subjects he calls
Greeks, and they vote in public assembly by holding up their hands, so
distinguishing them from the Dorians, among whom no such democracy
prevailed.[211] He protects the suppliant women against their Egyptian
persecutors, who claimed them as fugitives from slavery. The character
assigned by Aeschylus to this representative of the Pelasgian race is that
of a just, wise, and religious king, who judged that it was best to obey
God, even at the risk of displeasing man.

It is evident, therefore, that from the earliest times there were in
Greece two distinct elements, either two different races or two very
distinct branches of a common race. First known as Pelasgians and
Hellenes, they afterwards took form as the Ionian and Dorian peoples. And
it is evident also that the Greek character, so strong yet so flexible, so
mighty to act and so open to receive, with its stern virtues and its
tender sensibilities, was the result of the mingling of these antagonist
tendencies. Two continents may have met in Greece, if to the genius of
that wonderful people Asia lent her intellect and Africa her fire. It was
the marriage of soul and body, of nature and spirit, of abstract
speculation and passionate interest in this life. Darkness rests on the
period when this national life was being created; the Greeks themselves
have preserved no record of it.

That some powerful influence from Egypt was acting on Greece during this
forming period, and contributing its share to the great result, there can
hardly be a question. All the legends and traditions hint at such a
relation, and if this were otherwise, we might be sure that it must have
existed. Egypt was in all her power and splendor when Greece was being
settled by the Aryans from Asia. They were only a few hundred miles apart,
and the ships of Phoenicia were continually sailing to and fro between
them.

The testimony of Greek writers to the early influence of Egypt on their
country and its religion is very full. Creuzer[212] says that the Greek
writers differed in regard to the connection of Attic and Egyptian
culture, only as to How it was, not as to Whether it was. Herodotus says
distinctly and positively[213] that most of the names of the Greek gods
came from Egypt, except some whose names came from the Pelasgians. The
Pelasgians themselves, he adds, gave these Egyptian names to the unnamed
powers of nature whom they before ignorantly worshipped, being directed by
t