PART
5 –
Ch.XXXI.2
The
Pelasgians or proto – Latins (Arimii)
(Beginnings
of the Pelasgian people)
XXXI.
2. Prehistoric civilization of the Pelasgian race.
When the Pelasgians
appeared for the first time on the
Arcadii, brave and pastoral people, the oldest
inhabitants of Hellada, said, as Pausanias
tells us (Graeciae Descr. Lib. VIII. 1), that the first man born on earth had
been Pelasg, a man distinguished for
the size, the strength and the beauty of his figure, who surpassed all the
other mortals for the qualities of his spirit; that this Pelasg, after starting
to reign, had been the first to teach the people to build huts (chalybas)
to protect themselves from cold, rain and heat; that he had taught the people
to make clothes from sheep skins; that he had forbidden them to continue to eat
leaves, roots and weeds, out of which some were dangerous for their health;
that he had taught the people to stop eating any sort of acorns, but only from
oaks.
And the ancient
epic poet Asius writes about this
Pelasg, that he had been born from “the black Earth”, on the high slopes of the
mountains, to be the beginner of the mortal genus (Pausanias, lib. VIII. 1. 4).
Another
representative of the ancient Pelasgian civilization had been the divine Prometheus, the son of Iapet, the son
of Gaea.
The poet Eschyl, in one of the most beautiful
works of his, presents Prometheus explaining the benefits that he had brought
to humankind (Prometheus vinctus, v. 450 seqq):
“These people”,
says Prometheus, “did not know either the art to build brick houses in the
light of the sun, or the way to work the wood, but they dwelt underground, in
the dark of the caves, exactly like ants; they had no certain sign by which to
know when winter came, when spring, the season of flowers, came, when summer,
the season of fruit, came, but led a life from one day to another, completely
lacking any knowledge, until I taught them to know the rising and setting of
the stars, things difficult to know anyway. Apart from this, I taught them the
system of all the useful sciences; I discovered the writing and the way people
could remember all the sciences; I was the first to yoke the animals which
could be used for transport. Nobody else but I have invented the sailing ships,
so that the people could cross the sea …..Until now, if it happened that one
fell sick, one died from lack of means of healing, until I showed them how to
make the medicines and how they can cure all the diseases; I have introduced
various modalities of knowing the future, ….. and finally, who could affirm to
have discovered ahead of me the useful things hidden underground, like copper,
iron, silver and gold?”.
Pelasg and
Prometheus are personifications of the ancient Pelasgian culture, and
everything they invented, or created, according to traditions, belongs to the
genius of the entire people.
There also existed
in Crete an old tradition that Dactylii and Corybantii, Pelasgian tribes, had been the first in that island to
teach the people to form flocks of sheep and to domesticate other types of
animals, pigs, goats, cattle, horses; that they had taught the people the art
of throwing the spear (the Pelasgian national weapon) and to live in a communal
society; and especially that they had been the initiators of good will and of a
regular and moderate life (Diodorus
Siculus, lib. V. c. 64).
The data we have
about the ancient history of the Pelasgians correspond entirely with the facts
presented by the archaeology of the Neolithic epoch.
The Pelasgians
appear, according to ancient historical traditions, as the same population as
the Neolithics, who had introduced
in
Greek traditions
also attributed to the Pelasgians the first cult of the gods in
As we know, the
Greeks had borrowed their main divinities from the Pelasgians (Herodotus, lib. II. c. 51, 53; Plato, Cratylus, Ed. Didot, vol. II. p.
293; Ovid, Fast. Lib. II. v.
281-282).
The ancient Jove of the Romans held a stone in his
hand, instead of thunderbolts (Arnobius,
lib. IV. 25; Augustinus, De civit.
Dei, II. 29), and the Romans made the most solemn oaths on this Jupiter Lapis (Festus, see Lapidem;
So the fact is that
from a historical point of view, before Greek and Egyptian civilization, a much
older civilization had spread over
The Pelasgians were
the real founders of our actual way of existence.