The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

i6o THE BRONZE AGE AND THE CELTIC WORLD
to see in this movement the arrival in the north of that band of Wiros, who introduced
into the Baltic region Teutonic speech and the legends and the cult of Odin." As we
have seen Wiros had arrived there more than a thousand years before, but these earUer
invaders, I have suggested, had spoken languages more akin to the Baltic group, and were,
if my interpretation of the facts is correct, the red-haired worshippers of Thor." Thus
we get the three groups of people, forming the three classes of serfs, farmers, and nobles,
which are mentioned in Scandinavian legend,'^ by the super-position of the sword-bearing
Teutonic Wiros upon the early group of Baltic-speaking Wiros, who had in their turn
mastered and enslaved the Mongoloid people responsible for the Arctic culture.'*
It was soon after 1300 B.C. that a small group from the Italic zone, coming
probably from Bosnia, passed south and then crossed the Adriatic, landing a little
south of Ancona at the mouth of the Truentus. Passing up the valley of that river
some settled at Batia near its head waters, while others crossed the Apennines to the
valley of the Velinus and thence to Reatae, which stood at its junction with the Himella.
Thence some passed south eastward to Lacus Fucinus and others north-westward to
Lacus Trasimenus. These, as I have endeavoured to prove, were the Wiros who
introduced into the peninsula the Latin tongue and formed the essential Roman
patrician gentes.
About the same time there were irruptions from the plain ; the movements were
probably gradual and may have begun somewhat earlier, but direct evidence of this
phase is at present lacking. These people of the plain advanced into Thrace,
introducing there the Thracian tongue and the worship of Ares ; they dominated the
aborigines, including the thrifty lake-dweUing Paeonians, and made themselves masters
of much of what was afterwards known as Macedonia. Some of these tribes, notably
the Briges, crossed the Hellespont and introduced Phrygian speech into Asia Minor,
in the east of which it still survives as Armenian.
It was some straggling adventurers from this movement who about 1250 B.C.
entered Thessaly, where, as we have seen, some Wiros had long been settled. Some may
have come from Thracian lands, some down the Vardar valley, and some stragglers
from the Latin group, perhaps, down the Spercheus valley, having tarried awhile around
" Chadwick (1899). '3 Vigfussen & Powell (1883) i. 234-242
" Nilsson (1868) 234-43. M Peake (1919) 186-192.