Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/62

 46 HISTORY OF GRKKCE. Upon Mr. Clinton's tables we may remark : 1. The names singled out as fictitious are distinguished by no common character, nor any mark either assignable or defensible, from those which are left as real. To take an example (p. 40), why is Itonus the first pointed out as a fiction, while Itonus tho second, together with Physcus, Cynus, Salmoneus, Ormenus, etc., in the same page, are preserved as real, all of them being epo- nyms of towns just as much as Itonus ? 2. If we are to discard Hellen, Dorus, JEolus, Ion, etc., as not being real individual persons, but expressions for personified races, why are we to retain Kadraus, Danaus, Hyllus, and several others, who are just as much eponyms of races and tribes as the four above mentioned ? Hyllus, Pamphylus, and Dymas are the eponyms of the three Dorian tribes,' just as Hoples and the other three sons of Ion were of the four Attic tribes : Kadmus and Danaus stand in the same relation to the Kadmeians and Dana- ans, as Argus and Achaeus to the Argeians and Acha?ans. Be- sides, there are many other names really eponymous, which we cannot now recognize to be so, in consequence of our imperfect acquaintance with the subdivisions of the Hellenic population, each of which, speaking generally, had its god or hero, to whom the original of the name was referred. If, then, eponymous names are to be excluded from the category of reality, we shall find that the ranks of the real men will be thinned to a far greater extent than is indicated by Mr. Clinton's tables. 3. Though Mr. Clinton does not carry out consistently either of his disfranchising qualifications among the names and persons of the old mythes, he nevertheless presses them far enough to strike out a sensible proportion of the whole. By conceding thus much to modern scepticism, he has departed from the point of view of Hellanikus and Herodotus, and the ancient historians generally ; and it is singular that the names, which he has been the most forward to sacrifice, are exactly those to which they were most attached, and which it would have been most painful to their faith to part with, I mean the eponymous heroes. Neither Herodotus, nor Hellanikus, nor Eratosthenes, nor ' any 1 "From these three " (Hyllus, Pamphylus, and Dymas,) says Mr. Clinton Tol. i. ch. 5, p. 109, "the three Dorian tribes derived their names. 1 '