The Coming of the Greeksteenth century, that most of the world was dominated by Eu-
ropeans or people of European descent. The easiest explanation
for this was that Europeans, or at least most members of the
European family, were genetically superior to peoples of darker
complexion. It was thus a welcome discovery that the ancient
Greeks and Persians were linguistically—and therefore, one
could assume, biologically—"related" to the modern Europe-
ans. The same racial stock, it appeared, had been in control of
the world since Cyrus conquered Babylon. This stock was ob-
viously the white race. India, it is true, presented a problem
and required a separate explanation. Aryans had invaded India
no later than the second millennium B.C. , and successfully im-
posed their language on the aboriginal population, but the Ar-
yan race had evidently become sterile in that southern clime
and was eventually submerged by the aboriginal and inferior
stock of the subcontinent.
From these assumptions about a masterful Indo-European
race there readily flowed an enthusiasm for discovering or in-
venting the original Indo-European institutions. So, for ex-
ample, in his La cite antique (1864), Numa Fustel de Coulanges
argued that private property had characterized "Aryan" society
from its very beginning. Other historians commended the
Indo-Europeans' innate gift for government and statecraft, and
their seemly moderation in matters of religion.
In such a context, the question of Greek origins could be
answered in only one way. Since ancient Greek civilization was
one of the highest achievements of mankind, one could only
conclude that the Greek people must have possessed extraor-
dinary natural capacities. From the Indo-European homeland
there had evidently come to Greece a racial stock of unparal-
leled genius. For an early illustration of this phase of historical
interpretation, we may look at what Ernst Curtius said on the
subject. Curtius's three-volume Griechische Geschichte was pub-
lished between 1857 and 1867. Quickly becoming the defini-
tive work on Greek history in German universities, it was
translated into English and was widely read in England and