The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-09-25
OUR CONTRIBUTORS.
THE CRADLE OF HELLAS.
BY RICHARD BRATHwAIT.

THEssALY, the cradle of Hellas, the
earliest seat of civilization in Europe,
and the prize for which the Sultan of
Turkey has been contending in dip
lomacy with the powers of Europe
all summer, is country whose
earlier history is lost in the mists of
tradition and mythology. The name
Thessaly seems to have been un-
known to Homer. who merely men,
tions several of its principalities and
divisions as sending leaders and
troops to the siege of Troy. The
national hero of Greece, Achilles
came from Phthiotis and Hellas
over which, according to Homer, he
ruled. Phthiotis was the seat of
HELEN, founder of the Hellenic race,
and to this district, embracing the
southeastern portion of Thessaly, the
term Hellas was first applied. From
Thessaly, or more particularly from
Hellas, the Hellenes spread over all
Greece, the Achaeans, Etolians,
Dorians and Lacedemonians and
other states of Greece deriving
thence their origin. Here, also,
according to tradition, men first
applied themselves to agriculture,
first guided horses by the bit and
used them in war, and here may be
said to have been the dawnings of
Greek, and consequently of European
civilization.
OF the FIVE divisions of ancient
Thessaly, Phthiotis, Hestiaeotis,
Pelasgiotis in the northern part.
Thessaliotis, and Magnesia, Pelas-
giotis was the earliest settled, the
Pelasgi, wandering Asiatic tribe,
thus being the earliest inhabitants of
Greece. The migration of the Thes-
salians proper from Thesprotia in
Epirus on the western side of the
Pindus mountains, and their drivir &
out or conquering the Pelasgiar s
may be considered the beginning of
Greek history.
OF the two earliest events recorded
in the history of Thessaly, the deluge
of Deucalion and the expedition of
the Argonauts, the former is said to
have occurred about 1913 B. c., and
the latter 1868 B. c., but neither of
these events, with which 80 much of
the legendary history of Greece is
connected, can be assigned definitely
as to time, while the facts in the case
have been SO obscured with fable and
poetry that it is impossible to hazard
more than conjecture as to their
real significance.
The stories of Deucalion and Jason
and the Argonauts, together with
the Iliad and the Odyssey have made
Thessaly and its mountains and
rivers the chosen seat of the gods,
land of "lost gods and godlike men,
Olympus, the seat of the gods; Ossa
and Pelion, recalling the wars of the
Titans against Jupiter; Oeta with its
legends of Hercules and the pyre
from which he ascended to the heav-
ems; Achilles and the heroes of
the Trojan war, are only a few in
stances to show that Thessaly, more
than any other part of Greece, was
the home of fable and poetry in early
Europe.
Adjoining Thessaly on the north
east also, was the plain of Pieria with
its noble back ground of mountains,
and in front the blue waters of the
Thermaic Gulf. Here was the birth
place of the MUSES. and of Orpheus,
the greatest musician of the ancient
world. Of Pieria also, were the nine
daughters of Pierus, a Thessalian
who challenged the Muses. to trial
of skill. In Thessaly, also, at Iolcos,
was the home of Jason, and from the
port at the modern town of Volo on
the Pegasean Gulf, the Argonautic
expedition sailed in quest of the
golden fleece. The fables of the
Lapitha and the centaurs show that
Thessaly was noted for its horses,
distinction it retained in the days of
Alexander the Great, whose famous
war steed, Bucephalus, came from
the green plains of Thessaly.
Physically, Thessaly is a vast
plain or basin enclosed by mountain
chains, the "snowY Pindus" separat-
ing it on the West from Epirus, the
Cambunian mountains on the north
from Macedonia, and the OthrYs
range and Oeta bounding it on the
south. The eastern frontier is formed
partly by the Gulf of Salonica and
Volo and partly by mountain ranges