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CHAP. III

FOREIGN SETTLERS IN GREECE.

In a comparatively late period, that which followed the rise of a historical literature among the Greeks,—we find a belief generally prevalent, both in the people and among the learned, that in ages of very remote antiquity, before the name and dominion of the Pelasgians had given way to that of the Hellenic race, foreigners had been led by various causes from distant lands to the shores of Greece, and there had planted colonies, founded dynasties, built cities, and introduced useful arts and social institutions, before unknown to the ruder natives. The same belief has been almost universally adopted by the learned of modern times, many of whom, regarding the general fact as sufficiently established, have busied themselves in discovering fresh traces of such migrations, or in investigating the effects produced by them on the moral and intellectual character, the religious or political condition, of the Greeks. It required no little boldness to venture even to throw out a doubt as to the truth of an opinion sanctioned by such high authority, and by the prescription of such a long and undisputed possession of the public mind; and perhaps it might never have been questioned, if the inferences drawn from it had not provoked a jealous inquiry into the grounds on which it rests. When however this spirit was once awakened, it was perceived that the current stories of these ancient settlements afforded great room for reasonable distrust, not merely in the marvellous features they exhibit, but in the still more suspicious fact, that with the lapse of time their number seems to increase, and their details to be

more accurately known, and that the further we go back the less we hear of them, till, on consulting the Homeric poems, we lose all traces of their existence. We can here neither affect to disregard the controversies that are still agitated on this subject, and repeat the common traditions without warning the reader of their questionable character, nor can we discuss the arguments of either side. But as it seems possible, and even necessary, to take a middle course between the old and the new opinions, it will be proper to explain why we cannot embrace either with an unqualified assent.

A slight inspection of the Greek stories about the foreign settlers seems sufficient to show, that neither the authority on which they rest, nor their internal evidence, is such as to satisfy a cautious inquirer. We must here briefly notice their leading features. The principal colonies brought to Greece from the East are said to have been planted in Argolis, on the opposite side of the Saronic gulf, and in Boeotia. The Pelasgians were still masters of the plain of Argos, when Danaus, driven out of Egypt by domestic feuds, landed on the coast, was raised to the throne by the consent of the natives, and founded a town, afterwards the citadel of Argos, and known by the Pelasgian name Larissa. He is said to have given his name to the warlike Danai, once so celebrated, that Homer uses this as a general appellation for the Greeks, when that of Hellenes was still confined to a narrow range. The later Argives showed his tomb in their market-place, and many other monuments of his presence. The popular belief is confirmed by the testimony of Herodotus, who mentions the migration of Danaus without any distrust, and even learnt in Egypt the name of the city from which he came and the historian's evidence appears to be backed by an independent tradition, which he found existing at Rhodes, that Danaus had landed there on his passage, and founded a temple of Minerva at Lindus, to which, in the sixth century B. c., Amasis king of Egypt sent offerings in honour of its Egyptian origin. This is the

naked abstract of the tradition; and when so related, stripped of all its peculiar circumstances, it may seem perfectly credible, as well as amply attested. On the other hand, the popular legend exhibits other features, apparently original, and not to be separated from its substance, which are utterly incredible, and can scarcely be explained without transporting the whole narrative out of the sphere of history into that of religious fable. All authors agree that Danaus fled to Greece, accompanied by a numerous family of daughters (fifty is the received poetical number), to escape from the persecution of their suitors, the sons of his brother Ægyptus. This is an essential part of the story, which cannot be severed from the rest without the most arbitrary violence. The Danaids, according to Herodotus, founded the temple at Lindus, and instructed the Pelasgian women at Argos in the mystic rites of Demeter. To them too was ascribed the discovery of the springs, or the wells, which relieved the natural aridity of a part of the Argive soil. Before Herodotus, Eschylus had exhibited on the Attic stage the tragical fate of the sons of Ægyptus, who had pursued the fugitives to Greece, and, after forcing them to the altar, were slain by their hands. A local legend related that Lerna, the lake or swamp near Argos, had been the scene of the murder, and that the heads of the suitors were there buried, while their bodies were deposited in a separate monument.1 One of the main streams of Lerna derived its name from Amymoné, one of the sisters, to whom Neptune, softened by her beauty, had revealed the springs which had before disappeared at his bidding. This intimate connection between the popular legend and the peculiar character of the Argive soil, which exhibited a striking contrast between the upper part of the plain and the low grounds of Lerna, must be allowed to give some colour to the conjecture of the bolder critics, who believe the whole story of Danaus to have been of purely Argive origin, and to have sprung up out of these local 1 Apollod. ii. 1. 5. 11. Pausanias (ii. 24. 2.) inverts the story.

accidents, though all attempts hitherto made to explain its minuter features seem to have failed. The Argive colonies in the east of Asia Minor might be conceived to have contributed something toward the form which it finally assumed even before Egypt was thrown open to the Greeks. But the historian cannot decide between these contending views, and must resign himself to the uncertainty of the fact, unless it can be maintained by some stronger evidence, or more satisfactorily explained.

If we could consent to swell the list of the foreign settlers with the conjectures of modern critics, we should not consider the arrival of Danaus as an insulated fact. We might have spoken of Inachus, who is called the first king of Argos, and is said to have given his name to its principal river: hence, in the mythical genealogies, he is described as a son of Oceanus, the common parent of all rivers. Yet on this ground it has sometimes been supposed that he too came to Greece across the sea. We as little venture to

rely on such inferences, as to construe the fabled wanderings of Io, the daughter of Inachus, into a proof that, even before the time of Danaus, intercourse subsisted between Greece and Egypt. If, however, we turn northward of the Isthmus, we find another Egyptian prince at Megara, where, according to the tradition which Pausanias heard there, Lelex, having crossed over from Egypt, founded the dynasty which succeeded that of Car, the son of Phoroñeus, and gave his name to the Leleges. But this solitary and illattested legend, which was manifestly occasioned by the ancient rivalry of the Carian and Lelegian races, cannot serve to prove the Egyptian origin of the latter people, which seems not to have been suspected by any other ancient authors. In Attica we meet with reports of more than one Egyptian colony. The first, led by Cecrops, is said to have found Attica without a king, desolated by the deluge which befel it, a century before, in the reign of Ogyges. If we may believe some writers of the latest period of Greek literature, Cecrops

gave his own name to the land, and on the Cecropian rock founded a new city, which he called Athens, after the goddess Athené, whom, with the Romans, we name Minerva. To him is ascribed the introduction not only of a new religion, of pure and harmless rites, but even of the first element of civil society, the institution of marriage; whence it may be reasonably inferred, that the savage natives learned from him all the arts necessary to civilised life. But, notwithstanding the confidence with which this story has been repeated in modern times, the Egyptian origin of Cecrops is extremely doubtful. It is refuted by the silence of the elder Greek poets and historians; and even in the period when it became current, is contradicted by several voices, which describe Cecrops as a native of the Attic soil: and the undisguised anxiety of the Egyptians to claim the founder of Athens for their countryman, could excite the distrust even of a writer so credulous and uncritical as Diodorus. Not content with Cecrops, they pretended to have sent out Erechtheus with a supply of corn for the relief of their Attic kinsmen, who rewarded his munificence with the crown; he in return completed his work of beneficence, by founding the mysteries of Eleusis on the model of those which were celebrated in Egypt in honour of Isis. A third Egyptian colony was said to have been led to Attica by Peteus, only one generation before the Trojan war. The arguments of the Egyptians seem to have been as weak as their assertions were bold. The least absurd was that which they derived from the Oriental character of the primitive political institutions of Attica. But some more distinct marks of Egyptian origin would be necessary to countervail the tacit dissent of the Greek authors who might have been expected to be best informed on the subject. Nor is their silence to be explained by the vanity of the Athenians, who were accustomed indeed to consider themselves as children of the Attic soil, but were not on that account reluctant to believe

1 I. 29.