Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/39

Rh are spoken of by various names, such as Minyæ and Leleges, but whom Herodotus and Thucydides agree in describing under a general name of Pelasgoi. This name, however, disappears as a general appellation before the dawn of written records, and Achaioi and Argeioi became the general names for the inhabitants of Greece. How this occurred we do not know. It may have been simply that these names represent branches of the Pelasgoi which became so powerful that their names prevailed over others; or it may be that the Achaioi were invaders from the North, who brought a new name to the land, as the Angli did to Britain.

It is generally held that the remains of what we have called the Mycenaean Age belong to the period of these Achæans, though some may belong to the earlier or Pelasgic stage, especially these buildings of selected and unworked stones known as Cyclopean walls. The men who produced this civilisation not only worked gold and bronze, and made vessels and ornaments of great beauty, but they had attained to a high standard of skill in representing living figures, both of men and animals, and built great palaces and fortifications. This civilisation culminated towards the end of the Bronze Age—that is, before iron had come into common use, and arms and other implements were still made of a mixture of copper and tin.

The first dawn of literature opens upon this Achaean Age. In the Iliad and Odyssey the Pelasgians are no longer the dominant people. Pelasgic Argos now means only a district in Thessaly. The Leleges and Pelasgoi are among the allies, not of the