Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/142

 EUROPA. (Tac. Afin, i. 58, ii. 10). The confusion, or indeed the obliteration, of tongues was further accelerated by the collection within the Roman empire of soldiers or sbives from nearly eveiy region of the world. It was easier f(X these aliens to forego their own ver- nacular dialects and to acquire the common language o{ their masters, than to communicate with each other in a lingua fr<mca compounded of the most opposite varieties of speech. How easily a common language might supersede a native idi<xn appears from two remarkable cases in ancient history. (1). The Jews, after the foundation of Al»andria, goierally adopted the Greek tongue in all their siicred books were translated into Hellenic, and that idiom was employed even in the service of their synagogues. (2). The Etruscans, for at least six centuries after the foundation of Borne, regulated the more solemn ceremonies and expounded the more startling prodi^es of the Roman people. Yet the Romans themselves rarely acquired the language of their sacerdotal instructors, and Latin was the organ of communication f«r all the tribes between the Tiber and the Magra. This prevailing influence of two languages in the more civilised portions of ancient Europe, combined with the circumstance that nearly all our knowledge of its various races is derived from Roman or Greek writers, who, when they touched upon phiIol(^ at all, either perverted it or made themselves ridiculous, throws an almost impenetrable cloud over the subject of the original dialects of Europe. A few broad lines and a few probable analogies are all that modem linguistic science is able to contribute towards elu- cidating a subject which, if clearly understood, would explain also, in a great degree, the movements, the interweaving, and the final position of the European races. The Sclavouian race, at one time, extended from the Adriatic to the Arctic sea, com- prising the Sarmatae, Roxolani, from whom the Russians derive their name, the IIl3nrians, Panno- nians, and Veneti, &c Westward of Modem Saxony their progress was arrested by the Celts: in pre- historic times, indeed, the Celts may be described generally as the occupiers of the western half of the continent north of tiie Alps and Pyrenees, and the Sclavonians of the eastern. Both were respectively dther interpenetrated or pushed onward by the third great stream of immigrants from Asia — the Teutonic family of nations. The Sclavonians indeed maintained themselves east of the Vistula, although even here they were encroached upon by Low German and even Mongol races, which the ancients described under the general appellation of Scythians. The Celts were more effectually displaced by the Teutons, and in historic ages were found in large masses in Gaul and the British islands alone. Yet even in these, their ultimate retreats, they yielded to the stronger and better organised races which followed their steps — to theEranks, a High German people, in Gaul ; and to the Saxons, a Low Geraian people, in Britain. There was indeed a perpetual sbiftmg, interweaving, advance, and even, in some cases, retrocessitm of the central population of the continent. Among the Ger- mans, as described by Tacitus, are to be found Celtic tribes : in Celtic Britain long strips of territory, as well in the interior as on the coast, were occupied by Teutons: the Sclavonians regained Bohemia from the High Germans; and the Gauls, who in the 4th century B. c. sacked Rome and Delphi, in the same generation established themselves between the Magra, the Bubi- ECROPA. 883 con, and the Alps, from which region they expelled Germans and Sclavonians. The basis of the original population of Greece and Italy was Pelasgian; at least, Pelasgians were the first national element which history acknowledges, or to which concurrent traditions point. So muclx of the population of Hellas as did not enter Europe from Uie sea-bord was derived from Thrace, and Thrace was peopled by Sclavonians. The most archaic forms of the Hellenic and Latin languages indicate such an ori- ginal, and the traditions of the Greeks and the Latins equally confirm this supposition ; for the former point to the Hyperborean regions — i. e. to the north of the range of Ossa and Olympus — as the cradle of their race (Died. ii. 47. p. 198, Dindorf.; Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. p. 225), and the latter derive the royal line of Alba and Rome from Mysia and the Troad. Arcadians, too,^. e. Pelasgians, — were set- tled on Mount Palatine before the arrival of colonista from Asia: and the subject population of Etruria bears numerous traces of a Pelasgian origin. The races of Western Asia and Eastern Europe were long identical, and we have already seen that no actual boundary for many ages was known between these divisions of the Great Continent As the earliest stream from central Asia, the Sclavonian, occupied both sides of the Aegean sea, and spread over Pon- tus and Colchis, and round the head of the Euiine as far as Mount Haemus, we are probably justified in recognising a Sclavonian population throughout the region that intervened between the Taurian chain and the western coast of Italy, and in ascrib- ing the Pelasgian inhabitants of the Hellenic and Ansonian peninsulas to the Sclavonian stem. In both instances, indeed, it was early and materially affected by Celtic and Teutonic admixtures. Finally, the Hellenes, a High German race, predominated in Greece; and Low German tribes, to which the Sabel- lian stock belonged, in Italy. The southern coasts of the Mediterranean were more nearly afiected by Semitic immigrations from Phoenicia and Carthage than the interior of the continent, but not so much as to afiect materially the stronger germs of popula- tion — whether Sclavonian, Celtic, or Teutonic ^ The principal mountains and rivers of Europe are described under their respective heads, or in the general account of the countries to which they belong. We must, however, before closing our sketch of the NW. division of the Great Continent, briefly advert to some features of its geological system. VL Geological Featwrea. — Since we are treating more especially of Europe as it was known to the ancients, it wiU be expedient to restrict our survey of its river and mountain-system to the boundaries assigned to the continent by geographers unac« quainted with nearly two-thirds of it, — the whole ^ Scandinavia, and the greater portion of Russia. In fact, the Europe of the ancients, if we require definite accounts of it, is nearly conterminous with the European provinces of Rome. Nor by such exclusion do we omit, as respects Europe gene- rally, any material feature or element of its con- figuration; for the Scandinavian Alps are separated firam the body of the European mountains by the great NE. plains, and the Grampian Highlands, with their English and Welsh branches, are also an insu- lated group; whereas all the mountains of central and Smithem Europe, from Calpe to the Bospoms, and from Aetna to the northern flank of the Car- pathians, constitute in reality but one system, which custom has divided into certain principal masses oc 3l2
 * ' cities of dispersion" west of Palestine. Their