tribes, they had a language
sufficiently common for ordinary intercourse. They had no writing or
means of records at all, but depended upon the recital of deeds of
warriors and nations and tribes. Wherever the Aryan people have been
found, whether in Greece, {209} Italy, Germany, along the Danube,
central Asia, or India, they have been noted for their epics, sagas,
and vedas, which told the tales of historic deeds and exploits of the
tribal or national life. It is thought that this was the reason they
developed such a strong and beautiful language.

They came in contact with Semitic civilization in northern Persia, with
the primitive tribes in Italy, with the Dravidian peoples of India, and
represented the vigorous fighting power of the Scythians, Medes, and
Persians. They or their kindred later moved up the Danube into Spain
and France, with branches into Germany and Russia, and others finally
into the British Islands. It was a branch of these people that came
into the Grecian peninsula and overthrew and supplanted the Aegean
civilization--where they were known as the Greeks.

_The Coming of the Greeks_.--It is not known when they came down
through Asia Minor. Not earlier than 2000 B.C. nor later than 1500
B.C. the invasion began. In successive waves came the Phrygians,
Aeolians, the Ionians, and the Dorians--different divisions of the same
race. Soon they spread over the mainland of Greece and all the
surrounding islands, and established their trading cities along the
borders of the Mediterranean Sea. These people, though uncultured,
seemed to absorb culture wherever they went. They learned the methods
of the civilization that had been established in the Orient wherever
they came in contact with other peoples, and also in the Aegean
country. In fact, though they conquered and occupied the Aegean
country, they took on the best of the Minoan civilization.[2] As
marauders, pirates, and conquerors, they were masterful, but they came
in conflict with the ideas developed among the Semitic people of Asia
and the Hamitic of Egypt. Undoubtedly, this conquest of the Minoan
civilization furnished the origin of many of the tales or folklore that
afterward were woven into the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ by {210} Homer.
It is not known how early in Greek life these songs originated, but it
is a known fact that in the eighth century the Greeks were in
possession of their epics, and at this period not only had conquered