ox THE MIGRATIOXS OF RACES. 



329 



As is known, the Indo-Europeans are subdivided into eight groups, 

 viz., Indians, Iranians, Thracian-Illyrians — whose fragments may be 

 identified with the modern Arnauts, Albanians, or Skipetars — Greeks, 

 Italians, Celts, Slaves, and Germans ; which, again, according as they 

 were earlier or later sundered from the common tree, or have among 

 each other formed a single society a longer or shorter time, separate 

 into subordinate groups. A. Schleicher, who has with especial assiduity 

 pursued this inquiry, conceives in the first place that the Indo-Europe- 

 ans split into two groups, viz., Germanians and Slaves on one side, 

 and Aryans (Indians or Iranians), Greeks, Italians, and Celts on the 

 other, whereby the Thracian-Illyrians are numbered among the Greeks, 

 Later, on one side, the Germans divided from the Slaves, on the other 

 the Aryans from the remaining three stems, and then that group in the 

 same way disintegrated. 



Many weighty considerations oppose this view of Schleicher's, and 

 we shall permit ourselves briefly to explain our theory, which rests upon 

 a careful examination of these very facts. According to our view, 

 the Thracian-Illyrians first broke away from the common stock and 

 withdrew southward, where they took possession of the Balkan Penin- 

 sula and the coasts along Italy. Later the original body split into 

 two parts, viz., on one side the Celts, Italians, and Greeks, on the 

 other Aryans, Slaves, and Germans. Thereupon the Celts separated 

 from the first group, going westward, while the Italians and Greeks 

 yet remained together for some time ; in the same way the Germans 

 separated from the Aryans and Slaves, turning northward. Finally 

 the Italians parted from the Greeks, and the Slaves from the Aryans, 

 which on their aide again divided into Iranians and Indians. But, in 

 spite of this concentric diffusion, many nations maintained an intimate 

 union, as the Italians and Greeks, the Iranians and Indians, the Slaves 

 and the Germans, whereby many points of contact in the social habits 

 of these peoples were instituted. These resemblances, secured after 

 the primal separation, are not to be confounded with the fundamental 

 features held in common and extending back anterior to their subdi- 

 visions. 



After this briefly outlined family tree of the Indo-Europeans, the 

 peoples embraced therein undertook important migrations. There was 

 an easterly migration of the Iranians, to whom belong the modern Per- 

 sians, Kurds, Ossets, Armenians, Belooehees, and Afghans, and among 

 whom in ancient times most of the peoples in Asia Minor were num- 

 bered, as the Phrygians, Cappadocians, and the Indians who at present 

 occupy the peninsula of India from the north to the Deccan, with the 

 exception of the territory in the mountainous interior. Far west and 

 southwest the Celts first spre'ad, when they came upon the Basques 

 and Ligurians and ousted them ; later came the Italians, spreading 

 themselves from their peninsula outward, through the triumphs of Ro- 

 man arms; over the whole of southwest Europe, invading the Celts ; 



