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CHAPTER II.

THE FOREIGN AFFINITIES OF THE ANCIENT

ITALIANS.

§ 1. Etymology of the word IIeλaryós. § 2. How the Pelasgians came into Europe. § 3. Inferences derivable from the contrast of Pelasgian and Hellenic architecture. § 4. Supported by deductions from the contrasted mythology of the two races. § 5. Thracians, Getæ, and Scythians. § 6. Scythians and Medes. § 7. Iranian origin of the Sarmatians, Scythians, and Getæ, may be shown (1) generally, and (2) by an examination of the remains of the Scythian language. 8. Mode of discriminating the ethnical elements in this chain of nations. § 9. Peculiarities of the Scythian language suggested by Aristophanes. § 10. Names of the Scythian rivers derived and explained. § 11. Names of the Scythian divinities. § 12. Other Scythian words explained. § 13. Successive peopling of Asia and Europe: fate of the Mongolian race. § 14. The Pelasgians were of Sclavonian origin. § 15. Foreign affinities of the Umbrians, &c. § 16. Reasons for believing that they were the same race as the Lithuanians. § 17. Further confirmation from etymology. § 18. Celtic tribes intermixed with the Sclavonians and Lithuanians in Italy and elsewhere. § 19. The Sarmatæ probably a branch of the Lithuanian family. § 20. Gothic or Low-German affinities of the ancient Etruscans shown by their ethnographic opposition to the Veneti. § 21. Reasons for comparing the old Etruscan with the old Norse. § 22. Old Norse explanations of Etruscan proper names. § 23. Contacts and contrasts of the Semitic and the Sclavonian. § 24. Predominant Sclavonism of the old Italian languages.

SINCE

§ 1. Etymology of the word Пeλaoyós.

INCE the Umbrians, Oscans, &c. must be regarded in the first instance as the aboriginal inhabitants, the inquirer, who would pass the limits of Italy and investigate the foreign affinities of the Italians, is first attracted by the Pelasgians. The seats of this race in Greece and elsewhere are well known; but there is no satisfactory record as to the region from which they started on their wide-spread migrations, or the countries which they traversed on their route. According to some they were Cretans, others make them Philistines, others again Egyptians; in fact, there is hardly one ancient nation which has not been indicated in its turn as their parent stock. Even their name has received almost every possible etymology. The older scholars derived the word Πελασγός from Pelegi; Sturz connects it with πελάζω;

1 Salmasius de Hellenistica, p. 342.

2 De Dialect. Macedon. p. 9.

Hermann finds the root in πέλαγος, from πελάζω'; Wachsmuth2 and Müller3, considering Teλapyós to be the original form of the word, give as its etymology Téλw, "to till," and άypos, "the field," looking upon the nation as originally devoted to husbandry. The most common derivation is that which writes Пeλapyoi, and interprets it "the storks," either from the wandering habits of this race', or from their linen dress", or from their barbarous speech. Every one of these etymologies admits of an easy confutation. The best answer to them all is to point out a better analysis of the word. Buttmann suggested long ago that the last two syllables were an ethnical designation, connected with the name Asca-nius, common in Phrygia, Lydia, and Bithynia, and with the name of Asia itself. He also correctly pointed to the relationship between Ashkenaz, the son of Gomer, and Javan, the biblical progenitor of the Ionians ('láFoves) (Gen. x. 3). Now the first syllable of the word Pelasgus is clearly the same as that of Pel-ops. There are two Niobes in Greek mythology, daughters, the one of Phoroneus, the other of Tantalus-the latter is the sister of Pelops, the former the mother of Pelasgus. The syllable Пeλ- stands in the same relation to μελ- that πέδα does to μετά. The original form of the root signifying "blackness" was kμeλ-8; but the labial generally predominated over the guttural element. Of the labial forms, that with the tenuis more usually came to signify "livid" than "black;" as we see in the words Téλios, Teλidvós, &c. Apollodorus expressly says that Пeλias was so called because his face was rendered livid (méλtos) by a kick from a horse; and it is obvious that Пéλ-oy, which signifies “dark

1 Opusc. II. p. 174: “néλayos enim, a verbo meλáčew dictum, ut ab Latinis Venilia, mare notat: a qua origine etiam reλaσyoí, advenœ.”

2 Hellenische Alterthumsk. I. p. 29, Trans. p. 39. He also, half in jest, refers to λáčew, "to lead astray," p. 36.

3 “Von πέλω (πόλις, πολέω, der Sparte Πελώρ, und Πελώρια, das Fest der Bewohnung) und äpyos.” Orchom, p. 125.

4 Strabo, V. p. 221; VIII. p. 397.

5 Bekker, Anecd. p. 229: dià ràs σivdóvas âs éþópovv. So also Etymol.

Magn.

6 Philol. Mus. I. p. 615. 8 New Cratylus, § 121.

7 Lexilogus, I. p. 68, note 1. Buttmann's Lexil. II. p. 265. 9 I. 9, § 8.

faced" or "swarthy," is an ethnical designation which differs from the well-known name Aitio only in the degree of blackness which is implied. The Aielones were the "burntfaced people" (quos India torret, as Tibullus says of them, II. 3, 59), and are described as perfectly black (Jeremiah xiii. 23; kvάveot, Hes. Op. et Dies, 525); whereas the Пléλores were only dark in comparison with the Hellenes1. On the whole, it can hardly be doubted that the Пleλaoyoi were, according to the name given them by the old inhabitants of Greece, "the swarthy Asiatics," who were called by the latter part of their name along the coasts of Asia Minor; and thus the cognate terms Πέλοπος and Πελασγοί point to an emigration from Asia Minor to Argolis indisputably connected with the progress of Phoenician civilization. The former part of the name was not necessary in the mother-country, where all were dark complexioned; and the latter part of the word, which denoted the Asiatic origin of the Πελασγοί, was dropt in the synonym Πέλοψ, which signifies merely "swarthy of face?."

§ 2. How the Pelasgians came into Europe.

Tradition and etymology agree, therefore, in tracing the Pelasgians, so called, to the western and northern coast of Asia Minor. There is, however, little or no reason to doubt that the

1 Asius makes Pelasgus spring from the black earth (ap. Pausan. VIII. 1, 4):

ἀντίθεον δὲ Πελασγὸν ἐν ὑψικόμοισιν ὄρεσσι

γαῖα μέλαιν ̓ ἀνέδωκεν, ἵνα θνητῶν γένος εἴη. But here the adjective is nothing but an epitheton constans.

2 For further arguments in support of this etymology, which is also applicable to the word meλapyós, as the stork, or "black but whitened bird," the reader is referred to the N. Cratyl. § 95. Mr Paley has suggested a similar explanation of the doves of Dodona, who bring the Phoenicians, Pelasgians, and Egyptians, into a sort of confusion with one another (Herod. II. 54, sqq.). He says (Esch. Suppl. Ed. 2. p. xiv.), referring to my view of the matter: "obiter moneo nigras hasce columbas (Teλeládas), quæ humana voce locutæ traduntur, non alias fuisse videri quam reλàs quasdam, sc. furvas mulieres, ex Oriente profectas." It is curious that Mrs Hamilton Gray (Hist. of Etrur. I. p. 89) should have quoted the epithet "pale-face," applied to Europeans by the American Indians, in the same page with her derivation of meλaσyós from wêλayos, which is simply irreconcilable with the laws of the Greek language.

bulk of the race, to which these "swarthy Asiatics" belonged, entered Europe in the first instance through the wide district of Thrace, which is always mentioned as the most ancient European settlement of this tribe. For although the legends about Pelops and Lydia make it probable that they subsequently crossed over the Ægean, leaving settlements as they sailed along in the islands of the Archipelago, and bringing with them perhaps some of that Semitic civilization which the Phoenicians and Egyptians had diffused over the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, and though the etymology of their name refers to some such migration from the sunny coasts of Asia, it is nearly certain that the main body entered both Greece and Italy from the north-east. The course of their wanderings seems to have been as follows. They passed into this continent from the western side of the Euxine, and spread themselves over Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus; then, while some of them forced their way into Greece, others, again moving on to the north-west, eventually entered Italy near the mouth of the Po. At some time, however, during the period of their settlement in Thrace, and before they had penetrated to the south of Greece, or had wandered to Italy, they appear to have crossed the Hellespont and peopled the western coast of Asia Minor, where they founded the city of Troy, and established the kingdom of Lydia-names to which the Pelasgians in Italy and Argos looked back with mysterious reverence. It might be curious to inquire how the traditionary quarrels between the families of Dardanus and Tantalus contributed to produce the important Lydian migration into Greece; but such an investigation scarcely belongs to our subject. There seems to be good reason for believing that the Pelasgians acquired their distinctive character, that of agriculturists and architects, in the fertile plains of Asia Minor, and under that climate which was afterwards so prolific in works of art and genius. Those only of the Pelasgians who claimed a Lydian origin, namely those in Etruria and Argos, were celebrated as artisans and tower-builders.

§ 3.

Inferences derivable from the contrast of Pelasgian and
Hellenic Architecture.

The immediate derivation of even the later Greek architecture from Asia Minor may be proved by some combinations which

throw an important light not only on the history of ancient art, but on the ethnical affinities of the old inhabitants of southern and eastern Europe. It is well known that the Greeks or Hellenes descended from the north of Thessaly and conquered or incorporated themselves with the Pelasgo-Achæans, whom they found in the south of Greece. Now these Pelasgians, especially those who called themselves Tyrrhenians or "tower-builders," have left behind them numerous remains of their architecture, which are distinguished by immense blocks of solid stone built into rude masses of walls, towers, and treasuries, and are commonly called Cyclopian. It was of course this architecture which the Hellenes found in southern Greece, and as they were a warrior-tribe and less cultivated in every respect than their vassals, they must have adopted the same style of building. What origin then must we seek for the characteristic architecture of the Doro-Ionians that which we commonly call Grecian architecture? The clue to the whole is furnished by that singular monument, the gate of the lions of Mycenæ, probably the oldest memorial of the primitive Achæans. We have here, at the entrance of a Cyclopian treasure-house, two lions trampling on an inverted column of Dorian architecture. With regard to the lions I feel no hesitation in rejecting Creuzer's supposition that we have here a Mithraic symbol'. This supposition springs from a total misconception of the object which stands between the lions, and affords no explanation of their duality. It can be shown, on the contrary, that it must be intended to indicate that the two lords of Mycenae, some twinpower or duumvirate there, had conquered some place distinguished by the architecture of which the inverted column is a specimen. Whether the circumstance thus commemorated be a fact or a legend, we can hardly doubt that the two lions represent the two Atreida or sons of Atreus, the Pelopid or LydoPelasgian prince of Mycenae, and that the city captured and overthrown, the plunder of which they had stored up in their treasure-house, was the far-famed Troy. Both the duality of the conquerors of Troy, and the symbol of the lions as applied

1 Symbolik und Mythologie (3rd Edit.) I. p. 267.

2 The lion was a holy symbol of the Lydian kings; see Herod. I. 50; and Creuzer, Symbol. II. p. 633.

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