THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



457 



tenacity. Every European country over 

 which the Roman ruled speaks some 

 form of the Latin language and is ad- 

 ministered by Roman law. 



THE PERIOD OF INVASION ENDS 



The main period of invasion and con- 

 sequent migration begins with the irrup- 

 tion of the Huns and ends with the Nor- 

 man conquest of England in 1066. The 

 Crusades, which came on later, were a 

 gigantic episode, not of invasion or set- 

 tlement, but of departure. Some of the 

 Crusaders straggled back. The vast ma- 

 jority laid their bones by the roadside or 

 in the East and little affected the making 

 of modern European races. 



The turmoil, continuous through a 

 score of what Homer would call "genera- 

 tions of fighting men," did not imme- 

 diately cease, but became spasmodic. 

 Through that period the Teuton and the 

 Greco-Latin center attention, both be- 

 cause they were the chief actors and be- 

 cause of the importance of the stage on 

 which they acted. Wherever the Celt 

 appeared, his role is that of one who in 

 vain bravely resists and is all the time 

 pushed farther to the wall. 



THE ADVENT OF THE SLAV 



The Slav becomes more distinct in the 

 sixth century, at times occupying land 

 which the Teutons had left vacant or at 

 times engaging in attack. The first ar- 

 ticulate utterance of the Slavs was when 

 the city of Novgorod, harassed by in- 

 ternal commotions which it could not sup- 

 press, sent in 862 the following message 

 to the chief of the Varangians, a tribe of 

 Northmen : "Our country is great and 

 fertile, but everything is in disorder. 

 Come to govern us and rule over us." 



There is no reason to doubt the credi- 

 bility of this event, which, in the case 

 of the Slav, is typical rather than sur- 

 prising. In 1862 the whole Russian Em- 

 pire celebrated the millennial anniversary 

 of the coming of Ruric and his brothers 

 in answer to this appeal as the beginning 

 of Russian history. 



Lack of self-reliance or of initiative 

 capacity, anciently as now, appeared to be 

 a characteristic almost inseparable from 



the Slav. Dependence upon some helping 

 or guiding hand has often resulted in 

 his own undoing, while he himself has 

 seemed unable to retain what his indus- 

 try or courage had won. The story of 

 the Slavic race is crowded with examples 

 of this fact (see pages 450 and 460-464). 



A fundamental source of its strength 

 is that, as Professor Hrdlicka remarks, 

 "there seems to be something in the Slav 

 make-up which favors a high birthrate. 

 . . . The Slavs as a whole show the 

 highest fertility among the more impor- 

 tant European peoples." 



The Eastern Roman or Greek or By- 

 zantine Empire, after an existence some- 

 times glorious, but sometimes inglorious, 

 through a thousand years, ended in 1453 

 under the strangling grip of the Ottoman 

 Turks, whose invasion was unlike any 

 that preceded. 



The horrors of the Hunnic Empire had 

 been alleviated by its brief continuance ; 

 the so-called barbaric invasions wrought 

 not only evil, but greater good by infus- 

 ing into the veins of worn-out races their 

 own virile blood and rendering possible 

 all that Europe has since been and done. 

 But the Turkish invasion is unrelieved by 

 a single mitigating fact (see also The 

 Ottoman Turks, page 473). 



NO UNMIXED RACES AETER INVASION 



Tribal loyalty and personal attachment 

 to the chief characterized the early bar- 

 barians. Prestige of victory and hope of 

 gain attracted volunteers and hirelings 

 to any successful leader. The invading 

 armies were thus heterogeneous bodies, 

 made up of adventurers from many 

 sources, but in after years were mis- 

 takenly regarded as tribal kin of their 

 leader. 



For instance, the men who followed 

 William the Norman to England are usu- 

 ally regarded as Normans. Doubtless 

 many of them were. But, since his own 

 barons balked at the hazardous enterprise, 

 William "had to gather a motley host 

 from every quarter of France." After- 

 wards success attached the splendor of 

 the Norman name to every man in that 

 motley host. 



Most of the invasions by land and al- 

 most all of those by sea were made by 



