Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/42

 2fi HISTORY OF GREECE. Herakleids : and in like manner the formation ol the Dorian Hexapolis in the south-western corner of Asia Minor : Kos, Knidus, Halikarnassus, and Rhodes, with its three separate cities, as well as the Dorian establishments in Krete, Melos, and Thera, are all traced more or less directly to the same great revolution. Thera, more especially, has its root in the legendary world. Ita QEkist was Theras, a descendant of the heroic lineage of CEdipus and Kadmus, and maternal uncle of the young kings of Sparta, Eurysthenes and Prokles, during whose minority he had exercised the regency. On their coming of age, his functions were at an end : but being unable to endure a private station, he determined to put himself at the head of a body of emigrants : many came forward to join him, and the expedition was farther reinforced by a body of interlopers, belonging to the Minyse, of whom the Lace- daemonians were anxious to get rid. These Minyae had arrived in Laconia, not long before, from the island of Lemnos, out of which they had been expelled by the Pelasgian fugitives from Attica. They landed without asking permission, took up their abode and began to " light their fires " on Mount Taygetus. When the Lacedaemonians sent to ask who they were, and wherefore they had come, the Minyas replied that they were sons of the Argonauts who had landed at Lemnos, and that, being expelled from their own homes, they thought themselves entitled to solicit an asylum in the territory of their fathers : they asked, withal, to be admitted to share both the lands and the honors of the state. The Lacedaemonians granted the request, chiefly on the ground of a common ancestry, their own great heroes, the Tyndarids, having been enrolled in the crew of the Argo : the Minyae were then introduced as citizens into the tribes, received lots of land, and began to intermarry with the preexisting families. It was not long, however, before they became insolent : they demanded a share in the kingdom (which was the venerated privilege of the Herakleids), and so grossly misconducted themselves in other ways, that the Lacedaemonians resolved to put them to death, and began by casting them into prison. While the Minyae were thus confined, their wives, Spartans by birth, and many of them daugh- ters of the principal men, solicited permission to go in and sea them : leave being granted, they made use of the interview to