ABSTRACT
FROM the mainland where they had settled, the Hellenes, drawn by the riches which story attributed to the old Ægean kingdoms, passed on to the islands, and the Ægean Sea was the theatre of a first Hellenic colonization, an Achæan colonization, prior to those known to classical tradition. By the middle of the XIIIth century the Achæans were masters of Crete, whence they set out on their expeditions to Egypt. About the XIIth century, they reached Cyprus, and during the same time they occupied most of the Cyclades. Only a few “Pelasgian”—that is, pre-Hellenic—populations managed to survive in out-of-the-way places, keeping, as on Lemnos, their own language and customs.
