The traditionary name of this expedition is “the Return of the descendants of Hercules.”[182] Hercules, [pg 051] the son of Zeus is (even in the Iliad), both by birth and destiny, the hereditary prince of Tiryns and Mycenæ, and ruler of the surrounding nations.[183] But through some evil chance Eurystheus obtained the precedency, and the son of Zeus was compelled to serve him. Nevertheless he is represented as having bequeathed to his descendants his claims to the dominion of Peloponnesus, which they afterwards made good in conjunction with the Dorians; Hercules having also performed such actions in behalf of this race, that his descendants were always entitled to the possession of one-third of the territory. The heroic life of Hercules was therefore the mythical title, through which the Dorians were made to appear, not as unjustly invading, but merely as reconquering, a country which had belonged to their princes in former times. Hence Hercules is reported to have made war with some degree of propriety, and subdued the principal countries of the Doric race (except his native country Argos), Lacedæmon and the Messenian Pylus, to have established the national festival at Olympia, and even to have laid the foundation of the most distant colonies. To esteem as real these conquests and settlements, these mythical forerunners of real history, is incompatible with a clear view of these matters; and we could scarce seriously ask even the most credulous, how, at a time when sieges were in the highest degree tedious, Hercules could have stormed and taken so many fortresses, surrounded with almost impregnable walls?[184]
A severer criticism enjoins us to trace the mythical narrative to its centre, and attempt to ascertain whether the sovereign race of the Dorians did really spring from the early sovereigns of Mycenæ; such [pg 052] being not only the epic account, but also the tradition countenanced in Sparta itself. Tyrtæus said, in his poem called the Eunomia, “Zeus himself gave this territory (Laconia) to the race of Hercules; united with whom we (the Dorians) left the stormy Erineus, and reached the wide island of Pelops.”[185] And a still more important proof is the reply of king Cleomenes, mentioned by Herodotus, who, when forbidden by the priestess in the Acropolis of Athens to enter the temple, as being a Dorian, answered, “I am no Dorian, but an Achæan,” referring to his descent from Hercules.[186] From this it would appear that there was amongst the Dorians an Achæan phratria, to which the kings of Argos, Sparta, and Messenia, and the founders and rulers of Corinth, Sicyon, Epidaurus, Ægina, Rhodes, Cos, &c., belonged; and which, in conjunction with the Dorians, only recovered by conquest its hereditary rights.[187]
2. It is certainly hazardous at once to reject an extensive and connected system of heroic traditions, for the sake of establishing in its place a conjecture which sacrifices reports recognised by ages prior to historical information, and celebrated by the earliest poets, to a mere theory of historical probability. We [pg 053] must, however, recollect that mythical legends present in general merely the views and opinions of nations on the origin of their actual condition; these opinions being at the same time more often directed and determined by religious and other notions, especially by a certain feeling of justice, than by real tradition, and therefore they frequently conceal, rather than express, historical truth. The following remarks, partly deduced from inquiries which will follow, may serve to contrast with each other the characteristics of history and mythology.
In the first place, if we consider the narrative in question as a plain historical statement, and consequently suppose the Heraclidæ to have been expatriated Achæans, the same supposition must be extended to the whole tribe of Hylleans. For Hyllus, the representative of the Hylleans, is called the son of Hercules; and it was with reference to that tribe that the third part of the territory was secured to the descendants of Hercules: hence also Pindar calls the Dorians universally the descendants of Hercules and Ægimius.[188] In this case, then, the Pamphylians and Dymanes would alone remain as Dorians proper. It is, however, by no means probable, that, if the most distinguished part of the Doric people had been of Achæan descent, the difference between the language, religion, and customs of these two races would have been so strongly and precisely marked.
In the second place, everything that is related concerning the exploits of Hercules in the north of [pg 054] Greece refers exclusively to the history of the Dorians; and conversely all the actions of the Doric race in their earlier settlements are mythically represented under the person of Hercules. Now this cannot be accounted for by supposing that there was only a temporary connexion between this hero and the Doric race.
Lastly, if we compare as much of the fables concerning Hercules related below as refers to the Dorians, with those current among the ancient Argives, and if we separate in mind the links by which the epic poets gave them an apparent historical connexion, we shall find no real resemblance between the two. The worship of Apollo, which can in almost every case be shown to have been the real motive which actuated the Dorians, was wholly foreign to the Argives. If then an Achæan tribe did arrive amongst the Dorians, bringing with it the story of Hercules, or a hero so called, this latter people must have applied and developed his mythology in a manner wholly different from those to whom they owed it. And after all, we should be obliged to suppose that long before their irruption into Peloponnesus, these Heraclidæ had been so intermixed with the Dorians, that their traditions were formed entirely according to the disposition of that race, since Hercules in Thessaly is represented as a complete Dorian. Here, however, we are again at variance with the fable, which represents the Heraclidæ as having fled to the Dorians a short time only before their entry into Peloponnesus.
Thus we are continually met with contradictions, and never enabled to obtain a clear view of the question, unless we assent to the proposition that [pg 055] Hercules, from a very remote period, was both a Dorian and Peloponnesian hero, and particularly the hero of the Hyllean tribe, which in the earliest settlements of the Dorians had probably united itself with two other small nations, the Heraclidæ being the hereditary princes of the Doric race. The story of the Heraclidæ being descended from the Argive Hercules, who performed the commands of Eurystheus, was not invented till after Peloponnesus had been introduced into the tradition.
3. There is hardly any part of the traditional history of Greece whose real sources are so little known to us as the expedition of the Heraclidæ. No one can fail to perceive that it possesses the same mythical character as the Trojan war; and yet we are deprived of that which renders the examination of a mythical narrative so instructive, viz. the traditional lore scattered in such abundance throughout the ancient epic poems. This event, however, early as it was, lay without the range of the epic poetry; and therefore, whenever circumstances connected with it were mentioned, they must have been introduced either accidentally or in reference to some other subject. In no one large class of epic poems was this event treated at length, neither by the cyclic poets, nor the authors of the Νόστοι. In the Ἠοῖαι attributed to Hesiod, it appears only to have been alluded to in a few short passages.[189] Herodotus nevertheless mentions [pg 056] poets who related the migration of the Heraclidæ and Dorians into Laconia.[190] Perhaps these belonged to the class who carried on the mythical fables genealogically, as Cinæthon the Laconian, and also Asius, who celebrated the descent of Hercules, and appears, from the character of his poems, to have also commemorated his descendants.[191] Or they may have been the historical poets, such as Eumelus the Corinthian, although those alluded to by Herodotus cannot have composed a separate poetical history (as the former did of Corinth); since they would doubtless have followed the national tradition of Sparta; and this, with respect to the first princes of the Heraclidæ, differed from the accounts of all the poets with which Herodotus was acquainted, and was not the general tradition of Greece.[192] And doubtless many such local traditions were preserved amongst particular nations, concerning an event which for a long time determined the condition of Peloponnesus. Thus the Tegeatans[193] celebrated the combat of Echemus their general with Hyllus. Whether the early historians collected these accounts from oral record, or whether they derived them from the poets above mentioned (although the latter is more in their manner), cannot be determined; [pg 057] for there are only extant two fragments of these writers concerning the Heraclidæ, one of Hecatæus, the other of Pherecydes, which connect immediately with the death of Hercules, and therefore do not prove that these authors wrote any continuous account of the history of this migration. The early tradition received a fuller development in the Attic drama; but it was unavoidably represented in a very partial view. The Heraclidæ of Æschylus, and the Iolaus of Sophocles might, like the Heraclidæ of Euripides, have had on the whole the tendency to celebrate those merits which the Athenians are made to commend in Herodotus,[194] even before the battle of Platæa, viz., their good offices towards the Heraclidæ, at the time when they took refuge in Attica. The last-named tragedian, in his Temenidæ, Archelaus, and Cresphontes, went further into the history of the Doric states, and descended lower into the historical period, than any poet before his time; his reason having, perhaps, been, the exhaustion of the legitimate mythical materials.[195] Now these Attic tragedians manifestly took for their basis the narrative given by Apollodorus, himself an Athenian, as may be shown by some particular circumstances. Perhaps Ephorus rested more upon the earlier poets and historians, as far as we are acquainted with their statements; but his narrative, even if it were extant, could, no more than those of the former, be considered as proceeding from a critical examination; since, in the first place, from a total misapprehension of the character of tradition, he forced everything into history, and then endeavoured to restore the deficiencies of [pg 058] oral narrative by probable reasoning; of the fallaciousness of which method we will bring forward some proofs.
4. After what has been said, we will forbear to apologize for merely offering a few remarks on the origin and meaning of the traditions which concern the Doric migration, instead of endeavouring to give a history of that event. And, indeed, we might bring forward some most marvellous legends, but on that very account the better fitted to convince every one what is the nature of the ground on which we stand.
In the Ἠοῖαι attributed to Hesiod, it was stated that Polycaon the son of Butes, whose name represents the ancient (i.e. Lelegean) population of Messene, married Euæchme (Εὐαίχμη, viz. celebrated for the spear) the daughter of Hyllus, and grand-daughter of Hercules. In this simple and unpretending manner the early tradition conveyed the idea that the Hylleans and Dorians had, by the power of the spear, made themselves masters of Messene, and united themselves with the original inhabitants.[196]