In the Laconian village of Abia, there was a temple of Hercules, which was said to have been built by Abia the nurse of Glenus, the brother of Hyllus.[197] It was, therefore, supposed that Hyllus and Glenus themselves came to Laconia. Pausanias endeavours to [pg 059] reconcile the local tradition with the received history, and assumes that Abia had fled hither after the death of Hyllus; which, however, is inconsistent with the common account that Peloponnesus was in the hands of the enemy, and that the battle in which Hyllus fell was at the Isthmus. We come now to the common relation of the order of events.
5. According to this account, the Heraclidæ, after the death of their father, were in Trachis with their host Ceyx, who generously protected them for a time, but was afterwards forced, by the threats of Eurystheus, to refuse them any longer refuge; Ceyx, according to Hecatæus,[198] was compelled to say to them, “I have not the power to assist you; withdraw therefore to another nation;” and upon this they sought an asylum in Attica. Those early historians, however, who stated that Hercules died as king in Mycenæ, gave an entirely different account of this circumstance, viz., that Eurystheus, after the death of Hercules, expelled his sons, and again usurped the dominion,[199] and they fled in consequence to Attica.
At Athens they sat as suppliants at the altar of Pity, received the protection of Theseus or Demophon, dwelt in the Tetrapolis,[200] and fought, together with the Athenians, under the command of Hyllus [pg 060] and Iolaus (to whose prayers the gods had granted a second youth), at the pass of Sciron, a battle against Eurystheus; Macaria (probably an entirely symbolical being, but here the daughter of Hercules) having previously offered herself as an expiatory sacrifice. In this action they conquered the Argive king, whom Alcmene with womanish vengeance put to death, and whose tomb the Athenians showed before the temple of the Pallenian Minerva.[201] This is the [pg 061] fable so much celebrated by the tragedians and orators, a locus communis as it were, which the Athenians sometimes even mentioned in their decrees,[202] or wherever it served to show how poorly the Peloponnesians had requited their ancient benefactors. What credit a Lacedæmonian would have given to these stories, we know not; Pindar certainly knew nothing of them, for he states that Iolaus had near Thebes received a momentary renewal of youthful vigour for the purpose of putting to death Eurystheus, after which he immediately expired, and was buried by the Thebans in the family tomb of Amphitryon.[203] In this account Eurystheus is represented as having been conquered in the neighbourhood of Thebes, and in consequence by a Theban army. It is not however necessary to esteem the Athenian tradition as altogether groundless, and purposely invented: it was probably founded on some actual event, and afterwards modified and embellished. The connecting link was without doubt the temple of Hercules in Attica. It was natural that, if the Athenians worshipped that hero, they should wish to have had the merit of protecting his descendants. Hence the sons of Hercules were said to have dwelt in the Tetrapolis at Marathon, where was the chief temple of Hercules in Attica, and in the neighbourhood of which flowed the fountain Macaria, represented as a daughter of that hero. It was on this account, as is reported, that the entire Tetrapolis was during the Peloponnesian war spared by the Lacedæmonians. Many circumstances, [pg 062] which will hereafter be brought forward, seem to show that an union and intercourse subsisted between the Dorians of Peloponnesus and some of the northern towns of Attica,[204] the foundation of which appears to have been laid in the times of the Doric migration, by a settlement of Dorians and Bœotians in these towns. But this settlement had doubtless, when those fables were invented, been already lost in the mass of the Athenian people.
6. After this battle, won by the aid of the Athenians, the Heraclidæ are said (and with good reason, as they were assisted by the Athenians) to have obtained possession of all Peloponnesus, and to have ruled undisturbed for one year (or some fixed period); at the expiration of which, a pestilence (like a tragical catastrophe) drove them back again to Attica. The mythologists make use of this time to send Tlepolemus the Heraclide to Rhodes, in order that he may arrive there before the Trojan war. Of all this, however, Pherecydes could have known nothing, as he relates that Hyllus, having conquered Eurystheus, went to Thebes,[205] without subduing Peloponnesus, and there with the other Heraclidæ formed a settlement near the gate of Electra, a circumstance which we shall advert to hereafter.[206] In Peloponnesus, however, according to the traditions chronologically arranged, Eurystheus was succeeded by the Pelopidæ, who accordingly appear as the expellers of the legitimate sovereigns of the race of Perseus.[207] Whether [pg 063] any such circumstance was known to the early poets is very much to be doubted; but it is at least clear, that in this case we are not in possession of the real tradition itself, but of scientific combinations of it. Against these new sovereigns were directed the expeditions of the Heraclidæ, of which it is generally stated that there were three. The account given of them follows the general idea of an entire dependence of the Dorians on the Delphian oracle;[208] but the misconception of its injunctions, which embarrasses and perplexes the whole question, may, we think, be attributed entirely to the invention of the Athenians. The oracle mentioned the third fruit, and the narrow passage by sea (στενυγρὰ), as the time and way of the promised return, which the Athenians falsely interpreted to mean the third year, and the Isthmus of Corinth. But the account given in Apollodorus, nearly falling into Iambic or Trochaic metre, leaves no doubt that he took his account of the oracle from the Attic tragedians,[209] as was remarked above. Deceived by these predictions, Hyllus forced his way into Peloponnesus in the third year, and found at the Isthmus the Arcadians, Ionians, and Achæans of the peninsula already assembled. In a single combat with Echemus the son of Aëropus, the prince of Tegea, Hyllus fell, [pg 064] and was buried in Megara; upon which the Heraclidæ promised not to renew the attempt for fifty or one hundred years from that time.[210] Here every one will recognise the battle of the Tegeate with the Hyllean as an ancient tradition. But in the arrangement, by which it was contrived that the expeditions of the Heraclidæ should not be placed during the Trojan war and the youth of Orestes, we do not hesitate to suspect the industry of ancient systematic mythologists.
7. When the Heraclidæ had been once separated from the Dorians as belonging to a different race, and Hyllus set down as only the adopted son of the Doric king, it immediately became a matter of doubt at what time the junction of the Dorians and Heraclidæ in one expedition should be fixed. Sometimes the Dorians are represented as joining the Heraclidæ before the first, sometimes before the second, sometimes before the third expedition; by one writer as setting out from Hestiæotis, and by another from Parnassus.[211] There were doubtless no real traditional grounds for any one report; and still less any sufficient to place the name Hyllus, and the events connected with it, at any fixed epoch. Hence also Hyllus is at one time called the contemporary of Atreus, and at another of Orestes;[212] Pamphylus and Dymas are stated to have lived from the time of Hercules to the conquest of Peloponnesus.[213] Nor is there any absurdity in this, inasmuch as they are the collective names of races which existed throughout [pg 065] this whole period. The descendants of Hyllus, however, are no longer races, but, as it appears, real persons; viz., his son Cleodæus,[214] and his grandson Aristomachus. These names stood at the head of the genealogy of the Heraclidæ; as, for example, of the kings of Sparta; and they can hardly have been mere creations of fancy. From their succession is probably calculated the celebrated epoch of the expedition of the Heraclidæ, viz., 80 years after the Trojan war, which was without doubt determined by the early historians, since Thucydides was acquainted with it. The Alexandrine critics generally adopted it, as we know expressly of Eratosthenes, Crates, and Apollodorus.[215] But all that is recounted of the expeditions of these two princes, however small in amount,[216] cannot have been acknowledged by those who, like Herodotus, and probably all the early writers, stated the armistice after the death of Hyllus as lasting 100 years.[217]
8. At length Apollo himself opens the eyes of the Heraclidæ to the meaning of the oracle. It was not across the Isthmus, but over the Straits of Rhium, that they were to cross into Peloponnesus, and after the third generation had died away. They therefore first sailed from Naupactus, to the Molycrian promontory (Antirrhium), and thence to Rhium in Peloponnesus, which was only five stadia distant.[218] That the Dorians [pg 066] actually came on that side into Peloponnesus, is a statement which may be looked on as certain; agreeing (as it does) with the fact that the countries near the Isthmus were the last to which the Dorians penetrated. The name Naupactus implies the existence of ship-building there in early times;[219] and there was a tradition that the Heraclidæ passed over on rafts, imitations of which were afterwards publicly exposed at a festival, and called Στεμματιαῖα, i.e. crowned with garlands.[220] This festival was doubtless the Carnea, since the Carnean Apollo was worshipped at Sparta under the name of Stemmatias. Now it is also stated that the Acarnanian soothsayer Carnus (who was reported to have founded the worship of the Carnean Apollo) was killed at the time of this expedition by Hippotes the son of Phylas, for which reason the Heraclidæ offered expiatory sacrifices to his memory.[221] We see from this that some rites of a peculiar worship of Apollo were observed at this passage, which were probably for the most part of an expiatory nature. Now I have shown elsewhere, that the Carnean or Hyacinthian worship of [pg 067] the Ægidæ originated at Thebes, and prevailed in Peloponnesus before the arrival of the Dorians, particularly at Amyclæ:[222] consequently, that prevalent near the straits of Naupactus might have been another, probably an Acarnanian[223] branch of the religion of Apollo, which was afterwards incorporated in the Carnean festival; a supposition which, if admitted, would enable us to explain many statements of ancient authors. The religious rites and festivals are in fact often so intermingled and confused together, that it is necessary to trace their component parts to many and distant sources.
9. At their passage from Naupactus the Dorians stood in great need of the friendship and assistance of the native races, the Ozolian Locrians and Ætolians. The Locrians occupied Naupactus in early times;[224] the Ætolians were their immediate neighbours, and their powerful city of Calydon was the mistress of the region. The Locrians are said to have aided the Dorians in their passage, by deceiving the Peloponnesians with false beacons;[225] and we shall meet hereafter with traces of a lasting amity between the Locrians and Sparta. A most singular, but, doubtless for that very reason, a most ancient dress, has been given by mythology to the union of the Dorians and Ætolians. This connexion, which was indispensable for the passage from Naupactus, is also found implied in other legends, the general [pg 068] character of tradition being to express the same thing in various ways. Of these we may mention the marriage of Hercules with Deianira, the daughter of Œneus the Calydonian.[226] At this time the Dorians were ordered by the oracle to seek a person with three eyes for a leader. This person they recognised in Oxylus the Ætolian, who either sat upon a horse, himself having one eye, or rode upon a one-eyed mule. Difficult as it is to rest satisfied with this interpretation of the oracle, so casual a circumstance having no connexion with the general course of events, yet it appears impossible to discover the true meaning of the word τριόφθαλμος.[227] In all probability this expression for the whole Ætolian race was only delivered in a mythical shape, and the sorry explanation was not invented until a late period.[228] The family of Oxylus is stated to have come from Calydon; so that the Ætolians (who in later times made themselves masters of Elis) appear to have come for the most part from that place.[229] There existed, however, an ancient alliance and affinity between the inhabitants of Elis, the Epeans, and the Ætolians who dwelt on the farther side of the Corinthian gulf; and Oxylus himself was said to have originally belonged to Elis;[230] hence it does not appear that there was any actual war between these two states, but only that the Ætolians were received by the Eleans, and admitted to [pg 069] the rights of citizenship;[231] and at the same time the same honours were permitted to the heroes and heroines of the Ætolians as to their own.[232]
10. The systematised tradition next makes mention of a battle which took place between the united force of Peloponnesus, under the command of Tisamenus, the grandson of Agamemnon, and the sons of Aristomachus; in which the latter were victorious, and Peloponnesus fell into their possession. According as it suits the object of the narrator, this engagement is either represented to have been both by sea and land, and to have taken place at the passage,[233] or after the march through Arcadia. We may fairly suppose that it was inferred merely on probable grounds that a battle must have been fought by Tisamenus, whom the tradition represented as prince of the Achæans at the capture of Ægialea.[234] Many traditions agree in stating that the Heraclidæ at that time took the road through Arcadia; Oxylus is said to have led them by this way, [pg 070] that they might not be envious of his fertile territory of Elis;[235] Cresphontes is moreover stated to have been the brother-in-law of Cypselus king of Arcadia, who had his royal seat at Basilis, on the Alpheus, in the country of the Parrhasians.[236]
11. Next comes the division of Peloponnesus among the three brothers Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodamus, or his sons. We have to thank the tragedians alone for the invention and embellishment of this fable;[237] that it contains little or no truth is at once evident; for it was not till long after this time that the Dorians possessed the larger part of Peloponnesus;[238] and a division of lands not yet conquered is without example in Grecian history. At the same time it is related that, upon the altars whereon the brothers sacrificed to their grandfather Zeus, there was found a frog for Argos, a snake for Sparta, and a fox for Messenia. It seems however probable that these are mere symbols, by which the inventors (perhaps the hostile Athenians) [pg 071] attempted to represent the character of those nations. For it cannot be supposed that national arms or ensigns are meant; unless indeed we give credit to the pretended discovery of Fourmont, who affirms that he found in the temple of the Amyclæan Apollo a shield with the inscription of Teleclus as general (βάγος), with a snake in the middle; and another of Anaxidamus, with a snake and two foxes.[239] But he has represented the shield of so extraordinary a form, with sharp ends, and indentures on the sides, that the fraud is at once open to detection; and consequently the supposition that the snake was the armorial bearing of Sparta remains entirely unfounded.[240]
12. Although we cannot here give a complete account of the great revolution which the irruption of the Dorians universally produced in the condition of the different races of Greece,[241] it may nevertheless be remarked, that a very large portion of the Achæans, who originally came from Phthia, retired to the northern coast of Peloponnesus, and compelled the Ionians to pass over to Attica. The reduction of the principal fortress of this country, the Posidonian Helice, is ascribed to Tisamenus; and that Helice was in fact the abode of the most distinguished families of the Achæan nation is evident from the legend, that Oxylus the Ætolian, at the command of the oracle, shared the dominion [pg 072] with Agorius, a Pelopid, who was descended from Penthilus the son of Orestes, and dwelt at Helice.[242] The chronological difficulty of Oxylus being called the cotemporary of a grandson of Penthilus is not of much importance. At Helice was also shown the tomb of Tisamenus, whose supposed ashes the Spartans (doubtless with the idea of thus making amends for the injustice of his expulsion) afterwards brought to their city, as they also did the corpse of Orestes at Tegea.[243] But hereupon follows a series of migrations to Æolis in Asia, which was founded in later times, in which the numbers of the Achæan race predominated. Although Orestes is called a leader of the first expedition,[244] he probably is only put for his descendants: Penthilus also is perhaps put only for that part of his descendants who went with the colony to Lesbos and Æolis. For all the Penthilidæ did not go; we find indeed Penthilidæ in Mitylene;[245] and others at Helice, as we have just seen. Pisander, a Laconian Achæan, is also mentioned as having gone with the expedition of Orestes; and there were men of his family in Tenedos at the time of Pindar.[246]