A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

Vi
PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.
country which received its portion of the human race. But be this
as it may, it is quite clear, from a variety of circumstances, that
Thrace, and indeed all the countries to the south of the Danube, were
originally peopled from Asia Minor.* Adelung,"!- indeed, supposes
that the latter country was originally inhabited by people of the Sem-
itic branch, who were afterwards supplanted in the principal and west-
ern division of tlie country by emigrating colonies of Thracians; but
although several tribes of the Semitic family, such as the Cilicians, Cap-
padocians, and Lydians, who are supposed to have been of Semitic ori-
gin, lived in Asia Minor, there seems no sufficient grounds for an opinion,
which, besides its inherent improbability, is contrary to history.
In process of time the descendants of the races which had penetrated
into Europe through tlic Caucasus, and by the Bosphorus and Hellespont,
converged upon the Danube, whence they spread themselves over the
neighbouring countries. Pressed by the mtiux of population from the
north, or desirous of conquest, several tribes of the Tliracian race
abandoned their possessions in Europe at an early period, and cross-
ed over into Lesser Asia in quest of new settlements. These tribes
took possession of the northern and western tracts of that country under
the denomination of Phrygians, Bithynians, and Mysians.J But not-
withstanding this reflux of population, the Thracians in Europe still
continued a great and powerful nation, and according to Herodotus,
they were the most numerous of ail nations, next to the Indians,
and would have been invincible had they been united under one chief
or head. Of the Thracian race, the people known by the primary or
generic denomination of Geta?, formed a considerable branch. In
Europe the dominions of the Thracians lay between the Euxine and the
Adriatic, and were bordered on the south by the territories of the Pel-
asgi, the first inhabitants of Greece. The lUyrians also were another
branch of the same stem.
' From Thrace Greece was first peopled by the Pelasgi, a tribe of
Thracian origin, who gave the name of Pelasgia to all Greece. To the
Pelasgians, so called from Pelasgus, a fabulous king of Arcadia, and a
mixture of other early settlers, the Greek nation is probably indebted
for its origin ; § for the isolated passage from Herodotus, respecting an
alleged ditterence between the languages of the Pelasgi of Kreston, and ol
Placia and Scylace on the Hellespont, and that of the Hellenes, does not,
in the opinion of the learned, warrant the conclusion, tliat the Hellenic
people were a different race, a conclusion which would not only be con-
trary to what the father of history elsewhere states, but also opposed to
the authority of other ancient writers. The Greek nation was chiefly dis-
tinguished into three races, namely, the iEoiians, the lonians, and the
Dorians, each of which spoke a diflerent dialect, of which the iEolic hiis
• Mitford's History of Gietce, vol. i. p. S2, 251. f Mitlnidatus, vol. ii. p. R4i,
t Herodotus, Strabo. * fllilfunl, HisU of Greece, vol. i. p. SO.