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

WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ? 339
is offered by Germany, which was permeated by Roman trade
centuries before the barbarians swept down on Italy and Rome,
just as the Aclieans entered in and took possession of the older
civilization of Mycenae. The story of our conquests of India,
America, and of South African tribes, offers countless examples
of the same kind.
If we can succeed in showing that in the area just indicated
there existed a culture very similar to that of the Homeric
poems, wo shall have made an important step
towards the
solution of the whole problem of the ethnology of early Greece.
The Acheans, as we learn from the Homeric poems, had,
when we first meet them, only lately come into Thessaly. They
had but recently got possession of the district of Pelasgic
Argos, which extended from the Peneus to Thermopylae,
but here as we saw (p. 178) the older population maintained
itself down to classical times. Whence had they come ? Was
it from Thrace on the north-east, as is
commonly held', or from
the north-west ? There seems to be no evidence of any weight
to support the former view. Let us therefore see if we can find
any foi-
the latter.
It is at once I'etidered probable that the Acheans entered
southern Thessaly from Epirus when we recollect that the
worship of the ])od()nean Zeus was a strong feature in the cult
of the Acheans of Phthiotis. If they had come from Thrace,
Achilles would have been found invoking the aid of some deity
whose immemorial fane was in Thrace rather than one whose
sanctuary lay in Epirus. But on the contrary, Ares the deity
whose home was in Thrace^ cuts a very ])0()r figure in Homer.
He is wounded by the Acheati hci-o J)i()inede: moreover, he
sym])athizes with th(3 Trojans, and not with the Acheans, the
signiHcancc of which fact is strengthened when we remember
that the Thracians are the allies of the Trojans.
'J'he infert^nce here drawn fiom th(! worship of ])odonean
Z(!us by the Ac^hcaris is fully jiistiHed not only by the veneration
in which .lerusaleni and Me(H'a are held by Jew and Ai'ab,
no matter where (lomicile(|, Ixit what is more to the point, by
340 WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ?
instances from the north of Europe. Thus the Frisians and
their cognate tribes esteemed Heligoland (Holy Island) as
their chief sanctuary. Yet this little island lies as far to the
east as it well may be from Frisia, to which the Frisians had
probably advanced from the north-east ^ Similarly the many
Germanic tribes regarded the island of Seeland in the Baltic as
their chief shrine-, and it
may be that in their advance downwards
from Scandinavia, this island had long been the seat of
their common worship and continued still to be venerated long
after they had gained a firm foothold on the mainland of what
is now Germany.
It is probable that the Acheans passed across Pindus into
Phthiotis from Epirus on the grounds that I have just urged,
but if it can be shown that such a movement did take place in
historical times, the probability is considerably strengthened.
Ernst Curtius well remarks that "a considerable number of
the Greek tribes which emigrated by land into the European
peninsula followed the tracks of the Italians, and taking a
westward route through Paeonia and Macedonia penetrated
through Illyria into the western half of the country of northern
Gi'eece, which the formation of its hill ranges and valleys
rendered more easy of access from the north than Thessaly in
its secluded hollow. The numerous rivers abounding in water
which follow closely one another through long gorges into the
Ionian Sea here facilitate an advance to the south, and the I'ich
pasture land invited immigration, so that Epirus became the
dwelling-place of a dense population which commenced its
civilized career in the fertile lowlands of the country''.'
Curtius of course wrote from the standpoint of a believer in
the Oriental origin of the Aryan peoples, but his words apply
d fortiori,
if it is held that the advance was from central
Europe I'ather than from the east. At a later stage we shall
find that the comnn'rcial path from eastern Europe into Greece
to the head of the Adriatic and
ran up the Danube valley
passed dcnvn.
through Illyria and E[)irus.
1
-
Alcnin, Vitd U'llh-hrorili, c. 10.
Till', (irim. 10.
'
J.eiif and liiiyfu'lil, Ili