ABSTRACT
At an unknown, but fairly early date, perhaps towards the end of the third millennium BC, a tall, fair-haired people was making its way southward down the Vardar valley and, farther east, across the Dardanelles into Asia Minor. The more westerly section of this migration in time conquered and occupied that country which was afterwards known as Hellas, but is generally called by us Greece. With Ionia the history of Greek literature begins. But, since all Greek literature has certain characteristics in common, it is well to ask what the new-comers brought with them and what they found when they came. The Achaians, so to call them, appear to have been a race of hardy, intelligent, courageous folk, of independent character, respecting more, perhaps, than most peoples in the stage of culture they had attained the rights of the individual. The Achaians had as their common heritage one of the languages of the great Wiro or Indo-Germanic family.
