Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/302

 286 HISTORY OF GRF.KCK. overwhelmed them in war, that they were forced to throw thenv selves on the protection of Sparta ; and the establishment of the Spartan colony of Herakleia, near Trachin, was the result of their urgent application. Of these mountaineers, described under the general name of CEtjcans, the principal were the -ZEnianes, (o- Enienes, as they are termed in the Homeric Catalogue, as well as by Herodotus), an ancient Hellenic 1 Amphiktyonic race, who are said to have passed through several successive migrations in Thessaly and Epirus, but who, in the historical times, had their settlement and their chief town, Hypata, in the upper valley of the Spercheius, on the northern declivity of Mount GEta. But other tribes were probably also included in the name, such as those JEtolian tribes, the Bomians and Kalli- ans, whose high and cold abodes approached near to the Maliac gulf. It is in this sense that we are to understand the name, as comprehending all the predatory tribes along this extensive mountain range, when we are told of the damage done by tht- G'^taeans, both to the Malians on the east, and to the Dorians on the south : but there are some cases in which the name (Etaeana seems to designate expressly the .2Enianes, especially when they are mentioned as exercising the Ainphiktyonic franchise. 2 The fine soil, abundant moisture, and genial exposure of the southern declivities of Othrys, 3 especially the valley of the Spercheius, through which river all these waters pass away, and which annually gives forth a fertilizing inundation, present a marked contrast with the barren, craggy, and naked masses of Mount (Eta, which forms one side of the pass of Thermopylae. Southward of the pass, the Lokrians, Phokians, and Dorians, occupied the mountains and passes between Thessaly and Bceo- 1 Plutarch, Quits t ion. Grace, p. 294. Xenophon expressly distinguishes the CEtcei and the JEnianes (Hellen. iil 5,6). Diodor. xiv. 38. ^Eschines, De Fals. Leg. c. 44, p. 290. 3 About the fertility as well as the beauty of this valley, see Pr. Holland's Travels, ch. xvii. vol. ii. p. 108, and Forchhammer (Hellenika, Griechenland, ira Neuen das Alte, Berlin. 1837). I do riot concur with the latter in his attempts to resolve the mythes of Herakles, Achilles, and others, into physi- cal phenomena; but hi? descriptions cf local scenery and attributes are most vivid and masterly.
 * Thucyd. iii. 92-97 ; viii. 3. Xenoph. Hellen. i. 2, 18 ; in another passage