My OperaPelazgians (Macedonians)-other sources
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 2:50:36 AM
Thucydides (460?-400? B.C.)
The Athenian historian Thucydides stated that before the Trojan War the lower Balkan Peninsula was not known as Hellas (Greece) but as Pelasgicum," which explains why the eighth century poet Homer never referred to Hellenes, but rather to Danaans, Argives and Achaeans (Thucydides 1959,1:3).
These were all Pelasgian tribes.
The legendary founder of ancient Greece or Hellas was Hellen, who is supposed to have lived in the late eighth century в.с.
Thucydides also wrote that the Pelasgians once inhabited Athens (4:109) and that the massive stone construction under the citadel at Athens was Pelasgian (2:17).
He clearly distinguished between the Greeks and the neighboring Epirotes, referring to the "Chaonians and other neighboring barbarians" (2:68), also to a thousand "barbarians," Chaonians, besides Thesprotians and Molossians, who once aided the warriors of Corinth (2:80).
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (first century b.c.)
Dionysius was also a “Greek” historian, bom like the great Herodotus in the ancient city of Halicarnassus on the Aegean seacoast of southwestern Asia Minor, but residing later in Rome.
Dionysius was primarily concerned, however, with the relationship between the Pelasgians in the Balkans and those in Italy.
He wrote that the Pelasgians came originally from the Peloponnesus, from the neighborhood of Argos.
They received their name from Pelasgius their king, who was the son of Zeus.
After six generations they moved to Thessaly, prospering greatly.
They remained there five generations, when they were driven out by Deucalion, progenitor of the Greeks (Dionysius 1948, 1:17).
They dispersed to the neighboring provinces, to Crete, the Aegean islands, especially Lesbos, and to the coast along the Hellespont (1:18).
Many of them went inland to their kinsmen around the Pelasgian shrine of Dodona (1:19).
Many of these later moved across the Ionian Sea to Italy, the Umbria region.
There they collaborated with the aboriginals in driving out the Umbrians, occupying for some time several cities including Pisa (1:20).
The most conspicuous monument which shows that these people once lived at Pelasgian Argos is the temple of Juno at Falerii, built in the same fashion as the one at Argos.
The sacrificial ceremonies were also similar.
They possessed much of the fertile Campania plain, building several flourishing cities, including one called Larissa (1:23).
Pelasgians were superior in war¬fare, and because they lived with Tyrrhenians they also became proficient seamen. They were called both Pelasgians and Tyrrhenians (1:25).
Calamities struck the second generation before the Trojan War.
They held their largest city, Cortona, but lost many others to the Tyrrhenians (1:26).
These Tyrrhenians were descendants of Tyrrhenus from Asia Minor. Dionysius examined at length the question whether Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians were two different people, or whether these were two different names for the same people (1:27-29).
He concluded that although distantly related, they were really two different people.
Tyrrhenians were called Etruscans by the Romans.
The Pelasgians who remained in Italy were ab¬sorbed as fellow citizens (1:30).
Dionysius like his contemporary Virgil wrote that following the fall of Troy, Aeneas sailed from the Ambracian gulf along the coast of Epirus to Buthrotum, the Albanian Butrint. Accompanied by the most vigorous men of his army, Aeneas made a march of two days and reached Pelasgian Dodona in order to consult the oracle.
Back at Butrint they found the Tro¬jans who had fled there with Helenus. After dedicating to the god various Trojan offerings, including bronze mixing bowls . . . they rejoined the fleet after a march of about four days.
The presence of the Trojans at Buthrotum is indicated by a hill called Troy, where they encamped at that time (1:51).
Dionysius declared the Trojans to be descendants of Dardanus of Arcadia, who moved to Samothrace, then to the Hellespont and the plain of Troy (1:61).
He traced the descent of Aeneas also from Dardanus (1:62).
And he quoted ancient Greek and Roman authorities to show that Rome was founded by refugees from Troy, that the founders Romulus and Remus were sons of Aeneas, or the sons of Aeneas' daughter, in either case Dardanians and therefore Pelasgians (1:72-73; 2:2).
But this cannot be substantiated.
note:
He declared that the Albanians, in common with the great majority of ancient peoples, came from the Euphrates and the Ganges.
They settled on the shore of the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus Mountains, later called Armenia, where they lived as shepherds and warriors.
They were known in Asia as Albanians, their region was shown on contemporary maps as Albania, and the rocky gorges of the Caucasian Mountains were called the "Albanian Gates."
