It is interesting to note that at the present time the finest soldiers of the Turkish army are recruited in the district of Angora which includes the territory of ancient Galatia.
158 : 13. Procopius, IV, 13, says that a number of Moors and their wives took refuge in Sicily and also in Sardinia where they established colonies. The recent article by Giuffrida-Ruggeri sums up the data for Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. See also Gibbon, passim, and Ripley, pp. 115–116.
158 : 16. G. Elliot Smith, 1, pp. 94 seq., and the notes to pp. 127 : 26 and 128.
158 : 21. Pelasgians. Sergi, 4, followed by many anthropologists, describes as Pelasgian one branch of the Mediterranean or Eurafrican race of mankind and one group of skull types within that race. Ripley, pp. 407, 448, considers them Mediterraneans in all probability, as this is the oldest layer of population in these regions. So also do Myres, Dawn of History, p. 171, and most of the other authorities. In his History of the Pelasgian Theory, Myres sums up all that was written up to that time. Homer and other early writers make them the ancient inhabitants of Greece, who were subdued by the Hellenes. It is generally agreed that a people resembling in its prevailing skull forms the Mediterranean race of north Africa was settled in the Ægean area from a remote Neolithic antiquity. D’Arbois de Jubainville, 4, t. I, devotes a chapter or more to them, and declares on p. 110: “In fact the Pelasgians and the Hellenes are of different origin; the first are one of the races which preceded the Indo-Europeans in Europe, the others are Indo-European.”
Another recent writer who deals with this puzzling problem is Sartiaux, in his Troie, pp. 140–143. Finally, Sir William Ridgeway says: “The Achæans found the land occupied by a people known by the ancients as Pelasgians who continued down to classical times the main element in the population, even in the states under Achæan, and later, under Dorian rule. In some cases the Pelasgians formed a serf class, e. g. in Penestæ, in Thessaly, the Helots in Laconia and the Gymnesii at Argos; whilst they practically composed the whole population of Arcadia and Attica which never came under either Achæan or Dorian rule. This people had dwelt in the Ægean from the Stone Age, and though still in the Bronze Age at the Achæan conquest, had made great advances in the useful and ornamental arts. They were of short stature, with dark hair and eyes, and generally dolichocephalic. Their chief centers were at Cnossus, Crete, in Argolis, Laconia and Attica, in each being ruled by ancient lines of kings. In Argolis, Prœtus built Tiryns but later under Perseus, Mycenæ took the lead until the Achæan conquest. All the ancient dynasties traced their descent from Poseidon, who at the time of the Achæan conquest was the chief male divinity of Greece and the islands.”
As to the Pelasgian being a Non-Aryan tongue, the ancient script at Crete has not yet been deciphered. Since the ancient Cretans were presumably Pelasgians, it is safe to identify them with this Non-Aryan language, although Conway, 2, pp. 141–142, is inclined to believe that it is related to the Aryan family. See also Sweet, The History of Language, p. 103.
158 : 22. Nordic Achæans. Ridgeway, 1, p. 683, says: “We found that a fair-haired race greater in stature than the melanochroous Ægean people had there [in Greece and the Ægean] been domiciled for long ages, and that fresh bodies of tall, fair-haired people from the shores of the northern ocean continually through the ages had kept pressing down into the southern peninsulas. From this it followed that the Achæans of Homer were one of these bodies of Celts [i. e., Nordics], who had made their way down into Greece and had become the masters of the indigenous race.
“This conclusion we further tested by an examination of the distribution of the round shield, the practise of cremation, the use of the brooch and buckle, and finally the diffusion of iron in Europe, North Africa and western Asia. Our inductions showed that all four had made their way into Greece and the Ægean from Central Europe. Accordingly as they all appeared in Greece along with the Homeric Achæans, we inferred that the latter had brought them with them from central Europe.” Elsewhere, in the same book, Ridgeway identifies the Homeric age with the Achæan and Post-Mycenæan, the Mycenæan with the Pre-Achæan and Pelasgian.
Bury, The History of Greece, p. 44, says: “The Achæans were a people of blond complexion, of Indo-European speech. Among the later Greeks, there were two marked types, distinguished by light and dark hair. The blond complexion was rarer and more prized. This is illustrated by the fact that women and fops used sometimes to dye their hair yellow or red, the κομης ξανθίσματα mentioned in the Danæ of Euripedes.”
159 : 4–5. Date of the siege of Troy. Hall, Ancient History of the Near East, p. 69, and many other authorities accept the Parian Chronicle, which makes it 1194–1184 B. C. For the whole question of the Trojan War see Félix Sartiaux, Troie, La Guerre de Troie.