The Lupercalia #262145

For the present study our interest must be centered in the branches of the Mediterranean race that settled in the Aegean area and in Italy. To designate these, two ancient terms have been restored to use. The branch that occupied the lands which later formed Hellas are known by most ethnologists as Pelasgians, the one occupying Italy as Ligurians.4 Along the Mediterranean the ease of communication united with the racial kinship of the people to produce a highly developed and homogeneous civilization. From the-oldest culture centers of Egypt and Crete, civilization radiated to the kindred, but less advanced, peoples of Asia Minor, Greece, Thrace, the Danube area,5 Italy, Sicily, and Spain. Thus there developed in the peoples dwelling near the Mediterranean a similarity of culture which is recognized by all authorities.