It is agreeable to probability to place the Pelasgi next to these people, according to the words of Homer and other histories. Homer says,
“Hippothous led the tribes of the Pelasgi, who throw the spear, who inhabited the fertile Larisa; their leaders were Hippothous and Pylæus, a son of Mars, both sons of Lethus the Pelasgian, son of Teutamis.”[1519]
He here represents the numbers of Pelasgi as considerable, for he does not speak of them as a tribe, but “tribes,” and specifies the place of their settlement, Larisa. There are many places of the name of Larisa, but we must understand some one of those near the Troad, and perhaps we might not be wrong in supposing it to be that near Cyme; for of three places of the name of Larisa, that near Hamaxitus is quite in sight of Ilium and very near it, at the distance of about 200 stadia, so that Hippothous could not be said consistently with probability to fall, in the contest about Patroclus,
“far from Larisa,”[1520]
at least from this Larisa, but rather from the Larisa near Cyme, for there are about 1000 stadia between them. The third Larisa is a village in the Ephesian district in the plain of the Caÿster; which, it is said, was formerly a city containing a temple of Apollo Larisæus, and situated nearer to Mount Tmolus than to Ephesus. It is distant from Ephesus 180 stadia, so that it might be placed rather under the government of the Mæonians. The Ephesians, having afterwards acquired more power, deprived the Mæonians, whom we now call Lydians, of a large part of their territory; but not even this, but the other rather, would be the Larisa of the Pelasgi. For we have no strong evidence that the Larisa in the plain of Caÿster was in existence at that time, nor even of the existence of Ephesus. But all the Æolian history, relating to a period a little subsequent to the Trojan times, proves the existence of the Larisa near Cyme.
3. It is said that the people who set out from Phricium, a Locrian mountain above Thermopylæ, settled on the spot where Cyme is now situated; and finding the Pelasgi, who had been great sufferers in the Trojan war, yet still in possession of Larisa, distant about 70 stadia from Cyme, erected as a defence against them what is at present called Neon-teichos, (or the New Wall,) 30 stadia from Larisa. They took Larisa,[1521] founded Cyme, and transferred to it as settlers the surviving Pelasgi. Cyme is called Cyme Phriconis from the Locrian mountain, and Larisa also (Phriconis): it is now deserted.
That the Pelasgi were a great nation history, it is said, furnishes other evidence. For Menecrates of Elæa, in his work on the foundation of cities, says, that the whole of the present Ionian coast, beginning from Mycale and the neighbouring islands, were formerly inhabited by Pelasgi. But the Lesbians say, that they were commanded by Pylæus, who is called by the poet the chief of the Pelasgi, and that it was from him that the mountain in their country had the name of Pylæum.
The Chians also say, that the Pelasgi from Thessaly were their founders. The Pelasgi, however, were a nation disposed to wander, ready to remove from settlement to settlement, and experienced both a great increase and a sudden diminution of strength and numbers, particularly at the time of the Æolian and Ionian migrations to Asia.
4. Something peculiar took place among the Larisæans in the plain of Caÿster, in the Phriconis, and in Thessaly. All of them occupied a country, the soil of which has been accumulated by rivers, by the Caÿster,[1522] the Hermus,[1523] and the Peneus.[1524]