The legend of the Heraclidæ.
Scarcely inferior to the legend of Troy, is that which recounts the return of the descendants of Hercules to the ancient inheritance on the Peloponnesus, which, it is supposed, took place three or four hundred years before authentic history begins, or eighty years after the Trojan war.
We have briefly described the geographical position of the most important part of ancient Greece—the Peloponnesus—almost an island, separated from the continent only by a narrow gulf, resembling in shape a palm-tree, indented on all sides by bays, and intersected with mountains, and inhabited by a simple and warlike race.
We have seen that the descendants of Perseus, who was a descendant of Danaus, reigned at Mycenæ in Argolis—among whom was Amphitryon, who fled to Thebes, on the murder of his uncle, with Alemena his wife. Then Hercules, to whom the throne of Mycenæ legitimately belonged, was born, but deprived of his inheritance by Eurystheus—a younger branch of the Perseids—in consequence of the anger and jealousy of Juno, and to whom, by the fates, Hercules was made subject. We have seen how the sons of Hercules, [pg 171] under Hyllos, attempted to regain their kingdom, but were defeated, and retreated among the Dorians.
Their settlement in Sparta.
After three generations, the Heraclidæ set out to regain their inheritance, assisted by the Dorians. They at length, after five expeditions, gained possession of the country, and divided it, among the various chieftains, who established their dominion in Argos, Mycenæ, and Sparta, which, at the time of the Trojan war, was ruled by Agamemnon and Menelaus, descendants of Pelops. In the next generation, Corinth was conquered by the Dorians, under an Heraclide prince.
The wanderings of the dispossessed Achæans.
The Achæans, thus expelled by the Dorians from the south and east of the Peloponnesus, fell back upon the northwest coast, and drove away the Ionians, and formed a confederacy of twelve cities, which in later times became of considerable importance. The dispossessed Ionians joined their brethren of the same race in Attica, but the rugged peninsula was unequal to support the increased population, and a great migration took place to the Cyclades and the coasts of Lydia. The colonists there built twelve cities, about one hundred and forty years after the Trojan war. Another body of Achæans, driven out of the Peloponnesus by the Dorians, first settled in Bœotia, and afterward, with Æolians, sailed to the isle of Lesbos, where they founded six cities, and then to the opposite mainland. At the foot of Mount Ida they founded the twelve Æolian cities, of which Smyrna was the principal.
Crete.
Crete was founded by a body of Dorians and conquered Achæans. Rhodes received a similar colony. So did the island of Cos. The cities of Lindus, Ialysus, Camirus, Cos, with Cnidus and Halicarnassus, on the mainland, formed the Dorian Hexapolis of Caria, inferior, however, to the Ionian and Æolian colonies.