THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

'
338 WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ?
gems, nor any sign of advanced skill in the arts of painting and
pottery.
If we can produce evidence of such a culture in the Iron
CHAPTER IV.
WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ?i
OTh nep (t)YAAtoN peNeH, Tom Ae kai anAp set nut in tliis cliaplci
I
put forward hctorr the Autludji.
luslitulc ( I )cc. 14th, IsKCi, .Ininii. Aiillir. Iiisi. xxvi. p. "JTl), luid in ii fullci- furni
in 11 Icriurr hcfiirc thf llillcnic Siiciity, l-'cb. >H\\. Is'.is. of which ii
summary
aiii)caifii in Alhinnriiin. March ."illi, Is'.is, pp.
IS'.IS, pp. XXXIV. V.
:!1"( '), autl in -lom-. 11,11. Sliul.
Age, it will be admitted that the Homeric poems give a picture
of a real form of life, and not an imaginary state of culture and
society.
If furthermore it can be shown that a people in this
condition lived in Epirus at least 1000 B.C., and if it can also be
shown that by their own traditions the Acheans at one time
dwelt near to and in Epirus before they entered Thessaly, an
event which cannot be placed later than 1200 B.C., we shall have
established a strong probability that the culture represented by
Homer as Achean is identical with that revealed by modern
investigations
in the countries north-east of the Adriatic.
Again as the Acheans by the traditions came into regions
and cities occupied by an older race, such as that which dwelt
in Mycenae and Tiryns, we ought to find some indications of
mutual relations and intercourse. For the conquest did not
take place at a single blow. If we find traces of Mycenean art
in the countries lying northward of Greece, which were occupied
by the people of the Iron Age, such remains are indications
that these folk had intercourse with the Mycenean people, as
the Acheans by their traditions state to have been their own
case.
On the other hand, if wo can point to an}' objects in the
upper stratum of the acropolis at Mycenae and in the Lower
City, and in late Mycenean graves, which can be identified as
belonging to the region from which the Acheans advanced into
The.ssaly, we shall obtain a still stronger confii'mation of the
mutual relations of the Acheans and the older owners of
Mycenae befi^re the C()n(|uest actually took })lace.
Such intercoursi^
and trade is the usual |)re('ursor
of concjuest and ainiexation.
In )ir(j()t'
of the truth of this prinei])le
it is only iu;cessary
to ])t)int
out that Roman negotintores filled (!aul with Roman
wares long before Caesar cojKjuered it, and that many arti(des
from Gaul had reached Italy and Rome, slaves, hounds,
carriages,
as is shown by the Gaulish names in Latin such as
vertiKjus and petoritinii.
A still better analogy for our purpose
o->