We shall be able to judge better if we look at the actions of Nordics
in later times. At the downfall of the Roman empire it was not unusual
for quite small bands of Nordics to become masters of even large
territories; some of the Norsemen made themselves, single-handed, kings
of the cities in South Russia. Later Rollo, with but a handful of
men, became Duke of Normandy and defied the power of the Carolingian
monarch; later still small groups of Normans conquered Sicily, and set
up their rule in many places in the Mediterranean region. Lastly, how
often have Englishmen, sometimes quite alone, gained great influence in
large communities of aliens, and been in a position to make themselves
kings had they not preferred to annex the community to the British
Empire? Thus has much of the Empire been built up. But by far the best
parallel is the case of the first Rajah of Sarawak.
When such events have taken place in historical times, even in our own
day, we cannot consider it as impossible that wandering Nordic heroes
from the Danube basin, accompanied perhaps by a faithful henchman,
should have found it possible to establish themselves as kings over the
trading cities of Mycenean Greece.
But let us glance for a moment at these trading cities and their
inhabitants. The original people of the Greek mainland, like the bulk
of the present population, seem to have been of that eastern Alpine or
Dinaric type, scarcely distinguishable from the bulk of the population
of Asia Minor. These are tall dark people, with small but broad
heads, which are very high and somewhat conical at the top, though
sometimes the excessively flattened occiput gives the impression that
the head has been sliced from the top of the forehead to the back of
the neck. As far as one can judge from the available evidence, these
were the only inhabitants of the bulk of the peninsula, until coastal
settlements were made by the Cretans, some in the second Middle Minoan
period, but most of them at the beginning of the Late Minoan.[362]
The original inhabitants of Crete seem to have been typical members of
the Mediterranean race, but during Early Minoan times we find a few
broad-headed people arriving in the east of the island, and gradually
spreading over the eastern half.[363] It has been taken for granted,
quite naturally, that this broad-headed infusion came from Asia Minor,
the population of which at that time must have been exclusively
broad-headed. But about the time that these broad-heads appear in Crete
we find evidence in the island of the development of the copper mines
at Gournia,[364] and of the accumulation of gold ornaments, such as the
treasure of Mochlos.[365] There are also signs of the existence of an
oversea commerce and of a trade in olive oil with Egypt.[366]
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