THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE MEDITERRA NEAN POPULATIONS, &c., IN THEIR MIGRA- ALTHOUGH the results in this paper may appear to be novel, and are largely derived from sources newly opened up, in reality they are only the sequence of previous investigations. Long since there were published by me in the Journal of the Palestine Exploration Fund, and of the Anthropological Institute, and also in the Transactions of this Royal Historical Society, a list of place names. These tables showed the identity of the ancient names of cities in the Old World from India to Britain, and of those in the New World in wide regions. These lists met with little attention, because the comparisons could not be understood by some persons, and were looked upon by others as the mere consequences of casual resemblance. There were, however, many details pointed out by me, which showed the positive connection. Thus in the case of some names they were found to be in a plural form both in Hebrew and in Greek. Certain rules were observable in double vowels, and in the change of consonants for the transliteration into the various languages.* It necessarily follows that the present investigation carries the evidence very much further, and it reveals the unsuspected fact that in hundreds of cases the records of extinct languages are preserved on coins, to which a totally different signification has been assigned. Nothing is more certain than that * Palestine Exploration Fund, New Series, iv., p. 193, &c., Khita and Khita Peruvian Epoch, pp. 57.61. emblems may be transmitted through thousands of years to alien races. A very sufficient example is that of Byzantium, where the Moon (or Crescent) and Star, which had been introduced by the prehistoric founders, were used by the Greeks and in our day are accepted by the Turks. The autonomous coins constitute a very large class in Asia, Africa, and Europe, being those struck by cities, and many small towns which even under the Roman Empire preserved their privilege of local coinage. On the later coins will be found Roman legends and Roman symbols. On the earlier coins are found animals' heads and other objects. By these the coins are readily recognised, as those of Athens by the owl, those of Ephesus by the bee or stag, and those of Byzantium by a crescent and star. On coins of later time we find, besides these, images of the gods, Apollo, Diana, Pallas, and others. It is not worth while inquiring what reasons, if any, have been assigned by ancients or moderns for the earlier symbols; it is better worth while to try and ascertain their relations. If then we sort out all the coins in a cabinet having a Horse or Horse's Head (and Pegasus comes into this class) or having a Bull, or having a Lion, we shall find that some of the words or names are very much alike. Thus for Horse we find Corinth, Corcyra, Corone, Cyrene, Hyccara, Agyrium, Carmo, Crannon, and of the same root Celenderis, Gelas, Calycadnus, Bargylia. We have also Camarina, Cyme, Cambolectri, Himera, Cavares, Andecavi, Cacaba, Pànticapæum. Further we may take out Cissa, Cossa, Cos, Syracusa, Cassandra, Equæsia, Phocis, Osca, Ausa, Suessa. So other classes for this emblem can be recognised. In choosing coins with a Bull (or Cow or Calf) we may define Pella, Pelius, Pylos, Pelinna, Baelo, Aballo, Abella, Cephalædium, Pholegandrus, Obulco, with Barea, Cibyra, Sybaris, Pherx, Spirus, Perinthus, Priene, Perrhæbia, &c. We should also set apart Thera, Abdera, Dardanus, Tarraco, Thyatira, Dyrrhachium, Tauromenium, &c. From the Lion pieces we get Samos, Samosata, Clazomenæ, Smyrna, also Miletus, Milyas, Mallus, and further Conicenses, Æna, Sicyon, among others. The emblems on the coins will be found to be in relation to the forms of the names, and if we seek in vocabularies of ancient and other languages we shall find corresponding words, as in Akkad Kurra for Horse. The matter, however, goes further. If more than one emblem is to be found on a coin, then there will be a parallelism of sound for these several emblems. Pella and Pelinna, for instance, have each a Horse and a Bull. On the coins of Pella, Aballo, Abella, we have a Sun (Apollo) and a Bull. The coins of a class have not always throughout identical emblems, but then words of the same root will be found for the corresponding emblems. It must not be assumed that Pella and Pelinna meant both Horse and Bull in the same language, though it is true that all the names for animals are found primarily allied.* In the case cited, or in that of Pella, Aballo, and Abella, the towns must have been settled by fractions of tribes, in the languages of which the meanings were distributed. Pella must have meant Sun, Horse, Bull, but Aballo and Abella only embraced Sun and Bull, and Pelinna, Horse and Bull. Philologically the evidence for these conditions is easily found. The conclusion is, that although there were the same kinds of tribes engaged in the colonization of each town, the distribution of the tribes was not identical in all cases. That these emblems became those of the cities, we find by the whole course of events. A very familiar instance is that of the Crescent and Star of Byzantium, already quoted; but Byzantium had other emblems than this. We can see that the cities were at times inhabited by various populations, as in the cases of Ephesus and Rome. Indeed, the quarters of Ephesus had separate names; one had the remarkable name of Samorna (=Smyrna). On looking at Ephesus over and over again in my early days of these questions, it was always my conception that villages had been built on the several hills ranged under my eyes, and that these afterwards constituted the aggregation known as Ephesus. Samorna would bear the Lion. It will most likely be proved that the names of the hills of Rome likewise represent the tribes. The Capitoline has a most suspicious sound when we think of such names as Capua and its kindred. Whatever may be our opinions as to these facts, they show that the town names throughout the Old World (and America must be added) are formed on one plan, and that where we have coins these town names have the sound of the names of animal and other objects. As the town names are founded on one plan, so are they met with in every region. On looking at the lions, horses, bulls, we find they come from coins of Asia Minor, Greece, Sicily, Italy, Spain, and even from Africa, the Cimmerian Bosphorus and outlying districts. The same facts existed in Palestine as in Asia Minor; in Greece, Thrace, Macedonia, and the islands, as in Asia; in Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, as in Greece; in Spain, in the same way, but beyond Spain, in Aquitania, in Gaul, in Helvetia, in Belgium, in Britannia. Thus we have those populations almost mythical in historians, who were supposed to have been in the Mediterranean region before the coming of the Semites and Aryans. These have been called Iberians, Pelasgians, Leleges, Amazons, and also Aborigines. They are commonly held to have been Turanians. For these I have used, as others have, many terms, but for unknown and undecided facts the denomination applied is of small importance. It may be useful here to employ Iberian, and the rather as the word Iberian is used in reference to Britain for the prehistoric populations coming before the Celts. We must however be careful not to define the Iberians as Basques, or as Lapps, and to confine the word to the populations of culture, which formed organized communities, and transmitted their institutions to the Semites and Aryans. The condition of the Iberian world, the aspect under which we can now see it, is important for our comprehension of general history. We find towns and populations composed of those speaking diverse languages, and having consequently no general power of aggregation. It is true that a horde of such men might be brought together under a chief to invade and conquer whole countries over which the leader became king, but it was rarely a homogeneous state or language was established after many years, as in Lydia or Etruria. The Semite and Aryan mercenaries and invaders found a ready prey in these disintegrated communities, and as many allies as they encountered foes. The arts were, it is true, cultivated in the Iberian epoch, and it was long before the rude new-comers reached the same condition of advancement, and far longer before they surpassed it. A great revolution in the world was produced by the Semite and Aryan establishment in the Mediterranean regions. It is the case that as vast empires even had existed in the Iberian epoch as that of the Khita and the Akkadian, and that of Egypt, but the smaller kingdoms of the later comers proved more powerful and overcame even these. It was the introduction of Assyrian, Phoenician, Greek, and Latin as general languages, which ultimately fusing and outgrowing the local dialects, left only the few dominating languages, which became vehicles for wider oral and literal communication. The Semites and Aryans possessed languages better defined, wherein the roots had been distinctively applied to separate ideas, and thereby a better instrument of communication was obtained. In the Iberian epoch some priest or statesman could use the general or sacred language, but otherwise each town would have at least one dialect if not more, as we still see in some parts of the East. Thus general communication was restricted, for a common language under such circumstances is not a household language, and is sometimes unknown to the women and children, as we find on our own shores in Wales. |