It is however plain, that we cannot look to any thing simply Pelasgian in the Lycian population, as supplying the motive which has induced Homer to give the Lycians a marked preference over other populations, themselves of a Pelasgian character. This preference must be due to the other element, which associates them especially with the Hellenic race. And we may not irrationally suppose it to be founded on any one of such causes as these: the special connection in the royal line between the two countries: a larger infusion of the more lordly blood into a subordinate Lelegian or Pelasgian body in Lycia, just as in Greece, than in Troas and Asia Minor generally: or lastly, a more palpable and near connection between the dominant caste in Lycia and those Persian highlanders, from among whom may have proceeded[340] the forefathers of the Hellenic tribes. Everywhere we see this race branching forth, and, by an intrinsic superiority, acquiring a predominance over the races in prior occupation. Whether the stock came to Lycia by land, or from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, it may be hard even to conjecture: but there is one particular note of relationship to Persia, which Lycia retains more clearly than Greece, and that is the high estimation in which, to judge from the connection with Apollo and from Il. v. 172, the use of the bow was held in that country. The case was the same in Persia. According to Herodotus, one of the three essential articles of education in Persia was the use of the bow[341]; and he is not contradicted by Ctesias, who calls him in most things a liar and a fabulist[342]. We must not, indeed, rely too strongly upon a circumstance like this. Cyaxares the Median had the art taught to his sons by Nomad Scythians[343]. We may however observe that alike on the Trojan and the Grecian side we never hear of the bow except in the hands of highborn persons, such as Paris, Pandarus, Teucer: and, in the games, Meriones[344]. In passing, it may deserve remark, that the Lycians alone, of all tribes or nations on either side, appear not under two leaders merely, but two kings, in the strict sense. I do not however believe that this indicates a political peculiarity. The origin of it may probably be found in the legend of Bellerophon, to whom, after his high exploits and great services, the reigning sovereign gave half his kingdom[345]. Now that king is nowhere stated to have had a son: and if we suppose a failure of issue in his own direct line, and the succession of one of the two descendants of his daughter to each moiety of the realm, it at once accounts for the exceptional position of Sarpedon and Glaucus.