Literary analysis has been ongoing since
classical Greece, when the writers of those times read previous works on the subject. No definitive answers were ever forthcoming by this method; it rather served to better define the problems. The method perhaps reached a peak in the
Victorian era when new methods of systematic comparison began to be applied in
philology. Typical of the era is the study by
William Ewart Gladstone, who was a trained classicist. Unless further ancient texts come to light, advances on the subject cannot be made. Therefore the most likely source of progress regarding the Pelasgians continues to be archaeology and related sciences.
The term "Pelasgians" in ancient sources Ancient Greek authors used the term "Pelasgian" fluidly. Pelasgians could be presented as
pre-Greek,
non-Greek, semi-Greek, or
Greek as a
rhetorical device to advance a particular author's objective. Such objectives included uniting Greeks, distinguishing Greeks from foreign "barbarians", and establishing an imagined historical foundation for a shared cultural and political identity. There are no extant
emic (self-identified) definitions of Pelasgian identity.
Poets Homer , to the west of classical
Pelasgiotis, but in the original range of the Pelasgians. The
Pindus Mountains are visible in the background. The river is the
Peneus. In the
Iliad, there were Pelasgians on both sides of the
Trojan War. In the section known as the
Catalogue of Trojans, they are mentioned between the
Hellespontine cities and the
Thracians of Southeastern Europe (i.e.,on the
Hellespontine border of
Thrace). Homer calls their town or district "Larisa" and characterises it as fertile, and its inhabitants as celebrated for their spearsmanship. He records their chiefs as
Hippothous and
Pylaeus, sons of Lethus, son of
Teutamides. The
Iliad also refers to the camp at
Greece, specifically at "
Argos Pelasgikon", which is most likely to be the
plain of Thessaly, and to "Pelasgic
Zeus", living in and ruling over
Dodona. Additionally, according to the
Iliad, Pelasgians were camping out on the shore together with the following tribes: Towards the sea lie the
Carians and the
Paeonians, with curved bows, and the
Leleges and
Caucones, and the goodly Pelasgi. In the
Odyssey, they appear among the inhabitants of
Crete.
Odysseus, affecting to be Cretan himself, instances Pelasgians among the tribes in the ninety cities of
Crete, "language mixing with language side by side". Last on his list, Homer distinguishes them from other ethnicities on the island: "Cretans proper", Achaeans, Cydonians (of the city of
Cydonia/modern
Chania), Dorians, and "noble Pelasgians".
Hesiod Hesiod, in a fragment known from
Strabo, calls Dodona, identified by reference to "the
oak", the "seat of Pelasgians", thus explaining why Homer, in referring to Zeus as he ruled over Dodona, did
not style him "
Dodonic" but
Pelasgic Zeus. He mentions also that
Pelasgus (Greek: Πελασγός, the
eponymous ancestor of the Pelasgians) was the father of
King Lycaon of
Arcadia.
Asius of Samos Asius of Samos () describes
Pelasgus as the first man, born of the earth. This account features centrally in the construction of an enduring autochthonous Arcadian identity into the
Classical period. In a fragment quoted by
Pausanias, Asius describes the foundational hero of the Greek ethnic groups as "godlike Pelasgus [whom the] black earth gave up".
Aeschylus Aeschylus incorporates all the territories that the Archaic tradition identifies as Pelasgian, including
Thessaly (the region of Homer's Pelasgian Argos),
Dodona (the seat of Homer's Pelasgian Zeus), and
Arcadia (the region ruled by autochthonous
Pelasgus's son
Lycaon) into an Argive-Pelasgian kingdom ruled by Pelasgus. This affirms the ancient Greek origins of the Pelasgians as well as their widespread settlements throughout
central Greece and the
Peloponnese. In Aeschylus's play,
The Suppliants, the
Danaids fleeing from
Egypt seek asylum from King Pelasgus of Argos, which he says is on the
Strymon, including
Perrhaebia in the north, the Thessalian Dodona and the slopes of the
Pindus mountains on the west and the shores of the sea on the east; that is, a territory including but somewhat larger than classical
Pelasgiotis. The southern boundary is not mentioned; however, Apis is said to have come to Argos from
Naupactus "across" (
peras), implying that Argos includes all of east Greece from the north of Thessaly to the Peloponnesian Argos, where the Danaids are probably to be conceived as having landed. He claims to rule the Pelasgians and to be the "child of Palaichthon (or 'ancient earth') whom the earth brought forth". The Danaids call the country the "Apian hills" and claim that it understands the
karbana audan (
accusative case, and in the Dorian dialect), which many translate as "barbarian speech" but Karba (where the
Karbanoi live) is in fact a non-Greek word. They claim to descend from ancestors in ancient Argos even though they are of a "dark race" (
melanthes... genos). Pelasgus admits that the land was once called Apia but compares them to the women of
Libya and
Egypt and wants to know how they can be from Argos on which they cite descent from
Io. According to Strabo, Aeschylus's
Suppliants defines the original homeland of the Pelasgians as the region around
Mycenae. and
The Phoenician Women. In a lost play entitled
Archelaus, he says that
Danaus, on coming to reside in the city of
Inachus (Argos), formulated a law whereby the Pelasgians were now to be called
Danaans.
Historians Hecataeus of Miletus Hecataeus of Miletus in a fragment from
Genealogiai states that the
genos ("clan") descending from
Deucalion ruled
Thessaly and that it was called "Pelasgia" from king Pelasgus. A second fragment states that Pelasgus was the son of
Zeus and
Niobe and that his son
Lycaon founded a dynasty of kings of
Arcadia.
Acusilaus A fragment from the writings of
Acusilaus asserts that the
Peloponnesians were called "Pelasgians" after Pelasgus, a son of
Zeus and
Niobe.
Hellanicus Hellanicus of Lesbos concerns himself with one word in one line of the
Iliad, "pasture-land of horses", applied to Argos in the
Peloponnesus. According to Hellanicus, from
Pelasgus and his wife
Menippe came a line of kings:
Phrastōr,
Amyntōr,
Teutamides and Nanas (kings of Pelasgiotis in Thessaly). During Nanas's reign, the Pelasgians were driven out by the Greeks and departed for Italy. They landed at the mouth of the
Po River, near the Etruscan city of
Spina, then took the inland city "Crotona" (
Κρότωνα), and from there colonized
Tyrrhenia. The inference is that Hellanicus believed the Pelasgians of Thessaly (and indirectly of the Peloponnese) to have been the ancestors of the
Etruscans.
Herodotus In the
Histories, the Greek historian
Herodotus of
Halicarnassus made many references to the Pelasgians. In Book 1, the Pelasgians are mentioned within the context of
Croesus seeking to learn who the strongest Greeks were to befriend them. Afterwards, Herodotus ambivalently classified the Pelasgian language as "
barbarian" though he thought of the Pelasgians to have been essentially Greek. Herodotus also discussed various areas inhabited (or previously inhabited) by Pelasgians/Pelasgian-speakers along with their different neighbors/co-residents: Furthermore, Herodotus discussed the relationship between the Pelasgians and the (other) Greeks, which, according to Pericles Georges, reflected the "rivalry within Greece itself between [...] Dorian Sparta and Ionian Athens." Specifically, Herodotus stated that the Hellenes separated from the Pelasgians with the former group surpassing the latter group numerically: In Book 2, Herodotus alluded to the Pelasgians as inhabitants of
Samothrace, an island located just north of Troy, before coming to Attica. Moreover, Herodotus wrote that the Pelasgians simply called their gods
theoi prior to naming them on the grounds that the gods established all affairs in their order (
thentes); the author also stated that the gods of the Pelasgians were the
Cabeiri. Later, Herodotus stated that the entire territory of Greece (i.e.,
Hellas) was initially called "Pelasgia". In Book 5, Herodotus mentioned the Pelasgians as inhabitants of the islands of
Lemnos and
Imbros. , In Book 6, the Pelasgians of Lemnos were originally Hellespontine Pelasgians who had been living in Athens but whom the
Athenians resettled on Lemnos and then found it necessary to reconquer the island. This expulsion of (non-Athenian) Pelasgians from Athens may reflect, according to the historian Robert Buck, "a dim memory of forwarding of refugees, closely akin to the Athenians in speech and custom, to the Ionian colonies". Also, Herodotus wrote that the Pelasgians on the island of Lemnos opposite to Troy once kidnapped the Hellenic women of Athens for wives, but the Athenian wives created a crisis by teaching their children "the language of Attica" instead of the Pelasgian. In Book 7, Herodotus mentioned "the Pelasgian city of
Antandrus" and wrote about the Ionian inhabitants of "the land now called Achaea" (i.e., northwestern Peloponnese) being "called, according to the Greek account, Aegialean Pelasgi, or Pelasgi of the Sea Shore"; afterwards, they were called
Ionians. Moreover, Herodotus mentioned that the Aegean islanders "were a Pelasgian race, who in later times took the name Ionians" and that the
Aeolians, according to the Hellenes, were known anciently as "Pelasgians." In Book 8, Herodotus mentioned that the Pelasgians of Athens were previously called
Cranai.
Thucydides In the
History of the Peloponnesian War, the Greek historian
Thucydides wrote about the Pelasgians stating that: The author regards the Athenians as having lived in scattered independent settlements in
Attica; but at some time after
Theseus, they changed residence to
Athens, which was already populated. A plot of land below the Acropolis was called "Pelasgian" and was regarded as cursed, but the Athenians settled there anyway. In connection with the campaign against
Amphipolis, Thucydides mentions that several settlements on the promontory of
Actē were home to:
Ephorus The historian
Ephorus, building on a fragment from Hesiod that attests to a tradition of an aboriginal Pelasgian people in Arcadia, developed a theory of the Pelasgians as a people living a "military way of life" (
stratiōtikon bion) "and that, in converting many peoples to the same mode of life, they imparted their name to all", meaning "all of Hellas". They colonized Crete and extended their rule over Epirus, Thessaly and by implication over wherever else the ancient authors said they were, beginning with Homer. The Peloponnese was called "Pelasgia".
Dionysius of Halicarnassus In the
Roman Antiquities,
Dionysius of Halicarnassus in several pages gives a synoptic interpretation of the Pelasgians based on the sources available to him then, concluding that Pelasgians were Greek: He goes on to add that the nation wandered a great deal. Most went to Dodona and eventually being driven from there to Italy (then called Saturnia), they landed at
Spina at the mouth of the
Po River. They and the Aborigenes took over Umbria but were dispossessed by the
Tyrrhenians.
Geographers Pausanias In his
Description of Greece,
Pausanias mentions the
Arcadians who state that
Pelasgus (along with his followers) was the first inhabitant of their land. Upon becoming king, Pelasgus invented
huts, sheep-skin coats, and a diet consisting of
acorns while governing the land named after him, "Pelasgia". When
Arcas became king, Pelasgia was renamed "
Arcadia" and its inhabitants (the Pelasgians) were renamed "Arcadians". Pausanias also mentions the Pelasgians as responsible for creating a wooden image of
Orpheus in a sanctuary of
Demeter at Therae, as well as expelling the
Minyans and
Lacedaemonians from Lemnos.
Strabo Strabo dedicates a section of his
Geography to the Pelasgians, relating both his own opinions and those of prior writers. He begins by stating: == Language ==