CHAPTER XVIII.

CLOSING EVENTS OF LEGENDARY GREECE.—PERIOD OF INTERMEDIATE DARKNESS, BEFORE THE DAWN OF HISTORICAL GREECE.

SECTION I.—RETURN OF THE HERAKLEIDS INTO PELOPONNESUS.

In one of the preceding chapters, we have traced the descending series of the two most distinguished mythical families in Peloponnêsus,—the Perseids and the Pelopids: we have followed the former down to Hêraklês and his son Hyllus, and the latter down to Orestês son of Agamemnôn, who is left in possession of that ascendancy in the peninsula which had procured for his father the chief command in the Trojan war. The Herakleids, or sons of Hêraklês, on the other hand, are expelled fugitives, dependent upon foreign aid or protection: Hyllus had perished in single combat with Echemus of Tegea, (connected with the Pelopids by marriage with Timandra sister of Klytæmnêstra,[1]) and a solemn compact had been made, as the preliminary condition of this duel, that no similar attempt at an invasion of the peninsula should be undertaken by his family for the space of one hundred years. At the end of the stipulated period the attempt was renewed, and with complete success; but its success was owing, not so much to the valor of the invaders as to a powerful body of new allies. The Herakleids reappear as leaders and companions of the Dorians,—a northerly section of the Greek name, who now first come into importance,—poor, indeed, in mythical renown, since they are never noticed in the Iliad, and only once casually mentioned in the Odyssey, as a fraction among the many-tongued inhabitants of Krête,—but destined to form one of the grand and predominant elements throughout all the career of historical Hellas.

[1] Hesiod, Eoiai, Fragm. 58, p. 43, ed. Düntzer.

The son of Hyllus—Kleodæus—as well as his grandson Aristomachus, were now dead, and the lineage of Hêraklês was represented by the three sons of the latter,—Têmenus, Kresphontês, and Aristodêmus, and under their conduct the Dorians penetrated into the peninsula. The mythical account traced back this intimate union between the Herakleids and the Dorians to a prior war, in which Hêraklês himself had rendered inestimable aid to the Dorian king Ægimius, when the latter was hard pressed in a contest with the Lapithæ. Hêraklês defeated the Lapithæ, and slew their king Korônus; in return for which Ægimius assigned to his deliverer one third part of his whole territory, and adopted Hyllus as his son. Hêraklês desired that the territory thus made over might be held in reserve until a time should come when his descendants might stand in need of it; and that time did come, after the death of Hyllus, (see Chap. V.) Some of the Herakleids then found shelter at Trikorythus in Attica, but the remainder, turning their steps towards Ægimius, solicited from him the allotment of land which had been promised to their valiant progenitor. Ægimius received them according to his engagement, and assigned to them the stipulated third portion of his territory:[2] and from this moment the Herakleids and Dorians became intimately united together into one social communion. Pamphylus and Dymas, sons of Ægimius, accompanied Têmenus and his two brothers in their invasion of Peloponnêsus.

[2] Diodôr. iv. 37-60; Apollodôr. ii. 7, 7; Ephorus ap. Steph. Byz. Δυμᾶν, Fragm. 10, ed. Marx.

The Doric institutions are called by Pindar τεθμοὶ Αἰγιμίου Δωρικοί (Pyth. i. 124).

There existed an ancient epic poem, now lost, but cited on some few occasions by authors still preserved, under the title Αἰγίμιος; the authorship being sometimes ascribed to Hesiod, sometimes to Kerkops (Athenæ. xi. p. 503). The few fragments which remain do not enable us to make out the scheme of it, inasmuch as they embrace different mythical incidents lying very wide of each other,—Iô, the Argonauts, Pêleus, and Thetis, etc. But the name which it bears seems to imply that the war of Ægimius against the Lapithæ, and the aid given to him by Hêraklês, was one of its chief topics. Both O. Müller (History of the Dorians, vol. i. b. 1, c. 8) and Welcker (Der Epische Kyklus, p. 263) appear to me to go beyond the very scanty evidence which we possess, in their determination of this last poem; compare Marktscheffel, Præfat. Hesiod. Fragm. cap. 5, p. 159.

Such is the mythical incident which professes to explain the origin of those three tribes into which all the Dorian communities were usually divided,—the Hyllêis, the Pamphyli, and the Dymanes,—the first of the three including certain particular families, such as that of the kings of Sparta, who bore the special name of Herakleids. Hyllus, Pamphylus, and Dymas are the eponymous heroes of the three Dorian tribes.

Têmenus and his two brothers resolved to attack Peloponnêsus, not by a land-march along the Isthmus, such as that in which Hyllus had been previously slain, but by sea, across the narrow inlet between the promontories of Rhium and Antirrhium, with which the Gulf of Corinth commences. According to one story, indeed,—which, however, does not seem to have been known to Herodotus,—they are said to have selected this line of march by the express direction of the Delphian god, who vouchsafed to expound to them an oracle which had been delivered to Hyllus in the ordinary equivocal phraseology. Both the Ozolian Lokrians, and the Ætolians, inhabitants of the northern coast of the Gulf of Corinth, were favorable to the enterprise, and the former granted to them a port for building their ships, from which memorable circumstance the port ever afterwards bore the name of Naupaktus. Aristodêmus was here struck with lightning and died, leaving twin sons, Eurysthenês and Proklês; but his remaining brothers continued to press the expedition with alacrity.

At this juncture, an Akarnanian prophet named Karnus presented himself in the camp[3] under the inspiration of Apollo, and uttered various predictions: he was, however, so much suspected of treacherous collusion with the Peloponnesians, that Hippotês, great-grandson of Hêraklês through Phylas and Antiochus, slew him. His death drew upon the army the wrath of Apollo, who destroyed their vessels and punished them with famine. Têmenus, in his distress, again applying to the Delphian god for succor and counsel, was made acquainted with the cause of so much suffering, and was directed to banish Hippotês for ten years, to offer expiatory sacrifice for the death of Karnus, and to seek as the guide of the army a man with three eyes.[4] On coming back to Naupaktus, he met the Ætolian Oxylus, son of Andræmôn, returning to his country, after a temporary exile in Elis, incurred for homicide: Oxylus had lost one eye, but as he was seated on a horse, the man and the horse together made up the three eyes required, and he was adopted as the guide prescribed by the oracle.[5] Conducted by him, they refitted their ships, landed on the opposite coast of Achaia, and marched to attack Tisamenus son of Orestês, then the great potentate of the peninsula. A decisive battle was fought, in which the latter was vanquished and slain, and in which Pamphylus and Dymas also perished. This battle made the Dorians so completely masters of the Peloponnêsus, that they proceeded to distribute the territory among themselves. The fertile land of Elis had been by previous stipulation reserved for Oxylus, as a recompense for his services as conductor: and it was agreed that the three Herakleids,—Têmenus, Kresphontês, and the infant sons of Aristodêmus,—should draw lots for Argos, Sparta, and Messênê. Argos fell to Têmenus, Sparta to the sons of Aristodêmus, and Messênê to Kresphontês; the latter having secured for himself this prize, the most fertile territory of the three, by the fraud of putting into the vessel out of which the lots were drawn, a lump of clay instead of a stone, whereby the lots of his brothers were drawn out while his own remained inside. Solemn sacrifices were offered by each upon this partition: but as they proceeded to the ceremony, a miraculous sign was seen upon the altar of each of the brothers,—a toad corresponding to Argos, a serpent to Sparta, and a fox to Messênê. The prophets, on being consulted, delivered the import of these mysterious indications: the toad, as an animal slow and stationary, was an evidence that the possessor of Argos would not succeed in enterprises beyond the limits of his own city; the serpent denoted the aggressive and formidable future reserved to Sparta; the fox prognosticated a career of wile and deceit to the Messenian.

[3] Respecting this prophet, compare Œnomaus ap. Eusebium, Præparat. Evangel. v. p. 211. According to that statement, both Kleodæus (here called _Aridæus_) son of Hyllus, and Aristomachus son of Kleodæus, had made separate and successive attempts at the head of the Herakleids to penetrate into Peloponnêsus through the Isthmus: both had failed and perished, having misunderstood the admonition of the Delphian oracle. Œnomaus could have known nothing of the pledge given by Hyllus, as the condition of the single combat between Hyllus and Echemus (according to Herodotus), that the Herakleids should make no fresh trial for one hundred years; if it had been understood that they had given and then violated such a pledge, such violation would probably have been adduced to account for their failure.

[4] Apollodôr. ii. 8, 3; Pausan. iii. 13. 3.

[5] Apollodôr. ii. 8, 3. According to the account of Pausanias, the beast upon which Oxylus rode was a mule, and had lost one eye (Paus. v. 3, 5).

Such is the brief account given by Apollodôrus of the Return of the Herakleids, at which point we pass, as if touched by the wand of a magician, from mythical to historical Greece. The story bears on the face of it the stamp, not of history, but of legend,—abridged from one or more of the genealogical poets,[6] and presenting such an account as they thought satisfactory, of the first formation of the great Dorian establishments in Peloponnêsus, as well as of the semi-Ætolian Elis. Its incidents are so conceived as to have an explanatory bearing on Dorian institutions,—upon the triple division of tribes, characteristic of the Dorians,—upon the origin of the great festival of the Karneia at Sparta, alleged to be celebrated in expiation of the murder of Karnus,—upon the different temper and character of the Dorian states among themselves,—upon the early alliance of the Dorians with Elis, which contributed to give ascendency and vogue to the Olympic games,—upon the reverential dependence of Dorians towards the Delphian oracle,—and, lastly, upon the etymology of the name Naupaktus. If we possessed the narrative more in detail, we should probably find many more examples of coloring of the legendary past suitable to the circumstances of the historical present.

[6] Herodotus observes, in reference to the Lacedæmonian account of their first two kings in Peloponnêsus, (Eurysthenês and Proklês, the twin sons of Aristodêmus,) that the Lacedæmonians gave a _story not in harmony with any of the poets_,—Λακεδαιμόνιοι γὰρ, ~ὁμολογέοντες οὐδενὶ ποιητῇ~, λέγουσιν αὐτὸν Ἀριστόδημον ... βασιλεύοντα ἀγαγεῖν σφεας ἐς ταύτην τὴν χώρην τὴν νῦν ἐκτέαται, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τοὺς Ἀριστοδήμου παῖδας (Herodot. vi. 52).

Above all, this legend makes out in favor of the Dorians and their kings a mythical title to their Peloponnesian establishments; Argos, Sparta, and Messênê are presented as rightfully belonging, and restored by just retribution, to the children of Hêraklês. It was to them that Zeus had specially given the territory of Sparta; the Dorians came in as their subjects and auxiliaries.[7] Plato gives a very different version of the legend, but we find that he, too, turns the story in such a manner as to embody a claim of right on the part of the conquerors. According to him, the Achæans, who returned from the capture of Troy, found among their fellow-citizens at home—the race which had grown up during their absence—an aversion to readmit them: after a fruitless endeavor to make good their rights, they were at last expelled, but not without much contest and bloodshed. A leader named Dorieus, collected all these exiles into one body, and from him they received the name of Dorians instead of Achæans; then marching back, under the conduct of the Herakleids into Peloponnêsus, they recovered by force the possessions from which they had been shut out, and constituted the three Dorian establishments under the separate Herakleid brothers, at Argos, Sparta, and Messênê. These three fraternal dynasties were founded upon a scheme of intimate union and sworn alliance one with the other, for the purpose of resisting any attack which might be made upon them from Asia,[8] either by the remaining Trojans or by their allies. Such is the story as Plato believed it; materially different in the incidents related, yet analogous in mythical feeling, and embodying alike the idea of a rightful reconquest. Moreover, the two accounts agree in representing both the entire conquest and the triple division of Dorian Peloponnêsus as begun and completed in one and the same enterprise,—so as to constitute one single event, which Plato would probably have called the Return of the Achæans, but which was commonly known as the Return of the Herakleids. Though this is both inadmissible and inconsistent with other statements which approach close to the historical times, yet it bears every mark of being the primitive view originally presented by the genealogical poets: the broad way in which the incidents are grouped together, was at once easy for the imagination to follow, and impressive to the feelings.

[7] Tyrtæus, Fragm.—

Αὐτος γαρ Κρονίων, καλλιστεφάνου πόσις Ἥρας, Ζεὺς Ἡρακλείδαις τήνδε δέδωκε πόλιν· Οἰσιν ἅμα, προλιπόντες Ἐρίνεον ἠνεμόεντα, Εὐρεῖαν Πέλοπος νῆσον ἀφικόμεθα.

In a similar manner Pindar says that Apollo had planted the sons of Hêraklês, jointly with those of Ægimius, at Sparta, Argos, and Pylus (Pyth. v. 93).

Isokratês (Or. vi. _Archidamus_, p. 120) makes out a good title by a different line of mythical reasoning. There seem to have been also stories containing mythical reasons why the Herakleids did _not_ acquire possession of Arcadia (Polyæn. i. 7).

[8] Plato, Legg. iii. 6-7, pp. 682-686.

The existence of one legendary account must never be understood as excluding the probability of other accounts, current at the same time, but inconsistent with it: and many such there were as to the first establishment of the Peloponnesian Dorians. In the narrative which I have given from Apollodôrus, conceived apparently under the influence of Dorian feelings, Tisamenus is stated to have been slain in the invasion. But according to another narrative, which seems to have found favor with the historical Achæans on the north coast of Peloponnêsus, Tisamenus, though expelled by the invaders from his kingdom of Sparta or Argos, was not slain: he was allowed to retire under agreement, together with a certain portion of his subjects, and he directed his steps towards the coast of Peloponnêsus south of the Corinthian Gulf, then occupied by the Ionians. As there were relations, not only of friendship, but of kindred origin, between Ionians and Achæans, (the eponymous heroes Iôn and Achæus pass for brothers, both sons of Xuthus), Tisamenus solicited from the Ionians admission for himself and his fellow-fugitives into their territory. The leading Ionians declining this request, under the apprehension that Tisamenus might be chosen as sovereign over the whole, the latter accomplished his object by force. After a vehement struggle, the Ionians were vanquished and put to flight, and Tisamenus thus acquired possession of Helikê, as well as of the northern coast of the peninsula, westward from Sikyôn; which coast continued to be occupied by the Achæans, and received its name from them, throughout all the historical times. The Ionians retired to Attica, many of them taking part in what is called the Ionic emigration to the coast of Asia Minor, which followed shortly after. Pausanias, indeed, tells us that Tisamenus, having gained a decisive victory over the Ionians, fell in the engagement,[9] and did not himself live to occupy the country of which his troops remained masters. But this story of the death of Tisamenus seems to arise from a desire, on the part of Pausanias, to blend together into one narrative two discrepant legends; at least the historical Achæans in later times continued to regard Tisamenus himself as having lived and reigned in their territory, and as having left a regal dynasty which lasted down to Ogygês,[10] after whom it was exchanged for a popular government.[11]

[9] Pausan. vii. 1-3.

[10] Polyb. ii. 45; iv. 1; Strabo, viii. pp. 383-384. This Tisamenus derives his name from the memorable act of revenge ascribed to his father Orestês. So, in the legend of the Siege of Thêbes, Thersander, as one of the Epigoni, avenged his father Polynikês: the son of Thersander was also called _Tisamenus_ (Herodot. iv. 149). Compare O. Müller, Dorians, i. p. 69, note 9, Eng. Trans.

[11] Diodôr. iv. 1. The historian Ephorus embodied in his work a narrative in considerable detail of this grand event of Grecian legend, the Return of the Herakleids,—with which he professed to commence his consecutive history: from what sources he borrowed we do not know.

The conquest of Têmenus, the eldest of the three Herakleids, originally comprehended only Argos and its neighborhood; it was from thence that Trœzen, Epidaurus, Ægina, Sikyôn, and Phlius were successfully occupied by Dorians, the sons and son-in-law of Têmenus—Deiphontês, Phalkês, and Keisus—being the leaders under whom this was accomplished.[12] At Sparta, the success of the Dorians was furthered by the treason of a man named Philonomus, who received as recompense the neighboring town and territory of Amyklæ.[13] Messênia is said to have submitted without resistance to the dominion of the Herakleid Kresphontês, who established his residence at Stenyklêrus: the Pylian Melanthus, then ruler of the country, and representative of the great mythical lineage of Nêleus and Nestôr, withdrew with his household gods and with a portion of his subjects to Attica.[14]

[12] Strabo, viii. p. 389. Pausan. ii. 6, 2; 12, 1.

[13] Conôn, Nar. 36; Strabo, viii. p. 365.

[14] Strabo, viii. p. 359; Conôn, Narr. 39.

The only Dorian establishment in the peninsula not directly connected with the triple partition is Corinth, which is said to have been Dorized somewhat later and under another leader, though still a Herakleid. Hippotês—descendant of Hêraklês in the fourth generation, but not through Hyllus,—had been guilty (as already mentioned) of the murder of Karnus the prophet at the camp of Naupaktus, for which he had been banished and remained in exile for ten years; his son deriving the name of Alêtês from the long wanderings endured by the father. At the head of a body of Dorians, Alêtês attacked Corinth: he pitched his camp on the Solygeian eminence near the city, and harassed the inhabitants with constant warfare until he compelled them to surrender. Even in the time of the Peloponnesian war, the Corinthians professed to identify the hill on which the camp of these assailants had been placed. The great mythical dynasty of the Sisyphids was expelled, and Alêtês became ruler and Œkist of the Dorian city; many of the inhabitants, however, Æolic or Ionic, departed.[15]

[15] Thucydid. iv. 42. Schol. Pindar. Olymp. xiii. 17; and Nem. vii. 155. Conôn, Narrat. 26. Ephor. ap. Strab. viii. p. 389.

Thucydidês calls the ante-Dorian inhabitants of Corinth Æolians; Conôn calls them Ionians.

The settlement of Oxylus and his Ætolians in Elis is said by some to have been accomplished with very little opposition; the leader professing himself to be descended from Ætolus, who had been in a previous age banished from Elis into Ætôlia, and the two people, Epeians and Ætolians, acknowledging a kindred origin one with the other.[16] At first, indeed, according to Ephorus, the Epeians appeared in arms, determined to repel the intruders, but at length it was agreed on both sides to abide the issue of a single combat. Degmenus, the champion of the Epeians, confided in the long shot of his bow and arrow; but the Ætolian Pyræchmês came provided with his sling,—a weapon then unknown and recently invented by the Ætolians,—the range of which was yet longer than that of the bow of his enemy: he thus killed Degmenus, and secured the victory to Oxylus and his followers. According to one statement, the Epeians were expelled; according to another, they fraternized amicably with the new-comers: whatever may be the truth as to this matter, it is certain that their name is from this moment lost, and that they never reappear among the historical elements of Greece:[17] we hear from this time forward only of Eleians, said to be of Ætolian descent.[18]

[16] Ephorus ap. Strabo, x. p. 463.

[17] Strabo, viii. p. 358; Pausan. v. 4, 1. One of the six towns in Triphylia mentioned by Herodotus is called Ἔπειον (Herodot. iv. 149).

[18] Herodot. viii. 73; Pausan. v. 1, 2. Hekatæus affirmed that the Epeians were completely alien to the Eleians; Strabo does not seem to have been able to satisfy himself either of the affirmative or negative (Hekatæus, Fr. 348, ed. Didot; Strabo, viii. p. 341).

One most important privilege was connected with the possession of the Eleian territory by Oxylus, coupled with his claim on the gratitude of the Dorian kings. The Eleians acquired the administration of the temple at Olympia, which the Achæans are said to have possessed before them; and in consideration of this sacred function, which subsequently ripened into the celebration of the great Olympic games, their territory was solemnly pronounced to be inviolable. Such was the statement of Ephorus:[19] we find, in this case as in so many others, that the Return of the Herakleids is made to supply a legendary basis for the historical state of things in Peloponnêsus.

[19] Ephorus ap. Strabo. viii. p. 358. The tale of the inhabitants of Pisa, the territory more immediately bordering upon Olympia, was very different from this.

It was the practice of the great Attic tragedians, with rare exceptions, to select the subjects of their composition from the heroic or legendary world, and Euripidês had composed three dramas, now lost, on the adventures of Têmenus with his daughter Hyrnethô and his son-in-law Dêiphontês,—on the family misfortunes of Kresphontês and Meropê,—and on the successful valor of Archelaus the son of Têmenus in Macedonia, where he was alleged to have first begun the dynasty of the Temenid kings. Of these subjects the first and second were eminently tragical, and the third, relating to Archelaus, appears to have been undertaken by Euripidês in compliment to his contemporary sovereign and patron, Archelaus king of Macedonia: we are even told that those exploits which the usual version of the legend ascribed to Têmenus, were reported in the drama of Euripidês to have been performed by Archelaus his son.[20] Of all the heroes, touched upon by the three Attic tragedians, these Dorian Herakleids stand lowest in the descending genealogical series,—one mark amongst others that we are approaching the ground of genuine history.

[20] Agatharchides ap. Photium, Sect. 250, p. 1332. Ὀυδ᾽ Εὐριπίδου κατηγορῶ, τῷ Ἀρχελάῳ περιτεθεικότος τὰς Τημένου πράξεις.

Compare the Fragments of the Τημένιδαι, Ἀρχέλαος, and Κρεσφόντης, in Dindorf’s edition of Euripidês, with the illustrative remarks of Welcker, Griechische Tragödien, pp. 697, 708, 828.

The Prologue of the Archelaus seems to have gone through the whole series of the Herakleidan lineage, from Ægyptus and Danaus downwards.

Though the name Achæans, as denoting a people, is henceforward confined to the North-Peloponnesian territory specially called Achaia, and to the inhabitants of Achæa, Phthiôtis, north of Mount Œta,—and though the great Peloponnesian states always seem to have prided themselves on the title of Dorians,—yet we find the kings of Sparta, even in the historical age, taking pains to appropriate to themselves the mythical glories of the Achæans, and to set themselves forth as the representatives of Agamemnôn and Orestês. The Spartan king Kleomenês even went so far as to disavow formally any Dorian parentage; for when the priestess at Athens refused to permit him to sacrifice in the temple of Athênê, on the plea that it was peremptorily closed to all Dorians, he replied: “I am no Dorian, but an Achæan.”[21] Not only did the Spartan envoy, before Gelôn of Syracuse, connect the indefeasible title of his country to the supreme command of the Grecian military force, with the ancient name and lofty prerogatives of Agamemnôn,[22]—but, in farther pursuance of the same feeling, the Spartans are said to have carried to Sparta both the bones of Orestês from Tegea, and those of Tisamenus from Helikê,[23] at the injunction of the Delphian oracle. There is also a story that Oxylus in Elis was directed by the same oracle to invite into his country an Achæan, as Œkist conjointly with himself; and that he called in Agorius, the great-grandson of Orestês, from Helikê, with a small number of Achæans who joined him.[24] The Dorians themselves, being singularly poor in native legends, endeavored, not unnaturally, to decorate themselves with those legendary ornaments which the Achæans possessed in abundance.

[21] Herodot. v. 72.

[22] Herodot. vii. 159.

[23] Herodot. i. 68; Pausan. vii. 1, 3.

[24] Pausan. v. 4, 2.

As a consequence of the Dorian establishments in Peloponnêsus, several migrations of the preëxisting inhabitants are represented as taking place. 1. The Epeians of Elis are either expelled, or merged in the new-comers under Oxylus, and lose their separate name. 2. The Pylians, together with the great heroic family of Nêleus and his son Nestôr, who preside over them, give place to the Dorian establishment of Messênia, and retire to Athens, where their leader, Melanthus, becomes king: a large portion of them take part in the subsequent Ionic emigration. 3. A portion of the Achæans, under Penthilus and other descendants of Orestês, leave Peloponnêsus, and form what is called the Æolic emigration, to Lesbos, the Trôad, and the Gulf of Adramyttium: the name _Æolians_, unknown to Homer, and seemingly never applied to any separate tribe at all, being introduced to designate a large section of the Hellenic name, partly in Greece Proper, and partly in Asia. 4. Another portion of Achæans expel the Ionians from Achaia, properly so called, in the north of Peloponnêsus; the Ionians retiring to Attica.

The Homeric poems describe Achæans, Pylians, and Epeians, in Peloponnêsus, but take no notice of Ionians in the northern district of Achaia: on the contrary, the Catalogue in the Iliad distinctly includes this territory under the dominions of Agamemnôn. Though the Catalogue of Homer is not to be regarded as an historical document, fit to be called as evidence for the actual state of Peloponnêsus at any prior time, it certainly seems a better authority than the statements advanced by Herodotus and others respecting the occupation of northern Peloponnêsus by the Ionians, and their expulsion from it by Tisamenus. In so far as the Catalogue is to be trusted, it negatives the idea of Ionians at Helikê, and countenances what seems in itself a more natural supposition,—that the historical Achæans in the north part of Peloponnêsus are a small undisturbed remnant of the powerful Achæan population once distributed throughout the peninsula, until it was broken up and partially expelled by the Dorians.

The Homeric legends, unquestionably the oldest which we possess, are adapted to a population of Achæans, Danaans, and Argeians, seemingly without any special and recognized names, either aggregate or divisional, other than the name of each separate tribe or kingdom. The post-Homeric legends are adapted to a population classified quite differently,—Hellens, distributed into Dorians, Ionians, and Æolians. If we knew more of the time and circumstances in which these different legends grew up, we should probably be able to explain their discrepancy; but in our present ignorance we can only note the fact.

Whatever difficulty modern criticism may find in regard to the event called “The Return of the Herakleids,” no doubt is expressed about it even by the best historians of antiquity. Thucydidês accepts it as a single and literal event, having its assignable date, and carrying at one blow the acquisition of Peloponnêsus. The date of it he fixes as eighty years after the capture of Troy. Whether he was the original determiner of this epoch, or copied it from some previous author, we do not know. It must have been fixed according to some computation of generations, for there were no other means accessible,—probably by means of the lineage of the Herakleids, which, as belonging to the kings of Sparta, constituted the most public and conspicuous thread of connection between the Grecian real and mythical world, and measured the interval between the Siege of Troy itself and the first recorded Olympiad. Hêraklês himself represents the generation before the siege, and his son Tlepolemus fights in the besieging army. If we suppose the first generation after Hêraklês to commence with the beginning of the siege, the fourth generation after him will coincide with the ninetieth year after the same epoch; and therefore, deducting ten years for the duration of the struggle, it will coincide with the eightieth year after the capture of the city;[25] thirty years being reckoned for a generation. The date assigned by Thucydidês will thus agree with the distance in which Têmenus, Kresphontês, and Aristodêmus, stand removed from Hêraklês. The interval of eighty years, between the capture of Troy and the Return of the Herakleids, appears to have been admitted by Apollodôrus and Eratosthenês, and some other professed chronologists of antiquity: but there were different reckonings which also found more or less of support.

[25] The date of Thucydidês is calculated, μετὰ Ἰλίου ἅλωσιν (i. 13).

SECTION II.—MIGRATION OF THESSALIANS AND BŒOTIANS.

In the same passage in which Thucydidês speaks of the Return of the Herakleids, he also marks out the date of another event a little antecedent, which is alleged to have powerfully affected the condition of Northern Greece. “Sixty years after the capture of Troy (he tells us) the Bœotians were driven by the Thessalians from Arnê, and migrated into the land then called Kadmêïs, but now Bœotia, wherein there had previously dwelt a section of their race, who had contributed the contingent to the Trojan war.”

The expulsion here mentioned, of the Bœotians from Arnê “by the Thessalians,” has been construed, with probability, to allude to the immigration of the Thessalians, properly so called, from the Thesprôtid in Epirus into Thessaly. That the Thessalians had migrated into Thessaly from the Thesprôtid territory, is stated by Herodotus,[26] though he says nothing about time or circumstances. Antiphus and Pheidippus appear in the Homeric Catalogue as commanders of the Grecian contingent from the islands of Kôs and Karpathus, on the south-east coast of Asia Minor: they are sons of Thessalus, who is himself the son of Hêraklês. A legend ran that these two chiefs, in the dispersion which ensued after the victory, had been driven by storms into the Ionian Gulf, and cast upon the coast of Epirus, where they landed and settled at Ephyrê in the Thesprôtid.[27] It was Thessalus, grandson of Pheidippus, who was reported to have conducted the Thesprotians across the passes of Pindus into Thessaly, to have conquered the fertile central plain of that country, and to have imposed upon it his own name instead of its previous denomination Æolis.[28]

[26] Herod. vii. 176.

[27] See the Epigram ascribed to Aristotle (Antholog. Græc. t. i. p. 181, ed. Reisk; Velleius Patercul. i. 1).

The Scholia on Lycophrôn (912) give a story somewhat different. Ephyrê is given as the old legendary name of the city of Krannon in Thessaly (Kineas, ap. Schol. Pindar. Pyth. x. 85), which creates the confusion with the Thesprotian Ephyrê.

[28] Herodot. vii. 176; Velleius Patercul. i. 2-3; Charax. ap. Stephan. Byz. v. Δώριον: Polyæn. viii. 44.

There were several different statements, however, about the parentage of Thessalus, as well as about the name of the country (Strabo, ix. p. 443 Stephan. Byz. v. Αἱμονία).

Whatever we may think of this legend as it stands, the state of Thessaly during the historical ages renders it highly probable that the Thessalians, properly so called, were a body of immigrant conquerors. They appear always as a rude, warlike, violent, and uncivilized race, distinct from their neighbors the Achæans, the Magnetes, and the Perrhæbians, and holding all the three in tributary dependence: these three tribes stand to them in a relation analogous to that of the Lacedæmonian Periœki towards Sparta, while the Penestæ, who cultivated their lands, are almost an exact parallel of the Helots. Moreover, the low level of taste and intelligence among the Thessalians, as well as certain points of their costume, assimilates them more to Macedonians or Epirots than to Hellens.[29] Their position in Thessaly is in many respects analogous to that of the Spartan Dorians in Peloponnêsus, and there seems good reason for concluding that the former, as well as the latter, were originally victorious invaders, though we cannot pretend to determine the time at which the invasion took place. The great family of the Aleuads,[30] and probably other Thessalian families besides, were descendants of Hêraklês, like the kings of Sparta.

[29] See K. O. Müller, History of the Dorians, Introduction, sect. 4.

[30] Pindar, Pyth. x. 2.

There are no similar historical grounds, in the case of the alleged migration of the Bœotians from Thessaly to Bœotia, to justify a belief in the main fact of the legend, nor were the different legendary stories in harmony one with the other. While the Homeric Epic recognizes the Bœotians in Bœotia, but not in Thessaly, Thucydidês records a statement which he had found of their migration from the latter into the former; but in order to escape the necessity of flatly contradicting Homer, he inserts the parenthesis that there had been previously an outlying fraction of Bœotians in Bœotia at the time of the Trojan war,[31] from whom the troops who served with Agamemnôn were drawn. Nevertheless, the discrepancy with the Iliad, though less strikingly obvious, is not removed, inasmuch as the Catalogue is unusually copious in enumerating the contingents from Thessaly, without once mentioning Bœotians. Homer distinguishes Orchomenus from Bœotia, and he does not specially notice Thêbes in the Catalogue: in other respects his enumeration of the towns coincides pretty well with the ground historically known afterwards under the name of Bœotia.

[31] Thucyd. i. 12. ἦν δὲ αὐτῶν καὶ ἀποδασμὸς πρότερον ἐν τῇ γῇ ταύτῃ ἀφ᾽ ὧν καὶ ἐς Ἴλιον ἐστράτευσαν.

Pausanias gives us a short sketch of the events which he supposes to have intervened in this section of Greece between the Siege of Troy and the Return of the Herakleids. Peneleôs, the leader of the Bœotians at the siege, having been slain by Eurypylus the son of Telephus, Tisamenus, son of Thersander and grandson of Polynikês, acted as their commander, both during the remainder of the siege and after their return. Autesiôn, his son and successor, became subject to the wrath of the avenging Erinnyes of Laius and Œdipus: the oracle directed him to expatriate, and he joined the Dorians. In his place, Damasichthôn, son of Opheltas and grandson of Peneleôs, became king of the Bœotians: he was succeeded by Ptolemæus, who was himself followed by Xanthus. A war having broken out at that time between the Athenians and Bœotians, Xanthus engaged in single combat with Melanthus son of Andropompus, the champion of Attica, and perished by the cunning of his opponent. After the death of Xanthus, the Bœotians passed from kingship to popular government.[32] As Melanthus was of the lineage of the Neleids, and had migrated from Pylus to Athens in consequence of the successful establishment of the Dorians in Messênia, the duel with Xanthus must have been of course subsequent to the Return of the Herakleids.

[32] Pausan. ix. 5, 8.

Here, then, we have a summary of alleged Bœotian history between the Siege of Troy and the Return of the Herakleids, in which no mention is made of the immigration of the mass of Bœotians from Thessaly, and seemingly no possibility left of fitting in so great and capital an incident. The legends followed by Pausanias are at variance with those adopted by Thucydidês, but they harmonize much better with Homer.

So deservedly high is the authority of Thucydidês, that the migration here distinctly announced by him is commonly set down as an ascertained datum, historically as well as chronologically. But on this occasion it can be shown that he only followed one amongst a variety of discrepant legends, none of which there were any means of verifying.

Pausanias recognized a migration of the Bœotians from Thessaly, in early times anterior to the Trojan war;[33] and the account of Ephorus, as given by Strabo, professed to record a series of changes in the occupants of the country: First, the non-Hellenic Aones and Temmikes, Leleges and Hyantes; next, the Kadmeians, who, after the second siege of Thêbes by the Epigoni, were expelled by the Thracians and Pelasgians, and retired into Thessaly, where they joined in communion with the inhabitants of Arnê,—the whole aggregate being called Bœotians. After the Trojan war, and about the time of the Æolic emigration, these Bœotians returned from Thessaly and reconquered Bœotia, driving out the Thracians and Pelasgians,—the former retiring to Parnassus, the latter to Attica. It was on this occasion (he says) that the Minyæ of Orchomenus were subdued, and forcibly incorporated with the Bœotians. Ephorus seems to have followed, in the main, the same narrative as Thucydidês, about the movement of the Bœotians out of Thessaly; coupling it, however, with several details current as explanatory of proverbs and customs.[34]

[33] Pausan. x. 8, 3.

[34] Ephor. Fragm. 30, ed. Marx.; Strabo, ix. pp. 401-402. The story of the Bœotians at Arnê, in Polyænus (i. 12), probably comes from Ephorus.

Diodôrus (xix. 53) gives a summary of the legendary history of Thêbes from Deukalion downwards: he tells us that the Bœotians were expelled from their country, and obliged to return into Thessaly during the Trojan war, in consequence of the absence of so many of their brave warriors at Troy; they did not find their way back into Bœotia until the fourth generation.

The only fact which we make out, independent of these legends, is, that there existed certain homonymies and certain affinities of religious worship, between parts of Bœotia and parts of Thessaly, which appear to indicate a kindred race. A town named Arne,[35] similar in name to the Thessalian, was enumerated in the Bœotian Catalogue of Homer, and antiquaries identified it sometimes with the historical town Chæroneia,[36] sometimes with Akræphium. Moreover, there was near the Bœotian Korôneia a river named Kuarius, or Koralius, and a venerable temple dedicated to the Itonian Athênê, in the sacred ground of which the Pambœotia, or public council of the Bœotian name, was held; there was also a temple and a river of similar denomination in Thessaly, near to a town called Iton, or Itônus.[37] We may from these circumstances presume a certain ancient kindred between the population of these regions, and such a circumstance is sufficient to explain the generation of legends describing migrations backward and forward, whether true or not in point of fact.

[35] Stephen. Byz. v. Ἄρνη, makes the Thessalian Arnê an ἄποικος of the Bœotian.

[36] Homer, Iliad, ii.; Strabo, ix. p. 413; Pausan. ix. 40, 3. Some of the families at Chæroneia, even during the time of the Roman dominion in Greece, traced their origin to Peripoltas the prophet, who was said to have accompanied Opheltas in his invading march out of Thessaly (Plutarch, Cimôn, c. 1).

[37] Strabo, ix. 411-435; Homer, Iliad, ii. 696; Hekatæus, Fr. 338, Didot.

The fragment from Alkæus (cited by Strabo, but briefly, and with a mutilated text,) serves only to identify the river and the town.

Itônus was said to be son of Amphiktyôn, and Bœôtus son of Itônus (Pausan. ix. 1, 1. 34, 1: compare Steph. Byz. v. Βοιωτία) by Melanippê. By another legendary genealogy (probably arising after the name _Æolic_ had obtained footing as the class-name for a large section of Greeks, but as old as the poet Asius, Olympiad 30), the eponymous hero Bœôtus was fastened on to the great lineage of Æolus, through the paternity of the god Poseidôn, either with Melanippê or with Arnê, daughter of Æolus (Asius, Fr. 8, ed. Düntzer; Strabo, vi. p. 265; Diodôr. v. 67; Hellanikus ap. Schol. Iliad. ii 494). Two lost plays of Euripidês were founded on the misfortunes of Melanippê, and her twin children by Poseidôn,—Bœôtus and Æolus (Hygin. Fab. 186; see the Fragments of Μελανίππη Σοφὴ and Μελανίππη Δεσμῶτις in Dindorf’s edition, and the instructive comments of Welcker; Griech. Tragöd. vol. ii. pp. 840-860).

What is most important to remark is, that the stories of Thucydidês and Ephorus bring us out of the mythical into the historical Bœotia. Orchomenus is Bœotized, and we hear no more of the once-powerful Minyæ: there are no more Kadmeians at Thêbes, nor Bœotians in Thessaly. The Minyæ and the Kadmeians disappear in the Ionic emigration, which will be presently adverted to. Historical Bœotia is now constituted, apparently in its federative league, under the presidency of Thêbes, just as we find it in the time of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars.

SECTION III.—EMIGRATIONS FROM GREECE TO ASIA AND THE ISLANDS OF THE ÆGÆAN.

1. ÆOLIC.—2. IONIC.—3. DORIC.

To complete the transition of Greece from its mythical to its historical condition, the secession of the races belonging to the former must follow upon the introduction of those belonging to the latter. This is accomplished by means of the Æolic and Ionic migrations.

The presiding chiefs of the Æolic emigration are the representatives of the heroic lineage of the Pelopids: those of the Ionic emigration belong to the Neleids: and even in what is called the Doric emigration to Thêra, the Œkist Thêras is not a Dorian but a Kadmeian, the legitimate descendant of Œdipus and Kadmus.

The Æolic, Ionic, and Doric colonies were planted along the western coast of Asia Minor, from the coasts of the Propontis southward down to Lykia (I shall in a future chapter speak more exactly of their boundaries); the Æolic occupying the northern portion, together with the islands of Lesbos and Tenedos; the Doric occupying the southernmost, together with the neighboring islands of Rhodes and Kôs; and the Ionic being planted between them, comprehending Chios, Samos, and the Cycladês islands.

1. ÆOLIC EMIGRATION.

The Æolic emigration was conducted by the Pelopids: the original story seems to have been, that Orestês himself was at the head of the first batch of colonists, and this version of the event is still preserved by Pindar and by Hellanikus.[38] But the more current narratives represented the descendants of Orestês as chiefs of the expeditions to Æolis,—his illegitimate son Penthilus, by Erigonê daughter of Ægisthus,[39] together with Echelatus and Gras, the son and grandson of Penthilus, together with Kleuês and Malaus, descendants of Agamemnôn through another lineage. According to the account given by Strabo, Orestês began the emigration, but died on his route in Arcadia; his son Penthilus, taking the guidance of the emigrants, conducted them by the long land-journey through Bœotia and Thessaly to Thrace;[40] from whence Archelaus, son of Penthilus, led them across the Hellespont, and settled at Daskylium on the Propontis. Gras, son of Archelaus, crossed over to Lesbos and possessed himself of the island. Kleuês and Malaus, conducting another body of Achæans, were longer on their journey, and lingered a considerable time near Mount Phrikium, in the territory of Lokris; ultimately, however, they passed over by sea to Asia and took possession of Kymê, south of the Gulf of Adramyttium, the most considerable of all the Æolic cities on the continent.[41] From Lesbos and Kymê, the other less considerable Æolic towns, spreading over the region of Ida as well as the Trôad, and comprehending the island of Tenedos, are said to have derived their origin.

[38] Pindar, Nem. xi. 43; Hellanic. Fragm. 114, ed. Didot. Compare Stephan. Byz. v. Πέρινθος.

[39] Kinæthon ap. Pausan. ii. 18, 5. Penthilids existed in Lesbos during the historical times (Aristot. Polit. v. 10, 2).

[40] It has sometimes been supposed that the country called Thrace here means the residence of the Thracians near Parnassus; but the length of the journey, and the number of years which it took up, are so specially marked, that I think Thrace in its usual and obvious sense must be intended.

[41] Strabo, xiii. p. 582. Hellanikus seems to have treated of this delay near Mount Phrikium (see Steph. Byz. v. Φρίκιον). In another account (xiii. p. 621), probably copied from the Kymæan Ephorus, Strabo connects the establishments of this colony with the sequel of the Trojan war: the Pelasgians, the occupants of the territory, who had been the allies of Priam, were weakened by the defeat which they had sustained and unable to resist the emigrants.

Though there are many differences in the details, the accounts agree in representing these Æolic settlements as formed by the Achæans expatriated from Lacônia under the guidance of the dispossessed Pelopids.[42] We are told that in their journey through Bœotia they received considerable reinforcements, and Strabo adds that the emigrants started from Aulis, the port from whence Agamemnôn departed in the expedition against Troy.[43] He also informs us that they missed their course and experienced many losses from nautical ignorance, but we do not know to what particular incidents he alludes.[44]

[42] Velleius Patercul. i. 4: compare Antikleidês ap. Athenæ. xi. c. 3; Pausanias, iii. 2, 1.

[43] Strabo, ix. p. 401.

[44] Strabo, i. p. 10.

2. IONIC EMIGRATION.

The Ionic emigration is described as emanating from and directed by the Athenians, and connects itself with the previous legendary history of Athens, which must therefore be here briefly recapitulated.

The great mythical hero Thêseus, of whose military prowess and errant exploits we have spoken in a previous chapter, was still more memorable in the eyes of the Athenians as an internal political reformer. He was supposed to have performed for them the inestimable service of transforming Attica out of many states into one. Each dême, or at least a great many out of the whole number, had before his time enjoyed political independence under its own magistrates and assemblies, acknowledging only a federal union with the rest under the presidency of Athens: by a mixture of conciliation and force, Thêseus succeeded in putting down all these separate governments, and bringing them to unite in one political system, centralized at Athens. He is said to have established a constitutional government, retaining for himself a defined power as king, or president, and distributing the people into three classes: Eupatridæ, a sort of sacerdotal noblesse; Geômori and Demiurgi, husbandmen and artisans.[45] Having brought these important changes into efficient working, he commemorated them for his posterity by introducing solemn and appropriate festivals. In confirmation of the dominion of Athens over the Megarid territory, he is said farther to have erected a pillar at the extremity of the latter towards the Isthmus, marking the boundary between Peloponnêsus and Iônia.

[45] Plutarch, Thêseus, c. 24, 25, 26.

But a revolution so extensive was not consummated without creating much discontent; and Menestheus, the rival of Thêseus,—the first specimen, as we are told, of an artful demagogue,—took advantage of this feeling to assail and undermine him. Thêseus had quitted Attica, to accompany and assist his friend Peirithöus, in his journey down to the under-world, in order to carry off the goddess Persephonê,—or (as those who were critical in legendary story preferred recounting) in a journey to the residence of Aidôneus, king of the Molossians in Epirus, to carry off his daughter. In this enterprise, Peirithöus perished, while Thêseus was cast into prison, from whence he was only liberated by the intercession of Hêraklês. It was during his temporary absence, that the Tyndarids Castôr and Pollux invaded Attica for the purpose of recovering their sister Helen, whom Thêseus had at a former period taken away from Sparta and deposited at Aphidnæ; and the partisans of Menestheus took advantage both of the absence of Thêseus and of the calamity which his licentiousness had brought upon the country, to ruin his popularity with the people. When he returned, he found them no longer disposed to endure his dominion, or to continue to him the honors which their previous feelings of gratitude had conferred. Having, therefore, placed his sons under the protection of Elephenôr, in Eubœa, he sought an asylum with Lykomêdês, prince of Scyros, from whom, however, he received nothing but an insidious welcome and a traitorous death.[46]

[46] Plutarch, Thêseus, c. 34-35.

Menestheus, succeeding to the honors of the expatriated hero, commanded the Athenian troops at the Siege of Troy. But though he survived the capture, he never returned to Athens,—different stories being related of the place where he and his companions settled. During this interval, the feelings of the Athenians having changed, they restored the sons of Thêseus, who had served at Troy under Elephenôr, and had returned unhurt, to the station and functions of their father. The Theseids Demophoôn, Oxyntas, Apheidas, and Thymœtês had successively filled this post for the space of about sixty years,[47] when the Dorian invaders of Peloponnêsus (as has been before related) compelled Melanthus and the Neleid family to abandon their kingdom of Pylus. The refugees found shelter at Athens, where a fortunate adventure soon raised Melanthus to the throne. A war breaking out between the Athenians and Bœotians, respecting the boundary tract of Œnoê, the Bœotian king Xanthus challenged Thymœtês to single combat: the latter declining to accept it, Melanthus not only stood forward in his place, but practised a cunning stratagem with such success as to kill his adversary. He was forthwith chosen king, Thymœtês being constrained to resign.[48]

[47] Eusebius, Chronic. Can. pp. 228-229, ed. Scaliger; Pausan. ii. 18, 7.

[48] Ephorus ap. Harpocration. v. Ἀπατούρια: Ἔφορος ἐν δευτέρῳ, ὡς διὰ τὴν ὑπὲρ τῶν ὁρίων ἀπάτην γενομένην, ὅτι πολεμούντων Ἀθηναίων πρὸς Βοιωτοὺς ὑπὲρ τῆς τῶν Μελαινῶν χώρας, Μέλανθος ὁ τῶν Ἀθηναίων βασιλεὺς Ξάνθον τὸν Θηβαῖων μονομαχῶν ἀπέκτεινεν. Compare Strabo, ix. p. 393.

Ephorus derives the term Ἀπατούρια from the words signifying a trick with reference to the boundaries, and assumes the name of this great Ionic festival to have been derived from the stratagem of Melanthus, described in Conôn (Narrat. 39) and Polyænus (i. 19). The whole derivation is fanciful and erroneous, and the story is a curious specimen of legend growing out of etymology.

Melanthus and his son Kodrus reigned for nearly sixty years, during which time large bodies of fugitives, escaping from the recent invaders throughout Greece, were harbored by the Athenians: so that Attica became populous enough to excite the alarm and jealousy of the Peloponnesian Dorians. A powerful Dorian force, under the command of Alêtês from Corinth and Althæmenês from Argos, were accordingly despatched to invade the Athenian territory, in which the Delphian oracle promised them success, provided they abstained from injuring the person of Kodrus. Strict orders were given to the Dorian army that Kodrus should be preserved unhurt; but the oracle had become known among the Athenians,[49] and the generous prince determined to bring death upon himself as a means of salvation to his country. Assuming the disguise of a peasant, he intentionally provoked a quarrel with some of the Dorian troops, who slew him without suspecting his real character. No sooner was this event known, than the Dorian leaders, despairing of success, abandoned their enterprise and evacuated the country.[50] In retiring, however, they retained possession of Megara, where they established permanent settlers, and which became from this moment Dorian,—seemingly at first a dependency of Corinth, though it afterwards acquired its freedom and became an autonomous community.[51] This memorable act of devoted patriotism, analogous to that of the daughters of Erechtheus at Athens, and of Menœkeus at Thêbes, entitled Kodrus to be ranked among the most splendid characters in Grecian legend.

[49] The orator Lykurgus, in his eulogium on Kodrus, mentions a Delphian citizen named Kleomantis, who secretly communicated the oracle to the Athenians, and was rewarded by them for doing so with σίτησις ἐν Πρυτανείῳ (Lycurg. cont. Leocrat. c. 20).

[50] Pherekydês, Fragm. 110, ed. Didot; Vell. Paterc. i. 2; Conôn, Narr. 26; Polyæn. i. c. 18.

Hellanikus traced the genealogy of Kodrus, through ten generations, up to Deukaliôn (Fragment 10, ed. Didot.)

[51] Strabo, xiv. p. 653.

Kodrus is numbered as the last king of Athens: his descendants were styled Archons, but they held that dignity for life,—a practice which prevailed during a long course of years afterwards. Medon and Neileus, his two sons, having quarrelled about the succession, the Delphian oracle decided in favor of the former; upon which the latter, affronted at the preference, resolved upon seeking a new home.[52] There were at this moment many dispossessed sections of Greeks, and an adventitious population accumulated in Attica, who were anxious for settlements beyond sea. The expeditions which now set forth to cross the Ægean, chiefly under the conduct of members of the Kodrid family, composed collectively the memorable Ionic Emigration, of which the Ionians, recently expelled from Peloponnêsus, formed a part, but, as it would seem, only a small part; for we hear of many quite distinct races, some renowned in legend, who withdraw from Greece amidst this assemblage of colonists. The Kadmeians, the Minyæ of Orchomenus, the Abantês of Eubœa, the Dryopes; the Molossi, the Phokians, the Bœotians, the Arcadian Pelasgians, and even the Dorians of Epidaurus,—are represented as furnishing each a proportion of the crews of these emigrant vessels.[53] Nor were the results unworthy of so mighty a confluence of different races. Not only the Cyclades islands in the Ægean, but the great islands of Samos and Chios, near the Asiatic coast, and ten different cities on the coast of Asia Minor, from Milêtus in the south to Phokæa in the north, were founded, and all adopted the Ionic name. Athens was the metropolis or mother city of all of them: Androklus and Neileus, the Œkists of Ephesus and Milêtus, and probably other Œkists also, started from the Prytaneium at Athens,[54] with those solemnities, religious and political, which usually marked the departure of a swarm of Grecian colonists.

[52] Pausan. vii. 2, 1.

[53] Herodot. i. 146; Pausan. vii. 2, 3, 4. Isokratês extols his Athenian ancestors for having provided, by means of this emigration, settlements for so large a number of distressed and poor Greeks at the expense of Barbarians (Or. xii. Panathenaic. p. 241).

[54] Herodot. i. 146; vii. 95; viii 46. Vellei. Paterc. i. 4. Pherekydês Frag. 111, ed. Didot.

Other mythical families, besides the heroic lineage of Nêleus and Nestôr, as represented by the sons of Kodrus, took a leading part in the expedition. Herodotus mentions Lykian chiefs, descendants from Glaukus son of Hippolochus, and Pausanias tells us of Philôtas descendant of Peneleôs, who went at the head of a body of Thebans: both Glaukus and Peneleôs are commemorated in the Iliad.[55] And it is a remarkable fact mentioned by Pausanias (though we do not know on what authority), that the inhabitants of Phokæa,—which was the northernmost city of Iônia on the borders of Æolis, and one of the last founded,—consisting mostly of Phokian colonists under the conduct of the Athenians Philogenês and Dæmôn, were not admitted into the Pan-Ionic Amphiktyony until they consented to choose for themselves chiefs of the Kodrid family.[56] Proklês, the chief who conducted the Ionic emigrants from Epidaurus to Samos, was said to be of the lineage of Iôn, son of Xuthus.[57]

[55] Herodot. i. 147; Pausan. vi. 2, 7.

[56] Pausan. vii. 2, 2; vii. 3, 4.

[57] Pausan. vii. 4, 3.

Of the twelve Ionic states constituting the Pan-Ionic Amphiktyony—some of them among the greatest cities in Hellas—I shall say no more at present, as I have to treat of them again when I come upon historical ground.

3. DORIC EMIGRATIONS.

The Æolic and Ionic emigrations are thus both presented to us as direct consequences of the event called the Return of the Herakleids: and in like manner the formation of the Dorian Hexapolis in the south-western corner of Asia Minor: Kôs, Knidus, Halikarnassus, and Rhodes, with its three separate cities, as well as the Dorian establishments in Krête, Melos, and Thêra, are all traced more or less directly to the same great revolution.

Thêra, more especially, has its root in the legendary world. Its Œkist was Thêras, a descendant of the heroic lineage of Œdipus and Kadmus, and maternal uncle of the young kings of Sparta, Eurysthenês and Proklês, during whose minority he had exercised the regency. On their coming of age, his functions were at an end: but being unable to endure a private station, he determined to put himself at the head of a body of emigrants: many came forward to join him, and the expedition was farther reinforced by a body of interlopers, belonging to the Minyæ, of whom the Lacedæmonians were anxious to get rid. These Minyæ had arrived in Laconia, not long before, from the island of Lemnos, out of which they had been expelled by the Pelasgian fugitives from Attica. They landed without asking permission, took up their abode and began to “light their fires” on Mount Taygetus. When the Lacedæmonians sent to ask who they were, and wherefore they had come, the Minyæ replied that they were sons of the Argonauts who had landed at Lemnos, and that, being expelled from their own homes, they thought themselves entitled to solicit an asylum in the territory of their fathers: they asked, withal, to be admitted to share both the lands and the honors of the state. The Lacedæmonians granted the request, chiefly on the ground of a common ancestry,—their own great heroes, the Tyndarids, having been enrolled in the crew of the Argô: the Minyæ were then introduced as citizens into the tribes, received lots of land, and began to intermarry with the preëxisting families. It was not long, however, before they became insolent: they demanded a share in the kingdom (which was the venerated privilege of the Herakleids), and so grossly misconducted themselves in other ways, that the Lacedæmonians resolved to put them to death, and began by casting them into prison. While the Minyæ were thus confined, their wives, Spartans by birth, and many of them daughters of the principal men, solicited permission to go in and see them: leave being granted, they made use of the interview to change clothes with their husbands, who thus escaped and fled again to Mount Taygetus. The greater number of them quitted Laconia, and marched to Triphylia, in the western regions of Peloponnêsus, from whence they expelled the Paroreatæ and the Kaukones, and founded six towns of their own, of which Lepreum was the chief. A certain proportion, however, by permission of the Lacedæmonians, joined Thêras, and departed with him to the island of Kallistê, then possessed by Phœnician inhabitants, who were descended from the kinsmen and companions of Kadmus, and who had been left there by that prince, when he came forth in search of Eurôpa, eight generations preceding. Arriving thus among men of kindred lineage with himself, Thêras met with a fraternal reception, and the island derived from him the name, under which it is historically known, of Thêra.[58]

[58] Herodot. iv. 145-149; Valer. Maxim. iv. c. 6; Polyæn.