228 BIMANA, 



of which latter the walls, as appears from the remaining vestiges, 

 must have embraced a circumference of sixteen miles. From the civi- 

 lizing influence of the Hellenic colonists, the manners, laws, language, 

 arts, and religion of the aborigines of ancient Italy took a deep impres- 

 sion ; insomuch that the Lucanians, a mountain tribe and the natural 

 and hereditary enemies of the Greek colonists, acquired the Hellenic 

 language to such a degree, that their ambassador filled the popular 

 assembly at Syracuse with surprise and enthusiasm by his pure Doric : 

 nor, as Niebuhr states, " would the authors of Pythagorean treatises 

 have used the titles of imaginary Lucanians, had it not been notorious 

 that this philosophy had found reception there, or had it been unusual for 

 Lucanians to write Greek." Of the influence of the Hellenic on the 

 Latin nothing need be said. 



On the physical characteristics of the Greeks, the typical examples 

 of the Pelasgic section, but few observations are requisite : the beautiful 

 contour of the skull and of the face, and the harmony of their propor- 



Head of Apollo Belvidere. 



tions, have been already described : a moderate stature ; dark, flowing- 

 hair ; a white skin, more or less tinged with olive or dusky brown ; large 

 eyes, overshadowed by the superciliary ridge, which rather described a 

 transverse straight line, than a double arch ; a straight or gently aquiline 

 nose, falling directly, with but a slight depression between the eyes, from 

 the forehead ; and a short upper lip, are among their distinguishing 



