The principal island near Greece was _Euboea_, stretching for a hundred miles along the east coast of Attica, Boeotia, and Locris. On the opposite side of the peninsula, west of Epirus, was the smaller but yet large island of _Corcyra_ (Corfu). On the west, besides, were _Ithaca_, _Cephallenia_, and _Zacynthus_ (Zante); on the south, the _Oenussae_ Islands and _Cythera_; on the east, _Aegina_, _Salamis_, etc. From the south-eastern shores of Euboea and Attica, the _Cyclades_ and _Sporades_ extended in a continuous series, "like a set of stepping-stones," across the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor. From Corcyra and the Acroceraunian promontory, one could descry, in clear weather, the Italian coast. These were all littoral islands. Besides these, there were other islands in the northern and central Aegean, such as _Lemnos_, _Samothrace_, _Delos_, _Naxos_, etc.; and in the southern Aegean, _Crete_, an island mountainous but fertile, a hundred and fifty miles in length from east to west, and about fifteen in breadth, and containing more than two thousand square miles. The Greek race was still more widely diffused through the settlements in and about the western Mediterranean. THE BOND OF RACE.--The Greeks, or Hellenes, were not so much a nation as a united race. Politically divided, they were conscious of a fraternal bond that connected them, wherever they might be found, and parted them from the rest of mankind. Their sense of brotherhood is implied in the fabulous belief in a common ancestor named _Hellen_. Together with a fellowship in _blood_, there was a community in _language_, notwithstanding minor differences in dialect. Moreover, there was a common religion. They worshiped the same gods. They had the same ritual, and cherished in common the same beliefs respecting things supernatural. In connection with these ties of _blood_, of _language_, and of _religion_, they celebrated together great national festivals, like the Olympic games, in which Greeks from all parts of the world might take part, and into which they entered with a peculiar enthusiasm. As the Jews, following the impulses of a holier faith, went up to Jerusalem to celebrate as one family their sacred rites; so the Greeks repaired to hallowed shrines of Zeus or Apollo, assembling from afar on the plain of Olympia and at the foot of Parnassus. DIVISIONS OF GREEK HISTORY. Greek history embraces _three general periods_. The first is the formative period, and extends to the Persian wars, 500 B.C. The second period covers the flourishing era of Greece, from 500 B.C. to 359 B.C. The third is the Macedonian period, when the freedom of Greece was lost,--the era of Philip and Alexander, and of Alexander's successors.