Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/578

 562 PELASGI. the city being called after their name. (Strab. is. p. 401.) And Attic historians speak of their resi- dence there, and say that on account of their mi- gratory disposition they were called -rreXapyoi (storks) by tlie Attic people. (Strab. v. p. 221.) This is the character generally given to the Pelasgi. and it is curious to find Herodotus (i. 56) contrasting the stationaiy habits of the Pelasgians, with the love of wandering exhibited by the Hellenic Dorians. For even his own account of the Pelasgi disproves his general statement; since they could not have exi.sted in so many diflferent quarters as he assigns to them without several migrations, or — which he nowhere asseits — an almost universal extension over Greece and its dependencies. It is true that he says (ii. 56) that Hellas was formerly called Pelasgia, and Thu- cydides speaks (i. 3) of the name Hellas being of comparatively recent date, and of the Pelasgic name being the most prevalent among the tribes of Greece; but this does not account for the Pelasgi being found in Abia (Horn. 11. s. 429), and for their having in- troduced Egyptian rites into Greece. (Herod, ii. 51.) Their sojourn in Attica is related by Herodotus, who says (vi. 137) that they had a portion of ground under Jit Hymettus assigned them as a reward for their services in building the wall of the Acropolis at Athens. From this Hecataeus said they were driven out by the Athenians from envy, because their land was the best cultivated. The Athenians, liowever, says Herodotus, a.scribe their expulsion to their licentious conduct. Thucydides also (ii. 17) mentions the Pelasgic settlement beneath the Acro- polis, and the oracle relating to it In the pajjsages above quoted Herodotus speaks of the Pelasgi as of foreign extraction. In another passage (viii. 44) he tells us that the Athenians were formerly Pelasgians, and were so called, with the surname of Cranai. They were called suc- cessively Cecropidae. Erechtheidae and lones. Strabc) (siii. p. 621) mentions a legend that the inhaliilants of Mt. Phricion near Thermopylae made a descent upon the place where Cyme afterwards stood, and found it in the possession of Pelasgians, who had suffered from the Trojan War, but were nevertheless in possession of Larissa, which was about 70 stades from Cyme. We find traces of the Pelasgi in several parts of the Peloponnese. Herodotus (i. 146) speaks of Ar- crtiiian Pela.sgians, and (vii. 94) tells us that the lonians in Achaea were formerly called Pelasgian AeL'iaieans (or Pelasgians of the coast). After Danaus and Xuthus came to Peloponnesus, they were called lonians, from Ion, son of Xuthus. In tlie passage of Aeschylus before refen-ed to (^/•^uppl. 250) Argos is called Pelasgian; the king of Argos is also called iva^ XltXacrywu (v. 327), and throughout the play the words Argive and Pelasgian are used indiscriminately. So, too, in the Prome- theus Vinctus (v. 860), Argolis is called " the Pe- lasgian land." In a fragment of Soph(X:les (Inachus) the king is addressed as lord of Argos and of the Tyrrheni Pelasgi. Strabo (vii. p. 321) speaks of Pelasgians taking passession of part of the Peloponnese, along with otiier barbarous tribes, and (v. p. 221) says that Ephorus, on Hesiod's authority, traces the origin of the Pelasgi to Lycaon, son of Pela.sgus, and that he declares his own opinion to be that they were ori- ginally Arcadians, who chose a mihtary life, and, by inducing many others to join them, spread the nanie for and wide, both among the Greeks and wherever PELASGI. they happened to come. " The Arcadian divine or heroic pedigree," says Mr. Grote (^Hist. Greece, vol. i. ch. ix.), '■ begins with Pelasgus, whom both Hesiod and Asius considered as an indigenous man, though Arcesilaus the Argeian represented him as brother of Argos and son of Zeus by Niobe, daughter of Phoroneus : this logographer wished to establish a community of origin between the Argeians and the Arcadians." For the legend concerning Lycaon, son of Pelasgus, and his fifty sons, see Grote's Greece, vol. i. p. 239, note. According to Dionysius, Lycaon, son of Pelasgus, lived eighteen generations before the Trojan War (lib. i. p. 30, ed. Reiske) ; and the migration of the Oeno- tians under Oenotrus, son of Lycaon, in the next generation, is, in the words of Pausanias (viii. 3, quoted by Niebuhr), " the earliest colony, whether of Greeks or barbarians, whereof a recollection has been preserved." Pausanias (viii. 2) gives the popular legend cur- rent among the Arcadians, that Pelasgus was the first man born there; on which he observes naively: " But it is likely that other men were also born with Pelasgus; for how could he have reigned without subjects?" According to this legend Pelasgus is a regular mythic hero, surpassing all his contem- poraries in stature and wisdom, and teaching them what to choose for food and what to abstain from. The use of beech-mast, which the Pythian oracle (Herod, i. 66) ascribed to the Arcadians, was taught them by Pela.sgus. His descendants became numerous after three generations, and gave their names to various distiicts and many towns in Greece. Pau- sanias also speaks of Pelasgians coming from lolcos to Pylos, and driTing out the eponymic founder (iv. 36. § 1). Dionysius adopts the Achaean legend, viz. that the first abode of the Pelasgi was Achaic Argos. There they were autochthons, and took their name from Pelasgus. Six generations afterwards they left Peloponnesus, and migrated to Haemonia, the leaders of the colony being Achaeus, and Phthius, and Pe- lasgus, sons of Larissa and Poseidon. These three gave names to three districts, Achaea, Phthiotis, and Pelasgiotis. Here they abode for five generations, and in the sixth they were driven out of Thessaly by the Curetes and Leleges, who are now called Locrians and Aetolians, with whom were joined many others of the inhabitants of the district of Mt. Par- nassus, led by Deucalion (i. 17. p. 46). They dis- persed in different directions : some settled in His- tiaeotis, between Olympus and Ossa ; others in Boeotia, Phocis, and Euhoea; the main body, how- ever, took refuge with their kinsmen in Epirus, in the neighbourhood of Dodona (i. 18). We now come to II. The Pekisglans in the Islands of the Aegean. — Homer {Od. xix. 175 — 177) mentions the Pe- lasgi (called Sroi), as one of the five tribes in Crete, the remaining four being the Achaeans, Eteocretes, Cydones, and Dorians (called rpixoumi'). See Strabo's comment on this passage (v. p. 221), and x. pp. 475, 476), where two difierent explanations of the epithet TpixdiKfs are given. Herodotus (ii. 51) speaks of Pelasgi living in Samothrace, where they performed the mysteries called Samothracian orgies. Lemnos and Imbros were also inhabited by them (v. 26). So also Strabo (v. p. 221), quoting Anti- cleides. Thucydides (iv. 109) speaks of the Tyr- rheni Pelasgi, who occupied Lemnos ; and Pausanias