Greek civilization is regarded by modern authorities as the result of a fusion between two races—a short, dark, highly artistic race belonging to that Eurafrican stock which seems at one time to have peopled not only the Aegean, but all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and a tall, fair-haired, athletic race the branches of which penetrated by successive invasions into the southern extremities of Europe, while their main body spread over central Europe westwards as far as our own islands. It was to the physical vigour and restless energy of the latter race that the Greeks owed their colonial activity and their love of sport. And it is perhaps no mere accident that these same characteristics have been so marked in our own history. But if the Greeks owed to the fair-haired invaders from the North the athletic impulse, the development and persistence of Greek athletics is largely due to the artistic temperament of the original inhabitants. The practical character of Greek sports indicates a nation of warriors. The chariot-race and foot-race, boxing, wrestling, throwing the stone and the spear, were as naturally the outcome of the Homeric civilization as the tournament and the archery meeting were of the conditions of fighting in the middle ages, or the rifle meeting of those of our own day. Moreover, the myths with which Greek fancy invested the origin of their sports point to an age of fighting and conquest. Olympia, as we shall see, stood on the highway of the northern invaders, and at Olympia the institution of the games is connected with such tales as the conquest of Cronus by Zeus, of Oenomaus by Pelops, of Augeas by Heracles, and the return of the Heracleidae, tales which clearly had their rise in the struggles of rival races and religions. Again, Greek athletics were chiefly, though not entirely, the product of the Peloponnese. Three of the four great festivals were in the Peloponnese, including the Olympic festival, the prototype of all the rest; the athletic school of sculpture originated in the Peloponnese, and physical training was carried to its highest point in Sparta. Now it was in the Peloponnese that the invading races established themselves most strongly; the fair-haired Achaeans made themselves masters of the Mycenaean world, and their Dorian successors preserved their own characteristics in their greatest purity at Sparta. These considerations justify us in ascribing the athletic impulse to the northern invaders. [Illustration: Fig. 1. Fragment of Steatite Pyxis. Cnossus.]