Chapter II: Ethnology (7)

We cannot conclusively settle the sense of the word Ἀχαιοὶ in this passage, except by anticipating the results of an examination, on which we have not yet entered. But it may be observed even at this point, that the bearings of the passage are somewhat adverse to a merely local construction for it. If Myrmidon was the strictly proper name, then Achæan must have been a designation which was not proper to the Myrmidons only, but which they enjoyed in common with others. And yet, on the other hand, not in common with all the Greeks, but in some sense more restricted than that, in which it is habitually applied to the whole army. For in that large and general sense every contingent of the army was Achæan, and Homer would certainly therefore not have mentioned the Achæan name with respect to one in particular. It can hardly escape observation that, studying great clearness and precision in the Catalogue, he systematically avoids the introduction of his general names for the army. We never read of Danaans or Argeians in it at all, and of Achæans only twice[505]. So far then as the passage itself guides us, it points to the supposition that those who were called Myrmidons properly, to distinguish them from all others, and Hellenes because they were (in common with others) inhabitants of Hellas, belonged likewise to a particular class or race of Greeks, to whom the name of Ἀχαιοὶ was applicable in some distinctive sense. The three appellations, accordingly, are not so many synonyms; but each has probably its own proper scope.

Thucydides[506] speaks with his usual accuracy, when he says that Homer has given the name of Hellenes to no portion of the army except the troops of Achilles from Phthiotis. He does not however go beyond the assertion that this word had not yet grown into an appellation for the Greeks universally, an assertion which, as far as Homer’s evidence goes, is undeniable. But it does not require us also to deny that the Hellas of Homer extends beyond Phthia, and that the name of Hellenes may even then have been beginning to attach to the inhabitants of other parts of Hellas, though perhaps less fixedly, as yet, than to the Myrmidons.

_The Panhellenes of Homer._

With these facts in view, I am wholly unable to follow those who have condemned, upon internal evidence, that verse of the Catalogue in which we find mention of the Panhellenes.

Speaking of Oilean Ajax, commander of the Locrians, the poet says (Il. ii. 530),

ἐγχείῃ δ’ ἐκέκαστο Πανέλληνας καὶ Ἀχαιούς.

It is not grammatically necessary that we should make these two words coextensive; and I do not believe that either of them separately, as here used, conveys the whole force of the two, though perhaps conjointly they may carry the assertion that he was the best spearman in the army.

If there was a Hellas in the time of Homer, which was inhabited by a variety of tribes, then, as these tribes dispersedly might be called with propriety Hellenes, even apart from the authority of constant use, so they might with equal propriety be combined into the term Panhellenes, which would mean all the tribes, including the Locrians, that inhabited Hellas, or Northern and Mid-Greece. Thus, as the Achæan name was at this time more prominent and distinguished in the Peloponnesus[507] than in any other part of the country, the poet may in this place by Ἀχαιοὶ mean the Southern or Peloponnesian Greece; so as, by the two epithets conjointly, to signify the whole army. Or he may mean all those who, in Hellas or beyond it, were of the pure Achæan race (assuming, for the moment, that such a race existed); and thus may here assert, that Ajax excelled all Hellas, and even all Achæans in or out of Hellas, using the last of the two words by way of climax. I do not deny that he may also be construed to mean the whole host in the gross by Ἀχαιοὶ, agreeably to the common use of it; but this is less likely; as the name, so understood, would not be distinctive.

Nor do I see any reason to hesitate about treating the Homeric name Κεφάλληνες as one of his Hellenic group of names. As in the case of Πελασγοὶ, so here we have a name formed by a combination of different words. The word _head_ seems to have been represented by a root of flexible structure. In Sanscrit it is _kapâla_[508], in Greek κεφάλη, in Latin _caput_: but it also appears in the German _kopf_, and in the Greek κόπτειν, ‘to butt,’ and in κύβη, κυβιστάω, κυβερνάω. The word Κεφάλληνες seems, then, to be formed in the most direct manner from the root κεφ, signifying ‘head,’ and Ἕλληνες: and thus it both attaches Ulysses, with at least the dominant race among his subjects, to the Hellic stock, and indicates the tendency of the Hellenic name, even in Homer’s time, to reproduce itself and to spread abroad.

Again, we observe in his rare use of Κεφάλληνες the same signs as in Ἕλληνες and Πανέλληνες, that the power of the name was only growing up from its infancy. For the word is used but twice in the Iliad, and no more than four times in the Odyssey, where there is constant occasion for addressing, or for speaking of, the subjects of Ulysses. We find in that poem Ἰθακήσιοι eleven times, and Ἀχαιοὶ constantly.

Having dealt with the Homeric derivations of Hellas[509], let us now ascend to the word, from which it is itself derived; Hellas being evidently, in the Greek tongue, the country which had been occupied by the Helli.

Of the people who are so termed, either under the form beginning with the aspirate, or else under that of Σελλοὶ, we find obvious Homeric vestiges in the Hellespont, Ἑλλήσποντος; in various rivers termed Σελληείς; and in the invocation of Achilles to Jupiter, which places the Selli in the north of Thessaly, about wintry Dodona, and seems to stamp them as then still remaining a people of the rudest habits in their mountain home[510];

Δωδώνης μεδέων δυσχειμέρου· ἀμφὶ δὲ Σελλοὶ
σοὶ ναίουσ’ ὑποφῆται ἀνιπτόποδες, χαμαιεῦναι.

_The Σελλοὶ of Homer._

The word Ἕλλοι would appear to be not the most probable reading of the text of this invocation; for it presumes an inconvenient loading of the sentence with the double pronoun σε and σοι. But there can be no doubt whatever as to its identity with Σελλοί. Independently of philological argument, there is the strongest presumption that in this place Achilles intends to name his own national ancestry, as being the ministers of the god; who give him, as it were, the right to invoke the aid of the Pelasgic indeed, but therefore genuine and original, Jupiter of Dodona. But no circumstance seems to be better established by philological research, than that in many cases of Greek words, which now begin with the aspirate, there was one (or more than one) initial letter, and that frequently that letter was the _sigma_. Much obscurity has hung about this subject, from the fact that discovery has proceeded piecemeal, and that for a length of time the word _digamma_ was used to signify what had originally filled the void now existing in so many places of the Homeric versification. What this _digamma_ might have been was disputed; but it was, almost insensibly perhaps, assumed to be some one letter or sound only. But as inquiry has made further advances, many forms of a lost letter or letters have been discovered: and it has also been made clear that the gaps ought to be filled up variously, and not by any one uniform expedient. To take very simple examples, there can be no doubt about the identity of ἓξ, ἕπτα, ὓς, with _sex_, _septem_, _sus_: nor any doubt about the essential identity of ὕδωρ and _sudor_, ἡδὺς and _suavis_, ἑκυρὸς and _socer_: none therefore that the σ ought to be supplied, and not _f_, _w_, or _v_, in the passage φίλε ἑκυρέ[511]. While indeed a presumption arises[512] from the German words _schwieger_ and _schwäger_, that a double or even treble loss may have occurred, and that the passage may have run φίλε σϝεκυρέ. Under these circumstances, in the case before us, where we have both forms represented, there can be no hesitation as to the identity of Ἑλλοὶ and Σελλοί: the first represented in Ἕλλας, Ἕλληνες, Ἑλλήσποντος, and the Ἑλλοπία of Hesiod: the other and older one supported by Σελληείς.

There is another curious and instructive case, in which we have the older form of the word Σελλοὶ still remaining: besides that of Προσέληνοι, to which allusion has already been made in considering the case of the Pelasgian Arcadians. In the Birds of Aristophanes, the dramatist satirizes Athens and the Sicilian Expedition, under the name of a city in the clouds, called Νεφελοκοκκυγία; the object being to expose the arrogance of great pretensions, without adequate means to support them. There, he says, lie most of the goods of Theagenes, and all those of Æschines. This Theagenes was called κάπνος, smoke, because he promised much, and did nothing. Æschines was a pauper, who pretended to wealth. The Scholiast adds, ἦν δὲ Αἰσχίνης Σελλοῦ. Ἔλεγον δὲ ἐκ μεταφορᾶς τοιούτους Σελλούς· καὶ τὸ ἀλαζονεύεσθαι δὲ, σελλίζειν[513]. Cary thinks the term σελλίζειν came from a Sellus, the father of this Æschines. But in the first place, it seems difficult to rely on the Scholiast for knowing, still less for recording with accuracy, the name of the father of an obscure person, who had lived in the age of Aristophanes. In the second place, if Æschines was an obscure fellow, it is most improbable that his father’s name should have become the root of a Greek word descriptive of a particular habit or propensity. Such words (for example) as hectoring and rhodomontading presuppose a great celebrity in the person on whose name they are based. Lastly, the derivation from the ancient Σελλοὶ seems a perfectly natural one, and also adequate to the case. It is in some degree characteristic of those who in reduced circumstances trace back their lineage to a very ancient stock, instead of relying simply on the substantial honour of their descent, still to affect the possession of the wealth which has passed away from them: to play for themselves the part, which Caleb Balderstone desires to play, on behalf not of himself, but of the Master of Ravenswood, in Scott’s ‘Bride of Lammermoor’; and altogether to be sensitive, or what is called touchy on the subject, and to lean on the whole towards a certain boastfulness, in common with the νεοπλοῦτοι at the other extremity of the scale. There is a broad distinction between treating the Scholiast as a witness to the existence and force of a current phrase, and the taking his word for the parentage of a nobody, like this Æschines, who had lived long before him. It may, however, not be necessary to construe σελλίζειν solely, or even specially, with reference to a pride in wealth which had passed away. If we shall hereafter show for the Selli[514] a Persian ancestry, then, even without any regard to change of circumstances, the phrase at once leads us back to the description given by Herodotus of the Persians their forefathers. Πέρσαι, φύσιν ἐόντες ὑβρισταὶ, εἰσὶν ἀχρήματοι[515].

I shall also have occasion to notice hereafter one or two other words apparently akin to Σελλοί.

FOOTNOTES:

[497] Lit. Greece, i. 39, note.

[498] Il. x. 267.

[499] Il. ii. 500.

[500] Il. ii. 681.

[501] Iliad _passim_: and Od. iii. 182. iv. 9. and xi. 494.

[502] Il. xvi. 171.

[503] Il. xiii. 685-700.

[504] Il. ii. 704, 727.

[505] Il. ii. 530. 562. 684.

[506] Thuc. i. 3.

[507] Vid. inf. sect. viii.

[508] Donaldson’s New Cratylus, p. 291.

[509] It is not necessary to trace in this place, with precision, the various applications of the name Hellas, after the time of Homer. Stanley (on Æsch. Suppl. 263) states, that what I have termed Middle Greece was the Hellas of Ptolemy: that with Strabo the word includes most of the islands of the Ægean: and, finally, that it also came to include Asia Minor, and parts even of the African coast, as well as places elsewhere, which had been colonised by the Greek race. According to Cramer (Geogr. Greece, i. 2), at the epoch of the Peloponnesian war, Hellas meant everything south of the Peneus and the gulf of Ambracia. He considers that Herodotus also meant by it a portion of Thesprotia (Herod. ii. 56. viii. 47). It is interesting to observe how this domestic name, taken from the race which made Greece so great and famous, has retained its vitality through so many vicissitudes, and is now the national name of Greece, in opposition to that which was probably drawn from a Pelasgian source, and which, as proceeding from the Roman masters of the country, told its people the tale of their subjugation.

[510] Il. xvi. 234.

[511] Il. iii. 172.

[512] I follow the acute and sagacious notes of Professor Malden to a valuable paper contributed by Mr. James Yates, during the year 1856, to the Philological Transactions: also Donaldson’s Cratylus, p. 120.

[513] In loc. Cary’s Birds, p. 77.

[514] See sect. x.

[515] i. 89.

SECT. VII.

_On the respective contributions of the Pelasgian and Hellenic factors to the compound of the Greek nation._

_Contributions to the mythology._

In this attempt at an ethnological survey, we have now come down to the point, at which the Greek Peninsula passes over from its old Pelasgian character, and becomes subject to predominating Hellenic influences.

Now therefore, and before we examine the relations and succession of the great Homeric appellations for the Hellenes, appears to be the time for considering how the account stands between these tribes and the Pelasgians, and what were, so far as by probable evidence we can ascertain it, the respective contributions from the two sources to the integral character of the Greeks and of their institutions.

In the case of Greece, as it is known to us in history, we have the most remarkable disproportion between moral and physical power, and between the green and the full grown product, which is offered to view in the whole range of human experience. A circumscribed country, with a small population, throws forth, without loss of vital power, to the East and to the West, colonies greatly transcending itself, as would appear, in wealth and population; continues for many centuries to exercise a primary influence in the world; at one time resists and repels, at another invades and terrifies, at a third overthrows and crushes to atoms the great colossus of Eastern empire, and continues to exercise, through the medium of mind, a singular mastery, enduring down to our own time, and likely still to endure, over civilized man. And even the miniature organization of Greece presents to us, within its own limits, diversities of character almost enough for a quarter of the globe.

Many of these diversities connect themselves with the ethnological formation of the different communities. In the course of that process, so far as can be discerned, certain admixtures of foreign influence were supplied direct from Phœnicia, Egypt, or elsewhere: but the grand component parts or factors in this composite product are two, the Hellenic and the Pelasgic. To this dual combination, perhaps the double invocation of Achilles (Il. xvi. 233, 4) is a witness.

The development of the national character is the most large and varied in Attica, where the population, from successive immigrations of bodies of refugees, and from the free general resort and reception of strangers, presented also the largest and most varied ethnical compound.

In analysing that national character which thus resulted from the amalgamation of ingredients chiefly Hellic and Pelasgic, we have now to ask how far its different elements are referable to the Pelasgic or to the Hellic root respectively? We have traced in some degree the course and local circumscription of the races: can we affiliate upon them any of the contributions which they severally made to the varied manners and to the institutions of Greece?

The proof, as far as it is specific, can be only that which probable and conjectural evidence afford: but that evidence is supported by the fact, that it tends, as a whole, to an orderly result.

While they proceed from different sources, and present visible and even permanent distinctions of character, there is no violent disparity between the Hellic and the Pelasgic races: they afford a good material for coalescence. We are not to suppose that whatever the one had, the other had not. Of what belongs historically to the Pelasgi, much may stand as theirs only through their priority of entrance into the country.

I propose to inquire what evidence can be drawn, either from philological sources, or from the text of Homer, to throw light on the several pursuits and tendencies of these races, under the heads of Religion, Policy, War, the Games, Poetry, the Chase, and Navigation.

Under some of these heads, however, we must in a measure anticipate results which will be only obtained in full from later inquiries.

The Poems afford us no complete and decisive test for discriminating between the Hellene and the Pelasgian contributions respectively to the Greek religion.

We shall, however, hereafter find many details of evidence bearing upon this subject.

For the present I must confine myself to two very general propositions, which are founded on the relations of the Greek religion with those of Troy and of Italy.

First, there seems to be a presumption, which may weigh with us to a certain extent in the absence of counter-evidence, that those parts of the Greek religion which were common to the Greeks with the Trojans were Pelasgian, and that those which were not common, were not Pelasgian. But of the parts which were common, and therefore Pelasgian, many may have been originally Hellene too.

Again, a relationship subsists between Greece and Italy, as to the component parts of their respective populations, which, without being unduly strained, will throw considerable light upon the question of Hellic and Pelasgic attributes.

The Greek or the Italian of the classic times could not be expected to own relationship with what lay to the northward, on each of those two peninsulas. The Roman, therefore, whose investigations led him to suppose there were Pelasgians in Italy, would only derive them from Greece. For us the case stands far otherwise; and we must simply consider the Pelasgians of Greece, and the Pelasgians of Italy, as two among a variety of branches, which struck out at different times from the main trunk of an extended race, probably diffusing itself over many parts of Asia and Europe. In Greece and Italy respectively these Pelasgic tribes entered into new combinations, probably not wholly different, nor, on the other hand, by any means in exact correspondence.

We may perhaps be found not to go beyond the limits of the modesty which the case requires, when we simply lay down this rule: that correspondences in religion or in language between Greece and ancient Italy raise a presumption, that those features of each country, in which the correspondence is observed, are of Pelasgic origin.

Something of such correspondence we may perceive in regard to religion. The religion of Homeric Greece differs from that of Rome, not only as to minor deities, but in the names given to many of the greater deities, and especially in the far more imaginative character of its traditions.

Those parts of the religion of Greece and Rome which were common to both were probably Pelasgian.

Let us take first the names which correspond, and then those which are different.

(I.) Names of deities that correspond in the Greek and Latin tongues:

1. Ζεύς Deus.
2. Ζεὺς-πάτηρ Jupiter.
3. Ἀπόλλων Apollo.
4. Ἱστιή Vesta.
5. Λήτω Latona.
6. Περσεφόνη Proserpina.
7. Ἄρης Mars or Mavors.

(II.) Names of deities which do not in any manner correspond in the Greek and Latin tongues:

1. Ἥρη Juno.
2. Ποσειδὼν Neptune.
3. Ἀιδώνευς Pluto.
4. Ἀθήνη Minerva.
5. Ἥφαιστος Vulcan.
6. Ἑρμῆς Mercury.
7. Ἀφροδίτη Venus.
8. Ἄρτεμις Diana.
9. Δημήτηρ Ceres.
10. Διόνυσος Bacchus.

Two remarks may be made on the deities of the first list.

First, that it comprehends generally the gods whom we shall find to bear marks of being the most ancient among the Greek deities; with the marked exception, however, of Minerva[516].

Secondly, that in it we find no deity who takes part on the Greek, that is, the Pelasgian side, in the war of Troy. The only two names which do not appear on the Trojan side, are Vesta, who with Homer is not personified at all: and Proserpine, who from the seat of her dark dominion could not share in the wars waged upon earth.

On the other hand, when we turn to the second list of exclusively Greek names, we find that it contains all the deities who took part against Troy: and only two very secondary names of deities friendly to it.

Mars and Venus, both engaged on the Trojan side, and one standing in the first list, are the deities after whom, according to Ovid[517], the two first months of the Roman year were named in the first age of the city.

It would not, however, be safe to depend implicitly upon the apparent reappearance of certain names in the Latin language, without a fuller knowledge of the laws of discrimination between the early mythology of the Romans, and the form which their religious system assumed at the period when they came into free communication with Greece and its colonies, from which, as they certainly borrowed some names of deities, such as Pallas and Phœbus, so they may have assumed others too. We have no proof, for example, that Apollo was prominent, or even that he was known, in the earliest Roman worship. Cicero[518] says, _Jam Apollinis nomen est Græcum_. Still, a temple was raised to him in Rome[519] as early as 430 B. C.; and the Trojan sympathies of most of the deities in the first list tend in some degree to show both that they were well known in the Pelasgian religion, and that many of the older portions of the mythology were common to the Trojans, the early Romans, and the Pelasgians of Greece.

_Pelasgian Religion less imaginative._

We may more boldly rely upon a general indication, which is offered to us by the religious systems both of Rome and of Troy, in comparison with that of Greece.

The large account of Roman deities furnished by Saint Augustine, in his ‘De Civitate Dei,’ constitutes for us the principal representation of the great work of Varro, now lost, on the ‘Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum.’ Notwithstanding the multitudinous development of the theurgic system, the ‘_De Civitate_’ tends to support the belief that it was not vivified, like the system of the Greeks, by the intense pervading power of a vigorous and prolific imagination. The ‘Fasti’ of Ovid may perhaps be referred to as sustaining the same opinion. And Heyne in his commentary on Virgil has observed upon the comparative dulness and dryness of the early mythology of Rome: _Italici mythi longe a Græcæ fabulæ suavitate absunt; nec varietas grata inest_[520].

In a later portion of this work[521] I shall endeavour to show, that a similar character apparently attaches to the religious system of Troy: not so much a purity or simplicity, as a comparative poverty and hardness; and an indisposition in the inventions to assume those graceful forms, of which the Grecian Theo-mythology, as exhibited in Homer, is so full.

And again, when we pass from Homer to Hesiod, we find a great mass of religious fable, either added by the later poet, or grown up in the interval between the two. Hesiod’s depositories are much more numerously peopled: but we have passed at once from the poetry of a theogony to its merest prose, when we compare his manner of touch or handling, and his ideas on these subjects, with those of Homer. And, as on other grounds we may consider Hesiod to represent the Pelasgian side of the Greek mind, we seem justified in referring the distinctive tone of his mythology in some degree to his Pelasgian characteristics.

But independently of confirmation from the case of Troy, and from the tone of Hesiod, the character of the old Italian mythology, so devoid of imagination, force, and grace, leads us to ascribe these properties, when we find them abound in the Greek supernaturalism, to its non-Pelasgian, that is, to its Hellenic source.

_Its ritual development fuller._

When, however, we turn to another form of development in religious systems, we find the case entirely different: I mean the development in positive observances of all kinds, and in fixed institutions of property and class. Here the religion of Rome was large and copious. Polybius has left upon record, in a most remarkable passage, his admiration of the Roman system of δεισιδαιμονία, which had, he says, been so got up, and carried to such a point, that it could not be exceeded. It was all done, in his opinion, on account of the multitude. Were States composed of the wise, the case would have been different: but as the people are full of levity and passion, λείπεται τοῖς ἀδήλοις φόβοις καὶ τῇ τοιαύτῃ τραγωδίᾳ τὰ πλήθη συνέχειν[522].

Not less remarkable is the testimony of Dionysius; who, while he praises Romulus for the severe simplicity of what he caused to be taught and held concerning religion, and for the expulsion of immoral fables and practices, says that he arranged for his people all that concerned the temples of the gods, their consecrated lands, their altars, their images, their forms, their _insignia_, their prerogatives and their gifts to man, the sacrifices in which they delight, the feasts and assemblies to be celebrated, and the remissions of labour to be granted in their honour. In no other newly founded city could be shown such a multitude of priests and ministers of the gods[523], who were chosen, too, from the most distinguished families[524].

The Fasti of Ovid give an idea of the manner in which the Roman Calendar brought the ceremonial of religion to bear upon the course of life. For some centuries an acquaintance with the Calendar was the exclusive property of the sacred order[525]; and the priesthood turned to its own power and profit the knowledge, which afterwards filled the pages of that characteristic work.

Again, we shall have occasion, when considering the distinctive character of Troy, to notice that the political and ritual forms of religion appear to have been much more advanced there, than with the Greeks. This difference will naturally connect itself with the stronger Pelasgian infusion in the former case. We shall then find that of the two great kinds of sacred office, one only, that of the μάντις, and not that of the priest, seems at the time of Homer to have appertained to the Hellenic races.

And it is not a little curious to observe that, when Saint Paul arrives among the Athenians, the point which he selects for notice in their character and usages, after all the intermixtures they had undergone, is still this, that they are δεισιδαιμονέστεροι[526], peculiarly disposed to religious observances; and that, not contented with the gods whom they suppose themselves to know, they have likewise a supernumerary altar for ‘the Unknown God.’ Nor are we the less warranted to connect this peculiarity with the original and long preserved Pelasgian character of Athens, because that city had, for centuries before, become a peculiarly apt representative of the full Greek compound: for a system of ritual observance has a fixity, which does not belong to mere opinion; and, when once rooted in a country, has powerful tendencies to assume such a solidity as survives vicissitude: perhaps in some degree on account of its neutral and pacific character, and of the power it leaves to men of separating between outward observance and inward act.

Although the opinion has been entertained, that from the earliest ages it was the exclusive privilege of the first-born to offer sacrifice, it appears most probable that the separate function of priesthood was, like other offices and professions, one of gradual formation. Whether the primitive institution of sacrifice was spontaneous or commanded, every man, that is to say, every head of a family, was, I shall assume, at first his own offerer or priest[527]. Then, as the household developed into the community, the priestly office, in the first stages of political society, as a matter of course appertained to the chief.

He, by the necessity of natural order, originally united in his own person the great functions of

1. Father.
2. Teacher.
3. Priest.
4. King.
5. Proprietor.
6. Commander.

The severance of these offices successively would arrive sooner or later, according as the progress made in numbers and wealth was rapid or slow. Concentration of employments in a single hand marks the primitive condition or retarded movement of society, while the division of labour is the sign of more speedy and more advanced development. Even the annals of the people of Israel furnish instances in which we trace, at periods when these offices had undergone division under divine authority, vestiges of their former union. It appears that, besides Moses, who consecrated Aaron and his sons by divine command, Joshua, Samuel, and Saul[528] on certain occasions offered sacrifice. The exclusive character of priesthood has been impressed upon it, under Divine Revelation, by positive ordinance, and for a special purpose[529].

_Order of Priests not Hellenic._

The Hellenes in Homer appear to exhibit it in its earlier state of union with the office of civil government; and the Pelasgians to display it as a function which has indeed become special and professional, but only on that self-acting principle which, in the progress of society, leads to division of labour.

If we suppose the case of two races, one of them inhabiting a rude and barren country in a state of perpetual poverty and warfare, and then recently, by a descent upon more fertile soils, brought into contact with civilised life: the other of them addicted from a much earlier period to pursuits of peace and industry, inhabiting plains, and accustomed to form agricultural settlements; there will be no cause for wonder upon our also finding that the latter of these races has a professional priesthood, while the former has none; but that the sacrificial office remains in the private dwelling with the father of the family, and on public occasions with the head of the civil government.

This appears to have been the state of facts as between the Trojans of Homer who had a priesthood, and the Hellenes who had none: and the difference may be principally referable to the different condition and history of the Pelasgian and the Hellic races: while other causes, belonging to the respective characters of the races, may have contributed their share towards the production of this curious result. Partly the greater personal energy and self-reliance of the Hellic tribes, but partly also the earlier and older ease, wealth, and fixity of the Pelasgians, are the probable reasons why, at the point of time exhibited in the writings of Homer, we find priesthood properly a Pelasgian, but not yet properly an Hellenic, and only to a limited extent an adoptive, institution.

Thus far, then, we have a presumption, to be greatly strengthened as I trust hereafter, that the Greek religion owed to the Hellenes its imaginative, and to the Pelasgians its sacerdotal and ceremonial development. And this presumption is, I think, in entire accordance with what we should reasonably anticipate, from relations otherwise known to have subsisted between the two races. I now pass on to the subject of language.

_Contributions to language._

In attempting to illustrate the relations of Pelasgians to Hellenes through the medium of the affinities and contrasts between the Greek and Latin languages, I am aware that I venture upon ground which requires to be trodden with great circumspection. For the Latin nation may possibly have contained within itself some ethnical element not dissimilar to the Hellenic, as well as one substantially corresponding with the Pelasgian, factor of the Greek people. And again, there is a very extended relation of the two languages to a common root in the Sanscrit. The number of words traceable to such a root has recently been stated at 339 in the Greek, and 319 in the Latin tongues[530]. We must not then, it will justly be observed, infer from the simple fact of resemblance between a Greek and a Latin word, that the one has been borrowed or directly modified from the other.

Let us begin by considering the just effect of these remarks, and inquiring whether they do not still leave space enough for an useful examination.

I begin from the assumption, that there was a deep and broad Pelasgian _substratum_ both in the Greek and the Roman nations. It is thought, and it may perhaps be justly thought, that a dominant tribe of Oscans, who were a nation of warriors and hunters, came among the Pelasgi of Italy, as the Hellenes came among the Pelasgi of Greece. But while we may properly assume the identity of the Pelasgian factor in the two cases respectively, it is quite plain that the compounds or aggregate characters are broadly distinguished, and represent an assemblage and admixture either of different qualities, or else of the same qualities in very different proportions. Therefore we are justified in laying it down as a general rule, that whatever is found in the language of the two countries alike was most probably Pelasgian: since, if that portion of the aggregate language had been supplied from those elements in which the nations differed, it is likely that a corresponding difference would have been found to prevail between their modes of speech.

Again, I think we must distinguish between the simple fact of derivation from an original source in common, and those degrees or descriptions of resemblance which show that any given words not only had one source at first, but that they continued together up to a certain point in the formative process, so as to be capable, from their shape, of derivation, not only from that root, but also one from the other. For instance, the Greek ἐγὼ and the Latin _ego_ are both stated to be derived from the Sanscrit _aham_. But here it is quite plain that they have not only set out from the same point, but travelled along the same road to their journey’s end, as the Greek and Latin words are identical. On the other hand, if we take the Greek τέσσαρες, and the Latin _quatuor_, both are referred to the same Sanscrit root, _chatur_: but neither of them can well have been derived from the other, and each is more nearly related to the root than it is to the other. Or if we take the Latin _anser_, the Greek χὴν, and the English ‘goose,’ these words scarcely appear to have a connecting link: but it is found, and a remote or mediate connection established, by means of the German _gans_. Instances might easily be multiplied.

In single cases, where the relationship of words is only of the kind last exemplified, it would not be safe to draw inferences to the effect of their being respectively due to this or that element in the composition of the nation.

But where there is such a similarity as to show either that the word has advanced nearly to its mature state before the Greek and Latin forms began to divaricate, or that the Latin form may have been derived from the Greek in an early stage of the history of the language, or _vice versâ_, then it seems just to refer the resemblance of terms to the existence of a powerful common element in the two peoples.

And further, if we shall find that the words standing in close kindred are capable of classification with reference to their sense, then, when we have once constituted a class of such words, it may be justifiable to add fresh words to it on the strength of a more remote affinity, in virtue of the presumption already created. For instance, if the names of the commonest objects and operations of inanimate nature are generally in close correspondence, we may infer a relation between other words which are in the same class as to meaning, though they may be not so nearly alike, with more confidence than if the reasoning as to this latter section were not supported by the former. On this principle I proceed in the collections of words given below.

Of course the utmost care must be taken to exclude those words which have been copied from Greek into Latin, after the literary ages of Rome had begun, and according to the practice which Horace has described and recommended[531].

_Niebuhr’s propositions._

Niebuhr was, I believe, the first person to draw from philological sources a conclusion as to the character and habits of the Pelasgians. He proceeded upon the threefold assertion, (1) that the words common to the two tongues are presumably Pelasgian, (2) that they for the most part refer to tillage and the gentler ways of life, and (3) that we may hence conclude that the Pelasgians were a people given to peace and husbandry. And conversely, that the words which widely differ in the two tongues are not Pelasgian, and that the pursuits which they indicate must have been more peculiarly characteristic of some other race, that contributed to make up the composition of the Roman nation. The principles thus assumed by Niebuhr[532] appear, when placed under due limitation, to be sound; and the only question is, whether they are supported by the facts of the case. If in a given language we find the words indicative of a certain turn of life to have been derived from a particular race, which forms part of the nation speaking that language, while other words, referable to other habits and pursuits, have been supplied by other races also numbered among its constituent parts, it is just to read the characters of those races respectively through the character of the words that they contribute to the common tongue. For the question is really one of forces which may have been adjusted with as much accuracy, as if they had been purely mechanical. The ordinary reason why a word of Pelasgian origin prevails over a word of Hellenic origin with the same signification, or the reverse, is that it is in more or in less common use: and the commonness of use is likely to be determined by the degree in which the employment or state of life, with which the word is connected, may belong to the one race or the other.

The survey taken by Niebuhr appears to have been rapid; and the list of words supplied by him is very meagre. Bishop Marsh[533] and other authors have, with a variety of views, supplied further materials. The most comprehensive list, to which my attention has been directed, is in the ‘Lateinische Synonyme und Etymologieen’ of Döderlein[534]. The subject is essentially one which hardly admits of a fixed criterion or authoritative rule, or of a full assurance that its limits have been reached. Mindful of the reserve which these considerations recommend, I should not wish to lay down inflexible propositions. But I venture to state generally, that those words of the Latin and Greek tongues, which are in the closest relationship, are connected

1. With the elementary structure of language, such as pronouns, prepositions, numerals.

2. With the earliest state of society.

3. With the pursuits of peaceful and rural industry, not of highly skilled labour.

_Classes of words which agree._

Examples, numerous enough to show a most extensive agreement, will readily suggest themselves under the first head. To illustrate the other propositions, though it can only be done imperfectly, I will follow both the positive and the negative methods. The first, by comparing words which denote elementary objects, both of animate and inanimate nature, or the simplest products of human labour for the supply of human wants, or the members of the human body, or the rudiments of social order. The second, by contrasting the words which relate (1) to intelligence and mental operations, (2) to war, and (3) to the metals, the extended use of which denotes a certain degree of social advancement. It will I hope be borne in mind, on the one hand, that these lists are given by way of instance, and have no pretension to be exhaustive: and, on the other hand, that exceptions, discovered here and there, to the rule they seem to indicate, would in no way disprove its existence, but should themselves, if purely exceptions, be treated, provisionally at least, as accidental.

Class I.--_Elementary objects of inanimate Nature._

ἔρα, terra
ἀήρ, aer
αἴθηρ, æther
αὖρα, aura
ἀστήρ {astrum
ἀστέρος {stella
{sterula
κοίλον, cælum
ἥλιος, sol
σε-λήνη, luna
νὺξ, nox
(Ζεὺς) Διὸς, dies
πόντος, pontus
ἃλς } sal
θάλασσα } salum
πόλος, polus
λυκὴ in λυκάβας, } lux
λεύσσειν }
χείμων, hyems
ἔαρ, ver
ὥρη, hora
ἑσπέρα, vesper
νέφος {nubes
{nebula
(νιψ) νιφος, nix, nivis
δρόσος, ros
ὕετος {fluvius
{pluvia
ῥῖγος, frigus
χάμαι, humus
πευκὴ, pix
κῆπος } sepes
σῆκος }
λακκὸς } (_a pit_), lacus
λάχυς }
ἄμπελος, pampinus
ὕλη, sylva
φύλλον, folium
ῥόδον, rosa
λαὰς, lapis
ἄγρος, ager
ἄρουρα, arvum
ἄντρον, antrum
φῦκος, fucus
σπέος } spelunca
σπήλαιον }
ἴον, viola
σκόπελος, scopulus
ὕδωρ, sudor.

Class II.--_Elementary objects of animated Nature._

θὴρ, fera
λύκος, lupus
καπρὸς, aper
λέων, leo
ἔγχελυς, anguilla
ἴχθυς, piscis
ὠκύπτερος, accipiter
κύων, κύνος, canis
ὄϊς, ovis
βοὺς, bos
ταῦρος, taurus
ὓς, sus
ἵππος, equus
πῶλος, pullus
οὖθαρ, uber
ἄμνος, agnus
κριὸς, aries
ἀλώπηξ, vulpes.

Class III.--_Articles immediately related to elementary wants and to labour._

1. DWELLINGS.

δόμος, domus
οἶκος, vicus
θύραι, fores
κληΐς, clavis
ἕδος, sedes
αἰθάλη, favilla
θάλαμος, thalamus
λέχος, lectus.

2. FOOD.

οἶνος, vinum
ἔλαια, olea
ἔλαιον, oleum
ὦον, ovum
μῆλον, malum
σῦκον, ficus
τρύγη, fruges
ἀ-τρύγετος, triticum
σῖτος, cibus
γλάγος, } lac, lactis
γάλα, γάλακτος }
κάλαμος, calamus
κρέας, caro
μέλι, mel
δαὶς, dapes
κοινὴ, cœna.

3. CLOTHING.

ἐσθὴς, vestis
χλαῖνα, læna.

4. TOOLS AND IMPLEMENTS.

ἄροτρον, aratrum
ζεῦγος } jugum.
ζύγον }

5. NAVIGATION.

ναῦς, navis
λίμην, limen
ἐρετμὸς, remus
κυβερνήτης, gubernator
ἀγκύρα, ancora
ποὺς, pes.

Class IV.--_The constituent parts of the human body, the family, society, and general ideas._

1. THE HUMAN BODY.

κεφαλὴ, caput
κόμη, coma
ὦμος, armus[535]
μῆρον, fe-mur, moris
παλάμη, palma
ποὺς, pes
ὄδους, οντος, dens, dentis
λάπτω, labrum
δείκνυμι, digitus
λὰξ, calx
ἦπαρ, jecur
ἔντερον, venter
ἕλκος, ulcus
κέαρ } cor
καρδία }
γόνυ, genu
μύελος, medulla
ὄστεον, os (ossis)
ὤψ, os (oris).

2. THE FAMILY.

πατὴρ, pater
μήτηρ, mater
υἷος, filius
φρήτηρ } frater
φρήτρη }
ἕκυρος, socer
χήρη } heres
χηρωστῆς }
γένος {gens
{genus.

3. SOCIETY.

(ῥέζειν) ῥέξας, rex[536]
ἐλεύθερος, liber
τέκτων (στέγω), cf. tectum (tego)
φὼρ, fur
παλλακὶς, pellex.

4. GENERAL IDEAS.

νεύω, numen
θεὸς, deus
ὄνομα, nomen
μόρφη, forma
ἲς, vis
ῥώμη, Roma, robur
κνίσση, nidor
ὄδμη, odor
φήμη, fama
φάτις } fatum
φάτον }
βίος, vita[537]
μόρος, mors
ὕπνος, somnus
ὀδύνη[538], odium
ἄλγος, algor
γεύω, } gustus
γεύσω }
ἦνις, annus
λήθη } lethum
λήτω }
δόσις, dos
δῶρον, donum
φυγὴ } fuga
φύζα }
αἴων, ævum.

Class V.--_Adjectives of constant use in daily life._

μέγας, magnus
παῦρος {parvus
{paucus
πλατὺς, latus
ἄγχος }
ἄγκιστρον } {uncus
or} {angustus
ἄγοστος }
κυρτὸς, curtus
γῦρος, curvus
πυρρὸς, furvus
ἐρυθρὸς {ruber
{rufus
παχὺς, pinguis
βραχὺς, brevis
βραδὺς } tardus
βαρδὺς }
χαὸς, cavus
τέρην, tener
πλέος, plenus
μείων, minor
μάσσων, major
νέος, novus
ἄλλος, alius
ὄρθος, ordo[539]
ὕπτιος, supinus
γραῦς, gravis
λεπτὸς {levis
{lentus
λεῖος, lævis
γενναῖος, gnavus
δέξιος, dexter
ὅλος, solus
ἡδὺς, suavis
πικρὸς, acris[540].

_Classes of words which differ._

A very extensive list of perhaps one hundred or more verbs might be added, which are either identical or nearly related in the Greek and Latin languages: but it would not, I think, materially enlarge or diminish the general effect of those words which have been enumerated. We have before us about one hundred and eighty words in the classes of substantive and adjective only. They might nearly form the primitive vocabulary of a rustic and pacific people. Two exceptions may be named, which may deserve remark. It will be observed, that the senses are inadequately represented, only two of them, smell and taste, being included. The other three are also connected in the two languages as follows: touch, by the relation of θιγγάνω and _tango_: sight, by εἴδω and _video_: hearing, by the evident connection of the Latin _audire_ with the Greek αὔδη, the proper name in Homer for the voice.

The other marked exception is that of religion. With slender exceptions, such as θεὸς = _deus_, the connection of _rex_ with ῥέζω, of _numen_ with νεύω, of λοιβὴ with _libo_, and that of ἀράομαι, ἀρητὴρ with _orare_, _orator_, _ara_, there is a considerable want of correspondence in the leading words, such as ἱερὸς, ἅγιος, θύω, βῶμος, νῆον, ἄγαλμα, σέβω, μάντις, of the one tongue, and _sacer_, _sanctus_, _pius_, _templum_, _vates_, _macto_, _mola_, of the other. The greater part of the Pelasgian vocabulary must have been displaced on the one side or on the other: and as it is in Greece that we have much fuller and clearer evidence of the advent of a superior race, which gave its own impress to life and the mind in the higher departments of thought, we must conclude that this substitution probably took place in Greece, and was of Hellenic for Pelasgian words.

The proposition of Niebuhr with respect to terms of war, appears to me to be in the main well sustained by the facts. Let us take for example the following list: which appears to show that, in this department, with the exception of a pretty close relation between βέλος and _telum_, and a more remote one between πόλεμος and _bellum_, possibly also between _lorica_ and θώρηξ, there is hardly in any case the faintest sign of relationship between the customary terms employed in the two languages for the respective objects.

telum βέλος

ensis } {ξίφος
gladius } {φάσγανον

cuspis }
mucro } αἰχμή
acies }

galea κυνέη

hasta {δόρυ
{ἔγχος

scutum[541] } {ἄσπις
clypeus } {σάκος

lorica θώρηξ

ocrea κνημίς

vagina κολεός

bellum {Ἄρης
{πόλεμος

prælium } {ὑσμίνη
pugna } {μάχη

currus } {δίφρος
rheda } {ἅρμα

rota κυκλός (Hom.)

terno ῥυμὸς

tuba } σάλπιγξ
classicum }

castra κλισίαι

tabernaculum[542] κλισίη

arcus {βιὸς
{τόξον

sagitta {ἰὸν
{ὀϊστός.

It can hardly, I think, be questioned, that this class of words presents on the whole a very marked contrast to those which were before exhibited. And as we see the highest martial energies of Greece manifestly represented in the Hellenes, we may the more confidently adopt that inference as to the habits of Hellenes and Pelasgians respectively, which the contrast between the two languages of itself vividly suggests.

Before quitting this head of the subject, let us notice the wide difference in the channels by which the two languages arrive at the words intended to represent the highest excellence. For ‘better’ the Greeks have βέλτερος, from βέλος, ‘a dart,’ and for ‘best,’ ἄριστος, from ἄρης, ‘war;’ while the Latins are contented with _optimus_, formed from a common root with _opes_, ‘wealth.’

There is almost as remarkable a want of correspondence between the two languages in respect to the higher ideas, both intellectual and moral, as in regard to war.

In three words indeed we may trace a clear etymological relationship, but in two of the cases with a total, and in the third with an important change in the meaning.

1. The μένος of the Greeks becomes the Latin _mens_; so that a particular quality, and that one belonging to the πάθη rather than the ἤθη of man, comes to stand for the entire mind.

2. The Greek ἄνεμος is evidently the Latin _animus_: or, that word which remains the symbol of a sensible object in Greek becomes the representative of mind in Latin. The adjective ἀνεμώλιος is indeed capable of a metaphysical application: but it means ‘of no account[543].’

3. The θυμὸς of the Greeks is the _fumus_ of the Latins: and the case last described is exactly reversed.

The three great words in the early Greek for the unseen or spiritual powers of man’s nature are νόος, φρὴν, and ψυχή. They perhaps correspond most nearly with the three Latin words _mens_, _indoles_, and _vita_[544]. There is not the slightest sign of conformity or common origin in any of the cases; although νόος is akin to _nosco_[545].

In two other very important words we find perhaps derivation from a common root, but nothing like a near or direct relationship. The Greek ἀρετὴ may proceed from the same stock with the Latin _virtus_, and in like manner ἄτη may have the same source as _vitium_.

Upon the whole we may conclude, that in this important class of words the resemblances are scanty and remote. It will be seen that under the head of general ideas there is not included any clear case of correspondence in a mental quality; and all the resemblances appear to rest, mediately or immediately, upon sensible objects and phenomena.

As respects the terms employed in navigation, it will have been observed, that they are all connected with its rudest form, that of rowing; and that they do not include the words for mast, yard, or sail, in all of which the two tongues appear to be entirely separated.

Again, it may be stated generally, that society in its very earliest stages has little to do with the use of metals. This rule will be of various application, according to their abundance or scarcity in various countries, and according to the facility with which they are convertible to the uses of man. As the objects of enjoyment multiply with the continuance and growth of industry, the precious metals become more desirable with a view to exchange. But the principal metal for direct utility is iron: and of that, the quantity known and used by the Greeks would appear, even in the time of Homer, to have been extremely small. The use of metal for works of art, and probably also for commercial exchange, would seem to have been derived from Phœnician, not Pelasgian sources; and we have no proof that when Homer lived they had acquired the art in any high degree for themselves.

The absence of any great progress in the use of metals may thus be set down as a sign of Pelasgianism. And now let us compare the Greek and Roman names for the metals respectively:

1. χρυσὸς, aurum.

2. ἄργυρος, argentum.

3. χαλκὸς, æs.

4. σίδηρος, ferrum.

5. μόλιβος, plumbus: in later Greek μόλυβδος, the form nearest to the
Latin.

6. κασσίτερος, stannum.

Here also there is a great want of correspondence. Only in iron and lead, and possibly in silver, are there signs of relationship: but in all it is remote. In the other metals it is entirely wanting; and in those which are nearest, it amounts only to presumptive derivation from a common root. The want of community in this class of terms seems to show, that the race which was the common factor of the two nations, was probably not advanced in the use of metals beyond their elementary purposes.

I will only further observe, that while so many names indicative of social and domestic relations are akin, nothing can be more clearly separate than the Greek δοῦλος and the Latin _servus_. From this fact it would be no improbable inference, that slavery was unknown to the Pelasgians: and their ignorance of it would, on the other hand, be in the closest harmony with their slight concern in warlike and in maritime pursuits; since captivity in the one, and kidnapping through the other, were the two great feeders of the institution. It is also in close correspondence with the further hypothesis, which represents the Pelasgians as probably the race that first occupied the Greek soil, and found no predecessors upon it over whom to establish political or proprietary dominion[546].

It may, I think, deserve notice in confirmation of the general argument, that almost all those Greek words, which are in close affinity with the Latin, are found in Homer. For there can be little doubt that, after his time, the Greek tongue became more and more Hellenic: and the fact that a word is Homeric supplies the most probable token of a link with a Pelasgian origin.

And now let us sum up under this head of discussion.

It may be said with very general truth, that the words which have been quoted, and the classes to which they belong, have reference to the primary experience and to the elementary wants and productions of life: but that they do not touch the range of subjects belonging to civilization and the highest powers of man, such as war, art, policy, and song.