At a time when Egypt, Chaldea and Phœnicia were enjoying the benefits of an advanced civilization, the early inhabitants of Greece, called Pelasgi, were living on the acorns of the forests, clothing themselves with the skins of wild beasts, and sleeping in caves. The arts and sciences were carried to Greece by the emigration of successive parties from Tyre and Memphis. It is said that Inachus, the victim of a revolution, conducted the first Egyptian colony to Greece, where he founded the city of Argos, 1,856 years before the common era. The indebtedness of Greece to the civilization of Asia and Africa was amply repaid by the Ionian migration.
Of all the Greek peoples the Ionians were the most intellectual, and they were so, not through any inherent faculties in themselves, but simply from the force of circumstances. At a remote period in their history they were forced to leave