Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/123

 Wgstem Asia : The Medo-Persian Empire 8/ thousands of years, these northern nomads have poured forth over Europe and western Asia, just as the desert Semites of the south have done over the fertile crescent (pp. 59 ff.). These nomads of the north were from the earliest times a The two great white race, which we call Indo-European. We can perhaps European^^ best explain this term by saying that the present peoples of ^"^^ Semitic Europe are almost all Indo-European, and as most of us are of the same stock their ancestors were also ours, as we shall see. These nomads of the northerii grasslands, our ancestors, began to migrate in very ancient times, moving out along diverging routes. They at last extended in an imposing line from the frontiers of India on the east, westward across all Europe to the Atlantic, as they do to-day (Fig. 49). This great northern line was confronted on the south by a similar line of Semitic peoples, extending from Babylonia on the east, through Phoenicia and the Hebrews westward to Carthage and similar Semitic settlements of Phoenicia in the western Mediterranean. The history of the ancient world, as we are now to follow it, is largely made up of the struggle between this sonther?i Semitic line which issued from the southern grasslands, and the northern Indo-European line which came forth from the northern grass- lands to confront the older civilizations represented in the south- ern line. Thus as we look at the diagram (Fig. 49) we see the two great races facing each other across the Mediterranean like two vast armies stretching from western Asia westward to the Atlantic. The later wars between Rome and Carthage (pp. 258 ff.) represent some of the operations on the Semitic left wing; while the triumph of Persia over Chaldea (p. 97) is a similar outcome on the Semitic right wing. The result of the imposing struggle was the complete triumph Triumph of of our ancestors, the Indo-European line, which conquered along end^^^^^^" the center and both wings and gained unchallenged supremacy {J?^ ^"^°' throughout the Mediterranean world under the Greeks and line Romans (pp. 123 ff.). This triumph was accompanied by a long struggle for the mastery between the members of the northern