The territory indicated in the last chapter—south of Mount Olympus, and also of the line which connects the city of Ambracia with Mount Pindus—was occupied during the historical period by the central stock of the Hellens or Greeks, from which their numerous outlying colonies were planted out.

Both metropolitans and colonists styled themselves Hellens, and were recognised as such by each other; all glorying in the name as the prominent symbol of fraternity,—all describing non-Hellenic men or cities by a word which involved associations of repugnance. Our term barbarian, borrowed from this latter word, does not express the same idea; for the Greeks spoke thus indiscriminately of the extra-Hellenic world with all its inhabitants, whatever might be the gentleness of their character, and whatever might be their degree of civilization: the rulers and people of Egyptian Thebes with their ancient and gigantic monuments, the wealthy Tyrians and Carthaginians, the philHellene Arganthonius of Tartêssus, and the welldisciplined patricians of Rome (to the indignation of old Cato), were all comprised in it. At first it seemed to have expressed more of repugnance than of contempt, and repugnance especially towards the sound of a foreign language; afterwards a feeling of their own superior intelligence (in part well-justified) arose among the Greeks, and their term barbarian was used so as to imply a low state of the temper and intelligence; in which sense it was retained by the semi-hellenised Romans, as the proper antithesis to their state of civilization.

SECTION I.—RETURN OF THE HERAKLEIDS INTO PELOPONNESUS

In one of the preceding chapters, we have traced the descending series of the two most distinguished mythical families in Peloponnêsus—the Perseids and the Pelopids: we have followed the former down to Hêraklês and his son Hyllus, and the latter down to Orestês son of Agamemnôn, who is left in possession of that ascendency in the peninsula which had procured for his father the chief command in the Trojan war. The Herakleids or sons of Hêraklês, on the other hand, are expelled fugitives, dependent upon foreign aid or protection: Hyllus had perished in single combat with Echemus of Tegea, (connected with the Pelopids by marriage with Timandra sister of Clytæmnêstra,) and a solemn compact had been made, as the preliminary condition of this duel, that no similar attempt at an invasion of the peninsula should be undertaken by his family for the space of 100 years. At the end of the stipulated period the attempt was renewed, and with complete success; but its success was owing not so much to the valour of the invaders as to a powerful body of new allies. The Herakleids re-appear as leaders and companions of the Dorians,—a northerly section of the Greek name, who now first come into importance,—poor indeed in mythical renown, since they are never noticed in the Iliad, and only once casually mentioned in the Odyssey, as a fraction among the many-tongued inhabitants of Crête—but destined to form one of the grand and predominant elements throughout all the career of historical Hellas.

We now pass from the northern members to the heart and head of Greece—Peloponnesus and Attica, taking the former first in order, and giving as much as can be ascertained respecting its early historical phænomena.

The traveller who entered Peloponnesus from Bœotia during the youthful days of Herodotus and Thucydides, found an array of powerful Doric cities conterminous to each other, and beginning at the Isthmus of Corinth. First came Megara, stretching across the isthmus from sea to sea, and occupying the high and rugged mountains called Oneia and Geraneia: next Corinth, with its strong and conspicuous acropolis, and its territory occupying the portion of the isthmus at once most level and narrowest, which divided its two harbours called Lechæum and Kenchreæ. Westward of Corinth, along the Corinthian Gulf, stood Sikyon, with a plain of uncommon fertility between the two towns: southward of Sikyon and Corinth were Phlius and Kleonse, both conterminous, as well as Corinth, with Argos and the Argolic peninsula. The inmost bend of the Argolic Gulf, including a considerable space of flat and marshy ground adjoining to the sea, was occupied by Argos; the Argolic peninsula was divided by Argos with the Doric cities of Epidaurus and Trœzen, and the Dryopian city of Hermionê, the latter possessing the south-western corner. Proceeding southward along the western coast of the gulf, and passing over the little river called Tanos, the traveller found himself in the dominion of Sparta, which comprised the entire southern region of the peninsula from its eastern to its western sea, where the river Neda flows into the latter.