it was in Euboea that the Curetes were said first to have put on brazen armour.1 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 carried away from the the island by the Perrhæbians 2: we should otherwise have presumed that the Thessalian region had been the mother country. There was also an Attic township 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 received this name from Hellops, a son of Ion 3, which might seem to confirm the supposition that the Ionians were a Hellenic race, if it were not more probable that this legend was occasioned by the numerous Ionian colonies which passed over from Attica to the island.

But though this confusion of uncertain accounts about the early population of Euboea precludes all conjecture as to the origin of Xuthus, drawn from the side on which he appears to have entered Attica, still the tradition which connected him with the house of Eolus is strengthened by the peculiar rites which distinguished the inhabitants of the plain of Marathon, and which seem to mark a Hellenic descent.4 The union of Xuthus and Creusa undoubtedly implies that this settlement exerted considerable influence over the

1 Steph. Byz. Aidn&os.

Strabo, x. p. 445.

2 IX. p. 437.
Paus. i. 15. 3., and 32.4.

CHAP.

IV.

Uor M

CHAP.

IV.

Ionian dialect.

fortunes of Attica; and it was a necessary consequence that Xuthus and Ion should be brought into near relation to one another: but in any other sense, we see no evidence of a Hellenic conquest, either in Attica or the Peloponnesian Ionia. Of the supposed break in the succession of the native kings, we shall have occasion to speak again. The force of any argument drawn from the language of Attica must depend on the conception we form of the original relation between the Pelasgian and Hellenic race. The difference between the dialect from which those of Attica and the Asiatic Ionia issued, and the Eolian or Doric, does not fall much short of that which was to have been expected according to the view here taken of the Ionians; and for several generations it may have been continually lessened by a growing intercourse between Attica and the neighbouring Hellenic states.

CHAPTER V.

THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE.

CHAP.
V.

Perseus.

Definition of the Heroic Age. - Bellerophon.
Hercules. Hercules the god. Hercules the Theban
hero.- Legends of Hercules in Peloponnesus. - Other ad-
ventures of Hercules. Theseus a second Hercules. Attic
Kings before Theseus. - Birth of Theseus. - His journey
to Athens. - Adventures in Crete. - Import of the legend.
— Minos. — His maritime dominion and colonies. - Legend
of his Dorian origin examined. - Grounds for rejecting it.

Conjecture on the legend of Minos. - Confederacies among the Heroes. - The Theban Wars, and the Calydonian Chase. Legend of the Argonautic Expedition. — Religious groundwork of the legend. -Its historical groundwork. -Jason and Medea. - Story of the Trojan War. - How far credible. Helen a mythological person. - Connection between the Trojan War and the Argonautic Expedition. Expedition of Hercules against Troy. Historical view of the Trojan War.- Consequences of the War. Authority of the Homeric Poems with regard to historical facts. - With regard to the state of society described in them.

of the He

roic Age.

THE period included between the first appearance of Definition the Hellenes in Thessaly, and the return 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 any thing like a chronological connection, its duration may be estimated at six genera

CHAP.

V.

tions, or about two hundred years.
We have already
described the general character of this period, as one
in which a warlike race spread from the north over
the south of Greece, and founded new dynasties in a
number of little states; while, partly through the
impulse given to the earlier settlers by this immigra-
tion, and partly in the natural progress of society, a
similar state of things arose in those parts of the
country which were not immediately occupied by the
invaders; so that every where a class of nobles entirely
given to martial pursuits, and the principal owners of
the land-whose station and character cannot perhaps
be better illustrated than when compared 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 belonging to this class, who, in the language
of poetry, are called heroes. The term hero is of doubt-
ful origin, though it was clearly a title of honour; but,
in the poems of Homer, it is applied not only to the
chiefs, but also to their followers, the freemen of lower
rank, without however being contrasted with any
other, so as to determine its precise meaning. In
later times its use was narrowed, and in some degree
altered1 it was restricted to persons, whether of the
heroic or of after ages, who were believed to be en-
dowed with a superhuman, though not a divine, nature,
and who were honoured with sacred rites, and were im-
agined to have the power of dispensing good or evil
to their worshippers; and it was gradually combined
with the notion of prodigious strength and gigantic

1 In Homer, it is used as the German Rechen in the Nibelungenlied. So too in Hesiod (Op. et D. 155-171.), all the warriors before Thebes and Troy seem to be included under the name. Afterwards it was limited to the most eminent persons of the heroic age; not however to distinguish them from their own contemporaries, but to contrast them with the men of a later and inferior generation. See on this subject Mr. Ellis's excellent essay in the Philological Museum, ii. p. 72. Donaldson, New Cratylus, p. 409.

stature. Here however we have only to do with the heroes as men. The history of their age is filled with their wars, expeditions, and adventures; and this is the great mine from which the materials of the Greek poetry were almost entirely drawn. But the richer a period is in poetical materials, the more difficult it usually is to extract from it any that are fit for the use of the historian; and this is especially true in the present instance. Though what has been transmitted to us is perhaps only a minute part of the legends which sprang from this inexhaustible source, they are sufficient to perplex the inquirer by their multiplicity and their variations, as well as by their marvellous nature. The pains taken by the ancient compilers to reduce them to an orderly system have only served, in most cases, to disguise 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 to a critical examination, for which we cannot afford room: we must content ourselves with touching on some which appear most worthy of notice, either from their celebrity, or for the light they throw on the general character of the period, or their connection, real or supposed, with subsequent historical events.

CHAP.

V.

B. C. 1300 -1200. Bellero

We must pass very hastily over the exploits of Bellerophon and Perseus, and indeed we mention them only for the sake of one remark. The scene of their principal adventures is laid out of Greece, in the East. The former, whose father Glaucus is the son of Sisyphus, having chanced to stain his hands with the blood of a kinsman, flies to Argos, where he phon. excites the jealousy of Prœtus, and is sent by him to Lycia, the country where Prœtus himself had been hospitably entertained in his exile. It is in the adjacent regions of Asia that the Corinthian hero proves his valour by vanquishing ferocious tribes and terrible