THE GREEKS AND LATINS

Of these European Aryans the only branches that come within the limits
of our present period, that become noteworthy before B.C. 480, are the
Greeks and Latins.

Their languages tell us that they formed but a single tribe long after
they became separated from the other peoples of their race. Finally,
however, the Latins, journeying onward, lost sight of their friends, and
it must have taken many centuries of separation for the two tongues to
grow so different as they were when Greeks and Romans, each risen to a
mighty nation, met again.

The Greeks, or Hellenes as they called themselves, seem to have been
only one of a number of kindred tribes who occupied not only the shores
of the Ægean, but Thrace, Macedonia, a considerable part of Asia Minor,
and other neighboring regions. The Greeks developed in intellect more
rapidly than their neighbors, outdistanced them in the race for
civilization, forgot these poor relations, and grouped them with the
rest of outside mankind under the scornful name "barbarians."

Why it was that the Greeks were thus specially stimulated beyond their
brethren we do not know. It has long been one of the commonplaces of
history to declare them the result of their environment. It is pointed
out that in Greece they lived amid precipitous mountains, where, as
hunters, they became strong and venturesome, independent and
self-reliant. A sea of islands lay all around; and while an open ocean
might only have awed and intimidated them, this ever-luring prospect of
shore beyond shore rising in turn on the horizon made them sailors, made
them friendly traffickers among themselves. Always meeting new faces,