Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/76

 The People. 55 near one another both in their vocabulary, their flective and derivative modes, to permit us to see in them mere coincidences ; for coincidences could not account for the fact that these nations, though parted by enormous distances, possessed in common divine names and myths of a very peculiar character. There may be divergences of opinion as to certain minor details among scholars who have gone into these matters, such as the starting-point and final separation of these tribes; but the primitive unity of what is called the Aryan family is a point which nobody disputes now-a-days, and there is a common consensus that in this family the Greeks and Italians form a group which stands out from other groups by closer affinity of idioms and religious conceptions. Though the Greeks had no reminiscence of migrations spread- ing over a long time which had led them to Greece, they yet believed that they were forestalled in the country by a people which they designated under the name of Pelasgians ; an active, restless, and industrious people which had prepared the soil for them by clearing its forests, draining its morasses, and blasting its rocks. In the time of Herodotus groups of Pelasgians were still found at Samothrace, in the adjacent islands, and in Greece proper. Their spoken dialect was unlike Greek ; but the scholars of that day were not qualified to give exact definitions in regard to this idiom, and the sole monument which apparently has come down to us is but a short fragment, a few words from an inscription. This curious text has raised interesting conjectures ; by itself alone, however, it is insufficient to permit us to determine with anything like certainty the nature of the language. The most authoritative historians, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, whilst they lay stress on the slight resemblance observable between Pelasgic and Greek dialects, are inclined to believe that no real difference of race existed between the two peoples. They are disposed to see in the Hellenes, tribes which through some sort of natural selection came out of the Pelasgian stock and rose to superior culture.^ It is a highly probable hypothesis. Nowhere do we find, either in a mythic or historical form, the faintest echo of a religious strife, such as would have taken place had Pelasgian gods been superseded by Hellenic ones. The ^ The most affirmative passage is the following : To 'EXAiji'iJcoF dnooxiaBkv aVo T'tv iTikatryiicov (HERODOTUS, i. 58) ; again, i. 60 : irn:pidri ii: iruXairfpov tou fiaptdpov iOyeuc TO '^^riviKoy tjy Koi hi^tkirepoy.