126 Outlines of Enropea7i History Achasans in Pelopon- nesus Dorians in Pelopon- nesus these inland shepherds should themselves venture timidly out upon the great waters which they were viewing for the first time. Gradually their vanguard (called the Achaeans) pushed south- w^ard into Peloponnesus, and doubtless some of them mingled with the dwellers in the villages which were grouped under the walls of Tiryns and Mycenae (Figs. 67, 68, Plate II). Some of their leaders may have captured these yEgean for- tresses.-^ But our knowledge of the situation in Greece is very meager be- cause the peoples here could not yet write, and have left no written docu- ments to tell the story. It is evident, however, that a second wave of Greek nomads (called the Dori- ans) reached the Peloponnesus by 1500 B.C. and subdued their earlier kinsmen (the Achasans) as well as the ^gean townsmen, the original inhabitants of the region. The ^geans slowly mingled with their Greek conquer- ors, producing a mixed race, the people who are known to us henceforth as the Greeks of history. In the names of towns, 1 The student will recall a similar situation, as the incoming Hebrew nomads took the strongholds of their predecessors in Palestine (p. 102). Fig. 69. Mount Olympus - OF THE Gods THE Home Although Mount Olympus is on the northern borders of Greece, it can be seen from Attica and the south end of Euboea. It approaches ten thousand feet in height, and looks down upon Macedonia on one side and Thessaly on the other (see map, p. 146). As we look at it here from the south, we have a portion of the plain of Thessaly in the foreground, where the first Greeks entered Hellas (p. 1 24) , and where later the earliest Homeric songs were composed (p. 142)
