104 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



facts which seem to lend it plausibility. The sea which washes 

 the west coast of Etraria has, from an early peinod, been called the 

 Tyrrhenian Sea, and the city of Tarquinii is regarded as having 

 derived its name from Tarchon. That a band of pirates called 

 Tyrrhenians did long infest the ^gean Sea ,is well attested, and it 

 seems equally certain that a portion of them settled in Italy. 

 Thucydides speaks of Tyrrhenian-Pelasgians who had originally dwelt 

 in the peninsula of Athos, but were driven from there to Athens or 

 Attica, and finally took refuge in Lemnos. Herodotus adds that 

 these Tyrrhenians drove out the Minyae and held the island for 

 some time but were overpowered by Otanes, a general of Darius 

 Hystaspes. After the close of the Persian wars, the Athenians took 

 possession of the island. Both ancient and modern writers identify 

 these Tyrrhenians with the Tyrrhenian invaders of Italy. Niebuhr 

 was the first to point out that the Etruscan was a mixed language, and 

 Lapsius believes that with a strong Pelasgic element there is com- 

 bined an Umbi'ian and possibly a Greek. Without entering into 

 any discussion of these opinions we notice that the identification of 

 the Tyrrhenians of Lemnos with the Tyrrhenians or Etruscans of 

 Italy has been confirmed by the recent discovery on the island of 

 Lemnos of two inscriptions in unmistakable Etruscan. These in- 

 scriptions, which seem of diffei'ent dates, are engraved on two sides 

 of a large block of stone, which evidently formed part of an altar. 

 As read, the altar is called the Altar of the Hephaestii, and is dedi- 

 cated to Zerona, worshipped in Myrina. Hephaestias and Myrina 

 were the two principal towns on the Island. This deity, Zex^ona of 

 the Tyrrhenians of Lemnos, suggests a connection with the Zirne of 

 the Etruscans, aiid the Macedonian Zeirene, and, perhaps, with the 

 Thracian Zarunthos, -thos being a masculine termination. These 

 similarities would seem to identify the Tyrrhenian-Pelasgians of 

 Etrui'ia with the Pelasgians of Greece. But there is satisfactory 

 evidence connecting this stone with the place where it was found. It 

 bears the names of the two towns of the island, and is dedicated to 

 the tutelar Deity of one of these towns, and it must be remembered 

 that the dedication is in the Etruscan language. This new discovery 

 certainly cori-oborates the information given by Herodotus, by Thucy- 

 dides, Hellanicus, Plutarch and Strabe. But perhaps this new dis- 

 coverj'^ does not determine very much, for the question will be asked : 

 Who were these Tyrrhenian-Pelasgians 1 But this discovery will 



