Thucydidês calls the ante-Dorian inhabitants of Corinth Æolians; Conôn calls them Ionians. The settlement of Oxylus and his Ætolians in Elis is said by some to have been accomplished with very little opposition; the leader professing himself to be descended from Ætolus, who had been in a previous age banished from Elis into Ætôlia, and the two people, Epeians and Ætolians, acknowledging a kindred origin one with the other.[16] At first, indeed, according to Ephorus, the Epeians appeared in arms, determined to repel the intruders, but at length it was agreed on both sides to abide the issue of a single combat. Degmenus, the champion of the Epeians, confided in the long shot of his bow and arrow; but the Ætolian Pyræchmês came provided with his sling,—a weapon then unknown and recently invented by the Ætolians,—the range of which was yet longer than that of the bow of his enemy: he thus killed Degmenus, and secured the victory to Oxylus and his followers. According to one statement, the Epeians were expelled; according to another, they fraternized amicably with the new-comers: whatever may be the truth as to this matter, it is certain that their name is from this moment lost, and that they never reappear among the historical elements of Greece:[17] we hear from this time forward only of Eleians, said to be of Ætolian descent.[18] [16] Ephorus ap. Strabo, x. p. 463. [17] Strabo, viii. p. 358; Pausan. v. 4, 1. One of the six towns in Triphylia mentioned by Herodotus is called Ἔπειον (Herodot. iv. 149). [18] Herodot. viii. 73; Pausan. v. 1, 2. Hekatæus affirmed that the Epeians were completely alien to the Eleians; Strabo does not seem to have been able to satisfy himself either of the affirmative or negative (Hekatæus, Fr. 348, ed. Didot; Strabo, viii. p. 341). One most important privilege was connected with the possession of the Eleian territory by Oxylus, coupled with his claim on the gratitude of the Dorian kings. The Eleians acquired the administration of the temple at Olympia, which the Achæans are said to have possessed before them; and in consideration of this sacred function, which subsequently ripened into the celebration of the great Olympic games, their territory was solemnly pronounced to be inviolable. Such was the statement of Ephorus:[19] we find, in this case as in so many others, that the Return of the Herakleids is made to supply a legendary basis for the historical state of things in Peloponnêsus. [19] Ephorus ap. Strabo. viii. p. 358. The tale of the inhabitants of Pisa, the territory more immediately bordering upon Olympia, was very different from this.