John Linton Myres

“ PELASGIANS, a name applied by Greek writers to a prehistoric people whose traces were believed to exist in Greek lands. If the statements of ancient authorities are marshalled in order of their date it will be seen that certain beliefs cannot be traced back beyond the age of this or that author. ”

“ The social and political structure of the Dorian states of Peloponnese presupposes likewise a conquest of an older highly civilized population by small bands of comparatively barbarous raiders. Sparta in particular remained, even after the reforms of Lycurgus, and on into historic times, simply the isolated camp of a compact army of occupation, of some 5000 families, bearing traces still of the fusion of several bands of invaders, and maintained as an exclusive political aristocracy of professional soldiers by the labour of a whole population of agricultural and industrial serfs. ”

“ New Paphos became the administrative capital of the whole island in Ptolemaic and Roman days, as well as the head of one of the four Roman districts; it was also a flourishing commercial city in the time of Strabo, and famous for its oil, and for “diamonds” of medicinal power. There was a festal procession thence annually to the ancient temple. In A.D. 960 it was attacked and destroyed by the Saracens. The site shows a Roman theatre, amphitheatre, temple and other ruins, with part of the city wall, and the moles of the Roman harbour, with a ruined Greek cathedral and other medieval buildings. ”

“ CITIUM (Gr. Kition) , the principal Phoenician city in Cyprus, situated at the north end of modern Larnaca, on the bay of the same name on the S.E. coast of the island. Converging currents from E. and W. meet and pass seawards off Cape Kiti a few miles south, and greatly facilitated ancient trade. ”

“ Since his time the anthropological researches of Broca, Thurnam and Davis, Huxley, Busk, Beddoe, Virchow, Tubino and others have proved the existence in Europe, from Neolithic times, of a race, small of stature, with long or oval skulls, and accustomed to bury their dead in tombs. Their remains have been found in Belgium and France, in Britain, Germany and Denmark, as well as in Spain; and they bear a close resemblance to a type which is common among the Basques as well as all over the Iberian peninsula. ”

“ Ephorus, relying on Hesiodic tradition of an aboriginal Pelasgian type in Arcadia, elaborated a theory of the Pelasgians as a warrior people spreading (like “Aryans”) from a “Pelasgian home,” and annexing and colonizing all the parts of Greece where earlier writers had found allusions to them, from Dodona to Crete and the Troad, and even as far as Italy, where again their settlements had been recognized as early as the time of Hellanicus, in close connexion once more with “Tyrrhenians.” ”

“ Most non-Dorian Greeks, in fact, seem to have accepted much as Dorian which was in fact only Spartan: this was particularly the case in the political, ethical and aesthetic controversies of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. Much, however, which was common (in art, for example) to Olympia, Argolis and Aegina, and might thus have been regarded as Dorian, was conspicuously absent from the culture of Sparta. ”

“ Two other passages (Iliad, ii 681–684, xvi. 233–235) apply the epithet “Pelasgic” to a district called Argos about Mt Othrys in south Thessaly, and to Zeus of Dodona. But in neither case are actual Pelasgians mentioned, the Thessalian Argos is the specific home of Hellenes and Achaeans, and Dodona is inhabited by Perrhaebians and Aenianes (Iliad, ii. 750) who are nowhere described as Pelasgian. It looks therefore as if “Pelasgian” were here used connotatively, to mean either “formerly occupied by Pelasgian” or simply “of immemorial age.” ”

“ M. d’Arbois de Jubainville, for example (Les Premiers habitants de l’Europe, Paris, 1877) , maintained that besides possessing Spain, Gaul, Italy and the British Isles, “Iberian” peoples penetrated into the Balkan peninsula, and occupied a part of northern Africa, Corsica and Sardinia; and it is now generally accepted that a race with fairly uniform characteristics was at one time in possession of the south of France (or at least of Aquitania) , the whole of Spain from the Pyrenees to the straits, the Canary Islands (the Guanches) a part of northern Africa and Corsica. ”

“ Who were the Dorian invaders, and in what relation did they stand to the rest of the population of Greece? (3) How far do the Dorian states, or their characteristics, represent the descendants, or the culture, of the original invaders?
The Homeric poems (12th–10th centuries) know of Dorians only in Crete, with the obscure epithet τριχάϊκες, and no hint of their origin. All those parts of Peloponnese and the islands which in historic times were “Dorian” are ruled by recently established dynasties of “Achaean” chiefs; the home of the Asiatic Dorians is simply “Caria” ”

“ On the death of Arymbas, Alexander the brother of Olympias, was put on the throne by Philip and married his daughter Cleopatra. Alexander assumed the new title of king of Epirus, and raised the reputation of his country abroad. ”

“ There was a large Jewish colony in Ptolemaic and early Roman times, and a Christian community founded by Paul and Barnabas in A.D. 45–46. Barnabas was himself a Cypriote, and his reputed tomb, discovered in A.D. 477, is still shown, a little inland, near the monastery of Ai Barnába. St Epiphanius was archbishop A.D. 367–402. The Greek city was destroyed by the Arabs under the Caliph Moawiya in 647, and does not seem to have revived. In later times the site was plundered for the building of Famagusta ”

“ Not until the 4th century B.C. does any other writer place them anywhere west of the Aegean. But the confusion of the Leleges with the Carians (immigrant conquerors akin to Lydians and Mysians, and probably to Phrygians) which first appears in a Cretan legend (quoted by Herodotus, but repudiated, as he says, by the Carians themselves) and is repeated by Callisthenes, Apollodorus and other later writers, led easily to the suggestion of Callisthenes, that Leleges joined the Carians in their (half legendary) raids on the coasts of Greece. ”

“ But those common characters are not to be pressed too far. The northern Doris, for example, spoke Aeolic, while Elis, Phocis, and many non-Dorian districts of north-west Greece spoke dialects akin to Doric. Many Dorian states had additional “non-Dorian tribes”; Sparta, which claimed to be of pure and typical Dorian origin, maintained institutions and a mode of life which were without parallel in Peloponnese, in the Parnassian and in the Asiatic Doris, and were partially reflected in Crete only. ”

“ History.—The kings, or rather chieftains, of the Molossians, who ultimately extended their power over all Epirus, claimed to be descended from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who, according to legend, settled in the country after the sack of Troy, and transmitted his kingdom to Molossus, his son by Andromache. The early history of the dynasty is very obscure ”

“ Greece in which tradition makes the pre-Dorian population “Ionic,” and in which the political structure shows that the conquered were less completely subjugated, exhibit the Ionic -ει and -ου; (4) that as we go north, similar though more barbaric dialects extend far up the western side of central-northern Greece, and survive also locally in the highlands of south Thessaly; (5) that east of the watershed Aeolic has prevailed over the area which has legends of a Boeotian and Thessalian migration, and replaces Doric in the northern Doris. ”

“ The country is all mountainous, especially towards the east, where the great rivers of north-western Greece—Achelous, Arachthus and Aous—rise in Mt Lacmon, the back-bone of the Pindus chain. In ancient times Epirus did not produce corn sufficient for the wants of its inhabitants ”

“ Pelasgus is earth born, as in Asius, and rules a kingdom stretching from Argos to Dodona and the Strymon; but in Prometheus 879, the “Pelasgian” land simply means Argos. Sophocles takes the same view (Inachus, fr. 256) and for the first time introduces the word “Tyrrhenian” into the story, apparently as synonymous with Pelasgian. ”

“ It certainly maintained strong Phoenician sympathies, for it was its refusal to join the phil-Hellene league of Onesilas of Salamis which provoked the revolt of Cyprus from Persia in 500–494 B.C. (Herod. v. 105) , when Amathus was besieged unsuccessfully and avenged itself by the capture and execution of Onesilas. The phil-Hellene Evagoras of Salamis was similarly opposed by Amathus about 385–380 B.C. in conjunction with Citium and Soli (Diod. Sic. xiv. 98) ; and even after Alexander the city resisted annexation, and was bound over to give hostages to Seleucus (Diod. Sic. xix. 62) . ”

“ Admetus was succeeded, about 429 B.C., by his son or grandson, Tharymbas or Arymbas I., who being placed by a decree of the people under the guardianship of Sabylinthus, chief of the Atintanes, was educated at Athens, and at a later date introduced a higher civilization among his subjects. ”

“ Dorus’ share of the inheritance of Hellen lay in central Greece, north of the Corinthian Gulf, between Xuthus in north Peloponnese and Aeolus in Thessaly. His descendants, either under Dorus or under a later king Aegimius, occupied Histiaeotis, a district of northern Thessaly, and afterwards conquered from the Dryopes the head-waters of the Boeotian Cephissus between Mount Parnassus and Mount Oeta. This became “Doris” par excellence. ”

“ SOLI, a Greek city on the north coast of Cyprus, lying at Soliais in the metalliferous country round Karavortasi near Lefka, on the south side of Mórphou Bay. Its kingdom was bounded by the territories of Marion, Paphos, Tamassus and Lapathus. ”

“ Rev. xv. 228) , though he regards the Ionian peoples as of European origin, thinks that they may have got their name from some part of the Asiatic coast. Ionian culture and art, though little known in their earlier phases, derive their inspiration on the one side from those of the old Aegean (Minoan) civilization, on the other from the Oriental (mainly Assyrian) models which penetrated to the coast through the Hittite civilization of Asia Minor. ”

“ Its area coincides also approximately with that of the previous Achaean conquests; and if the Dorians were as backward culturally as traditions and archaeology suggest, it is not improbable that they soon adopted the language of the conquered, as the Norman conquerors did in England. As evidence of an intrusion of northerly folk, however, the distribution of dialects remains important. ”

“ In historic times it was applied to the inhabitants of (1) Attica, where some believed the Ionians to have originated; (2) parts of Euboea; (3) the Cycladic islands, except Melos and Thera; (4) a section of the west coast of Asia Minor, from the gulf of Smyrna to that of Iasus (see Ionia) ; (5) colonies from any of the foregoing, notably in Thrace, Propontis and Pontus in the west, and in Egypt (Naucratis, Daphnae) ; some authorities have found traces of an ancient Ionian population in (6) north-eastern Peloponnese. ”

“ Gr. ii. 34) , and by the time of Strabo it was the common Greek name for the Spanish peninsula. Iberians thus meant sometimes the population of the peninsula in general and sometimes, it would appear, the peoples of some definite race (γένος) which formed one element in that population. Of the tribal distribution of this race, of its linguistic, social and political characteristics, and of the history of its relation to the other peoples of Spain, we have only the most general, fragmentary and contradictory accounts. ”

“ Survival of fair hair and complexion and light eyes among the upper classes in Thebes and some other localities shows that the blonde type of mankind which is characteristic of north-western Europe had already penetrated into Greek lands before classical times ”

“ Their ethnic affinities are not known, and our knowledge of their history is comparatively slight. It is almost impossible to make any statement in regard to them which will meet with general agreement. At the same time, the general lines of Iberian controversy are clear enough The principal sources of information about the Iberians are (1) historical, (2) numismatic, (3) linguistic, (4) anthropological.
1. Historical.—The name seems to have been applied by the earlier Greek navigators to the peoples who inhabited the eastern coast of Spain ”

“ Num. xxiv. 24; Is. xxiii. 1, 12; Jer. ii. 10; Ezek. ↑ Dan. xi. 30; I Macc. i. 1; viii. 5. ↑ Schrader, “Die Sargonstele des Berliner Museums,” in Abh. d. k. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. (1881) ; Zur Geogr. d. assyr. ”

“ The types show late Greek and perhaps also late Punic influence, but approximate later to Roman models. The commonest reverse type, a charging horseman, reappears on the Roman coins of Bilbilis, Osca, Segobriga and other places. Another common type is one man leading two horses or brandishing a sword or a bow. ”

“ Berl. Akad., 1861, p. 114) makes the Leleges an aboriginal people akin to Albanians and Illyrians; K. W. Deimling, Die Leleger (Leipzig, 1862) , starts them in south-west Asia Minor, and brings them thence to Greece (practically the Greek view) ; G. F. Unger, “Hellas in Thessalien,” in Philologus, Suppl. ii. (1863) , makes them Phoenician, and derives their name from λαλάζειν (cf. the names βάρβαρος, Wälsche) . E. Curtius (History of Greece, i.) distinguished a “Lelegian” phase of nascent Aegean culture. Most later writers follow Deimling. ”

“ Two small sanctuaries, with terra-cotta votive offerings of Graeco-Phoenician age, lie not far off, but the great shrine of Adonis and Aphrodite has not been identified (M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, i. ch.1) . ”