5. There had dwelt in the valley of the Peneus from the earliest times a Pelasgic nation, which offered up thanks to the gods for the possession of so fruitful a territory at the festival of Peloria.(89) Their habits were doubtless adapted to the nature of the country, which has still the same effect on the modern inhabitants; those who dwell near the river being of a soft and peaceable disposition, while the mountaineers are of a stronger and freer turn of mind.(90) Larissa was the ancient capital of this nation.(91) But at a very early time the primitive inhabitants were either expelled or reduced to subjection, by more northern tribes.(92) Those who had retired into the mountains became the PERRHÆBIAN nation, and always retained a certain degree of independence. In the Homeric catalogue the Perrhæbians are mentioned as dwelling on the hill Cyphus under Olympus, and on the banks of the Titaresius, which, flowing along the western edge of Olympus, is distinguished by its clear and therefore dark-coloured stream, from the muddy and white waters of the Peneus.(93) At the present day the inhabitants of its banks are remarkable for their healthy complexion, while the Peneus is surrounded by a sickly population.(94) The ancients however were reminded by the Titaresius of the Styx and of the infernal regions, not from any natural circumstance, but because both among these Perrhæbians and the Hellopian Pelasgians the name and worship of Dodona had been established.(95) Accordingly there seems to have been in both places a Ψυχοπομπεῖον, or oracle of the dead. The prince of these Perrhæbians was called Guneus. So much may be gathered from the passage in Homer. Afterwards, in historical times, we find the Perrhæbians having extended their limits to the Cambunian mountains, the pass of Tempe, and the Peneus; and reaching to the west beyond the chain of Pindus.(96) Gonnus and Atrax were likewise Perrhæbian towns.(97) The Perrhæbians maintained themselves in the mountains, even when the Thessalians had seized upon the plain, not indeed as an independent, but still as a separate, and, until the Macedonian supremacy, as an Amphictyonic nation.