Footnote 3: Paus. v. 21. 10. Palm. Desc. Gr. Ant. p. 32. Exercit. p. 397. Footnote 4: Il. β. 190. Strab. ix. 5. 297. Tauchnitz. with the authorities quoted by Palmerius, Græc. Ant. i. 3. Footnote 5: Fisch. ad Theoph. Char. p. 5. L. Bos. Ant. Gr. Zeun. i. 1. Nearly all writers who treat of Grecian history or antiquities, have ventured more or less upon inquiries respecting the original inhabitants of the country, some contending that it was peopled by many independent races, while others content themselves with supposing one primary stock. To arrive at certainty in such investigations is scarcely to be hoped for, since, over the whole field, facts have moved in so close a conjunction with fables, “that the most which remaineth to be seen, is the show of dark and obscure steps where some part of the truth hath gone.”[6] It appears, however, to be a fact established, that the Hellenes were not the first who occupied Greece. They were preceded by a number of tribes all apparently of Pelasgian origin. But who and what the Pelasgians were, how and whence they came into the country, and by what gradations and influences they were ripened into Hellenes, or were by these expelled from the land, are questions to which no satisfactory answers have ever been given, but must still be discussed whatever the result of the investigation may be. Footnote 6: Hooker, Ecc. Pol. i. p. 95. Even the name of this people has opened up an endless labyrinth of conjecture, at least among the moderns, for the ancients when such points were to be cleared up, easily removed the difficulty by inventing a hero or a demigod, with an appellation exactly suited to their purpose. Thus from Hellen they derived the name of the Hellenes, from Heracles that of Heracleidæ, from Ion that of the Ionians, and from Pelasgos, the son sometimes of Zeus, sometimes of Poseidon, sometimes of Triops or Inachos or Lycaon or Palachthon or of the earth itself,[7] that of the Pelasgi. An Attic writer, familiar with this question, and hinting at a part of the theory which I have adopted, imagines the name of Pelasgi to have been at first bestowed on the race because they usually made their appearance on the shores of Hellas like migratory birds in spring.[8] But though conjecture in such matters may amuse, it is not likely, at this distance of time, to lead to truth. Footnote 7: Paus. viii. 1. 6; ii. 14. 4; 22. 1. Herod, ii. 56. Æsch. Prom. 859. Supp. 248. Nieb. Hist. of Rome, i. 24. Apollod. ii. 1. Serv. ad Æn. i. 628; ii. 83. Sch. Apol. Rhod. i. 580. Tzetz. ad Lyc. 177. 481. Natal. Com. p. 96. and conf. Palm. Græc. Ant. p. 41. sqq. Exercit. p. 527. with Buttm. Lexil. p. 155. Footnote 8: Philochor. Siebel. p. 14.