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

'
WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ? 359
360 WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ?
again he turns earthwards from the firmament, but deadly
night is outspread over miserable mortals'."
The mere fact that the early poet placed this country in what
we call the west, need raise no difficulty,
when we remember
what distorted ideas respecting the geography of western and
north-western Europe were held not only by Herodotus, but by
Strabo, who thought that the Pyrenees ran north and south, and
that Britain lay north of the mouth of the Rhine. Furthermore,
wlien we bear in mind that a tribe called the Cimbrians
actually did dwell in Jutland and by the shores of the Northern
Ocean, we can readily see how the story of the Cimmerians
who dwelt in eternal night points to a region where in the
north of Europe people called Cimbrians or Cimmerians dwelt.
The doctrine that the early inhabitants of Greece had a
knowledge of tlie north of Europe, with its long summer days
and long winter nights,
is confirmed by at least two striking
pieces of evidence.
Every one now knows that the amber found in the tombs
of Mycenae by Schliemann has been proved by the analysis
of Dr Helm to be Baltic and not Mediterranean in origin.
This variety is not found anywhere south of the Alps, and
at all times the su])})ly
seems to have conu; from the shores of
the Baltics and Northern Ocean. Bt'ads of this and)er are
found in the Lake-dwellings of Switzerland and Bavai-ia, and
in the prehistoric settlements of northern and central Italy,
and Bosnia. Except the metals and blue glass (cyanus) it
is th