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latest times to occupy the greatest part of Greece with its name and its language. The Achæans are the most celebrated in the heroic poetry, their name being commonly used by Homer to include all the Hellenic tribes which fought before Troy. The Dorians and Ionians rose later to celebrity; but their fame and power greatly surpassed that of the other branches of the nation. It will be convenient to consider the early history of Greece with reference to these four main divisions; and, in order to understand their relation to one another, and to the more ancient inhabitants of the country, it will not be sufficient simply to describe their geographical boundaries, but it will be necessary to follow them, so far as tradition enables us, into the seats in which we find them at the beginning of the historical period, when a new series of convulsions and migrations completely changed their relative condition. We begin with the Æolians.

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Hellen is said to have left his kingdom to Æolus, his eldest son, while he sent forth Dorus and Xuthus to make conquests in distant lands. 2 The patrimony of Æolus is described as bounded by the Asopus and the Enipeus a description which, if the Asopus is the little stream which fell into the Malian gulf near the foot of mount Eta, would nearly correspond with that division of Thessaly which was known in later times by the name of Phthiotis; and accordingly the dominions of Achilles, who reigned in Hellas and Phthia, lay in great part in the vale of the Spercheus. Yet Phthia and Hellas themselves, whether they were different districts, or the same under different names, were situate at the northern foot of mount Othrys; and it was there, according to Thucydides, that the sons of Hellen first established their power. But there was also a part of Thessaly, included in the division afterwards called Thessaliotis, which bore the name of Æolis, and which we are therefore led to suppose must have been one of

1 Strabo, viii. p. 333.

3 Conon. 27.

2 Apollod. i. 7. 3. 1.

the earliest settlements of the Æolians. It lay to the west of the Enipeus, between that river and the Peneus. But the people which appears to have inhabited this district from the remotest period to which we can go back, is the same which afterwards gave its name to Boeotia, so that here, as in Elis and in Euboea, the land and the people would seem to have been called by different names. It is indeed only the name of Æolis that attests the presence of the Eolians in this district : there are no legends to connect it with the house of Bolus, unless it be one which deduces the mythical ancestor of the Boeotians from Amphictyon, the son of Deucalion. We have therefore no means of determining the original relation of these Boeotian Æolians to the Hellenes of Phthia; and can only infer, as well from their name as from the language of the Boeotians, who spoke the Æolian dialect, that they either were from the first, or in time became, kindred tribes. Whether, however, this Æolis, and the Æolians in general, derived their name from a hero called Æolus, may be doubted on the same grounds as the existence of his reputed father. It seems probable that the name is only a different inflexion of the word from which we suppose that of the Hellenes to have been formed.3

To Æolus himself no conquests and no achievements are attributed by the legends of his race. But his sons and their descendants spread the Eolian and the Hellenic name far and wide, and it is in their history that we must seek that of the people. Various accounts were given of the progeny of Æolus: some authors assigned ten sons to him 4; others seven; Hesiod, as we

The Homeric catalogue, indeed, which is implicitly followed by Strabo, (ix. p. 401.), represents the Boeotians as already occupying Boeotia at the time of the Trojan war. But it seems clear from Thucydides (i. 12.), that this is an anachronism, and that they only migrated from Thessaly for the first time sixty years later; though Thucydides, in deference to the catalogue, speaks of an earlier colony. Mueller, Orchom. p. 394.

3 Paus. ix. 1. 1. Boeotus is son of Itonus, son of Amphictyon. The town of Itonus contained the temple of the Itonian Athené, which was the na tional sanctuary of the Baotians. See Strabo, ix. p.411. According to others, he was son of Poseidon and Arné. Diod, iv. 67.

3 "Έλλος, Αίολος.

4 Eustath. ad Dionys. Per. 427. He only mentions Macedo.

Apollod. i. 7. 3. 4. His list includes Deion and Magnes, beside the five

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have seen, named only five,- Cretheus, Athamas, Sisyphus, Salmoneus, and Perieres. To these were sometimes added a Macedo and a Magnes, to indicate that the Macedonians and the Magnesians were of Æolian origin. As to the former, we have no other proof of such an affinity but Magnesia undoubtedly contained many Æolian cities. But the principal settlements of the Æolids in Thessaly lay round the shores of the Pagasæan gulf, and in the fruitful plains near the coast. Here Cretheus himself was said to have founded Iolcus, the port from which the Argonaut afterwards steered; and the neighbouring Phere was thought to have been named after Pheres, one of his sons. In the same region lay Alus, where the memory of the sufferings of Athamas was preserved down to the time of Xerxes, by peculiar rites, and a tract called the Athamantian plain. It is however at least a remarkable coincidence, that on this side of Thessaly, toward the north, the plains round lake Bobe were long inhabited by the Athamanes 2, who in later times appear as one of the Epirot tribes. They are said to have been driven out of their seats at the foot of Pelion by the Lapiths, a half-fabulous people, whom however we find intimately connected with the Eolian Greeks. According to analogy, Athamas would be the mythical ancestor of the Athamanes; and, if the coincidence is not a mere play of chance, his name must have been transferred from them to the legends of the conquering nation.

The Æolians on the gulf of Pagasa appear inseparably blended with the Minyans, a race of great celebrity in the most ancient epic poetry, but whose name seems to have been almost forgotten before the beginning of the period when fable gives place to history. The adventurers who embarked on the Argo

named by Hesiod. To these we must add Cercaphus, whose son Ormenus, the grandfather of Phoenix, founded Ormenium (Strabo, ix. p.438.); and Macareus, who probably represents the Eolians of Lesbus, though by some he was called a son of Crinacus (Diod. v. 81., and Wessel.)

1 Her. vii. 197.

2 Strabo, ix. p. 442. See also Apollod. i. 9. 2. 3.

nautic expedition, of which we shall shortly have occasion to speak, were all called Minyans1, though they were mostly Æolian chieftains, and the same name recurs in the principal settlements which referred their origin to the line of Eolus. Iolcus itself, though founded, as we have seen, by Cretheus, is said to have been inhabited by Minyans; and a still closer affinity is indicated by a legend which describes Minyas, the fabulous progenitor of the race, as a descendant of Eolus.2 There are two ways in which this connection may be explained, between which it is not easy to decide. The Minyans may have been a Pelasgian tribe, originally distinct from the Hellenes: and this may seem to be confirmed by the tradition, that Cretheus, when he founded Iolcus, drove out the Pelasgians who were before in possession of the land.3 But in this case we are led to conclude, from the celebrity to which the Minyans attained in the Greek legends, that they were not a rude and feeble horde, which the Æolians reduced to subjection, but were already so far advanced in civilisation and power, that the invaders were not ashamed of adopting their name and traditions, and of treating them as a kindred people. It may however also be conceived, and perhaps accords better with all that we hear of them, that the appellation of Minyans was not originally a national name, peculiar to a single tribe, but a title of honour, equivalent to that of heroes, or warriors, which was finally appropriated to the adventurous Æolians who established themselves at Iolcus, and on the adjacent coast. If we take this view of it, all the indications we find of the wealth and prosperity of the Minyans will serve to mark the progress of the Æolian states in which the name occurs; and it will only remain doubtful whether the Æolians or Hellenes were not more closely connected with other tribes in the north of Thessaly, among which the name

1 Hence Herodotus (iv. 145.) gives the same name to their posterity in Lemnos.

2 Apoll. Rhod. iii. 1094., and the Scholiast.

3 Schol. on Il. ii., with Paus. iv. 36. 1.

of the Minyans likewise appears, than the common tradition would lead us to suppose.1 In considering the elements of which the Hellenic race was composed, it must not be overlooked that the Dolopes, who were seated on the western confines of Phthia2, and are described in the Iliad as originally subject to its king3, retained their name and an independent existence, as members of the great Hellenic confederacy, to very late times.4

If, according to either of the views just suggested, we consider Minyans and Æolians as the same people, we find the most flourishing of the Æolian settlements in the north of Boeotia. Here the city of Orchomenus rose to great power and opulence in the earliest period of which any recollection was preserved. Homer compares the treasures which flowed into it to those of the Egyptian Thebes. The traveller Pausanias, who was familiar with all the wonders of art in Greece and Asia, speaks with admiration of its most ancient monument, as not inferior to any which he had seen elsewhere. This was the treasury of Minyas, from whom the ancient Orchomenians were called Minyans; and the city continued always to be distinguished from others of the same name, as the Minyean Orchomenus: Minyas, according to the legend, was the first of men who raised a building for such a purpose. His genealogy glitters with names which express the traditional opinion of his unbounded wealth.5 It may be considered as a historical fact, that the kings of Orchomenus reigned over a great part of Boeotia, and that Thebes itself was once tributary to them. The extraordinary wealth of the ruling

We hear of a town called Minya on the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia (compare Steph. Byz. Mivia and 'Aλpewriα), and of a Thessalian Orchomenus Minyeus, Plin. N. H. iv. 8. 3 IX. 483.

2 Strabo, ix. p. 434.

4 Paus. x. 8. 2.3 The name of the Dolopes seems to be that which has dropped out of the list of the Amphictyons in Eschines De F. L. p. 43. 5 Paus. ix. 36. 4. He is the son of Chryses, whose mother is Chrysogenia, 6 Eustathius on Il. ix. 381. p. 758. 1. 22. has a remark which is worth notice, though he does not mention his author. "Orchomenus was a city eminent for its wealth, which however it derived from strangers; for, as it was strongly fortified, many of its neighbours deposited their treasures there." Is this only another way of describing the tribute?