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Rh as an epithet specific to certain tribes. No test is imaginable, by which Herodotus can have ascertained that the Ionians had once been Pelasgians, but had changed into Hellenes: on the other hand, we can safely trust his testimony, that the only Pelasgian people to whom he could appeal,—viz. certain tribes near Trace,—talked a language quite unintelligible to the Greeks. In Italy, no town is more decidedly attested to have been a Pelasgian foundation, than Agylla in southern Etruria, and from it we seem to have a relic of the Pelasgian tongue. It is an inscription of two lines, in Greek letters, scratched round a small black pot, as follows :—

This is neither Latin nor Greek nor Umbrian nor Oscan. It is equally certain that it is not Etruscan; since in that tongue harsh unions of consonants abound, while in this distribution of vowels is as well proportioned as in the Negro-languages: moreover none of the well-known Etruscan words here occur. Since then the piece of pottery was found in a Pelasgian city, we must abide with Lepsius in the