12. The language of the ancient Grecian race (which, together with its religion, forms the most ancient record of its history) must, if we may judge from the varieties of dialect and from a comparison with the Latin language, have been very perfect in its structure, and rich and expressive in its flexions and formations; though much of this was polished off by the Greeks of later ages: in early times, distinctness and precision in marking the primitive words and the inflections being more attended to than facility of utterance. Wherever the ancient forms had been preserved, they sounded foreign and uncouth to more modern ears; and the language of later times was greatly softened, in comparison with the Latin. But the peculiarities of the pure Doric dialect are (wherever they were not owing to a faithful preservation of archaic forms) actual deviations from the original dialect, and consequently they do not occur in Latin; they bear, if I may be allowed the expression, a northern character. The use of the article, which did not exist in the Latin language or in that of epic poetry, can be ascribed to no other [pg 018] cause than to immigrations of new tribes, and especially to that of the Dorians. Its introduction must, as in the Romance languages, be almost considered as the sign of a great revolution. The peculiarities of the Doric dialect must have existed before the period of the migrations; since thus only can it be explained how peculiar forms of the Doric dialect were common to Crete, Argos, and Sparta: the same is also true of the dialects which are generally considered as subdivisions of the Æolic; the only reason for the resemblance of the language of Lesbos to that of Bœotia being, that Bœotians migrated at that period to Lesbos. The peculiarities of the Ionic dialect may, on the other hand, be viewed in great part as deviations caused by the genial climate of Asia;[56] for the language of the Attic race, to which the Ionians were most nearly related, could hardly have differed so widely from that of the colonies of Athens, if the latter had not been greatly changed.[57]
Book I. History Of The Doric Race, From The Earliest Times To The End Of The Peloponnesian War.
Chapter I.
§ 1. Earliest Settlement of the Dorians in Thessaly. § 2. Description of the Vale of Tempe. § 3. Of the Passes of Olympus. § 4. And of Hestiæotis. § 5. The Perrhæbians. § 6. The Lapithæ. § 7. Limits of the Territory in Thessaly occupied by the Dorians. § 8. Contents of the Epic Poem Ægimius. § 9. Doric Migration from Thessaly to Crete. § 10. Relation of the Dorians to the Macedonians.
1. “From early times the Dorians and Ionians were the chief races of the Grecian nation; the latter of Pelasgic, the former of Hellenic origin; the latter an aboriginal people, the former a people much addicted to wandering. For the former, when under the dominion of Deucalion, dwelt in Phthiotis; and in the time of Dorus, the son of Hellen, they inhabited the country at the foot of Ossa and Olympus, which was called Hestiæotis. Afterwards, however, being driven from Hestiæotis by the Cadmeans, they dwelt under mount Pindus, and were called the Macednian nation. From thence they again migrated to Dryopis; and having passed from Dryopis into Peloponnesus, they were called the Doric race.”[58]
This connected account cannot be considered as derived immediately from ancient tradition; but can only be viewed as an attempt of the father of history to arrange and reconcile various legends. Nor indeed is it difficult to discover and examine the steps of the argument which led him to this conclusion. It is clear that he considers the genealogy of Hellen,[59] viz. that he was the son of Deucalion and father of Dorus, Xuthus, and Æolus, as an historical fact; although it is at least more recent than the poems of Homer, where the name of Hellenes does not include these races, but is the appellation of a single nation in Phthiotis: and that his object is to establish the position, that the Dorians were the genuine Hellenes. Now since Deucalion, the father of Hellen and grandfather of Dorus, was supposed to have dwelt in Phthiotis,[60] Herodotus represents the Dorians as also coming from Phthiotis; although the people meant in these legends by the names of Deucalion and Hellen were the real ancient Hellenes, the Myrmidons,[61] who were afterwards under the dominion of the Æacidæ,[62] and are entirely distinct from the Dorians. Dorus was next represented as succeeding Hellen as king of the same people; and then, since the name of Dorus was [pg 021] in these fabulous accounts connected with Hestiæotis, he infers that the Dorians went thither from Phthiotis. But the modern mythologist must of course abandon this whole deduction as unfounded; and he can only adopt the datum from which the historian started; namely, that, according to ancient tradition, “Dorus dwelt at the foot of Olympus and Ossa.” Here then the real fact presents itself to us. The chain of Olympus, the divider of nations, whose lofty summit is still called by the inhabitants the celestial mansion, is the place in which the Dorians first appear in the history of Greece.
2. The mountain-valley, which in later times bore the name of Thessaly, was bounded to the west by Pindus, to the south by Othrys, to the east by Pelion and Ossa, and to the north by Olympus, under which name the ancient writers, for example Herodotus, also include the chain which in after-times (probably from an Illyrian word)[63] was called the Cambunian mount. The course of the Peneus is so situated as to divide the open plain to the south, the ancient Pelasgic Argos, from the mountainous district to the north; towards the north-east it breaks through the mountain-ridge, dividing Ossa from Olympus; here too the river creeps under the loftier heights of mount Olympus;[64] so that the path passes along the side of the more rugged and precipitous Ossa. This ravine was known by the ancient generic name of Tempea or Tempe (the cut, from τέμνω), and has been often poetically described, but seldom sufficiently considered as bearing upon the history of Greece.[65]