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ORIGINAL SOUBCES OP CULTURE. 45If no accounts had been preserved of colonies of those nations, emigrating to Greece, they would of themselves haveseemed highly probable. But we are so far from beingwithout accounts of this kind, that they haw been muchmore accurately preserved,than the remoteness of timeand the condition of the nation would have authorizedus to The expect. memory of them could not becomeextinct^ for their consequences were too lasting;and ifevents which for so long a time were preserved by nothingbut tradition, are differently related and sometimes highlycoloured, the critical student of history can hardly make anyvalid objections againsttheir general truth, if the narrativesare interpretedas the mythical language of extreme antiquity requires.The first of the foreign colonies, whichare mentioned as having arrived by sea, is that which, underthe direction of Cecrops, came from Sais in Lower Egyptito Attica ; fifty years later, Danaus led his colony fromChemmis in Upper Egypt, to Argos in the Peloponnesus.These emigrations took placeat the period in which, according to the most probable chronological reckoning, thegreat revolutions in Egypt were effected by the expulsion ofthe Arabian nomades ;and the kingdom was restored to itsliberty and independence; a period, in which emigrationswere at least not improbable. The colony which, as Herodotus relates, was brought by Cadmus, together with thealphabet, from Phoenicia to Greece, 2needs no further proof,when we learn how extensive were the colonies of that nathat we hear of but one suchtion ;in Greece ;we are only astonished,since the common course of things would ratherlead us to expect a continued immigration,such as took1This issupposed to have taken place about 1550 years before Christ.The immigration by Cecrops from Egypt, is questioned by the investigationsof C. 0. Miillcr, in the History of the Hellenic Tribes and Cities, i. p. 1 06,^ etc.,inasmuch as isTheopompus the earliest writer who mentions it. But Theopompusmust have had before him an earlier authority. That a belief in arelationship with the Egyptians is as old as the age of Solon, appears to mecertain, from the narration of Plato in Timaeus (Op. ix. p. 293, etc., ed. Bin.).Further inquiries respecting the influence of Egypt on Greece, on whichopinions are now so divided, will probably lead to the conclusion, that thetruih is in the middle. Want of land, excessive population, and revolutions,which are the chief causes of emigration,existed no where in the old world inmore force than in Egypt, and particularly at the time assigned for theemigration of Cecrops, during the dominion and after the expulsionof theHycsos from Lower Egypt.2 Herod, v. 58.