836 HISTORY OF GRKLCE. marked and distinguishable varieties, the Lesbian, the Tlies- salian, and the Boeotian ; the Thessalian forming a mean term between the other two. Ahrens has shown that the ancient gram matical critics are accustomed to affirm peculiarities, as belong- ing to the -ZEolic dialect generally, which in truth belong only to the Lesbian variety of it, or to the poems of Alkaeus and Sappho, which these critics attentively studied. Lesbian JEolic, Thes- salian JEolic, and Boeotian ^Eolic, are all different : and if, ab- stracting from these differences, we confine our attention to that which is common to all three, we shall find little to distinguish this abstract JEolic from the abstract Doric, or that which is common to the many varieties of the Doric dialect. 1 These two are sis- ters, presenting, both of them, more or less the Latin side of the Greek language, while the relationship of either of them to the Attic and Ionic is more distant. Now it seems that, putting Aside Attica, the speech of all Greece, 2 from Perrhaebia and Mount Olympus to Cape Malea and Cape Akritas, consisted of different varieties, either of the Doric or of the ^Eolic dialect ; this being true (as far as we are able to judge) not less of the aboriginal Arcadians than of the rest. The Laconian dialect 1 See the valuable work of Ahrens, De Dialccto .^Eolica. sect. 51. He observes, in reference to the Lesbian, Thessalian, and Boeotian dialects : " Tres ilJas dialectos, quse optimo jure ^Eolicae vocari videntur quia, qui illis usi sunt, ^Eoles erant comparantem mirum habere oportet, quod Asia- norum JEolum et Bceotorum dialecti tantum inter se distant, quantum vix ab alii quavis Grsecas linguae dialecto." He then enumerates many point? of difference : " Contra tot tantasque differentias pauca reperiuntur eaque fere levia, quae utriquc Jialecto, neque simul Doricae, communia sint Vides his comparatis tantum interesse inter utramque dialectum, ut dubitare liceat, an JSoles Bceoti non magis cum JEolibus Asianis conjuncti fuerint, 411:1111 qui hodie miro quodam casu Saxones vocantur cum antiquis Saxon- ibus. Nib ; lominus Thessalica dialecto in comparationem vocata, diversis- sima quoe videntur aliqxto vinculo conjungere licet. Quamvis enim pauca de ea compei'ta habeamus, hoc tamen ccrtum est, alia Thcssalis cum Lesbiis, alia cum solis Bceotis communia esse." (P. 222-223.)
- About the JEolic dialect of the Perrhsebians, see Stephanus Byz. v. Tov-
vof, and ap. Eustath. ad Iliad, p. 335. The Attic judgment, in comparing these different varieties of Greek speech, is expressed in the story of a man being asked Whether the Boeotians or the Thessalians were most of barbarians f He answered The Eleians {Eustath. ad Iliad, p 304).
