Some of the difficulties presented by Ridgeway’s reasoning are removed, in our opinion, by the more recent theories of Dr. Leaf. Before the advent of the Achaeans to Greece about 1400 B.C.,[57] there already existed in Greece, according to Leaf, two social and racial strata: (1) a dominant non-Aryan[58] caste who came originally from Crete, and who may be called Minoans: (2) a primitive neolithic agricultural Aryan people who spoke Greek,[59] who were, in fact, the nucleus of the Greek race, and who had imposed their speech upon their non-Aryan masters. The Achaeans, in Leaf’s view, came as a wave or series of waves in the perpetual tide of invasion from the north.[60] Settling first in Epirus,[61] they pressed gradually southwards, subdued the Minyans (or Minoans) of Iolcos,[62] and the Pelasgians of central Greece,[63] crossed later to the Peloponnese, and having conquered Elis, Laconia and Argolis, established themselves in all the strategic positions of the peninsula.[64] They were not necessarily, in Leaf’s opinion, of different racial origin from the Pelasgians[65]: they may, in fact, have been remotely related to them. But the Achaean outlook and temperament were very different from those of the Pelasgian folk. The former were military freebooters; piratical adventurers,[66] bound together by that rigid obedience to a single commander which was an essential condition of their survival and success. The latter were tillers of the soil, accustomed to political serfdom,[67] paying such dues as their masters exacted, following them, on occasion, to battle and to death. One point of difference which Leaf mentions must be here especially emphasised, as it is of vital importance for our theory of Homeric blood-vengeance. The Achaeans, Leaf holds,[68] had no tribal or ‘kindred’ organisations, and were merely soldiers of a common army. The Pelasgians,[69] however, were for the most part organised on the model of tribal communities. Speaking of the Achaeans, he says[70]: ‘All the rites and taboos of the primitive Family-system have disappeared and obligation only attaches to the natural kinship of close blood-relationship.... This is what we should expect in a race of military adventurers. Family rites do not tend to military efficiency: the efficient soldier must break away from local ties. In so doing he takes a long step away from the foundations of primitive society and religion.’ Thus Leaf conceives the society of Homeric Greece as composed of two elements: (1) a military autocracy, ruling like the Spartans in Laconia, a small exclusive caste held together by the consciousness of a common origin and a common purpose and also by the danger of hostility from without: (2) a tribal agricultural subject-folk who lived their primitive lives in rural areas, in villages, in unimportant towns, and even in cities within view of the Achaean garrison. Now this conception differs fundamentally from the traditional