h. The recognition of Xuthus, the father of Ion, an eponymus strange to Hellenic Greece, as one of the six sons of Æolus, in the Sicilian genealogies, genealogies which are evidently of independent origin.—“Xuthus was king over the Leontine country which, even now, is called Xuthia; Agathyrnus, of the Agathyrnian country, who built the city called after him, Agathyrnus.”—Diod. Sic. v. 8.
The foregoing facts are unimportant and unsatisfactory if taken by themselves. Neither do they constitute the main argument in favour of the Italian origin of the Greeks. That lies in the necessity of effecting a geographical continuity between the Greek and Latin languages, and the inordinate difficulty of doing so by means of an extension of either of the areas northwards.
The weightiest objection to it is the following. If the southern Italians were so closely allied to the Greeks as the present doctrine makes them, how came the later colonists not to discover the affinity? Surely the settlers at Croton, Sybaris, Thurii, and the towns of Sicily, would not have failed to find out that they had cast their lot amongst cousins and kinsmen of their own stock, if such had actually been the case. They would have found out that the populations with which they came in contact spoke Greek—possibly with solecisms—but still Greek. I reply to this by stating that, if, in (say) the reign of Edward the Confessor, the English descendants of the Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Britain in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries had colonized the coasts of their mother country, they would not, unless they had hit upon a few exceptional localities, have found out, from the evidence of language or manners, that they had revisited the land of their fathers. The language had changed, and the population had been mixed and displaced. The Franks had conquered the tribes originally akin to the Saxons. Now that which the Franks did with the Saxons of Germany, the Lucanians and Bruttians seem to have done with the original Greeks of Italy. Such is the doctrine; such the chief objection to it; and such the answer.
Another arises from the following words:—κὑβιττον, λἑπορις, πατἱνη, κἁτινος, μοἱτον, γἑλυ, and νἑποδες. They are glosses from the Greek writers of Sicily. They are not Greek. They are Latin—cubitus, lepus, patina, catinus, mutuum, gelu, nepotes. I admit this to be weighty. Nevertheless, as the Sicilian dialects are considered to connect the Greek with the Latin, their presence is not conclusive. Besides this, the Sikeli were, probably, more Italian than the Sikani.
There were Epirote (Skipetar) elements in Southern Italy; since several names were common to both sides of the Ionian Sea—Chaones, Molossi, Acheron, Pandosia.
There were Pelasgians (whatever the Pelasgians may have been) also; as is to be inferred from the mention of the slaves of the colonists being so called.
The name by which the south Italian stock, the parent stock of the Hellenes, is best denoted is uncertain. The adjective Œnotrian, from the Œnotri, is suggested.
It is wholly unnecessary to assume the existence of a new stock for the population of ancient Sicily. The south Italians seem to have extended themselves to the island, and when we first find them there, we also find fresh evidence of their Greek character, as has already been shown in the geographical names of the Sikanian area.
At the same time they must have fallen into two or more well-marked varieties; varieties which are easily accounted for. There were the earliest occupants of the island, and there were recent immigrants from Italy, differing from each other as the present Danes of Iceland do from the native Icelanders. For in this way I interpret the difference between the Sik-eli and the Sik-ani, not doubting that both come from the same root; although the authority of Thucydides is against this view.
Thucydides’s account is as follows. In the western part of the island were the Sikani, from the river Sikanus, driven thence by the Iberians. Then came the Sikeli, driven from Italy by the Opiki. Thirdly, there were the Elymi of Eryx and Egesta, who were originally Trojans, but who escaped to Sicily, and settled themselves on the Sikanian frontier, having built the cities of Eryx and Egesta. A few Phocians (also from Troy) joined them, having first gone over to Libya. The Phœnicians held certain settlements on the southern coast; Motye, Soloeis, and Panormus. Lastly, came the Sikeliôts, or Greeks of Sicily, whose colonies were as follows—