The Greek writers and people called their land Hellas, the term meaning
all territory in which their own people, the Hellenes, were settled.
Hellas included not only the Greek peninsula, but many of the islands of
the Ægean Sea, and the coast settlements and colonies above referred to.
The peninsula, much indented by bays, was broken up into many small
divisions, connected by the sea. There were numerous mountains in
ridges, offshoots, and groups; there were plains, valleys and small
rivers. All was diversified. The position and conformation of the
country undoubtedly helped to render the Greeks the earliest civilized
people in Europe, both by developing, in a life of struggle with nature
on land and sea, their special and innate character, and by bringing
them into contact with the older civilizations, in Egypt and Phœnicia,
on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The mountains that divided
the country into small isolated districts had a great political
importance in giving rise to many separate and independent states, the
rivalries and conflicts of which favored the working-out of political
problems and the growth of political freedom.