afted--prolix to notice, unnecessary to
contradict.

II. During this period there occurred--not rapidly, but slowly--the
most important revolution of early Greece, viz., the spread of that
tribe termed the Hellenes, who gradually established their
predominance throughout the land, impressed indelible traces on the
national character, and finally converted their own into the national
name.

I have already expressed my belief that the Pelasgi were not a
barbarous race, speaking a barbarous tongue, but that they were akin
to the Hellenes, who spoke the Grecian language, and are considered
the proper Grecian family. Even the dubious record of genealogy
(which, if fabulous in itself, often under the names of individuals
typifies the affinity of tribes) makes the Hellenes kindred to the
Pelasgi. Deucalion, the founder of the Hellenes, was of Pelasgic
origin--son of Prometheus, and nephew of Atlas, king of the Pelasgic
Arcadia.

However this may be, we find the Hellenes driven from Phocis, their
earliest recorded seat, by a flood in the time of Deucalion.
Migrating into Thessaly, they expelled the Pelasgi; and afterward
spreading themselves through Greece, they attained a general
ascendency over the earlier habitants, enslaving, doubtless, the bulk
of the population among which they formed a settlement, but ejecting
numbers of the more resolute or the more noble families, and causing
those celebrated migrations by which the Pelasgi carried their name
and arts into Italy, as well as into Crete and various other isles.
On the continent of Greece, when the revolution became complete, the
Pelasgi appear to have retained only Arcadia, the greater part of
Thessaly [72], the land of Dodona, and Attica.

There is no reason to suppose the Hellenes more enlightened and
civilized than the Pelasgi; but they seem, if only by the record of
their conquests, to have been a more stern, warlike, and adventurous
branch of the Grecian family. I conclude them, in fact, to have been
that part of the Pelasgic race who the longest retained the fierce and
vigorous character of a mountain tribe, and who found the nations they
invaded in that imperfect period of civilization which is so
favourable to the designs of a conqueror--when the first warlike
nature of a predatory tribe is indeed abandoned--but before the
discipline, order, and providence of a social community are acquired.
Like the Saxons into Britain, the Hellenes were invited [73] b