Such is the brief account given by Apollodôrus of the Return of the Herakleids, at which point we pass, as if touched by the wand of a magician, from mythical to historical Greece. The story bears on the face of it the stamp, not of history, but of legend,—abridged from one or more of the genealogical poets,[6] and presenting such an account as they thought satisfactory, of the first formation of the great Dorian establishments in Peloponnêsus, as well as of the semi-Ætolian Elis. Its incidents are so conceived as to have an explanatory bearing on Dorian institutions,—upon the triple division of tribes, characteristic of the Dorians,—upon the origin of the great festival of the Karneia at Sparta, alleged to be celebrated in expiation of the murder of Karnus,—upon the different temper and character of the Dorian states among themselves,—upon the early alliance of the Dorians with Elis, which contributed to give ascendency and vogue to the Olympic games,—upon the reverential dependence of Dorians towards the Delphian oracle,—and, lastly, upon the etymology of the name Naupaktus. If we possessed the narrative more in detail, we should probably find many more examples of coloring of the legendary past suitable to the circumstances of the historical present. [6] Herodotus observes, in reference to the Lacedæmonian account of their first two kings in Peloponnêsus, (Eurysthenês and Proklês, the twin sons of Aristodêmus,) that the Lacedæmonians gave a _story not in harmony with any of the poets_,—Λακεδαιμόνιοι γὰρ, ~ὁμολογέοντες οὐδενὶ ποιητῇ~, λέγουσιν αὐτὸν Ἀριστόδημον ... βασιλεύοντα ἀγαγεῖν σφεας ἐς ταύτην τὴν χώρην τὴν νῦν ἐκτέαται, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τοὺς Ἀριστοδήμου παῖδας (Herodot. vi. 52).