II. ETHNOLOGY. (continued 4)

At the outset, however, it is essential to observe, that a certain elasticity in the use of geographical as well as political names could not but belong to the age, in which Homer lived: first, because of the successive movements of tribes, like wave on wave, so that the use of any such name would ordinarily be either growing or declining, but not stationary: secondly, because of the indeterminate forms which political authority assumed, as resting on a mixture, in unknown proportions, of the various elements of custom, compact, reverence, and force: and, thirdly, because of the want of well-defined geographical boundaries.

We are not entitled to assume that the territory, which we call Greece, was, in Homer’s time, subdivided with precision between a given number of territorial names. We hear of Phthia, Ægialus, Elis, Arcadia: but these seem to be the exceptions rather than the rule. For many parts of it there are no local names whatever; and we must not look for any thing resembling the manner in which England is made up of its counties, France of its departments, or the later Greece of its individual states.

The passages in which the word Hellas is used by Homer stand as follows in the order of the Poems:

1. A verse in the Catalogue, Il. ii. 683:

2. (Achilles loquitur), ix. 395:

3. (Phœnix loq.), ibid. 447:

4. (Phœnix loq.), ibid. 478:

5. (In the narrative), Il. xvi. 595:

6. (Penelope loq.), Od. i. 344:

7. (Penelope loq.), Od. iv. 724:

8. Penelope repeats the same lines, Od. iv. 814-16.

9. (Achilles loq.), Od. xi. 494:

10. (Menelaus loq.), to Telemachus, Od. xv. 80:

Of these passages, there are some which admit for the word Hellas the contracted sense of the dominions of Peleus, or even of a simple portion of them. Namely the following:

In (1) we are reading part of the description of the country, from which the force of Achilles was drawn. Beginning from the line which precedes it, we may translate thus: ‘the inhabitants of Alos, and of Alope, and of Trachin, and those who occupied Phthia, and the Hellas of fair women.’ It is clear, on the face of the passage, that, whatever it may mean, the sense does not require it to mean more in this place than a particular district, forming part of the dominions of Peleus.

In (2), where Achilles says, there are many Achæan maids through Hellas and Phthia, any one of whom he can have for a wife.

In (5), where we are told that Bathycles, son of Chalcon, dwelt in Hellas, preeminent among the Myrmidons in prosperity and wealth.

And in (9), where the shade of Achilles asks whether his father Peleus is still in the enjoyment of kingly power in the populous country of the Myrmidons, or whether he is deprived and despised through the range of Hellas and Phthia.

But among these four passages there is a distinction. In (1), (5), and (9) Hellas is combined with Phthia. Now we have seen, that there were Phthians beyond the dominions of Peleus: if the territorial name Phthia was similarly extended, then the presumption would arise that Hellas also might mean something more than lay within those dominions. But there are many passages where Phthia is used without Hellas; and in them all it is used to express the district where Peleus reigned. It is not unlikely therefore, at first sight, that Hellas has the limited sense of a part of the kingdom in these passages. And in the passage relating to Bathycles, the son of Chalcon, the limited sense is yet more strongly suggested; yet, as we may hereafter see more clearly, it is by no means positively required either in that or in any of these four places.

And it is abundantly clear, from the remainder of the passages, that the name Hellas had already, in Homer’s time, begun to bear a more extended sense.

In proof of this, let us take, firstly, the two passages in which it stands alone. In Il. ix. 444-8, Phœnix tells us that nothing would induce him to quit Achilles; no, not even if the gods, brushing off his old age, were to make him young and vigorous again, such as he was when first he left Hellas, the land of fair women, flying from his feud with his father Amyntor. Now this passage absolutely proves that the word Hellas was used by Homer, at least occasionally, for some limited district, and not (as in after times) for the entire country; inasmuch as Phœnix could not otherwise have said he left Hellas on this occasion. But on the other hand it demonstrates, that the limits of Hellas were not so narrow, as the passages heretofore considered might permit us to suppose. For Phœnix goes on to describe the cause of quarrel; and (478-80) says he took his course through broad open Hellas, and came into fertile Phthia, to Peleus the king. The supposition most consistent with the wording of these passages is, that Phthia comprised the principal district of the dominions of Peleus, while a portion of them may have fallen (as we elsewhere see was perhaps the case) under the name of Hellas: but they absolutely place the abode of Amyntor outside the realm of Peleus; and therefore, in saying that Phœnix left Hellas, and that he fled from his home through Hellas, they imply necessarily that Hellas, the region from which he fled, was, in part at least, outside of that realm to which he fled.

But these passages will harmonise perfectly with each other, and with those formerly examined, if we suppose that Hellas meant the whole of Northern Greece generally, but that a particular portion of it had been more definitely stamped with the name of Phthia, as the chief seat of Peleus and the Myrmidons. For then the original abode of Phœnix might be in Hellas, as he says (in ix. 447) that it was: and yet he would pursue his way through Hellas, as he says (ibid. 478) that he did: and he would also leave Hellas, namely by coming into Phthia: and moreover the dominions of Peleus might go beyond what was commonly known by the particular designation of Phthia, and might include some portion of Hellas, as, from Il. ii. 683, they evidently did.

This supposition is recommended to us, not only by its conforming to all the requisite conditions, and furnishing a convenient construction for all the passages we have examined, but by the fact that Phthia, and Phthia alone, is commonly mentioned in the poem as the home of Achilles and the Myrmidons: which shows that they had a more special relation to the territory known by that name, than to Hellas.

If any thing be still wanting, the proof is brought to completeness by two other passages: the one (Il. x. 261-7), which tells us that this Amyntor, son of Ormenus, dwelt in Eleon; dwelt there permanently, since Autolycus stole from him an helmet, by breaking into his substantial well-built house,

and the other the verse of the Catalogue[499], which places Eleon in Bœotia. These passages therefore clearly appear to carry the name Hellas as far as Bœotia, and to make it reach continuously from thence to Phthia. And if Hellas comes down to Bœotia, then it includes Locris; and the various tribes of these regions may be included in the general name of Hellenes, though to all appearance they were not as yet familiarly and ordinarily so called. And if Locris and Bœotia, with part of Southern Thessaly (the dominions of Peleus), are included within the range of the name Hellas, we can have no difficulty in supposing that it included Northern Thessaly also, which must have been the pathway of the Helli to the South.

But we find Ἕλλας in another combination besides that with Phthia, in the four passages of the Odyssey, (one of them being a simple repetition of another,) which we have still to examine.

Now the line Od. iv. 726, repeated 816, is under suspicion, of which it is not worth while to scrutinise the justice: as the idea and force of it is just the same with that of Od. i. 344,

This passage describes the fame of Ulysses as spread through the breadth of Hellas and mid-Argos; (or, from the heart of Argos to its extremities, right through or all over Argos.) And again in Od. xv. 80, when Telemachus has proposed to return home forthwith from the court of Menelaus, his host gently dissuades him from haste, and counsels a more extended tour, καθ’ Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος; offering to take charge of his horses, and to shew him ‘the cities,’ or secured dwellings, ‘of men.’

The signification of the word Ἄργος will be considered hereafter: for the present purpose it is enough to observe that the word μέσον, as used by Menelaus, in combination with Hellas, of itself prevents our applying it simply to the narrow corner of the Peloponnesus in which the city of Argos was placed; and therefore that it can scarcely mean less than Peloponnesus. And it is not less plain, that whatever may be the force of the words when taken singly, their effect when taken together can hardly be less than this: Menelaus must mean to point to Greece at large, as the scene of the proposed excursion. For there is no assignable portion of Greece to which, consistently with the words and the sense, he can be held to confine his meaning. If we could suppose him to mean Peloponnesus only by the two names Hellas and Argos, which he employs in this place, we should but enlarge thereby the Homeric capacity of the word Hellas; for we have already brought it down from the north to Bœotia; and we should, in the way now proposed, carry it through the isthmus, and over Peloponnesus, or, at the least, over some part of it. But even if Menelaus means Peloponnesus only, which is most improbable, it is plainly incredible that such should be the meaning of Penelope in Od. i. 344. As a Greek, she cannot mean to limit the renown of her husband to any sphere less wide than Greece.

We have already seen, that Hellas sometimes includes certainly the territory from Southern Thessaly to Bœotia, and probably Thessaly at large: and it is quite plain that, if it comes to Bœotia, it does not stop there, but applies to the whole of Middle Greece, the region between Thessaly and the isthmus: for the application of the term Hellas could not stop except at some great natural division of the country, and the isthmus is here the only one possible.

Now the name Argos is related to Thessaly[500], but much more specially related to the Peloponnesus, as we shall see from a number of passages. It has no relation at all in Homer to that division of the country in particular which we call Middle Greece.

Assuming it, then, to mean Peloponnesus, in that case Hellas means Middle with Northern Greece: and the two names of Hellas and Argos, taken together, completely and conveniently express the whole country. The only alterations are such as would assign to Hellas a larger sense; in no case can it, as to this passage, admit of a more restricted one.

The foregoing argument is supported to a certain extent by the fact, that while territorial names are frequent for the Peloponnesian part of Greece, (we have Achaic Argos, Iasian Argos, Elis, Arcadia, Lacedæmon,) the continent to the north of the isthmus is generally without territorial names: Phthia and Pelasgic Argos are, I think, the only exceptions. There is thus before us a gap, which the name Hellas, as it has been here construed, seems conveniently to fill.

This construction of certain passages, in which the word Hellas is contained, is not one which should be adopted by the reader unawares. But if, like myself, after examining into it strictly he assents to its justice and necessity, then he will find that it is of the utmost importance to the elucidation of Homeric history; for it supplies a key to other much contested uses of the Hellenic name.

In the first place, I submit that if we now review the ten passages in which Homer speaks of Hellas, and bear in mind that in some among them it cannot be construed as meaning less than, with a certain amount of indeterminateness as to boundaries, Northern and Middle Greece generally, we shall also find, that there is not one of all those passages, in which it will not at least admit of the same sense. I do not deny that it is open to us to hold that the Hellas, in which Chalcon dwelt, was a mere district of Thessaly, and that Homer attaches in different places different senses to the word. But if there is a sense, substantially one, which will suit the word in every place where it is used, it seems most reasonable to adhere generally to that sense. Such a meaning we have, I think, found for Hellas, in concluding that it is used to signify Northern and Middle Greece. In this sense it overrides and includes Phthia, as France overrides Alsace or Burgundy. But as there was a time when Alsace and Burgundy might, before the present state of incorporation, have been either said to be in France or not in France, without an outrageous license of speech either way, so perhaps the land of Phthia was for Homer either a part of Hellas, or a province carved out of Hellas by the special occupation of the Myrmidons, as occasion might chance to demand. Not that he did not conform to the facts, but that the facts were themselves indeterminate. To our habits, under which every inch of ground belongs to somebody, this indefiniteness is wholly strange; but in times when only spots here and there were appropriated, and there was no universal occupation, it was thoroughly natural, and the thing really strange would be the absence of it. Accordingly, when Phœnix says he left Hellas, he gives to Phthia, the name of the place he reached, its exclusive force. When he says Chalcon dwelt in Hellas among the Myrmidons, he probably means in Phthia, but now regards Phthia as covered by the larger designation. When Homer tells us the soldiers of Achilles were those who inhabited Alos, and Alope, and Trachin, and who occupied Phthia and Hellas, we understand by the three first, particular spots which the Myrmidons had settled, by Phthia a larger district which they had so far dotted with their occupancy as to make it peculiarly theirs, and by Hellas the surrounding country, into which they had more or less ramified.

Assuming then the sense of the word Hellas to be now sufficiently ascertained, the next question is, how came this country, which has been described, to bear the name of Hellas? And the question admits of but one answer. It could only be called Hellas because tribes of Helli had become its masters, its governing race, the depositaries, through its various regions, of political and military power.

We must therefore understand that, according to Homer, tribes reputed to be of Hellic origin were so far distributed over this country, as to have begun at least to affix their name to it: though without having absolutely effaced every older name, like Πελασγικὸν Ἄργος and though not precluding the introduction of names perhaps more recent, certainly more specific, such as Phthia.

The Hellenes of Homer.

We may now proceed to consider the force, according to Homer’s use, of the names derived from Hellas. These are, as commonly understood,

1. Ἕλληνες,

2. Πανέλληνες,

and to these I shall presume to add,

3. Κεφάλληνες.

The first of these is found only in Il. ii. 684. Here, after the description of the places from which the forces of Achilles came, the poet proceeds to give them their designation:

We find an exclusive use[501] of the word Myrmidons for the force of Achilles throughout the Iliad, except in this one place; notwithstanding that Phœnix, who was lord of the Dolopes, commanded one of the five divisions[502], and that we may therefore presume a certain part of the force to have been Dolopian. From this exclusive use, we cannot doubt that the name of Myrmidons was that which appertained to them in particular, as the ruling tribe among the subjects of Peleus.

Had we found reason to construe the word Ἕλλας in the preceding line as meaning only a district of his dominions, it would have followed, that Ἕλληνες meant the inhabitants of that district; and that a part of the soldiers of Achilles were Hellenes rather than Myrmidons, in virtue of a local name. But it follows from what we have already concluded about Hellas, that the name of Hellenes was applicable to all the Myrmidons as being themselves inhabitants of Hellas, that is, of Phthia, which belonged to Hellas.

And in passing it should be noticed that, although the Myrmidons inhabited Phthia, they are never called Phthians; nor do we ever hear of Phthians at all in Homer, except only in that passage where they are described as engaged with Locrians and others in repelling the Trojan assault[503]. They are there described as under the command of Medon and Podarces. But in the Catalogue Podarces and Medon[504], as substitutes for Protesilaus and Philoctetes respectively, command the second and fourth Thessalian contingents, which came from districts lying near the kingdom of Peleus. Either therefore the Phthian name extended beyond the limits of Phthia, or the Phthians were those whom the Myrmidons had recently driven out, and whose lands they had occupied.

We cannot conclusively settle the sense of the word Ἀχαιοὶ in this passage, except by anticipating the results of an examination, on which we have not yet entered. But it may be observed even at this point, that the bearings of the passage are somewhat adverse to a merely local construction for it. If Myrmidon was the strictly proper name, then Achæan must have been a designation which was not proper to the Myrmidons only, but which they enjoyed in common with others. And yet, on the other hand, not in common with all the Greeks, but in some sense more restricted than that, in which it is habitually applied to the whole army. For in that large and general sense every contingent of the army was Achæan, and Homer would certainly therefore not have mentioned the Achæan name with respect to one in particular. It can hardly escape observation that, studying great clearness and precision in the Catalogue, he systematically avoids the introduction of his general names for the army. We never read of Danaans or Argeians in it at all, and of Achæans only twice[505]. So far then as the passage itself guides us, it points to the supposition that those who were called Myrmidons properly, to distinguish them from all others, and Hellenes because they were (in common with others) inhabitants of Hellas, belonged likewise to a particular class or race of Greeks, to whom the name of Ἀχαιοὶ was applicable in some distinctive sense. The three appellations, accordingly, are not so many synonyms; but each has probably its own proper scope.

Thucydides[506] speaks with his usual accuracy, when he says that Homer has given the name of Hellenes to no portion of the army except the troops of Achilles from Phthiotis. He does not however go beyond the assertion that this word had not yet grown into an appellation for the Greeks universally, an assertion which, as far as Homer’s evidence goes, is undeniable. But it does not require us also to deny that the Hellas of Homer extends beyond Phthia, and that the name of Hellenes may even then have been beginning to attach to the inhabitants of other parts of Hellas, though perhaps less fixedly, as yet, than to the Myrmidons.

The Panhellenes of Homer.

With these facts in view, I am wholly unable to follow those who have condemned, upon internal evidence, that verse of the Catalogue in which we find mention of the Panhellenes.

Speaking of Oilean Ajax, commander of the Locrians, the poet says (Il. ii. 530),

It is not grammatically necessary that we should make these two words coextensive; and I do not believe that either of them separately, as here used, conveys the whole force of the two, though perhaps conjointly they may carry the assertion that he was the best spearman in the army.

If there was a Hellas in the time of Homer, which was inhabited by a variety of tribes, then, as these tribes dispersedly might be called with propriety Hellenes, even apart from the authority of constant use, so they might with equal propriety be combined into the term Panhellenes, which would mean all the tribes, including the Locrians, that inhabited Hellas, or Northern and Mid-Greece. Thus, as the Achæan name was at this time more prominent and distinguished in the Peloponnesus[507] than in any other part of the country, the poet may in this place by Ἀχαιοὶ mean the Southern or Peloponnesian Greece; so as, by the two epithets conjointly, to signify the whole army. Or he may mean all those who, in Hellas or beyond it, were of the pure Achæan race (assuming, for the moment, that such a race existed); and thus may here assert, that Ajax excelled all Hellas, and even all Achæans in or out of Hellas, using the last of the two words by way of climax. I do not deny that he may also be construed to mean the whole host in the gross by Ἀχαιοὶ, agreeably to the common use of it; but this is less likely; as the name, so understood, would not be distinctive.

Nor do I see any reason to hesitate about treating the Homeric name Κεφάλληνες as one of his Hellenic group of names. As in the case of Πελασγοὶ, so here we have a name formed by a combination of different words. The word head seems to have been represented by a root of flexible structure. In Sanscrit it is kapâla[508], in Greek κεφάλη, in Latin caput: but it also appears in the German kopf, and in the Greek κόπτειν, ‘to butt,’ and in κύβη, κυβιστάω, κυβερνάω. The word Κεφάλληνες seems, then, to be formed in the most direct manner from the root κεφ, signifying ‘head,’ and Ἕλληνες: and thus it both attaches Ulysses, with at least the dominant race among his subjects, to the Hellic stock, and indicates the tendency of the Hellenic name, even in Homer’s time, to reproduce itself and to spread abroad.

Again, we observe in his rare use of Κεφάλληνες the same signs as in Ἕλληνες and Πανέλληνες, that the power of the name was only growing up from its infancy. For the word is used but twice in the Iliad, and no more than four times in the Odyssey, where there is constant occasion for addressing, or for speaking of, the subjects of Ulysses. We find in that poem Ἰθακήσιοι eleven times, and Ἀχαιοὶ constantly.

Having dealt with the Homeric derivations of Hellas[509], let us now ascend to the word, from which it is itself derived; Hellas being evidently, in the Greek tongue, the country which had been occupied by the Helli.

Of the people who are so termed, either under the form beginning with the aspirate, or else under that of Σελλοὶ, we find obvious Homeric vestiges in the Hellespont, Ἑλλήσποντος; in various rivers termed Σελληείς; and in the invocation of Achilles to Jupiter, which places the Selli in the north of Thessaly, about wintry Dodona, and seems to stamp them as then still remaining a people of the rudest habits in their mountain home[510];

The Σελλοὶ of Homer.

The word Ἕλλοι would appear to be not the most probable reading of the text of this invocation; for it presumes an inconvenient loading of the sentence with the double pronoun σε and σοι. But there can be no doubt whatever as to its identity with Σελλοί. Independently of philological argument, there is the strongest presumption that in this place Achilles intends to name his own national ancestry, as being the ministers of the god; who give him, as it were, the right to invoke the aid of the Pelasgic indeed, but therefore genuine and original, Jupiter of Dodona. But no circumstance seems to be better established by philological research, than that in many cases of Greek words, which now begin with the aspirate, there was one (or more than one) initial letter, and that frequently that letter was the sigma. Much obscurity has hung about this subject, from the fact that discovery has proceeded piecemeal, and that for a length of time the word digamma was used to signify what had originally filled the void now existing in so many places of the Homeric versification. What this digamma might have been was disputed; but it was, almost insensibly perhaps, assumed to be some one letter or sound only. But as inquiry has made further advances, many forms of a lost letter or letters have been discovered: and it has also been made clear that the gaps ought to be filled up variously, and not by any one uniform expedient. To take very simple examples, there can be no doubt about the identity of ἓξ, ἕπτα, ὓς, with sex, septem, sus: nor any doubt about the essential identity of ὕδωρ and sudor, ἡδὺς and suavis, ἑκυρὸς and socer: none therefore that the σ ought to be supplied, and not f, w, or v, in the passage φίλε ἑκυρέ[511]. While indeed a presumption arises[512] from the German words schwieger and schwäger, that a double or even treble loss may have occurred, and that the passage may have run φίλε σϝεκυρέ. Under these circumstances, in the case before us, where we have both forms represented, there can be no hesitation as to the identity of Ἑλλοὶ and Σελλοί: the first represented in Ἕλλας, Ἕλληνες, Ἑλλήσποντος, and the Ἑλλοπία of Hesiod: the other and older one supported by Σελληείς.

There is another curious and instructive case, in which we have the older form of the word Σελλοὶ still remaining: besides that of Προσέληνοι, to which allusion has already been made in considering the case of the Pelasgian Arcadians. In the Birds of Aristophanes, the dramatist satirizes Athens and the Sicilian Expedition, under the name of a city in the clouds, called Νεφελοκοκκυγία; the object being to expose the arrogance of great pretensions, without adequate means to support them. There, he says, lie most of the goods of Theagenes, and all those of Æschines. This Theagenes was called κάπνος, smoke, because he promised much, and did nothing. Æschines was a pauper, who pretended to wealth. The Scholiast adds, ἦν δὲ Αἰσχίνης Σελλοῦ. Ἔλεγον δὲ ἐκ μεταφορᾶς τοιούτους Σελλούς· καὶ τὸ ἀλαζονεύεσθαι δὲ, σελλίζειν[513]. Cary thinks the term σελλίζειν came from a Sellus, the father of this Æschines. But in the first place, it seems difficult to rely on the Scholiast for knowing, still less for recording with accuracy, the name of the father of an obscure person, who had lived in the age of Aristophanes. In the second place, if Æschines was an obscure fellow, it is most improbable that his father’s name should have become the root of a Greek word descriptive of a particular habit or propensity. Such words (for example) as hectoring and rhodomontading presuppose a great celebrity in the person on whose name they are based. Lastly, the derivation from the ancient Σελλοὶ seems a perfectly natural one, and also adequate to the case. It is in some degree characteristic of those who in reduced circumstances trace back their lineage to a very ancient stock, instead of relying simply on the substantial honour of their descent, still to affect the possession of the wealth which has passed away from them: to play for themselves the part, which Caleb Balderstone desires to play, on behalf not of himself, but of the Master of Ravenswood, in Scott’s ‘Bride of Lammermoor’; and altogether to be sensitive, or what is called touchy on the subject, and to lean on the whole towards a certain boastfulness, in common with the νεοπλοῦτοι at the other extremity of the scale. There is a broad distinction between treating the Scholiast as a witness to the existence and force of a current phrase, and the taking his word for the parentage of a nobody, like this Æschines, who had lived long before him. It may, however, not be necessary to construe σελλίζειν solely, or even specially, with reference to a pride in wealth which had passed away. If we shall hereafter show for the Selli[514] a Persian ancestry, then, even without any regard to change of circumstances, the phrase at once leads us back to the description given by Herodotus of the Persians their forefathers. Πέρσαι, φύσιν ἐόντες ὑβρισταὶ, εἰσὶν ἀχρήματοι[515].

I shall also have occasion to notice hereafter one or two other words apparently akin to Σελλοί.

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 Minerva[516].

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 Ovid[517], 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. Cicero[518] says, Jam Apollinis nomen est Græcum. Still, a temple was raised to him in Rome[519] 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 inest[520].

In a later portion of this work[521] 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 συνέχειν[522].

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 gods[523], who were chosen, too, from the most distinguished families[524].

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 order[525]; 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 δεισιδαιμονέστεροι[526], 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 priest[527]. 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 Saul[528] 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 purpose[529].

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 tongues[530]. 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 recommended[531].

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 Niebuhr[532] 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 Marsh[533] 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 Döderlein[534]. 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

ἀστήρastrum

ἀστέροςstella

sterula

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

ἃλςsal

θάλασσαsalum

πόλος, polus

λυκὴ in λυκάβας,lux

λεύσσειν

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

νέφοςnubes

nebula

(νιψ) νιφος, nix, nivis δρόσος, ros

ὕετοςfluvius

pluvia

ῥῖγος, frigus χάμαι, humus πευκὴ, pix

κῆποςsepes

σῆκος

λακκὸς(a pit), lacus

λάχυς

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

σπέοςspelunca

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

ζεῦγοςjugum.

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, armus[535] μῆρον, fe-mur, moris παλάμη, palma ποὺς, pes ὄδους, οντος, dens, dentis λάπτω, labrum δείκνυμι, digitus λὰξ, calx ἦπαρ, jecur ἔντερον, venter ἕλκος, ulcus

κέαρcor

καρδία

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

2. THE FAMILY.

πατὴρ, pater μήτηρ, mater υἷος, filius

φρήτηρfrater

φρήτρη

ἕκυρος, socer

χήρηheres

χηρωστῆς

γένοςgens

genus.

3. SOCIETY.

(ῥέζειν) ῥέξας, rex[536] 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

φάτιςfatum

φάτον

βίος, vita[537] μόρος, mors ὕπνος, somnus ὀδύνη[538], odium ἄλγος, algor

γεύω,gustus

γεύσω

ἦνις, annus

λήθηlethum

λήτω

δόσις, dos δῶρον, donum

φυγὴfuga

φύζα

αἴων, ævum.

Class V.—Adjectives of constant use in daily life.

μέγας, magnus

παῦροςparvus

paucus

πλατὺς, latus

ἄγχος

ἄγκιστρον uncus

orangustus

ἄγοστος

κυρτὸς, curtus γῦρος, curvus πυρρὸς, furvus

ἐρυθρὸςruber

rufus

παχὺς, pinguis βραχὺς, brevis

βραδὺςtardus

βαρδὺς

χαὸς, cavus τέρην, tener πλέος, plenus μείων, minor μάσσων, major νέος, novus ἄλλος, alius ὄρθος, ordo[539] ὕπτιος, supinus γραῦς, gravis

λεπτὸςlevis

lentus

λεῖος, lævis γενναῖος, gnavus δέξιος, dexter ὅλος, solus ἡδὺς, suavis πικρὸς, acris[540].

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.

telumβέλος

ensis ξίφος

gladiusφάσγανον

cuspis

mucroαἰχμή

acies

galeaκυνέη

hastaδόρυ

ἔγχος

scutum[541] ἄσπις

clypeusσάκος

loricaθώρηξ

ocreaκνημίς

vaginaκολεός

bellumἌρης

πόλεμος

prælium ὑσμίνη

pugnaμάχη

currus δίφρος

rhedaἅρμα

rotaκυκλός (Hom.)

ternoῥυμὸς

tuba σάλπιγξ

classicum

castraκλισίαι

tabernaculum[542]κλισίη

arcusβιὸς

τόξον

sagittaἰὸν

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 account[543].’

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 vita[544]. There is not the slightest sign of conformity or common origin in any of the cases; although νόος is akin to nosco[545].

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 dominion[546].

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 know[547] 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 seen[548], 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 house[549], 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 Sparta[550]). 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 side[551]. 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. Teutamus[552].

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 Hipponous[553] 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 it[554].

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 persons[555]. 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 Trojans[556]: 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 Iliad[557] a number of the Greek heroes dispatch consecutively a list of Trojans, which supplies the following names:

1. Dresus. 2. Opheltius.

3. ÆsepusThese 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. PedasusI 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 are[558],

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 Lycians[559] 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 names[560], 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 show[561] 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 ofand 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 society[562]. 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 Trojans[563] 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 Epeans[564]. 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 best[565]. 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 character[566].

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 deities[567], 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 Grote[568], “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 Phæacian[569], 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.