THE GEOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF ASIA MINOR 



559 



Photograph by Cass Arthur Reed 



THE CARAVAN BRIDGE ROAD IN SMYRNA 



As in modern ports around the world, one sees strange contrasts in Smyrna. The milkman 

 has delivered his milk in the original packages and is driving his flock to pasture. The city is 

 sufficiently occidental to have its sidewalk bootblack, patronized by the man leaning on his cane. 



but the work was remunerative and even 

 enjoyable in the clean bracing air of most 

 parts of the country. 



They created an excellent system of 

 trade-markets and intercommunication, 

 which implies roads and inter-tribal or 

 international markets, and safety for 

 traders at the markets and on the roads, 

 so that the products of the high ground 

 and the lowlands could be freely inter- 

 changed. 



The earliest account of western Asia 

 Minor and the JEgean coast lands that 

 has been transmitted to us is contained 

 in the tenth chapter of Genesis. 



One of the sons of Japheth was Javan 

 (Greek Ion). The four sons of Javan 

 are those Old-Ionian traders and sailors 

 of Asia Minor who came into relation 

 with the Semitic races during the second 

 millennium B. C, and Genesis records the 

 impression made on the Semites by the 

 "Old-Ionians," who gradually colonized 

 the whole coasts of the peninsula west, 

 south, and north. 



In Cilicia, Tarsus and Mallos were 

 rival commercial cities at an extremely 

 early period. Along the coasts great or 



small Greek colonies occupied every favor- 

 able point. 



NO ATTEMPT TO FOUND A GREEK EMPIRE 



These Greek colonists did not attempt 

 the foolish task of founding an empire ; 

 they were content to trade with the people 

 of the country and to make money. 



None of these "Greek" colonies were 

 peopled by Greeks alone ; they contained 

 a mixed population, whose basis was na- 

 tive, although the guiding spirit and gov- 

 erning genius of each was Greek. The 

 peaceful intercourse of Europe and Asia 

 was then in process. 



Exceptions to this peaceful intermix- 

 ture lay in the tendency of trade to de- 

 generate into piracy, and in the historic 

 events of the siege of Troy, which were 

 wrought first by a school of Asian bards, 

 and then by the supreme genius of one 

 poet, into the Homeric poems. 



Those old "Sons of Javan" recognized 

 the true character of their own people : 

 the genius of the Greeks was to penetrate 

 and to vivify the more quiet and even 

 stolid population of the country. 



It is impossible to write an account of 



