PREHISTORIC
PART
6 –
Ch.XXXIV (I – IV)
The
Great Pelasgian empire
The
country of the first Pelasgian kings.
The
Oceanos potamos region.
I.
Ancient historical
traditions of the Greeks, Egyptians, Phoenicians and Assyrians, mentioned a vast
empire of the Pelasgian race, which in its epoch of power and greatness had
extended over a great part of Europe, Asia and Africa (De Jubainville, Les prem. habit. de l’Europe. I. 77).
But the history of
these primitive, Pelasgian times is shrouded in the veil of many legends and
myths.
The first kings of
the Pelasgian race had excelled especially in their personal virtues, in their
political merits and for the blessings they bestowed on the human genus. They
had been the first to gather in a society the families and tribes scattered
through caves, mountains and woods, to found villages and cities, to form the
first states, to give their subjects laws and to introduce gentler customs in
their way of living; they had dedicated their entire activity towards a better
existence, physical and intellectual, and in this way had opened a new way for
the fate of humanity on this earth.
In gratitude for
these everlasting merits of theirs, these kings of the Pelasgian race had been
deified and honored with religious cults, some after death, like Uranos and
Saturn, and others while living, like for example Jove.
The ancient
Pelasgian theology had then considered these civilizing kings of the ancient
world like the gods, even more, like true gods, descended on earth from
the sky; in their honor it had erected temples and altars, had instituted
sacrifices and feast days, had composed hymns, legends and rites, had founded
colleges of priests and oracles, and finally, had eternized their names on the
celestial vault, attributing them to certain constellations.
In this way, these
kings who had lived mortal lives, begin to be called gods; they become the
heads of ancient religion and watch even after their death, as glorious
ancestors, over their peoples.
As soon as the divine
nature of these kings – who had put the first foundations of human happiness –
is proclaimed, their epoch begins to darken. Historical traditions, redacted by
the priestly colleges, change in miraculous legends. Their beings are
dogmatically brought in connection to the birth of the world more and more, and
in this way their history becomes mythical – theological [1].
[1. Those looking in the ancient
legends only for symbolisms, or for
personifications of the elementary forces of nature, are deluded. In
pre-historical antiquity, the thoughts of humankind were dominated by real
facts, not at all by personal imagination].
The ancients,
writes Evhemerus, had transmitted to
posterity two different notions about the gods: that some had been and are
eternal, not subjected to death, like the sun,
moon and stars; and others who
had been men, born of the earth, who had earned divine honors and a religious
cult for the benefices brought to the human genus. Uranos had been the first king to rule; a man with high feelings of
justice and a great benefactor for everybody. He had been at the same time a
man highly learned in the course of the stars, and the first to introduce the
sacrifices with victims for the celestial divinities; because of which he had
been called “Ceriu” (ouranos
– TN – sky). Uranos was then followed by Saturn,
and after Saturn, Jove had reigned (Diodorus Siculus, lib. VI. 2; Cicero, De nat. Deor. II. 24).
The same was said
in antiquity about Saturn, that he had
been a simple mortal; that he had been the first to gather in society, in
villages and in cities, the people scattered through the high mountains, and to
give them laws (Virgil, Aen. VIII.
321), Diodorus Siculus, lib. V. 66).
Ianus, writes Macrobius, had been the first to erect
altars to Saturn, as to a god, and had disposed to be considered as the highest
religious authority, because he had been the founder of a better way of life
(Saturn. Lib. I. 7).
The same writes Tertullianus, that among all the authors
who had studied pre-historical antiquity, there is not one, not even Diodorus
the Greek, Thallus, Cassius Severus or Cornelius Nepos, who could have shown
Saturn in any other way but as a simple man (Apolog. 10).
The archaeological
studies made in the last fifty years also find that in pre-historical times, a
unity of religious notions and moral precepts had existed, the same type of
political, civil and military institutions, the same direction of human
activity, a unity of civilization everywhere, which in its results for the
progress of humankind had been much more productive and more intensive than the
Egyptian and Greco-Roman civilizations, which were founded and developed only
on the substratum of the former.
Before beginning to
treat the history of the first traditional kings of the Pelasgian race though,
we must first see where was the cradle in which the first notions of the
ancient social life are seen to awaken and develop, and the great and powerful
center of the political Pelasgian life is manifested.
II.
According to Homer
and Hesiodus, the country of the first deified kings of the ancient world had
been in the extreme parts of the Greek horizon, at north of Thrace or Istru,
called in Greek legends Oceanos potamos,
the father of gods (Homer, Iliad, XIV, v. 201. 227).
The ancient
“Oceanos potamos” of the geography of Pelasgian times was not an internal sea,
but neither external, as it was later believed, but a simple river, roos
(Homer, Iliad, XVIII. 402; Odyss.
XI. 21. 639; XII. 1; Hesiodus, Op.
566); mediteranean, messo; big, megalos potamos (Homer, Odyss. XI. 157-8); deep flowing,
bathurroos
(Homer, Odyss. XI. 13); which had
its sources (Hesiodus, Theog. v.
282), cataracts (Homer, Iliad,
XVIII. 403; Orpheus, Argon. V. 1069.
1160; Strabo,
Beyond Oceanos
potamos, meaning in the northwards regions, there still existed a considerable
part of the European continent, with other rivers, high mountains, rocks, woods
(Homer, Odyss. X. 508 seqq; Hesiodus, Theog. v. 129), vast and
fertile plains (Homer, Iliad, XVIII.
541 seqq), often named in the geography of those times ta eschata and peirata
gaies meaning the extreme regions, and “ultima terra” by Ovid (Trist. III. 4. 52) [2].
[2. That Oceanos potamos must have been a river, or a flowing sea, which
encircled the extreme parts of the whole earth, is an entirely wrong
interpretation of the ancient geographical traditions.
Homer does not say anywhere that
Oceanos had been an external sea. In fact, the Greeks did not know in those
times either the western Ocean, or the northern one. It is true that Homer (Hymn. in Ven. 228) and Hesiodus (Theog. 79. 282) tell us that
Oceanos potamos flew alongside Gaea
or Terra; but under this expression
must not be understood the entire earth, but only a certain geographical
region, Gaia or Terra, the
land or the blessed country, which
forms the theater of the traditional legends and great events of the Pelasgian times; in the same way, the
Istru, or the lower Danube, circles even today, on three sides, in the shape of
an arc, the territory called “Tera”
and “Tera Romanesca”, which from the
point of view of its geography and name is identical with “Gaea” or “Terra” of the
legends of antiquity.
The same geographical idea is also
expressed in the text of the Iliad. On the shield of Achilles, Homer tells us,
Vulcan had represented in fact not the entire terrestrial globe, but only the
fertile land from the northern parts of Thrace, Gaia (Terra), also called
“polus Geticus”; where the constellations of the “Ursa” rotate; where some plough the rich and wide
plains, and others harvest the abundant crops, where are vineyards with
excellent grapes, golden and black, which young girls and boys gather in
baskets, singing with pleasant voices, and beating the earth rhythmically with
their feet. Near this land, so rich in its crops and attractive for its customs
and its pastoral and agricultural festivities, Vulcan, the Iliad tells us, had
also shown on the edge of the shield the river Oceanos potamos.
In ancient Greek poems, Oceanos
potamos has also the epithet aphorroos (Homer, Iliad, XVIII. 399; Odyss. XX. 65), a word whose real meaning
is that the flowing water of the river Oceanos was turning back in some places,
or formed whirlpools. The same term is often replaced by the epithet bathudines,
with deep eddies (Homer, Odyss. X.
511; Hesiodus, Theog. v. 133).
In regard to the ancient
geographical meanings of the word Oceanos,
we can distinguish three periods. In
the first period, or ante-Homeric, under the name of “Oceanos” was understood
the Pontos, or the Black Sea, a name from which the
epithet axeinos had been preserved until late, but with an entirely
different meaning in Greek language than the original one, and the Istru was
considered in those times only as a gulf
of the Ocean (Strabo, I. 1. 7).
Another gulf of this Ocean was formed by the
In the Argonautic
legends, Oceanos potamos is the same slowly flowing river like the Istru of
later times. According to Hesiodus, Pindar, Antimachus and Orpheus, the Argonauts
pass from the Euxine Pontos in the Mediterranean, sailing on Oceanos potamos (Hesiodus, Fragm. 57); and according to Apollonius Rhodius (Argon. IV. 288) and
Valerius Flaccus (Argon. VIII. 185),
they take the same way westwards, but navigating on the Istru, also called cheras
‘Ocheanoio.
The great river
called Oceanos potamos, came from remote regions (Eschyl, Prom. v. 284), flew towards the Pontos from west to east;
it then crossed the narrow straits of the Riphei mountains or Carpathians (Orpheus, Argon. V. 1080. 1123; 1201),
where it formed many deep whirlpools, very dangerous for navigation (Ibid. v.
1083).
From the same
Riphei mountains flew, according to Eschyl
(fragm. 73), the Istru. Near Riphei
and near the Istru dwelt the Agathyrsii (R.
Avienus, Descr. Orb. v. 455).
Oceanos potamos,
after leaving the precipitous straits of the Riphei mountains, flew through the
valley or basin of these mountains (Orpheus,
Argon. v. 1079), passed alongside plains with extensive pastures, where dwelt
the most just of people (Ibid. v. 1136) and numerous pastoral tribes of
Scythians, Hyperboreans, Getae, Sauromatae, Sindi, Arimaspians, etc (Ibid. v.
1062 seqq). The sailing boats navigated upriver on Oceanos potamos helped by
the north wind Boreas (Homer, Odyss.
X. 97). For Hesiodus, Oceanos
potamos is a “sacred” river, ieros roos (Opera et dies, v. 566),
or in other words it belonged to the religious history of primitive times. The
same epithet is inherited later by the Istru (Dionysius, Descr. orb. v. 298).
Near Oceanos
potamos were “the islands of the blessed”, macharon nasoi, destined as eternal
residence for the illustrious men fallen at
Among these
“blessed” islands, the most famous had been in Homeric times Leuce (Pliny, lib. IV. 27. 2), today the
Serpents’
Close to Oceanos
potamos had their dwellings the legendary Pygmeii,
who, as Homer tells us, were in a
perpetual war with flocks of cranes, which, departing from the winter and the
many rains of the northern region, flew towards the south, over the flowing
waters of the Ocean. The same Pygmeii appear also in the geographical notes of Pliny as settled in the southern parts
of the lower Istru, or on the territory of actual Dobrogea.
It is therefore
without any doubt that the renowned river of ante-Homeric times, Oceanos potamos, which flew in the
northern parts of
III.
The vast and
fertile plains near Oceanos potamos are called in theogonies and the epic poems
of antiquity Gaia or Terra, and
the mountains of the northern parts, which encircled like a crown this country,
are called Ourea machra “the long and high mountains” by Hesiodus (Theog. v. 129, “the high
mountains” by Homer (Odyss. IX.
114), and “the mountains with high ridges” by Asius (frag. in Pausanias,
lib. VII. 1).
Even since the most
remote of times this land had the renown of a blessed country (Diodorus
Siculus, lib. III. 56), endowed in abundance with all the gifts of nature,
and with an extraordinary fertility [3].
[3. In ante-Homeric times the
temperature of the countries on the lower
Here, writes Homer, the earth produces everything,
without seed and without tilling, wheat, oats and grapevines (Odyss. IX. 109).
Near Oceanos (potamos), Hesiodus
tells us, the earth blossoms and produces fruit three times a year (Opera, v.
169; Diodorus, II. 47; Chronicon Dubnicense, Ed. Florianus, c.
28).
With Homer, Oceanos potamos is called
“father of gods” (theon genesis), understand of the deified ancient kings. With Hesiodus though, the genealogy of these
kings is reduced to Gaea, the
blessed country near Oceanos potamos. Finally, according to the poet Asius, Pelasg, the first king of the
Pelasgian nation, identical in fact with Uranos, had been born on the
“Mountains with high ridges”, on the territory called Gaia melaina, meaning
from the “
As we see, we have
here the same historical tradition about the same geographical region which
Homer characterizes by its proximity with Oceanos potamos, Hesiodus by its
fertile plains called Gaia or Terra, and the poet Asius by
its “Mountains with high ridges”.
In regard to the
geographical configuration of this country, the stoic philosopher Posidonius (2nd century bc)
tells us that Terra or Gaea had the shape of a sling, wider in its middle part and narrower on its eastern and
western parts (fragm. 69 in Fragm. Hist. gr. III. 282; Dionysius, Orb. Descr. 7). The same geographical shape had,
according to Strabo, the country of the Getae,
a Geton ga, which was narrow
at one end (western), stretched along the Istru on its southern side, while on
the opposite or northern side, it stretched to the foothills of the Hercinic
mountains, also comprising a part of these mountains; finally, in the northern
parts (understand east) it opened right to the Tyregetae (Geogr. Lib. VII. 3.
1).
About the country
of the Getae, considered in antiquity as identical with the country near
Oceanos potamos, we also have an important geographical note. The astronomer Pytheas of the 4th century
bc, had called the country of the Getae Parocheanitis, meaning the country
near Oceanos potamos, and he had based this geographical name on ancient
astronomical and geometrical descriptions (Strabo,
Geogr. VII. 3. 1).
There is no doubt
that the territory called Gaea or Terra by the legends of antiquity, which also
had the epithet orestera, “mountainous” (Sophocles,
Philoctetes, v. 391) and pelore “country of the giants” (Hesiodus, Theog. v. 731), was identical
with the region at north of the lower Danube, which bears to this day the name
“Tera” and “Tera muntenesca” (TN – Mountainous Country), and the “country of
the giants” in our folk legends.
IV.
According to other
historical traditions, the great empire of the Pelasgian race had its
beginnings near the high Atlas
mountain, on the northern parts of the Greek zone, situated in the geographical
region Gaea or Terra (Hesiodus, Theog.
v. 517-8; Diod. Siculus, lib III.
60).
The titan Atlas, according to Greek theogonies,
had been brother with Oceanos potamos (Eschyl,
Prom. v. 347 seqq), or with Saturn (Diodorus
Siculus, lib.III. 60; Fragm Hist. Gr. III. 567.14), and according to other
genealogies, with Prometheus (Hesiodus,
Theog. v. 509-510).
Atlas had taken
part in the battles of the Titans against Jove, because of which the new master
of the ancient world had condemned him to support the sky on his tireless
shoulders and arms (Hesiodus, Theog.
v. 517-519). But Atlas had been later transformed in a vast mountain, on which
was supported the northern pole of the sky, called cardines mundi, septentrio
(Pliny, lib. IV. 26. 11; Isidorus, Orig. XIII. 1. 8; Ovid, Pont. Lib. II. 10), Rhiphaeus axis (Claudianus, lib. XXXVIII. v. 30-31; Virgil, Aen. IV. 481-482), Hyperborei
axes (Silvius, Thebaid. XII. v.
650; Mela, lib. III. 5) and Geticus polus (Martial, Epigr. Lib. IX. 46. v. 1-2 – On the sky this pole was
represented by the 7 stars, called Ursa
Major).
From the point of
view of its geographical position, Atlas mountain of the legends of antiquity
represents the southern chain of the Carpathians, the center of which is
crossed by the river today called Olt,
Atlas by Herodotus and Alutus in the Roman epoch [4].
[4. The geography of prehistorical times is not the geography of Greco -
Roman times. A large number of geographical names, together with their legends
and traditions, had migrated at the same time as the Pelasgian pastoral tribes,
some westwards, others southwards. Atlas mountain of the legends of theogony is
in no way the Atlas mountain of the north-west parts of
On the oldest coins
of
The country over
which the titan Atlas had ruled is called in Greek traditions Atlantis (Plato, Critias, p. 251 seqq), identical by name and geographical
position with the regions near the mountain and the river Atlas, on both sides
of the Carpathians, today Oltenia
and Tera Oltului.
Diodorus Siculus writes (lib. III. 56) about the
inhabitants of this land, called Atlantes
(Olteni):
The Atlantes, who dwell in the regions near
Oceanos (potamos), owners of that blessed country, distinguish themselves, as
it is said, among all their neighboring peoples, for their particular piety and
hospitality. They boast that the gods
had been born there, and say that the first king of theirs had been Uranos
(Munteanul), who had gathered in
villages and cities the people who used to dwell scattered, and had forbidden
them to continue living without laws, and by the manner of wild animals. This
Uranos had under his rule the best part of the world, especially the regions towards west and north.
Another historical
narrative about the inhabitants from near Atlas mountain is found with Plato,
extracted from a manuscript of Solon, which had been left in the possession of
the Critias family.
Solon, the
illustrious archontas of
One of these
priests said the following towards Solon (Plato,
Timaeus, ed. Didot, II. 199 seqq):
All the big and
memorable events, whose fame had reached even
[5. In this historical narrative, as
reproduced by Plato, not all the Greek expressions correspond exactly to their
original meaning. If we analyzed the Greek text of this description from a
critical point of view, it is very easy to see that in the Greek translation of
Solon had been changed, not only the original form of the personal names (which
even Plato admits), but, under the influence of newer ideas, also the original
meaning of a number of geographical terms. So we see for example that in the
Greek translation of Solon, Atlantis
figures as nasos, meaning “island”, because it was situated on this side
of Oceanos (potamos); the river Oceanos itself, which flew alongside Atlantis,
is mistaken for the western Ocean, because of which it is sometimes called pelagos,
and other times thalassa (Aristotle,
De mundo, c. 3).
In fact, the term nasos
was also applied in older times to regions which did not form real islands,
like for
example Peloponnesos (Eustath. Comm. ad Dionys. 403). In
order not to continue with these geographical errors, we have translated here
the term nasos with the words “region”
and “country”, basing ourselves in
this regard on the text of Diodorus
Siculus, in which Atlantis figures as chora, not as “island”].
The manuscript of
Solon about his conversations with the priests of
From the name of
Atlas, this entire region and that great water were called “Atlantis”. This
region was rich in all sorts of minerals, extracted from the depth of the earth
in solid or fluid form; but it was especially extracted from the mines a sort
of yellow copper (aurichalcum), which in those times was considered as the most
precious metal after gold. (In a Romanian carol from
As results from
these geographical notes, the territory called Atlantis had the same
configuration like the country from near Oceanos potamos, about which
Posidonius tells that it had the shape of a sling; also like the country of the Getae as presented by Strabo,
first narrow towards its western part and open towards north-east; and finally,
also like the geographical shape of the Romanian Country of our times, whose
length from the Iron Gates to the Black Sea is 551km in a straight line, and
which presents a circumference of about 1611km, being therefore equal in shape
and size to the country called by the ancients Atlantis.
The manuscript of
Solon about the conversations which he had with the priests of
In the course of a
number of centuries, the inhabitants of this country (Atlantis), being led by
the noblest feelings of justice, had been moderate and wise, they despised all
worldly things, in order to be virtuous. But, after the divine part in them had
started to disappear and their human nature had won, they fell into depravity,
and Jove, the father of gods, who rules by law, understanding that a good genus
of humans had become wicked, had decided to punish them, so that they would
become more moderate [6].
[6. From this last part of the
narrative results therefore that, from a historical point of view, a total disappearance
or submersion of the country or region called Atlantis cannot be understood here, but only an extraordinary
flooding, yet only temporary. A proof in this regard offers Diodorus (III. 57), who speaks about
some historical traditions of the Atlantes (or the inhabitants near Atlas),
gathered much later than those remote times about which spoke the priests of
In religious carols of the Romanian
people, some memories about an extraordinary flooding of the river Olt (Atlas, Alutus) have been still
preserved to this day. This catastrophe had obtained in many regards a mythical
character, so it belongs to archaic times. From these carols we reproduce the
following verses:
They ran, ran, two
saints adorned,
Till God they found, in
a cell of myrrh,
With door of lemon tree.
He sat and thought,
And the Gospel read, how
to drain the big Olt.
(Bibicescu,
Poesii pop. 237)
Litlle Olt, big it came, and so big, it has no
ends.
(Teodorescu,
Poesii popl 61)
We also have the following legends
about Olt and Mures:
“The old people (of the village
Garla-mare, Mehedinti district), tell that Oltul
and
The same legend is also communicated
from the village Sirinesa, Valcea district, under the following form: “
As we see, the common foundation of
these two legends is reduced to the times when the Transilvanian
Finally, it is also worth to
reproduce here the following folk tradition, which we find with Margot (O viatorie, p. 52): “At the
gates of the city (
As we see, the country,
or region, called by the Greek authors Atlantis,
belongs to the geographical region from north of Thracia. The political history
of the Pelasgian race begins therefore at the Carpathians and the lower