CHAPTER III.

§ 1. Pelasgi.-Cabiri, Sybils, Gipsy.-§ 2. Gipsy "Chales," or "Romi." -Marriage.-Roman Institutional Points and Language.—The "Orphici.”—Syrian and Greek sites of Gipsies, traced in the "Iliad" and "Odyssey."-3. The Gipsy in India, Russia.-Tyrrhene Pelasgi, Phocæans, Marseilles, Trogus, Pompeius.-Niebuhr's Etymological Test of Pelasgi in Italy.

THE Pelasgi are not only associated by the term, "Pelasgic Ionians," with the latter race, but by language, as generally admitted. They are distinguishable from the Ionic race by not sharing the Apatouria, Bacchus, the Amazon or Ephesian shrine, or Pan; nor do we find the Pelasgic Turseni, though afloat on both the upper and lower seas, to have enshrined or invoked Neptune. They hold a place in the Iliad, and appear among the current mythology of classic times and collections, in which the "Xoyoπoto" may be said to have earned the Doric rendering of λoyos by μvlos, and to have done their worst with memoranda of a past civilization. We have received all for the beauty or ingenuity of the accessories, but after entertaining their "endless genealogies" we still look for an idea: we still suspect an antecedent to their primæval, something more institutional than anything confessedly Pelasgic. We find material to have composed an Iliad, none to have constructed a city, furnished a community, established æsthetic sequences for its epochs, or to have placed or collected a people into an empire.

Anything to the contrary of these deficiencies will resolve themselves into accessories, as a veil on which succeeding generations have been pleased to read a mystery, instead of lifting it from the objects it concealed.

Müller (" Mythology," c. vii.) identifies the Pelasgi with the Cabiric mysteries and the people who originated them, upon the following facts:-They were found at Cyzicus and elsewhere about the Propontis so late as the era of the Persian war, at Lemnos and Samothrace. At the former place was a Mount Hermeion, and a dynasty of Hermean princes. There, also, and at Samothrace, were Cabiric orgies, with HERMES, CAMILLUS or CADMUS, CORA, DEMETER and HARMONIA, the PHALLUS and ORGIES; there was also an epos Xoyos in situ, explanatory of the Phallic obscenity there represented on the statues of Mercury under aggravated circumstances: connected with some of the impersonations was a tradition about marriage-Lepos γάμος. He finds the Pelasgi had sojourned at Thebes and Athens, and had been in Sicily, where many of these matters were entertained. Athens had the Phallic-Hermes, with the same aggravated obscenity as at the Propontis, but it does not appear any orgies, or epos yaμos, were connected with them. At Thebes the Hermes and Phallus were not recognised, but the dictum of a grammarian makes Hermes the same as Cadmus; this was true, perhaps, in a later application of the word. (See chap. v.) At several Pelasgic settlements on the Propontis no Cabiric circumstances appear. On the other hand, the Cabiric personages of Samothrace, "Cora," "Demeter," and "Hades," with the epos yaμos, are found in Sicily. This is the case, to establish Pelasgic relations with the Cabiri, as developed by Müller in the above passages, and he decides it in the affirmative. the result exhibited is no more than this, that the Pelasgi are found on the Propontis and at Lemnos, Samothrace, and other neighbouring islands, as a community existing within the historical period, celebrating orgies of a Phallic character, diffusing fables connected therewith, and having some

γαμος,

ceremonies or traditions connected with marriage, and a

doubtful name, "Camillus," or "Cadmus." In some of

these and former places of Pelasgic settlement, the "Cabiri" were found; in other places, the Cabiri appear without Pelasgic rites. Such a case amounts to local relation between Pelasgic rites and the Cabiri: if the connexion hold only in a few places, and fail in a great many, the approximation is accidental in those few places.

As to the "Cabiri:" the Dryopes, who were found at Delphi, mixed up with the early traditions of that oracle, and were established, as before noticed, at Hermione and Asine (the latter a station of the "great gods," prior to Andana), and who, according to Aristotle, were intimately associated with the earliest settlement of Arcadia, had those same Cabiric persons, Demeter, Cora, and Hades, unmixed with Pelasgic or Phallic orgies.

Now, to determine that portion of the case which embraces the other particulars, the phallus, orgies, and marriage. The Cabiric priests in Samothrace, according to the scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius ("Essay on the Eleusinian Mysteries," by M. Ouvaroff, translated, London, 1817, p. 159; and Müller, Orchom), were Axieros, Axiocersus, Axiocersa, and Casmilus. The scholiast identifies the personages intended by these names with Ceres, Proserpine, Hades, and Mercury. Rejecting the latter portion of the information as gratuitous and unsupported by any other description of these names of deities, we have the first name translatable into "loveworthy;" the last referrible to "Camillus," a more known Samothracian personification. Thus: "From Cabira and Hephaestus sprang Camilus" (Acusilaus, a logographer). (Müller, Mythol.," London, 1844, p. 87.) Another authority, quoted by Müller, makes Cadmilus or Camilus the same as "Camillus," the boy in Roman marriage

names.

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ceremonies: as such we receive the fourth of the above The two intermediate, differing only by a masculine or feminine termination, refer us to the principals (as "ubi tu Caius ego Caia" at Rome) in a marriage celebration.

These four words may give the Pelasgic base for orgies that are implied by their epos Xoyos, and the emblem by which they defaced the terminal Hermes of their neighbours.

The "Cabiri" are sometimes made to include Cadmus, sometimes Hermes, sometimes the two names are supposed identical (see Müller, M., as above), and Harmonia is also associated with Cadmus at Samothrace and Thebes. Now this is of itself proof of a Semitic settlement, for Cadmus (if referred to the root, 7, with the prefix, n) would mean "harmony” (Chidah, 77, signifies enigma and poem, and might offer another handle for a myth). But "Harmonia," at Thebes as well as at Samothrace, might be well left in company with the Cabiri, or the three names before associated with that word, which means (2), a long time ago. The three names in question are given more fully at Hermione and Asine,-" Demeter Chthonia, Cora Meliboa, Hades Clymenus," i. e., De, T, plenty; wheat, ; Cora,

, dig.; Meloba, b, full crop; and Hades, o, season, clim, n, breaking off. This rendering of the Cabiric formula agrees with the Cereal mundane principle or character with which the triad of words has been universally accredited. This same formula appears to have prevailed in Sicily (the promontory "Melibæum" will receive its meaning out of the same); and we suggest accordingly Semitic ideas in Cabir, and the three, Dis, Cora, Hades.

Thebes and Sicily, in reference to ιερος γαμος or θεογαμία, also associates itself with Cora at Cyzicus on the Propontis, where Pelasgi were found settled by Herodotus; it opens a fresh source of eonfusion between Aramitic and Pelasgic eeremonies. All Sicily is styled a bridal gift, avaкаλνπтηρia (Müller as above), or unveilment: Sicily is referrible to the root, ba, a rape, as Sicania to 1, a veil: and b, a veil. Sic, T, a veil, and Catania there to Catna, nɔnn, a contract of marriage. This interpretation, if true, would suggest an ancient title for colonizing or usurping a territory. The rape of Proserpine is often in representation assimilated to the rape of Ethra by Neptune. It has one oriental feature

-the pomegranate seed, which seals her destiny; that plant, , being associated with the consummation of marriage. "Ethra" appears to be, in the parallel legend, the island in the Egean, Thera (N, island), where are found remarkable ruins, and which appears to have introduced the Achæans to the Peloponese. (Herod. lib. iv.)

1. A third application of the subject is in the rape of Rhea Sylvia by Mavors on the banks of the Tiber.

All these subjects may have been Pelasgic usurpations of territory, at an era so remote as to have come under the observation and glosses of Semitic races in the Mediterranean.

The Pelasgi in the Iliad are once described at their celebrations. Zev Пeλaoyike has dancing, riotous votaries, styled exλot, who are innocent of the decencies of the toilet, ανιπτοποδες χαμαιεννοι.

"Pelasgi " may render, wonderful wanderers. “Turseni," , town, 10, consuming, or Nw, hating. Tyrrhene" may be Persian ("turre," a ringlet), referring to Pelasgic physiognomy and elf-locks.

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The mythic text of "Pelasgus, son of the black earth," appears to assume "Hellas the West, or land of night." In this sense, Delos is " Star of the dark earth." (Hymn Ap.)

Pelasgus is usually made synonymous with "Pelargus," and referred to IIeλapyou, storks (from their wandering). Now it may be observed, that the Chaldees are first mentioned in Genesis as "storks," Chasidim. To them we apply on. The Pelargi, Texapyos, may be the Cyclops, the smiths and masons of mythology; but such an assumption, whenever made, is gratuitous. The Tuscan vulcan is "Sethlaus," referring to a Persian tale of Seth and Caucasus, hereafter mentioned.

We must now turn from Pelasgic conventionalities in classic antiquity, to particulars that may prove suggestive of race.

In the Iliad (ii. 814), a pillar, near which the host muster,