The Bronze Age and the Celtic World

eason for believing that in Celtic lands at least their appearance signified a hostile invasion. If, as may well be the case, the same is true of other parts

he backbone of history is chronology, and we cannot interpret our evidence satisfactorily unless we can place it in its true chronological setting. In discussing the seven types

mass of tradition, much of which clearly belongs more to legend than to myth. These legends, moreover, have received intensive study, and their contents have been brought into line with arch?ological data.[353] Furt

. Wace,[355] who has made a careful study of the pre-Hellenic remains of the mainland of Greece, especially of the pottery, has pointed out that there is but one break in the ceramic evolution of that region, the introduction of geometric ware. This is, he believes, best explained by equating it with the Dorian invasion, which took place some generations afte

and so pre-Dorian, and may well antedate also the Trojan War. There is also the introduction into southern Greece of a type of palace, which seems to have developed in a more northerly clime.[356] We have, therefore, evidence for some intrusive elements entering Greek lands from the Danube

s, and who organised the attack upon Priam's Troy. They may, for all we know, be a people or merely a class, and their connection with the Ach?ans of the Peloponnese, discussed by Herodotus,[358]

ese intruders were few. These swords had been, as we have seen, invented by the Nordic steppe-folk in Central Europe, and may sometimes have been used by their Alpine subjects. But for a few strangers to intrude into a foreign land needs on their part considerable courage and the spir

deity, as in the case of Polypoites, but usually when this is so we have reason for believing that the hero, like Nestor, the grandson of Poseidon, was an old man. The earliest ancestor was sometimes Zeus, but usually the pedigree is not actually

ome difficulty, whether it be the repulse of a hostile attack, as in the case of Theseus and the Pallantids, or Amphitryon and the Teleb?ans, the punishment of robbers, such as Periphates, Sinis, Sciron, Cercyon or Damastes, or the slaying of wild beasts like the Cromyon sow, the Marathon bull, the Cadmeian fox, or the various monsters slain by Herakles. The king honours the visitor, the princess, li

gainst taking this for granted. Dr. Wace's arguments are all against the arrival of a fresh people at this time, for there is no introduction of new styles of pottery; on the other hand, there is nothing in his evidence antagonistic to the view that a few northern heroes, coming unaccompanied by men-at-arms, succeed

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 qui

ossible that wandering Nordic heroes from the Danube basin, accompanied perhaps by a faithful henchman,

on 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 t

s 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

arrival of the Prospectors, who seem always to be the organisers of oversea trade and of mining operations. We must remember too, that by 2800 B.C., not lon

ome originally, though not necessarily directly, from the Persian Gulf, and who were employing the Mediterranean aborigines as mariners, miners and craftsmen. When in Middle and Late Minoan times these Cretans made settlements on the mainland, in the Argolid, in B?otia, and at P

rant, on the other hand, is essentially a merchant or a business man, his outlook bourgeois, and he rules over a city and its trading connections, rather than over a wide expanse of land. In Greece, Ure believes, the introduction of metal currency caused the earlier kings to be replaced by these tyrants

just as the modern plutocrat has risen to power on the development of paper currency; the Minoan tyrant, comes to the front as metal, an easily portable and exchangeable commodity, succeeds flint or

nd officers of the army and navy; the same traditions hold good in the upper ranks, at least, of the civil service and among the professional classes. The relations between these lords and the people committed to their charge, whether subjects, tenants

ic of the lord; yet he rarely makes himself loved or even liked by those dependent on him, even though his actions be kind and his judgments just. This contrast has furnished a theme to many writers, and has been ably summarised by Ure,[369] who quotes in suppor

ts of lavish generosity, he would not have been popular. He was engaged in exploiting the proletariat, and they were fully conscious of the fact. Though his manner was outwardly ingratiating, he was distrusted by his subjects, who felt that they were but pawns in his game. Thus the sword swayed over his h

ymen or lead his mercenaries to battle. He would, perhaps, have made him chief of his police or generalissimo of the town forces, and, as the hero restored law and order and kept the populace quiet, he would have promised him much reward, including perhaps his

peedy victim to the anger of his subjects. The hero would have placed himself upon the vacant throne with the help and goodwill of the people, who had admired his strength, courage and fair dealing. Lastly, he would, perhaps, have married the daug

sketch may be taken as a composite picture of the kind of events which took place, in all probabil

racter of their palaces and the fact that such enterprises are in keeping with the subsequent behaviour of Nordic adventurers. But the identification, perhaps,

ure. That they were fair-haired has been taken for granted by many writers.[373] It has been suggested, however, that the fact that Menelaus was called fair, signifies that he was in this respect

the Pelopid?, in their customs, differed from the other "Ach?ans." Later legend attributes to them a type of endogamy, interpreted afterwards as incest, infant sacrifice, and cannibalistic habits. ?schylus[375] looks upon these customs as crimes, and attributes them to a curse upon the House of Tantalus. I think, however, we may see in the Pelopids, and perhaps in other groups of op peoples, some non-Nordic type, most probabl

ived. According to Ridgeway[376] some of these were fair and some dark, that is to say a fair Nordic strain had entered a land people

and Mediterraneans, thinks of revolting. Their leader is a mob-orator, fond of arguing as is the way with Alpines, and we can have little doubt as to the racial affinities of Thersites. If we had any, one epithet used of him would satisfy us, for his head is described as φοξ??. The exact meaning of this term has been a matter of dispute, but it is usually rendered "tapering to a point," and the expression φοξ?? ?ην κεφαλ?ν means that he "had a sugar-loaf head." Wha

ief physical characteristics of the Nordic race. The resemblances between their mental cha

e Zeus of Dodona.[380] If their arrival was, as I have suggested, in small bands or by ones and twos, there is no reason to postulate that they all arrived by the same route; all that matters is that they should have come eventually from the Danube basin. As I have already mentioned, some of the Homeric heroes were Zeus-born, and may have come via Epirus, while others, the majority, were of the stock of Ares. Now Ares was the god of

the exact position in which they were found, or in identifying the potsherds and other objects found with them. They are believed to d

d the Ekwesh. If the three first have been rightly identified, they were the people of Sardinia and Sicily and the Tyrsenians, who we know later as the Etruscans; whether these identifications are correct has been much disputed, but it is significant that all three represent areas or peoples which we have already identified with Prospector activities. On the fourt

most commonly found in Greek lands, while the other seems, as far as can be judged from its damaged hilt, to be also of the same type. The latter is engraved with the name of Seti II., who reigned

o threaten the safety of Egypt. Fifteen years would be the shortest possible time for such a succession of events, thirty years more likely. So we may consider that some of these intruders left the Danube basin about 1250 B.C. Now it must have been about this time, or rather earlier, that the Briges, from the north of Macedonia, crossed the Hellespont

the earliest, from 900 B.C., but iron was found in most of the graves, and the bronze swords were few in number, and from graves in which no iro

period during which a type still survived in use after its successor, which was doubtless in many ways its superior, had been designed. I am inclined to believe that about tw

o ascertained dates, and this period seems on the whole reasonable. Types A and B are, however, scarce in Central Europe, though Type B seems, in

it is not far from the truth, and that any amendments which may have to be made in the future will scarcely exceed fifty years either way. This scheme is for Central Europe only, and may be true also for Ita

itional . .

circular . .

al . . .

, Fucino . .

urton . . .

lstatt, Dowris .

statt . . .