174 



It has been long and very generally held, on the au- 

 thority of Herodotus, Lib. V. §. 58, that the Greeks were 

 unaccjuainted with letters, before the arrival of Cadmus, 

 an. 1549; but Mr. 1' Archer has well shewn, that the text 

 of Herodotus, on which that opinion is principally found- 

 ed, has been misunderstood; and that Herodotus does not 

 say, that letters were brought into Greece by Cadmus, but 

 only some letters, 4 I'Archer, 254. Cadmus introduced only 

 three letters, Zeta, Theta, and Chi; which, for the facility 

 of arithmetical calculation, (best understood by the Phoe- 

 nicians, a commercial people,) were generally received. 



Diodorus also. Lib. V. §. 57, says, that it was believed 

 that Cadmus first brought letters into Greece: but, §. 74, 

 he says, that the Phcenicians were not the inventors, but 

 barely changed their form. 



Many have also supposed, that the Pelasgic letters were 

 the first known in Greece, and more ancient than the 

 Ionic: but this is evidently a mistake; for Pliny, Lib. VII. 

 cap. Ivi. tells us, that the Pelasgi introduced letters into 

 Latium. And, in the two following chapters, he tells us, 

 that the Latin letters were nearly the same as the most 

 ancient Greek, and were the Ionic: which is confirmed by 

 Tacitus, and Herodes Atticus. 



These Pelasgi were either those, who, according to Di- 

 onys, Halicarnass. Lib. I. ^. 18, being expelled from Thes- 

 saly, by Deucalion, passed soon after into Ital}', an. 1539; 

 or those that followed Evander, from Arcadia, into Italy, 

 an. 1300; or under CEnotrus, also from Arcadia, at a much 



earlier 



