The Ethnology of EuropeLatham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
History
The Ethnology of Europe
Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Ethnology -- Europe
Subject, then, to the correctness of the Italian hypothesis, what was
the native stock of Hellas? Pelasgic. What means this? The proper place
for this inquiry is the chapter on the ethnology of Turkey, for in two
Turkish localities only have any Pelasgi existed within the historical
period. A negative statement, however, will find place here. Whatever
the Pelasgi were, they were not, at one and the same time, the earliest
occupants of Hellas, and a population belonging to the same class with
the Hellenes. The reasons which lie against making the Hellenes
aboriginal to Greece lie also against any other Hellenoeid population.
The magnitude of the earliest historical Hellenic area is of importance.
Let Greece under the leadership of Agamemnon be as truly Hellenic as
Kent and Essex were Anglo-Saxon in the reign of Alfred. What does it
prove in the way of the occupants being aboriginal? As little as the
English character of the counties in question at the time referred to.
Four centuries--or even less--of migration may easily have given us all
the phenomena that occur; for the area is smaller than the kingdom of
Wessex, or Northumberland, and the country but little more
impracticable.
Hence, if we sufficiently recognise the smallness of the Hellenic area,
no difficulties against the doctrine of an original non-Hellenic
population will arise on the score of its magnitude. It was as easily
convertible from non-Hellenic to Hellenic as Cumberland and
Northumberland have been from British to English.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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