or ION, (for the Hebrew word, differently pointed, forms both
names,) was the fourth son of Japheth, and the father of all those
nations which were included under the name of Grecians, or Ionians, as
they were invariably called in the east. Javan had four sons, by whom
the different portions of Greece Proper were peopled: Elisha, Tharsis,
Chittim, and Dodanim. Elisha, Eliza, or Ellas, as it is written in the
Chaldee, and from whom the Greeks took the name of Hέλληνες, settled in
the Peloponnesus; where, in the Elysian fields and the river Ilissus,
his name is still preserved. Tharsis settled in Achaia; Chittim, in
Macedonia; and Dodanim, in Thessaly and Epirus; where the city of Dodona
gives ample proof of the origin of its name. But the Greeks did not
remain pure Javanim. It appears from history that, at a very early age,
they were invaded and subjugated by the Pelasgi, a Cuthite race from the
east, and by colonies of Phenicians and Egyptians from the south: so
that the Greeks, so famous in history, were a compound of all these
people. The aboriginal Greeks were called Jaones, or Jonim; from which
similarity of sound, the Jonim and the Javanim, although belonging to
two essentially different families, have been confounded together. Javan
is the name used in the Old Testament for Greece and the Greeks. See
DIVISION OF THE EARTH.
names,) was the fourth son of Japheth, and the father of all those
nations which were included under the name of Grecians, or Ionians, as
they were invariably called in the east. Javan had four sons, by whom
the different portions of Greece Proper were peopled: Elisha, Tharsis,
Chittim, and Dodanim. Elisha, Eliza, or Ellas, as it is written in the
Chaldee, and from whom the Greeks took the name of Hέλληνες, settled in
the Peloponnesus; where, in the Elysian fields and the river Ilissus,
his name is still preserved. Tharsis settled in Achaia; Chittim, in
Macedonia; and Dodanim, in Thessaly and Epirus; where the city of Dodona
gives ample proof of the origin of its name. But the Greeks did not
remain pure Javanim. It appears from history that, at a very early age,
they were invaded and subjugated by the Pelasgi, a Cuthite race from the
east, and by colonies of Phenicians and Egyptians from the south: so
that the Greeks, so famous in history, were a compound of all these
people. The aboriginal Greeks were called Jaones, or Jonim; from which
similarity of sound, the Jonim and the Javanim, although belonging to
two essentially different families, have been confounded together. Javan
is the name used in the Old Testament for Greece and the Greeks. See
DIVISION OF THE EARTH.