The Story of Mankind [19]
Of these early Hellenes we know nothing. Thucydides,
the historian of the fall of Athens, describing his earliest
ancestors, said that they ``did not amount to very much,'' and
this was probably true. They were very ill-mannered. They
lived like pigs and threw the bodies of their enemies to the wild
dogs who guarded their sheep. They had very little respect
for other people's rights, and they killed the natives of the
Greek peninsula (who were called the Pelasgians) and stole
their farms and took their cattle and made their wives and
daughters slaves and wrote endless songs praising the courage
of the clan of the Achaeans, who had led the Hellenic advance-
guard into the mountains of Thessaly and the Peloponnesus.
But here and there, on the tops of high rocks, they saw
the castles of the AEgeans and those they did not attack for
they feared the metal swords and the spears of the AEgean
soldiers and knew that they could not hope to defeat them with
their clumsy stone axes.
For many centuries they continued to wander from valley
to valley and from mountain side to mountain side Then the
whole of the land had been occupied and the migration had
come to an end.
That moment was the beginning of Greek civilisation. The
Greek farmer, living within sight of the AEgean colonies,
was finally driven by curiosity to visit his haughty neighbours.
He discovered that he could learn many useful things from
the men who dwelt behind the high stone walls of Mycenae, and
Tiryns.
He was a clever pupil. Within a short time he mastered
the art of handling those strange iron weapons which the
AEgeans had brought from Babylon and from Thebes. He
came to understand the mysteries of navigation. He began
to build little boats for his own use.
And when he had learned everything the AEgeans could
teach him he turned upon his teachers and drove them back
to their islands. Soon afterwards he ventured forth upon the
sea and conquered all the cities of the AEgean. Finally in the
fifteenth century before our era he plundered and ravaged
Cnossus and ten centuries after their first appearance upon
the scene the Hellenes were the undisputed rulers of Greece,
of the AEgean and of the coastal regions of Asia Minor. Troy,
the last great commercial stronghold of the older civilisation,
was destroyed in the eleventh century B.C. European history
was to begin in all seriousness.
THE GREEK CITIES
THE GREEK CITIES THAT WERE REALLY
STATES
WE modern people love the sound of the word ``big.'' We
pride ourselves upon the fact that we belong to the ``biggest''
country in the world and possess the ``biggest'' navy and grow
the ``biggest'' oranges and potatoes, and we love to live in
cities of ``millions'' of inhabitants and when we are dead we
are buried in the ``biggest cemetery of the whole state.''
A citizen of ancient Greece, could he have heard us talk,
would not have known what we meant. ``Moderation in all
things'' was the ideal of his life and mere bulk did not impress
him at all. And this love of moderation was not merely a
hollow phrase used upon special occasions: it influenced the
life of the Greeks from the day of their birth to the hour of
their death. It was part of their literature and it made them
build small but perfect temples. It found expression in the
clothes which the men wore and in the rings and the bracelets
of their wives. It followed the crowds that went to the theatre
and made them hoot down any playwright who dared to
sin against the iron law of good taste or good sense.
The Greeks even insisted upon this quality in their politicians
and in their most popular athletes. When a powerful
runner came to Sparta and boasted that he could stand longer
on one foot than any other man in Hellas the people drove him
from the city because he prided himself upon an accomplish-
ment at which he could