The name Siceli, as I said before, is ancient; but how long it was in actual use is a different question. The correctness of the statement, however, cannot be doubted. Another statement, from Theopompus, a writer who notwithstanding many faults contains much that is instructive, declares the Epirots to be Pelasgians. As regards the Pelasgian nations, I think I may refer you to what I have said elsewhere;[87] I will defer the discussion of this subject until I have made more progress in these Lectures; I should like here to explain my views, but the time would thereby become too short for the task I have proposed to myself. I will therefore compress what I have to say in few words. The Pelasgians were a race distinct from the Hellenes, but sprung from the same root as they, and essentially and nearly allied to them. The difference was not distinctly understood in the earliest times, whence many nations are called by one author Hellenes, and by another Pelasgians. The statement that the Hellenes in the Iliad are not yet mentioned by a common name, that Hellenes and non-Hellenes were first properly distinguished by Thucydides, refers to the difference existing between the Hellenes and Pelasgians. Thus, e.g., Dodona in the Homeric Catalogue is called Hellenic, and Herodotus calls the Molottians and Thesprotians Hellenes, and so also the Epirots, as he was guided by their religion. But Thucydides, who judged from the language of a nation, considers the Epirots as different from the Hellenes, nay, he expressly calls them barbarians. We understand by Epirots the nations extending from the frontier of Illyricum as far as upper Macedonia (without as yet deciding upon the name Macedonia), and then along mount Pindus as far as the Achelous. To these nations we shall apply the name Epirots. I will first mention what points they have in common, and then determine which of them are to be regarded as Epirots and which not. These nations, at least their educated classes, had so far adopted the Greek language, as to employ it everywhere in public and written transactions. This accounts for Polybius always distinctly including them among the Greeks; and he does so even in regard to those who lived beyond the boundaries of Epirus fixed by Pyrrhus: though on one occasion he makes Philip, the son of Demetrius, say of the Aetolians, that they ought not to boast too much of their Hellenic character, nor to distinguish the Macedonians from the Hellenes, since the greater part of them were descended from non-Hellenes and barbarians. And the nations there spoken of were Epirot tribes. In this manner, Polybius somewhat contradicts himself. But it is only critics fond of hair-splitting that can attach any weight to such a contradiction; an author like Polybius, even without scrupulously weighing his words, can not mislead a sensible reader.