Again, the word πέλαγος has been suggested as supplying the true derivation of the Pelasgian name. Marsh[408] rejects it, because he conceives it is founded upon the hypothesis that the Pelasgi came across the Ægean, which he thinks improbable. But the evidence appears to be in favour of their having come principally by the islands, if not at once across the Ægean. It may also be questioned, whether the etymology must rest on this hypothesis exclusively. For, in the first place, the more natural construction would be, not that they came by sea, but that they came _from beyond sea_, an idea which might very well attach to any people of Asiatic origin. So it was that the too famous Pelagius, who is known to have been a Welshman, came by his classical name; a name bearing that very signification[409]. But is it not also possible, that πέλαγος may at one time have had the meaning of a plain? It properly signifies a wide open level surface, corresponding with the Latin _æquor_, and with our _main_. Hence Homer never attaches to the word πέλαγος any of his usual epithets for the sea, such as οἴνοψ, ἠχηεὶς, μεγακήτης, ἀτρύγετος, πολύφλοισβος; but only μέγα, great: and he uses the phrase ἅλος ἐν πελάγεσσι[410], which would be mere tautology, if πέλαγος properly and directly meant the sea. So Pindar has πόντιον πέλαγος, Æschylus ἃλς πελαγία, and Apollonius Rhodius πέλαγος θαλάσσης[411]. There were in Macedonia, as we learn from Strabo, a people called Pelagones[412], and in Homer we find the names Πελάγων and Πηλέγων. Again, we have in Hesychius, among the meanings of πελαγίζειν, ψεύδεσθαι μεγάλα, and for πέλαγος he gives μέγεθος, πλῆθος, βύθος; as well as πλάτος θαλάσσης. It seems not impossible that the Pelasgi may owe their name to the word πέλαγος, in its primary sense of plain and open surface: as the word Θρῇξ, in this view its exact counterpart, was derived from τρῆχυς, and at one time meant simply the inhabitant of a rough and rocky place, a mountaineer or highlander. There is, however, another mode in which Πελασγοὶ may bear the sense of inhabitants of the plain, or rather (for it is in this that the word will most comprehensively apply to them, and most closely keep to its proper meaning), of the cultivable country, which would include valleys as well as plains properly so called: and indeed this derivation, suggested by K. O. Müller, is the simplest possible, if only we can clear the first step, which _assumes_ the identity of Πελασγοὶ and Πελαργοί. He says it is compounded of πέλω and ἄργος. The first meaning of πέλω seems to imply motion with repetition or custom. Afterwards it is _to be_, and especially _to be wont to be_. Thus it will, while yet very near its fountain, have the sense, _to frequent_ or _inhabit_. To the same origin he refers πόλις, πολέω; and also the πελώρια, the harvest feast of Thessaly, taken as the feast of inhabitation[413] or settlement.