When the words in the text were written Mr. Müller was still living, and there was every reason to expect from him a series of learned and able works on the history and antiquities of Greece. He has since, however, fallen a victim to the persevering ardour with which he pursued his researches into the topography of that illustrious land; and in common, I believe, with every other admirer of the Hellenic people and literature I sincerely lament his premature death. My regret moreover is heightened by the knowledge that Mr. Muller had projected a history of Greece which his profound investigations and extensive knowledge of the country would unquestionably have rendered highly valuable. His ashes repose among those of the most distinguished men of antiquity. He caught his death among the ruins of Delphi, and was buried at Athens. ----- As, however, he has adopted a very peculiar system in the interpretation of antiquity, which, though plausible and ingenious, seems ill-calculated to lead to truth, I have found it impossible to participate on many important points the views which he maintains, more especially on the subject of the Helots. In fact, with all his talents and sagacity he has chosen rather to become an advocate than an historian, and pushes so far his eagerness to defend his favourite people, as not unfrequently to provoke a smile. In his derivation of the term Helot, however, he is perhaps correct,[158] it being more probable that it should have sprung from an ancient word signifying “The Prisoners” than from the name of the town. In the absence of all testimony we might likewise entertain the conjecture, “that they were an aboriginal race subdued at a very early period, and which immediately passed over as slaves to the Doric conquerors.” But we have the weighty authority of Theopompos to oppose to this inference, and the words of this historian[159] attentively considered would lead to the etymology of the name given by Müller:—“having taken them prisoners,” he says, “they called them εἵλωτες.” They were, however, Greeks of the Achaian race, who fell, together with the land, into the power of the new-comers, so that the excuse of only tyrannising over a foreign and half-savage race is wanting to the Spartans, which was the object aimed at by Mr. Müller’s ingenious conjecture. ----- Footnote 158: