the Alps, and the Balkans, sharply separates the central Central and land mass of Europe from the regions to the south. northern Central Europe consists, in general, of lowlands, Europe which widen eastward into the vast Russian plain. Northern Europe includes the British Isles, physically an extension of Europe, and the peninsulas of Scandinavia and Finland, between the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Twenty centuries ago central and northern Europe was a land of forests and marshes, of desolate steppes and icebound hills. The peoples who inhabited it - Celts in the west, Teutons or Germans in the north, Slavs in the east were men of Indo-European 1 race and speech. They were still barbarians. During ancient times we hear little of them, except as their occasional migrations southward brought them into contact with the Greeks and the Romans.

Southern
Europe

1

Southern Europe comprises the three peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and the Balkans, which reach far south into the Mediterranean. This great inland sea is divided into two parts near the center, where Africa and the island of Sicily almost touch each other across a narrow strait. The eastern part contains several minor seas, of which the one called the Ægean had most importance in Greek history.

Sea

21. Greece and the Ægean

The Ægean is an almost landlocked body of water. The Balkan peninsula, narrowing toward the Mediterranean into The Egean the smaller peninsula of Greece, confines it on the west. On the east it meets a boundary in Asia Minor. The southern boundary is formed by a chain of islands, while the only opening northward is found in the narrow passage leading to the Black Sea. The coasts and islands of the Ægean thus make up a little world set off by itself.

Continental
Greece

Continental Greece is a tiny country. Its greatest length is scarcely more than two hundred and fifty miles; its greatest breadth is only one hundred and eighty miles. Mountain ridges, offshoots of the Balkans, compose 1 See pages 16–17.

the greater part of its area. Into the valleys and deep gorges of the interior the impetuous sea has everywhere forced a channel. The coast line, accordingly, is most irregular -a constant succession of sharp promontories and curving bays. The mountains, crossing the peninsula in confused masses, break it up into numberless valleys and glens which seldom widen into plains. The rivers are not navigable. The few lakes, hemmed in by the hills, have no outlets except in underground channels. In this land of the Greeks no place is more than fifty miles from a mountain range, or more than forty miles from some long arm of the Mediterranean.

From the Greek mainland to the coast of Asia Minor the traveler follows a route thickly studded with rocky islands. They are near enough together to permit the The Egean passage from one to another without losing sight

islands

of land. The Ægean islands thus served as "stepping-stones' between Greece and Asia Minor.1

Western Asia Minor resembles Continental Greece in its deeply indented coast, variety of scenery, and mild climate. The fertile river valleys of this region early at- Western Asia tracted Greek colonists. They built here many Minor flourishing cities, especially along the central coast, which came to be known as Ionia.

Influence of

conditions

Greek history well illustrates the influence of geographical conditions on the life of a people. In the first place, mountain ranges cut up Continental Greece into many small states, separated from one another by natural geographical ramparts. Hence the Greeks loved most of all their own local independence and always refused to unite into one nation under a single government. In the second place, the near presence of the sea made sailors of the Greeks and led them to devote much energy to foreign commerce. They early felt, in consequence, the stimulating effects of intercourse with other peoples. Finally, the location of Greece at the threshold of Asia, with its best harbors and most numerous islands on the eastern coast, enabled the country to receive

1 For the island routes see the map between pages 68-69.

and profit by all the culture of the Orient. Greece faced the civilized East.

22. The Egean Age (to about 1100 B.C.)

The Greeks of historic times knew very little about their prehistoric period. Instead of accurate knowledge they had

EXCAVATIONS AT TROY

The great northeast tower of the sixth city.

at the right belong to the eighth city.

Schliemann's excavations at Troy

The stairs

A prehistoric only the civilization beautiful legends preserved in ancient poems, such as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Within our own day, however, remarkable excavations have disclosed the remains of a widespread and flourishing civilization in times so distant that the historic Greeks had lost all sight of it. As in the Orient, the labors of modern scholars are yearly adding to our knowledge of ancient life.

The man who did most to reveal the

prehistoric civilization of Greece was a wealthy German merchant named Heinrich Schliemann. An enthusiastic lover of Homer, he believed that the stories of the Trojan War related in the Iliad were not idle fancies, but real facts. In 1870 A.D. he started to test his beliefs by excavations at a hill called Hissarlik, on the north