198 RACE 



single-storied, and unsubstantial, crowded closely 

 together, and their skill and expenditure upon 

 architecture were confined to temples and tombs. 

 To judge from the tales of Herodotus, there was 

 little or no sexual restraint. The people looked 

 to the government for despotic interference, 

 and were proud of a ruler who was capriciously 

 tyrannical. Dynastic revolutions were of frequent 

 occurrence, but were moved by personal jealou- 

 sies, not by political aspirations. Peace was 

 frequently interrupted by invasions and con- 

 quests, achieved not so much by hard fighting 

 as by the slaughter of armies that nervously 

 shrunk from the test of conflict, and, saving in 

 Persia, not bringing into racial admixture any 

 strains from Northern Europe. 



The shores of the Mediterranean, on the other 

 hand, seem to have attracted invasion from North- 

 ern Europe from time immemorial. Greek and 

 Roman traditions and history abound with refer- 

 ences to attempted or successful invasions of north- 

 men : Gauls, Goths, Vandals, Germans, Lombards, 

 and Normans swept downwards in successive waves 

 of aggression, bringing their vigour to the conquest 

 of Mediterranean peoples, losing it, and becoming 

 absorbed by the races they subdued. The 

 weapons, vessels, and ornaments that have been 

 disinterred from ancient burial grounds show a 

 surprising connection between the manners and 

 customs of the early Greeks and Romans and those 

 of tribes which had their homes in Alpine Europe 

 or in the northern regions of the Balkan penin- 

 sula ; and we may find in Greek and Roman 

 psychology much to assure us that their ruling 

 classes were descended from invaders who gradu- 

 ally lost their northern attributes. There is a 

 gulf between the ideals of Homer and those of 

 later classical days. The heroes of the Iliad 



