fresh attempt to recover their birthright. They were assisted in
the enterprise by the Dorians. This people espoused their cause
in consequence of the aid which Hercules himself had rendered to
the Dorian king, AEgimius, when the latter was hard pressed in a
contest with the Lapithae. The invaders were warned by an oracle
not to enter Peloponnesus by the Isthmus of Corinth, but across
the mouth of the Corinthian gulf. The inhabitants of the
northern coast of the gulf were favourable to their enterprise.
Oxylus, king of the AEtolians, became their guide; and from
Naupactus they crossed over to Peloponnesus. A single battle
decided the contest. Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, was defeated
and retired with a portion of his Achaean subjects to the
northern coast of Peloponnesus, then occupied by the Ionians. He
expelled the Ionians, and took possession of the country, which
continued henceforth to be inhabited by the Achaeans, and to be
called after them. The Ionians withdrew to Attica, and the
greater part of them afterwards emigrated to Asia Minor.

The Heraclidae and the Dorians now divided between them the
dominions of Tisamenus and of the other Achaean princes. The
kingdom of Elis was given to Oxylus as a recompense for his
services as their guide; and it was agreed that Temenus,
Cresphontes, and Eurysthenes and Procles, the infant sons of
Aristodemus (who had died at Naupactus), should draw lots for
Argos, Sparta, and Messenia. Argos fell to Temenus, Sparta to
Eurysthenes and Procles, and Messenia to Cresphontes.

Such are the main features of the legend of the Return of the
Heraclidae. In order to make the story more striking and
impressive, it compresses into a single epoch events which