142 COSMOS. 



TJralian Mountains, Europe and Asia are, as it were, fused to* 

 gether by flat steppes. Herodotus, in the same manner as 

 Pherecydes of Syros had previously done, regarded the whole 

 of northern Scythian Asia (Siberia) as belonging to Sarmatian 

 Europe, and even as forming a portion of Europe itself* To- 

 ward the south, our quarter of the globe is sharply separated 

 from Asia, but the far-projecting peninsula of Asia Minor and 

 the richly- varied -ZEgean Archipelago (serving as a bridge be- 

 tween the two separate continents) have afforded an easy 

 passage for different races, languages, customs, and manners. 

 Western Asia has, from the earliest ages, been the great thor- 

 oughfare for races migrating from the east, as was the north- 

 west of Greece for the Illyric races. The JEgeam Archipelago, 

 which was in turn subject to Phcenician, Persian, and Greek 

 dominion, was the intermediate link between Greece and the 

 far East. 



When Phrygia was incorporated with Lydia, and both 

 merged into the Persian empire, the contact led to the gen- 

 eral extension of the sphere of ideas among Asiatic and Eu- 

 ropean Greeks. The Persian rule was extended by the war- 

 like expeditions of Cambyses and Darius Hystaspes from Gy- 

 rene and the Nile to the fruitful lands of the Euphrates and 

 the Indus. A Greek, Scylax of Karyanda, was employed to 

 explore the course of the Indus, from the then-existing terri- 

 tory of Caschmeer (Kaspapyrus)t to its mouth. An active 

 intercourse was carried on between Greece and Egypt (with 

 Naucratis and the Pelusian arm of the Nile) before the Per- 

 sian conquest, and even under Psammitichus and Amasis.J 

 These extensive relations of intercourse with other nations 

 drew many Greeks from their native land, not only for the 

 purpose of establishing those distant colonies which we shall 

 consider in a subsequent part of the present work, but also as 

 hired soldiers, who formed the nucleus of foreign armies in 

 Carthage, § Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and in the Bactrian dis- 

 trict of the Oxus. 



A deeper insight into the individuality and national char- 

 acter of the different Greek races has shown that, if a grave 



* Herod., iv., 42 (Schweighauser ad Herod., t. v., p. 204). Com- 

 pare Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. i., p. 54 and 577. 



t Regarding the most probable etymology of Kaspapyrus of Heca- 

 taeus {Fragm., ed. Klausen, No. 179, v. 94), and the Kaspatyrus of 

 Herodotus (iii., 102, and iv., 44), see my Asie Centrale, t. i., p. 101-104. 



X Regarding Psammitichus and Aahmes, see ante, p. 127. 



$ Droysen, Gesckichte der Bildung des Hellenistischen Staatensystem$ 

 1843, s. 23 



