Copy 1, Volume 1

Of the origin and progress of language / [Anon].

  • James Burnett, Lord Monboddo
Date:
1774-1792
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Of the origin and progress of language / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    672/712 (page 644)
    tain']': For it is agreed, that he fir ft inPii- luted marriage among the Athenians; and for this reafon he is diftinguifhed by the epithet ct'itpvvjg, as Tzetzes has very well ex¬ plained the word in his various hiftory j. The cafe appears to have been, that the country of Attica having been quite defo- lated by the Qgygian deluge at the time that Cecrops arrived with his colony from Sais,whichitis computed was a hundred and eighty-nine years after that deluge, accord¬ ing to Africanus?s chronology, as quoted by Eufebius, was then inhabited by favages, who lived without government, arts, or ci¬ vility; and who therefore mu ft be fuppo- fed to have learned every art of life from Cecrops and his followers; and, among o- ther arts, that of language. Diodorus, though his vanity as a Greek made him unwilling to believe that the principal city of Greece was an Egyptian f Eufeb. Cbron, et praep. Evangel. i Johannes Tzetz. Iliad. 5. cap. 18.; where he tells us, that, before Cecrcps, the mothers cf children were only known; fo that the children were ptn(pt)&s : Whereas, after the inflitution of marriage, both parents being known, they became And in this account of the . name, Athenaeus, lib. 13. and Juftin the hiftorian, lib. 2„ cap. 6. agree with Tzetzes.