Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/342

 5-20 HISTORY OF GREECE. as " the divine Elis, where the Epeians hold sway," 1 is in the his* torical times occupied by a population of .ZEtolian origin. The connection of race between the historical Eleians and the his- torical .^Etolians was recognized by both parties, nor is there any ground for disputing it. 2 That JEtolian invaders, or emigrants, into Elis, would cross from Naupaktus, or some neighboring point in the Corinthian gulf, is in the natural course of things, and such is the course which Oxylus, the conductor of the invasion, is represented by the Herakleid legend as taking. That legend (as has been already recounted) introduces Oxylus as the guide of the three Hera- kleid brothers, Temenus, Kresphontes, and Aristodemus, and as stipulating with them that, in the new distribution about to take place of Peloponnesus, he shall be allowed to possess the Eleian territory, coupled with many holy privileges as to the celebration of the Olympic games. In the preceding chapter, I have endeavored to show that the settlements of the Dorians in and near the Argolic peninsula, so far as the probabilities of the case enable us to judge, were not accomplished by any inroad in this direction. But the localities occupied by the Dorians of Sparta, and by the Dorians of Steny- klerus, in the territory called Messene, lead us to a different con- clusion. The easiest and most natural road through which emi- grants could reach either of these two spots, is through the Eleian and the Pisatid country. Colonel Leake observes, 3 that the direct road from the Eleian territory to Sparta, ascending the valley of the Alpheius, near Olympia, to the sources of its branch, the Theius, and from thence descending the Eurotas, affords the only easy march towards that very inaccessible city: and both ancients and moderns have remarked the vicinity of the source of the Alpheius to that of the Eurotas. The situation of Steny- klerus and Andania, the original settlements of the Messenian Dorians, adjoining closely the Arcadian Parrhasii, is only at a short distance from the course of the Alpheius ; being thus reached 1 Odyss. xv. 297. * Strabo, x. p. 479. 3 Leake, Travels in Morca, vol. iii. ch. 23, p. 29 ; compare Diodor. xv. 66. The distance from Olympia to Sparta, as marked on a pillar which Pan- manias saw at Olympia, was 660 stadia, about 77 English miles (Pausan. Ti. 16, 6).