Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/280

 264 HISTORY OF GREECE. He informs us, moreover, that their language was a barbarous (f* e. a non-Hellenic) language ; and this fact he quotes as an evidence to prove that the ancient Pelasgian language Avas a barbarous language, or distinct from the Hellenic. He at the same time states expressly that he has no positive knowledge what language the ancient Pelasgians spoke, one proof, among others, that no memorials nor means of distinct information concerning that people, could have been open to him. This is the one single fact, amidst so many conjectures con- cerning the Pelasgians, which we can be said to know upon the testimony of a competent and contemporary witness : the few town- ships scattered and inconsiderable, but all that Herodotus in his day knew as Pelasgian spoke a barbarous language. And upon such a point, he must be regarded as an excellent judge. If, then, (infers the historian,) all the early Pelasgians spoke the same language as those of Kreston and Plakia, they must have changed their language at the time when they passed into the Hellenic aggregate, or became Hellens. Now, Herodotus conceives that aggregate to have been gradually enlarged to its great actual size by incorporating with itself not only the Pelasgians, but several other nations once barbarians ; l the Hellens having been origi- nally an inconsiderable people. Among those other nations once barbarian, whom Herodotus supposes to have become Hc-llenized, we may probably number the Leleges ; and with respect to them, as well as to the Pelasgians, we have contem- porary testimony proving the existence of barbarian Leleges in later times. Philippus, the Karian historian, attested the pres- ent existence, and believed in the past existence, of Leleges in his country, as serfs or dependent cultivators under the Karians, analogous to the Helots in Laconia, or the Penestas in Thessaly. 2 We may be very sure that there were no Hellens no men speaking the Hellenic tongue standing in such a relation to the Karians. Among those many barbaric-speaking 1 Herod, i. 57. irpoaKexupijKoTuv avrij nal uAXwv idviuv (3ap/3upov van, Kora^efaf roiif Aaice6aifj.ovi.uv EIAwraf KOI ~oi)( 9crraAt*:ot>f ir dat re KO.L vvv.
 * Athenae. vi. p. 271. QiXimroc tv ru irepl Kap&v Kai Ae?.iywv