THE HUMAN SPECIES. 415 



seas, and chains of mountains. Still the characteristic 

 superiority of aspect remained, even to the furthest 

 marine colonies they carried to eastern Italy, and to 

 Massilia in Gaul ; and their intermixture was a fur- 

 ther cause of the high civilization they soon attained, 

 for national prejudices broke down by communion 

 with other tribes, and the bigotry of conflicting super- 

 stitions, unable to establish particular supremacy for 

 one, adopted a general amalgamation of the whole. 

 Hyperborean gods and Egyptian gods were blended. 

 The recondite symbols, pregnant with meaning in the 

 east, became west of the Hellespont mere fables and 

 physical personifications, attractive to a people petu- 

 lant with a luxuriant fancy, and so elegant in poetical 

 worship, that it passed to other and more gross condi- 

 tions of society, such as the northern Africans and the 

 Romans ; it spread among Celtae, Iberians, and Getas ; 

 all striving to recognise their own divinities in the dis- 

 guised physicalities that came thus recommended from 

 a polished people. 



THE ROMANS. 



THE western Pelasgians, sometimes considered as the 

 descendants of two great colonies coming from Thes- 

 saly and Arcadia, penetrated very early to Italy, a 

 land which looms on the horizon from the heights of 

 Acroceraunus. In both countries we detect the same 

 names of tribes and places, such as Chaones, Elysi- 

 nians, Siceles, Acheron, Dodona, Pandoria, &c. ; and 



