It has been customary to speak of the question whether Homer was an Æolian Greek: to give the Æolian name to the forms of the Greek language prevailing in his time: and to describe the Achæans as a branch of the Æolians. With certain exceptions, says Strabo[736], the Æolian name still prevails outside the Isthmus; and it also covered the Peloponnesus, till a mixture took place. The Ionians from Attica had occupied Ægialus; and when the Heraclids, with the Dorians, became masters of many Peloponnesian cities, the Ionians were expelled in their turn ὑπὸ Ἀχαιῶν, Αἰολικοῦ ἔθνους, after which two ἔθνη only remained in Peloponnesus, the Æolian and the Dorian. Again, as respects the _digamma_, Heyne[737] most justly observes that it may much more justly be called Pelasgic than Æolic; since the Æolians, as far as we know, only retained it, after having found it in use with the Pelasgi. But in general, to those who ground their judgments on the Homeric text, the whole view of the relation of Achæans and Æolians, as it is commonly given, will appear a false one. In the first place the Æolians as a nation or tribe are wholly post-Homeric: unless we are bold enough to find some modification of their name in the Αἴτωλοι. The Æolid families, indeed, of Homer have evidently a great position, which we shall further discuss[738]: but they simply fall for the time under the general name of Achæans, as much as any other families, and more than families like the Æacidæ, who were in close political relations with a race bearing a designation of its own, namely, the Myrmidons. This nowhere appears to have been the case with the Æolians. On the contrary, the Neleids, though they were of illegitimate birth, may perhaps be considered as belonging to the Æolidæ; but their subjects actually bore the name of Achæans, besides their territorial name of Pylians[739]. With respect to the epoch of the _Troica_, instead of calling the Achæans an Æolic race, it would be more reasonable to call the Æolids (as there was nothing more extensive than a patronymic connected with that name) Achæan houses. I do not however mean that they were properly such: for the Æolid name appears in Southern Greece before the Achæan, and was probably an older branch from the same trunk.