![The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War] - Читать Любимую Русскую Полную Книгу 👉 Read-E-Book.com](/uploads/posts/books/4/4/2/4/the-historians-history-of-the-world-03-greece-to-the-peloponnesian-war-download.jpg)
The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]». Краткое содержание книги:
The Illyrians were in these ancient times also bounded on the east by the Phrygians and Thracians, as well as by the Pelasgi. The Phrygians were at this time the immediate neighbours of the Macedonians in Lebæa, by whom they were called Brygians (Βρύγες, Βρύγοι, Βρίγες); they dwelt at the foot of the snowy Bermius, where the fabulous rose-gardens of King Midas were situated, while walking in which the wise Silenus was fabled to have been taken prisoner. They also fought from this place (as the Telegonia of Eugamon related) with the Thesprotians of Epirus. At no great distance from hence were the Mygdonians, the people nearest related to the Phrygians. According to Xanthus, this nation did not migrate to Asia until after the Trojan War. But, in the first place, the Cretan traditions begin with religious ceremonies and fables, which appear from the most ancient testimonies to have been derived from Phrygians of Asia; and secondly the Armenians, who were beyond a doubt of a kindred race to the Phrygians, were considered as an aboriginal nation in their own territory. It will therefore be sufficient to recognise the same race of men in Armenia, Asia Minor, and at the foot of Mount Bermius, without supposing that all the Armenians and Phrygians emigrated from the latter settlement on the Macedonian coast. The intermediate space between Illyria and Asia, a district across which numerous nations migrated in ancient times, was peopled irregularly from so many sides, that the national uniformity which seems to have once existed in those parts was speedily deranged. The most important documents respecting the connection between the Phrygian and other nations are the traces that remain of its dialect. It was well known in Plato’s time that many primitive words of the Grecian language were to be recognised with a slight alteration in the Phrygian, such as πῦρ, ὕδωρ, κύων; and the great similarity of grammatical structure which the Armenian now displays with the Greek, must be referred to this original connection. The Phrygians in Asia have, however, been without doubt intermixed with Syrians, who not only established themselves on the right bank of the Halys, but on the left also in Lycaonia, and as far as Lycia, and accordingly adopted much of the Syrian language and religion. Their enthusiastic and frantic ceremonies, however, had doubtless always formed part of their religion; these they had in common with their immediate neighbours, the Thracians: but the ancient Greeks appear to have been almost entirely unacquainted with such rites.
The Thracians, who settled in Pieria at the foot of Mount Olympus, and from thence came down to Mount Helicon, as being the originators of the worship of Bacchus and the Muses, and the fathers of Grecian poetry, are a nation of the highest importance in the history of civilisation. We cannot but suppose that they spoke a dialect very similar to the Greek, since otherwise they could not have had any considerable influence upon the latter people. They were in all probability derived originally from the country called Thrace in later times, where the Bessi, a tribe of the nation of the Satræ, at the foot of Mount Pangæum, presided over the oracle of Bacchus. Whether the whole of the populous races of Edones, Odomantes, Odrysi, Treres, etc., are to be considered as identical with the Thracians in Pieria, or whether it is not more probable that these barbarous nations received from the Greeks their general name of Thracians, with which they had been familiar from early times, are questions which we shall not attempt to determine. Into these nations, however, a large number of Pæonians subsequently penetrated, who had passed over at the time of a very ancient migration of the Teucrians together with the Mysians. To this Pæonian race the Pelagonians, on the banks of the Axius, belonged; who also advanced into Thessaly, as will be shown hereafter. Of the Teucrians, however, we know nothing excepting that, in concert with (Pelasgic) Dardanians, they founded the city of Troy—where the language in use was probably allied to the Grecian, and distinct from the Phrygian.
Now it is within the mountainous barriers above described that we must look for the origin of the nations which in the heroic mythology are always represented as possessing dominion and power, and are always contrasted with an aboriginal population. These, in our opinion, were northern branches of the Grecian nation, which had overrun and subdued the Greeks who dwelt farther south. The most ancient abode of the Hellenes proper (who in mythology are merely a small nation in Phthia) was situated, according to Aristotle, in Epirus, near Dodona, to whose god Achilles prays, as being the ancient protector of his family. In all probability the Achæans, the ruling nation both of Thessaly and of the Peloponnesus in fabulous times, were of the same race and origin as the Hellenes. The Minyans, Phlegyans, Lapithæ, and Æolians of Corinth and Salmone, came originally from the districts above Pieria, on the frontiers of Macedonia, where the very ancient Orchomenus, Minya, and Salmonia or Halmopia were situated. Nor is there less obscurity with regard to the northern settlements of the Ionians; they appear, as it were, to have fallen from heaven into Attica and Ægialea; they were not, however, by any means identical with the aboriginal inhabitants of these districts, and had perhaps detached themselves from some northern, probably Achæan, race. Lastly, the Dorians are mentioned in ancient legends and poems as established in one extremity of the great mountain chain of Upper Greece, viz. at the foot of Mount Olympus: there are, however, reasons for supposing that at an earlier period they had dwelt at its other northern extremity, at the farthest limit of the Grecian nation.
We now turn our attention to the singular nation of the Hylleans (Ὑλλεῖς, Ὕλλοι), which is supposed to have dwelt in Illyria, but is in many respects connected in a remarkable manner with the Dorians. The real place of its abode can hardly be laid down; as the Hylleans are never mentioned in any historical narrative, but always in mythological legends; and they appear to have been known to the geographers only from mythological writers. Yet they are generally placed in the islands of Melita and Black-Corcyra, to the south of Liburnia. Now the name of the Hylleans agrees strikingly with that of the first and most noble tribe of the Dorians. Besides which, it is stated, that though dwelling among Illyrian races, these Hylleans were nevertheless genuine Greeks. Moreover they, as well as the Doric Hylleans, were supposed to have sprung from Hyllus, a son of Hercules, whom that hero begot upon Melite, the daughter of Ægæus: here the name Ægæus refers to a river in Corcyra, Melite to the island just mentioned. Apollo was the chief god of the Dorians; and so likewise these Hylleans were said to have concealed under the earth, as the sign of inviolable sanctity, that instrument of such importance in the religion of Apollo, a tripod. The country of the Hylleans is described as a large peninsula, and compared to the Peloponnesus: it is said to have contained fifteen cities; which however had not a more real existence, than the peninsula as large as the Peloponnesus on the Illyrian coast. How all these statements are to be understood is hard to say. It appears however that they can only be reconciled as follows: the Doric Hylleans had a tradition, that they came originally from these northern districts, which then bordered on the Illyrians, and were afterwards occupied by that people; and there still remained in those parts some members of their tribe, some other Hylleans. This notion of Greek Hylleans in the very north of Greece, who also were descended from Hercules, and also worshipped Apollo, was taken up and embellished by the poets: although it is not likely that any one had really ever seen these Hylleans and visited their country. Like the Hyperboreans, they existed merely in tradition and imagination. It is possible also that the Corcyræans, in whose island there was an “Hyllæan” harbour, may have contributed to the formation of these legends, as is shown by some circumstances pointed out above; but it cannot be supposed that the whole tradition arose from Corcyræan colonies.