About the same time there were irruptions from the plain; the movements were probably gradual and may have begun somewhat earlier, but direct evidence of this phase is at present lacking. These people of the plain advanced into Thrace, introducing there the Thracian tongue and the worship of Ares; they dominated the aborigines, including the thrifty lake-dwelling Pæonians, and made themselves masters of much of what was afterwards known as Macedonia. Some of these tribes, notably the Briges, crossed the Hellespont and introduced Phrygian speech into Asia Minor, in the east of which it still survives as Armenian. It was some straggling adventurers from this movement who about 1250 /B.C./ entered Thessaly, where, as we have seen, some Wiros had long been settled. Some may have come from Thracian lands, some down the Vardar valley, and some stragglers from the Latin group, perhaps, down the Spercheus valley, having tarried awhile around Dodona. These were the “Achæan” heroes, who seem to have made themselves masters of the Mycenean city states, groaning under the rule of Minoan tyrants. A generation later these joined others in attacking Egypt, and it was their grandsons who, under the leadership of the king of men, sacked the city of Priam. The next movement came from the Celtic mountain zone. It was between 1200 and 1175 /B.C./ that the Celtic lords, accompanied by the bravest of their henchmen, left the Celtic cradle, crossed the Rhine, and passed through the Belfort gap into Gaul. By degrees they conquered the whole of the country, though they made their mark less in Aquitaine and Brittany. Others, passing in all probability down the Rhine, landed on the east coast of Great Britain, and settled in the eastern counties and in Wessex. It is too soon, as yet, to define the area which they occupied, but the available evidence, derived from the swords and the finger-tip ware, suggests the region south-east of the chalk scarp. Later on a few of these passed across the densely-wooded Midland plain, across Wales by the upper Severn valley and the Bala cleft, and reached the gold fields of Ireland. It was some little time, however, before they settled in any numbers in the land which still preserves their language.