f these was his dominant idea, and to it all
his methods may be referred. Of the first he may have been little
conscious while he wrought in his office as a bard, which was to give
delight.

Careful observation of the text exhibits three powerful factors which
contribute to the composition of the nation. First, the Pelasgic name
is associated with the mass of the people, cultivators of the soil in
the Greek peninsula and elsewhere, though not as their uniform
designation, for in Crete (for example) they appear in conjunction
with Achaians and Dorians, representatives of a higher stock, and with
Eteocretans, who were probably anterior occupants. This Pelasgian name
commands the sympathy of the poet and his laudatory epithets; but is
nowhere used for the higher class or for the entire nation. The other
factors take the command. The Achaians are properly the ruling class,
and justify their station by their capacity. But there is a third
factor also of great power. We know from the Egyptian monuments that
Greece had been within the sway of that primitive empire, and that the
Phoenicians were its maritime arm, as they were also the universal and
apparently exclusive navigators of the Mediterranean. Whatever came
over sea to the Achaian land came in connection with the Phoenician
name, which was used by Homer in a manner analogous to the use of the
word Frank in the Levant during modern times. But as Egyptian and
Assyrian knowledge is gradually opened up to us we learn by degrees
that Phoenicia conveyed to Greece Egyptian and Assyrian elements
together with her own.

The rich materials of the Greek civilization can almost all be traced
to this medium of conveyance from the East and South. Great families
which stand in this association were founded in Greece and left their
mark upon the country. It is probable that they may have exercised in
the first instance a power delegated from Egypt, which they retained
after her influence had passed away. Building, metal-working,
navigation, ornamental arts, natural knowledge, all carry the
Phoenician impress. This is the third of the great factors which were
combined and evolved in the wonderful nationality of Greece, a power
as vividly felt at this hour as it was three thousand years ago. But
if Phoenicia conveyed the seed, the soil was Achaian, and on account
of its richness that peninsula surpassed, in its developments of human
nature and action, the southern and eastern growths.