CHAP. II - THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE

Summary

All we know about the earliest inhabitants of Greece, is derived from the accounts of the Greeks themselves. These accounts relate to a period preceding the introduction of letters, and to races more or less foreign to that which finally gave its name to the country. On such subjects tradition must be either vague and general, or filled with legendary and poetical details. And therefore we cannot wonder that, in the present case, our curiosity is in many respects entirely disappointed, and that the information transmitted to us is in part scanty and imperfect, in part obscure and confused. If we only listen to the unanimous testimony of the ancients, we find that the whole amount of our knowledge shrinks into a very narrow compass: if we venture beyond this limit, we pass into a boundless field of conjecture, where every step must be made on disputable ground, and all the light we can obtain, serves less to guide than to perplex us. There are however several questions relating to the original population of Greece, which it may be fit to ask, though we cannot hope for a completely satisfactory answer — if for no other purpose, a least to ascertain the extent of our knowledge. This is the main end we propose in the following inquiry; but we shall not scruple to pursue it, even where we are conscious that it cannot lead to any certain result, so far as we see any grounds to determine our opinion on the most interesting points of a dark and intricate subject.