PELASGI, or Pelasgians, a very ancient people, of whom the historical inquirers in the Augustan age could find no trace amongst any race then subsisting, and about whom so many opposite opinions have been confidently maintained, and so much learning unprofitably accumulated, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at any distinct or satisfactory conclusion.

Disregarding that spurious philology which raises pretensions to knowledge concerning races whose annals have long since perished, we may, however, observe, that the [7:17:177]people known by the name of Pelasgians are supposed to have originally occupied Greece, and to have penetrated into central Italy long before the establishment of the Hellenic colonies in Magna Graecia, that is, the southern portion of the Italian peninsula. Thus much seems to be admitted on all sides, because it is borne out by the concurring testimonies of ancient authors, who are agreed in almost nothing else, respecting either the origin or the migrations of this primitive race. The questions that have been most keenly agitated amongst the learned are, whether the Pelasgians were a different nation from the Hellenes, or the same people under a different denomination; and whether they were Scythians or Goths, as Mr Pinkerton contends, or a branch of some other distinctive race of men, as others have maintained. The discussion of these matters, we are well aware, is rather a subject of antiquarian research and learned curiosity than one calculated to afford either amusement or instruction to the generality of readers; but as it has called forth displays of profound erudition, and elicited much ingenuity, a concise and comprehensive view of the actual state of the dispute may not be altogether out of place in a work which has for its object to embrace the whole cycle of human knowledge and research, even without reference to the secondary considerations of immediate interest or utility.

Mr Pinkerton, in strict accordance with his general theory, maintains.that the Pelasgians were Scythians, and also that the Hellenes or Greeks were Pelasgians, or, in other words, of Scythian or Gothic origin. He argues, that as the Pelasgians certainly descended from the north-east into Greece, and thus came from, or at least through, a country which had been overspread by the Scythians long before the period of their descent into Hellas, it maybe inferred that they were of the same origin and race with the inhabitants of Thrace, Thessaly, and the other countries where they first made their appearance; a conclusion, we may observe, which, whether it be well or ill founded, does not necessarily follow from the premises, because the circumstance of a roving or migratory tribe passing through a particular country in its progress towards other settlements, by no means warrants the supposition either of identity or diversity of origin with reference to the prior inhabitants of such country. Mr Pinkerton, however, contends, that at a very early period Pelasgian settlements were established on the Hellespont; that, in the days of Homer, and even much later, a district in Thessaly was named Pelasgia; that the people of Macedonia were anciently called Pelasgians; that the Thracians, who, under Eumolpus, colonized Attica, were by Herodotus denominated Pelasgians; and that Plutarch describes the same people as a roving or migratory race, who, having subdued the inhabitants, settled in the countries they had conquered,—a description which,Tie thinks, can only apply to the Scythians. Besides, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Strabo, all state that the Pelasgians came originally from Thessaly into Greece; and as Thessaly was anciently accounted a part of Thrace, Mr Pinkerton thence concludes that the Pelasgians were Thracians, that is, Scythians or Goths. According to him, ancient Pelasgia included Macedonia, Epirus, and afterwards the. country which in later times was called Hellas or Greece; and he follows the opinion of the majority of the learned in holding that Pelasgi ax\å Hellenes were but different names for one and the same people.

This assumed identity necessarily implies, that if the Pelasgians were Scythians or Goths, so also were the Hellenes. Mr Pinkerton, however, devotes a separate section to the discussion of this point, and accumulates a number of authorities in support of his position, that the Hellenes were Scythians. That the Hellenes were originally a small tribe in Thessaly, is, he conceives, proved by the authority of Thucydides, which is confirmed by that of Herodotus and Strabo. The same authors make it equally clear that the Thessalians were Thracians, a people who extended as far down as Phocea; whilst later authorities state, that all the people south of the Hellespont, including the Macedonians and Greeks, were of Scythian origin. Besides, the language and manners of the whole of Hellas, from Thrace to the Ionian Sea, were, according to Pinkerton, Thracian or Scythian, that is, Gothic. No ancient writer has mentioned, nor even hinted at, any diversity of speech, save as to refinement, between Peloponnesus, Attica, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace. In Homer’s time the name of barbarians was not applied to the Thracians, who appear to have spoken the same language with the Hellenes; and Diodorus Siculus states that the Scythae Hyperborei, or most distant Scythians, used a form of speech akin to that of Athens and Delos, in other words, Pelasgic or Gothic. Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher, who had learned the language and studied the manners of the Greeks, pronounced them Scythian;^[1. Ε-μν 3∣, φν σιr í Afaχαζτιi, «avril 'E-λκr l νtν ∑χυ( ζι>υ rι. (Clemens Alexand. Strom, lib. i. p. 364.) ] and even Xenophon bears indirect testimony to the accuracy of this judgment. The similarity between the Greek and the Gothic language is attested by Ovid;^[2. Exercent illi soeiae commercia lingua, Graiaque quod Geticovicta loquela sono est. (Tristia, lib. v. 10.) ] and, in modern times, Salmasius, Junius, Casaubon, Ihre, Jamieson, and many other learned scholars and antiquaries, have pronounced the Greek and the Gothic to be merely dialects of the same original language, though some of them have fallen into the mistake of deriving the latter from the former. In corroboration of the same general view, Bibliander states, that in the German, which is a dialect of the Gothic, eight hundred out of two thousand radicals are common to the Greek and Latin, as well as the German; and as to the Latin, every scholar knows that, originally, it was merely the Aeolic dialect of the Greek. But of all marks or proofs of the origin of nations, that of language is the most certain; and from this remarkable coincidence in radical structure, taken in connection with the other circumstances adverted to by him, Mr Pinkerton concludes, that the Pelasgians, the ancestors of the Greeks, afterwards called Hellenes, from the leader of the last tribe that arrived, were originally settled in Macedonia and Thessaly; that they were Thracians, and that the Thracians were all Scythians or Goths.

The Pelasgians or Hellenes were, according to our author, much improved by the situation of Greece, their new settlement, which, being surrounded by the sea on every side except the north, proved a centre of attraction for small colonies from Egypt and Phoenicia, countries celebrated for their early civilization. Letters were imported, tillage was introduced, and the arts of life began to be cultivated. But the colonies to which this branch of the Scythians were mainly indebted for these advantages appear to have all adopted the Pelasgic or Hellenic language, and conformed to the Pelasgic or Hellenic rites and customs; and it might even be shown that the Greek mythology was only an improved version of that which obtained in ancient Scythia, the gods being mostly deified heroes or princes. Many ideas of the Greek mythology may also be found in the Gothic, though in a form far less polished and refined. The most ancient Greek poets, it is well known, were the sole teachers of the people; they were the first who, by blending allegory with popular superstition and legendary ro-mance, [7:17:178]composed systems of theogony and’my thology. But these early poets and teachers were all of Thrace. Linus, Orpheus, Musaeus, Thamyris, and Eumolpus, were Thracians, and consequently Scythians or Goths, familiar with the ancient traditions of the race to which they belonged. This circumstance has been remarked by Eustathius, and it is certainly not a little singular, in reference to the subject before us. In a word, it appears that the Greeks originally “Scythicised,” as Anacharsis called it, that is, followed the customs, manners, and traditions of the Scythians; but being improved by the introduction of foreign arts and the admixture of foreign settlers, they soon assumed a character quite distinct from that of their northern progenitors, and at length attained to the highest degree of civilization and refinement.

Such is a condensed abstract of Mr Pinkerton’s system, which, whether it be well founded or not, has at least the peculiar merit of being clear, distinct, and intelligible. We cannot say as much, however, for the speculations of almost any other writer who has treated of this subject, and least of all for those of Niebuhr, whose chapter on the Pelasgians is the most obscure, and therefore the least interesting, in his History of Rome. The fact seems to be, he had no settled views on the subject; and though he discusses his authorities with great ability, he has somehow failed to extract from them any definite or general results. We shall endeavour, as we best can, however, to give the reader some general notion of what this celebrated author has written respecting a race which has a double claim to attention, from its connection with the ancient history of both Greece and Italy.

According to Niebuhr, the Pelasgians were a different nation from the Hellenes, and had a language of their own, which was peculiar, and not Greek. This is his general principle, to which he repeatedly recurs, though without explaining how he arrived at such a conclusion. Yet, notwithstanding the difference here supposed, he thinks it probable that there was an essential affinity between them, from the ease with which so many Pelasgian nations ripened into Hellenes, and from the Latin containing an element which is half Greek, and admitted to have been of Pelasgic origin. But it is not easy to see how this total difference and essential affinity are to be reconciled, or how Latin could have contained an element half Greek and of Pelasgic origin, if the language of the Pelasgians was peculiar, and not Greek. Herodotus says that in process of time they came to be accounted Greeks, and that from them the Grecian theology was derived; circumstances which certainly serve to indicate the essential affinity to which Niebuhr refers. But the difficulty still remains to account for the diversity in nation and language which is predicated of the same people. It is perfectly true, as Niebuhr remarks, that the Pelasgians, in that part of history to which our monuments and traditions reach, were in a state of ruin and decay. They seemed a race that had outlived a period of other forms, looking like strangers left to languish in an altered world; and this is the reason why their history is shrouded in such obscurity. The old traditions spoke of them as a race pursued by the heavenly powers with never-ending calamities; and the traces of their abode in widely-distant regions probably gave rise to the notion that they roamed about from land to land in order to escape from these afflictions. But, surrendering to the poets the fable of their wanderings, Niebuhr thinks that he who rightly interprets the scattered hints of tradition, and searches for traces of their diffusion, will recognise in this singular people one of the very greatest nations of ancient Europe, who in the course of their migrations spread themselves almost as widely as the Celts, though in a manner still less known, and leaving even fewer memorials of their existence.

The learned historian, however, has not thought fit to apply his erudition and critical sagacity to the elucidation of this important point, which would have been a thousand times more instructive and interesting than the most elaborate discussion of authorities. He seems to have been perplexed with the discrepancies he encountered, and the difficulties with which he was beset, especially in reference to the Pelasgian tribes which originally penetrated into Italy; but having adopted no hypothesis, and hit upon no general principle, he has left the origin and history of the Pelasgians as obscure as ever; nor has he even succeeded in disentangling that part of the question which relates to their settlement in Italy, whither they are said to have carried the language of Greece in its most ancient or Aeolic form. The boldness of speculation by which his disquisitions on other parts of his subject are characterized, is here altogether awanting. Instead of grappling at once with the difficulty, like Pinkerton, and thus imparting method and system to his investigations, he fritters away the whole question in detail; leaving no distinct impression on the mind, and disappointing the expectations which he had himself raised. The only leading ideas we have been able to detect are those which we have already mentioned. The important considerations of language and race enter not as elements into the investigation; and he at last concludes by reiterating the paradox with which he had commenced.

“The facility,” says he, “with which they were moulded into Greeks, is a characteristic of the Pelasgian tribes, and a main cause of the dissolution and extinction of the nation. It is natural to view it as resulting from the affinity between the two races, which yet were not on that account the less essentially different; and such I believe to have been the case: yet we may observe a magical power exercised by the Greek language and national character over foreign races that came in contact with them, even where no such affinity can be conceived. The inhabitants of Asia Minor hellenized themselves from the time of the Macedonian conquest, almost without any settlements amongst them of genuine Greeks; Antioch, though the common people spoke a barbarous language, became altogether a Greek city; and the entire transformation of the Syrians was averted only by their oriental inflexibility. Even the Albanians, who have settled as colonies in modern Greece, have adopted the Romaic by the side of their own language, and in several places have forgotten the latter. It was in this way only that the immortal Suli was Greek; and the noble Hydra itself, the destruction of which we shall perhaps have to deplore, is an Albanian settlement.”

This is, no doubt, very ingenious; but is it sound? To say nothing of the difficulty of conceiving the co-existence of an essential affinity with an essential difference, the cases here put are those of more refined nations in contact with such as are less so, and the consequent influence of the former upon the latter. But where is the evidence that the Greeks stood in this relation to the Pelasgians? Has it been shown by our author that the latter were really a different people from the Hellenes? Or, if so, which was the more ancient? Were there Greeks, properly so called, in Greece anterior to the arrival and settlement of the Pelasgians in that country? The latter have generally been supposed the most ancient inhabitants of the country; and it is certain that the name of Hellenes or Greeks is of later origin. The alleged facility with which the Pelasgian tribes were moulded into Greeks must therefore be explained on some principle different from that assumed by Niebuhr from inapplicable analogies. According to Pinkerton, this facility arose from the simple circumstance that the Pelasgians and Hellenes were in reality one and the same people. (a.) , [7:17:179]