Having spoken of the Macedonians inhabiting the western country, we now proceed to MACEDONIA PROPER, also called EMATHIA, with its capital Aegeae. I have no doubt that you will be convinced, that what I am going to bring forward as a hypothesis, is not said lightly nor without full persuasion, or that such a persuasion has been arrived at without much labour. It is my opinion, that the Thracians did not spread themselves in those countries until a later period: the Pelasgian race which we find in Asia as far as Bithynia and the Maeander, undoubtedly once occupied the whole of the southern coast. To that period we have to refer much of what is related about the Thracians, as for example, the tradition about Orpheus, who is conceived to have dwelt in Pieria, on the slope of Olympus, near the well Pimplea. It is opposed to all our feelings, and it can have no historical meaning to conceive him as a Thracian; but the matter becomes intelligible, if we suppose that the Thracians immigrated into those countries at a later period, and that the recollections connected with the places which fell into the hands of the Thracians, were transferred to this people. Mount Olympus was considered as the seat and centre of the gods, because it was situated, in a measure, in the midst of the great Pelasgian nation, which we must conceive to have extended farther northward. It is not likely that the Greeks should have assigned to their gods a habitation at the extreme end of their father-land. We must therefore suppose that the Thracians spread over these countries from the Strymon and Nestus. Now, as in the west, we find the Macedonians as a Pelasgian people, so we meet in the central part, about the Axius and Strymon, the Paeonians, whom Herodotus expressly mentions among the Teucrian Trojans, who were as much a Pelasgian people as the Siceli. The statement of Herodotus that they were ἄποικοι τῶν Τευκρῶν, means nothing else than that they and the Teucrians belonged to the same race. I consider these Paeonians to have been a remnant of the ancient inhabitants, who maintained themselves against the invading Thracians. Before the Macedonian kings, the so-called Temenids, established their kingdom, the Thracians occupied the country down to the borders of Thessaly, not only as far as the river Strymon, but also the country on the west of it: the Crestonaean, Crossaean, Mygdonian, and Pierian countries were in fact all inhabited by Thracians, before the Macedonians of Aegeae spread over those parts. This gradual conquest of Mygdonia and Pieria belongs to a period previous to the Persian wars, certainly that of Pieria, and it is highly probable that the conquest of Mygdonia also belongs to the same period. Perdiccas was extending his empire as early as the time of the Peloponnesian war, but it was as yet ill consolidated. Archelaus did most, he first fortified towns, made roads, and prepared Macedonia for that career which it completed under