ISSUES ABOUT PELASGIAN

ISSUES ABOUT PELASGIAN

From Greek mythology and legends: Uranus (sky) and Gea (earth) had as sons the Titans, some of them were Cronus (time) and Rhea/Cybeles; brother and daughter had Zeus as son. Zeus' boyhood was in Crete. Zeus had as son Minos [Minoans], the future foreign Cretan king. Atlas (grandson of Uranus and Gea) had a daughter named Taygete; she and Zeus had Lacedaemon as son, and this had Danae as grand-niece. Zeus and Danae had Perseus as son, the founder of Mycenas. Ocean (sea) son was Inachus (the first man in Argolis and who brought there humankind, the inventer of fire), he had as niece Niobe. Zeus and Niobe had as son Pelasgus [Pelasgians], this one had Lycaon as son, Lycaon had Macednus [Macedonians], Oenotrus [the Oenotrians were Epirotes] and Nyctimus as sons, and the latter had Hellen [Greeks] and Idomeneus [Cretans] as grandsons. Hellen's son was Aeolus [Aeolians], this Aeolus had two sons: Athamas [Epirotes] and Sisiphus, the last married with Merope, daughter of Atlas, and they had Bellophoron as grandson (the Greek hero that migrated to Lycia, slained Lycians, and conquered the Solymi).

IDEA: If we see Zeus as a mythic hero who spook an indoeuropean language, and his wives or lovers as the representants of the native populations, such myths would record ancient conquers, languages, and ethnic relations. Otherwise it is known that the classics liked much to fabulate and embellish... (much more even the "dark" espisodes of their own heroes as were plunderings, rapes, impity, etc.).

Pausanias, Description of Greece book 8: The Arcadians say that Pelasgus was the first inhabitant of this land [Peloponnesus].

Herodotus, The Histories: "These races, Ionian and Dorian, were the foremost in ancient time, the first a Pelasgian and the second a Hellenic people. The Pelasgian race has never yet left its home; the Hellenic has wandered often and far. For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans [Phoenicians], it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian." (the localities mentioned in the story of the migration into the Peloponnese are all in northern Greece).

IDEA: That would confirm an European and Indoeuropean origin of the original Phoenicians. It could be that the Pelasgians represented also Greek nations before -1200 ?

What language the Pelasgians spoke I cannot say definitely. But if one may judge by those that still remain of the Pelasgians who live above the Tyrrheni in the city of Creston--who were once neighbors of the people now called Dorians, and at that time inhabited the country which now is called Thessalian-- and of the Pelasgians who inhabited Placia and Scylace on the Hellespont, who came to live among the Athenians, and by other towns too which were once Pelasgian and afterwards took a different name: if, as I said, one may judge by these, the Pelasgians spoke a language which was not Greek. If, then, all the Pelasgian stock spoke so, then the Attic nation, being of Pelasgian blood, must have changed its language too at the time when it became part of the Hellenes. For the people of Creston and Placia have a language of their own in common, which is not the language of their neighbors; and it is plain that they still preserve the manner of speech which they brought with them in their migration into the places where they live.

IDEA: Again a possible reference that Attic Greek was Pelasgian, and then that the Pelasgian language might have been identified with the Greek of Linear B, a dialectal Greek rather primitive.

Even a "deciphered" Linear B text is often largely or completely unintelligible because the Mycenaean Greek words have no cognates in later Greek. The decipherers argue that such Mycenaean words dropped out of the Greek language at some point between -1200 and -650. In a number of instances where such later Greek cognates do exist, the Mycenaean Greek predecessor clearly means something rather different, an indication, or so the skeptics argue, that the language of Linear B is being forced to become Greek.

IDEA: That point that for a classic Greek the Linear B Greek would be almost unintelligible, so considering these "Greeks" as barbars: no-Greeks.

Strabo: "As for the Pelsagi, almost all agree, in the first place, that some ancient tribe of that name spread throughout the whole of Greece, and particularly among the Aeolians of Thessaly. Again, Ephorus says that he is of the opinion that, since they were originally Arcadians, they chose a military life, and that, in converting many peoples to the same mode of life, they imparted their name to all, and thus acquired great glory, not only among the Greeks, but also among all other people whithersoever they had chanced to come [then were not considerated to be Greeks]. For example, they prove to have been colonisers of Crete, as Homer says; at any rate, Odysseus says to Penelope: 'But one tongue with others is mixed; there dwell Achaeans, there Cretans of the old stock, proud of heart, there Cydonians, and Dorians too, of waving plumes, and goodly Pelasgians.' And Thessaly is called 'the Pelasgian Argos' (I mean that part of it which lies between the outlets of the Peneius River and Thermopylae as far as the mountainous country of Pindus), on account of the fact that the Pelasgi extended their rule over these regions. Further, the Dodonaean Zeus is by the poet himself named 'Pelasgian': 'O Lord Zeus, Dodonaean, Pelasgian.' And many have called also the tribes of Epirus 'Pelasgian' because in their opinion the Pelasgi extended their rule even as far as that. And, further, because many of the heroes were called 'Pelasgi' by name, the people of later times have, from those heroes, applied the name to many of the tribes; for example, they have called the island of Lesbos 'Pelasgia' and Homer has called 'Pelasgi' the people that were neighbours to those Cilicians [here a clear indication of ethnic kindship among Lycians and Cilicians which spook Anatolian IE languages] who lived in the Troad: 'And Hippothous led the tribes of spear-fighting Pelasgi, those Pelasgi who inhabited deep-soiled Larissa.' But Ephorus' authority for the statement that this race originated in Arcadia was Hesiod; for Hesiod says: 'And sons were born of god-like Lycaon, who, on a time, was begotten by Pelasgus.' Again, Aeschylus, in his Suppliants, or else his Danaan Women, says that the race of the Pelasgi originated in that Argos which is round about Mycenae. And the Peloponnesus too, according to Ephorus, was called 'Pelasgia'. And Euripides too, in his Archelaus, says: 'Danaus, the father of fifty daughters, on coming into Argos, took up his abode in the city of Inachus, and throughout Greece he laid down a law that all people hitherto named Pelasgians were to be called Danaans'. And again, Anticleides says that they were the first to settle the regions round about Lemnos and Imbros, and indeed that some of these sailed away to Italy with Tyrrhenus the son of Atys. And the compilers of the histories of The Land of Atthis give accounts of the Pelasgi, believing that the Pelasgi were in fact at Athens too, although the Pelasgi were by the Attic people called 'Pelargi', the compilers add, because they were wanderers and, like birds, resorted to those places whither chance led them."

IDEA: more tracks as to consider the Pelasgians as the bearers of the Lineal B Greek language, that Pelasgus was the father of Lycaon (from him the Greek Lycaones), and that the Pelasgians were in fact Archadians, the original Greek settlers in the Peloponnesus, which conserved much of their original Greek dialect; or the fact that the semi-Greek semi-Bartbarian Epirotes were refered to be Pelasgians.

The Ionians furnished a hundred ships, and were equipped like Hellenes. Now the Ionians, so long time as they dwelt in the Peloponnese, in the land which is now called Achaia, and before the time when Danaos and Xuthos came to the Peloponnese, were called, as the Hellenes report, Pelasgians of the Coast-land, and then Ionians after Ion the son of Xuthos. The islanders furnished seventeen ships, and were armed like Hellenes, this also being a Pelasgian race, though afterwards it came to be called Ionian by the same rule as the Ionians of the twelve cities, who came from Athens. The Aiolians supplied sixty ships; and these were equipped like Hellenes and used to be called Pelasgians in the old time, as the Hellenes report. (Herodotus).

IDEA: It seems quite clear, the unique populations that dwelt in Greece and in the coast of Western Turkey and adjacent islands were the Greek-related nation of the Achaeans, since the Hellenes (Dorians) occupied the lands of these and no others.

As for the Hellenic race, it has used ever the same language, as I clearly perceive, since it first took its rise; but since the time when it parted off feeble at first from the Pelasgian race [so was part of the Pelasgian stock to him], setting forth from a small beginning it has increased to that great number of races which we see, and chiefly because many Barbarian races have been added to it besides. Moreover it is true, as I think, of the Pelasgian race also [that they became Doric-speakers], that so far as it remained Barbarian [not integrated in the Hellenic nation] it never made any great increase. (Herodotus).

IDEA: That is logic since the Pelasgians, being or not of a Greek phylia, became Hellenic excepting some exceptional cases.

The Sinti, a Thracian tribe, inhabited the island Lemnos; and from this fact Homer calls them Sinties; also the island was first settled by the Thracians who were called Sinties according to Strabo.

Diodorus Siculus, Library: The Arcadians alone of the Greeks had never acknowledged Philip's leadership nor did they now recognize that of Alexander. (3.48)

Herodotus, The Histories: But the Hellenic stock, it seems clear to me, has always had the same language since its beginning; yet being, when separated from the Pelasgians, few in number, they have grown from a small beginning to comprise a multitude of nations, chiefly because the Pelasgians and many other foreign peoples united themselves with them.

IDEA: Such account would confirm the filiation between Pelasgian and Greek, and also would point to a Epiro-Macedonian connexion.

The acropolis of the Argives is said to have been founded by Danaüs, who is reputed to have surpassed so much those who reigned in this region before him that, according to Euripides "throughout Greece he laid down a law that all people hitherto named Pelasgians should be called Danaans." (Strabo). And, thirdly, Greece as a whole; at any rate, he [Homer] calls all Greeks Argives, just as he calls them Danaans and Achaeans. (Strabo).

That the Pelasgians were a great tribe is said also to be the testimony of history in general: Menecrates of Elaea, at any rate, in his work On the Founding of Cities, says that the whole of what is now the Ionian coast, beginning at Mycale, as also the neighboring islands, were in earlier times inhabited by Pelasgians. (Strabo).

But the Pelasgian race, ever wandering and quick to migrate, greatly increased and then rapidly disappeared, particularly at the time of the migration of the Aeolians and Ionians to Asia [then by -1200]. (Strabo).

IDEA: Or was swallowed by the constant flow of the akin Dorics in Greece... because such areas were occupied by Mycenic Achaeans, and it is pointed that the Pelasgian was a language akin to Greek (Macedonio-Epirot).

The Lydians, on the other hand, are expressly stated to have had nothing in common with the Pelasgians (Dion. i. 30), and all we know of them points to more eastern countries as their original home.

PELASGIANS were not ANATOLIAN IE

Herodotus: of the Pelasgians who inhabited Placia and Scylace on the Hellespont [...].

IDEA: As seen in the section for Italy, almost all Italy received legendary Trojans: Rome, Sicily, Liguria, Padania, Crotone... that leads to think that such Trojans were in fact Pelasgians because almost there is an overlaping Trojan - Pelasgian factor in Italy: Agelly, Elymi, Siculi, Oenotri, etc.

In Samothrake Island, Herodotus mentions Pelasgians inhabiting there, which were the Tyrsenoi.

Herodotus describes actual Pelasgians surviving and mutually intelligible at Placie and Scylace on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont, and near Creston on the Strymon [N. Greece]; in the latter area they had Tyrrhenian neighbors. In Lemnos and Imbros he describes a Pelasgian population who were only conquered by Athens shortly before -500 BC.

The stele found in Lemnos is written in an alphabet similar to taht of the Etruscans; moreover the endings correspond to those of Etruscan and Raethian, along with some recognized lexic: avs - avil - year, opuien - puia - to marry/wife...

IDEA: The adscription that the Pelasgians were the same people that the Tyrrhenians could have been based in the assumption that the isolated languages spoken in Lemnos and the Troad were the ancient Pelasgian, but if Lydian was not spoken in Strabo's time, and Leleges were in the Aegean Sea and in the Troad, it is not good to suppose that in fact they were dealing with and ancient Anatolian Indoeuropean language ?

The stories about Pelasgians sailing to Crete may well be fantasy (though it is historically quite possible that Pelasgians fled from Greece before the Greeks).

And of the natives of the various other towns which are really Pelasgian, though they have lost the name,-if one must pronounce judging by these, the Pelasgians used to speak a Barbarian language. If therefore all the Pelasgian race was such as these, then the Attic race, being Pelasgian, at the same time when it changed and became Hellenic, unlearnt also its language. (Herodotus).

Pelasgian language was not understood by Achaeans. Herodot was Achaean himself (he was born in the Ionic city of Halicarnassus), but he wrote: "...We can conclude that Pelasgians spoke a barbarian language... Even now the citizens of Creston and Plakia speak another language, different from their neighbours'... But what about Hellenic tribes, to my mind, they always spoke one language." (I, 57-58.) That means Herodot could not understand Pelasgian and considered Pelasgian to be barbarian language, together with Lydian, Phoenician or Thracian.

INFO: Herodotus himslef proclaimed that Achaeans might have changed their ancient language since they spoke Dorian / Hellenic by his time.

IDEA: Moreover Herodotus could have confussed a not recognizable language as Pelasgian even being it not related to it: he mentions two cities of the Troad, but more easy would be to mention Epirotes per example.

The daughters of Danaos were they who brought this rite out of Egypt and taught it to the women of the Pelasgians; then afterwards when all the inhabitants of Peloponnese were driven out by the Dorians, the rite was lost, and only those who were left behind of the Peloponnesians and not driven out, that is to say the Arcadians, preserved it. (Herodot).

IDEA: Since Arcadians were clearly a Pelasgian tribe, and since they spoke Greek, what would be the situation of an Arcadian hearing Pelasgian ?