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

'
Leake
'
WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ? 853
and the same race occupied the whole of the Balkan peninsula,
from the Adriatic across to the Euxine, and we might even
add, to southern Russia.
If it is once realized that there was a very close kinship
between the Pelasgic population of Greece and the Thracolilyrians,
explanations can be readily
found for several difficulties
not yet cleared up.
It is the fashion to describe the Thracians of the Pangaeum
district as ' very rude tribes,' but yet
it is well known that
they were expert metallurgists, and that they had from an
early time worked the rich deposits of gold and silver in that
region. Moreover, they had not only begun to strike coins very
little later than the
Greeks, but a very high degree of artistic
skill is displayed on their issues, such as those of the Orrescii,
which show a naked man with two spears conducting two oxen,
a man holding a prancing horse by the bridle, or a centaur
(jff
bearing a woman' or those of
; Lete, showing a naked Silenus
with horse's feet, eai's, and tail, seizing a woman or those of the
;
Odomanti, with an ox-cait and a triskel on the reverse : and
those of the Bisaltae, which sliow a horseman equipped with
two spears, a kausia and a cloak. Alexander I., on becoming
master of the Bisaltine district after the Persian in\asi()n,
adopted the iiati\e coinage, merely placing upon
it his own
name-'.
Not only
is the technical skill considerable, but the
ty])es are original, for they show a striking inde])en(lence of
Greek piotolypes,
in this respect diffei'ing essentially from the
G;dlic tribes, who imitated the issues of Massalia, Empoiiae,
and Rhoda, and the staters and tetradrachnis of Philip 11. and
Alexander tlu' (reat.
Finally, their silver coins wei'e struck on standards distinct
from those (ontenijorai'ily
in nse in (Jreeee-'.
Theii- kinsfolk in the Troad had the same skill in the
iileiititied llie ()ne-;cii witli tlie Satrae, cnie of whose trit)es. the Hessi,
held tlie (iracle of l)ionysus on the to]) of raii;^'aeiiiii, hut they may he the same
as tlie Orestae (j).
'.iV.i ii. I.
-
Head, Jlist. Sinii., )>.
171.
Kidj^'eway. Mi'tnlllc ('iirri'iici/. p. 'M'2.
u. 23
354 WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ?
working of gold and silver, as is proved by the treasures in
both gold and silver discovered at Troy. The gold to which
Priam owed his wealth and his destruction was obtained from
the mines of Astyra in the Troad, where the old workings were
still to be seen in Strabo's time\
Now the gold work of is
Troy connected with that of
Mycenae and that of other parts of the mainland of Hellas.
But there are reasons for thinking that the gold of Mycenae
and Orchomenus could not have been produced in Greece
itself, and that it had not come from Asia Minor, but that it
was rather the outcome of the mines of Thasos and the contiguous
parts of Thrace. In the former gold-mining had been
carried on for an unknown time, and it is probable that it was
no less early in Thrace and Paeonia'.
But it was not merely in metal working and the glyptic art
that these Thracians excelled, for Greek tradition has much to
say about their skill in music and literature. Thus the greatest
of all earthly musicians was Orpheus the Thracian, and his
murder at the hands of Thracian women has through the times
been a chief theme of song. Thracian, too, was Thamyris,
whose fame flourished green in classical times. Nor were
these merely uncouth swains, who sang to the rocks and trees,
for both Orpheus and Tham}-ris are represented as pupils of
Linus, who composed
in 'Pelasgic characters' (rots" IIeXacr7t-
KoU jpafifjiaaL) the exploits of Dionysus and other legends^.
^
013.
-
Herod, vi. 40; ix. 7'>; Strabo, HHl
; , Kal ras irpoarj-yoplai
eKaoTU} rd^at Kal rovs xapaKrrjpas btaTi'Trujaai.. Koivrj jxiv ovv to. ypd/J-fxara
i>oiviKfia KXrjOrjvai oid to irapd Tovs"ViWr)va^ (K 'PoivLKiiiv iJ.tTtvtx^^W'^'-' ''^'? ^^
rCiv \\(\acryG}v irpuiTuv xp7;(ra/xeVa);' tois ixiTartdeioi xapaKTrjpcn WiXaayiKo. irpoaayopfvOrjvai.
('/. )i.
211.
Tliis jiiissagt' fontaiiis a confused statement of what aj)i)tar to have been the
real facts. We now know tluit tliere was a system of wiitinK in (ireece before
tlie introdnction of tJie I'liocnician alphabet. These were j)iobably the 'J'elasgic
cliaracters ' (rf. }'. 101). Tlie confusion would arise all the more easily as the
(Ireeks when taking; over the J'hoenician symbols retainrd ceitain of
characters and placed them at the end of the alj)habet (p. 210).
their older