Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/442

410 BOOK the west by a myth relating their triumphant return. Such myths are in fact the germs of those recurring expulsions, and those attempted or successful restorations which form what is commonly called the history of the Herakleidai. The extent to which an element of actual history may be traced in these mythical narratives is a question on which something has been said already, and probably it will not be disputed that even if many of the names may be those of real local chieftains (and some of the incidents may possibly be traditions of real local events), yet the narratives in their main features closely resemble the other epical myths v/ith which they are connected. These stories were altered at will by later poets and mythographers in accordance with local or tribal prejudices or fancies, and forced into arrangements which were regarded as chronological. Thus, some speak of the Trojan war as taking place in the interval between the death of Hyllos and the return of his son Kleodaios ; but the historical character of all these events has been swept away, and we are left free to reduce the narratives to the simple elements of which they are composed. Thus the story ran that when Herakles died, his tyrant and tormentor Eurystheus insisted on the surrender of his sons, and that Hyllos, the son of Deianeira, with his brothers, hastily fled, and after wandering to many other places at last found a refuge in Athens. This was only saying in other words that on the death of the sun the golden hues of evening were soon banished from the western sky, but that after many weary hours they are seen again in the country of the Dawn, as indeed they could be seen nowhere else. Athens is the only possible refuge for the children of Herakles ; but their enemies will not allow them to slip from their hands without a struggle. The Gorgon sisters almost seize Perseus as he hurries away after the slaughter of Medousa; and thus Eurystheus marches with his hosts against Athens. But the dawn must discomfit the dark beings. The Athenians are led on by Theseus, the great solar hero of the land, by lolaos, the son of Iphikles, the twin brother of Herakles, and by the banished Hyllos. Eurystheus is slain, and Hyllos carries his head to AlkmenS.

The re- If we choose now to follow the ordinary arrangement of these he"i°era- stories, we shall see in them a series which might be indefinitely ex- deids. tended, but of whose mythical origin we can scarcely feel a doubt. If after the defeat of Eurystheus the Herakleids return to the Pelo- ponnesos, we find that they cannot maintain their footing there for more than a year, and that then by an irresistible necessity they find their way back to Athens ; and these alternations, which represent simply the succession of day and night, might and would liave been