Hestiæotis, and Strabo believed that this name was transferred from Euboea to the north of Thessaly, by a colony which had been forced to emigrate by the Perrhæbians: we should otherwise have presumed that the Thessalian region had been the mother country. There was also an Attic township named Histiæa, which led some writers to think that the Euboean Histians were of Attic origin. In the same quarter of Eubœa was a town, and perhaps a district, which bore the remarkable name of Hellopia, the same which Hesiod gives to the country about Dodona. It is even said that the whole of Euboea was once called Hellopia; and it is added, that it received this name from Hellops, a son of Ion 1, which might seem to confirm the supposition that the Ionians were a Hellenic race, if it were not more probable that this legend was occasioned by the numerous Ionian colonies which passed over from Attica to the island.-But though this confusion of uncertain accounts about the early population of Euboea precludes all conjecture as to the origin of Xuthus, drawn from the side on which he, appears to have entered Attica, still the tradition which connected him with the house of Æolus is strengthened by the peculiar rites which distinguished the inhabitants of the plain of Marathon, and which seem to mark a Hellenic descent.2 The union of Xuthus and Creusa undoubtedly implies that this settlement exerted considerable influence over the fortunes of Attica; and it was a necessary consequence that Xuthus and Ion should be brought into near relation to one another: but, in any other sense, we see no evidence of a Hellenic conquest, either in Attica or the Peloponnesian Ionia. Of the supposed break in the succession of the native kings, we shall have occasion to speak again. The force of any argument drawn from the language of Attica, must depend on the conception we form of the original relation between the Pelasgian and Hellenic race. The difference between

1 Strabo, x. p. 445.

2 Paus. i. 15. S., and 32. 4.

the dialect from which those of Attica and the Asiatic Ionia issued, and the Eolian or Doric, does not fall much short of that which was to have been expected according to the view here taken of the Ionians; and for several generations it may have been continually lessened by a growing intercourse between Attica and the neighbouring Hellenic states.

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CHAP. V.

THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE.

THE period included between the first appearance of the Hellenes in Thessaly, and the return of the Greeks from Troy, is commonly known by the name of the heroic age, or ages. The real limits of this period cannot be exactly defined. The date of the siege of Troy is only the result of a doubtful calculation; and, from what has been already said, the reader will see that it must be scarcely possible to ascertain the precise beginning of the period: but still, so far as its traditions admit of any thing like a chronological connection, its duration may be estimated at six generations, or about two hundred years. We have already described the general character of this period, as one in which a warlike race spread from the north over the south of Greece, and founded new dynasties in a number of little states; while, partly through the impulse given to the earlier settlers by this immigration, and partly in the natural progress of society, a similar state of things arose in those parts of the country which were not immediately occupied by the invaders; so that every where a class of nobles entirely given to martial pursuits, and the principal owners of the land whose station and character cannot perhaps be better illustrated than when compared to that of the chivalrous barons of the middle ages became prominent above the mass of the people, which they held in various degrees of subjection. The history of the heroic age is the history of the most celebrated persons belonging to this class, who, in the language of poetry, are called heroes. The term hero is of doubtful origin, though it was clearly a title of honour; but, in the poems of Homer,

it is applied not only to the chiefs, but also to their followers, the freemen of lower rank, without however being contrasted with any other, so as to determine its precise meaning. In later times its use was narrowed, and in some degree altered: it was restricted to persons, whether of the heroic or of after ages, who were believed to be endowed with a superhuman, though not a divine, nature, and who were honoured with sacred rites, and were imagined to have the power of dispensing good or evil to their worshippers; and it was gradually combined with the notion of prodigious strength and gigantic stature. Here however we have only to do with the heroes as men. The history of their age is filled with their wars, expeditions, and adventures; and this is the great mine from which the materials of the Greek poetry were almost entirely drawn. But the richer a period is in poetical materials, the more difficult it usually is to extract from it any that are fit for the use of the historian; and this is especially true in the present instance. Though what has been transmitted to us is perhaps only a minute part of the legends which sprang from this inexhaustible source, they are sufficient to perplex the inquirer by their multiplicity and their variations, as well as by their marvellous nature. The pains taken by the ancient compilers to reduce them to an orderly system, have only served, in most cases, to disguise their original form, and thus to increase the difficulty of detecting their real foundation. It would answer no useful purpose to repeat or abridge these legends, without subjecting them to a critical examination, for which we cannot afford room: we must content ourselves with touching on some which appear most worthy of notice, either from their celebrity, or for the light they throw on the general character of the

1 In Homer, it is used as the German Rechen in the Nibelungenlied. So too in Hesiod (Op. et D. 155-171.), all the warriors before Thebes and Troy seem to be included under the name. Afterwards it was limited to the most eminent persons of the heroic age; not however to distinguish them from their own contemporaries, but to contrast them with the men of a later and inferior generation.

period, or their connection, real or supposed, with subsequent historical events.

We must pass very hastily over the exploits of Bellerophon and Perseus, and we mention them only for the sake of one remark. The scene of their principal adventures is laid out of Greece, in the East. The former, whose father Glaucus is the son of Sisyphus, having chanced to stain his hands with the blood of a kinsman, flies to Argos, where he excites the jealousy of Prœtus, and is sent by him to Lycia, the country where Prœtus himself had been hospitably entertained in his exile. It is in the adjacent regions of Asia that the Corinthian hero proves his valour by vanquishing ferocious tribes and terrible monsters. Perseus too has been sent over the sea by his grandfather Acrisius, and his achievements follow the same direction, but take a wider range: he is carried along the coasts of Syria to Egypi, where Herodotus heard of him from the priests, and into the unknown lands of the South. There can be no doubt that these fables owed many of their leading features to the Argive colonies which were planted at a later period in Rhodes, and on the south-west coast of Asia. But still it is not improbable that the connection implied by them between Argolis and the nearest parts of Asia, may not be wholly without foundation. We proceed however to a much more celebrated name, on which we must dwell little longer - that of Hercules. It has been a subject of long dispute, whether Hercules was a real or a purely fictitious personage; but it seems clear that the question, according to the sense in which it is understood, may admit of two contrary answers, both equally true. When we survey the whole mass of the actions ascribed to him, we find that they fall under two classes. The one carries us back into the infancy of society, when it is engaged in its first struggles with nature for existence and security: we see him cleaving rocks, turning the course of rivers, opening or stopping the subterraneous outlets of lakes, clearing the earth of noxious animals,