the north; whether up the defile of Tempe, or across the Cambunian range, or at any point further to the west, as by the pass of Metzovo, it would be useless to inquire. CHAP. IV. struggles We have observed that their first enemies were a Their people who are described as allies and kinsmen of the with the Eolians. This is the people which makes a prominent Lapiths. figure in the legendary history of Thessaly, under the name of the Lapiths. They are renowned for their victorious struggle with the Centaurs, a fabulous race which however may be supposed to represent the earlier and ruder inhabitants of the land-whom they expelled from their seats on the plain, and even on the sides of Pelion, from which, according to Homer, they were driven by Pirithous, the Lapith chief, and forced to take refuge among the Ethices, on the western side of Pindus.1 This is perhaps only a poetical description of the conflict, which is related, with an appearance of greater historical exactness, by other authors, who inform us that the Perrhæbians, a Pelasgian race, which once possessed the rich plains. on the banks of the Peneus, in the neighbourhood of Larissa, were overpowered by the Lapiths; and that, while some continued to dwell there as subjects of the conquerors, others maintained their independence in the upper valleys of Olympus.2 It would seem that Dorians in the Dorians, issuing from their strongholds in the east of north-east corner of Thessaly, had endeavoured to Thessaly. wrest a part of these conquests from them, and perhaps with partial success; but, according to their own legends, they were very hard pressed, and they cannot have gained any permanent superiority. The Dorian king Ægimius, it is said, unable to defend himself against the Lapiths, called in the aid of Hercules, which he agreed to repay with a third of 1 Il. ii. 744. Strabo, ix. p. 434. 2 Strabo, ix. pp. 440, 441. the north CHAP. his kingdom. The invincible hero delivered him from his enemies, and slew their king Coronus. Yet this Coronus was celebrated among the chiefs who embarked on the Argonautic expedition 2; he was one of those Minyans, who, as we have seen, appear to be only the Eolians under another name. It was probably from the Dorian traditions of this conflict, that the Lapiths acquired a bad celebrity for their overweening and impious arrogance, and that in Thessaly they often appear to be identified with the sacrilegious Phlegyans. The father of Coronus was the audacious Cæneus, who defied Apollo (the Dorian god), disdained to pray or sacrifice to the gods, and forced men to swear by his spear. In other legends perhaps the Dorians themselves may have taken the place of the Centaurs. The most obscure part of the history of the Dorians is that which Herodotus relates, by saying, that they were ejected from Hestiæotis by the Cadmeans, and settled in Pindus, being then called the Macednian people. The Cadmeans are the ancient inhabitants of Thebes, who are said to have been driven from their country at a very remote period by an invasion of the Encheleans, an Illyrian horde, who plundered the temple at Delphi.3 What foundation there may have been for the tradition, that these Cadmeans came into conflict with the Dorians at the foot of Olympus, it is impossible to determine; and as little can we pretend to fix the exact meaning of Herodotus, when he says that the Dorians were a Macednian or Macedonian race. Their vicinity to Macedonia was probably the only ground for this appellation, though we 4 Diod. iv. 37. Ap. Rh. i. 57., and the Scholia. I Apollod. ii. 7. 7. 3. 8 Her. ix. 43. Diod. xix. 53. According to Her. (v. 61.), the Cadmeans fled to the Encheleans after their city was taken by the Epigoni; but he seems here to have found two different traditions blended together, which in Diodorus are more correctly kept separate, though the wanderings of Cadmus in Illyria were very celebrated in fable. See Dion. Per. 390., and Bernhardy's note. 4 VIII. 43. IV. do not even know when or by whom it was bestowed CHAP. on them. Nor is their next migration very distinctly described by the statement, that when they gave way to the inroad of the Cadmeans, they fixed their seats in Pindus. But it seems most probable that the tract which Herodotus signifies by this name, is no other than that which later writers call Hestiæotis, the division of Thessaly which, according to Strabo, occupied its western side. It is this which is said once to have borne the name of Doris 1: and, as it included the upper course of the Peneus, and the towns of Tricca, Ithomé, and Echalia, it may not be too bold to conjecture, that it was the irruption of the Dorians which caused the migration by which these names were transferred to Messenia. The aggressions of their northern neighbours, the fierce hordes of Upper Macedonia, or the hostility of the Lowlanders, the Lapiths, whom they certainly never subdued, may have been the cause which drove the Dorians to the next stage of their wanderings, at the opposite extremity of Thessaly, where they made themselves Conquest masters of the land of the Dryopes, which henceforth of the retained the name of Doris. It was not confined to Doris. the narrow valley north of the sources of the Cephisus, between Parnassus and Eta; but seems to have extended over a great part of the Etaan range toward Thermopyla, and perhaps over some tracts of the western highlands.2 Of the Dryopes, some submitted to the conquerors; and of these, a part are said to have been transplanted to the southern side of Parnassus, as bondmen of the temple at Delphi,3 and it has been supposed that they there bore the name of Craugallida. Others migrated to Eu 1 Strabo, ix. p. 437.; x. p. 475. 2 In Antonin. Lib. c. 4., Melaneus king of the Dryopes is said to have reigned over all Epirus. Paus. iv. 34. 9. 4 In Æsch. adv. Ctes. p. 68., they are called Acragallida. Suidas and Harpocration have the form Kpavyaλλída: or Kpavyaλída. Anton. Lib. c. 4. tells a story southern CHAP. IV. brea1 and Peloponnesus, where they established themselves on the coast of Argolis, in the towns of Asine, Hermione, and Eion. The epochs of these successive migrations of the Dorians are wholly uncertain, as none of the legendary names which we find connected with these events throw any light upon their chronology. All we know is, that it was from their last-mentioned territory about Eta that the Dorians issued, at a later period, to effect the conquest of Peloponnesus. Such, according to Herodotus, is the sum of the early adventures of the Dorians; but some later writers speak of another migration or colony of this people, much more interesting and important than any of those we have mentioned. We shall have occasion hereafter to inquire how far it may be deemed credible, and whether we must suppose that Herodotus was ignorant of it, or only omitted it as foreign to his immediate purpose. We now turn to the two other main divisions of the Greek nation, which, as we have seen, according to the current legend, derived their names, not from sons, but from more remote descendants, of Hellen. This, if we admitted the common genealogy in its literal sense, would be a difference of little importance: but as we believe Hellen, Æolus, Dorus, Achæus, and Ion, to be merely fictitious of Cragaleus, son of Dryops. It must however be observed, that the tradition which seems to be preferred by Pausanias, was disputed by the Dryopes of Asine, who asserted themselves to have been worshippers of Apollo in their original seats, and claimed him as the father of their race through their hero Dryops, his son: while we have no direct evidence that, previously to the destruction of Cirrha in the time of Solon, the Craugallidæ were serfs of the temple at Delphi: if it may not rather be inferred from the history in Eschines that they then first became so: and it may even be questioned, whether this is the meaning of Æschines, who only says, 'εξηνδραποδίσαντο τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, though the word ἀναθείναι in his report of the oracle just before seems to include both the land and the men. Soldan, in an elaborate investigation of the legends relating to the Dryopes (Rhein. Mus. vi. 3.) contends against Mueller (Dor. 1. 2. 4. Engl. transl. ed. 2.; compare Prolegg. c. 13. p. 237. Leitch) for the superior probability of the tradition current in Asine, and also endeavours to prove that there is no sufficient ground for attributing to the Dryopes any affinity with the Pelasgians. But this still depends on some of the questions discussed above, c. ii. 1 To Styra and Carystus. (Diod. iv. 37.), were found the shores of the Hellespont. They were also said to have wandered to Cyprus in Cythnus (Her. viii. 46.), and once were seated on Strabo, xiii. p. 586. persons, representatives of the races which bore their names, we are led to view it in another light, as indicating much more than it expresses, and as implying that the Achæans and Ionians were far more closely connected with one another than with the other two branches of the nation. And this presumption appears to be greatly strengthened by the accounts which have been transmitted to us of their origin and first establishment in Greece. CHAP. IV. of Xuthus. Xuthus, the father of Achæus and Ion, has no part Adventures assigned to him in the legends of Thessaly. To explain this remarkable fact, a story was told by some late writers, that his brothers had driven him out of Thessaly, on pretence that he had taken more than his due share of their common patrimony.1 The outcast first found shelter, it was said, in Attica. There he established himself in the plain of Marathon, and founded what was called the Tetrapolis, or the four united townships of Enoe, Marathon, Probalinthus, and Tricorythus.2 He wedded Creusa, the daughter of Erechtheus king of Attica, and Achæus and Ion were the fruit of this marriage. So far most authors agreed; but some added, that at the death of Erechtheus he was chosen to decide the disputed succession, and the preference he gave to Cecrops provoked the other sons of Erechtheus to expel him from Attica. He crossed over with his children to Peloponnesus, to the region then called Egialus, or the Coast, but which afterwards successively received the names of Ionia and Achaia, and died there; and now, if not sooner, the history of his two sons is parted into separate lines. Beginning with that of Achæus, we find the ancient authors differing very widely in their statements. According to some, he was forced to quit |