a considerable use of the art of writing, which they unquestionably possessed, it has been thought incredible that they should not have communicated it to the Greeks. On the other hand, it might be observed that, though we do not know the exact time at which the Greek commerce with the Phoenicians began, it plainly appears that, down to the time of Homer, this commerce was a passive one on the side of the Greeks; and there is nothing to show that the intercourse between the two nations might not have been carried on without the aid of writing. But it will be more useful and interesting to inquire whether the Homeric poems themselves supply any proofs or traces of the use or knowledge of it among the poet's countrymen. This inquiry includes two questions: one, whether the art is mentioned or alluded to in these poems; and another, whether it is implied in the existence of the poems themselves.

Ionians called their books or rolls, though made | sive navigation and commerce seems to require from the Egyptian papyrus, skins, because this was the material which they had used at an earlier period, as many barbarous nations even then continued to do. It cannot be denied that this account appears at first sight perfectly clear and probable, and yet there are some points in it which, on closer inspection, raise a suspicion of its accuracy. The vague manner in which Herodotus describes the Ionians, who were neighbours of the Phoenician colony, seems to imply that what he says of them is not grounded on any direct tradition, but is a mere hypothesis or inference. The fact which he appears to have ascertained is, that the Asiatic Ionians, who, as we shall afterward see, were, according to his own view, a very mixed race, were beforehand with the other Greeks in the art of writing they called their books or rolls by a name which probably expressed the Phoenician word for the same thing, and they described their alphabet by the epithet which marked its Oriental origin. But as the historian thought he had sufficient grounds for believing that it had been first communicated to the Greeks by the Phoenician colony at Thebes, he concludes that the Asiatic Ionians must have received it, not directly from the Phoenicians, but through their European forefathers. Still, if this was the process by which he arrived at his conclusion, it would not follow that he was in error. But if we examine the only reasons which he assigns for his belief that the most ancient Greek alphabet was found at Thebes, we find that they are such as we cannot rely on, though to him they would seem perfectly demonstrative. He produces three inscriptions in verse, which he had himself seen, engraved on some vessels in a temple at Thebes, and in characters which he calls Cadmean, and which he says nearly resembled the Ionian. These inscriptions purported to record donations made to the temple before the Trojan war, and to be contemporaneous with the acts which they record-mentioned it, and which can scarcely be exed. And that they were really ancient need not be questioned, though imitations of an obsolete mode of writing were not uncommon in Greece; but their genuineness cannot be safely assumed as the ground of an argument. Other grounds he may indeed have had, but since he does not mention them, they are to us none, and we are left to form our own judgment on the disputed question of the Cadmean colony at Thebes.

Modern writers, who attribute a high antiquity to the Greek alphabet, sometimes lay great stress on the frequent allusions which the later Greek authors, more particularly the poets, make to the art of writing as practised in the heroic ages. Thus Euripides exhibits Agamemnon despatching a letter to Clytemnestra; Æschylus describes the shield of one of the chiefs at the siege of Thebes as bearing a threatening inscription in letters of gold. But the most obvious inference from this fact would seem to be, that as the poets who lived when the art was familiar to every one were naturally led to introduce allusions to it in their descriptions of the heroic ages, so, if Homer should be found nowhere to have spoken of it, his silence would be a strong proof that he was very little acquainted with it. It cannot, however, be said that he is absolutely silent on the subject; for there is a celebrated passage in the Iliad in which he certainly may be supposed to have

plained without some violence in any other manner. It is the history of the calumniated Bellerophon, who is sent by Prœtus, king of Argos, to his ally, the Lycian king lobates, with a closed tablet, in which Prætus had traced many deadly signs; that is, as the sequel shows, had given instructions to his friend secretly to destroy the bearer. We cannot here enter into a minute examination of this passage, which has been the subject of controversy, perhaps more earnest than the case deserved. It has been disputed whether the tablet contained alphabet

Still it may be asked whether letters must not have been introduced into Greece, if not precisely in the manner, and at the epoch sup-ical characters or mere pictures. The former posed by Herodotus, yet by the Phoenicians, and seems to be the simplest and easiest interpretbefore the time of Homer, and even before the ation of the poet's words: but if it is admitted, Trojan war? The Homeric poems indicate that it only proves-what could hardly be questiona commerce had been carried on, at least for ed even without this evidence-that the poet some generations, between Greece and Phoe- was not so ignorant of the art as never to have nicia. Substances are mentioned as familiar heard of its existence. Such a degree of igto the Greeks, which could only have been pro- norance would be almost incredible, after the cured after the Phoenicians had begun to make Phoenicians had long frequented the Grecian distant voyages towards the west; for it was ports. And, on the other hand, if the tablet conundoubtedly from them that the Greeks receiv-tained only a picture, or a series of imitative ed their tin and amber.* And as this exten- figures, it would be evident that, where the

That it is amber, and not a mixture of gold and silver, that Homer means by the word "λEKTрor, will probably no longer be doubted by any one who reads Buttmann's essay on this subject, in his Mythologus, ii., p. 337.

*

It would make no difference in the argument, or would strengthen it, to suppose that the characters were conventional ciphers. but such a supposition is hardly worth

mentioning.

want of alphabetical writing was so felt, and had begun to be so supplied by drawing, the step by which the Greeks adopted the Phoenician characters must have been very soon taken; and it might be imagined that the poet was only describing a ruder state of the art, which had acquired a new form in his own time.

distinctly perceived or enjoyed by any one but himself! It has likewise been urged by several modern critics, that the structure of the Homeric verse furnishes a decisive proof that the state of the Greek language, at the time when these poems were written, was different from that in which they must have been composed; and by others it has been thought inconsistent with the law of continual change, to which all languages are subject, that the form in which these works now appear should differ so slightly as it does from that of the later Greek literature, if it really belonged to the early period in which they were first recited.

These difficulties are, it must be owned, in a great measure removed by the hypothesis that each poem is an aggregate of parts composed by different authors; for then the poet's memory might not be too severely tasked in retain

show that they belong to different bards and to different periods. But the original unity of each poem is maintained by arguments derived partly from the uniformity of the poetical character, and partly from the apparent singleness of plan which each of them exhibits. Even those who do not think it necessary to suppose an original unity of design in the Iliad, still conceive that all its parts are stamped with the style of the same author. But with others, from the time of Aristotle to our own day, the plan itself has been an object of the warmest admiration;t and it is still contended that the intimate coherence of the parts is such as to exclude the hypothesis of a multiplicity of au

*

When, however, it is considered that throughout the Homeric poems, though they appear to embrace the whole circle of the knowledge then possessed by the Greeks, and enter into so many details on the arts of life, only one ambiguous allusion occurs to any kind of writing, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion, that the art, though known, was still in its infancy, and was very rarely practised. But the very poems from which this conclusion has been drawn would seem to overthrow it, if it should be admitted that they were originally committed to writing; for they would then seeming his work during its progress, and might be to afford the strongest proof that, at the time aided by more frequent recitations. But this of their composition, the art had made very hypothesis has been met by a number of obconsiderable progress, and that there was no jections, some of which are not very easily. want, either of materials or of skill, to prevent satisfied. That the Iliad and the Odyssey are it from coming into common use. Hence the both the work of the same poet, is not, indeed, original form of these poems becomes a ques- now very generally maintained; and indications tion of great historical as well as literary im- have been observed, which seem to distinguish portance. The Greeks themselves, almost uni- the one from the other, both as to the poetical versally, and the earliest writers the most unan-style and the state of society described, and to imously, believed them both to have been the work of the same author, who, though nothing was known of his life, or even his birthplace, was commonly held to have been an Asiatic Greek. The doubt, whether his poems were from the first written, seems hardly to have been very seriously entertained by any of the ancients, and in modern times it has been grounded chiefly on the difficulty of reconciling such a fact with the very low degree in which the art of writing is supposed to have been cultivated in the Homeric age. But as it has been generally thought incredible that a poem of such a length as the Iliad, or even the Odyssey, and still more, that two such should have been produced and preserved without the aid of wri-thors. If, however, the objections to that hyting, most of those who deny that they were pothesis rested here, we should think that they originally written have also adopted the hy- might be surmounted without great difficulty. pothesis that neither of them is the work of a For as to the uniformity of style-not to mensingle mind, but that each was gradually com- tion that it is far from perfect, and that both anposed of a number of smaller pieces, the pro-cient and modern critics have perceived an apductions of different authors, which were arti-pearance of great inequality in this respect-it ficially fitted together so as to form a whole. might be observed that many examples in our This hypothesis, however, does not rest simply own literature prove how difficult it may often on the doubtful assumption that the art of wri-be to distinguish a difference of style where ting was not sufficiently advanced among the several poets have combined to produce one Greeks in the Homeric age to afford the poet work and those who admit that the Iliad and the means of penning or dictating an Iliad. For the Odyssey may have been composed by difthere is a farther and greater difficulty in con- ferent poets, have scarcely any ground, so far ceiving how so great a whole should have been as the style is concerned, for insisting that the either written or planned, except for readers. same cannot have been the case with either of Yet all the intimations it contains as to the them separately. As to the unity of plan, much earlier condition of Greek poetry, and all that must depend on the precise form in which the we know from other sources of its subsequent disputed hypothesis is presented to the imagiprogress, conspire to assure us that the Ho- nation. If, indeed, the parts out of which the meric poems were designed for oral delivery Iliad or the Odyssey was formed are supposed But in this case, how improbable must it have to have been at first wholly independent of each been that an audience should be found to listen other, the supposition that they could have been for successive days till the recitation of such so pieced together as to assume their present works could be brought to an end! And how could the poet have been led to form so elaborate a plan, which he could scarcely hope to make known at all, and which could never be

:

*Such is Mr. Clinton's view: Fasti, vol. iii., p. 375, 379. This admiration has never been more ably justified than by Hug, in the analysis which he has given in his Erfindung der Buchstabenschrift.

explicable oblivion.

appearance is involved in almost insurmount- on this supposition, have been ouried in an inable difficulties. For how, it may be asked, did the different poets in each instance happen to According to every hypothesis, the origin of confine themselves to the same circle of sub- the Homeric poetry is wrapped in mystery, as jects, as to the battles before Troy, and the re- must be the case with the beginning of a new turn of Ulysses? Must we suppose, with a period, when that which precedes it is very obmodern critic,* that in our two great poems we scure. And it would certainly be no unparalsee the joint labours of several bards, who drew leled or surprising coincidence if the production their subjects from an earlier Iliad and Odys- of a great work, which formed the most mosey, which contained no more than short nar- mentous epoch in the history of Greek literaratives of the same events, but yet had gained ture, should have concurred with either the first such celebrity for their author that the great- introduction or a new application of the most est poets of the succeeding period were forced important of all inventions. Nor can it be thought to adopt his name, and to content themselves extravagant to attribute such an application to with filling up his outline? This would be an the poet, who discovers such a range and depth expedient only to be resorted to in a last emer- of observation in every sphere of nature and of gency. But it seems not to be required if we art that was placed within his reach. That the give a different turn to the hypothesis, and con- art of writing already existed, though probably ceive that the Iliad and the Odyssey, after the in a very rude state, before his eyes, it is scarcemain event in each had been made the subject ly possible to doubt; and it may easily be conof a shorter poem, grew under the hands of suc- ceived that, by the new aids which it afforded, cessive poets, who, guided in part by popular it may have roused his genius to a new and tradition, supplied what had been left wanting bolder flight. Perhaps it may not be necessaby their predecessors, until in each case the cu-ry to inquire whether he calculated his work riosity of their hearers had been gratified by a for readers or for hearers. To secure his great finished whole. conceptions from perishing with him might be But though the principal objections which a sufficient motive for a poet, even if he was have been raised against the hypothesis, on the unable to anticipate the future harvest of fame ground just mentioned, may perhaps be silen- which they were to yield. It seems a waste ced in some such way as this, there are some of labour to invent a complicated hypothesis others which are less tractable. If the compo- merely for the sake of postponing such a use sition of the Homeric poems may be explained of the art of writing by a few generations. The without the aid of writing, by breaking them up interval which elapsed between the Homeric age into smaller parts, the mode in which they were and the following period of epic poetry, which transmitted is not yet accounted for. A poem will be hereafter noticed, cannot be precisely which might not be too long for the author him- ascertained; but within this interval, if not beself to retain in his memory without any artifi- fore, the Homeric poems must have been colcial help, might still be of such length that no lected, and, consequently, committed to writing, common listener could hope to make himself because they manifestly formed the basis or numaster of the whole, after any number of reci-cleus of the epic cycle. It is easier to suppose tations, unless they were laboriously adapted by that they were written at first.* the author to this specific purpose. But who can imagine a Homer so employed? This, however, it has been thought, was the occasion which called forth the astonishing powers of the rhapsodists; a class of persons who, though endowed with some poetical invention, possessed a much more extraordinary tenacity of memory, which enabled them, after a few hearings, accurately to remember many hundreds of verses. It is still a questionable point whether such a faculty as this, though found here and there in individuals, ever existed in any class of men; and it is equally doubtful whether, in the Homeric age, a class of men existed which devoted itself to such an occupation. At the same time, it is evident that even the smallest entire portions into which the Homeric poems can rationally be resolved, are constructed on such a scale, that their authors must have relied on some sure method of transmitting these treasures to posterity. They do not belong to the same class as the extemporaneous effusions, which may have flowed from the lips of a Phe-with which should be compared Mueller's review in the mius and a Demodocus, when suddenly called upon to entertain their audience on a given theme; and one strong objection against assigning them to a multiplicity of authors is, that the poet who gave birth to any one of these portions must have produced much more, which would,

Hermann, in the Wiener Jahrbücher, vol. liv.

CHAPTER VII.

THE RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS.

THE Trojan war, as we find it described, was not, according to any conception that may be formed of the magnitude of the expedition and the conquest, an event that necessarily produced any important effects on the condition of Greece. There is no apparent reason why, assoon as it was ended, all the surviving princes and chiefs might not have returned to their dominions, to enjoy the fruits of their victory in honourable repose, and have transmitted their sceptres in peace to their children. The Odyssey, accordingly, represents parts of Greece as continuing, after the war, under the rule of the

* Since this question was first agitated by Wolf, it has the writings of Nitzsch, De Historia Homeri Meletematu, been placed on a very different footing, more especially by

Goettingen Gel. Anzeigen, Feb., 1831, and Kreuser (VorHomerische Rhapsoden). Hermann's remarks in the review fragen ueber Homeros, but more especially his later work, referred to in a preceding note are also a valuable contribu tion. There is a useful review of some other less imporCrusius, in Jahn's Jahrbücher für Philologie, u. Pädagogik, tant works connected with the subject, by Baumgarten1827. An argument which confines itself to the writing of Wolf and Heyne can now add but little to our means of forming a judgment on the question, and must keep some of its most important elements out of sight.

RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS.

111

over the chain of Pindus from Epirus, descended into the rich plains on the banks of the Peneus, and began the conquest of the country, which finally derived its name from them. As they came from the Thesprotian Ephyra, an ancient seat of the Pelasgians, it seeins probaconfirmed by the fact that, though they never ble that they belonged to that race; and this is rose to a level in civilization with the other Greeks, they spoke the same language. A few slight peculiarities in their national dress, and the reproach of fickleness, faithlessness, and coarse sensuality, which in after times clung to their character, are hardly sufficient grounds eign origin-an Illyrian tribe, which adopted for supposing that they were of a totally forthe speech of the conquered people. Their fabulous progenitor, Thessalus, was called by some a son of Hercules; by others, of Hæmon, from whom Thessaly had anciently received the name of Hæmonia. The motive for inventing the last genealogy may have been the wish to establish a legitimate title to their conquest; and, as migrations appear to have taken place very early from Thessaly to Epirus, their claim might not be absolutely unfounded. They were likewise said to have been headed by descendants of Antiphus and Phidippus, who traced their line through Thessalus to Hercules, though in the Homeric catalogues these two chiefs lead their forces from Cos and the neigh

heroes who fought at Troy; and we might infer from this description, that the great national struggle was followed by a period of general tranquillity. On the other hand, the poet signifies that, after the fall of Troy, the victors incurred the anger of the gods, who had before espoused their cause. with one example of the calamities which the The Odyssey is filled Divine wrath brought upon the Greeks, in the person of Ulysses, king of Ithaca. Menelaus himself, though we find him in the poem reigning in great prosperity at Lacedæmon, was only permitted to reach home after a long course of wandering over distant seas and lands. Ajax, son of Oileus, perished in the waves. memnon was murdered, on his return to Argos, Agaby Agisthus, who in his absence had seduced his wife, Clytemnestra, and who usurped the throne of the murdered king, which was not recovered before the end of several years, by Orestes, the rightful heir. Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, Philoctetes, one of the Thessalian chiefs, Diomed of Argos, and Idomeneus of Crete, are expressly said to have returned safe with all their followers. But the poet does not inform us in what state they found their dominions, or how long they retained possession of them; and in the legends of later times they are related to have been forced by various causes to quit their native land, and to settle in foreign regions. We cannot, indeed, place any reliance on these and other similar traditions, be-bouring islands on the coast of Asia. Here, cause the hint which the Odyssey suggests of the disasters which befell the Greeks after their victory might easily be expanded by the imagination of later poets; and still more, because the vanity of colonies was always interested in tracing their origin to a remote period and a renowned name. enough that, in many instances, the long abBut in itself it is probable sence of the chiefs might give occasion to usurpations or revolutions, and to the expulsion or voluntary migration of royal or noble families. Still, how far this was actually the case must remain uncertain. ever, of such an event as the Trojan war, must One inevitable result, howhave been to diffuse among the Greeks a more general knowledge of the isles and coasts of the gean, and to leave a lively recollection of the beauty and fertility of the regions in which their battles had been fought. This would direct the attention of future emigrants, in search of new homes, towards the same quarter; and the fact that the tide of migration really set in this direction first, when the state of Greece became unsettled, may not unreasonably be thought to confirm the reality of the Trojan war.

too, there may have been truth at the bottom: though the nation was Pelasgian, some of their chiefs may have been of pure Hellenic blood. The Thessalians were always famous for their love of horses and their skill in horsemanship; and it was probably to their cavalry, an arm at mainly indebted for their success. this time new to the Greeks, that they were vance, however, was gradual; and they experienced a long resistance from the Achæans, Perrhæbians, and Magnetes.* Among the tribes Their adwhich yielded soonest to the shock were the of Eolis, where the Eolians, its ancient occuBoeotians, who inhabited the central territory piers, appear to have been mingled with a different race, which gave its name to the whole population. It was commonly believed to have come from Thebes, having been driven thence by the Thracians and Pelasgians, after the city had been destroyed in its war with Argos:† and this is certainly credible enough in itself; though here, again, we may suspect a fabrication, designed to prove that they were not intruders in their new possessions, but only reFor sixty years, however, after the fall of and exercised a just retaliation in expelling the conquered Boeotia as their rightful inheritance, Troy, history is silent as to any great change in Pelasgian usurpers; and hence, though the curthe face of Greece. At the end of that period, rent story is sanctioned by the Homeric cataif not sooner, began a long train of wars, in- logue and by Thucydides, the fabulous genevasions, and migrations, which finally intro-alogy, which makes their ancestor, Bootus, a duced a new order of things, both in Greece itself, and in most of the surrounding countries. The original source of this memorable revolution probably lay out of the limits of Greece, and beyond the reach of historical investigation. We are only able to trace it as far as Thessaly, which was the scene of its first visible outbreak. Here, how soon after the Trojan war we are unable to conjecture, the Thessalians, crossing

• 111., 132.

son of Itonus and of Arné, daughter of Æolus, may perhaps convey more simply and faithfully all that was really known of their earlier history and relations. For Arné and Iton were two of their principal towns; and the temple of the Itonian Athene, on the River Coralius, their national sanctuary. The Thessalian conquest the freemen from olis: all who remained was attended with a very general migration of

Arist., Polit., ii., 9.

† Strabo, ix., p. 40.

either were, or now became serfs, under the which we shall find the Plateans retaining peculiar name of Penests.* They directed throughout the whole course of their history, their march towards the country henceforth may have arisen, or have gained strength, from called Bootia. Its subjugation seems to have the consciousness of a different origin. The been effected slowly, and not without a hard conquest of Bœotia, as that of Thessaly, drove struggle, as may be collected from the story many from their homes; and a great body of preserved by Ephorus, of an armistice conclu- these fugitives, joined by bands of adventurers ded between the Thracians of Helicon and the from Peloponnesus, who were led by descendBoeotians for a certain number of days, which ants of Agamemnon, embarked for Asia. These the former interpreted so strictly that they did expeditions constituted the Eolian migration, not scruple to surprise the Baotian camp during so called from the race which took the principal the night; and from the strange legend of the share in it, though it included many others. Its embassy sent by the Boeotians and the Pelas- fortunes will be related hereafter. Many famgians to the oracle of Dodona, which betrayed ilies also sought refuge in Attica and Peloponits partiality to the latter by enjoining their nesus. The Pelasgians, who fortified a part of enemies to perpetrate some impious outrage.+ the citadel of Athens, and afterward took posThe Boeotian Arne, which is celebrated by Ho- session of Lemnos, are said to have migrated mer for its fruitful vineyards, was undoubtedly from Boeotia. Their allies, the Thracians, recalled after the Thessalian, and must have been tired westward, and settled for a time in the one of the points first occupied by the invaders. neighbourhood of Parnassus, where they entireIn the time of Strabo, its site was forgotten, ly disappear from the view of history. and it was only remembered that it had stood It is not clear how far, or in what manner not far from the Lake Copais. Some placed it these events was connected with another still so near the lake as to have been covered by the more important-the migration of the Dorians rising of the waters; some found it on the east- from their seats at the northern foot of Parnasern side, in Acræphion, which was said to have sus to Peloponnesus-which Thucydides fixes been, from the beginning, a part of the Theban twenty years later than the expulsion of the territory: Chæronea, too, was said to have borne Boeotians from Thessaly. It is not certain the name of Arne; but the most ancient, at least, whether the Dorians were driven out of Thesseems to have stood near Coronea. It was in saly by the same shock to which the Bootians that neighbourhood that the national festival of gave way, or whether they had previously setthe Pambaotia was celebrated with games, on tled at the head of the vale of the Cephisus, the banks of a river Coralius, near the temple and in the adjacent region. Causes enough of the Itonian Athené; names which clearly may be imagined, which in this period of genindicate the earliest establishment formed by eral convulsion might induce them to quit Doris, the invaders, while the scenes which they left though the little tract which afterward bore behind them in the vicinity of the Thessalian that name does not seem to have been infested Arné were fresh in their memory. It would by any hostile inroads. But as it probably formseem to have been from this central positioned only a part of their territory, the rest may now that the Boeotians carried their arms, either successively, or in separate bodies at once, northward against the opulent Orchomenus, and southward against Thebes. A legend which referred the origin of one of the Theban festivals to this epoch, intimates that the army which besieged Thebes was for some time obliged to content itself with ravaging the surrounding country, being unable to make any impression on the town. The fall of Orchomenus and Thebes determined the fate of the whole country. According to the assertion which Thucydides puts into the mouth of the Thebans, in their reply to the captive Platæans, Platæa was conquered after the rest of Boeotia. The Thebans there speak of having founded the city, after having ejected a motley race which previously occupied it; and this was probably the current opinion at Thebes, being an argument in favour of their claim to supremacy over the Platæans. But the Platæans prided themselves on being an aboriginal people: the only kings they remembered were Asopus and Cithæron; and their heroine, Platea, was the daughter of the river god. The Boeotian name and language may have spread farther than the change that took place in the population of the country; and perhaps the hostility to Thebes, *Пeviorat, labourers. According to some authors (Ar

chemachus in Athen, vi, 85), they were originally called

periora, as clinging to the soil.

+ Strabo, ix., p. 401, 402.

Strabo, ix., p. 411.

◊ Proclus Chrestom., 26, p. 386, ed. Gaisf. Paus., ix., 1, 2.

have been torn from them, and thus have compelled them to seek new seats. The ancient writers, however, assign a motive of a different kind for their migration. They unanimously relate that, after the death of Hercules, his children, persecuted by Eurystheus, took refuge in Attica, and there defeated and slew the ty rant. When their enemy had fallen, they resumed the possession of their birthright in Peloponnesus, but had not long enjoyed the fruits of their victory before a pestilence, in which they recognised the finger of Heaven, drove them again into exile. Attica again afforded them a retreat. When their hopes had revived, an ambiguous oracle encouraged them to believe that, after they had reaped their third harvest, they should find a prosperous passage through the Isthmus into the land of their fathers. But at the entrance of Peloponnesus they were met by the united forces of the Achæans, Ionians, and Arcadians. Their leader, Hyllus, the eldest son of Hercules, proposed to decide the quarrel by single combat; and Echemus, king of Tegea, was selected by the Peloponnesian confederates as their champion. Hyllus fell, and the Heracleids were bound by the terms of the agreement to abandon their enterprise for a hundred years. Yet both Cleodæus, son of Hyllus, and his grandson Aristomachus, renewed his attempt with no better

fortune. After Aristomachus had fallen in battle, the ambiguous oracle was explained to his sons Aristodemus, Temenus, and Cresphontes,