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

whilst
WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ? 405
406
an avalanche uiion the lreek>. ( Drawn from my s]i('ciin(ii by the Kev. J. ('. Chuk.
WHENCE CAME THE ACHEANS ?
steppes of Asia and settled among the islands of the Aegean,
The Panjabis may be regarded as occupying much the
where according to the unanimous testimony of modern travellers
same kind of position
in India as the Macedonians and
they are steadily dwindling in numbers.
Aetolians did in the Balkan peninsula.
But the disappearance of these conquering peoples in
The history of Italy is
probably much the same. The
the southern lands is not due solely to unhealthy climatic
Romans, themselves one of these tribes from the Alps, were
conditions.
able to keep in check the barbarians from beyond the mountains
It is a known fact that the upper classes in all countries
so long as the sturdy yeomen population of Italy remained
have an inevitable tendency to die out. As has long ago been
unexhausted (sometimes even being aided by Celtic tribes, such
pointed out by Sir Henry Maine, an admirable example of this
as the Cenomanni, who were already settled in Italy and were
sociological law is to be found in the peerage of England. How
afraid of being robbed of their lands by their Transalpine
few families are there whose patent of nobility dates before
brethren) but when at last it had disappeared Rome could
;
1700! What a small number are there who have had a title
only protect the empire by hiring the swords of the barbarians
before IGOO I those w^hose nobility dates from before the
on her frontiers.
Wars of the Roses are a mere handful. The House of Lords is
The probability therefore is high that it was from the head
therefore only ke|)t going by the constant creation of newpeers.
of the Adriatic and from the great fair-haired communities
We may therefore conclude that the dwindling of the
of central Europe that the Homeric Acheans made their way.
master races in the Mediterranean, wdiether they were Acheans
This will be powerfully corroborated, if I can next show
Celts, (ioths, Norsemen, or Turks, must be in part accounted
that at Dodona itself, in Bosnia, and in all central Europe, and
for by the mere fact that they formed in each case the upper
practically wherever the fair-haired peoples of that quarter are
and ruling class, and C(juld therefore afford to lead a life of
known to have settled, there are abundant traces of a culture
luxury, whicli was the vt-ry
bane of their race.
identical with that exhibited in the Homeric poems.
The same doctrine is
ri|ually true of Asia. There as in
Europe the sons of the step[)e and the mountain have kept
pouring down u])ou tlu' fertile plains of Hindustan, enslaved
the less vigorous natises of the land, and atti'r iniling
for a few
geiiei'ations have lost all their \ital energy, and in their turn
fallen befui'e the Unimpaired pliysi(|ue and morale of a fresh
swarm from the north.
The tribes who live in the more temperate portions of their
new home continue long to mamiain their old martial \ igoui'.
and ser\c as a bulwark for ;i time against
t he suceeecling \\a\e^.
J-'k.. OS. Coin of Kaneslikes (a.d. 87 -lOfi) ;
rev. with goddess Oksho'
Thus till' .Macedonians hciiisrlvcs, t
consisting largel\' of' thi'
descendants of the l)i-a\e trdM'> who had ])assed into the llalkan
tVom the l)aiiulie
\allcy.
fol'lncd the best h.-iriici- toi- (ii-eecc
against the fi'f-h tiil)e~- of bnrliai-iaiis, as j^llyl)ius points out.
and it was only when the military powciot'
.\laccdon declined,
that ti'ilies such a^ tin' Scordisci were able to rush down like