I have already told you some things about the old Roman Empire, which ran its course long before modern Europe came into existence.

Now I am going to tell you about a civilization so much older than that, that it makes the Roman Empire seem like a thing of to-day!

The Greeks are the most ancient people in Europe.  Their early history, before there were books or written records, has come down to us through legends and tradition; that is, fanciful stories, in which fact and fable are mingled, handed down from generation to generation.  These legends tell us that the founders of their nation were not men but gods, who came down from heaven and peopled the land; that the massive architecture (of which there are remains to-day) was the work of these gods, who were the ancestors of the Greek people.

But you and I know more about the origin of this people than they themselves did.  And the wonderful story has all been found out almost in our own day!

Their ancestors did not come from heaven, but from Central Asia.  Countless ages ago an Asiatic race, called the Aryans, began to flow westward into Greece.  When they came, or why, nobody knows.  But come they did, and for centuries like a great sea spread farther and farther into Europe, until at last the continent was covered.  And you and I and almost all the people now in Europe are Aryans, and belong to this great Asiatic race.

It was a long time after the occupation of Greece that the Aryan wave reached Italy.

Then after long ages another Aryan branch, called the Keltic, came into Western Europe, and overflowed what we now call France, Spain, and the British Isles.  Long, long after that, still another, the Teutonic branch, flowed over Central Europe, and became Germany.  Then, last of all, came the Slavonic, which occupied the eastern part (Russia); and then—­the Asiatic Aryans had possessed themselves of the entire Continent of Europe.

It is a strange fact that knowledge and civilization have always, like the sun, arisen in the East, and moved steadily toward the West!

Probably the first spot in Europe touched by the rays of the coming day was the little island of Crete!  Minos, who was King of Crete in this time of fable, was always worshipped as the deity who first established civilization and social order!

Theseus also, King of Athens at this time, was one of their great heroes.  And you must read about his slaying the Minotaur in Crete, and about the beautiful Ariadne who fell in love with him, and gave him the clue to the labyrinth where her father, Minos, kept the monster hid.  These things about the classic little island have an especial interest for us now.

At this earliest period the people were called, not Greeks, but Pelasgians.  In the course of time the Hellenes, a more powerful Aryan race, overpowered them, and after that their country was called Hellas, and its people Hellenes, until a much later period, when they were known as Greeks.