Page 438 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

lonians and Dorians and Thessalians had tried their mettle, and

then turned south to Greece and Asia Minor. And still new na­
tions appeared out o£ the east.
Before the Thracians, at last, the farmers had broken.
Scarcely a generation ago their eastern defenses along the Tran­

sylvanian mountains had been overrun, and the Thracian horse­
men had poured through the Iron Gates into the plain beyond.

And the farmers, withdrawing northwestward before them along
the narrowing valley of the Danube, had joined the number of the
nations seeking a new home. They were still a force to be reck­
oned with, stalwart land-hungry men, well armed with Tran­

sylvanian bronze and well trained in its use. They had established
themselves in the plain of Vienna and the Carinthian hills, more
united and more dangerous now that they had lost their roots.

And they were still pushing westward, reinforced by these
mounted mercenaries recruited from the peoples of the steppes.
They were now a united nation and, though composed of many

tribes, had a single ruler and more and more freely used the com­
mon name of Celts.

There was a trade route that crossed the Alps, following the
course of the river Inn through the Tyrol and climbing to the
Brenner pass. South of the pass it divided, to follow the Alpine

valleys southward to the swamps and forests of the Po, and thence
to the Adriatic. It was a well-worn route, still with paved or brush­
wood causeways crossing the marshy patches and with the trees

cut back where it passed through the forests. Now the brushwood
and brambles were thick where the road had been, leaving only a
narrow trail still trodden clear. Many of the hospices along

the way were gone—heaps of tumbled stones or charred moss-
grown logs, where invaders had passed by and paid for their
lodging with the sword.

It had been a busy road in its day, the old men said. They
called it the Amber Road, for along it had come the sea gold of
the far Baltic as well as the copper ingots and the tin from nearer
home, and furs and hides and slaves and cattle, bales of wool and

casks of honey and sacks of salt. And the other way, from the
south, had come the fine wares of the east, ornaments of gold and