Chapter 9 GREEK LANDS AND THE BASIS OF CHRONOLOGY

WE have seen in the last chapter that different types of leaf-shaped swords have been disseminated throughout various quarters of Europe, and we have found reason 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 of Europe, we are dealing with a series of invasions, all starting from somewhere within the Celtic cradle, and affecting almost every part of the continent.

Our purpose in this work is not so much to record evidence as to interpret it, to restore the main features of early history rather than to describe arch?ological remains. Now the 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 of swords an endeavour was made to arrange them in an orderly sequence, and thus to set up a relative chronology. In this chapter a positive system of dating will be attempted.

It is clear that it is to the south-east that we must first look for help, for in Greek lands documentary evidence reaches back some centuries further than it does elsewhere in Europe, and is preceded by an immense 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] Further than this we have the two swords found in Egypt, one of them engraved with a monarch's name, so that a study of these south-eastern specimens should enable us to obtain one point, at least, in our system of dates.

Now it has been pointed out by Sir William Ridgeway[354] that certain people, whom he calls "Ach?ans," entered Greece from the north, bringing with them certain elements of culture, which can best be matched in the Danube basin. These, according to the traditions preserved in the Iliad, were the immediate ancestors of the heroes of the Trojan War. Recently Dr. 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 after the siege of Troy. Dr. Wace has certainly made out a strong case, and we must accept his view that no invasion, in the strict sense of the term, preceded that of the Dorians; but while he would have us scrap the "Ach?an" hypothesis in its entirety, we must, I think, consider awhile before dismissing all the evidence that Sir William Ridgeway has accumulated.

Much of Ridgeway's arch?ological evidence is Hallstatt in type and, apparently at least, Hallstatt in date, and may well equate better with the Dorian than the "Ach?an" movement, but the legends are not to be lightly swept aside, and we have the swords, which are admittedly pre-geometric, 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 basin, bringing with them swords of Central European type, a new type of domestic architecture, and, we may well believe, certain deities and beliefs of more northern origin,[357] yet the continuity of the ceramic culture shows that there had been no general displacement of the population.

Before attempting to decide between these conflicting views, it may be wise to consider the term "Ach?an." By this I mean only those people, who are the subject of Sir William Ridgeway's hypothesis, 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] may be very remote. It seems clear, in fact, that the term as used by Herodotus connoted something very different from what the term meant to Homer, and what it signifies in the pages of Ridgeway.

Now the presence of these leaf-shaped swords in pre-Dorian Greece seems to postulate the presence of intruders from the Danube basin; the paucity of their number, all the more striking when we consider the extent of the excavations carried out in Greek lands, seems to indicate that these 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 spirit of adventure, features which we have found characteristic of the Nordic steppe-folk, and conspicuously lacking among the Alpines. We may, therefore, take it for granted that these intruders, who introduced the leaf-shaped swords into Greek lands, were of Nordic type and temperament.

The heroes of the Trojan War, as Ridgeway has pointed out, were newcomers to the land.[359] In most cases their grandfathers are mentioned, seldom a great-grandfather, unless it is to state that he was a god. Sometimes even the grandfather was a 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 traced to the divine forefather. In a large number of cases, especially of the minor heroes, they are said to be of the stock of Ares. Dr. Hall has suggested that Ares and his mistress Hera were the chief deities of these northern invaders.[360]

We hear very little in the Iliad of these first human ancestors of the "Ach?ans," nor has later Greek legend much more to say about most of them. We have, however, various stories of heroes, arriving alone like Theseus, Perseus, Herakles, and Peleus, or perhaps accompanied by one friend like Amphitryon, at some Greek city. The hero is well received by the king of the city, and often relieves him of some 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, like Ariadne, Com?tho or Polymela, falls in love with him, then some unfortunate accident occurs, as was the case with ?geus, Acrisius, and Eurytion, and the king is slain. The hero then ascends the throne, marries the princess, and, as the fairy tales say, they lived happily ever after. Such is the almost universal burden of Greek legend, as it is of the m?rchen, which grew up in the northern forests.

It has been usual to interpret the stories of these heroes as referring to invading peoples, and to believe that the name of the chief only has survived, whereas the memory of the people has perished. That such was often the case is likely, but when dealing with the first "Ach?an" intruders we must guard ourselves against 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, succeeded in making themselves masters of the cities of pre-Hellenic Greece. It is possible that in this case, as in many others, nineteenth century scholarship has been too clever and too critical, and that the legends as they have come down to us are nearer to the truth than the amendments which have been suggested.[361]

We shall be able to judge better if we look at the actions of Nordics in later times. At the downfall of the Roman empire it was not unusual for quite small bands of Nordics to become masters of even large territories; some of the Norsemen made themselves, single-handed, kings of the cities in 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 quite alone, gained great influence in large communities of aliens, and been in a position to make themselves kings had they not preferred to annex the community to the British Empire? Thus has much of the Empire been built up. But by far the best parallel is the case of the first Rajah of Sarawak.

When such events have taken place in historical times, even in our own day, we cannot consider it as impossible that wandering Nordic heroes from the Danube basin, accompanied perhaps by a faithful henchman, should have found it possible to establish themselves as kings over the trading cities of Mycenean Greece.

But let us glance for a moment at these trading cities and their inhabitants. The original people of the Greek mainland, like the bulk of the present population, seem to have been of that eastern Alpine or Dinaric type, scarcely distinguishable from the bulk of the population 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 the neck. As far as one can judge from the available evidence, these were the only inhabitants of the bulk of the peninsula, until coastal settlements were made by the Cretans, some in the second Middle Minoan period, but most of them at the beginning of the Late Minoan.[362]

The original inhabitants of Crete seem to have been typical members of the Mediterranean race, but during Early Minoan times we find a few broad-headed people arriving in the east of the island, and gradually spreading over the eastern half. [363] It has 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 the island of the development of the copper mines at Gournia,[364] and of the accumulation of gold ornaments, such as the treasure of Mochlos.[365] There are also signs of the existence of an oversea commerce and of a trade in olive oil with Egypt.[366]

This leads us to wonder whether these broad-heads belonged to wanderers from Anatolia, or whether it is not more probable that here we have evidence of the 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 long after the beginning of the Early Minoan period, the Sumerians were trading in the Mediterranean, and knew, if they had not already settled in, Crete.[367]

These are details of which we cannot speak with certainty at present, but all the isolated data available are best explained by believing that the great activities of the trade in the ?gean and especially in Crete were organised by and were in the hands of Prospectors, who had come 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 Pylos, settlements which are recorded in the legends of Danaus, Cadmus and Neleus, we can well believe that, while some of their subjects were of the Mediterranean race, and others, perhaps, drawn from the Alpine aborigines of the mainland, the rulers were in all cases Prospectors.

Professor Ure[368] has recently shown us that in Greek lands, as well as in renaissance Italy, we find two types of rulers, who may be described as Kings and Tyrants. The king is a military chief, of aristocratic bearing and origin, and one more often interested in the territory than in the city. The tyrant, 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 or merchant princes. He has supported his thesis by a vast mass of evidence, which we need not repeat here, but in his conclusions I think we may see the supplanting of the Nordic lord by the Prospector, as times became more settled and trade, rather than fighting, became the more important occupation.

Many of Ure's arguments would apply equally to the Minoan age, when piracy had been put down and oversea trade was booming. The rise of the Greek tyrants was due, he thinks, to the rise of a coinage, 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 obsidian. It was into these trading cities, each governed by a Prospector tyrant, that I believe these Nordic "Ach?an" adventurers to have arrived from the Danube basin with their leaf-shaped swords.

Now there are two classes of men, both of them wielding large powers over others, whose characters have been sharply contrasted by many writers. The kingly type is found in noblemen, at any rate of the old school, medi?val knights, landed proprietors and 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 or employés, are usually good, and friction rarely arises unless the subject class is of an alien race. These kings or lords have usually been able to retain for generations the respect of their subjects, often to inspire very great love and devotion.

On the other hand the leader, whose claim to his position rests only upon wealth or the power to create wealth, is often even extravagantly generous, and has usually ingratiating manners, which are in sharp distinction from the hauteur which is more characteristic 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 support pregnant passages from the works of H. G. Wells[370] and William James.[371] Such differences, Ure thinks, distinguished the king from the tyrant, and the same contrast, I would suggest, held good between the "Ach?an" heroes and the rulers of the Minoan cities.

We have seen reason for believing that the population of the Minoan cities of Greece consisted of Mediterraneans and perhaps some few Alpines, under the rule of a Prospector tyrant. The latter's rule was possibly just, he made money for his city, but most of all for himself, and, in spite of occasional fits 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 head as over that of Damocles, held only by a slender thread; revolutions or rumours of revolutions were of constant occurrence, and the tyrant, intent on money making, had little leisure or inclination, even if he had the capacity, for maintaining order or of inspiring loyalty in the hearts of his subjects.

We can well imagine that the arrival in such a community of one or two northern barbarians, rough and rude, but strong and honest, would have been like a breath of fresh air entering a stuffy room. The tyrant would have welcomed a man who could put down highwaymen 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 daughter's hand. All would have gone well until the tyrant, with the instinct of the Prospector to make a bargain and to get something for nothing, endeavoured, like Laomedon of Troy, to cheat his Nordic ally or to offer him a base substitute for promises made.

The Nordic, as incapable of understanding such double-dealing as of thus acting himself, would quite naturally have been incensed. We can picture him accusing the tyrant of dishonesty and ejecting him from his palace, when he would have fallen a speedy 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 daughter of his predecessor, not so much from romantic motives as to establish more completely his right to the throne, for, despite what has been written to the contrary, some form of matrilinear succession seems to have obtained in Minoan Greece.[372]

The Greek legends referring to the early heroes are full of such details, and the above imaginary sketch may be taken as a composite picture of the kind of events which took place, in all probability, in many a city of pre-Hellenic Greece, as the leaf-shaped swords first made their appearance.

We have, hitherto, taken it for granted that these "Ach?an" intruders were Nordic, and our reasons have been mainly the presence of the swords, the northern character of their palaces and the fact that such enterprises are in keeping with the subsequent behaviour of Nordic adventurers. But the identification, perhaps, requires further proof. The Nordics as we know were tall, fair and long-headed; how does this agree with what we know of the "Ach?an" heroes and their forbears?

The whole tenour of the legends, attributing to them deeds requiring strength and endurance, certainly suggests that the heroes were considered in later days to have been above the average in stature. 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 an exception to the rule, and that the others were as dark as the majority of modern Greeks. Moreover, it has been pointed out that ξανθ?? may only mean brown, and that Menelaus had brown hair.[374]

The first argument certainly carries some weight, and does seem to imply that there was something exceptional in Menelaus' fair hair. But the Atreid?, according to fifth century legend, were Pelopids, and this is hinted, though not expressly stated, in the Iliad. Now other legends bring Pelops from Phrygia, though, of course, this may only signify that he was a Phrygian, who left the Briges before their departure for Asia. But 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 probably Alpines of some kind, who had accompanied the "Ach?an" heroes southwards. That one of these should be fair-haired would be unusual, though by no means impossible if he had had a Nordic ancestress. If ξανθ?? ever meant brown it must have meant light brown or auburn, and its force would be equally as great as if it meant flaxen; the Mediterraneans and eastern Alpines never have light brown hair; it is not uncommon among Nordics.

Lastly we may take the case of the Thracians, who, as we have seen, were almost certainly the stock from which the "Ach?ans" were derived. According to Ridgeway[376] some of these were fair and some dark, that is to say a fair Nordic strain had entered a land peopled with dark Alpines, and the result was a red-haired strain (πυρρ??), as is often the case when fair and dark strains have mixed.[377]

We have no right to expect from Homer, or any other Greek writer, an account of the head-form of the "Ach?an" heroes. Nevertheless we find in the Iliad a word which gives us some indication on this point.[378] It is noticeable that all the people mentioned by name are captains of hosts, or members of the nobility; the Iliad only records the doings of the "Ach?an" heroes. One exception only is there to this rule. At one moment the host, composed no doubt of Alpines 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." What better description could we have of the ordinary head-form of the eastern Alpine inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula and Anatolia? If this had been the usual type of head of the "Ach?an" heroes, the epithet would not have been used as distinctive of the rebellious soldier; it can only have been so used to imply how different he was in this respect from the noble "Ach?an." This seems to me to indicate, exceptionally clearly, that the Homeric heroes were long-headed.

Thus the heroes are found to be tall, fair and long-headed, and so possessing the three chief physical characteristics of the Nordic race. The resemblances between their mental characters and those of the Vikings have often been noted before and need not be repeated.[379]

It will be remembered that I have suggested that the Nordic "Ach?ans" were an offshoot of the body, who as Thracians and Phrygians moved eastward into Thrace and Asia Minor. I have also suggested that they came to the south down the Vardar valley. Usually they have been brought straight from Thrace, which is, of course, possible, but Ridgeway, on the other hand, brings them from Epirus, and points out that they held in veneration the 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 Thracians, or of some group of people inhabiting Thrace.[381] It would seem then that some, probably most, of the "Ach?ans" came from the Thraco-Phrygian stock, though whether they started on their way from Thrace, or left the main body before it had reached that country, is a matter of relatively small importance. When the arch?ology of Macedonia and Thrace is better understood, we shall doubtless be able to clear up this point.

It is unfortunately not possible to date these swords with precision from their associations, as there are difficulties in ascertaining the exact position in which they were found, or in identifying the potsherds and other objects found with them. They are believed to date from the third Late Minoan period, that is to say, sometime after 1400 or 1350 B.C. It is here that our Egyptian evidence helps us.

We learn from the Egyptian records that[382] in the fifth year of Merneptah, 1220 B.C., the Delta was attacked by Meryey, king of the Libyans, who brought with him a host of Tehenu, who had been living in the country behind Alexandria. He had also numerous oversea allies, pirates and traders, who came in search of loot. These were the Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh and 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 fourth the Ekwesh, there is more general agreement, and I believe all authorities unite in seeing in this name the word "Ach?an." If this be so, our Nordic intruders, who had made themselves lords of the trading cities in Greece, had taken to the sea, like their fellows in the Baltic, and were, with Prospector allies, attacking and plundering the rich lands of the Delta.

It is to this expedition that I attribute the two swords already described, as indeed was suggested some years ago by Professor Peet.[383] One is unquestionably of Type D, the type which has been 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 from 1209 to 1205 B.C., and so cannot be later than the latter date. It is probable that it was a souvenir of the raid of 1220 B.C., upon which Seti placed his name some ten to fifteen years later.

Thus Type D was in use in 1220 B.C., and must have developed earlier, for we must allow some years to have elapsed since the "Ach?ans" left the Danube basin for Greek lands, a few more before many of them had established themselves as kings, and a further interval before they can have organised a piratical expedition on a sufficiently extensive scale to 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 into Asia Minor, where they became known as Phrygians. This movement appears to have been one of a succession of similar raids, which carried the Thraco-Phrygian people from the Danube basin eastwards. It seems probable that our "Ach?an" intruders were part of this body, who, instead of moving on to the east, had passed southwards in search of adventure.

Type G, as we have seen, has been found at the famous cemetery at Hallstatt, in some of the older graves. This cemetery is believed to date, at 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 iron was found. We may safely conclude that these swords belong to the very beginning of this period, and had been in use for some time previously.

It is always a difficult matter to determine how long a given type of implement or weapon remained in use. Besides this we must allow for overlapping, that is to say for the 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 twenty-five years is sufficient to allow for this overlap, though possibly on rare occasions an obsolete weapon may have been preserved longer, especially as a trophy or memento.

If we allow a period of one hundred years between the introduction of one type and the first use of its successor, we shall be able to fit the two 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 a modified form, to have persisted longer in the Baltic region. I propose, therefore, to reduce the hundred years to fifty in each of these cases.

Such a chronological scheme is, of necessity, provisional, and must be susceptible of modification as further synchronisms are worked out, but on the evidence at present available, I am inclined to think that 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 Italy and Greece. Various modifications may, however, have to be made in applying it to more distant regions, especially in the north and west, such as Brittany, the British Isles and the Scandinavian countries.

Type A Transitional . . . . 1500–1425

Type B Semi-circular . . . . 1450–1375

Type C Oval . . . . 1400–1275

Type D Mycen?, Fucino . . . . 1300–1175

Type E Wilburton . . . . 1200–1075

Type F Proto-Hallstatt, Dowris . . . . 1100– 975

Type G Hallstatt . . . . 1000– 875

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