Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/581

 PELASGL In short, the whole of Italy was, if we are to be- lieve the authorities adduced, inhabited in ancient times by the Pelasgians. In later times they appear as vassals of the Ilaliots ; the common fate of original races that have been subjus;ated. Upon these and similar traditions Niebuhr has grounded a hypothesis, which at present is generally received, and against which conclusive objections can (nly be raised from the side of comparative philology. According to Niebuhr, the Pelasgians were the original population, not only of Greece, but also of Italy. There was a time, he said, when the Pelasgians, formerly perhaps the most widely-spread people in Europe, inhabited all the countries from the Arnus and Padus to the Bosporus; not as wandering tribes, as the writers of history represent it, but as firmly- rooted, powerful, honourable people. This time lies, for the most part, before the beginning of our Grecian history. However, at the time that the genealogists and Hellanicus wrote, there were only insulated, dispersed, and scattered fragments of this immense nation, — as of the Celtic race in Spain — like mountain summits, which stand out like islands when the lowlands have been changed by floods into a lake. These sporadic Pelasgic tribes did not seem to these logographers to be fragments and relics, but colonies that had been sent out and had migrated, like the equally scattered colonies of the Hellenes. Hence the numerous traditions about the expeditions and wanderings of the Pelasgi. All tnese traditions are without the slightest historical value. They are nothing but a hypothesis of the logographers, framed out of the supposition that those scattered colonies of the Pelasgi had arisen and were produced by a series of migrations. There is nothing historical about them, except, indeed, the fact which lies at the bottom of the hypothesis, namely, the existence in later times of scattered Pelasgic tribes, — a fact which, however, implies much more the original greatness and extension of the Pelasgic nation. If the Pelas- gians vanish gradually as historical times begin, the cause of this is, that they were transformed into other nations. Thus, in Greece they became gradually Hellenised, as a nation which, in spite of all distinc- tion, was actually related to the Hellenes ; and even in Italy they form a considerable portion of the later tribes of the peninsula which owed their origin in the main to the mixture of races. The half-Greek element which the Latin lan- guage contains, is, according to this view of Nie- buhr's, Pelasgic, and owes its origin to the Pelasgian portion of the Latin nation, which Niebuhr and K. 0. Miiller {Etritsker) agree in finding in the Siculians. This hypothesis of Niebuhr's, generally received as it is, wants, nevertheless, a sound historical found- ation. It has received at the hands of Schwegler {Ram. Gesch.) a careful examination, and is con- demned on the following grounds : — 1 . The absence of any indigenous name for the Pelasgians in Italy. 2. The evident traces of Roman writers on the subject having obtained their information from the Greek logographers. 3. The contradictory accounts given by different writers of the migrations of the Pelasgians, accord- ing as they follow Hellanicus and Pherecydes or Myrsilus. 4. The absence of any historical monument of the Pelasgi in Italy, whether literary or of another kind. PELASGI. 565 It only remains to make a few general observa- tions on the evidence for the existence of the Pelasci, and on the views taken by modern writers on the subject. 1. The modem authorities on the Pelasgi in Greece are : Larcher, Chronologie d'llerodote, ch. viii. pp. 215— 217; K. 0. Miiller Etrusker, vi<. . Einleitung, ch. ii. pp. 75 — 100 : Kruse, Hellas, vol. i. p. 398 — 425; Mannert. Geographic, imrt viii. introduction, p. 4; Tliirlwall, HisUiry of Greece, ch. ii. ; Grote, vol. i. ch. ix., vol. ii. ch. ii. sub fineni. The latter historian treats of the Pelasgi as belnnc- ing not to historical, but legendary Greece. He says, " Whoever has examined the many conflicting .systems respecting the Pelasgi, — from the literal belief of Cluvier, Larcher, and fJaoul-Roclietle, to the interpretative and half-incredulous jirntpsses applied by abler men, such as Niebuhr, or 0. Miiller, or Dr. Thirlwall, — will nc^ be displeased with my resolution to decline so insoluble a problem. No attested facts are now present to us — none were present to Herodotus or Thucydides even in tiieir age — on which to build trustworthy affirmations respecting the ante-Hellenic Pelasgians; and, when such is the case, we may without impropriety apply the remark of Herodotus respecting one of the theories which he had heard for explaining the in- undation of the Nile by a supposed connection with the ocean — that the man who carries up his story into the invisible world, passes out of the range of criticism." (Vol. ii. p. 345.) Those who think Mr. Grote's way of disposing of the question too summary, will find it treated with great patience and a fair spirit of criticism by Bishop Tliirlwall. The point on which he and Mr. Grute ditl'er — namely, the question whether the language of the Pelasgi was a rough dialect of the Hellenic, or non- Hellenic — has been already referred to. As we possess no positive data for determining it, it ia needless to do more than refer the reader to the passages quoted. Respecting the architectural re- mains of the Pelasgi in Greece, a very few words will suffice. The Gate of the Lions at Mycenae, men- tioned by Pausanias (ii. 15 — 16), is the only monu- ment of the pla>tic art of Greece in prehi^toric times. The walls of Tiryns, of polygonal masonry, appear to be of equal antiquity, and are ascribed to the Cyclopes. [Mycenae.] These bear a strong resemblance to the 'i'yrrheno-Pelasgic remains in Italy, specimens of which are given in Demjster'a Etruria Regalis, v. g. the walls of Cosa, Segnia (Segni) and Fae.sulae (Fksole). And a small amount of evidence is thereby afforded in favour of Niebuhr's theory of an original Pelasgic population existing in the peninsulas of Greece and Iialy. But this is much diminished by the fact, that similar remains are found in parts of Asia Minor where no traces exist of any Pehisgio traditions. And we are obliged therefore to fall back upon the view first adopted by A. VV. Sthlegel, that the peninsulas of Greece and Italy were succesMvely peopled by branches of one original nation, dwellint; once upon a time in the central part of Western Asia, and speaking one language, out of which, by successive modifications, sprang the different Greek and Italian dialects. 2. The authorities on the Pcla.sgians in Italy are Niebuhr (//. Ji. vol. i. p. 25, Tr.); Miiller, Etrusker (quoted above) ; Lanzi, Saggio di Lingua Etnisca, cifc, Flor. 1824; Lepsius, tiber die Tyrrhen, Pe- Imger in Etrurien, Leipz. 1842 ; Steub, tiber die o o 3