The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 03 : $b Greece to the Peloponnesian War
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 03 : $b Greece to the Peloponnesian War
World history
Also the eponymi of the Spartan royal dynasties of Agis and Eurypon have
no place in the tradition of the Doric migrations; a sure sign that they
were first connected with Hercules artificially. And Temenus, from whom
the Argive kings traced their descent, was, according to the Arcadian
myth,--no doubt taken from Argos,--the son of Pelasgus, of Phegeus, or of
the Argolian hero Phoroneus. It was also related that Temenus had been
brought up by Hera--the goddess of the Argolian land. He was thus an old
Argive hero who originally had nothing whatever to do with Hercules.
Just as little was known about the Doric migration on the island of
Cos at the time when the genealogy of its ruling dynasty was written,
since the latter is not traced back to Temenus, but directly to Hercules
through his son Thessalus. And anyway Hercules, as we have seen, is not
a “Doric” divinity at all, but a Bœotian, whose cult was extended to the
neighbouring countries of Bœotia, only after the colonisation of Asia
Minor. The tradition concerning the return of the Heraclidæ is thus seen
to have come into existence long after the immigration of the Dorians
into the Peloponnesus, with which it is inseparably connected. This
tradition is first mentioned by Tyrtæus towards the end of the seventh
century and in the epic poem _Ægimios_, ascribed to Hesiod, which may
have been written at the same time, or a little later. That was the
period when the Homeric poems became popular in European Greece; both
Tyrtæus and Hesiod are wholly under their influence. Moreover it is clear
that an immigration of Dorians from middle Greece into the Peloponnesus
could be talked of only after the Doric name had been carried from the
colonies of Asia Minor to the west coast of the Ægean Sea, which did
not happen until post-Homeric times. In the same way the legend of the
Thessalian migration could have grown up only after the inhabitants of
the Peneus river basin had become conscious of their racial unity and had
begun to designate themselves by the common name of Thessalians. This
must have taken place early in the eighth or seventh centuries, since, as
has already been stated, Homer is not as yet acquainted with this name,
whereas the latest part of the _Iliad_, the catalogue of ships, mentions
the eponymic hero of the people. Finally, the dependence of all these
legendary migrations upon the epic poems is shown by the fact that they
are connected only with regions which in Homer had a different population
than in historic times. The Arcadians and Athenians, on the other hand,
who already in Homer are found in the same districts they occupied in
later times, considered themselves autochthonous. Thus we see that Homer
had not only given the Greeks their gods, as Herodotus says, but their
ancient history also. We, however, do not need to be told that traditions
which did not grow up until the eighth or seventh century are entirely
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