Greek civilization as we see it reflected in the Homeric poems strikes us as so variously developed, and yet so complete in itself, that if we had no further sources of information, we should naturally suppose that the characteristic culture of the Greeks there reached the highest point attainable under the conditions set by national character and external circumstance. In reality the Homeric poems stand on the border line between an older development that has come to complete maturity and a new, and in many ways differently constituted, order of things. The poems themselves offer an idealized picture of a past that was on the point of disappearing entirely. The profound upheavals of the following centuries can be measured by their final results; we can guess the underlying forces from a study of the individual symptoms. But the fact remains that in the very imperfect state of our information about this period of transformation, we can do little more than recognize the existence of all the conditions necessary for a complete reorganization of Greek life. We can see how the once less-important races in Greece now come into the foreground of history; how they set up new kingdoms by the right of conquest on the ruins of the old, and bring into prominence their own special ways of thinking. Colonization over a wide area meant the expansion of Greek life; while the colonies themselves, as is so often the case, traversed all the stages of development at a much faster rate. Commerce and industry developed, calling forth and satisfying new demands. New elements of the population came to the fore, governments began to fall and the old rule of the kings gave way to Aristocracy, Tyranny, Democracy. In friendly and (in the West especially) hostile relationship the Greeks came into contact more than formerly with foreign peoples in every stage of civilization who influenced them in many directions.