My OperaPelazgians (Macedonians)
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 2:34:14 AM
EARLY HISTORIANS AND GEOGRAPHERS
Herodotus (485?-425? в.с.)
The Greek historian Herodotus was called the father of history and had a great deal to say about the Pelasgians.
First, their territory.
The entire territory later called Greece was first called Pelasgia (Herodotus 1942, 2:56).
These Pelasgians had lived in Samothrace, the island just north of Troy, before they came to Attice (2:51).
In northwestern Peloponnesus the Ionians "inhabited the land now called Achaea and were called, according to the Greek account, Aegialean Pelasgi, or Pelasgi of the Sea Shore"; afterwards they were called Ionians (7:94).
The Islanders ... were a Pelasgian race, who in later times took the name of Ionians.
The Aeolians too were anciently called Pelasgians (7:95).
Their language was different from Greek.
The original Athenians were Pelasgians who spoke the "barbarous" Pelasgian language (1:57).
Herodotus wrote that Pelasgians living on the island of Lemnos opposite Troy once kidnapped Hellenic women of Athens for wives, but the Athenian women created a crisis by teaching their children "the language of Attica" instead of that of the Pelasgian boys (6:138).
Herodotus wrote that the Pelasgians spoke a language unlike that of any of their neighbors (1:57).
The Pelasgians antedated the Greeks in what was later called Greece.
Herodotus characterized the Hellenic Athenians as "excessively migratory," but stated that "the Pelasgians or Lacedaemons" had always been there (1:56).
Significantly enough, he identified the Spartans as Pelasgians rather than Greeks.
The Hellenic race increased because numerous tribes of barbarians voluntarily entered their ranks (1:58).
In Achaia, in northernmost Peloponnesus, the Molossians and Arcadian Pelasgians were recognized as "distinct tribes" (1:146).
But the inhabitants of the peninsula were eventually driven from their homes by the invading Dorians; only in Arcadia did the natives remain, not being compelled to migrate (2:171).
Repeatedly, Herodotus identified the Spartans as Pelasgians, associating them with the drama of Troy. Argos was then preeminent above all the states which would later be known as Hellas (1:1).
A series of kidnappings culminated in that of Helen of Argos (1:3), a Lacedaemo¬nian girl from Sparta (1:4).
During the reign of Croesus, about 550 B.C., the Pelasgian Spartans were still masters of most of Peloponnesus and "held first rank in Greece" (1:69).
Herodotus noted that barbarians throughout Greece but "especially the Lacedaemonians" disparaged the tradesman and honored the warrior (2:167), which again would identify the Spartan as a barbarian rather than a Greek.
One fascinating expression occurred again and again in the Iliad, "the flowing-haired Achaeans." Herodotus wrote that at the mountain pass of Thermopylae the night before meeting the Persian hordes (481 в.с.) a Persian spy had noted the Spartan warriors ceremoniously "combing their long hair."
When he reported back that the enemy soldiers seemed rather effeminate, a more knowledgeable in¬terpreter warned the Persians that "it is their custom when they are about to hazard their lives, to adorn their heads with care----This is the first kingdom and town in Greece, and these are the bravest men" (7:208-9).
Leonidas and his 300 Spartans fought to the very last man. The monument erected where they fell bears the inscription, "Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell/ That here, obeying her behests, we fell" (7: 228).
We shall note again and again that Greek historians and geograph¬ers and writers insisted on the distinction between the original Pelas¬gians and their rivals the Hellenic Greek newcomers.
They also identified the Spartans as Pelasgians rather than Greeks.
Traditional "Greek" history may be rewritten some day, but that lies quite beyond the scope of this present work.
Herodotus?
Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Ancient: Ἡρόδοτος Ἁλικαρνᾱσσεύς Hēródotos Halikarnāsseús) was a Pelasgian (Macedonian) historian who lived in the 5th century BC (c. 484 BC–c. 425 BC) and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture.
Much of what is known of Herodotus's life is gathered from his own work. Additional details have been garnered from the Suda, an 11th-century encyclopaedia of Byzantium, which likely took its information from traditional accounts. It holds that he was born in Halicarnassus (Bodrum in present-day Turkey), the son of Lyxes and Dryo, and the brother of Theodorus, and that he was also related to Panyassis, an epic poet of the time. According to this account, after being exiled from Halicarnassus by the tyrant Lygdamis, Herodotus went to live on Samos.
His death and burial are placed either at Thurii or at Pella, in Macedon, between 425 and 420 BC.
again:
The Islanders ... were a Pelasgian race.
Their language was different from Greek.
The original Athenians were Pelasgians who spoke the "barbarous" Pelasgian language (1:57).
