were assimilated in many or most of the inflexions of the present stem to the so-called third conjugation.

2. In those verbs of the e-conjugation which formed their perfect in -ui, the great majority of which verbs had short root-syllables, the original terminations of the perfect and supine, -ēui, -ētum, were changed to -ui, -ĭtum.

Incidentally, if the view here proposed should be found to be correct, it would strongly confirm Professor Skutsch's contention that the Breves Breviantes Law had the power of shortening naturally long medial vowels. It at the same time suggests a reason, as I have tried to indicate, why the instances of such shortening seem to be comparatively infrequent, by showing that, in a large number of cases in which we may suppose such shortening to have occurred, the quantitative has been accompanied by qualitative change, and so has been obscured.

CHARLES EXON.

NOTE.-Not until these pages were already in print was the author's attention called to a recent communication by Professor Skutsch to the Archiv für lat. Lexicographie und Gram. xii. 2, S. 210 ff., in which that eminent scholar suggests an explanation of the Latin verbs in io with infinitives in -ere, which is practically the same as that here offered. As, however, Professor Skutsch's paper is very short-containing, in fact, not much more than a suggestion-the present paper may, perhaps, be not quite superfluous.-C. E.

REVIEWS.

The Early Age of Greece. By WILLIAM RIDGEWAY, M.A., Disney Professor of Archæology in the University of Cambridge, &c. Vol. I. Cambridge: University Press, 1901.

In this volume Professor Ridgeway has brought together, with expansions and additions, a number of lines of investigation which he had already placed repeatedly before several learned societies. We can, therefore, better appreciate the weight of the arguments he advances, now that the whole material is before us in connected form. The work is written with that directness of style and power of getting to the centre of things so peculiarly avgift of this author. Apart from the subject, it is interesting as a return to the wider method of scholarship, which tends to fall into disuse in the modern developments of specialism. In the investigation Ridgeway has undertaken, many and unexpected branches of knowledge are drawn upon. To the archeologist the work has another side of interest; it is a powerful justification of the campaign against Eastern origins, of which M. Solomon Reinach is one of the most brilliant leaders.

The first half of the volume is devoted to the restoration of the Pelasgians, the second to the inquiry "whence came the Achæans?" To venture to write about the Pelasgians is, as Ridgeway says, "to bring down on the writer grave suspicions that he is one of those who deal with Druids, and who see in the Great Pyramid the key to mystic systems of chronology and astrology." He supports his sanity by calling in aid the names of Niebuhr, Thirlwall, Grote, and E. Curtius. Niebuhr expresses the feelings with which he approaches this subject. "The name of this people, of whom the historical inquirer in the age of Augustus could find no trace among any then subsisting, and about whom so many opinions have been maintained with such confidence of late, is irksome to the historian, hating, as he does, that spurious philology which raises pretensions to knowledge concerning races so completely buried in silence, and is revolting, on account of the scandalous abuse that has been made of imaginary Pelasgic mysteries and lore."

This apologetic manner is, perhaps, still needed by the literary student of ancient history, but, for the scientific inquirer, it is not now necessary. Legends can no longer be dismissed as unimportant. Even when they appear to be baseless, they have to be accounted for. The ancient tradition of the Greeks, that before the Dorians and Achæans, the Pelasgians had been a great power in the Peloponnesus, challenges serious investigation. The problem is essentially an archæological one. It turns on the question, who were the makers of the Mycenæan civilization? Can that civilization be referred to a pre-Achæan race, who at the same time satisfy the geographical conditions of the legends? Hitherto inquiry has not sought to push behind the Achæans. Mycenæan civilization has generally been accepted as that of the Homeric poems. Few archæologists have ventured to leave the beaten path of the historical argument. Discrepancies were minimised or reasoned away. Yet though acceptance was largely gained, conviction was not reached sceptics still advanced other claimants-Carians, Phonicians, Hittites. The method was defective. Evidence was searched for resemblances of style, for connecting links; but until Ridgeway attacked the problem, the question of distribution had not been effectively handled. This he seized as the key to the problem.

His first chapter reviews the geographical distribution of Mycenaean civilization, with a brief summary of the more important remains from each locality. The points brought into relief are(1) that the chief centre of Mycenæan art lay on the mainland of Greece, and from thence it extended its influence over the isles of Ægean, to the Troad and Phrygia, even to the northern coast of the Euxine, and south-east and south to Rhodes, Lycia, Cyprus, Crete, and Egypt, whilst towards the west its power was felt in central and southern Italy and Sicily. (2) This civilization was characterised by great skill in building fortress walls and gateways, palaces and tombs. (3) Mycenaean civilization is essentially Bronze Age. Bronze is the universal metal used for weapons. Iron only makes its appearance in a few late graves. Thus, in the graves of the lower town at Mycenae, and in the tomb at Vaphio, the only places where iron has been found, it is only used for finger-rings; the weapons found at the same time are all of bronze. (4) The race who have left these remains did not practise cremation; the bodies were buried in a crouched posture. (5) The occupants of the sites had lately been in the Stone Age. Mycenaean civilization is developed from the Neolithic stage without break. The direct evidence for this statement is not as full as could be desired, but the progress of archæological investigation undoubtedly inclines to that direction. Ridgeway makes, however, a strong point on the continuity of the pottery, which, he holds, renders the old supposition untenable, that the Neolithic inhabitants were an earlier race,

subsequently expelled by the more civilized Mycenæans. The rude hand-made pottery of the Neolithic Age passes into the early wheel-made pottery, which preserves the same shapes and the same linear ornamentation. At Phylâkopê, in Melos, there is a gradual upward movement from the earliest form of pottery to the fullydeveloped Mycenæan lustrous ware. In addition to continuity, a further important conclusion is founded on the pottery. The rude primitive pottery has affinities with, and its ornament is common to that of the Mediterranean area; also with the pottery of the Danubian region, northern Italy, and the Swiss lake dwellings. Thus the same primitive culture was spread over the whole of the Mediterranean and central Europe. But only in the Egean did an artistic development take place. This is confirmed by the characteristic Mycenæan decoration, in which marine animals and plants are the favourite motives, clearly the product of a maritime folk. Within the Ægean area Ridgeway, therefore, concludes must be the focus or foci from whence the Mycenæan culture was diffused.

If we accept this conclusion, the next step in the inquiry is greatly simplified. One of the three Greek races-Pelasgians, Achæans, or Dorians-must have produced the Mycenaean civilization. The Dorians are easily displaced, and need not delay us. As already stated, scholars have been practically unanimous in attributing the Mycenæan remains to the Achæans; the Pelasgians were hardly considered to be within the discussion. This was natural. It is only within our own time that pre-historic Greece has been discovered. Until Schliemann uncovered Mycenæ, Greek archæology began at the eighth century B.C. When, as a result of his discoveries, it was necessary to take account of an elder time, the Achæans seemed to be the last safe ground to rest on-beyond Homer lay a trackless sea of myth. The efforts of criticism were, therefore, directed to reconciling the culture disclosed by Schliemann with that described by Homer. Since Schliemann's day, archæology has year by year extended the horizons of the early civilizations of Europe. Discrepancies can no longer be dismissed on general pleas of imperfect record or poetic imagination. The cloud-land of legend has been caught on the mountain-tops of history, and, in the continuity of European civilization from prehistoric times, we recognise the necessity of a pedigree of fact in legend.

The chief elements of the problem, as stated by Ridgeway, are:-We want a race (1) which can be shown by Greek history to have occupied from the earliest period the various localities in which Mycenaean remains have been found; (2) a race whose civilization, as set forth in the ancient writers, coincides with that unveiled at Mycenæ, or at least does not differ from it.

The Pelasgians fully answer the geographical test. The universal testimony of antiquity associates that race with the centres of

Mycenæan culture. Moreover, the pedigrees consistently support the traditions, the founders of the Mycenæan cities are by pedigree Pelasgian. The importance of the pedigree is again and again insisted on by Ridgeway. He adopts Niebuhr's opinion, that in the case of national pedigrees, such as the Mosaical, the genealogies deserve attention as presenting views concerning the affinities of nations which certainly were not inventions of the genealogers. Students of primitive institutions will readily accept this conclusion. Ridgeway illustrates the subject by what may be called a living example, the pedigree of the Uganda kings. Furthermore, as he pertinently points out, the archæological evidence of continuity as for instance at Menidi, the ancient Acharnæ, in Attica, where the pottery found in the dromos of the tomb showed an unbroken series of Mycenæan, Dipylon, and Attic black and red figured ware-establishes a continuity of fact which cannot be ignored. But the argument is not dependent on Pelasgian traditions. The Achæan traditions are complementary; they pre-suppose the existence of an earlier race, known to the Greeks by the common name of Pelasgians. The Achæans are everywhere new-comers, driving out or marrying into the dynasties of the older race. From whichever side, therefore, we take it, the testimony of antiquity asserts a pre-Achæan race in the centres of Mycenæan civilization.

Now, when we turn to the Achæans, the traditions do not satisfy the geographical test. As Ridgeway puts it: "if we find Mycenæan remains in any area which the unanimous witness of antiquity declares was never occupied by the one race, but was occupied by the other, the latter race has the superior claim. If we find this taking place, not in one but in two or more areas, the claim becomes irresistible." In at least two areas, one of them of the first importance, this is so-Attica and the Troad. Herodotus and Thucydides are clear as to the Pelasgic origin of the Attic race. There is no hint of either Achæan or Dorian occupation. The continuity of the pottery at Menidi confirms this. The series found there proves that generation after generation annual offerings had been made at the tomb, and that there was no change in the surrounding population. The story of Xuthus, father of Achæus, which at first sight seems at variance with this tradition, as Ridgeway shows, really supports it. Xuthus, invited to aid the Athenians against their enemies, marries the daughter of the pre-Achæan royal house, but does not succeed to the throne. After the death of Erechtheus and succession of Cecrops, he goes to Aegialus, in Peloponnesus, where he settles and dies. His son, Achæus, as Pausanias recounts, supported by troops from Aegialus and Athens, returned to Thessaly and sat on the throne of his fathers.

The weak place in the positive side of the geographical argument is at present Arcadia. To the ancients Arcadia was preeminently Pelasgian country. Its inhabitants were regarded as

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