Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/118

 The People. 97 Amidst the perpetual movement to and fro of bands pressing forward towards Thessaly, each struggling for the richest lands, the Dorians, disturbed out of their possession of Histiseotis, petitioned Heracles to interfere on their behalf. In return for his services they made over to him the third of the land for ever, and acknow- ledged his royal dominion as well as that of his descendants.^ What we guess in these and similar stories is that the Dorian tribes, in a moment of danger, placed at their head an Achaean family, claiming descent from the hero, the tamer of monsters. In despite of their joint action, they are said to have been driven out of the territory into the mountain range of Pindus, and lost themselves among the highlanders that were to colonize Mace- donia. Unlike these however, instead of invading the declivities turned towards the north, they opened a path to the south- ward, throwing themselves upon the Dryopes, and reappearing in the valley of Cephisus, between Parnassus and CEta.^ This fertile district was never relinquished by them, and in the days of the Roman empire it still went by the name of Doris. Such had been the transplantation of the Dorians into the heart of Central Greece, and now they were established on the neck of land which parts the Bay of Crisa from the Malian Gulf. During their long stay in Thessaly, they had become acquainted with a higher order of life, and the worship of Apollo had farther softened their manners and opened their intelligence. Upon the Dorians therefore, in consequence of their frequent change of abode, devolved the special mission of acting as intermediaries between the various populations surrounding them, gathering them into a mutual bond of fellowship. Hence it is highly probable that the initiative for the formation of the Amphictyonic league came from them, resulting in the combination of all the tribes from Olympus to the Bay of Corinth, which were linked together by a compact placed under the guaranty of the deity. The Thermopylae were chosen as the meeting-place of one of the yearly gatherings of the Amphictyones in remembrance of the part the Thessalians had taken in the formation of this group ; but Delphi became none the less the real federal centre. A proof that this political system was more specially the work of the Dorians, and that they were justified in regarding themselves as the second founders of Delphi, is the claim set VOL. I. H
 * DioDORUS. 2 Herodotus.