The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-12-05
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SZ---W DR.. WILL DURAM~T--------

| PhrygianS; some went on over the
Alps and became the Romans; those
who concern us here passed down
through the mountains Of Thrace
and Thessaly into the valleys of
Greece.
Of course they were not yet
known as Greeks. The earliest
hordeS called themselves Achaeans;
they appeared about 1000 B. c.,
worked their way slowly to the
southern coast, drove out the Cree
tans who had settled on the main
land, and destroyed the cities of
Tiryns and Mycenae.
Five centuries later the half
savage Dorians came, sailed over
the Gulf of Argos (ca. 1900 B. O.,
and laid the palaces of Cnossos in
ruins. The cultured and pacific
Cretans fled, as the Greeks were
to do millennium later before the
barbarians of Macedon and Rome.
Many of them went to Asia Minor,
and became the PailistineS of Bibli-
cal history; but the people were
never reunited, and the nation was
destroyed.
The conquering Achaeans inter-
married with the CretanS, and took
from them something of moral re-
finement and decorative art. The
nomads in turn settled down, tend
ing sheep and growing grapes or
olives on the rugged hills.
They lived in crude houses of
brick or stone or wood; but as the
sun almost always shone upon them
they stayed for the most part out
of doors, and became a lively and
social race, all the world away from
the taciturn and domestic north
European peoples whom the long
winter drives into secretive castle
homes.
They had no government in those
early days $1,000 B. c., beyond the
will and arm of their warrior chief.
The separating hills made each
tribe, and later each day-state, pug
naciously sovereign; and the natural
organization of a people passing
from war to a settled life was a
feudaliSm in which each village
gave its allegiance and its tithes to
the strongest man.
These chieftains dwelt in rough
but massive palaces, with many
wives and many slaves; but even
these conveniences could not lure
them from the drama and poetry
of war. Learning from the Phoeni-
clans the art of building ships, they
took TO the sea, beginning with
piracy and graduating into trade.
The arid soil they lived on gave
them very little wheat; unless they
could exchange their surplus wines
and oils for bread they would slow
ly starve.
And so, having become Seamen
like the English, because surrounded
by the sea, they became imperialistS,
like the English, because they were
compelled to import food.
DUT they found the way barred
ID almost everywhere by the
Phoenicians. These subtle Semites
were specialists in trade; they had
learned the art from Egypt, and
when Crete fell they inherited the
commercial supremacy of the West
ern world. From Tyre and Sidon
and Biblos their great ships sailed
to Crete and Egypt and Carthage
and Sicily and Rome and Spain and
Greece and Troy.
About $50 B. C. they circumnavi-
gated Africa through Suez, coming
back, audaciouSly through Gibraltar,
the ne plus ultra of the ancient
mariner. Everywhere they founded
colonies and taught people writ
ing and arithmetic for the purposes
of trade.
It was from them, of course, that
the Greeks received the alphabet
which is now our own.
But such gifts were nothing to
the Greeks so long as the Phoeni-
clans were masters of the Mediter-
ranean. The chieftainS and Seamen
of the new race were tempted to
navigation by other things than
bread; the wind blew regularly east
ward in the morning, and regularly
westward in the late afternoon, be-
tween Asia Minor and Greece, and
the islands that were inlaid upon
the glittering Aegean made travel
SO safe that in fair weather one
might row from Europe to Asia
with the isles as friendly stepping
stones.
All things were favorable except
the Phoenicians.
To destroy them it was only nee
essary to capture Troy. For that
city won, the route through the
Black Sea would be held by Greece
and the cheapneSS of water-trans-
port would soon draw trade away
from the slow and dangerous cara
vans that fed the ports of Phoenicia
from the East.
with the iron and minerals OF
the Black Seas shores the Greeks
would be ready to play a lofty role
in history.
And SO, some thousand years be-
fore Christ, the chieftainS mustered
their men from the hills and the
fields, told them how villainous
Trojan had ravished a Greek prin-
cess OF unSpeakable loneliness, and
babe them set sail to capture Troy.
But here the story belongs to
Homer.
Copyright, 1927, by Will Durantl
Ito Be C0ntinued)
PnRTRAYS MAR HEADS