CHAPTER IV.

EARLY HISTORY OF PELOPONNESUS AND SPARTA, DOWN TO THE END OF THE
MESSENIAN WARS, B.C. 668.

In the heroic age Peloponnesus was occupied by tribes of Dorian
conquerors. They had no share in the glories of the Heroic age;
their name does not occur in the Iliad, and they are only once
mentioned in the Odyssey; but they were destined to form in
historical times one of the most important elements of the Greek
nation. Issuing from their mountain district between Thessaly,
Locris and Phocis, they overran the greater part of Peloponnesus,
destroyed the ancient Achaean monarchies and expelled or reduced
to subjection the original inhabitants of the land, of which they
became the undisputed masters. This brief statement contains all
that we know for certain respecting this celebrated event, which
the ancient writers placed eighty years after the Trojan war
(B.C. 1104). The legendary account of the conquest of
Peloponnesus ran as follows:--The Dorians were led by the
Heraclidae, or descendants of the mighty hero Hercules. Hence
this migration is called the Return of the Heraclidae. The
children of Hercules had long been fugitives upon the face of the
earth. They had made many attempts to regain possession of the
dominions in the Peloponnesus, of which their great sire had been
deprived by Eurystheus, but hitherto without success. In their
last attempt Hyllus, the son of Hercules, had perished in single
combat with Echemus of Tegea; and the Heraclidae had become bound
by a solemn compact to renounce their enterprise for a hundred
years. This period had now expired; and the great-grandsons of
Hyllus--Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus--resolved to make a