In this case, we are again supplied with an alternative.
- 1. The population may have been one—just as that of Germany is one.
- 2. The population may have fallen in several—nay, numerous divisions—so that the so-called races may have been one, two, three, four, or even more.
Dealing with these questions, we first ask what are the reasons for supposing the population—whether single or subdivided—of Asia to have been peculiar, i.e. different from that of the frontier areas—Georgia, Thrace, Armenia, Mesopotamia and Syria?
This is answered at once by the evidence of the Lycian Inscriptions, which prove the Lycian, at least, to have been distinct from all or any of the tongues enumerated.
The following extracts, however, from Herodotus carry us farther:—
“The Lycians were originally out of Crete; since, in the old times, it was the Barbarians who held the whole of Crete. When, however, there was a difference in Crete, in respect to the kingdom, between the sons of Europa, Minos and Sarpedon, and when Minos got the best in the disturbance, he (Minos) expelled both Sarpedon himself and his faction; and these, on their expulsion, went to that part of Asia which is the Milyadic land. For that country which the Lycians now inhabit was in the old times Milyas; and the Milyæ were then called Solymi. For a time Sarpedon ruled over them. They called themselves by the name which they brought with them; and even now, the Lycians are called by the nations that dwell around them, Termilæ. But when Lycus, the son of Pandion, driven away from Athens, and like Sarpedon, by his brother (Ægeus), came to the Termilæ under Sarpedon, they, thence, in the course of time, were called, after the name of Lycus, Lycians. The usages are partly Cretan, partly Carian. One point, however, they have peculiar to themselves, and one in which they agree with no other men. They name themselves after their mothers, and not from their fathers: so that if any one be asked by another who he is, he will designate himself as the son of his mother, and number up [his mother’s] mothers. Again, if a free woman marry a slave, the children are deemed free; whereas, if a man be even in the first rank of citizens, and take either a strange wife or a concubine, the children are dishonoured.”
Whilst Asia Minor was being conquered for Persia, under the reign of Cyrus, by Harpagus, the Carians made no great display of valour; with the exception of the citizens of Pedasus. These gave Harpagus considerable trouble; but, in time, were vanquished. Not so the Lycians.—“The Lycians, as Harpagus marched his army towards the Xanthian plain, retreated before him by degrees, and fighting few against many, showed noble deeds: but being worsted and driven back upon the town, they collected within the citadel their wives, and children, and goods, and servants. They then set light to the citadel to burn it down. This being done, they took a solemn oath, and making a sally died to a man, sword in hand. But of those Lycians who now called themselves Xanthians, the majority are, except eighty hearths, strangers (ἐπήλυδες). These eighty hearths (families) were then away from the country. And so they escaped. Thus it was that Harpagus took Xanthus. In like manner he took Caunus. For the Caunians resemble the Lycians in most things.”
And now we have a second fact, the following, viz.—that what the Lycians were the Caunians were also.
1. The Caunians.—According to the special evidence of Herodotus, the Caunians had two peculiar customs—one, to make no distinction between age and sex at feasts, but to drink and junket promiscuously—the other, to show their contempt of all strange foreign gods by marching in armour to the Calyndian mountains, and beating the air with spears, in order to expel them from the boundaries of the Caunian land. Still the Caunians were Lycian.
Were any other nations thus Lycian? Caunian? Lyco-Caunian? or Cauno-Lycian? since the particular designation is unimportant.