D2 M. L. EOUSE^ B.L.^ OX THE PEDIGREE OF THE NATIONS. 



tribe called Asias at Sardis.* The Lydians indeed claimed that 

 the tribe and the continent both got their names from Asieus, a 

 nephew of Atys, their first King t; which anrounts to saying 

 that he gave his name to the tribe, who were his descendants, and 

 to their territory (as was likely enough considering its small' 

 relative size and the great length of time that had intervened), 

 and that they passed it on as the name of the eastern shore of 

 the ^Egean Sea, the intercourse of divers nations across that sea 

 gradually causing the name to be applied to all lands however 

 remote that lay eastward of the ^Egean. It was natural indeed 

 that the Thracian people, which was the first to occupy opposite 

 sides of the ^gean and hold them concurrently for ages, should 

 be the first to bestow on the two continents their respective 

 names.j 



In the reign of Atys, the father of Lydus, and therefore 

 while the inhabitants of Lydia were still all Maeonians or of 

 Thracian blood, a famine befell the country, as Herodotus- 

 narrates, the scarcity lasting eighteen years, until at last the 

 King made his people draw lots for half of them to stay in 

 their native land and half to emigrate ; and those upon whom 

 the lot fell to depart went down to Smyrna under the leadership 

 of the King's son Tyrsenos, built sliips, and sailed away past 

 many settled countries until they reached Unibria (in north 

 central Italy). Here they landed and built cities, and changed 

 their national name, calling themselves after their leader 

 " Tyrsenoi."§ 



Now, whereas Herodotus, like Hesiod and the lyric Homer 

 before him,!! calls a certain great Italian people Tyrsenoi, the 

 later Greek writers call them Tyrrlienoi (Tyrrhenians), and 

 after them the sea that lay west of Italy the Tyrrhenian Sea ; 

 the phonetic change being like that of kkcmoncsos (peninsula) 

 into khcrrhoncsos,^ or like that of porso for 2^'>'oso (onwards) 

 into 210 rro. 



^ Her. lY, 45. t Ibid. 



X The other supposed origin of the term Europe from the corrupt m ytli- 

 of Jupiter and Europa, Herodotus dismisses on the ground tliat Europa 

 was a Tvrian woman, who wandered to Crete and to Lycia, but never 

 reached our continent {ibid.) ; while the derivation of Asia from the like- 

 named wife of Prometheus we may eijuall v dismiss on the ground that 

 the deeds of Prometheus, if they are anything but fabulous, point to a 

 period before the Flood. 

 Her. I, 94. 



II Ibid., and 103 ; Hes. Thcog., 1015-0 ; Carm. Jfomerica, vi, 0-8. 

 IT And tlie original Chersouesus was the Thracian one, beside the- 

 HelJespant. 



