CHAP. III. Traces of the Pho nicians in the Greek is the point on which the decision must finally hinge.1 But neither the study of Greek mythology, nor the history of Greek art, has yet arrived at such a stage of maturity, as to enable the historian to pronounce with confidence on the rival hypotheses, one of which fetches from the East what the other regards as the native growth of the Grecian soil. The difficulty is much increased, if we interpret the traditions about the Egyptian colonies in that which appears to be their most probable sense. We know something about the religion and the arts of the Egyptians, and of the Phoenicians on the coast of Syria. But as to the Phoenician conquerors of Egypt, we have no information to ascertain the relation in which they stood to the natives, and how far they were qualified to be the bearers of all that Herodotus believed Egypt to have imparted to Greece. The author from whom Diodorus drew his account of Danaus and Cadmus2, ascribed their expulsion to the resentment and alarm excited in the Egyptians by the profaneness of the strangers, who neglected their rites, and threatened the total subversion of the national 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 conjecture as to the influence they exerted on the Greek mythology. The name of the Phoenicians raises another question. The expedition of Cadmus manifestly represents the maritime adventures of his countrymen; under other but it leaves us in doubt, whether the Phoenician settlements ascribed to his followers are to be referred legends names. 1 Mueller, Orchom. p. 113., observes that the Cyclopean walls of the cities in the plain of Argos are opposed to the story of Danaus, which would lead us to expect to find monuments of Egyptian architecture there. Heffter, p. 56., endeavours to meet this argument by the remark, that the builders of those walls, who were later than Danaus, were foreigners, from Lycia. But if Egyptian arts had been introduced at Argos, it could have been no longer necessary to fetch architects who built in so rude a style from abroad. 2 Fr. of book xl. . to the Shepherds who were expelled from Egypt, or to the commercial people who, at a later period, covered the coasts of Africa and Spain with their colonies. The foundation of Thebes might, most probably, be attributed to the former: but it must have been the mercantile spirit of Tyre, or Sidon, that was attracted by the mines of Cyprus, Thasus, and Eubœa. The precise date of the first opening of the intercourse between Phoenicia and Greece is wholly uncertain; but we see no reason for doubting that it existed several centuries before the time of Homer, and we are inclined to consider this as the most powerful of all the external causes that promoted the progress of civilised life, and introduced new arts and knowledge in the islands and shores of the Ægean. It has been suspected, not without a great appearance of probability, that the Phoenicians are often described in the legends of the Greek seas under different names. Thus the half-fabulous race called the Telchines exhibits so many features which remind us of the Phoenician character, that it is difficult to resist the conviction that they are the same people, disguised by popular and poetical fictions.1 Cyprus seems to have been looked upon as their most ancient seat; but they are equally celebrated in the traditions of Crete and Rhodes; and Sicyon, as has been observed, derived one of its names from them. These stations exactly correspond to the course which the Phoenicians must be supposed to have pursued, when they began their maritime adventures in the Mediterranean, as the mythical attributes of the Telchines do to their habits and occupations. The Telchines were fabled to be the sons of the sea, the guardians of Poseidon in his childhood: they were said to have forged his trident, and Saturn's sickle. In general, to them are ascribed the first labours of the smithy, 1 See Hoeck, Kreta, i. pp. 345-356. СНАР. III. CHAP. III. the most ancient images of the gods; and by a natural transition they came to be viewed as sorcerers, who could assume all kinds of shapes, could raise tempests, and afflict the earth with barrenness: and they seem even to have retained a permanent place in the popular superstitions as a race of malicious elves. It can scarcely be doubted that these legends embody recollections of arts introduced or refined by foreigners, who attracted the admiration of the rude tribes which they visited. It may be questioned whether the policy of the Phoenicians ever led them to aim at planting independent colonies in the islands or on the continent of Greece; and whether they did not content themselves with establishing factories, which they abandoned when their 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 Phoenicians they came, they not only introduced the products of on Greece. their own arts, but stimulated the industry 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 Influence of the perhaps rather noxious than useful. There are several parts of the Greek mythology which bear strong marks of a Phoenician origin1; 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. Beside Egypt and Phoenicia, it is possible that the This is admitted even by Mueller, History of the Literature of Greece, c. ii. §4., with regard to Aphrodite; and it seems equally difficult to deny it as to Hercules. CHAP. III. tion of the Phrygians may be entitled to some share in the honour of having contributed toward 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 un- Explanatenable hypothesis, to suppose that Pelops, if he was legend of indeed a foreigner, belonged to the same stock; Pelops. especially as we hear of Idean 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.1 We will not attempt to pierce further 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. 1 He observes (Kleine Schriften, p. 370. note), “The migration of Pelops signifies nothing more than the affinity of the peoples on both sides of the Ægean." CHAP. CHAPTER IV. of the Greeks to tion. THE HELLENIC NATION. Tendency of the Greeks to Personification. — Caution required in treating the Heroic Genealogies. - The Hellenes in Epi The rus. Tribes of which the Nation was composed. Tendency A VERY slight acquaintance with the works of the authors from whom we have received our accounts of personifica the earliest ages of Grecian history, will be sufficient to lead any attentive reader to observe the extreme proneness of the Greeks to create fictitious persons for the purpose of explaining names, the real origin of which was lost in remote antiquity. Almost every nation, tribe, city, mountain, sea, river, and spring, |