Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/70

58 But besides this direct authority and implied acquiescence in native chronicles, we have other evidences of a common origin not less conclusive. The style of building adopted by the Etruscans was the same as that used by the Pelasgi in different parts of Greece and Asia minor, the works of art the same as those at Corinth and the Grecian islands, especially as those now found at Ægina: the name of Tyrrheni is also found frequently in Greece confounded in the same manner with that of the Pelasgi, with other names in which the significant syllable Tur is prominent. The names of some of their cities as for instance Larissa are similar to others in Greece and the East, and the Etruscan mythology seems to have been unquestionably Eastern. Under these circumstances we might have supposed that there could have been no possible hesitation in at once assenting to the historical truth of the fact of a Lydian migration. But there was one writer of old who thought proper to oppose himself to the general belief, and in favor of his solitary judgment Niebuhr and his disciples have thought right to set aside every other authority, supported by so many corroborative considerations. It will be our duty therefore to examine the validity of the grounds upon which they have adopted this conclusion, though before entering on that examination it may be necessary before hand to refer to the opinions of other writers of note on the subject.

Dempster the first authority on the Etruscan antiquities gives his adhesion to the truth of the tradition. So does Bochart, though he as usual with him, contends perhaps justly for a large intermixture of Phœnician colonization, beyond what we might suppose of the Lydian and Mæonian nations at the period of their migrations being all a cognate people. Winkelman coincides with these, but supposes further a mixture of Egyptian colonization, in who the Count de Caylus enters still more strongly. In this supposition they have found many followers on the Continent in Italy especially, and amongst us Lord Monboddo. But I confess my dissent to this, as the Egyptians were never a seafaring nor colonizing people, and although many of the Etruscan remains bear a remarkable resemblance to the Egyptian, yet we might rather believe these to have come from the Phœnicians who as a neighbouring people no doubt imbibed and possessed many rites and customs in common. Lanzi, another eminent writer on the subject of the last century, though admitting the fact of a Lydian colony, considers the chief element in the Etruscan civilization to have been Grecian, and seeks to prove his theory with great ingenuity from the Eugubine