- 1. There was an element supplied by the Byzantine Greek population—itself pre-eminently mixed and heterogeneous.
- 2. There was an element supplied by the purer Greek population of Greece Proper and the Islands.
- 3. There were, perhaps, traces of the old Greek populations of Æolia, Doris, and Ionia.
- 4. There was an extension of the Armenian population from the east.
- 5. Of the Georgian from the north-east.
- 6. Of the Semitic from the south-east.
- 7. There was also Arab and Syriac intermixture consequent on the propagation of Mahometanism.
- 8. There were also remnants of a Proper Roman population introduced during the time of the Republic and Western Empire, e.g. of the sort that the Consulate of Cicero would introduce into Cilicia.
- 9. There were also remnants of the Persian supremacy, e.g. of a sort which would be introduced when it was a Satrapy of Tissaphernes or Pharnabazus.
- 10. Lastly, there would be traces of the Macedonian Greeks; whose impress would be stamped upon it during the period which elapsed between the fall of Darius and that of Antiochus.
All this suggests numerous questions—but they are questions of minute rather than general ethnology. The latter takes us to the consideration of the populations of the frontier. Here we find—
- 1. Georgians.
- 2. Armenians.
- 3. Semites of Mesopotamia and Syria.
- 4. Greeks of the Ægean Islands.
- 5. Bulgarians, and Turks of Thrace.
Of these, the last are recent intruders; so that the real ethnology to be considered is that of ancient Thrace. Unfortunately this is as obscure as that of Asia Minor itself.
The Greeks of the Ægean are probably intrusive; the other three are ancient occupants of their present areas.
Now, in arguing upon the conditions afforded by this frontier, it is legitimate to suppose that each of the populations belonging to it had some extension beyond their present limits, in which case the à-priori probabilities would be that—
- 1. On the north-west there was an extension of the Thracian population.
- 2. On the north-east, of the Georgian.
- 3. On the east, of the Armenian.
- 4. On the south, of the Syrian and Mesopotamian.
Now, the population of Asia Minor may have been a mere extension of the populations of the frontiers—one or all.
But it also may have been separate and distinct from any of them.