The last element to be included, as going to make up the Greece of
776 B. C., is the long string of Doric, Ionic, and Æolic settlements
on the coast of Asia Minor,—occupying a space bounded on the north
by the Troad and the region of Ida, and extending southward as far
as the peninsula of Knidus. Twelve continental cities, over and
above the islands of Lesbos and Tenedos, are reckoned by Herodotus
as ancient Æolic foundations,—Smyrna, Kymê, Larissa, Neon-Teichos,
Têmnos, Killa, Notium, Ægirœssa, Pitana, Ægæ, Myrina, and Gryneia.
Smyrna, having been at first Æolic, was afterwards acquired through
a stratagem by Ionic inhabitants, and remained permanently Ionic.
Phokæa, the northernmost of the Ionic settlements, bordered upon
Æolis: Klazomenæ, Erythræ, Teôs, Lebedos, Kolophôn, Priênê, Myus,
and Milêtus, continued the Ionic name to the southward. These,
together with Samos and Chios, formed the Panionic federation.[363]
To the south of Milêtus, after a considerable interval, lay the
Doric establishments of Myndus, Halikarnassus, and Knidus: the two
latter, together with the island of Kôs and the three townships in
Rhodes, constituted the Doric Hexapolis, or communion of six cities,
concerted primarily with a view to religious purposes, but producing
a secondary effect analogous to political federation.
[363] Herodot. i. 143-150.
Such, then, is the extent of Hellas, as it stood at the commencement
of the recorded Olympiads. To draw a picture even for this date,
we possess no authentic materials, and are obliged to ante-date
statements which belong to a later age: and this consideration might
alone suffice to show how uncertified are all delineations of the
Greece of 1183 B. C., the supposed epoch of the Trojan war, four
centuries earlier.
CHAPTER II.
THE HELLENIC PEOPLE GENERALLY, IN THE EARLY HISTORICAL TIMES.
The territory indicated in the last chapter—south of Mount Olympus,
and south of the line which connects the city of Ambrakia 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.
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