It is by no means impossible that the Shardina were the direct ancestors of the Achaeans. On the other hand they may have belonged to an earlier wave of Greek invasion. Or again they may have been a non-Greek (perhaps Thraco-Phrygian) people whose relations with the Achaeans were rather in the nature of influence, however deeply this may have penetrated. That the Achaeans also were an essentially military people is shown by the tone of Homeric poetry throughout and by the story of the Iliad as a whole, as well as by many incidental passages in the Odyssey. We have good reason too for believing that their occupation was in the nature of a military rather than a tribal settlement. That is shown not only by the social and political conditions reflected in the Homeric poems[666] but also by the fact that, except in two comparatively unimportant districts, they disappeared after the Heroic Age as completely as the Ostrogoths.
The course of our investigations has led us to conclude that there is no reason for regarding the Greek Heroic Age as an exception to the general rule applying to such phenomena. Neither here nor in any other case are we justified in believing that the Heroic Age was a native outgrowth from an ancient and highly developed civilisation. It does not appear that a Heroic Age can arise from such conditions, any more than from conditions which may properly be called primitive. In four of the six cases which we have considered—and we need scarcely hesitate to reckon the Greek case as a fifth—the Heroic Age can be traced back to a similar series of causes. Firstly, we find a long period of 'education,' in which a semi-civilised people has been profoundly affected from without by the influence of a civilised people. Then a time has come in which the semi-civilised people has attained to a dominant position and possessed itself, at least to some extent, of its neighbour's property. The phenomena which we have recognised as characteristic of the Heroic Age appear to be the effects produced upon the semi-civilised people by these conditions.
For the exceptional case—that of the Mohammedan Servians—a special explanation has been suggested. Whether this explanation be correct or not, I do not mean to assert that the Heroic Age is universally due to the same conditions. They can scarcely hold good for the Irish Heroic Age; and outside Europe also there are cases, e.g. among the Bantu peoples, of societies which may be called 'heroic' and yet would probably require a different explanation. All such cases doubtless postulate conditions so far advanced as to permit the existence of a class of persons who have the opportunity and the ambition to assert their individuality among and above their compatriots. To deal adequately with these cases however would require a greater amount of ethnological knowledge than I possess. I have ventured above to suggest that 'Mars and the Muses' are necessary for the formation of a Heroic Age. But beyond this I will not attempt to formulate a definition of the elements which constitute a Heroic Age in general. My object has been to call attention to certain common characteristics exhibited by a limited number of epochs in European history.
The various Heroic Ages of Europe are usually connected with considerable movements of population. There is some reason for suspecting that this may be true even of the Irish Heroic Age. But such movements do not necessarily produce a Heroic Age. We have no evidence for the existence of a Heroic Age resulting from the great movement of the Slavs into eastern Germany during the fifth and following centuries[667]. Presumably the antecedent conditions were wanting. So also with the Dorians. It was only the wreckage of the old Aegean civilisation with which they were brought into contact. The days of mercenary service too, with all its civilising and at the same time denationalising influence, had apparently passed away long before they came to the front.
The general direction taken by these movements—though here the Irish case is an exception—was towards the culture lands of the south—i.e. the direction taken by movements of population was the opposite of that taken by movements of culture. The effect of the movements which took place in the Teutonic Heroic Age was to produce a series of inclined or tilted strata of population over a large part of Europe. Thus the Franks formed a ruling aristocracy in Gaul; but the subjects (coloni, lati) of the Old Saxons were in all probability largely of Frankish blood. Again, the Vandals in Africa were the wealthiest and most luxurious community known to Procopius[668]. Yet in Genseric's time (cf. p. [369]) there still remained a Vandal population in the old home of the nation, of which all traces had disappeared within the next century. Presumably they had been overwhelmed by the surrounding peoples. Similar phenomena are to be found among the Goths and other Teutonic peoples, and in earlier times among the Gauls and Greeks. In the latter case we may cite as an instance the Cynurioi (on the east coast of the Peloponnesos), who were believed to be Ionians, though they had been absorbed by the Dorians of Argos. The fact therefore that we hear of no people called Achaeans in Epeiros cannot be held to prove that the Achaeans had never inhabited that region.
We hear sometimes from legends of national migrations caused by insufficiency of food. Historical records seem to show that such movements were more frequently due to pressure from neighbouring peoples. But it is greatly to be doubted whether these movements usually involved a total displacement of population. Cases like that of the Vandals indeed indicate that frequently the more enterprising part of the community were the first to move and that the chief impulse came from the attractions offered by the chance of living upon the fruits of others' labour, whether in the form of plunder or tribute. So far as our records go back, we find among the Teutonic peoples, as among the Gauls and the early Greeks, a numerous class who prefer the military life to the labour involved in agriculture. Indeed one of the most remarkable features of the Teutonic Heroic Age—and probably of the Gaulish also[669]—is the ease with which immense hosts of warriors could be gathered for an enterprise of plunder or conquest. It is certain that these hosts were frequently drawn from far and wide. If the national kings would not embark on such enterprises their subjects were ready to embrace the service of neighbouring princes, or even that of distant or alien nations, such as the Romans. It is the existence of this military element which in various epochs of European history and under similar cultural conditions has produced the phenomena comprised under the term 'Heroic Age.' For the special characteristics however to which we have called attention above—emancipation from primitive ideas and absence of national feeling—the explanation is to be found in contact with civilised communities, especially in the form of mercenary service. The military life further had the effect of making the kings regard themselves primarily as commanders of armies. It was for their warriors that consideration was required rather than for the tillers of the soil, who were largely of alien nationality.
When this is realised it becomes easy to understand the instability of heroic society. The military followers of a peace-loving king, unless he was very wealthy and generous, were liable to drift away, while the bulk of the population counted for nothing. In the absence of any truly national organisation or national feeling all depended on the personal qualities of the leaders. Under Theodric the Ostrogoths were the chief power in Europe; but within thirty years of his death they disappear and are not heard of again. Under Dušan the Servians seemed destined to absorb all that was left of the Greek empire; after his death they failed to offer any effective resistance to the Turks. The kingdoms of the Greek Heroic Age seem to have succumbed to much less formidable antagonists. So numerous indeed are cases of this kind that one is perhaps justified in regarding national disaster as the normal ending of such epochs.