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ORIGIN OF THE GREEKS—Before the Hellenes parted from their Aryan ancestry, they had words for "father," "mother," "brother," "son," and "daughter," as well as for certain connections by marriage. They lived in houses, pastured flocks and herds, possessed dogs and horses. They had for weapons, the sword and the bow. "They knew how to work gold, silver, and copper; they could count up to a hundred; they reckoned time by the lunar month; they spoke of the sky as the 'heaven-father.'" The differences between the Greek and the Latin languages prove, also, that the Greeks and Italians, after their common progenitors broke off from the primitive Aryan stock, had long dwelt apart. The Greeks, when they first become known to us in historical times, consist of two great branches, the Dorians and Ionians, together with a less distinct branch, the Aeolians, which differs less, perhaps, from the parent Hellenes than do the two divisions just named.

It is a probable opinion of scholars, that the halting-place of the Hellenes, whence, in successive waves, they passed over into Greece, was Phrygia, in the north-west of Asia Minor. Preceding the Greeks both in northern Greece and in Peloponnesus, and spread over the coasts and islands of the Archipelago, was a people of whom they had an indistinct knowledge, whom they called Pelasgians. They were husbandmen or herdsmen. Their national sanctuary was at Dodona, in Epirus. The "Cyclopean" ruins, composed of huge polygonal blocks of stone, which they left behind in various places, are the remnant of their walls and fortifications. The Greeks looked back on these Pelasgian predecessors as different from themselves. Yet no reminiscences existed of any hostility towards them. It is plausibly conjectured that this prehistoric people were emigrants from the region of Phrygia at a more ancient date, and that the Hellenes, a more energetic and gifted branch of the same stock, followed them, and, without force or conflict, became the founders and leaders of a new historic movement, in which the Pelasgians disappeared from view. In this second migration, the ancestors of the Ionians went down from Phrygia to the coast of Asia Minor, and began the career which made them a maritime and commercial people. The Dorians crossed over to the highlands of northern Greece, where they became hardy mountaineers, not addicted to the sea. The one tribe were to be eventually the founders of Athens; the other, of Sparta. Besides these two main tribes, the Aeolians occupied Thessaly, Boeotia, Aetolia, and other districts. To them the Achaeans, who were supreme in Peloponnesus in the days of Homer, were allied.

FOREIGN INFLUENCES.—Besides Phrygia, the legends of the Greeks bear traces of a foreign influence from Phoenicia and Egypt. The Phoenicians were unquestionably early connected with the Greeks, first by commercial visits to Greek ports, to which they brought foreign merchandise. The story of Cadmus, who is said to have founded Thebes, and to have brought in the Phoenician alphabet, is fabulous. But it is probable, that, as early as the close of the ninth century B.C., the alphabet was introduced by Phoenicians, and diffused over Greece. Another legend is that of Cecrops, conceived of later as an Egyptian, who is said to have built a citadel at Athens, and to have imported the seeds of civilization and religion. Danaus, another emigrant from Egypt, coming with his fifty daughters, is said to have built the citadel of Argos. In the later times, the Greeks were fond of tracing their knowledge of the arts to Egyptian sources. It is remarkable that the agents by whom germs of civilization were said to have been imported from abroad, though foreign, are nevertheless depicted as thoroughly Greek in their character. Whatever the Greeks may have owed to Egypt, it is probable was mainly derived from Ionians who had previously planted themselves in that country.

THE DORIAN EMIGRATION.—It was in the prehistoric time that the Dorians left their homes in northern Greece, and migrated into Peloponnesus, where they proved themselves stronger than the Ionians and the Achaeans dwelling there. They left the Achaeans on the south coast of the Corinthian Gulf, in the district called Achaia. Nor did they conquer Arcadia. But of most of Peloponnesus they became masters. This is the portion of historic truth contained in the myth of the Return of the Heraclidae, the descendants of Hercules, to the old kingdom of their ancestor.

MIGRATIONS TO ASIA MINOR.—The Dorian conquest is said to have been the cause of three distinct migrations to Asia Minor. The Achaeans, with their Aeolic kinsmen on the north, established themselves on the north-west coast of Asia Minor, Lesbos and Cyme being their strongholds, and by degrees got control in Mysia and the Troad. Ionic emigrants from Attica joined their brethren on the same coast. The Dorians settled on the south-west coast; they also settled Cos and Rhodes, and at length subdued Crete. The Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus, and the migrations just spoken of, were slow in their progress, and possibly stretched over centuries.

CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.—Originality is a distinguishing trait of the Greeks. Whatever they borrowed from others they made their own, and reproduced in a form peculiar to themselves. They were never servile copyists. All the products of the Greek mind, whether in government, art, literature, or in whatever province of human activity, wear a peculiar stamp. When we leave Asiatic ground, and come into contact with the Greeks, we find ourselves in another atmosphere. A spirit of humanity, in the broad sense of the term, pervades their life. A regard for reason, a sense of order, a disposition to keep every thing within measure, is a marked characteristic. Their sense of form—including a perception of beauty, and of harmony and proportion—made them in politics and letters the leaders of mankind. "Do nothing in excess," was their favorite maxim. They hated every thing that was out of proportion. Their language, without a rival in flexibility and symmetry and in perfection of sound, is itself, though a spontaneous creation, a work of art. "The whole language resembles the body of an artistically trained athlete, in which every muscle, every sinew, is developed into full play, where there is no trace of tumidity or of inert matter, and all is power and life." The great variety of the spiritual gifts of this people, the severest formulas of science, the loftiest flights of imagination, the keenest play of wit and humor, were capable of precise and effective expression in this language "as in ductile play." The use of the language, so lucid and so nice in its discriminations, was itself an education for the young who grew up to hear it and to speak it. In a genial yet invigorating climate, in a land where breezes from the mountain and the sea were mingled, the versatile Greeks produced by physical training that vigor and grace of body which they so much admired; and they developed the civil polity, the artistic discernment, and the complex social life, which made them the principal source of modern culture. Their moral traits are not so admirable. As a race they were less truthful, and less marked for their courage and loyalty, than some other peoples below them in intellect.

RELIGION.—In the early days, when Greece was open to foreign influences, the simple religion of the Aryan fathers was enlarged by new elements from abroad. The Tyrian deity, Melkart, appears at Corinth as Melicertes. Astarte becomes Aphrodite (Venus), who springs from the sea. The myth of Dionysus and the worship of Demeter (Ceres) may be of foreign origin. Poseidon (Neptune), the god of the sea, and Apollo, the god of light and of healing, whose worship carried in it cheer and comfort, though they were brought into Greece, were previously known to the lonians. By Homer and Hesiod, the great poets of the prehistoric age, the gods in these successive dynasties, their offices and mutual relations, were depicted. In Hesiod they stand in a connected scheme or theogony.

1. There are the twelve great gods and goddesses of Olympus, who were named by the Greeks—Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Arês, Hêphaestos, Hermês, Hêrê, Athênê, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia, Dêmêtêr. 2. Numerous other divinities, not included among the Olympic, but some not less important than the twelve. Such are Hadês, Hêlíos, Dionysus, the Charites, the Muses, the Nereids, the Nymphs, etc. 3. Deities who perform special service to the greater gods—Iris, Hêbe, the Horae;, etc. 4. Deities whose personality is less distinct—Atê, Eris, Thanatos, Hypnos, etc. 5. Monsters, progeny of the gods—the Harpies, the Gorgons, Pegasus, Chimaera, Cerberus, Scylla and Charybdis, the Centaurs, the Sphinx. Below the gods are the demigods or heroes.

LEGENDS OF HEROES.—The space which precedes the beginning of authentic records, the Greeks filled up with mythical tales, in which gods and heroes are the central figures. The heroes are partly of divine parentage. They are in near intercourse with the deities. Their deeds are superhuman, and embody those ideals of character and of achievement which the early Greeks cherished. The production of a lively imagination, before the dawn of the critical faculty or the growth of reflection, these tales may yet include a nucleus of historical incident or vague reminiscences of historical relations and changes. To attempt to extract these from the fictitious form in which they are embodied, is for the most part hopeless.

The exploits of Heracles (Hercules) have a prominent place in the legends. This hero of Argos submitted to serve a cruel tyrant, but, by prodigious labors (twelve in number), delivered men from dangerous beasts—the Lernaean hydra, the Nemean lion, etc.—and performed other miraculous services. Theseus, the national hero of Attica, cleared the roads of savage robbers, and delivered his country from bondage. Minos, the mythical legislator of Crete, cleared the sea of pirates, and founded a maritime state. Of the legendary stories, three of the most famous are The Seven against Thebes The Argonautic Expedition, and The Trojan War. I. Laius, king of Thebes, was told by an oracle that he should be killed by his son. He exposed him, therefore, as soon as he was born, on Mount Cithaeron. Saved by a herdsman, Oedipus was brought up by Polybus, king of Corinth, as his own son. Warned by the oracle that he should kill his father, and marry his mother, the son forsook Corinth, and made his abode at Thebes. Meeting Laius in a narrow pass, and provoked by his attendants, he slew them and him. At Thebes there was a female monster, the Sphinx, who propounded a riddle, and each day devoured a man until it should be solved. Oedipus won the prize which the Queen Jocaste had offered; namely, the crown and her own hand to whomsoever should free the city. When his two sons and daughters had grown up, a pestilence broke out; and the oracle demanded that the murderer of Laius should be banished. Oedipus, in spite of the warnings of the blind priest, Tiresias, finds out the truth. He puts out his eyes, and is driven into exile by his sons, whom he curses. Under the guidance of his daughter Antigone, he finds a resting-place at Colonus, a suburb of Athens, in a grove of the Eumenides, whose function it was to avenge such crimes as his. He received expiation at the hands of Theseus, and died in a calm and peaceful way. This legend was the basis of some of the finest of the Greek dramas, "Oedipus Tyrannus," and the "Oedipus at Colonus" of Sophocles, and "The Seven against Thebes" of Aeschylus. The curse of Oedipus still rested on his sons. The story of Antigone, defying the tyrant Creon, and burying her slain brother, Polynices, is the foundation of the drama of Sophocles, bearing her name. Finally, the Epigoni, descendants of the Seven who had fought Thebes, captured and destroyed that city.

2. Argonauts were described as a band of heroes, who, through perilous and unknown seas, sailed from Iolcos in Thessaly, in the ship "Argo," to Colchis, whence they brought away the golden fleece which had been stolen, and which they found nailed to an oak, and guarded by a sleepless dragon. Jason, the leader, was accompanied on his return by the enchantress, Medea, who had aided him. She, in order to delay their pursuers, killed her brother Absyrtus, and threw his body, piece by piece, into the sea. Her subsequent story involves various other tragic events.

3. The most noted of the legends is the story of the Trojan war. The deeds of the heroes of this war are the subject of the Iliad. Paris, son of Priam, king of Ilios (Troy), in Asia Minor, carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. To recover her, the Greeks united in an expedition against Troy, which they took after a siege of ten years. Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus (Ulysses), Ajax son of Telamon, and Ajax son of Oileus, Diomedes, and Nestor were among the chiefs on the Greek side. Troy had its allies. The "Odyssey" relates to the long journey of Odysseus on his return to Ithaca, his home. That there was an ancient city, Troy, is certain. A conflict between the Greeks and a kindred people there, is probable. Not unlikely, there was a military expedition of Grecian tribes. Every thing beyond this is either plainly myth, or incapable of verification.

UNIONS OF TRIBES.—During the period when the Greek population was dispersing itself in the districts which its different fractions occupied in the historic ages, there arose unions among tribes near one another, for religious purposes. They preceded treaties and alliances of the ordinary kind. Such tribes agreed to celebrate, in common, certain solemn festivals. Deputies of these tribes met at stated intervals to look after the temple and the lands pertaining to it. Out of these unions, there grew stipulations relative to the mode of conducting war and other matters of common interest. Treaties of peace and of mutual defense might follow. Thus arose combinations of states, in which one state, the strongest, would have the hegemony, or lead. This became an established characteristic of Greek political life. It was a system of federal unions under the headship of the most powerful member of the confederacy. When such a union was formed, it established a common worship or festival.

THE DELPHIC AMPHICTYONY.—In the north of Greece, there was formed, in early times, a great religious union. It was composed of twelve tribes banded together for the worship of Apollo at Delphi, and to guard his temple. It was called the Delphic Amphictyony, or "League of Neighbors." The members of this body agreed not to destroy one another's towns in war, and not to cut off running water from a town which they were besieging.

THE DELPHIC ORACLE.—The sanctuary at Delphi, where the Amphictyonic Council met, became the most famous temple in Greece. Here the oracle of Apollo gave answers to those who came to consult that divinity. The priests who managed the temple kept themselves well informed in regard to occurrences in distant places. Their answers were often discreet and wholesome, but not unfrequently obscure and ambiguous, and thus misleading. In early times their moral influence in the nation promoted justice and fraternal feeling. In later times they lost their reputation for honesty and impartiality. In civil wars the priests were sometimes bribed to support one of the contending parties.

THE HOMERIC POEMS.—Within the last century, there has been much discussion about the authorship of the two poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The place where they were composed, whether among the Ionians in Greece proper or in Asia Minor, is still a matter of debate. It was probably Asia Minor. Seven places contended for the honor of having given birth to the blind bard. But nothing is known of Homer's birthplace or history. It is doubtful whether the art of writing was much, if at all, in use among the Greeks at the time of the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey. We know that the custom existed of repeating poems orally by minstrels or rhapsodists at popular festivals. This may have been the mode in which for a time the Homeric poems were preserved and transmitted. The Odyssey has more unity than the Iliad, and seems to be of a somewhat later date. The nucleus of the Iliad is thought by some scholars to be embedded in the group of poems which, it is supposed, constitute the work at present; but there is no evidence making it possible to identify any portion as the work of Homer. Whatever may be the truth on these questions, the Iliad and Odyssey present an invaluable picture of Greek life in the period when they were composed, which was probably as early as 900 B.C.

SOCIAL LIFE IN THE HOMERIC AGE.—(1) Government. In the Homeric portraiture of Greek life, there are towns; but the tribe is predominant over the town. The tribe is ruled by a king, who is not like an Eastern despot, but has about him a council of chiefs, and is bound by the themistes, the traditional customs. There is, besides, the agora, or popular assembly, where debates take place among the chiefs, and to which their decisions, or rather the decision of the king, on whom it devolves finally to determine every thing, are communicated. Public speaking, it is seen, is practiced in the infancy of Greek society. (2) Customs. People live in hill-villages, surrounded by walls. Life is patriarchal, and, as regards the domestic circle, humane. Polygamy, the plague of Oriental society, does not exist. Women are held in high regard. Slavery is everywhere established. Side by side with piracy and constant war, and the supreme honor given to military prowess, there is a fine and bountiful hospitality which is held to be a religious duty. In the Homeric poems, there is often exhibited a noble refinement of thought and sentiment, and a gentle courtesy. (3) Arts and Industry. In war, the chariot is the engine: cavalry are unknown. The useful arts are in a rudimental stage. Spinning and weaving are the constant occupation of women. All garments are made at home: noble women join with their slaves in washing them in the river. The condition of the common freeman who took one temporary job after another, was miserable. Of the condition of those who pursued special occupations—as the carpenter, the leather-dresser, the fisherman, etc.—we have no adequate information. The principal metals were in use, and the art of forging them. There was no coined money: payment was made in oxen. But there is hereditary individual property in land, cultivated vineyards, temples of the gods, and splendid palaces of the chiefs. (4) Geographical Knowledge. In Homer, there is a knowledge of Greece, of the neighboring islands, and western Asia Minor. References to other lands are vague. The earth is a sort of flat oval, with the River Oceanus flowing round it. Hesiod is better informed about places: he knows something of the Nile and of the Scythians, and of some places as far west as Syracuse.

RELIGION IN THE HOMERIC AGE.—The Homeric poems give us a full idea of the early religious ideas and practices, (I) The Nature of the Gods.—The gods in Homer are human beings with greatly magnified powers. Their dwelling is in the sky above us: their special abode is Mount Olympus. They experience hunger, but feed on ambrosia and nectar. They travel with miraculous speed. Their prime blessing is exemption from mortality. Among themselves they are often discordant and deceitful. (2) Relation of the Gods to Men. They are the rulers and guides of nations. Though they act often from mere caprice or favoritism, their sway is, on the whole, promotive of justice. Zeus is supreme: none can contend with him successfully. The gods hold communication with men. They also make known their will and intentions by signs and portents—such as thunder and lightning, or the sudden passing of a great bird of prey. They teach men through dreams. (3) Service of the Gods. Sacrifice and supplication are the chief forms of devotion. There is no dominant hierarchy. The temple has its priest, but the father is priest in his own household. (4) Morals and Religion. Morality is interwoven with religion. Above all, oaths are sacred, and oath-breakers abhorred by gods as well as by men. In the conduct of the divinities, there are found abundant examples of unbridled anger and savage retaliation. Yet gentle sentiments, counsels to forbearance and mercy, are not wanting. The wrath of the gods is most provoked by lawless self-assertion and insolence. (5) Propitiation: the Dead. The sense of sin leads to the appeasing of the deities by offerings, attended with prayer. The offerings are gifts to the god, tokens of the honor due to him. The dead live as flitting shadows in Hades. Achilles is made to say that he would rather be a miserable laborer on earth than to reign over all the dead in the abodes below.

GREEK LITERATURE.—The chief types, both of poetry and of prose, originated with the Greeks. Their writings are the fountainhead of the literature of Europe. They prized simplicity: they always had an intense disrelish for obscurity and bombast. The earliest poetry of the Greeks consisted of hymns to the gods. It was lyrical, an outpouring of personal feeling. The lyrical type was followed by the epic, where heroic deeds, or other events of thrilling interest, are the theme of song, and the personal emotion of the bard is out of sight through his absorption in the subject. Description flows on, the narrator himself being in the background. This epic poetry culminates in the Iliad and Odyssey (900–700 B.C.). Their verse is the hexameter. These poems move on in a swift current, yet without abruptness or monotony. They are marked by a simplicity and a nobleness, a refinement and a pathos, which have charmed all subsequent ages. Homer, far more than any other author, was the educator of the Greeks. There was a class called Homeridae, in Chios; but whether they were themselves poets, or reciters of Homer, or what else may have been their peculiar work, is not ascertained. There was, however, a class of Cyclic poets, who took up the legends of Troy, and carried out farther the Homeric tales. Hesiod was the founder of a more didactic sort of poetry. He is about a century later than the Iliad. Besides the Theogony, which treats of the origin of the gods and of nature, his Works and Days relates to the works which a farmer has to do, and the lucky or unlucky days for doing them. It contains doctrines and precepts relative to agriculture, navigation, civil and family life. Hesiod was the first of a Boeotian school of poets. He lacks the poetic genius of Homer, and the vivacity and cheerfulness which pervade the Iliad and the Odyssey.