the sphere of history into that of religious fable. Leleges. But this solitary and ill-attested leAll authors agree that Danaus fled to Greece, gend, which was manifestly occasioned by the accompanied by a numerous family of daughters ancient rivalry of the Carian and Lelegian races, (fifty is the received poetical number), to escape cannot serve to prove the Egyptian origin of from the persecution of their suiters, the sons the latter people, which seems not to have been of his brother Ægyptus. This is an essential suspected by any other ancient authors. In part of the story, which cannot be severed from Attica we meet with reports of more than one the rest without the most arbitrary violence. Egyptian colony. The first, led by Cecrops, is The Danaids, according to Herodotus, founded said to have found Attica without a king, desothe temple at Lindus, and instructed the Pelas-lated by the deluge which befell it a century begian women at Argos in the mystic rites of fore, in the reign of Ogyges. If we may beDemeter. To them, too, was ascribed the dis-lieve some writers of the latest period of Greek covery of the springs or the wells which re- literature, Cecrops gave his own name to the lieved the natural aridity of the Argive soil. land, and on the Cecropian rock founded a new Before Herodotus, Eschylus had exhibited on city, which he called Athens, after the goddess the Attic stage the tragical fate of the sons of Athené, whom, with the Romans, we name Ægyptus, who had pursued the fugitives to Minerva. To him is ascribed the introduction Greece, and, after forcing them to the altar, not only of a new religion of pure and harmless were slain by their hands. A local legend re- rites, but even of the first element of civil socilated that Lerna, the lake or swamp near Argos, ety, the institution of marriage; whence it may had been the scene of the murder, and that the be reasonably inferred that the savage natives heads of the suiters were there buried, while learned from him all the arts necessary to civtheir bodies were deposited in a separate monu-ilized life. But, notwithstanding the confidence ment.* One of the main streams of Lerna de- with which this story has been repeated in modrived its name from Amymoné, one of the sis-ern times, the Egyptian origin of Cecrops is ters, to whom Neptune, softened by her beauty, had revealed the springs which had before disappeared at his bidding. This intimate connexion 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 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 towards 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. 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 If we could consent to swell the list of the of Attica. But some more distinct inarks of foreign settlers with the conjectures of modern Egyptian origin would be necessary to countercritics, we should not consider the arrival of vail the tacit dissent of the Greek authors, who Danaus as an insulated fact. We might have might have been expected to be best informed spoken of Inachus, who is called the first King on the subject. Nor is their silence to be exof Argos, and is said to have given his name to plained by the vanity of the Athenians, who its principal river: hence, in the mythical ge- were accustomed, indeed, to consider themnealogies, he is described as a son of Oceanus, selves as children of the Attic soil, but were not, the common parent of all rivers. Yet on this on that account, reluctant to believe that their ground it has sometimes been supposed that he land had been early visited by illustrious strantoo came to Greece across the sea. We as gers. We purposely abstain from insisting on little venture to rely on such inferences as to the result of mythological inquiries, which tend construe the fabled wanderings of Io, the daugh- to show that both Cecrops and Erechtheus are ter of Inachus, into a proof that, even before fictitious personages, and that they belong enthe time of Danaus, intercourse subsisted be-tirely to a homesprung Attic fable. Such attween Greece and Egypt. If, however, we tacks would be wasted on tales which. scarcely turn northward of the Isthmus, we find another present the semblance of an historical foundaEgyptian 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 Phoroneus, and gave his name to the Apollod., 11., 1, 5, 11. Pausanias (ií., 24, 2) inverts the story. tion.† * i., 29. the question as to an Egyptian colony in Attica does not It may, however, be proper to remind the reader that 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 bil 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 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 afterward became the citadel of Thebes, was a tradition which had certainly been current in Baotia long before the time of Herodotus, who not only confirms it by the weight of his own judgment-perplexity, an ingenious attempt has been made which is not here biased, as in the case of Da- to prove that the Cadmeans were a Cretan colnaus, by the Egyptian priesthood-but also by ony.* 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 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 worship; and the story of the Sphinx, whatever may have been its origin, may seem to point, if not to Phoenicia, at least towards the East. On the other hand, modern writers find, in the legends of Cadmus and his consort Harmonia, in their connexion with Samothrace, and with denden Kunst, p. 26, f., from the Attic religion and art, particularly from the names, offices, and mutual relations of Athené (Neitha), Hephaestus (Phthath), and their son Apollo (Cicero, Nat. De., iii., 22), and from the Egyptian physiognomy of Athene on the ancient 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. xcii., 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 Lacedemon. 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 (KEкporía), may be believed, and accounted for from the widespread power of Athens, without going back to the time of Cecrops; and Strabo's remark (1x., p. 407) that Cecrops ruled over Baotia was a natural inference from the probably well-founded tradition that it once con tained two towns, named Eleusis and Athens. *Cadmus was said to have dedicated a statue of Athene at Thebes, with the title of Onga; on which Pausanias (ix., 12, 2) observes that this name, which is Phoenician (compare Steph. Byz., Oykalat and Xva), contradicts the opinion of those who hold Cadmus to have been, not a Phonician, but an Egyptian. There is still another celebrated name which *Welcker, Ueber eine Kretische Colonie in Theben. ponnesian 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 northeastern 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 Egean. 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.t 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 said to have issued, tells of domestic revolutions, generally coinciding with the date of the supposed settlements in Greece, by which a portion of their inhabitants was driven into foreign lands. Egypt, after having been long oppressed by a hostile race, which founded a series of dynasties in a part at least of her territory, is said to have finally rid herself, by a convulsive effort, of these barbarous strangers, who were dispersed over the adjacent regions of Asia and Africa. If we admit the truth of these traditions, which appear to rest on good grounds, it seems scarcely possible to doubt that the movement occasioned by this shock was propagated to Greece; and it seems highly probable that some of these outcasts, separating themselves from their brethren, found means of embarking on the coasts of Egypt or Palestine, and wandered over the Egean until they reached the opposite shore, while others may have been led to the same quarter by a more circuitous road. Hence we are inclined not altogether to reject the testimony, or, rather, the opinion of an author, who, though undoubtedly much later than Hecatæus, the predecessor of Herodotus, whose name he bears, may have been delivering more than a mere conjecture of his own when he relates that the migrations of Danaus and Cadmus were occasioned by this Egyptian revolution.* If, indeed, any weight could be attached to an obscure report of the Hellenic dynasty among those of the shepherd kings, we might suppose that an intercourse between the two countries had been opened at a still earlier period.† At all events, an objection which has often been urged against the common story that the Egyptians in the earliest times were strangers to maritime expeditions, and shrank with abhorrence from the sea - loses all its force against this hypothesis. It is true that neither the Egyptians in the time of Herodotus, nor the Greeks before the Alexandrian period, viewed the migration of Danaus and Cadmus in this light. They considered Danaus as an Egyptian by birth, and Cadmus, in general, as a native of Phoenicia. This, however, if the fact was as here supposed, would be a very natural mistake; and with regard to Cadmus, we find that When, thus prepared to contemplate Greece there was an ancient controversy on the quesas a land, not secluded from the rest of the tion whether he came from Phoenicia or from world, but peculiarly open and inviting to for- Egypt. An author who wrote a little before eign settlers, we again consider the stories of our era, and who professes to have examined the various colonies said to have been planted the subject with great attention, relates that there by strangers from the East, we are struck Cadmus was a powerful chief among those by some coincidences which cannot have been Phoenicians who conquered Egypt, and estabthe result of design, and which, therefore, be-lished the seat of their empire at Thebes, and speak 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 See an essay on this subject in the Philological Museum, No. iv. Telchinia, Steph. Byz, Teλxis, Paus., ii., 5, 6, and i., 19, 1. Diod., v., 55. that it was from Egypt he set out to found a dynasty in the West, where he named the Boeotian Thebes, after the city which he had left. Cadmus was such a Phoenician, we need no Diod., Fr., xl. If + According to Goar's reading, a dynasty of Hellenic shepherds occurs in Syncellus, p. 114 (ed. Bonn). Paus., ix., 12, 2. Conon., 37. longer be startled by the inland position of his new capital, and shall have no occasion for the fanciful conjecture, that he chose it with a view to form a commercial communication between distant parts of the coast,* a destination of which we find not the slightest hint in the ancient legends of Thebes. jecture as to the influence they exerted on the Greek mythology. The name of the Phoenicians raises another question. The expedition of Cadinus manifestly represents the maritime adventures of his countrymen; but it leaves us in doubt whether the Phoenician settlements ascribed to It seems to be only in some such sense as his followers are to be referred to the shepherdsthat here explained, that it is possible to con- who were expelled from Egypt, or to the comceive Egyptian colonies to have been ever mercial people who, at a later period, covered planted in Greece: for the expedition of Sesos- the coasts of Africa and Spain with their colotris, even if admitted to be an historical event, nies. The foundation of Thebes might most can scarcely serve as a foundation for the story. probably be attributed to the former; but it We would not decide, indeed, whether, among must have been the mercantile spirit of Tyre, the earliest inhabitants of Greece, some of to- or Sidon, that was attracted by the mines of tally different race from these Phoenician fugi- Cyprus, Thasus, and Euboea. The precise tives may not have taken nearly the same date of the first opening of the intercourse becourse; but settlers of purely Egyptian blood, tween Phoenicia and Greece is wholly uncercrossing the Ægean, and founding maritime cit-tain; but we see no reason for doubting that it ies, appears to be inconsistent with everything existed several centuries before the time of we know of the national character. Here, how- Homer, and we are inclined to consider this as ever, a new question arises. It is in itself of the most powerful of all the external causes very little importance whether a handful of that promoted the progress of civilized life, and Egyptians or Phoenicians were or were not introduced new arts and knowledge in the islmingled with the ancient population of Greece. ands and shores of the Egean. It has been All that renders this inquiry interesting is the suspected, not without a great appearance of effect which the arrival of these foreigners is probability, that the Phoenicians are often desupposed to have produced on the state of soci- scribed in the legends of the Greek seas under ety in their new country. Herodotus represents different names. Thus the half-fabulous race the greater part of the religious notions and called the Telchines exhibits so many features practices of the Greeks, the objects and forms which remind us of the Phoenician character, of their worship, as derived from Egypt. When that it is difficult to resist the conviction that we consider that among the Greeks, as in most they are the same people, disguised by popular other nations, it was religion that called forth and poetical fictions. Cyprus seems to have their arts, their poetry, perhaps even their phi- been looked upon as their most ancient seat; losophy, it will be evident how many interesting but they are equally celebrated in the traditions questions depend on this; and as it is the de- of Crete and Rhodes; and Sicyon, as has been gree in which the religious and intellectual cul- observed, derived one of its names from them. ture of the Greeks was derived from foreign These stations exactly correspond to the course sources that constitutes the whole importance which the Phoenicians must be supposed to have of the controversy, so it is the point on which pursued, when they began their maritime adthe decision must finally hinge. But neither ventures in the Mediterranean, as the mythical the study of Greek mythology, nor the history attributes of the Telchines do to their habits of Greek art, has yet arrived at such a stage of and occupations. The Telchines were fabled maturity as to enable the historian to pronounce to be the sons of the sea, the guardians of Powith confidence on the rival hypotheses, one of seidon in his childhood; they were said to have which fetches from the East what the other re- forged his trident, and Saturn's sickle. In gards as the native growth of the Grecian soil. general, to them are ascribed the first labours The difficulty is much increased if we interpret of the smithy, the most ancient images of the the traditions about the Egyptian colonies in gods; and by a natural transition they came to that which appears to be their most probable be viewed as sorcerers, who could assume all sense. We know something about the religion kinds of shapes, could raise tempests, and and the arts of the Egyptians, and of the Pho- afflict the earth with barrenness: and they nicians on the coast of Syria. But as to the seem even to have retained a permanent place Phoenician conquerors of Egypt, we have no in- in the popular superstitions as a race of maliformation to ascertain the relation in which cious elves. It can scarcely be doubted that they stood to the natives, and how far they these legends imbody recollections of arts inwere qualified to be the bearers of all that He- troduced or refined by foreigners, who attractrodotus believed Egypt to have imparted to ed the admiration of the rude tribes which they Greece. The author from whom Diodorus visited. It may be questioned whether the drew his account of Danaus and Cadmus,† as- policy of the Phoenicians ever led them to aim cribed their expulsion to the resentment and at planting independent colonies in the islands alarm excited in the Egyptians by the profane- or on the continent of Greece; and whether ness of the strangers, who neglected their rites, they did not content themselves with establishand threatened the total subversion of the na-ing factories, which they abandoned when their tional religion. If there is any truth in this statement, they must have been very ill fitted to instruct the Pelasgians in the Egyptian mysteries, and a boundless field is opened for con attention was diverted to a different quarter. In their early expeditions, the objects of piracy and commerce appear to have been combined in the manner described by Homer and Herodotus. But it is highly probable that, wherever they came, they not only introduced the products of their own arts, but stimulated the in THE HELLENIC NATION. dustry and invention of the natives, explored the mineral and vegetable riches of the soil, and increased them by new plants and methods of cultivation. Undoubtedly, also, their sojourn, even where it was transient, was not barren of other fruits, some of which were perhaps rather noxious than useful. There are several parts of the Greek mythology which bear strong marks of a Phoenician origin; and as we know that the character of their own superstition was peculiarly impure and atrocious, it seems by no means incredible that many of the horrid rites which are described as prevailing at an early period in Greece, were derived from this source. Besides Egypt and Phoenicia, it is possible that the Phrygians may be entitled to some share in the honour of having contributed towards the cultivation of Greece. In the intricate legends of the Greek Archipelago we find names of fabulous beings, of a nature akin to the Telchines, and apparently standing in nearly the same relation to the Phrygians as the Telchines to the Phoenicians. Such are the Corybantes and the Idæan Dactyls, who are connected on the one hand with the arts, on the other with the worship, of Phrygia. It might even be a not untenable hypothesis to suppose that Pelops, if he was indeed a foreigner, belonged to the same stock, especially as we hear of Idæan Dactyls at Pisa. But perhaps it may not be necessary to go so far in order to explain the common story, without absolutely rejecting it. As the Pelasgians belonged no less to Asia than to Europe, so Pelops and his sister Niobe, who is the daughter of the Argive king Phoroneus as well as of the Lydian Tantalus (for it is idle to distinguish these mythical personages), may, perhaps, with equal truth, be considered as natives of either continent: and this appears to have been, in substance, Niebuhr's solution of the difficulty. We will not attempt to pierce farther into the night of ages: we will only suggest that some traditions of the tribes which first settled in Greece may have been retained and transmitted in an altered form, as accounts of subsequent expeditions and migrations; though what has been said seems sufficient to show that the received opinion as to the foreign colonists had an independent historical groundwork. A VERY slight acquaintance with the works He observes (Kleine Schriften, p. 370, note), "The When, dentally, but from the genius of the people, which constantly tended to imbody the spiritual, and to personify the indefinite. therefore, we are seeking, not for poetry, but for historical facts, we cannot but feel a great distrust of every such legend, and the more in proportion to the distance of the period to which it carries us back. On the other hand, it would be rash to pronounce that every legend which refers the origin and the name of a Greek tribe to an individual, is on that account incredible. Causes may certainly be imagined through which the name of a chief might sometimes be transferred to his people.* But still it will always be the safest rule to wi' hold our belief from such traditions when er they are not supported by independent, trustworthy evidence; and we shall have the stronger reason for rejecting them, the earlier the period to which they relate, and the more obscure the person whose name they record. This remark applies with full force to the heroes from whom "Of Hellen," Hesiod sang, "sprang the justicethe Greeks believed their whole nation and its main branches to have derived their origin. " dealing kings Dorus and Xuthus, and the warlike Eolus; of Eolus, Cretheus, and Athamas, and wily Sisyphus, Salmoneus the Unjust, and the proud Perieres." The opinion that Hellen was the founder of the Hellenic race was not merely spread by the poets, and received by the vulgar, but was adopted, apparently with full conviction, by grave historians, such as Herodotus and Thucydides. But, on such a subject, the authority of the best Greek writer is of very little weight. It is not too bold a surmise that, if no such person as Hellen had ever existed, his name would sooner or later have been invented; and there is nothing in the few actions ascribed to him to diminish our suspicions of his reality. But though we seem to be fully justified in considering the genealogy given by Hesiod as a fabrication, perhaps not much earlier than the poet's time, it does not follow that it ought to be discarded us utterly groundless. Such genealogies express an ancient, and a more or less authentic, opinion about national must be allowed to preponderate. Our convicrelations, which always deserves attention, and, tion that Hellen and his immediate progeny are where it is not opposed by stronger evidence, fictitious personages, need not prevent us from using the indications afforded by their pedigree in tracing the propagation of the main branches of the Hellenic race. The reputed founder of the nation is some-times called a son of Jupiter, but more frequently either a son or a brother of Deucalion.† When we consider the part which Deucalion fills in the Greek mythology, we perceive that these accounts differ very slightly in substance. Deucalion is celebrated in fable for the great new race which sprang up to replenish the desflood which happened in his time, and for the olated earth from the stones which he and his wife Pyrrha, by command of the Delphic oracle, threw behind them on Mount Parnassus. When, One may conceive that a land, or a town, might take epithet to the people. its name from a powerful chief, and afterward give it as an Hellen and Deucalion, sons of Prometheus and Clymelod., i., 7, 2, 7. ne, Schol., Pind., Ol. ix., 68. Hellen, son of Jupiter, Apol |