THE HUMAN SPECIES. 393 



canoes, from the Euxine and the coasts of Asia Minor, by 

 Rhodes, Carpathos, Casos.and Crete, and therefore they became 

 greatly mixed by the captives they made in piratical wars, as 

 well as by peaceful alliances. The noble typical races that 

 had come direct from the east, had been broken in upon dur- 

 ing the march by northern and by southern wanderers, and 

 forced to deviate from the line of progress by deserts, inland 

 seas, and chains of mountains. Still the characteristic supe- 

 riority of aspect remained, even to the furthest marine colo- 

 nies they carried to eastern Italy, and to Massilia in Gaul ; 

 and their intermixture was a further cause of the high civili- 

 zation they soon attained ; for national prejudices broke down 

 by communion with other tribes, and the bigotry of conflicting 

 superstitions, unable to establish particular supremacy for one, 

 adopted a general amalgamation of the whole. Hyperborean 

 gods and Egyptian gods were blended. The recondite sym- 

 bols, pregnant with meaning in the east, became west of the 

 Hellespont mere fables and physical personifications, attractive 

 to a people petulant 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 Ro- 

 mans ; it spread among Celtse, Iberians, and Getee ; all striving 

 to recognize their own divinities in the disguised 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 Thessaly and 

 Arcadia, penetrated very early to Italy, a land which looms on 

 the horizon from the heights of Acroceraunus. In both coun- 

 tries we detect the same names of tribes and places, such as 

 Chaones, Elysinians, Siceles, Acheron, Dodona, Pandoria, &c. ; 

 and if we judge the affinity of nations by their mode of build- 

 ing with huge stones, even the Etruscans were in part of this 



