Note 561 — GRECIAN WRITERS.

Another reason may be given for the obscurity in the Grecian history, even when letters had been introduced among them. They had a childish antipathy to every foreign language: and were equally prejudiced in favour of their own. This has passed unnoticed; yet was attended with the most fatal consequences. They were misled by the too great delicacy of their ear; and could not bear any term which appeared to them barbarous and uncouth. On this account they either rejected foreign [561]appellations; or so modelled and changed them, that they became, in sound and meaning, essentially different. And as they were attached to their own country, and its customs, they presumed that every thing was to be looked for among themselves. They did not consider, that the titles of their Gods, the names of cities, and their terms of worship, were imported: that their ancient hymns were grown obsolete: and that time had wrought a great change. They explained every thing by the language in use, without the least retrospect or allowance: and all names and titles from other countries were liable to the same rule. If the name were dissonant, and disagreeable to their ear, it was rejected as barbarous: but if it were at all similar in sound to any word in their language, they changed it to that word; though the name were of Syriac original; or introduced from Egypt, or Babylonia. The purport of the term was by these means changed: and the history, which depended upon it, either perverted or effaced. When the title Melech, which signified a King, was rendered Μειλιχος and Μειλιχιος, sweet and gentle, it referred to an idea quite different from the original. But this gave them no concern: they still blindly pursued their purpose. Some legend was immediately invented in consequence of this misprision, some story about bees and honey, and the mistake was rendered in some degree plausible. This is a circumstance of much consequence; and deserves our attention greatly. I shall have occasion to speak of it repeatedly; and to lay before the reader some entire treatises upon the subject. For this failure is of such a nature, as, when detected. and fairly explained, will lead us to the solution of many dark and enigmatical histories, with which the mythology of Greece abounds. The only author, who seems to have taken any notice of this unhappy turn in the Grecians, is Philo Biblius. [562]He speaks of it as a circumstance of very bad consequence, and says, that it was the chief cause of error and obscurity: hence, when he met in Sanchoniathon with antient names, he did not indulge himself in whimsical solutions; but gave the true meaning, which was the result of some event or quality whence the name was imposed. This being a secret to the Greeks, they always took things in a wrong acceptation; being misled by a twofold sense of the terms which occurred to them: one was the genuine and original meaning, which was retained in the language whence they were taken: the other was a forced sense, which the Greeks unnaturally deduced from their own language, though there was no relation between them. The same term in different languages conveyed different and opposite ideas: and as they attended only to the meaning in their own tongue, they were constantly [563]mistaken.