The current ideas respecting the distribution of the Greek races are founded upon the supposition that there was a certain Hellen, and that he had three sons, Dorus, Æolus, and Xuthus, the last of whom died and left behind him two sons, Ion and Achæus. This Hellen was (so runs the story) the son of Deucalion, and Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, and the husband of Pyrrha, who again was the daughter of Epimetheus and of Pandora, the first-made woman. From the agency of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the human race took a new commencement after the Deluge. The nation at large were called Hellenes, after Hellen; and from his two surviving sons, and his grandsons Ion and Achæus, were named the four great branches of the common stem. Such is the legend as it stands in Apollodorus[106]; and that part of it which describes Hellen and his three sons, but no more, is found in a fragment of Hesiod, quoted by Tzetzes on Lycophron[107]. It is obvious that any one, setting about the invention of a story with the compound purpose, first, of uniting the Greeks in a common bond of race; secondly, of referring them to a common country as their cradle; and, thirdly, of carrying up their origin to an extreme antiquity, could hardly have done better than invent this tale. And that, which might have been done at a stroke by an individual mind, was done no less effectually by the common thought and wish of the Greek people moulding itself by degrees into tradition. The tale has a symmetry about it, most suggestive of design and invention. How clearly it connects all the celebrated families or groups of the Greek nation; with what accuracy it fixes their relation to the common stem; and with how much impartial consideration for the self-love of every one among them, and for their several shares of fame. Not only in general, but even in detail, we may watch the gradual formation of this tradition adapting itself to the state of Greece. In Homer we find no Hellenes greatly distinguished, except Æolids and Achæans. This is the first stage. But when the Dorians attain to power[108], they claim a share in the past answerable to their predominance in the present: and they receive accordingly the first place in the genealogy as it stands in Hesiod, where Dorus is the first-named among the three sons of Hellen. The Achæans, now in depression, do not appear as Hellenes at all. But with the lapse of time the Ionians of Athens, becoming powerful, desire to be also famous: therefore room must be made for them: and the Achæans too by their local intermixture with the same race, and their political sympathy with Athens, once more come to be entitled to notice: Xuthus accordingly, in the final form of the tradition is provided with two sons. Ion and Achæus, and now all the four branches have each their respective place.