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CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF ARMENIA 233
occupied the country in the sixth century b.c. About eighty
years later Herodotus (484-424) uses the nåme Armenia of
the country north of Assyria, 1 stating that the Euphrates
forms the boundary between Cilicia and Armenia, and that
this country extends for fifteen days’ journey (stations), or
56J- parasangs, eastwards, evidently to the region near
Lake Urmia. The Armenians may thus have occupied the
whole of that country before his time.
Herodotus says that the Armenians were descended from
the Phrygians, and that the latter came from Europe, where
they " were called Brygians as long as they dwelt besidc the
Macedonians." 2 They " have the greatest wealth in cattle
and fruit of all the peoples I know," and the Armenians " are
wealthy in cattle likewise." This agrees remarkably well
with what wc may conjecture to have been the facts. The
ancient Armenian language was Indo-European, and most
nearly allied to the middle western (Slav-Lettish) group. The
language of the Phrygians was also Indo-European, related
to Thracian. Both peoples lived largely by keeping cattle.
Probably they lived at an earlier period in the Balkans, and
after a time crossed over the straits, especially perhaps the
Bosporus (the ox-ford ?), to Asia Minor, chiefly, wc may
suppose, at the end of the third and the beginning of the
second millennium b.c. At that time—circa 1900—Troy,
which had had a long-skulled population all through the
third millennium b.c, was tåken by a short-skulled Indo-
European people, possibly the Phrygians ; and it is not
impossible that some at least of the Trojans against whom the
Greeks fought in the lliad belonged to that race. Paris and
Priam might be Phrygian names. These Indo-European
peoples who invaded Asia Minor had horses and chariots,
which gave them a great superiority in battle.
At the same time wc find a powerful people in Cappadocia
called the Khetites (Hittites), who also possessed horses, and
who won themselves an extensive kingdom. They pene
trated Syria and pressed on as far as Babylon, which they took
and sacked about the year 1726 (or possibly 1756) b.c. Their
language had a strong admixture of Indo-European, and the
Cf. Herodotus, i, 194 ; v, 52. 3 Herodotus, viii, 73 ; v, 49.
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