8. This poem, written in the Hesiodean tone (although the author probably lived about the 30th Olympiad, 660 B.C. in the last period of epic poetry),(104) celebrated the most ancient exploits of the Doric race. Thus it sung how Ægimius, the Doric prince, whilst engaged in a difficult and dangerous war with the Lapithæ, called to his assistance the wandering Hercules, and by the promise of a third part of the territory obtained his alliance; by which means the enemies were beaten, their prince slain, and the disputed territory conquered.(105) The name of the poem is a sufficient proof that such would have been its contents.(106) Probably the heroes of Iolcus and the Phthiotans were also introduced as allies of the Lapithæ, and at least the adventures of Phrixus and Achilles.(107) The scene of the second book was Eubœa, the name of which island was there derived from the cow Io;(108) the attack of Hercules upon the Eubœan town of Œchalia also formed, as I conjecture, part of the subject. Ægimius was, however, supposed to reign in Hestiæotis, merely because the Dorians bordered in this direction upon the Lapithæ; he was easily carried over to the second settlements of the race under mount Œta.(109) This hero is in general the mythical progenitor and hero of the Doric nation; hence Pindar called the customs and laws of that people “the ordinances of Ægimius.”(110) Nevertheless only two tribes of the Dorians are stated to be descended from him, viz. the Dymanes and Pamphylians; the third and most distinguished, viz. the Hylleans, was supposed to be descended from Hyllus the son of Hercules, and adopted by Ægimius. And as the land in the Doric states was equally divided between these three tribes, Hercules was fabled to have received for his descendants a third part of the territory, which belonged of right to the Hylleans. This triple division of the land was expressly mentioned by the epic poet, who used the word τριχάϊκες to express that the Dorians had obtained and shared among themselves, at a distance from their native country (chiefly in Peloponnesus),(111) a territory apportioned into three parts. An examination of the opinion, that the first race was distinguished from the other two as of different origin, will be found in a following chapter.(112) We must also refer our reader to the investigation of the worship of Apollo, and the mythology of Hercules, in the second book, since from these alone can be collected the internal history of the Doric race during its earliest period.