The History of Rome, Book IV: The RevolutionMommsen, Theodor
History
The History of Rome, Book IV: The Revolution
Mommsen, Theodor
Rome -- History
been transmitted from the conflicts at Marathon to the present
generation and will perhaps reckon its future by thousands of
years as it has reckoned its past.
The Nationalities of Asia Minor
Manifest however as is the foreign and un-Hellenic character of
the whole life and action of the Cappadocian king, it is difficult
definitely to specify the national element preponderating in it,
nor will research perhaps ever succeed in getting beyondbgeneralities
or in attaining clear views on this point. In the whole circle
of ancient civilization there is no region where the stocks
subsisting side by side or crossing each other were so numerous,
so heterogeneous, so variously from the remotest times intermingled,
and where in consequence the relations of the nationalities were
less clear than in Asia Minor. The Semitic population continued in
an unbroken chain from Syria to Cyprus and Cilicia, and to it the
original stock of the population along the west coast in the regions
of Caria and Lydia seems also to have belonged, while the north-
western point was occupied by the Bithynians, who were akin to
the Thracians in Europe. The interior and the north coast, on
the other hand, were filled chiefly by Indo-Germanic peoples most
nearly cognate to the Iranian. In the case of the Armenian and
Phrygian languages(4) it is ascertained, in that of the Cappadocian
it is highly probable, that they had immediate affinity with the Zend;
and the statement made as to the Mysians, that among them the Lydian
and Phrygian languages met, just denotes a mixed Semitic-Iranian
population that may be compared perhaps with that of Assyria. As to
the regions stretching between Cilicia and Caria, more especially
Lydia, there is still, notwithstanding the full remains of the
native language and writing that are in this particular instance
extant, a want of assured results, and it is merely probable that
these tribes ought to be reckoned among the Indo-Germans rather
than the Semites. How all this confused mass of peoples was
overlaid first with a net of Greek mercantile cities, and then
with the Hellenism called into life by the military as well
as intellectual ascendency of the Greek nation, has been set
forth in outline already.
Pontus
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