The Historians' History of the World 03

Here we might conclude our remarks on this subject, did not the following question (one indeed of great importance) deserve some consideration. What relation can we suppose to have existed between the races which migrated into those northern districts, and the native tribes, and what between the different races of Greece itself? All inquiries on this subject lead us back to the Pelasgi, who although not found in every part of ancient Greece (for tradition makes so wide a distinction between them and many other nations, that no confusion ever takes place), yet occur almost universally wherever early civilisation, ancient settlements, and worships of peculiar sanctity and importance existed. And in fact there is no doubt that most of the ancient religions of Greece owed their origin to this race. The Jupiter and Dione of Dodona; Jupiter and Juno of Argos; Vulcan and Minerva of Athens; Ceres and Proserpine of Eleusis; Mercury and Diana of Arcadia, together with Cadmus and the Cabiri of Thebes, cannot, if properly examined, be referred to any other origin. We must therefore attribute to that nation an excessive readiness in creating and metamorphosing objects of religious worship, so that the same fundamental conceptions were variously developed in different places, a variety which was chiefly caused by the arbitrary neglect of, or adherence to, particular parts of the same legend. In many places also we may recognise the sameness of character which pervaded the different worships of the above gods; everywhere we see manifested in symbols, names, rites, and legends, an uniform character of ideas and feelings. The religions introduced from Phrygia and Thrace, such as that of the Cretan Jupiter and Dionysus or Bacchus, may be easily distinguished by their more enthusiastic character from the native Pelasgic worship. The Phœnician and Egyptian religions lay at a great distance from the early Greeks, were almost unknown even where they existed in the immediate neighbourhood, were almost unintelligible when the Greeks attempted to learn them, and repugnant to their nature when understood. On the whole, the Pelasgic worship appears to form part of a simple elementary religion, which easily represented the various forms produced by the changes of nature in different climates and seasons, and which abounded in expressive signs for all the shades of feeling which these phenomena awakened.

On the other hand, the religion of the northern races (who as being of Hellenic descent are put in contrast with the Pelasgi) had in early times taken a more moral turn, to which their political relations had doubtless contributed. The heroic life (which is no fable of the poets), the fondness for vigorous and active exertion, the disinclination to the harmless occupations of husbandry, which is so remarkably seen in the conquering race of the Hellenes, necessarily awakened and cherished an entirely different train of religious feeling. Hence the Jupiter Hellanius of Æacus, the Jupiter Laphystius of Athamas, and, finally, the Doric Jupiter, whose son is Apollo, the prophet and warrior, are rather representations of the moral order and harmony of the universe, after the ancient method, than of the creative powers of nature. We do not however deny, that there was a time when these different views had not as yet taken a separate direction. Thus it may be shown, that the Apollo Lyceus of the Dorians conveyed nearly the same notions as the Jupiter Lycæus of the Arcadians, although the worship of either deity was developed independently of that of the other. Thus also certain ancient Arcadian and Doric usages had, in their main features, a considerable affinity. The points of resemblance in these different worships can be only perceived by comparison: tradition presents, at the very first outset, an innumerable collection of discordant forms of worship belonging to the several races, but without explaining to us how they came to be thus separated. For these different rites were not united into a whole until they had been first divided; and both by the connection of worships and by the influence of poetry new combinations were introduced, which differed essentially from those of an earlier date.