2. We now come to the martial exploits of Hercules, which, as it appears, were intended to represent the conquests of the Dorians in Peloponnesus. We have only to direct our attention to the account that Hercules, towards the close of his life, being prince of Mycenæ,(1822) delivered Sparta from the Hippocontidæ into the hands of Tyndareus, and, after conquering Pylos from Neleus, transferred, it to Nestor,(1823) in order to perceive the coincidence of tradition and history. The circumstances which have chiefly contributed to the formation of these traditions may best be traced in the combat at Pylos. The share which Hades had in this adventure, when that god was himself wounded by the bold son of Zeus,(1824) may be considered, according to the connexion established above, as having been transferred from Ephyra, where Hades had a greater inducement to the protection of oppressed cities than at Pylos.(1825) But Hercules is said to have destroyed Pylos because Neleus would not purify him from the murder of Iphitus;(1826) an act which Deiphobus afterwards performed in the temple of Apollo at Amyclæ.(1827) Here it seems to be assumed that Œchalia, the native city of Iphitus, was situated in Messenia, which, as we have shown above,(1828) was not the original tradition. 3. The influence of historical facts upon mythology is most clearly perceivable in the legend of Hercules having founded the Olympic games when he returned victorious from his expedition against Augeas of Elis.(1829) Afterwards the same hero celebrates the first Olympiad as a festival of all Peloponnesus, with various combats, in which heroes from Tiryns, Tegea, Mantinea, and Sparta were victorious.(1830) It was also Hercules who fixed the quinquennial period, and established the sacred armistice.(1831) His bringing the wild olive-tree from the Hyperboreans, and planting it in the grove of Altis, was probably derived from the traditions of Northern Greece;(1832) in which Hercules was represented as more closely connected with Apollo than in the common Peloponnesian legends. It should, moreover, be remarked that Hercules in his expedition against Elis is reported to have founded or visited several temples of Apollo at Pheneus and Thelpusa;(1833) both lying on the road which connected the isthmus and the north of Greece with Olympia.(1834) It would, however, involve us in no slight difficulties to date the tradition of Hercules founding the Olympic games later than the Olympiad of Iphitus; for as since that period the Eleans conducted the festival, and therefore showed a particular veneration for Hercules, it is scarcely probable that a war _against Elis_ should have been considered as the cause of the establishment of this festival, had not the report been handed down from an earlier period. The continual claim of Pisa, that the presidency of the games should be restored to her as an ancient right, is, however, one of