Ossian Collection > Thoughts on the origin and descent of the Gael

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" arts, and the most indispensable regulations of
" society, were unknown to them. Marriage was
" introduced by Cecrops ; the culture of corn is
" said to have been of later date. But the colo-
" nies from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Thrace, quick-
" ly made the Atticans a new people. At a pe-
" riod far beyond connected history, we find all
" the principal oriental tenets and maxims of
" society firmly established among them. Mar-
" riage was a high honour; virginity respectable ;
" infidelity in a wife deeply disgraceful ; poly-
" gamy unknown, but concubinage for a hus-
" band as lawful as it was common ; bastardy no
" stain upon children ; divorces little heard of."*
Whether Cecrops was a native Greek or an
Egyptian, is an unsettled point among the learn-
ed. We learn from the respectable testimonies
of Herodotus and Thucydides, that the Atheni-
ans were very early a mixed people. The belief
of Gods and the practice of religious ceremonies,
were, in the time of Herodotus, so similar both
in Egypt and in Greece, that early emigrations
of Egyptian colonies into Greece could not be
entertained as a matter of doubt by the venera-
ble historians of that country. We learn from
them, that Attica was that province of Greece
in which the earliest progress was made towards
civilization. The situation of Attica was render-
ed strong by nature ; its form was nearly penin-
* Mitford's History of Greece, ch. i. sect. 3.