dences of all grades of civilization, from the Neolithic implements
to the highest Minoan culture. Palaces with frescoes and carvings,
ornaments formed of metal and skilfully wrought vases with significant
colorings, all evinced a civilization worthy of intensive study. These
people had developed commerce and trade with Egypt, and their boats
passed along the shores of the Mediterranean, carrying their
civilization to Italy, northern Africa, and everywhere among the
islands of Greece, as well as on the mainland. The cause of the
decline of their civilization is {208} not known, unless it could be
attributed to the Greek pirates who invaded their territory, and
possibly, like all nations that decline, they were beset by internal
maladies which marked their future destiny. Possibly, high
specialization along certain lines of life rendered them unadaptable to
new conditions, and they passed away because of this lack.

_The Greeks Were of Aryan Stock_.--Many thousand years ago there
appeared along the shores of the Baltic, at the beginning of the
Neolithic period of culture, a group of people who seem to have come
from central Asia. It is thought by some that these were at least the
forerunners of the great Nordic race. Whatever conjectures there may
be as to their origin, it is known that about 2,000 years before
Christ, wandering tribes extended from the Baltic region far eastward
to the Caspian Sea, to the north of Persia, down to the borderland of
India. These people were of Caucasian features, with fair hair and
blue eyes--a type of the Nordic race. They were known as the Aryan
branch of the Caucasian race. Whether this was their primitive abode,
or whether their ancestors had come at a much earlier time from a
central home in northern Africa, which is considered by ethnologists as
the centre from which developed the Caucasian race, is not known.

They were not a highly cultured people, but were living a nomadic life,
engaged in hunting, fishing, piratical exploits, and carrying on
agriculture intermittently. They had also become acquainted with the
use of metals, having passed during this period from the Neolithic into
the Bronze Age. About the year 1500 B.C. they had become acquainted
with iron, and about the same time had come into possession of the
horse, probably through their contact with central Asia.

The social life of these people was very simple. While they
undoubtedly met and mingled with many