Pelasgianism in Crete.
Of these the Achæans and Dorians are evidently Greek. We are now examining at large the title of the Pelasgi to the same character. With respect to the Cydones, we may draw an inference from the facts, that they lived (Od. iii. 292), on a Cretan river Iardanus, and that this was also the name of a river of Peloponnesus (Il. vii. 133). I should even hold that this stream, which is not identified, was most probably in Arcadia: first, because in the contest with the Hellic tribes of Pylos, the Arcadians as Pelasgians would be on the defensive, and would therefore fight on their own ground: secondly, because the battle was on the ὠκύροος Κελάδων. These words are most suitable to some mountain feeder of the Iardanus, with its precipitate descent, rather than to the usually more peaceful course of a river near the sea, especially near the sea coast of sandy Pylus, which reached to the Alpheus[291]. This supposition respecting the Celadon will also best account for what otherwise seems singular; namely, that the battle was at once on the Celadon, and also about the Iardanus (Ἰαρδάνου ἀμφὶ ῥεέθρα[292]). Again, the battle was between Arcadians and Pylians, and therefore, from the relative situation of the territories, was probably on some Arcadian feeder of the Alpheus, lying far inland. Now if Iardanus was an Arcadian river, and if the Arcadians were Pelasgi, it leads to a presumption that the Cydonians of Crete, who dwelt upon an Iardanus, were Pelasgian also.
There remain the Ἐτεοκρῆτες, apparently so called, to distinguish them as indigenous from all the other four nations, who were ἐπήλυδες, or immigrant. This is curious, because it refers us elsewhere for the origin of the Pelasgi. It is the only case in which we hear of any thing anterior to them, upon the soils which they occupied. Lastly, Crete lay between Greece and Cyprus, and Cyprus is clearly indicated in the Odyssey as on the route to Egypt[293].
But we hear also of Rhadamanthus as the brother of Minos, of Deucalion as his son, and of Ariadne as his daughter[294]. And the notices of these personages in Homer all tend to magnify our conception of his power and his connections.
Theseus, who is glorified by Nestor as a first rate hero[295], and described as a most famous child of the gods[296], whom both Homer, and also the later legends connect with Attica, marries Ariadne, who dies on her way to Athens[297]. The marriages of Homer were generally contracted among much nearer neighbours. This more distant connection cannot, I think, but be taken as indicating the extended relations connected with the sovereignty of Minos and his exalted position.
Traditions of Deucalion.
The genealogy of Idomeneus runs thus[298]; ‘Jupiter begot Minos, ruler of Crete. Minos begot a distinguished son, Deucalion. Deucalion begot me, a ruler over numerous subjects in broad Crete.’
Here it is to be remarked,
1. That while Minos and Idomeneus, the first and third generations, are described as ruling in Crete, Deucalion of the second is not so described.
2. That Idomeneus is nowhere described as having succeeded to the throne of his grandfather Minos, but only as being a ruler in Crete: and that, as we have seen, from the qualified conjunction of Meriones with him in the command, perhaps also from the limited range of the Cretan towns in the Catalogue, there arises a positive presumption that he had succeeded only to a portion of the ancient preeminence and power of his ancestor.