The ancient inhabitants of the Cyclades, and probably, also, those of the coasts {41} of Hellas and Asia Minor, had already attained a considerable amount of culture long before the commencement of our historical records. This has been proved by excavations made in the volcanic ashes of Santorin and Therasia. At the time their houses were buried beneath the ashes, the Santoriniotes had begun to pass from the age of stone into that of copper. They knew how to build arches of stone and mortar, they manufactured lime, used weights made of blocks of lava, wove cloth, made pottery, dyed their stuffs, and ornamented their houses with frescoes; they cultivated barley, peas, and lentils, and had begun to trade with distant countries. We do not know whether these men were of the same race as the Hellenes; but thus much is certain—that at the earliest dawn of history the islands and coasts of the Ægean Sea were peopled by various families of Greeks, whilst the interior of the country and the western shores of the peninsula were inhabited by Pelasgians. These Pelasgians, moreover, were of the same stock as the Greeks, and they spoke a language derived from the same source as the dialects of the Hellenes. Both were Aryans, and, unless natives of the soil, they must have immigrated into Greece from Asia Minor by crossing the Hellespont, or by way of the islands of the Archipelago. The Pelasgians, according to tradition, sprang from Mount Lycæus, in the centre of the Peloponnesus; they boasted of being “autochthons,” “men of the black soil,” “children of oaks,” or “men born before the moon.” All around them lived tribes of kindred origin, such as the Æolians and the Leleges, and these were afterwards joined by Ionians and Achæans. The Ionians, who, in a subsequent age, exercised so great an influence over the destinies of the world, only occupied the peninsula of Attica and the neighbouring Eubœa. The Achæans for a long time enjoyed a preponderance, and in the end the Greek clans collectively became known by that name. Later on, when the Dorians had crossed the Gulf of Corinth where it is narrowest, and established themselves as conquerors in the Peloponnesus, the Amphictyons, or national councils, sitting alternately at Thermopylæ and Delphi, conferred the name of Hellenes, which was that of a small tribe in Thessaly and Phthiotis, upon all the inhabitants of the peninsula and the islands. The name of Greek, which signifies, perhaps, “mountaineer,” “ancient,” or “son of the soil,” gradually spread amongst the nation, and in the end became general. The Ionians of Asia Minor, and the Carians of the Sporades, emulated the Phœnicians by trading from port to port amongst these half-savage tribes, and, like bees which convey the fecundating pollen from flower to flower, they carried the civilisation of Egypt and the East from tribe to tribe. [Illustration: Fig. 9.—MAINOTE AND SPARTAN.]