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spread themselves to the extremity of our present limits, incorporated a considerable portion of their population, and introduced their language (which became influential) amongst the greater proportion of the Aborigines.

To which let me add, that the natives in the western extremity of Italy, had the appellation of Umbri applied to them by the first invaders, who gave the general name of Celtæ and Galli, to all the original inhabitants from the Rhotian Alps to the Ocean.

Of the Goths.

PART VI.

I COME now to speak of the Goths, another tribe of the great Scythian race, a question of great interest, embracing the consideration of the original inhabitants of the northern parts of the continent of Europe, as well as the stranger people who intruded on them, a subject always obscure, and rendered much more so by theories and systems of semi-ancients, and writers of modern times.

Previously to entering on this part of our investigation, it will be necessary, as usual, to state and examine various opinions, that have from time to time obtained temporary currency, now to be replaced in the scale of your well poised judgment, to receive the stamp of your approbation, or rejected, if found wanting; which done, I shall proceed to deliver what I conceive the historic facts demonstrable from the evidence of men of ancient days, speaking not from vague hearsay, but on their own actual knowledge, premising, that you must bear in mind, I am treating only of origins, wherein brevity is to be studied, as much as perspicuity will admit.

SECTION I.

The first of these opinions is, "That Scythia, beyond the Euxine, was the parent country of the Scythian race, from whence their various tribes emigrated;" against which, as relating to the colonies that occupied Thrace, Illurike, and Ellas, I offered some evidence in the preceding chapter, reserving my remaining proofs to this time, tending to demonstrate generally that Scythia beyond the Euxine, was not the parent country of the Scythian race; and particularly that it was not from thence the tribes of Thrace, &c. emanated.

The first authority to be cited on this occasion, is that of

Herodotus, who expressly says, "That the people of whom I now speak, affirmed that their country was the last formed; and that from the reign of their first king, to the invasion of their country by Darius Hystaspes, was not more than one thousand years;" that is fifteen hundred years before Christ.

If you look on the chart, you will see the original seat of the Scythian race, about Im-magh, from whence you can trace their progress southward to the ocean, between the waters of Ind east, and of Euphrates west, from whence, in process of time, they penetrated to the Mediterranean, and north to Caucasus, all which regions were occupied by multitudinous tribes of this distinct race of mankind, till an eastern people invaded the countries as marked on the chart, on which event the great chief Noe escaped, with many followers, northward to Ardmenia, where he, and those who fled with him, are identified in the Noe-maid-eis, in the neighbourhood of the Araxes, as before mentioned. Of the existence of this ancient Scythian empire (ascendant in hyperbolical phrase over Asia, in historic language over the part of Asia delineated on the chart, for 1500 years at least antecedently to 2247 before Christ, when it was shaken and dismembered by the Assyrians) we have the testimony of the Hebrews, which, though delivered in obscure terms, after their manner, discovers at bottom (though concealed and disfigured) the truth, made manifest by Eolus, accredited by Herodotus, Diodorus, Siculus, Trogus Pompeius, and divers others, all agreeing in commemorating the fact. How then could any ancient or modern come to fancy, that Scythia north of the Euxine, was the parent seat; did they suppose that the true parental Scythians in the regions about Im-magh had extended themselves beyond the waters of Rha, to the Tanais and Euxine, and thus were to be considered the parent? No, that was not their idea, because, according to the evidence of all antiquity, the Scythians commenced their migrations, after the dismemberment of their ancient empire, from Magseanar in Messipotamia, the countries invaded by the Assyrians, from whence they moved north to the Araxes, the point of departure, in

after-times of nearly all those tribes who colonized Europe, as set down in the chart; besides, how could the ancients imagine that Scythia beyond the Euxine was Scythia Parentalis, and at the same time record the idea of these very Scythians being the most modern of nations: whereas the Scythians contended for precedence in antiquity in ages the most remote, assigning as one reason that the lands of the elements of which they were composed, stood so much higher not only than Egypt, (their chief competitor,) but all other parts of the earth known to them, which is fact as to the real Parental Scythia of which the Ancient Scythians spoke; (a) but is not true of Little Scythia beyond the Euxine. How are these seeming contradictions to be reconciled? nothing more easily. The Greeks in the days of Herodotus, and long before, had lost sight of the Parent State, though not of the Ancient Empire, divers districts of which, had changed inhabitants in consequence of the Assyrian invasion, whilst those that remained Scythian had assumed distinct tribal denominations, and the region north of Caucasus being called Isciot, to preserve the memory of their race was the only country that also preserved the ancient name, though the tribe who emigrated thither assumed the specific appellative of Goth, of which tribe, and the many tribes sprung from them, it was the parent seat, but not of the Scythian race; and though it is an error to designate it Scythia Parentalis, it is critically correct to call it Goth-ia Parentalis, which in fact it was; therefore when the Goths spoke of their novelty as a distinct tribe, they spoke truly and candidly after their manner; as Scythians they would and always did boast of their antiquity, as Goths, they were comparatively but a modern nation, and when they said par hazard, one thousand years antecedently to the time of Darius Hystaspes, they may not be far from the truth, the date of their having assumed their specific name of Goth, and electing a Ceann to lead them westward, being so long from the time of their emigration from the south, as was requisite to occupy all the country from the Rha to the Tanais, and a distance northward, which might occupy the space of time between 1950,

the era of their departure from Magh-og, and their invasion of Europe, for it was on that event they changed their arms of war, from the bow and sling, which would be of no avail in the forests of the lands of the Cimmerii or Celta, to the longspear, and from that circumstance either assumed, or received, from their kindred of Magh-saigiote, the name of Goth.

These proofs being absolute against the idea of Scythia beyond the Euxine being the parent seat; few words will suffice to shew with equal force that it could not be the country from whence the tribes of Thrace, Ellas, and Illurike, &c. emigrated; for which purpose we have but to refer to the afore-mentioned acknowledgment of the Goths, that they were a modern community, modern in their northern seats, not older than 1500 years before Christ, and to couple this declaration with that of their supposed children, founding cities in Pelasgia 2089, and of the reign of a King Og-eag-eis in Attica, 1766 years before Christ, dates centuries antecedent to their fancied separation from the parent stock. As relating to the Goths both these assertions must be incorrect, as relating to the Og-eag-eis, who emigrated from the Araxes 2170 before Christ; both may have been true, though chronology and topography be violated as in the present instance, no town having been built in Pelasgia for nearly 1000 years later than the date above mentioned, no chief nor tribe of the Og-eag-eis having advanced as far south as Attica, for 600 years after the above era, as before shewn; but do we not frequently detect the ancients in mistakes of the like sort, though remarkable events with which they are connected be accredited? what though the chronology of the Greeks was founded on no principle till the arrival of the Phoenicians, and on an erroneous system from that period, till the restoration of the Olympiads in 776, before Christ; is it possible to conceive that the most acute intelligent people of the earth, would subject themselves to be convicted of stupidity so flagrant, as to derive their origin from a nation, that by their own account, did not exist for ages after the occurrence of events, ascribed to them in

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