which we shall find the Platæans retaining throughout the whole course of their history, may have arisen, or have gained strength, from the consciousness of a different origin. The conquest of Boeotia, as that of Thessaly, drove many from their homes; and a great body of these fugitives, joined by bands of adventurers from Peloponnesus, who were led by descendants of Agamemnon, embarked for Asia. These expeditions constituted the Eolian migration, so called from the race which took the principal share in it, though it included many others. Its fortunes will be related hereafter. Many families also sought refuge in Attica and Peloponnesus. The Pelasgians, who fortified a part of the citadel of Athens, and afterward took possession of Lemnos, are said to have migrated from Boeotia. Their allies, the Thracians, retired westward, and settled for a time in the neighbourhood of Parnassus, where they entirely disappear from the view of history.

either were, or now became serfs, under the peculiar name of Penests.* They directed their march towards the country henceforth called Bootia. Its subjugation seems to have been effected slowly, and not without a hard struggle, as may be collected from the story preserved by Ephorus, of an armistice concluded between the Thracians of Helicon and the Boeotians for a certain number of days, which the former interpreted so strictly that they did not scruple to surprise the Boeotian camp during the night; and from the strange legend of the embassy sent by the Boeotians and the Pelasgians to the oracle of Dodona, which betrayed its partiality to the latter by enjoining their enemies to perpetrate some impious outrage.† The Baotian Arné, which is celebrated by Homer for its fruitful vineyards, was undoubtedly called after the Thessalian, and must have been one of the points first occupied by the invaders. In the time of Strabo, its site was forgotten, 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 Arné; 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 Boeotians 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 position ed only a part of their territory, the rest may now that the Boeotians carried their arms, either have been torn from them, and thus have comsuccessively, or in separate bodies at once, pelled them to seek new seats. The ancient northward against the opulent Orchomenus, and writers, however, assign a motive of a different southward against Thebes. A legend which kind for their migration. They unanimously referred the origin of one of the Theban festi- relate that, after the death of Hercules, his vals to this epoch, intimates that the army children, persecuted by Eurystheus, took refuge which besieged Thebes was for some time in Attica, and there defeated and slew the tyobliged to content itself with ravaging the sur- rant. When their enemy had fallen, they rerounding country, being unable to make any im-sumed the possession of their birthright in Pelpression on the town. The fall of Orchomenus oponnesus, but had not long enjoyed the fruits 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, Platea 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 Plateans. 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,

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 Cle odæus, son of Hyllus, and his grandson Aris tomachus, renewed his attempt with no better fortune. After Aristomachus had fallen in bat tle, the ambiguous oracle was explained to his sons Aristodemus, Temenus, and Cresphontes,

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.† After some years, a part of the Achæans, under Agorius, a descendant of Agamemnon, found a settlement

that he used the victory wisely and mildly; | and the issue was in favour of the Achæans. that he permitted the ancient inhabitants, after resigning a share of their lands to the Etolian 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 south-in Elis, invited, it is said, by Oxylus, who was ern 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 northwestern 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 afterward 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.

enjoined by an oracle to share his new dominions with one of the Pelopids. 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 Eolians, 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 everywhere, except at Sparta, had not lived to enter Peloponnesus, but had fallen at Delphi It is said that Oxylus, fearing lest the sight by a thunderbolt, or a shaft of Apollo; or, as of the fertile land, which had been promised as another tale ran, by the hands of assassins, rehis reward, might tempt the Heracleids to vio-lated to the house of Atreus.|| He had left late their compact with him, led them, not along twin sons, Procles and Eurysthenes, who sucthe western coast, but through Arcadia into the ceeded to his claim of an equal share with Teregion which they claimed as their patrimony. menus and Cresphontes. Three altars were We hear of no opposition made to the invaders erected, and on each a sacrifice was made to by the Arcadians; on the contrary, Cypselus, the divine father of Hercules. Then three lots who is called king of the Arcadians, gave his were cast into an urn filled with water. It had daughter in marriage to Cresphontes. But, as been agreed that the lots were to be stones, and Arcadia was at this time most probably divided that the first drawn should give possession of into a number of small states, this friendly dis- Argos, the second of Lacedæmon, the third of position of one does not exclude the possibility Messenia. But Cresphontes, to secure the fairof resistance having been offered by others; est portion, threw a clod of earth into the waand this may have been the beginning of the ter, which, being dissolved, remained at the struggle between Tegea and Sparta. Here, bottom of the vessel while the lots of his comhowever, the invaders effected no settlement, petitors were drawn. According to another but proceeded to the conquest of the countries form of the legend, Argos had been reserved for subject to the house of Atreus, and now gov- Temenus, who then conspired with Cresphonerned by Tisamenus, son of Orestes. Tradi- tes to defraud the children of Aristodemus. ** tion varied greatly as to the fate of Tisamenus After the partition was completed, each of himself: according to one legend, he fell fight- the three altars was found occupied by a poring against the Heracleids;* according to an- tent, from which the diviners augured the desother, he withdrew from his territories, and led tiny and character of the people to which it beall the Achæans who desired independence longed. A toad was seen resting on that of against the Ionians on the coast of the Corin- Argos; a warning that she must abstain from thian Gulf. He is said, at first, to have pro- ambitious aggression, and remain content with posed to the Ionians to unite his people with her natural bounds. The restless hostility of them, on condition of being admitted to a fair Lacedæmon was prefigured by a serpent; the share of the land, and that it was only the jeal-craft which she imputed to her weaker neighousy of the Ionian princes, who feared lest Tis-bour, Messenia, by a fox. The descendants of amenus should become sole king of the united Hercules then took quiet possession of their alnation, that prevented his proposal from being lotted shares. accepted. The contest was decided by arms,

This poetical legend, as well as other narratives of the same events which wear a more historical aspect, has undoubtedly crowded

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 Teme nium, 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 and fortified it, and from this position he and his Dorians carried on the war against Tisamenus and the Achæans. † From this account we perceive that Argos was the first object of the invaders' attack; how long it held out we do not learn,

lead us to infer that the eldest of the Heracleids had fallen before his people had effected this conquest; and, in fact, we hear nothing more of his personal exploits. The expeditions by which the Dorian dominion was gradually extended over the northeast of the peninsula are ascribed to his successors: to these we shall return, after having pursued the fortunes of Cresphontes and the heirs of Aristodemus.

transactions together which must have occu- | Nice followed its example * A similar plan pied many years, probably many generations. was pursued by that division of the Dorians 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 everywhere greatly inferior to those of the enemy, and seem to be rather over than underrated 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 giv-but the site of the monument of Temenus would en 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 Mycena, 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 nctions 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 civilization, 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

Homer represents Messenia as subject, at the time of the Trojan war, to the house of Atreus, for Agamemnon offers seven of its towns to Achilles as the price of reconciliation. It constituted a part of the dominions of Menelaus till his death; after which, the Neleid kings of Pylus, who were probably already masters of the western coast, took advantage, it is said, of the weakness of his successors to wrest it from them. At the time of the Dorian invasion, Melanthus filled the throne of Messenia: whether he also reigned over Pylus and Triphylia may be reasonably doubted. The people are said to have been disaffected towards him as a foreigner, and hence to have offered no resistance to the Dorians. Melanthus, in consequence, quitted the country and retired to Attica, where, as we shall see, he became the founder of a house which supplied the Athenian annals with many of their most illustrious names. But the Messenian Pylus seems long to have retained its independence, and to have been occupied for several centuries by one branch of the family of Neleus; for descendants of Nestor are mentioned as allies of the Messenians in their struggle with Sparta in the latter half of the seventh century B.C. There is, however, some reason for doubting that the rest of the country submitted so quietly, as has been generally supposed, to the rule of Cresphontes. Ephorus, indeed, related that he took possession of Messenia, and divided it into five districts, fixing his own residence in a central position in the plain of Stenyclerus; and it seems certain that he founded a new capital there. But, judging from analogy, we should suspect that this was the result, not of choice, but of necessity, because neither Pylus nor Andania, the seat of the ancient kings, were yet in his power, and that it was only the first step towards the conquest of the whole land. Of

* V. Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, i., p. 75 and 101. + Paus., ii., 38, 1. + Strabo, viii., p. 359. Paus., iv., 3, 6. Strabo, viii., p. 355

the footing on which the Dorians here stood | taken by surprise.* These traditions seem to with the ancient inhabitants, we shall speak when we reach the period of the Messenian