οὔτ’ ἄρ’ Ἐπεῶν, οὔτ’ αὐτῶν Πυλίων, οὔτ’ Αἰτώλων μεγαθύμων. For the Epeans (or Elians) and Pylians, I repeat the reference already made. Nor can I doubt that the Ætolians, the subjects of Œneus and his illustrious family, belonged to the same stock. I do not inquire whether, as they were always in later times held to belong to the Æolian branch of the Greeks, so their name may have been radically akin to, or identical with, the name of Æolus, which is often with Homer Αἴωλος. But we find Meleager (independently of the reference to him, evidently as a great national hero, in the Catalogue[578],) selected by Phœnix for the subject of an episode of great length, and held out as a warning and example to Achilles[579]. It may safely be assumed he would have chosen no character for this purpose, except that of an hero of pure Hellic origin. And the description of Tydeus, the father of Diomed, by the epithet Αἰτώλιος[580], again serves to identify the Ætolian name with the Hellic races. The tribes present, then, at the Games were all Hellic, and they were all conterminous: the Epean inhabitants, the Pylians, neighbours on the South, the Ætolians from the other side of the narrow strait, which was the most frequented passage into Peloponnesus. In fact, it was evidently an assemblage of the neighbouring tribes; but with a most remarkable exception, that of the eastern neighbours of Elis, those same Arcadians, whom by many signs we are enabled to conclude to have been Pelasgian. A third instance in which Homer notices gymnastic exercises, is in Il. iv. 389. Here Tydeus, having gone to Thebes, finds a solemn banquet proceeding in the palace of Eteocles. Alone among many, and on questionable terms with his hosts, he nevertheless at once challenges them to gymnastic games, and beats them all. ἀλλ’ ὅγ’ ἀεθλεύειν προκαλίζετο, πάντα δ’ ἐνίκα ῥηιδίως· τοίη οἱ ἐπιρρόθος ἦεν Ἀθήνη. Achæan, that is Hellene, himself, he is, if not among Hellenes, yet among the members and adherents of that Phœnician dynasty which had established itself, to all appearance, in Bœotia, at a somewhat early date: even as, at a period slightly later[581], Minos established from Phœnicia a Throne in Crete, which soon became wholly Greek in character. And again, in Il. xxiii. 678-80, we are told, that Mecisteus, on the death of Œdipus, went to Thebes to the even then customary funeral Games, and there was victor over all the Καδμείωνες who opposed him, by the aid of Minerva. Euryalus, the son of Mecisteus, was an Argive, and was the colleague of Diomed and Sthenelus. The same observations are applicable here, as in the last case. There is therefore nothing in any one of these cases to connect the gymnastic celebrations with the Pelasgian, but every thing to associate them with the Hellic races.