Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/20

 4 HISTORY OF GREECE. uttered various predictions : he was, however, so much suspected of treacherous collusion with the Peloponnesians, that Hippotes. great-grandson of Herakles through Phylas and Antiochus, slew him. His death drew upon the army the wrath of Apollo, who destroyed their vessels and punished them with famine. Teme- nus, in his distress, again applying to the Delphian god for succor and counsel, was made acquainted with the cause of so much suffering, and was directed to banish Hippotes for ten years, to offer expiatory sacrifice for the death of Karnus, and to seek as the guide of the army a man with three eyes. 1 On coming back to Naupaktus, he met the ^Etolian Oxylus, son of Androemon, re- turning to his country, after a temporary exile in Elis, incurred for homicide : Oxylus had lost one eye, but as he was seated on a horse, the man and the horse together made up the three eyes required, and he was adopted as the guide prescribed by the oracle. 3 Conducted by him, they refitted their ships, landed on the opposite coast of Achaia, and marched to attack Tisamenus son of Orestes, then the great potentate of the peninsula. A decisive battle was fought, in which the latter was vanquished and slain, and in which Pamphylus and Dymas also perished. This battle made the Dorians so completely masters of the Pelo- ponnesus, that they proceeded to distribute the territory among themselves. The fertile land of Elis had been by previous stip- ulation reserved for Oxylus, as a recompense for his services as conductor : and it was agreed that the three Herakleids, Te- menus, Kresphontes, and the infant sons of Aristodemus, should draw lots for Argos, Sparta, and Messene. Argos fell to Teme nus, Sparta to the sons of Aristodemus, and Messene to Kres- phontes ; the latter having secured for himself this prize, the most fertile territory of the three, by the fraud of putting into the misunderstood the admonition of the Delphian oracle. CEnomaus could have known nothing of the pledge given by Hyllus, as the condition of the single combat between Hyllus and Echemus (according to Herodotus), that the Herakleids should make no fresh trial for one hundred years ; if it had been understood that they had given and then violated such a pledge, sncli violation would probably have been adduced to account for their failure. 1 Apollodor. ii. 8, 3: Pausan. iii. 13. 3. upon which Oxylus rode was a mule, and had lo.st one eye (Pa js. v. 3, 5).
 * Apollodor. ii. 8, 3. According to the account of Pansanias, the beasl