Greek Traditions of the Deluge. 27 



I have given in the Philological Museum, ii. p. 348, my 

 reasons for thinking that the name and story of Ogyges be- 

 long properly to Bceotia* Whether I am right or not in the 

 interpretation which I have given to his name, the fact that 

 traditions respecting him were connected with Bceotia, and 

 that we have no proof that they were so with Attica, remains 

 the same. As to his flood, till some more decisive passages 

 are produced than those which have been given above, I must 

 be allowed to doubt whether we have any proof that either 

 in Bceotia or Attica there was any tradition respecting it. 

 Pausanias, says, Bceot. 5., that Thebes derived the name of 

 Ogygian, which many of the poets had given it, from an au- 

 tochthon, Ogygus, king of the Hectenes, and that this people 

 perished Koi^ooln voa-co. 



I have now to inquire how the popular belief among the 

 Greeks upon the subject of a flood in the time of Deucalion 

 is to be accounted for. Three suppositions may be made, 

 The progenitors of the Hellenes brought with them from Asia 

 a tradition of the flood of Noah, which they localized in their 

 own country, by attributing it to Thessaly. This is the com- 

 mon opinion ; and it is the more easily adopted because, as 

 we know nothing whatever of the tribes from whom the Greeks 

 originated, we pass per solium from Thessaly to the plain of 

 Shinar, and nothing seems simpler than that they should pre- 

 serve a tradition of a recent and impressive event. But let us 

 consider chronology a little. According to the Hebrew text 

 the deluge is placed about 2300 b.c. ; but historical inquirers 

 are beginning to feel the inconvenient limitation of time which 

 this occasions, and adopt the Septuagint reckoning, which will 

 carry it up to 3500 B.C. Now we have not found any traces 

 of this tradition in Greece earlier than the commencement of 

 the 5th century before Christ. Here is then a period of 3000 

 years, during which we must suppose it to have been preserved 

 in the minds of a race who, if their own tradition about Pro- 

 metheus is to be believed, (and it is found in earlier authors 

 than that of Deucalion,) had not even the use of fire among 

 them. It would be too much to say that such a transmission 

 is impossible. Those who believe that Ammonian and Cu- 

 thean priests marched from Chaldaea to all parts of the world, 

 bearing diluvial traditions and helio-arkite symbols, may not 

 even find it improbable ; but let the linguist and the ethnogra- 

 pher reflect on the changes and vicissitudes through which the 

 ancestors of the Hellenes must have passed, and they will be 

 startled, I think, at the demand made upon their belief. No- 

 thing could make the preservation of a tradition in these cir- 

 cumstances credible, but such a close resemblance as pre- 



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