Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/116

 The People. 95 Greek descent ; though no great poets or artists were born to them, they were not destitute of letters and arts. Instances of sculptured works found here will be described in another part of this history, and if the fact of their having been wrought by natives remains obscure, there is no doubt that they were executed for Thessalian nobles and princes. The people which the Thessalian tribes subjected or expelled were Boeotians, also called Arnaeans, after their principal town Arne, lying at the foot of mountains that fence the plain to the southward. They were a branch of the ^olic Pelasgians, accustomed to a settled life, and grew rich in consequence of it. Those among them who did not care to acknowledge the new state of affairs, took the path trodden before them by the Minyi ; they crossed Othrys and the CEtan passes, and spread over the Copaeic valley which they colonized, between Minyan Orchomenos and Cadmaian Thebes. The latter fell to their hands along with the country which, after them, was called Boeotia. Thebes was in some sort looked up to as the head-centre ; in any case her superiority was sufficiently marked to make it natural that no important measure should be carried without first having sought her advice, and that on her should devolve the presidency of any federation which might subsequently be formed in the land. Some towns, Orchomenos, Thespiae, and Platsea, made several attempts to resist this supremacy, but they were so harshly dealt with, that in the end they had to give way to the pressure of the Thessalian advance. That here they established a united Boeotia is proved from the spoken dialect, in which we recognize one of the main forms of -^olian ; such differences as may, be detected from one district to another are unimportant. The movement of population occasioned by the Thessalian conquest, embracing the whole of Northern Greece, did not cease with the subjection of Boeotia by the -Cohans from Arne. The same impulse had disturbed another tribe besides them, that of the Dorians, the consequences of which were of far greater moment, in that they were to effect the division and equilibrium of the several forces. The Dorian, said their most ancient tradi- tions, had first inhabited Phthiotis, then Histiseotis, as Northern Thessaly was called.^ Whether on the brink of the Pagasaean Bay, in the vale of Tempe, or at the mouth of the Peneiis, 1 Herodotus.