The rise to imperial power of the dolichocephalic Aryan-speaking Persians was largely due to the genius of their leaders but the Aryanization of western Asia by them is one of the most amazing events in history. The whole region became completely transformed so far as the acceptance by the conquered of the language and religion of the Persians was concerned, but the blood of the Nordic race quickly became diluted and a few centuries later disappears from history. During the great wars with Greece the pure Persian blood was still unimpaired and in control. In the literature of the time there is little evidence of race antagonism between the Greek and the Persian leaders although their rival cultures were sharply contrasted. In the time of Alexander the Great the pure Persian blood was obviously confined to the nobles and it was the policy of Alexander to Hellenize the Persians and to amalgamate his Greeks with them. The amount of pure Macedonian blood was not sufficient to reinforce the Nordic strain of the Persians and the net result was the entire loss of the Greek stock. It is a question whether the Armenians of Asia Minor derived their Aryan speech from this invasion of the Nordic Persians, or whether they received it at an earlier date from the Phrygians and from the west. These Phrygians entered Asia Minor by way of the Dardanelles and broke up the Hittite Empire. Their language was Aryan and probably was related to Thracian. In favor of the theory of the introduction of the Armenian language by the Phrygians from the west, rather than by the Persians from the east, is the highly significant fact that the basic structure of that tongue shows its relationship to be with the western or Centum rather than with the eastern or Satem group of Aryan languages and this, too, in spite of a very large Persian vocabulary. The Armenians themselves, like all the other natives of the plateaux and highlands as far east as the Hindu Kush Mountains, while of Aryan speech, are of the Armenoid subdivision, in sharp contrast to the predominant types south of the mountains in Persia, Afghanistan and Hindustan, all of which are dolichocephalic and of Mediterranean affinity but generally betraying traces of admixture with still more ancient races of Negroid origin, especially in India. We now come to the last and easternmost extension of Aryan languages in Asia. As mentioned above, the grasslands and steppes of Russia extend north of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea to ancient Bactria, now Turkestan. This whole country was occupied by the Nordic Sacæ and the closely related Massagetæ. These Sacæ may be identical with the later Scythians.