IV. SOURCES OF GREEK ERROR. "No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of Truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below: so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride." LORD BACON. Essay on Truth." But if the very basis of our geographical knowledge, as derived from the Greeks, is totally unsound in its nomenclature, not less deceptive is the history in connection with it. Thus, Strabo, one of the most judicious writers. upon Greek geography, in presenting us with the antiquarian origin of the Abantes, very gravely tells us that, having settled in Phocis, and built the city of Abæ, they afterwards removed thence to Euboea, and in consequence were called "Abantes." The geographer, however, does not state whence they derived the original appellation "Abæ." Yet these are the clans that distinguished themselves pre-eminently on the plains of Troy, as daring and hardy warriors. Justice shall be done to their birth-place. Homer has nobly sung their fame, and I feel proud, as the historical exponent of a bard,' too often gratuitously set down as non-historical, to declare the lineage of these magnificent chieftains of an ancient race. The Abantes, were the splendid Rajpoot tribes of Abanti, or Ougein, in the province of Malwa. 1 Strab. 444. 2 See Col. Tod's Account of the Rajpoot Bardai, in his "Rajasthan." 3 Written "Avanti," the "v" and "b" are pronounced indifferently in India, according to provincial use. Again: Asius, one of the early poets of Greece, about b.C. 700, makes King Pelasgus, the ancestor of the Pelasgi, spring from the black earth. "Godlike Pelasgus, on the mountain chase, The sable Earth gave forth—her mortal race.1 Now here is a statement in perfect keeping with what, first tradition, and next, the splendid heresy of the Greek language, made perfectly consistent with the national vaunt of an autochthonous origin. But how stands the plain historical fact in connection with this? Do we desire truth, and not theory? Then, it will be understood that it was Gaya, a sacred city of Pelasa, that brought forth King Pelasgus, and not Gaia the earth. This is history in Sanscrit; but fable in Greek. Again: Æschylus makes King Pelasgus the son of Palæcthon; and this he undoubtedly was; yet was he not the son of Palæ-cthon, or "Old Land" of the Greeks. Pelasgus was a son of the Pali-cthon, or "the land of Pali ;" so called from Pali, the language of Palasa, Magadha, or Behar. 3 1 Αντίθεον δὲ Πελασγὸν ἐν ὑψικόμοισιν ὄρεσιν 2 Supp. v. 248. Γαία μέλαιν' ἀνεδοκεν, ἵνα θνητῶν γένος εἴη. It is not a ASIUS. (Ap. Paus. viii. 1, 4.) 3 Niebuhr has very naturally fallen into this error of Æschylus. Æschylus heard and wrote as a Greek, not as a Pelasgian. (See Niebuhr's Rome, vol. i., p. 29, note.) 4 "In Ceylon, according to Captain Mahony, and in Ava, according to Mr. Buchanan, the appellations of Pali or Bali, and Magadhi, are considered as synonymous, at least when applied to their sacred language; which I consider from that circumstance, to be the old dialect of Magadha, which is called also, the kingdom of Pali by the Chinese. In India, the name for Magadha is unknown, but its origin may be traced through the Puranas."—Col. Wilford's Ind. Geog., As. Res., vol. ix., p. 33. Since the above was written, most valuable and authentic works connected with the Pali-Bud'histic literature, have been brought to light and translated. See particularly the "Mahawanso," translated by the Hon. G. Turnour. SOURCES OF GREEK ERROR. 35 little ludicrous to mark the Hellenic explanation of names, even the most historical, of which the Greeks have made a mythology as ridiculous as that to whose origin, mythopœic propensities and invention are attributed. And yet, while the genealogies of the gods and the tale of the Centaurs are received as fabulous and legendary, the Greek tales of the origin of their tribes are read as historical truth. Still, neither are the former inventions, nor the latter facts, but both equally rest upon a disguised historical basis; a truth to be amply demonstated in the course of this work. Thus, we are told1 that the Locrians derived the name "OzoL," from the fetid springs (Ozo, to smell), near the hill of Taphius on the coast, beneath which it was reported that the Centaur Nessus had been entombed. A different version of this term was given to the Ozolœ who inhabited the eastern part of Etolia. They were so named from the ill-odour (ozee) of their bodies and clothing; the latter, the raw hides of wild beasts. Another effort was made to amend this ethnological title. The inhabitants of this country, it appears, were not called Ozolæ from Ozo, but from a certain Ozos (branch or sprout,) which was miraculously produced, miraculously planted, and miraculously grew up into an immense vine. As, however, there was an indelicacy connected with the origin of this vine-stock, the inhabitants became highly displeased with the appellation, and changed their names. to Œtolians! When the reader distinctly sees, as he will, in the geographical division of this work, that these Oz-olœ were ОOKSH-WALE, or "Oxus People," he will understand the amount of credit to which Greek antiquarians are entitled. And this process of endeavouring to account for difficulties found in Greek authors,—themselves the mistaken interpreters of Sanscrit words by homogeneous Greek sounds,—this very process, introduced 1 Strabo, 426. by the Greeks, do the literati of Europe still continue! What marvel that the darkness is of such a nature as to tempt the flight of the mythopoeic theory. I would here introduce the sound observations of a writer, who has shown himself to be possessed of just views relative to the philology of the Greeks, and their application of that science to practical purposes. "The study of foreign tongues," he observes, "never, either as an object of curiosity, or as an aid to historical investigation, formed with them a distinct class of pursuit. This is a peculiarity of Greek literary history, which will be required to be noticed more in detail hereafter. The Pelasgians were considered by the ancients as standing to the Hellenes somewhat in the same relation as the Anglo-Saxons to ourselves. The Anglo-Saxon is a dead language, and a knowledge of it, consequently, is of little practical utility in the present day. Yet its study continues to be zealously prosecuted as well on account of its philological as its antiquarian interest. With the Greeks, the case was different. The allusions in the extant classics to the Pelasgian dialects, spoken or extinct, are so scanty or so vague, as to prove that their affinities had never suggested matter for serious scrutiny." Now, bearing in mind the analogy of the Anglo-Saxon and the Pelasgian,—the English and the Greek,—an exact analogy,—what would be thought of the sanity or competence of that Englishman who should gravely derive, from the English language, the AngloSaxon names of rivers, towns, and mountains in this island? I name these things, with a feeling of regret that etymological trifling should be a substitute for historical truth, and with an earnest hope that a brighter dawn is yet in store for the earliest history of Hellas. The same ignorance of primitive Grecian society, which marked Greek writers, from Homer downwards, is shown. 1 Col. Mure, Hist. of Greek Literature, vol. i., p. 50. GREEK PHILOLOGY. 37 in the treatment and etymological manufacture of the Cyclops; a being for whom the flexible language and lively genius of the Greeks soon bad a fitting tale prepared. How satisfactorily did the "circular-eye" of this strange being take its place in the middle of his huge forehead! The amplification of the monster, and his wondrous story, then became easy. In Homer,1 indeed, the Cyclopean race is spoken of in a more natural and simple manner than in subsequent writers, yet still in such a way as to demonstrate at once the total loss of the old signification of the term, and to give to the actual era of the Homeric writings the most recent date that can be attributed to them. But if it be entertaining to view the process by which the Greeks first misunderstood a Pelasgic term, then fitted out a tale upon their own translation of what they imagined to be Greek, it may not be less instructive to contemplate the results of the rationalising process of the modern school; results, however, far more acceptable to the inquiring mind, than a total negation of any historical foundation for what is termed mythology and legend. In the one instance, valuable results are often obtained; in the other, a total hybernation of the intellect is fostered. A celebrated German writer informs us that the Cyclopes have reference to the circular buildings of the Pelasgi, which terminated in a point like a bee-hive, where there was a circular aperture; from the circular form of these buildings (kúkλos), and the round opening at the top resembling an eye (v), this race of men may be considered to have derived their names. By another ingenious author,3 we are told that the early Greek pictured to himself the Olympian god in the act of hurling his bolts; that the image thus presented to his mind was that of the god closing one of his eyes for the 1 Odyssey, vi. 5; ix. 106, 240. 2 Kruse's Hellas, i. 440. 3 Ast. Grund. der Phil. E |