CHAPTER III.
MEMBERS OF THE HELLENIC AGGREGATE, SEPARATELY TAKEN.—GREEKS NORTH OF PELOPONNESUS.
Having in the preceding chapter touched upon the Greeks in their aggregate capacity, I now come to describe separately the portions of which this aggregate consisted, as they present themselves at the first discernible period of history.
It has already been mentioned that the twelve races or subdivisions, members of what is called the Amphiktyonic convocation, were as follows:—
North of the pass of Thermopylæ,—Thessalians, Perrhæbians, Magnêtes, Achæans, Melians, Ænianes, Dolopes.
South of the pass of Thermopylæ,—Dorians, Ionians, Bœotians, Lokrians, Phokians.
Other Hellenic races, not comprised among the Amphiktyons, were—
The Ætolians and Akarnanians, north of the gulf of Corinth.
The Arcadians, Eleians, Pisatans, and Triphylians, in the central and western portion of Peloponnêsus: I do not here name the Achæans, who occupied the southern or Peloponnesian coast of the Corinthian gulf, because they may be presumed to have been originally of the same race as the Phthiot Achæans, and therefore participant in the Amphiktyonic constituency, though their actual connection with it may have been disused.
The Dryopes, an inconsiderable, but seemingly peculiar subdivision, who occupied some scattered points on the sea-coast,—Hermionê on the Argolic peninsula; Styrus and Karystus in Eubœa; the island of Kythnus, etc.
Though it may be said, in a general way, that our historical discernment of the Hellenic aggregate, apart from the illusions of legend, commences with 776 B. C., yet, with regard to the larger number of its subdivisions just enumerated, we can hardly be said to possess any specific facts anterior to the invasion of Xerxes in 480 B. C. Until the year 560 B. C., (the epoch of Crœsus in Asia Minor, and of Peisistratus at Athens,) the history of the Greeks presents hardly anything of a collective character: the movements of each portion of the Hellenic world begin and end apart from the rest. The destruction of Kirrha by the Amphiktyons is the first historical incident which brings into play, in defence of the Delphian temple, a common Hellenic feeling of active obligation.