THE EARLIEST OR FIRST PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY.

1. [THE mythology of the Hellenes proves, beyond a doubt, that they were at first savages, like the Pelasgi, since they had to learn even the use of fire from Prometheus, the grandson of Titan; yet it is equally clear that they must, even at the earliest period, particularly from 1300-1200, when they had ceased to migrate, have made the first important step towards the attainment of a certain degree of civilization. About the time of the Trojan war, they appear to have been still barbarians, though no longer savages.]

2. There were many circumstances that retarded the progress of the Greeks to refinement. The introduction of a national religion was best fitted to remove these obstacles. Receiving this new system of theology from strangers, and entertaining at first very confused ideas of it, they would naturally blend its doctrines and worship with the notions of religion which they formerly possessed; and hence we observe only partial coincidences of the Grecian with the Egyptian and Phoenician mythologies. It has been a vain and preposterous labour of modern mythological writers, to attempt to trace all the fables of antiquity, and the various systems of Pagan theology, up to one common source.-The absurdity of this is best shown by comparing the different and most contradictory solutions of the same fable given by different mythologists; as, for example, by Lord Bacon and the Abbé Banier. Some authors, with much indiscretion, have attempted to deduce all the Pagan mythologies from the Holy Scriptures. Such researches are not only unprofitable, but positively mischievous.

3. Superstition, in the early periods, was a predominant characteristic of the Greeks. To this age, and to this character of the people, we refer the origin of the Grecian oracles, and the institution of the public games in honour of the gods. All barbarous nations have their augurs, their sorcerers, or their oracles -as the American Indians, the African negroes, the Laplanders, and formerly those among the Scottish Highlanders who pretended to the possession of the second sight. The desire of penetrating into futurity, and the superstition common to rude nations, gave rise to the oracles of Delphi, Dodona, Olympia, &c. The necessity of consulting these sanctuaries naturally led men to regard the oracles as the common property of the nation, to which every one should have access; and the resort of strangers to these oracles, on particular occasions, led to the celebration of a festival, and to public games.-The four solemn games of the Greeks, particularly termed iego, were the Olympic, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian. They consisted