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brother Bias.* Whatever may be the full meaning of these marvellous stories, we see no reason for questioning their historical ground so far as regards the establishment of Æolian chieftains in Argolis; and this event may have contributed to bring the Argive Achæans nearer in language and religion to those of Thessaly. Tradition throws very little light on the manner in which the name of the Achæans was introduced into Laconia. We have seen reason to believe that it was not here where it first arose, though this appears to be Strabo's meaning when he says that Achæus himself settled there. Another statement of the same author, that Achæans came into Laconia with Pelops, stands too insulated, and too little supported by other facts, to deserve much attention. The event may, perhaps, be indicated by the tradition that Eurotas, who succeeded his father Myles, son of Lelex, having no male children, left his kingdom to Lacedæmon, son of Jupiter and Taygeté, who had married his daughter Sparté. These names seem to intimate that a new tribe from the north had gained the ascendant over the Leleges, who inhabited the plain near the coast, where their labours are said to have confined the river named from their king in an artificial channel. After this we read of no change of dynasty, at least till the Trojan war, and we find the Lacedæmonian kings allying themselves by marriage with those of Argolis,+ which seems to confirm our supposition of an original natural affinity between them. This view of the Achæans will perhaps acquire a higher degree of probability when we compare the accounts we have received of the origin of the fourth great division of the Greek nation, the Ionians.

lation they stood to the other branches of the Greek nation; but it is equally evident that, without the help of an historical interpretation, the story can give us none of the information we desire.

According to the most generally received opinion, the Ionians were a Hellenic tribe, who took forcible possession of Attica and a part of Peloponnesus, and communicated their name to the ancient inhabitants. It is a distinct question, whether the conquerors brought this name with them, or only assumed it in their new territories. This last supposition is alone consistent with the legends of Ion, which all treat Xuthus as the founder of the power of the Ionians, and never speak of Ion himself as having migrated into Attica from the north. It might, indeed, be easily imagined that the birth of Ion is a mere fiction, and that Xuthus was the real name of an lonian chief who led his people from Thessaly to Attica. But in this case we should have expected, according to the usual form of the mythical genealogies, to hear of an elder Ion, or, at least, to find some trace of the Ionian name in the north. But none such appears in the quarter where we might reasonably look for it. Theopompus, indeed, derived the name of the Ionian Sea from an Ionius, a native of Issa, who once ruled over its eastern coast ;* other writers from an Italian Iaon. But these traditions, if they are not rather mere conjectures, cannot be connected with our Ionians, because, if their name had been so early celebrated, it would assuredly have occurred in the legends of Thessaly. Hence, even if it were certain that they were a Hellenic race in the ordinary sense of the word -that is, that they sprang from the Thessalian Hellas-we must still abandon all hope of tracing the origin of their name to that region, and must either adopt the common explanation of it, or suppose that it was derived from some other more probable, but totally unknown cause, and the obscure legend of Xuthus will be the only link that connects the Ionians by any direct evidence with the people of Hellen.

The early history of the Ionians, though peculiarly interesting on account of its relation to the ancient institutions of Attica, is, perhaps, the most obscure that has yet come under our view. We have already seen the manner in which Ion is connected by the current genealogy with the family of Hellen. The Athenians listened with complacency to a different legend, more flattering to their national vanity, accord- It may seem, however, that in this case no ing to which he was the son, not of Xuthus, such. evidence is wanted, and that the fact is but of Apollo: a story which furnished Euripi- sufficiently ascertained by proofs of a different des with the subject of one of his most inge- kind, yet of irresistible force. Herodotus innious plays. The poet represents Ion, not only forms us that the inhabitants of Attica were as the founder of the Ionian name, but as suc-originally Pelasgians: we know that they were ceeding to the throne of Erechtheus. On the other hand, he recognises in Xuthus a foreign chief who had succoured the Athenians in their war with Euboea, and had thus earned the hand of the king's daughter; and he ventures to contradict the common tradition so far as to call Achæus and Dorus the issue of this marriage. All these variations, devised to gratify the Athenians, tend to confirm the substance of the common story by showing that it kept its ground in spite of the interest which Athenian patriotism might have in distorting or suppressing it. And we may reasonably suspect that if, in its form, it deviates from the truth, it is rather so as to disguise than to exaggerate the importance of the event to which it refers. It must not, therefore, be neglected when we are inquiring who the Athenians were, and in what re*Compare Herod., ix., 34. Paus., ii., 16-18. Apollod., ii., 2-4. Paus., iii., 1, 4. Apollod., ii., 2, 2, 1.

afterward a part of the Hellenic nation, yet the same historian expressly asserts that the Attic Ionians had never changed their seats: and it may appear that the only way of reconciling these facts is to suppose that a body of Hellenic settlers had established themselves among the old Pelasgian population, and had given it a new name and a new nature. Herodotus himself undoubtedly lends some colour to this supposition. The change of name, indeed, would not, according to his view, be an argument of any weight; for he asserts that such changes had repeatedly taken place in earlier times, while the Pelasgian character of the people continued unaltered. But he speaks of a trans

327) also mentions a river lon, a tributary of the Peneus, *Strabo, vii., p. 317. Tzetz., Lyc., 630. Strabo (p. and a town named Alalcomene on its banks; and there

seems to have been a river of the same name in the Peloponnesian lonia. Dionys. Per., 416, couples it with the Melas and the Crathis. t Eustath., Dian. Per., 92,

THE HELLENIC NATION.

formation by which the Attic Pelasgians be-
came Hellenes; and he infers, from his own
observations on the scattered remnants of the
Pelasgian race which he found elsewhere, that
this event must have been accompanied by a
complete change in the language of Attica.
These are effects which imply some powerful
cause: Herodotus, indeed, does not describe
the manner in which they were wrought, but it
seems clear that he referred them to the epoch
which was marked by the appearance of Ion;
for to Ion, in common with all other authors, he
attributes not only the introduction of a new
national name, but also the institution of the
four tribes into which the people of Attica was
anciently divided, and which were retained in
several of the Ionian colonies. Of these tribes
we shall speak more fully hereafter; we here
allude to them only so far as they bear upon the
present question; and, for this purpose, it will
suffice to mention that one of them was, as its
name imports, a tribe of warriors, and that, to
a very late period, we find in Attica a powerful
body of nobles, possessing the best part of the
land, commanding the services of a numerous
dependant class, and exercising the highest au-
thority in the state. With this we must com-
bine the fact, that Ion is described by Herodo-
tus, as well as by other writers, as the leader
of the Attic armies:* a title which easily sug-
gests the notion that the warrior tribe, and the
noble class just mentioned, were no other than
the Hellenic conquerors, who are supposed to
have overpowered the native Pelasgians. The
Attic legends may even seem to render it prob-
able that this revolution went a step farther,
and that, although the break was studiously
concealed, the strangers took possession of the
throne, and put an end to the line of the Pelas-
gian kings. We are told that Poseidon, the
great national god of the Ionians, destroyed
Erechtheus and his house;† and Euripides,
who mentions this tradition, considers Ion as
the founder of a new dynasty.

These arguments would, perhaps, be per-
fectly convincing, if, on the other hand, there
were not strong reasons for believing that the
name of the Ionians is of much higher antiqui-
ty than the common legend ascribes to it, and
that it prevailed in Peloponnesus and in Attica
before the Hellenes made their appearance in
Thessaly. We have already quoted a passage
in which Herodotus contrasts the Dorians as a
Hellenic race, with the Ionians as Pelasgians.
It is true that he adopted the general opinion,
that these Pelasgians had been newly named
after Ion; but there would have been no mean-
ing in his words if he had believed that the
Ionians were really a Hellenic tribe, which had
given its name to the conquered people. Their
identity with the Pelasgians was the result of
his own researches; the origin of the name
was an unimportant fact, as to which he was
content to follow the received tradition. His
meaning appears still more clearly from the
manner in which he speaks of the Cynurians,
a people who inhabited a little tract situate be-
tween Argolis and Laconia. He remarks that,

+ Apollod. iii.. 15, 5, 1.
• Her, villi, 44, στρατάρχης. Paus., 1., 31, 3, πολέμαρ
Ton. 284. He was ingulfed in a chasm which Poseidon
opened with his trident.

of the seven nations which in his time inhabit-
ed Peloponnesus, two were aboriginal, and
were then seated in the same land where they
had dwelt of old; these were the Arcadians
and the Cynurians. The Achæans, too, he ob-
serves, had not quitted Peloponnesus, though
they no longer occupied the same part of it;
but the Cynurians, who were an aboriginal
people, appeared to be the only Ionians, though,
having become subject to the Argives, they had
assumed the Dorian character. Here, again,
it is clear that the epithet Ionian is used as
equivalent to Pelasgian, or ante-Hellenic. The
authority of Herodotus, therefore, seems to di-
rect us to Peloponnesus as one of the earliest
seats of the name. And this is also implied in
the form which the authors, followed by Pausa-
nias, gave to the story of Ion, for it was told in
two ways. Ion was said by some to have re-
mained in Attica, and to have given his name
to the country, from which a colony afterward
migrated to gialus; while others, as we have
seen, carried Xuthus himself into Peloponne-
sus, and supposed that Ion, after having estab-
lished his name and his power there, led an
army to the aid of the Athenians, and thus ex-
tended his influence over Attica. The latter
tradition must have been that which Herodotus
adopted, for he also speaks of Xuthus as having
come to Peloponnesus. This was indeed ex-
plained by the above-mentioned story, that Xu-
thus had been expelled from Attica by the sons
of Erechtheus; but, unless we admit this gross-
ly improbable tale, the result of the whole is,
that the Peloponnesian Ionians were, at least,
of equal antiquity with those of Attica. And
to this conclusion we are led by the legends of
the southern Ionia; for here, the only king
named before the arrival of Ion is a Selinus,
who takes his name from one of the rivers of
the country, which flowed near Helicé, the
wife of Ion. But, besides this settlement of
chief town of the Ionians, so called, it was said,
from the daughter of Selinus, who became the
the Ionians on the western side of the peninsu-
la, it is clear that they once occupied a great
part of the eastern coast. The legends both
of Sicyon and Corinth spoke of a very ancient
connexion between this region and Attica.
Marathon, it was said, the son of Epopeus, one
of the kings of Corinth, who reigned there be-
fore the arrival of the Eolids, had first fled to
the seacoast of Attica, and afterward, return-
ing to his paternal dominions, divided his king-
dom between his two sons, Sicyon and Corin-
thus ; and hence the final fall of the Eolian
dynasty is said to have been accompanied by
the expulsion of the Ionians. Still more dis-
tinct traces of an Ionian population appear at
Træezen and Epidaurus. The people of Trezen
are distinguished in the historical times as the
kinsmen and firm friends of the Athenians.
Their city, as we shall see, was the birthplace
of the great Attic hero; Sphettus and Ana-
phlystus, the sons of Trozen, founded two of
the Attic towns; the strife between Athené
and Poseidon, for the possession of the land,
was equally celebrated in the Attic and the

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Η Conon., 26. Σισυφίδας ἐκβαλὼν — καὶ τοὺς σὺν αὐτοῖς Ιωνας.

race. Their mutual relation seems to be expressed by the tradition that, at the death of Pandion, his twin sons, Erechtheus and Butes, divided their inheritance, and that Erechtheus succeeded to the kingdom, Butes to the priesthood of Athené and Poseidon.* If these traces do not mislead us, we should be inclined to distinguish two periods in the ancient history of Attica, one of which might be called the priestly, the other the heroic, in the former of which the priesthood was predominant, while in the latter, the nobles or warriors gradually rose to power. The latter period may also be termed the Ionian, and contrasted with the former as the Pelasgian; not, however, because the Ioni

Træzenian legends, and was commemorated on the ancient coins of Trozen by the trident and the head of the goddess.* At Epidaurus, the last king before the Dorian conquest, which will be hereafter related, was said to be a descendant of Ion, and, when driven from his own dominions, takes refuge with his people in Attica. The well-attested antiquity of the Cynurians seems to warrant the assumption that the name of the Ionians had, in very early times, prevailed still more widely on the eastern side of Peloponnesus, and that it was signified by the ancient epithet of Argos, the Iasian, which appears to have preceded that derived from the Achæans. Their growing power may, perhaps, have confined the Ionians within narrow-ans were foreign to the Pelasgians, but because, er limits, and have parted states which were once contiguous. The early predominance of the Ionian name in this quarter might then be connected with the fact that it is used in the books of Moses as a general description of Greece.

during this period, migrations appear to have taken place from Peloponnesus into Attica, which tended at once to fix the Ionian name in the latter country, where a variety of appellations had before been in use, and to strengthen the hands of the warrior class by the accession of new adventurers of the same blood. There is even a sense in which the second of these periods might not improperly be called the Hellenic, not only inasmuch as it was one of gradual approximation to the purely martial and heroic character of the genuine Hellenic states, but also as strangers, apparently of Hellenie origin, now gained a footing in Attica. For so much, at least, the story of Xuthus seems sufficient to prove. The foundation, or occupation, of the Marathonian Tetrapolis, attributed to Xuthus, is evidently connected with that war in which he is said to have aided the Athenians against the Euboeans, and renders it probable that he migrated from the island into Attica: this, however, would throw no light upon his origin. Euboea seems to have been inhabited of old by a variety of races, as its geographical position would lead us to expect: it was among the most ancient seats of the Leleges: its mines very early attracted Phœnician colonists; and it was in Euboea that the Curetes were said first to have put on brazen armour.† Homer describes its inhabitants by the collective name of the Abantes; as to which, the most learned of the ancients were themselves in doubt whether it was connected with the Phocian town of Abæ, or with Abas, the Argive hero. A tract in the northern part of the island was called 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 moth

But still it remains to be considered how this view of the Ionians is to be reconciled with the known state of society in Attica, and with the various indications which it seems to disclose of a foreign conquest, and of two distinct races. The question, however, is not whether any foreign settlers established themselves and became powerful in Attica-for this cannot and need not be denied-but whether the genuine Ionians were a different tribe from the aboriginal Pelasgians; and it may certainly be doubted whether this can be more safely inferred from the institutions attributed to Ion, than from his traditional relation to Xuthus. There seems to be no reason why they might not have been formed in the natural internal progress of society, and have been originally independent of all extraneous causes, though some such may have contributed to ripen and strengthen them. Until it is proved that the Indian, Egyptian, Median castes, and other similar institutions, both in the ancient and modern world, all arose from invasions and conquests, which established the ascendant of more powerful strangers over the children of the soil, the tribes of Ion must be regarded as an equivocal sign; and we cannot conclude that the warriors alone were of Hellenic, the rest of Pelasgian origin. Without laying any stress on the form of the legend, which represented all the tribes as named after as many sons of Ion, and thus placed them all on a level with respect to their descent, we may observe that some of the ancients included a tribe of priests among the four, and that this opinion is strongly confirmed by the Attic traditions, which are mark-er country. There was also an Attic township ed by traces, scarcely to be mistaken, of an ancient priestly caste. This may originally have had the supreme power in its hands; but here, as everywhere else, it could not fail to be accompanied by a class of nobles or warriors, who, however, were undoubtedly not a distinct

named Histiæa, which led some writers to think that the Euboean Histiæans were of Attic origin. In the same quarter of Euboea 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 receivOd., E., 346. Eustath. on I., iii., 258. Perhaps weed this name from Hellops, a son of Ion,‡ which may connect this with the remark of Pausanias (ji., 37, 3), might seem to confirm the supposition that the that, before the return of the Heracleids, the Argives spoke Ionians were a Hellenic race, if it were not the same language with the Athenians. more probable that this legend was occasioned * Apollod., iii., 15, 1, 1. † Steph. Βyz., Διδηψος. Strabo, I., p. 445.

*Paus., ii., 30, 6. Plut., Thes., 6.

+ Paus., ii., 26, 1.

Her., 1., 101. The Magians, a Median tribe. With respect to the hypothesis of a conquest, as the origin of the Indian and Egyptian castes, there are some good remarks in Bohlen, Das alte Indien, ii., p. 38.

THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE.

by the numerous Ionian colonies which passed | belonging to this class, who, in the language of over from Attica to the island. But though poetry, are called heroes. The term hero is of this confusion of uncertain accounts about the doubtful origin, though it was clearly a title of early population of Eubea precludes all conjec- honour; but, in the poems of Homer, it is apture as to the origin of Xuthus, drawn from the plied not only to the chiefs, but also to their folside on which he appears to have entered Atti- lowers, the freemen of lower rank, without, ca, still the tradition which connected him with however, being contrasted with any other, so the house of Aolus is strengthened by the pe- as to determine its precise meaning. In later culiar rites which distinguished the inhabitants times its use was narrowed, and in some deof the plain of Marathon, and which seem to gree altered: it was restricted to persons, mark a Hellenic descent. The union of Xu- whether of the heroic or of after ages, who were thus and Creusa undoubtedly implies that this believed to be endowed with a superhuman, settlement exerted considerable influence over though not a divine nature, and who were honthe fortunes of Attica, and it was a necessary oured with sacred rites, and were imagined to The hisconsequence that Xuthus and Ion should be have the power of dispensing good or evil to brought into near relation to one another; but, their worshippers; and it was gradually comin any other sense, we see no evidence of a bined with the notion of prodigious strength Hellenic conquest either in Attica or the Pelo- and gigantic stature. Here, however, we have ponnesian Ionia. Of the supposed break in the only to do with the heroes as men. succession of the native kings, we shall have tory of their age is filled with their wars, expeoccasion to speak again. The force of any ar- ditions, and adventures; and this is the great gument drawn from the language of Attica mine from which the materials of the Greek must depend on the conception we form of the poetry were almost entirely drawn. But the original relation between the Pelasgian and richer a period is in poetical materials, the more Hellenic race. The difference between the di- difficult it usually is to extract from it any that alect from which those of Attica and the Asi- are fit for the use of the historian; and this is atic Ionia issued, and the Eolian or Doric, does especially true in the present instance. Though not fall much short of that which was to have what has been transmitted to us is, perhaps, been expected, according to the view here ta- only a minute part of the legends which sprang ken of the Ionians; and for several generations, from this inexhaustible source, they are suffivellous nature. The pains taken by the ancient it may have been continually lessened by a cient to perplex the inquirer by their multiplicicompilers to reduce them to an orderly system, growing intercourse between Attica and the ty and their variations, as well as by their marhave only served, in most cases, to disguise neighbouring Hellenic states. 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 THE period included between the first appear- to a critical examination, for which we cannot ance of the Hellenes in Thessaly and the re-afford room: we must content ourselves with turn 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 anything like a chronological connexion, its duration may be estimated at six generations, or about two hun-father, Glaucus, is the son of Sisyphus, having dred years. We have already described the chanced to stain his hands with the blood of a general character of this period as one in which kinsman, flies to Argos, where he excites the a warlike race spread from the north over the jealousy of Protus, and is sent by him to Lycia, south of Greece, and founded new dynasties in the country where Protus himself had been a number of little states; while, partly through hospitably entertained in his exile. It is in the the impulse given to the earlier settlers by this adjacent regions of Asia that the Corinthian immigration, and partly in the natural progress hero proves his valour by vanquishing ferocious of society, a similar state of things arose in tribes and terrible monsters. Perseus, too, has those parts of the country which were not im- been sent over the sea by his grandfather Acrismediately occupied by the invaders; so that ius, and his achievements follow the same dieverywhere a class of nobles entirely given to rection, but take a wider range: he is carried martial pursuits, and the principal owners of along the coasts of Syria to Egypt, where Hethe land-whose station and character cannot, rodotus heard of him from the priests, and into perhaps, be better illustrated than when compa- the unknown lands of the South. There can red 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 Paus., i., 15, 3, and 32, 4.

[graphic]

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

works ascribed to him, so far as they were really accomplished by human labour, may seem to correspond better with the art and industry of the Phoenicians than with the skill and power of a less civilized race. But in whatever way the origin of the name and idea of Hercules may be explained, at least in that which we have distinguished as the second class of legends re

ty, as a Greek hero; and here it may reasonably be asked, whether all or any part of the adventures they describe really happened to a single person, who either properly bore the name of Hercules, or received it as a title of honour.

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 southwest coast of Asia. But still it is not improbable that the connexion 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 a little long-lating to him, he appears, without any ambiguier-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 We must briefly mention the manner in to him, we find that they fall under two classes. which these adventures are linked together in The one carries us back into the infancy of so- the common story. Amphitryon, the reputed ciety, when it is engaged in its first struggles father of Hercules, was the son of Alcæus, who with nature for existence and security: we see is named first among the children born to Perhim cleaving rocks, turning the course of rivers, seus at Mycenæ. The hero's mother, Alcmeopening or stopping the subterraneous outlets na, was the daughter of Electryon, another son of lakes, clearing the earth of noxious animals, of Perseus, who had succeeded to the kingdom. and, in a word, by his single arm effecting works In his reign, the Taphians, a piratical people which properly belong to the united labours of who inhabited the islands called Echinades, near a young community. The other class exhibits the mouth of the Achelous, landed in Argolis, a state of things comparatively settled and ma- and carried off the king's herds. While Electure, when the first victory has been gained, tryon was preparing to avenge himself by invaand the contest is now between one tribe and ding their land, after he had committed his kinganother, for possession or dominion; we see dom and his daughter to the charge of Amphithim maintaining the cause of the weak against ryon, a chance like that which caused the death the strong, of the innocent against the oppress- of Acrisius stained the hands of the nephew or, punishing wrong, and robbery, and sacrilege, with his uncle's blood. Sthenelus, a third son subduing tyrants, exterminating his enemies, of Perseus, laid hold of this pretext to force and bestowing kingdoms on his friends. It Amphitryon and Alcmena to quit the country, would be futile to inquire who the person was and they took refuge in Thebes: thus it hapto whom deeds of the former kind were attrib-pened that Hercules, though an Argive by deuted; but it is an interesting question whether the first conception of such a being was formed in the mind of the Greeks by their own unassisted imagination, or was suggested to them by a different people; in other words, whether Hercules, viewed in this light, is a creature of the Greek, or of any foreign mythology.

scent, and, by his mortal parentage, legitimate heir to the throne of Mycenæ, was, as to his birthplace, a Theban. Hence Boeotia is the scene of his youthful exploits: bred up among the herdsmen of Citharon, like Cyrus and Romulus, he delivers Thespiæ from the lion which made havoc among its cattle. He then frees It is sufficient to throw a single glance at the Thebes from the yoke of its more powerful fabulous adventures called the labours of Hercu- neighbour, Orchomenus; and here we find les, to be convinced that a part of them, at least, something which has more the look of a historbelongs to the Phoenicians and their wandering ical tradition, though it is no less poetical in god, in whose honour they built temples in all its form. The King of Orchomenus had been their principal settlements along the coast of killed in the sanctuary of Poseidon, at Onchesthe Mediterranean. To him must be attributed tus, by a Theban. His successor, Erginus, imall the journeys of Hercules round the shores of poses a tribute on Thebes; but Hercules mutiWestern Europe, which did not become known lates his heralds when they come to exact it, to the Greeks for many centuries after they had and then marching against Orchomenus, slays been explored by the Phoenician navigators. Erginus, and forces the Minyans to pay twice The number to which those labours are confined the tribute which they had hitherto received.* by the legend is evidently an astronomical pe- According to a Theban legend, it was on this riod, and thus itself points to the course of the occasion that he stopped the subterraneous outsun which the Phoenician god represented. The let of the Cephisus, and thus formed the lake event which closes the career of the Greek hero, which covered the greater part of the plain of who rises to immortality from the flames of the Orchomenus. In the mean while Sthenelus pile on which he lays himself, is a prominent had been succeeded by his son Eurystheus, the feature in the same Eastern mythology, and destined enemy of Hercules and his race, at may, therefore, be safely considered as borrow-whose command the hero undertakes his laed from it.* All these tales may, indeed, be re bours. This voluntary subjection of the rightgarded as additions made at a late period to the ful prince to the weak and timid usurper is repGreek legend, after it had sprung up independ-resented as an expiation, ordained by the Delently at home. But it is at least a remarkable coincidence, that the birth of Hercules is assigned to the city of Cadmus; and the great

*See Boettiger, Kunst-Mythologie, p. 37. Mueller. in the Rheinisches Museum, in., p 28.

phic oracle, for a fit of phrensy, in which Hercules had destroyed his wife and children. This, as a poetical or religious fiction, is very happily conceived; but when we are seeking * Apollod., 11., 4, 11.

t Paus., ix., 38, 7.

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