THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

WHO WERE THE MAKERS ? 139
origin of the Attic race. It is best to let the historians speak
for themselves on this most important point.
First let us hear Herodotus " : His (Croesus') inquiries
pointed out to him two states as pre-eminent above the rest.
These were the Lacedemonians and the Athenians, the former
of Doric, the latter of Ionic blood. Indeed these two nations
had held from very early times the most distinguished place
in Greece, the one being a Pelasgic, the other a Hellenic
people the one never quitted its original seats, while the other
;
had been excessively migratory for ; during the reign of ]3eucalion,
Phthiotils was the country in which the Hellenes dwelt,
but under Dorus the son of Hellen they moved to the part
at the base of Ossa and Olympus, which is called Histiaeotis ;
forced to retire from that region by the Cadmeians, they settled
under the name of Macedni in the chain of Pindus. Hence
they once more moved and came to Dryopis : from Dryopis
having entered the Peloponnesus in this way they became
known as Dorians. What the language of the Pelasgi was I
cannot say with any certainty.
If however we may form a
conjecture from the tongue spoken by the Pelasgi of the ])resent
day,
those, for instance, who live at Creston above the Tyrrhenians
who formorly dwelt in the district named Thessaliotis,
and were neighbours of the people now called J)orians, or
those again who founded Placia and Scylace u])on the Hellespont,
who had ])teviously dwelt for some time with the
Athenians, or those, in shoit, of any other of the cities which
have dropped
tlie name, but art' in tact if
Pelasgian I say we
;
ai'e to foiiu a conjecture from any of these, we must pi-onounce
that the Pelasgi s])oke a barbarous language. If this were
really so. and the entire Pelasgic race spoke the same tongue,
the Athenians, who wei'e certainly Pelasgic, nuist ha\'e changed
tlieii'
language at the same time that- they passeil
into the
Hellenic bodv ;
foi- it is a certain tact- that the people of Creston
s{)eak a language unlike any of theii' neighboiiis, and the same
is tiMie ot' the Placians, while the language spoken by these two
])eoples is the same; which shows that they both retained the
idioms which they brought with them into the countries where
thev ai'e now set t led.
140 WHO WERE THE MAKERS?
The Hellenic race has never since its first origin changed
its speech. This at least seems evident to me. It was a branch
of the Pelasgic which separated from the main body, and at
first was scanty and of little power, but it gradually spread and
increased to a multitude of nations chiefly by the voluntary
entrance into its ranks of numerous tribes of barbarians. The
Pelasgi on the other hand were, I think, a barbaric race which
never greatly multiplied \"
There can be little doubt as regards the Pelasgic origin of
the Athenians.
Herodotus had resided at Athens and thus had
the means of knowing the native traditions. Thucydides is
very explicit respecting the autochthonous character of the
Attic population. Before referring to the early state of Hellas,
"
and mentioning the Pelasgians as important, he says
: Attica
at any rate having through the poverty of
the soil been for the
longest period free from factions was always inhabited by the
same people"''."
Unless then we are prepared to maintain that both Herodotus
and Thucydides are utterly untrustworthy, we must
believe that the population of Attica had never shifted, and
that its historical continuity was unbroken by either Achean
or Dorian occupation. Their statements get a singular confirmation
from the pottery found at Thoricus which presents nearly
every style from the most primitive hand-made monochrome
down to the fully developed Mycenean, and also from the tomb
at Menidi, in the dromos of which was found a complete
series of pottery fragments from Mycenean times down to the
Peloponnesian War. Such a series as was there found proves
that generation after generation the annual offerings had been
made at the toml) of the dead, and therefore there was no
change in the population of the sui'rounding
is thus no reason for believing that there was any breach in
the continuity of their local tradition. From this it follows
that we may rcgai-d
by
district. There
as reliable the Attic tradition embodied
Herodotus and Thucydides.
Once nu)re we find Honu-r in no wise conti-adicting, but
rather confirming the views set forth by
'
1. ;)() .IS (Itiiwlinson's trans.).
th(> latei- writers.
-
i. 2.