to have been kept with regularity from the year 776 B.C. ;(186) but it was a mere instrument of chronological notation; it afforded no historical information.

§ 17 That the Dorians at some early period settled in the Peloponnesus, and reduced the previous population to subjection, cannot be doubted; but the detailed account of this event, under the denomination of the Return of the Heraclidæ, in 1104 B.C., eighty years after the capture of Troy, belongs to legend, and not to history. We do not know that either the persons or the events are real; no contemporary poet makes mention of it; and the time is too remote for a faithful oral tradition to have descended to the age of the historians. (187)

Mr. Grote says that, at the Return of the Heraclidæ, 'we pass, as if touched by the wand of a magician, from mythical to historical Greece.'(188) Colonel Mure likewise speaks of the Dorian revolution as forming a marked line between mythical and real in the annals of Greece. (189) It seems however im

(186) Col. Mure rejects the statements which distinguish the olympiad of Iphitus from that of Corobus, and supposes that there was a series of unrecorded victors before Corœbus; vol. iv. p. 78–90. Mr. Clinton does not agree with Clavier in assuming that there were three persons named Iphitus, but he thinks that there were two; F. H. vol. i. p. 142. Varro divided time into three periods; the first he called the uncertain period, the second the mythical, and the third the historical period. He reckoned the historical period from the first olympiad; Censorin. de die nat. c. 21.

(187) Niebuhr considers all the details connected with the Return of the Heraclidæ as fabulous. My decided opinion (he says) is, that we do not possess the slightest historical knowledge of the circumstances accompanying the conquest. All the stories about it, as those of the fights of Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, with the Dorians, of the Achæans throwing themselves upon the Ionians, of the emigration of the latter, and the like, are quite irreconcilable with the traditions of the preceding period; the whole account does not possess a shadow of historical truth. The instinctive desire of man to fill up what is deficient, led men to invent and record the story of an immigration. When this is once done, everything, according to a natural paralogism, is credulously taken for true tradition; and posterity forgets that the things recorded many centuries after the event, though the record itself may be centuries old, has no more authenticity than if the story were now written down for the first time;' ib. p. 228-30.

(188) Hist. vol. ii. p. 7.

(189) Hist. of Gr. Lit. vol. iv. p. 71. Niebuhr makes the historical period commence with the Doric migration; but he remarks that though the previous period is mythical, the subsequent period is not altogether

possible to fix any one period for the commencement of authentic history in all the different Greek states. It is probable, that, for reasons of which we are now ignorant, the traditions of certain states may have mounted higher than others, or may have been registered at an earlier date. We cannot suppose the illumination to have been simultaneous and universal: a few bright spots probably appeared in different places, as precursors of the full light of history, which after a time overspread the entire country. Thus the history of Athens, for 794 years during the reign of sixteen kings from Cecrops I. to Codrus, of thirteen perpetual archons from Medon to Alcmæon,(190) and also under seven decennial archons from Charops in 752 to Eryxias in 684 B.C., and under the annual archons from Creon in 683 B.C. to the time of Cylon, is a complete blank, except so far as it is decorated with fabulous legends attached to the names of Theseus and Codrus.(191) Various accounts were given of the death of Codrus, who was supposed to have sacrificed himself by a stratagem for the safety of his country.(192) He was said to be the last Athenian king, and it was supposed that after him the royalty was abolished in order to do him

historical; ib. p. 184. Diodorus states that Ephorus passed over the ancient mythical period in silence, on account of its obscurity and uncertainty, and began his history with the Return of the Heraclidæ; iv. 1.

(190) See Meursius, de Reg. Athen. iii. 16; Clinton, vol. i. p. 59, 121, 131. Concerning the beginning of the annual archons, see Clinton, ib. p. 182. Niebuhr says: It is not impossible that at Athens there may have been records even of the last kings and of the archons for life; their names at least do not appear to be fictitious, like those which strike us at once in so many myths; ib. p. 183. In p. 225 he remarks that the years of the archons for life have as little authenticity as those of Theseus and Erechtheus.

(191) Niebuhr considers the accounts of the kings and perpetual archons of Attica as fabulous: at the most, he thinks that some of the names of the real kings have been preserved; ib. p. 224-5. Afterwards he remarks that we know absolutely nothing of the history of Attica under the government of the archons for life, and those who held their office for ten years, until we approach the time of Solon. We possess two lists, but do not know a single fact, if we except the mention of the ayos Kuλovetov and the legislation of Draco; p. 260. Compare Grote, vol. i. p. 262-298; vol. iii. 65-7, who P. that all our historical knowledge says of Athens is confined to the period of the annual archons.' (192) See Meursius, de Reg. Athen. iii. 12, 13.

honour.(193) His successor, Medon, is however sometimes called king.(194) According to another story the royalty was abolished on account of the effeminacy of the kings.(195) A topographical legend, explanatory of a singular name of a place in Athens, was related of Hippomenes, one of the perpetual archons; but the story is told anonymously by Eschines, and it seems to have been transferred to him on account of his name. (196)

The accounts of the primitive state of Attica, which describe twelve cities as founded by Cecrops, and afterwards consolidated by Theseus ;(197) and which speak of provincial kings in Attica, (198) contain no historical material; all attempts to illustrate the four ancient tribes, the Hopletes, Geleontes, Argadeis, and Ægicoreis, (199) are moreover as fruitless as the similar at

(193) Post Codrum nemo Athenis regnavit, quod memoriæ nominis ejus tributum est; Justin, ii. 7. Compare Syncellus, vol. i. p. 335.

(194) Paus. vii. 2, § 1; Ælian, V. H. viii. 5. Homer was entertained by Medon, king of Athens, according to Hesiod. et Hom. Certam. p. 252, ed. Goettling.

(195) Heraclid. Pont. Pol. i. § 3, ἀπὸ δὲ Κοδριδῶν οὐκέτι βασιλεῖς ᾑροῦντο, διὰ τὸ δοκεῖν τρυφᾷν, καὶ μαλακοὺς γεγονέναι.

(196) Heraclid. ib.; Diod. viii. 27. Suidas in 'ITоuévηs and пар' iññоV, Photius in аp' оv, Diogenian, iii. 1, with the note of the Göttingen editors. Compare Eschin. Timarch. p. 26, who refers the story to dump eis TŵV TOMTŵy. The story is that Hippomenes, in order to punish his daughter for her unchastity, shut her up with a horse, and the horse, pressed by hunger, destroyed her; hence the place was called пар' inоν καὶ κόραν, down to the time of Æschines. The name Ιππομένης evidently suggested this fable. Hippomenes is called one of the life archons in Paus. iv. 13, § 7. Some of the accounts describe him as the last king.

(197) See Philochor. fragm. 11, ed. Didot; Steph. Byz. and Etymol. Mag. in émáκpia. Plut. Thes. 24; Thuc. ii. 15-6. Attius, the Roman tragic poet, called Athens quadrurbis, because it was formed of four towns; viz., Brauron, Eleusis, Piræus, and Sunium; Trag. Lat. Rel. p. 189. ed. Ribbeck.

(198) The inhabitants of the Attic demus of Athmone said that their temple of Venus Urania was built by Porphyrion, who was king before Actius; Paus. i. 14, § 7. In like manner, the inhabitants of Myrrinus said that Colanis, to whom a temple of theirs was dedicated, derived her name from Colanus, a king anterior to Cecrops; ib. i. 31, § 5. The palace of Crocon, an ancient king of Eleusis, who married Sæsara, a daughter of Celeus, was shown near the river Rheiti; ib. i. 38, § 1, 2.

(199) The four tribes [of Attica] and the four names, allowing for some variations of reading, are historically verified; but neither the time of their introduction nor their primitive import are ascertainable matters, nor can any faith be put in the various constructions of the legends of Ion, Erechtheus, and Cecrops, by modern commentators;' Grote, vol. iii. p. 70.

tempts to explain the three ancient tribes of Rome, the Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres.(200)

The Ionic migration from Attica to Asia Minor is placed in the time of Medon, the successor of Codrus, and at an interval of sixty years after the Return of the Heraclidae; that is, 1044 B.C., according to the chronology of Eratosthenes. The Æolic migration from Boeotia to the Troad, and other parts of Asia Minor, is referred to an earlier period: it is supposed to have occurred twenty years before the Return of the Heraclidæ and sixty years after the taking of Troy, 1124 B.C.(201) The affinities of the Greek cities; their race, gods, heroes, religious rites, and dialect, appear to have been preserved by faithful traditions; but there is nothing to show that any historical knowledge of real events at this early period was retained until the literary age. (202) A long series of dates, in the seventh and eighth centuries B.C., from the beginning of the olympiads, is also given for the foundations of Greek colonies. How far these dates are authentic, we have little means of judging; but the colonial legends connected with the early foundations are for the most part fabulous.(203) Thus the story of the Lacedæmonian Parthenia who founded Tarentum at the time of the Messenian wars, is destitute of all claim to be considered historical.(204)

(200) See above, vol. i. p. 412.

(201) Concerning the Eolic migration, see Clinton, vol. i. p. and concerning the Ionic migration, p. 112-23.

102-6;

(202) The emigrations of the Athenians into Asia, that under Neleus, as well as under Penthilus, cannot be regarded as historical. All these traditions and stories have an unmistakeable origin; and in several of them we can say with incontrovertible evidence, why they were invented; and where this is not possible, we may conjecture it with great probability from analogous cases;' Niebuhr, ib. p. 188, and compare p. 213, 225. Mr. Grote considers the accounts of the Eolic and Ionic migrations as legendary, and not historical; vol. iii. p. 229, 256.

(203) Compare Niebuhr, ib. p. 239: The history of the foundation of all the Greek colonies is obscure, although it belongs to the period subsequent to the commencement of the olympiads. The common accounts of the establishment of the colonies are altogether untrustworthy.'

(204) Ephor. fragm. 54; Antiochus, fragm. 14; Diod. vii. 26; Dion. Hal. xvii. 1, 2; and see Lorentz, de Origine Veterum Tarentinorum, c. 3. An oracle similar to that described by Diodorus and Dionysius as having

§ 18 Our researches into the period of Greece which is anterior to the age of contemporary history lead us therefore to the conclusion that a connected account of the affairs of the principal Greek states begins about a century before the birth of Herodotus; and that a continuous narrative of the principal transactions is carried on from the time of Croesus and Cyrus, when the Ionic Greeks first became subject to the Lydian and Persian kings. As soon as we ascend beyond the memory of the generation which preceded Herodotus and his contemporaries, we find the chronology uncertain, the order of events confused, and the narrative interspersed with legend and fable. As we mount higher, the uncertainty increases, until at last the light of history is almost quenched, and we find ourselves in nearly total darkness. The accounts of Periander, the celebrated despot of Corinth, whose rule lasted from about 625 to 585 B.C., may be compared with much of what we find in the history of Rome, during the reign of the last Tarquin and the first two centuries of the Republic; while the accounts of Lycurgus and his legislation resemble those which are delivered to us as the history of Romulus, Numa, and Servius; and the detailed narrative of the Messenian wars in Pausanias offers a counterpart to the relation of the Alban war, the war with Porsena, and other early wars, which we meet with in the Roman history.(205)

been given to the Lacedæmonians with respect to the foundation of Tarentum is stated, by Paus. iv. 20, § 1, to have been given to the Messenians with respect to the event of their war with Sparta. It turns on the ambiguity of the word rpayos, which meant both a goat and a wild fig

tree.

(205) On the history of Greece, before the Persian war, Niebuhr makes the following remarks: All that Thucydides says about the Pisistratids, about the Krioeis, &c., about the nations that sent out colonies, and the time at which they were sent, is authentic; if we add to this a few fragments from Ephorus and other trustworthy sources, these are all the genuine historical data that have reached us. Whatever we read elsewhere, even in Herodotus, about the earlier times, the Pisistratids, the stories of Solon, Lycurgus, Cleisthenes of Sicyon, all these, whatever may be said to the contrary, are nothing but oral traditions and tales of no more historical value than the Roman stories of Coriolanus, Camillus, and the like. They are tales concerning real personages, in which there is a groundwork of genuine history, but which has been disfigured in the process of continuous oral tradition; it matters not whether we suppose that