Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/296

 280 HISTORY OF GREECE. the teiritory by the Thesprotians, as that of the Helots in La- conia is traced to the Dorian conquest The victors in both countries are said to have entered into a convention with the vanquished population, whereby the latter became serfs and tillers of the land for the benefit of the former, but were at the same time protected in their holdings, constituted subjects of the state, and secured against being sold away as slaves. Even in the Thessalian cities, though inhabited in common by Thessalian proprietors and their Penestas, the quarters assigned to each were to a great degree separated: what was called the Free Agora could not be trodden by any Penest, except when specially summoned. 1 Who the people were, whom the conquest of Thessaly by the Thesprotians reduced to this predial villanage, we find differently stated. According to Theopompus, they were Perrhsebians and Magnetes ; according to others, Pelasgians ; while Archemachus alleged them to have been Brootians of the territory of Arne, 2 some emigrating, to escape the conquerors, others remaining and accepting the condition of serfs. But the conquest, assuming it as a fact, occurred at far too early a day to allow of out making out either the manner in which it came to pass, or the state of things which preceded it. The Pelasgians whom Herodotus saw at Kreston are affirmed by him to have been the descendants of those who quitted Thessaly to escape 3 the invading Thesprotians ; though others held that the Boeotians, driven on this occasion from their habitations on the gulf of Pagasae near the Achoeans of Phthiotis, precipitated themselves on Orchome- nus and Boeotia, and settled in it, expelling the Minya3 and the Pelasgians. 1 Aristot. Polit. vii. 11, 2. 2 Theopompus and Archemachus ap. Athenje. vi. pp. 264-26u. compare Thucyd. ii. 12; Steph. Byz. v. "Apvij the converse of this story in Strabo, ix. pp. 401-411, of the Thessalian Arne being settled from Bceotia. That the villains or Pcnestae were completely distinct from the circumjacent de- pendents, Achaeans, Magnetes, Perrhasbians, we see by Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 8. They had their eponymous hero Penestes, whose descent was traced to Thessalus son of Herakles ; they were thus connected with the mythical father of the nation (Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1271). 3 Ilerodot. i. 57 : compare vii. 176.