chieftain. It is added that he used the victory wisely and mildly; that he permitted the ancient inhabitants, after resigning a share of their lands to the Ætolian invaders, to retain the remainder as independent owners ; that he granted several privileges to Dius, the deposed king, and maintained unimpaired the sacred honours of Augeas and the other native heroes. The substance of this account may be well founded, though there can be little doubt that the new settlement was followed by migration from this, as from other parts of Peloponnesus. Motives of policy may have concurred with those of national affinity, in disposing the Eleans to a friendly union with the followers of Oxylus. They are described as engaged in constant wars with their southern neighbours, the people of Pisa, and the subjects of Nestor, and they were probably not unwilling to admit, and even to purchase by some sacrifices, an accession of strength which established their superiority. The conquest produced no other immediate revolution on the north-western side of the Peninsula. The territory of Pisa continued, long after, to be governed by its native princes, who owned no subjection to Elis. The remainder of the country, afterwards comprised under the name of Elis, whether it was still under the dominion of the house of Neleus, or had changed its masters, retained its independence for several centuries; though we shall see it occupied, after no long time, by a new colony.

It is said that Oxylus, fearing lest the sight of the fertile land, which had been promised as his reward, might tempt the Heracleids to violate their compact with him, led them, not along the western coast, but through Arcadia, into the region which they claimed as their patrimony. We hear of no opposition made to the invaders by the Arcadians; on the contrary, Cypse

1 Degmenus the Epean came armed with a bow, but was levelled with the ground by the sling of the Etolian Pyræchmes: Strabo, viii. p. 557.The street Siopé (silence) at Elis, was believed to preserve the remembrance of an adventure, which implies that Elis was a walled town, and for a time besieged by Oxylus, Paus. vi. 23. 6. Compare Strabo, viii. 337. 358.

lus, who is called king of the Arcadians, gave his daughter in marriage to Cresphontes. But, as Arcadia was at this time most probably divided into a number of small states, this friendly disposition of one does not exclude the possibility of resistance having been offered by others; and this may have been the beginning of the struggle between Tegea and Sparta. Here however the invaders effected no settlement, but proceeded to the conquest of the countries subject to the house of Atreus, and now governed by Tisamenus, son of Orestes. Tradition varied greatly as to the fate of Tisamenus himself: according to one legend, he fell fighting against the Heracleids1; according to another 2, he withdrew from his territories, and led all the Achæans who desired independence against the Ionians on the coast of the Corinthian gulf. He is said at first to have proposed to the Ionians to unite his people with them, on condition of being admitted to a fair share of the land; and that it was only the jealousy of the Ionian princes, who feared lest Tisamenus should become sole king of the united nation, that prevented his proposal from being accepted. The contest was decided by arms, and the issue was in favour of the Achæans. The Ionians, after their defeat, took shelter in Helicé, their principal town, but at length capitulated with the conquerors for leave to quit the country. Henceforth this part of Peloponnesus bore the name of Achaia; according to one account, Tisamenus was slain in the decisive battle, and buried in Helicé, whence, at a later period, the Spartans, by command of the Delphic oracle, transported his bones to Lacedæmon; but another tradition supposed him to have reigned in Achaia after the departure or subjugation of the Ionians. 4 After some years, a part of the Achæans, under Agorius, a descendant of Agamemnon, found a settlement in Elis, invited, it is said, by Oxylus, who was enjoined by an oracle to share his new dominions with one of the Pelopids.5

1 Apollodor ii. c. 8. 3. 5.
3 Paus. vii. 1. 8.

4 Polyb. ii. 41.

2 Paus. vii. 1. 8.
5 Paus. v. 4. 3.

The motive of this invitation may have been to establish a claim to the possession of Pisa, the ancient seat of Pelops. The dislodged Ionians first sought refuge among their kinsmen in Attica, and, when the land became too narrow for them, followed the example of the Æolians, and, joined by swarms of fugitives and adventurers of various races, made for the coast of Asia.

After the death or retreat of Tisamenus, the poetical legend of the conquest represents the Heracleids as only busied with the partition of his kingdom. Aristodemus, as it was believed every where, except at Sparta 1, had not lived to enter Peloponnesus, but had fallen at Delphi, by a thunderbolt, or a shaft of Apollo; or, as another tale ran, by the hands of assassins, related to the house of Atreus. 2 He had left twin sons, Procles and Eurysthenes, who succeeded to his claim of an equal share with Temenus and Cresphontes. Three altars were erected, and on each a sacrifice was made to the divine father of Hercules. Then three lots were cast into an urn filled with water. It had been agreed that the lots were to be stones, and that the first drawn should give possession of Argos, the second of Lacedæmon, the third of Messenia. But Cresphontes, to secure the fairest portion, threw a clod of earth into the water, which, being dissolved, remained at the bottom of the vessel, while the lots of his competitors were drawn.3 According to another form of the legend, Argos had been reserved for Temenus, who then conspired with Cresphontes to defraud the children of Aristodemus.4 After the partition was completed, each of the three altars was found occupied by a portent, from which the diviners augured the destiny and character of the people to which it belonged. A toad was seen resting on that of Argos; a warning that she must abstain from ambitious aggression, and remain content with her natural bounds. The restless hostility of Lacedæmon was prefigured by a serpent; the craft which she imputed to

1 Herod. vi. 52.

3 Apollod. ii. 8. 4. 2.

2 Apollod. ii. 8. 2. 9. Paus. iii. 1. 6.
4 Paus, iv. 3. 5.

her weaker neighbour, Messenia, by a fox. The descendants of Hercules then took quiet possession of their allotted shares.

This poetical legend, as well as other narratives of the same events which wear a more historical aspect, has undoubtedly crowded transactions together which must have occupied many years, probably many generations. The great revolution, which imposed a foreign yoke on the warlike Achæans, was certainly not effected by a momentary struggle. We cannot indeed distinctly trace the steps by which the conquest was really achieved, but fragments of apparently genuine tradition remain to show, what might indeed have been safely conjectured in the absence of positive information, that it was, in general, the tardy fruit of a hard contest. The numbers of the Dorians were probably every where greatly inferior to those of the enemy, and seem to be rather over than under-rated when they are estimated at 20,000 warriors. This inequality may have been in some degree compensated by the advantages which their arms, their mode of fighting, tactics, and discipline, may have given them in the field. The Achæan bands, accustomed perhaps to depend much on the prowess of their leaders, and furnished with no weapons capable of resisting the long Dorian spear, and of making an impression on the broad shield, which, hanging from the shoulder to the knees, covered the whole body of the warrior, may have been easily borne down by the steady charge of their deep and serried phalanx. But on the other hand the art of besieging was even in later times foreign to Dorian warfare, and much slighter fortifications than those of the Larissa of Argos, of Tiryns, and Mycenae, would have sufficed to deter the invaders from the thought of attacking them. But, without balancing the resources of the contending nations, we find that, in fact, the issue of the war was not decided either by pitched battles, or regular sieges. Traditions, which may be trusted, since they contradict notions which had become generally current on the

subject, prove that the Dorian chieftains adopted a different plan for the subjugation of the country; one which, though tedious, was safer, and better adapted to their means and situation. It consisted in occupying a strong post in the neighbourhood of the enemy's city, and wearing him out by a continued series of harassing excursions. The remembrance of two such stations was preserved to later ages; and the glimpse they afford of the manner in which the conquest was effected, is sufficient to show the groundlessness of the common belief, that the fall of Tisamenus was attended by a sudden and complete triumph of the Dorians. The history of the Turks, at a period when they stood nearly at the same level of civilisation, affords a not uninteresting parallel. While the Turkish empire was yet confined to a small district at the foot of the Mysian Olympus, the rich and strongly fortified cities of Brusa and Nice excited the ambition of Othman, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. But the force and skill of his tribe were unequal to the task of reducing them by a direct assault, and he therefore occupied forts in the neighbourhood of each, and pressed them with an irregular but wearisome blockade, which kept the garrisons in constant fear of a surprise, and cut off all their ordinary communications with the surrounding country. At the end of ten years, Brusa was so exhausted by this lingering operation, that it capitulated; and in four years more Nice followed its example.1 A similar plan was pursued by that division of the Dorians which undertook the conquest of Argolis. Between three and four miles from Argos, on the western side of the gulf, is a hillock, which, in the time of Pausanias, was still covered with buildings. Among them was a monument of Temenus, whence the place was called Temenium, which then continued to be honoured with religious rites by the Dorians of Argos. The Temenium, says Pausanias, received its name from Temenus, the son of Aristomachus; for he took possession of the ground,

1 V. Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, i. p. 75. and 101.