[2] The passage in Aristotle (Meteorol., l. I, c. 14), in which, speaking of the ancient Hellas (the country about Dodona and the river Achelous), the author says it was inhabited by a people (along with the Helli, or Selli) then called Graeci, now Hellenes (tote men Graikoi, nun de Hellaenes) is well known. The Greek chronicle on the Arundel marbles asserts, that the Greeks were called Graeci before they were called Hellenes; in fact, Graeci was most probably once a name for the Pelasgi, or for a powerful, perhaps predominant, tribe of the Pelasgi widely extended along the western coast--by them the name was borne into Italy, and (used indiscriminately with that of Pelasgi) gave the Latin appellation to the Hellenic or Grecian people. [3] Modern travellers, in their eloquent lamentations over the now niggard waters of these immortal streams, appear to forget that Strabo expressly informs us that the Cephisus flowed in the manner of a torrent, and failed altogether in the summer. "Much the same," he adds, "was the Ilissus." A deficiency of water was always a principal grievance in Attica, as we may learn from the laws of Solon relative to wells. [4] Platon. Timaeus. Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, vol. i., p. 5. [5] According to some they were from India, to others from Egypt, to others again from Phoenicia. They have been systematized into Bactrians, and Scythians, and Philistines--into Goths, and into Celts; and tracked by investigations as ingenious as they are futile, beyond the banks of the Danube to their settlements in the Peloponnese. No erudition and no speculation can, however, succeed in proving their existence in any part of the world prior to their appearance in Greece. [6] Sophoc. Ajax, 1251. [7] All those words (in the Latin) which make the foundation of a language, expressive of the wants or simple relations of life, are almost literally Greek--such as pater, frater, aratrum, bos, ager, etc. For the derivation of the Latin from the Aeolic dialect of Greece, see "Scheid's Prolegomena to Lennep's Etymologicon Linguae Grecae."