42 LANGUAGE OF THE XANTHIANS. 



After relating the manner in which the entire 

 population of Xanthus was destroyed, he men- 

 tions that the Lycians, who called themselves 

 Xanthians in his day, were all strangers, with the 

 exception of a few families who happened to be 

 absent from the country during the invasion ; 

 but without specifying of what nation these 

 strangers were. The word in the original Greek, 

 viz., ETnJXo&c is, we believe, equally applicable to 

 settlers of a foreign nation as to Greeks ; and as the 

 earliest monument inscribed in this language has 

 been fixed by Mr. Sharpe, and generally received to 

 be subsequent to the Persian invasion, we formed 

 an opinion that the language was never spoken 

 by the entire population of Lycia, which is some- 

 what borne out by the several bilingual inscrip- 

 tions existing in the country ; and that those 

 inhabitants to whom the language belonged, were 

 the very strangers whom Herodotus informs us 

 settled there, after the original possessors of the 

 country, the true Lycians, were destroyed; and that, 

 in fact, these settlers were the conquerors them- 

 selves ; and that the so called Lycian monuments 

 and inscriptions are the relics of those people. 

 This opinion becomes more convincing the more 

 we inquire into the facts which have been already 



