ms to
think they were a Pelasgian, rather than an Hellenic people. The ancient
traditions represent the sons of Achaeus as migrating to Argos, where they
married the daughters of Danaus the king, but did not mount the throne.

(M313) The early fortunes of the Dorians are involved in great obscurity,
nor is there much that is satisfactory in the early history of any of the
Hellenic tribes. Our information is chiefly traditional, derived from the
poets. Dorus, the son of Deucalion, occupied the country over against
Peloponnesus, on the opposite side of the Corinthian Gulf, comprising
AEtolia, Phocis, and the Ozolian Locrians. Nor can the conquests of the
Dorians on the Peloponnesus be reconciled upon any other ground than that
they occupied a considerable tract of country.

(M314) The early history of the Ionians is still more obscure. Ion, the
son of Xuthus, is supposed to have led his followers from Thessaly to
Attica, and to have conquered the Pelasgians, or effected peaceable
settlements with them. Then follows a series of legends which have more
poetical than historical interest, but which will be briefly noticed in
the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LEGENDS OF ANCIENT GREECE.

(M315) The Greeks possessed no authentic written history of that period
which included the first appearance of the Hellenes in Thessaly to the
first Olympiad, B.C. 776. This is called the heroic age, and is known to
us only by legends and traditions, called myths. They pertain both to gods
and men, and are connected with what we call mythology, which possesses no
historical importance, although it is full of interest for its poetic
life. And as mythology is interwoven with the literature and the art of
the ancients, furnishing inexhaustible subjects for poets, painters, and
sculptors, it can not be omitted wholly in the history of that classic
people, whose songs and arts have been the admiration of the world.

(M316) We have space, however, only for those legends which are of
universal interest, and will first allude to those which pertain to gods,
such as appear most prominent in the poems of Hesiod and Homer.

(M317) Zeus, or Jupiter, is the most important personage in the mythology
of Greece. Although, chronologically, he comes after Kronos and Uranos, he
was called the "father of gods and men," whose power it was impossible to
resist, and which power was universal. He was supposed to be the