In the remarkable passage, which enumerates for us the principal trades and professions of Greece in the heroic age[369], we find mentioned the prophet, the physician, the artificer, the divinely prompted bard; but not the priest. Yet, had such an order existed, it could not well, on account of its importance, have been omitted. For in truth this enumeration is, as we have before seen, nearly exhaustive, as applied to an age when there was no professional soldier, when the husbandman, fisherman, or herd, could not be called a δημιοεργὸς, for he had no relation to the public, and when commerce was confined to foreigners like the Phœnicians, or pirates like the Taphians, and formed no part of the business of the settled communities of Greece. [369] Od. xvii. 384-6. On the other hand, in the Legend of Phœnix concerning Meleager, we have a notice of priests as having existed at that time in Ætolia. The embassy, which was sent to conciliate Meleager, consisted of elders and of the best, or most distinguished, among the priests; τὸν δὲ λίσσοντο γέροντες Αἰτωλῶν, πέμπον δὲ θεῶν ἱερῆας ἀρίστους. Il. ix. 574. Now, the word Αἰτωλὸς, I apprehend, indicates an Hellenic race, for Tydeus is Αἰτώλιος; and it is worth notice, that in this passage the elders are called Ætolian, but not the priests. Again, this event took place during the reign of Œneus, two generations before the Trojan war[370]. At that time the Hellenic influence was quite recent in Middle and in Southern Greece. The family of Sisyphus had indeed arrived there at least two generations before, but it disappeared, and it had never risen to great power. It was the date of Augeias, of Neleus, and of Pelops; all of them, apparently, the first of their respective families in Peloponnesus. So again the name Portheus, assigned to the father of Œneus, probably marks him as the first Hellenic occupant of the country. [370] Il. ix. 535. Plato observes, that new settlers might naturally remain for a time without religious institutions[371] of their own. [371] Legg. vi. 7.