Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/579

 PELASGI (vii. 2. § 2) says the Pelasgians drove out the lli- nyans and Lacedaemonians from Lemnos. The per- petrators of the Lemnian niassatre were Pelasgians. (Herod, vi. 138—140 ; compare Find. Pyth. Od. iv. 448 [252, Bkh.]; Orph. ^/-^r. v. 470; "Stanley, Comm. in Aesch. Choeph. 631.) Herodotus also reckons the inhabitants of seven- teen islands on the coast of Asia as belonginfj to the Pelasgian race (vii. 95). According to Strabo (xiii. p. 621) Menecrates declared the whole coast of Ionia, beginning at Mycale, to be peopled by Pelasgi, and the neighbouring islands likewise: "and the Lesbians say they were under the command of Pylaeus, who was called by the poet the leader of the Pelasgi, and from whom their nmuntain was called Pylaeum. And the Chians say their founders were Pelasgi from Thessaly." Dionysius (i. 18) says that the first Pelasgian colony was led by Macar to Lesbos, after the Pelasgi had been driven out of Thessaly. Diodorus SicuUis (v. 81) gives a different account of this colony. He says that Xunthus, the son of Triopus, chief of the Pelasgi from Argos, settled first in Lycia, and afterwards crossed over with his followers into Lesbos, which he found unoccupied, and divided among them. This was seven genera- tions before the flood of Deucalion. When this oc- curred Lesbos was desolated, and Wacareus, grandson of Zeus (according to Hesiod), occuj)ied it a second time, and the island received its name from his son- in-law. Scymnos of Chios (quoted by Kruse, Hellas) speaks of Pelasgians being in Sciathos and Scyros. We next come to IIL The Pelasgians in Asia. — On this point we have Homer's authority that there were Pelasgians among the Trojan allies, ranked with Leleges, Cau- cones, and Lycians, and called Zioi. (^11. x. 429.) One of these was killed by Ajax, in the battle over the body of Patroclus, — Hippothous, son of Lethus. {II. xvii. 288.) Herodotus speaks (vii. 42) of Antandros as a Pelasgian city, and afterwards (vii. 95) says that the Aeolians were formerly called Pelasgians by the Hellenes, and that when they fought against the Greeks they wore Hellenic armour. Strabo (v. p. 221) quotes Homer's statement that the neighbours of the Cilicians in the Troas were Pelasgians, and that they dwelt about Larissa. {11. ii. 841.) This name probably signifies a fortress built on a precipice or overhanging rock, and is an indication, wherever it occurs, of the presence of Pehisgi. There were several places of the same name in Greece and two or three in Asia Jlinor, which are enumerated by Strabo (ix. p. 440, xiii. p. 620). According to this geographer most of the Carians were Leleges and Pelasgi. They first occu- pied the islands, then the sea-coast. He argues, from Homer's expression " the tribes of Pelasgians " (//. ii. 840), that their number was considerable. Diony.sius (i. 18) says that the Pelasgi, on being driven out of Thessaly, crossed over into Asia, and acquired many cities on the sea-coast. Two cities were in existence in the time of He- rodotus, namely, Scylace and Placie, on the Pro- ponlis, which he believed to be Pelasgian cities, and •whicii, he says (i. 57), spoke similar dialects, but unlike their neighbours. Tiiat dialect was, on Herodotus's testimony, not Greek, but resembling the dialect of the Crotoniatae, or rather Crestonians, a tribe among the Edones in Thrace. Bishop Thirlwall, comparing this passage with PELASGL 6f,3 another, in which Herodotus is enumerating the dialects that prevailed among the Ionian Greeks, and uses the .same terms, infers from the comparison that '"the Pelascrian language which Herodotus heard on the Hellespont and elsewhere sounded to him a strange jargon ; as did the dialect of Ephesus to a llilesian, and as the Bolognese does to a Flo- rentine " (vol. i. p. 53). Mr. Grote diff"ers fiom Bishop Thirlwall in his estimate of these expressions of Herodotus, who, he thinks, must have known better than any one whether a language which he heard was Greek or not, and concludes that " He- rodotus pronounces the Pelasgians of his day to speak a substantive language difl'ering from Greek; but whether differing from it in a greater or less degree (e. g. in the degree of Latin or of Phoenician), we have no means of deciding " (vol. i. pp. 35 1 — 353). Heeren {Ancient Greece, p. 38, note) has some remarks on Herodotus's opinion respecting the lan- guage spoken by the Pelasgians in his day, in which he .seems to raise an imaginary difficulty that he may have the pleasure of overthrowing it. Before quitting the coasts of the Aegean, it is necessary to quote Thucydides's observation (iv. 109), that " the Pelasgian race is said to be the most widely prevalent in the Chalcidic peninsula and in the adjoining islands;" and the legend pre- served by Athenaeus (xiv. p. 639), " that Thessaly was, in the time of Pelasgus, suddenly converted by an earthquake from a vast lake into a fertile plain, irrigated by the Peneius, the waters of which be- fore had been shut in by mountains." The latter is a poetical version of a geological truth, which, though not falling within the province of history, recommends itself at once to the notice of the geographer. We now come to IV. The Pelasgians in Italy. — Legendary history has connected the Pelasgic race with more than one portion of the Italic peninsula. The name Oenotria, by which the southern part of Italy was formerly known (see Aristotle, Pol. vii. 10) suggests an af- finity between the early inhabitants of that country and the Arcadian Pelasgians. The name Tyrrheni or Tyrseni, which we have seen is used identically with that of Pelasgi, suggests another link. In- numerable legends, which furnished logographers with the subject-matter of their discourse, connected the Umbrians, the Peucetians, and other tribes in the north of Italy and on the coast of the Adriatic with the Pelasgians i'rom Epirus and Thes.saly. Some of these are given by Strabo. He quotes Anticleides to the effect that some of the Lciiuiian Pelasgians crossed over into Italy with Tyrriienu.*, son of Atys (v. p. 221). Again, he quotes Hier.i. nymus's a.ssertion, that the Thessaliaii Pelasgians were driven out from the neighbourhood of Laiissa by the Lapithae, aud took refuge in Italy (Ix. p. 443). Pausanias's account of the Pel!i.-;gian colony led by Oenotrus has already been given. Dionysius (i. 11. p. 30) confirms it, saying " Oenotrus sou of Lycaon led a C(jlony into Italy seventeen ge- nerations before the Troj;in War." According to Dionysius, a colony of Pelasgians came ov^r from Thessaly and settled among the Aborigines, with whom they waged war against the Sicels (i. 1". p. 4.'-,.) Another body came from the neighbourhood of Dodona, whence, finding the territory unable to sup- o o a