Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/29

 HOMERIC PELOPONNESUS. 13 (rapposition, that the historical Achoeans in the north part of Peloponnesus are a small undisturbed remnant of the powerful Achaean population once distributed throughout the peninsula, until it was broken up and partially expelled by the Dorians. The Homeric legends, unquestionably the oldest which we possess, are adapted to a population of Achaeans, Danaans, and Argeians, seemingly without any special and recognized names, either aggregate or divisional, other than the name of each sepa- rate tribe or kingdom. The post-Homeric legends are adapted to a population classified quite differently, Hellens, distributed into Dorians, lonians, and ^Eolians. If we knew more of the time and circumstances in which these different legends grew up, we should probably be able to explain their discrepancy ; but in our present ignorance we can only note the fact. Whatever difficulty modern criticism may find in regard to the event called " The Return of the Herakleids," no doubt is ex- pressed about it even by the best historians of antiquity. Thucy- dides accepts it as a single and literal event, having its assignable date, and carrying at one blow the acquisition of Peloponnesus. The date of it he fixes as eighty years after the capture of Troy. Whether he was the original determiner of this epoch, or copied it from some previous author, we do not know. It must have been fixed according to some computation of generations, for there were no other means accessible, probably by means of the lineage of the Herakleids, which, as belonging to the kings of Sparta, constituted the most public and conspicuous thread of connection between the Grecian nal and mythical world, and measured the interval between the Siege of Troy itself and the first recorded Olympiad. Herakles himself represents the gen- eration before the siege, and his son Tlepolemus fights in the be- sieging army. If we suppose the first generation after Herakles to commence with the beginning of the siege, the fourth genera- tion after him will coincide with the ninetieth year after the same epoch ; and therefore, deducting ten years for the duration of the struggle, it will coincide with the eightieth year after the capture of the city ; l thirty years being reckoned for a generation. Th The date of Thtioy didus is calculate!, //era 'I^'oy uluaiv (i. 13).