Publisher’s Preface.
The second edition of Nothing New Press’ reprint of The Story of the Greeks has not
seen any changes in the text or illustrations from the 1896 edition of Guerber’s fine history,
other than correcting a few typographical errors. I have, however, included a timeline
of dates of the events encountered in the story, as an aid for teachers, and have
added a map of the Greco-Persian War to the maps section. I have also included a bibliography
listing the references used to construct this timeline and the historical information
that follows.
Modern archaeological and historical research was unavailable to Miss Guerber in
1896, when she wrote this history. The first chapter of The Story of the Greeks, “Early
Inhabitants of Greece,” discusses the origin of the Greek tribes. In it Miss Guerber took
the view that man developed slowly, through long ages of civilization, from a savage to a
rational human being. Although, as we now know, the historical record supporting this
view is non-existent, it was the common one of her day.
I have left Guerber’s history as she wrote it, but here include a summary of what research
into this question has shown, for those teachers who wish to relate Greece’s very
early history to their students as Greece herself and the ancient world have recorded it.
Miss Guerber relates, following Greek legend, that Inachus, the founder of Argos
(1856 BC), and Cecrops, the founder of Athens (1556 BC), were Egyptians. Other histories
claim that Inachus was a Phoenician. Cadmus, the founder of Thebes (1493 BC), was
a Phoenician. These men may be historical or legendary; we cannot know. We do know
that in the 15th century BC, the Egyptian empire encompassed a great area, which included
Palestine (Phoenicia) and the Aegean Sea (Crete). Suffice it to say that Egypt and
Phoenicia had the greatest influence on early Minoan (Crete), Mycenaean (Argos), Spartan,
Athenian and Theban civilization.
The Pelasgi, or Pelasgians, were the primitive inhabitants of Greece, according to Herodotus.
Now Pelasgus I was an early king (1684 BC), and it was from this ruler that the
Pelasgians took their name. Pelasgus was a grandson or great-grandson of Inachus, the
Egyptian or Phoenician that founded Argos. Herodotus says of the Phoenicians that
they “lived of old, so they say, about the Red Sea (Erythraean Sea), but they then came out of there and settled in that part of Syria that is next the Sea (Mediterranean Sea).
That piece of Syria, and all as far as Egypt, is called Palestine” (The History, 7.89).
Scholars believe that Herodotus’ Erythraean Sea is our Indian Ocean (The History, 1.1),
but whether it is the Indian Ocean or the Red Sea, its proximity to Egypt in either case
is well known.
Jeremiah 47:4 describes the Philistines, from whom Palestine received its name, as
the “remnant of the country of Caphtor.” Bill Cooper relates that “Egyptian records
speak of the ’kftyw’ or Kaphtur, a term … used in relation to Phoenicia” (After the
Flood, p. 193). The Caphtorim, according to the Table of Nations in Genesis 10-11, were
descended from Mizraim, the son of Ham, the son of Noah. Mizraim, the Hebrew name
for Egypt, settled Egypt. Whether Inachus was an Egyptian or Phoenician is unclear,
but both the Egyptians and Phoenicians, it appears, may have sprung from the same
root, and established their tribes in the same location.
Could it be that the Pelasgians also had their origin in the root of the Phoenicians
and the Egyptians, that is to say, from Ham, the son of Noah? Herodotus further states
that “the Pelasgians originally spoke a non-Greek language” (The History, 1.57). This
would only make sense if the Pelasgians were originally of Ham, while the Greeks were
of Japheth.
The early Greeks worshiped their ancestor Japheth as Iapetos or Iapetus, from
whence the name “Jupiter” is derived (After the Flood, p. 199). Greek legend states that
Iapetus was the father of Prometheus (forethought) and Epimetheus (afterthought).
When reading Greek mythology, pay close attention to the story of Prometheus,
Epimetheus, and Pandora, the first woman. Notice how elements of the Greek myth
parallel the true history of the introduction of sin and evil into the world that Noah no
doubt told his children and grandchildren.
The son of Japheth was Javan. “Homer tells us in the Iliad that Iawones (Hebrew
Iawan) was the progenitor of the Ionian Greeks, while the Hebrews knew the Greeks as
the Jevanim (Iawanim)” (After the Flood, p. 201).
Elishah, the first son of Javan, was an ancestor of an ancient Greek tribe, the Elysians,
“his name being frequently referred to in Greek history and mythology. Two
Greek cities were named after him (Elis and Elissus) … and there is every reason to believe
that his name was also perpetuated in the Greek paradise, the Elysian Fields” (After the Flood, pp. 201-2).
How the Greek tribes came to be master of the Balkan peninsula is not well known.
It is believed they migrated there from the regions around the Black Sea (History of
Europe, p. 51), where many of the descendants of Japheth also had their beginning, after
the dispersion of the peoples from Babel.
The legend of Deucalion might be seen as an example of the Greek habit of relegating
characteristics and ideas to individuals, reducing a whole complex history into a single
story that was easy to remember. Deucalion was possibly a historical figure who came
into Attica, the region we think of as Greece proper north of the Peloponnesus, in 1503
BC. The legend grew up, however, that Deucalion was a descendant of the gods who survived
a great flood, after which no one was left alive but he and his wife. People were
created for him to rule over out of the stones of the ground. Deucalion’s sons and grandsons
became the progenitors of the principal tribes of the Greeks: the Dorians, the Aeolians,
the Ionians, and the Achaeans. In this way the Greeks reduced hundreds of years
of complex history and migrations to its basic elements: that a single man and his wife
survived a great flood which eradicated everyone else, and the Greeks were descended
from his sons and grandsons.
Other ancient peoples whom you will meet in this history of the Greeks are the Phrygians,
the Trojans, and the Scythians. The Phrygians and Lydians are often mentioned
together in ancient literature, their territories were adjacent in western Asia Minor, and
later maps list the entire area that both nations occupied as Lydia. Lydia is “a direct
Greek derivation of the name Lud,” a son of Shem, the son of Noah, whose descendents
settled this area (After the Flood, p. 172).
The Lydians spoke a Japhethic (Indo-European) language, which confirms their close
ties with the descendants of Tiras, a son of Japheth, who also settled Asia Minor. Tiras’
descendents became the nation of the Thracians, in the Balkans; the Etruscans, early
settlers of Italy; and the Trojans. The ancient city of Troy (Troas) was most likely
named after Tiras, as was the Taurus mountain range (After the Flood, p. 204).
The people whom Herodotus knew as the Scythians (Skythai) lived on the northwestern
coast of the Black Sea, where modern Romania, Moldavia, and Ukraine are located.
Earlier sources place them on the southern coast of the Black Sea (After the Flood, p.
200). Josephus records that those whom he called Magogites, the Greeks called Scythians (Josephus, 1.6.1). Magog was the second son of Japheth. Similarly, the
Scythians were known as the Askuza to the Assyrians. Jeremiah equated the Askuza
with the kingdom of Ashkenaz in Jeremiah 51:27 (After the Flood, pp. 199-200). Ashkenaz
was the son of Gomer, the son of Japheth. Whether the Scythians were descended
from Magog or Gomer, or a mixture of both, is unclear; what is clear is that they were
definitely descended from Japheth.
Throughout, it can be seen that nothing in the legendary or archaeological history of
Greece or the ancient world denies the biblical account of the creation of the world, the
entrance of sin and death, the judgment of Noah’s Flood, and the rise of the peoples
from his descendants after their dispersal from Babel. Furthermore, the dates that coincide
with the legendary founding of the Greeks’ most important cities, beginning with
Argos in 1856 BC, do not in any way conflict with the Genesis account, but are well
within the approximate dates for the creation of the world and mankind at 4000 BC, the
flood of Noah at 2350 BC, and the dispersal from Babel at 2250 BC.
Christine Miller
Nothing New Press
