[5] History has nothing to do with racial types classified by cranial measurements, for such typology deals with races that were mixed scores of thousands of years ago. The so-called Mediterranean, Alpine, and Nordic groups have for ages inherited the mixed nervous systems of each and all. The typology that concerns the historians of the ancient Mediterranean world is rather one of temperament and the various types grew out of segregated groups that shaped themselves during the few thousands of years that preceded the great European migrations of the second millenium B.C. CHAPTER II EARLY TRAGEDY AND EPIC Browning has recalled the story of how Greek war captives taken at Syracuse in the Peloponnesian war earned their release by reciting snatches from the plays of Euripides. It was a century and a half after that siege that the Romans came to Sicily in the First Punic War, and the city was still interested in the old drama, indeed was now taking its part in producing tragedies. One of the last of the dramatists, one of the so-called “Pleiad,” was a Syracusan of Hiero’s time, and King Hiero was himself so devoted to the drama that he even built a theater for Agyrion, a petty village on the border of his small kingdom. We have noticed how the Roman youth who campaigned year after year in Sicily learned something of the arts of civilization and on their return home created a demand for the things they had come to enjoy while abroad. The year after the victorious troops returned from Sicily, Livius, a schoolmaster of Greek origin, staged a translation of a Greek tragedy as a supplement to the annual chariot race. This production marks the beginning of Rome’s education in letters. There must be some close connection between this homecoming of the army, and the performance of Livius’ play, for the change in character of a great religious festival could not have been suggested by a freedman. The magistrates responsible for the performance were senators and the senate had of course requested the play. In all likelihood it was also the senate that invited King Hiero of Syracuse to Rome to see the games; for he, if any one, would have been asked to supply some actor to help stage the first play, and it was only appropriate that he should come to inaugurate the new era of culture.