XIV.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 541 



Huns, the Finns, the Avars, Magyars and other rude Mongolo 

 Turki hordes, besides many almost ruder Slavic peoples during 

 the many centuries when the eastern populations were in a state 

 of continual flux after the withdrawal of the Roman legionaries 

 from the Lower Danube. Besides, it is shown by Roesler 1 and 

 others that under Aurelian (257 A.D.) Trajan's colonists withdrew 

 bodily southwards to and beyond the Hemus to the territory 

 of the old Bessi (Thracians), i.e. the district still occupied by 

 the Macedo-Rumanians. But in the i3th century, during the 

 break-up of the Byzantine empire, most of these fugitives were 

 again driven north to their former seats beyond the Danube, 

 where they have ever since held their ground, and constituted 

 themselves a distinct and far from feeble branch of the Neo-Latin 

 community. The Pindus, therefore, rather than the Carpathians, 

 is to be taken as the last area of dispersion of these valiant and 

 intelligent descendants of the Daco-Romans. This seems the 

 most rational solution of what A. D. Xenopol calls "an historic 

 enigma," although he himself rejects Roesler's conclusions in 

 favour of the old view so dear to the national vanity of the present 

 Rumanian people-. The composite character of the Rumanian 

 language fundamentally Neo-Latin or rather early Italian, with 

 strong Illyrian (Albanian) and Slav affinities would almost imply 

 that Dacia had never been Romanised under the empire, and 

 that in fact this region was for the first time occupied by its 

 present Romance speaking inhabitants in the i3th century 3 . 



Sergi, who regards the proto-Aryans as round-headed bar- 

 barians of Keltic, Slav, and Teutonic speech, makes Ethnic Re _ 

 no exception in favour of the Hellenes. These also lations in 



.... , Greece. 



enter Greece not as civihsers, but rather as destroyers 



of the flourishing Mykenaean culture developed here, as in Italy, 



1 Romanischc Studien, Leipzig, 1871. 



- Les Roumains ait May en Age, passim. Hunfalvy, quoted by A. J. Patter- 

 son (Academy, Sept. 7, 1895) also shows that "for a thousand years there is no 

 authentic mention of a Latin or Romance speaking population north of the 

 Danube." 



3 This view is held by Dr L. Re'thy, also quoted by Patterson, and the term 

 Vlack ( Welsch, whence Wallachia) applied to the Rumanians by all their Slav 

 and Greek neighbours points in the same direction. 



