Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/778

712 as a peculiar people, distinct from all who surrounded them. The Lycians, as already mentioned, are the only people of Asia Minor who have left us the means of judg ing of their ethnic affinities by the remains of their lan guage. From these we learn that they were an Aryan race, apparently more nearly connected with the Persians than with the Greek or other Pelasgic races. But besides the Lycians, there existed within the province of Lycia a tribe called the Solymi, who were generally considered as of Syrian or Semitic origin. The fact does not appear in their case to rest upon any sufficient authority, but the connection of the Cilicians, who held so large a part of the south coast, with the Syrians and Phoenicians, may be con sidered as well established. All ancient writers, moreover, agree in describing the Cappadocians, who originally extended from Mount Taurus and the frontiers of Cilicia to the Euxine, as a Syrian race, so that they were at first called by the Greeks Leucosyri, or White Syrians, to dis tinguish them from their darker brethren farther south. &quot;Whether the mountain tribes of the Pisidians, Isaurians, and Lycaonians were connected with the Cappadocians or with the Phrygians, or to what other race they belonged, we have no information whatever. The population of Asia Minor at the present day can hardly be said to retain any traces of the earlier nations that composed it, though, according to some writers, the Zeybeks, a race presenting some marked peculiarities, who occupy the south-western corner of the peninsula are the lineal representatives of the ancient Carians. They, however, speak only Turkish. The bulk of the population is composed of Turks, Greeks, and Armenians, among whom the Turks preponderate greatly in numbers, and (unlike what is the case in European Turkey) compose the mass of the agricultural and rural population, while the Greeks and Armenians are found principally in the towns, where almost all the trade is in their hands. But besides these elements, which constitute the fixed and permanent population of the peninsula, there is a considerable portion consisting of nomad and half nomad tribes, which are known under the names of Turcomans, Yourouks or Euruques (the name is very variously written), and Kurds. The last of these are found principally in the eastern and south-eastern districts, the Turcomans in the north-eastern and central provinces, and the Yourouks in the west and south-west of the peninsula. They are all exclusively pastoral races, but the Turcomans have in general their villages in which they spend the winter months, wandering over the great plains of the interior with their flocks and herds during the summer months. The Yourouks, on the contrary, are a truly nomad race, dwelling all the year round in tents, and removing from place to place according to the season. Their tents are made of black goats hair, and their principal covering is a heavy cloak of the same material. Besides large flocks of sheep and goats, they breed many camels, and one of their principal occupations is burning charcoal, in the course of which they do enor mous injury to the forests. They are by no means limited to the wilder districts of the interior, but when the harvest is over descend into the rich plains and valleys near the coast, through which they wander almost without restraint, and their black tents are often to be seen within a few miles of Smyrna. Though distinguished at the present day by certain peculiarities from the Turcomans, the You rouks are apparently of Turkish origin, and speak a Turkish dialect. The Kurds, on the contrary, who are merely a wandering offshoot of the race that occupies the great mountain tract called Kurdistan, extending from the bor ders of Cappadocia between Armenia and Mesopotamia into Persia, speak a wholly different language, and belong altogether to a different race. They are, however, confined to the border districts on the eastern frontier of Asia Minor, and to Cilicia, where the tribes that have their summer encampments in the neighbourhood of Caesarea descend to pasture their flocks in the winter.

History.—It is remarkable that a country like Asia Minor, possessing such great natural advantages, and to a great extent so clearly limited by nature, can hardly be said to have any history of its own. It was never at any period united under one independent sovereign, but was always either divided among a number of minor potentates, or, as under the Roman, Byzantine, and Turkish rule, con stituted merely a subordinate portion of a more extensive empire. Its western and northern shores were from a very early period occupied by Greek colonies, which gradually formed an almost unbroken chain of settlements along its coasts and islands from Rhodes to Trebizoud. But these exercised comparatively little influence upon the nations of the interior; and the first historical event that can be considered as affecting the fortunes of the peninsula in general, was the rise of the Lydian monarchy, which at tained to so great a predominance that for a short time Croesus, the last monarch of the dynasty (5GO-54G B.C.), had subdued the whole of Asia Minor west of the Halys with the exception of Lycia. But having, unfortunately, engaged in war with Cyrus, king of Persia, he was entirely defeated, and his dominions conquered by the Persian monarch. From this time the whole of Asia Minor, from the frontiers of Syria to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus, continued for more than two centuries to form part of the Persian monarchy, until its overthrow by Alexander the Great, 333 B.C. It was during this period divided into satrapies, the boundaries of which were, however, very uncertain and fluctuating, like those of the Turkish govern ments in modern days. In the division of the Macedonian empire after the death of Alexander, Asia Minor became a chief object of contention among his generals, but was ultimately included in the dominions of Seleucus, and the greater part of the peninsula continued for a considerable period to be subject to the Seleucidan kings of Syria. A small independent monarchy had, however, been estab lished at Pergamus, soon after 280 B.C., and when the Romans entered Asia, and defeated Antiochus III. at the battle of Magnesia (190 B.C.), they transferred a consider able part of his dominions to Eumenes, king of Pergamus, whose kingdom was thus extended to the Taurus. The monarchy of Pergamus thus constituted continued to sub sist till after the death of Attains III., when it was annexed to the Roman dominions under the name of the province of Asia (130 B.C.) Bithynia, however, still continued a separate kingdom, as did also Pontus, which for a short period rose under the great Mithridates to be a really formidable power. But after the defeat and death of Mithridates, in 63 B.C., the greater part of his kingdom, as well as that of Bithynia, was annexed to the Roman dominion ; and though some petty dynasties were allowed to linger on till after the Roman empire, the whole of Asia Minor was virtually subject to Rome from the time of Augustus. There ensued a long period of tranquillity and prosperity under the Roman and Byzantine empires, during which it suffered less than almost any other part of the empire from the inroads and ravages of barbarians. Even after the rise of the Mahometan power, though Asia Minor was repeatedly traversed by the armies of the Arab con querors, who twice laid siege to Constantinople, it was never permanently annexed to the dominion of the caliphs, like the adjoining provinces of Syria and Mesopotamia, and the whole country, as far as the passes of Mount Amanus, continued subject to the Byzantine empire, until it was overrun by the Seljukian Turks in 1074 A.D. The conquest of Asia Minor by the Turks was not a