that their land had been early visited by illustrious strangers. We purposely abstain from insisting on the result of mythological inquiries, which tend to show that both Cecrops and Erechtheus are fictitious personages, and that they belong entirely to a homesprung Attic fable. Such attacks would be wasted on tales which scarcely present the semblance of a historical foundation.1

The opinion of a foreign settlement in Boeotia is undoubtedly supported by much better authority. That Cadmus led a Phoenician colony into the heart of the country, and founded a town called Cadmea, which afterwards became the citadel of Thebes, was a tradition which had certainly been current in Boeotia long before the time of Herodotus, who not only confirms it by the weight of his own judgment—which is not here biassed, as in the case of Danaus, by the Egyptian priesthoodbut also by some collateral evidence. He had ascertained, that one of the most celebrated Athenian families traced its origin to the companions of Cadmus : that another division of them had been left behind in the isle of Thera; and that his kinsman Thasus had given

1 It may however be proper to remind the reader, that the question as to an Egyptian colony in Attica does not depend upon the opinion which may be formed on the existence or the origin of Cecrops. Whatever may be thought on that point, arguments such as those which are urged with great ability by F. Thiersch, in his Epochen der bildenden Kunst, p. 26. f., from the Attic religion and art, particularly from the names, offices, and mutual relations of Atheré (Neitha), Hephæstus (Phthath), and their son Apollo (Cicero Nat. De. iii. 22.), and from the Egyptian physiognomy of Athené on the ancient Attic coins-such arguments will still be equally entitled to attention.-On the other hand, it is difficult to acquit the ingenious and eloquent author of a too willing credulity, when he attempts to trace the expedition of Cecrops, or of the colonists whom he represents, over the sea to Thrace, and thence to the southern extremity of Greece; and, for this purpose, not only accepts such an authority as Isidore (Or. xv. 1.) to prove that Cecrops built the city of Rhodes (which has been commonly believed, on the authority of Diodorus, to have been first founded, Ol. xciii. 1.), but even condescends to rake up out of Meursius (De Regg. Ath. i. 7.) the testimony of an Albert abbot of Stade, who, it seems, has recorded in his Chronicle that Cecrops built the temple at Delphi, and founded Lacedæmon. His two other citations (from Stephanus and Strabo) are certainly not so ludicrously weak, but they prove nothing. That there should have been a district in Thrace called Cecropis, as is asserted by Stephanus (Kexgoría), may be believed, and accounted for from the wide spread power of Athens, without going back to the time of Cecrops; and Strabo's remark (ix. p. 407.), that Cecrops ruled over Boeotia, was a natural inference from the probably well founded tradition, that it once contained two towns, named Eleusis and Athens.

his name to the island, where the Phoenicians opened the gold mines which were still worked in the days of the historian. These may indeed, so far as Cadmus is concerned, be considered as mere ramifications of the Theban legend, not more conclusive than the tradition that followers of Cadmus settled in Euboea. But they at least prove that Phoenicians had very early gained a footing on the islands and shores of Greece. Thebes boasted of having received the precious gift of letters from her Phoenician colonists; and Herodotus adopts this opinion after a diligent inquiry, which ought not to be wholly disregarded, because he was deceived by some monuments which were either forged or misinterpreted. The Oriental derivation of the name of Cadmus is indeed as uncertain as the original import of that of Phoenix, which Hellanicus gives to his father, but which was used by the Greeks as one of the proper names of their native heroes. Thebes likewise showed what were thought to be the traces of Phoenician worship1; and the story of the sphinx, whatever may have been its origin, may seem to point, if not to Phoenicia, at least toward the East. On the other hand, modern writers find, in the legends of Cadmus and his consort Harmonia, in their connection with Samothrace, and with the mysterious Cabiri, decisive marks of a Pelasgian origin; insist upon the inland position of Thebes as inconsistent with the ordinary character of a Phoenician settlement; and consider the epithet of the Tyrian Cadmus as a chronological error, which betrays the late rise of the story, the authors of which substituted Tyre for the elder Sidon. As if to increase our perplexity, an ingenious attempt has been made to prove that the Cadmeans were a Cretan colony.2

There is still another celebrated name which we must

1 Cadmus was said to have dedicated a statue of Athené at Thebes, with the title of Onga; on which Pausanias (ix. 12. 2.) observes, that this name, which is Phoenician (compare Steph. Byz. Oynaias and Xrà), contradicts the opinion of those who hold Cadmus to have been, not a Phoenician, but an Egyptian.

2 Welcker, Ueber eine Kretische Colonie in Theben.

add to this list, before we proceed to consider the subject in a different point of view. According to a tradition which appears to be sanctioned by the authority of Thucydides, Pelops passed over from Asia to Greece with treasures which, in a poor country, afforded him the means of founding a new dynasty. His descendants sat for three generations on the throne of Argos: their power was generally acknowledged throughout Greece; and in the historian's opinion, united the Grecian states in the expedition against Troy. The renown of their ancestor was transmitted to posterity by the name of the southern peninsula, called after him Peloponnesus, or the isle of Pelops. The region of Asia, from which Pelops came, is not uniformly described, any more than the motives of his migration. Most authors, however, fix his native seat in the Lydian town of Sipylus, where his father Tantalus was fabled to have reigned in more than mortal prosperity, till he abused the favour of the gods, and provoked them to destroy him. The poetical legends varied as to the marvellous causes through which the abode of Pelops was transferred from Sipylus to Pisa, where he won the daughter and the crown of the bloodthirsty tyrant Enomaus, as the prize of his victory in the chariot-race. The authors who, like Thucydides, saw nothing in the story but a political transaction, related that Pelops had been driven from his native land by an invasion of Ilus, king of Troy; and hence it has very naturally been inferred that, in leading the Greeks against Troy, Agamemnon was merely avenging the wrongs of his ancestor. On the other hand, it has been observed, that, far from giving any countenance to this hypothesis, Homer, though he records the genealogy by which the sceptre of Pelops was transmitted to Agamemnon, no where alludes to the Asiatic origin of the house. As little does he seem to have heard of the adventures of the Lydian stranger at Pisa. The zeal with which the Eleans maintained this part of the story, manifestly

Paus. ii, 22. 3.

2

2 By Kruse, Hellas, i. p. 485.

with a view to exalt the antiquity and the lustre of the Olympic games, over which they presided, raises a natural suspicion, that the hero's connection with the East may have been a fiction, occasioned by a like interest, and propagated by like arts. This distrust is confirmed by the religious form which the legend was finally made to assume, when it was combined with an Asiatic superstition, which found its way into Greece after the time of Homer. The seeming sanction of Thucydides loses almost all its weight, when we observe that he does not deliver his own judgment on the question, but merely adopts the opinion of the Peloponnesian antiquarians, which he found best adapted to his purpose of illustrating the progress of society in Greece.

There can scarcely be a more irksome or unprofitable labour, than that of balancing arguments of this nature, and watching the fluctuation of the scales, as a new conjecture is thrown in on either side. We turn with impatience from this ungrateful task, to make a few general remarks, which may perhaps assist the reader in appreciating the comparative value of these traditions. We must repeat, that none of these stories, considered by themselves, have any marks of truth sufficient to decide the conviction of a scrupulous inquirer; nor can their number be safely held to make up for their individual deficiency in weight. Yet there are other grounds which seem to justify the belief, that at least they cannot have been wholly destitute of historical foundation. Even if we had no such distinct accounts of particular persons and events, it would be scarcely possible to doubt that, at a period long prior to that represented by the Homeric poems, migrations must have taken place from various parts of the East to the shores of Greece. We have sufficient evidence, that in the earliest times Greece was agitated by frequent irruptions and revolutions, arising out of the flux and reflux of the nations which fought and wandered in the countries adjacent to its north-eastern borders. We have ample reason to believe, that during the same

period the western regions of Asia were not in a more settled state. Such movements appear to be indicated by the history of the Phrygians, who are said to have passed out of Europe into Asia Minor, which nevertheless was most probably their earlier seat; by the expedition of the Amazons, which left such deep traces in the legends of Attica, and the neighbouring countries; perhaps by that of the fabulous Memnon, which the Greek poets connected with the siege of Troy. It cannot surprise us, that, while Macedonia and Thrace were a highway, or a theatre of war, for flying or conquering tribes, other wanderers should have bent their course to Greece across the Ægean. Its islands appear from time immemorial to have been the steps by which Asia and Europe exchanged a part of their unsettled population. Thus, in the remotest antiquity, we find Carians occupying both sides of the Saronic gulf; and Sicyon derived one of its most ancient names from a people, who are described as among the earliest inhabitants of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete. 2

When, thus prepared to contemplate Greece as a land, not secluded from the rest of the world, but peculiarly open and inviting to foreign settlers, we again consider the stories of the various colonies said to have been planted there by strangers from the East, we are struck by some coincidences which cannot have been the result of design, and which therefore bespeak a favourable hearing. It is on the eastern side of Greece that, with the solitary and doubtful exception of Pelops, we find these colonies planted,—a restriction which the nature of the case indeed required, but which would not have been observed by religious fraud or patriotic vanity. While this appears an argument of some moment, when the question is viewed from the side of the West, it is met by another stronger and alike independent on the side of the East. The history of the countries from which these colonies or adventurers are

1 See an essay on this subject in the Philological Museum, No. IV. Telchinia, Steph. Byz. Taxis, Paus. ii. 5, 6., and ix. 19. 1. Diod. v. 55.