carried away by Paris, which occasioned the
Trojan war. Agamemnon was killed on his return from Troy, through the
treachery of his wife Clytemnestra, who was seduced by AEgisthus, the son
of Thyestes. His only son, Orestes, afterward avenged the murder, and
recovered Mycenae. Hermione, the only daughter of Menelaus and Helen, was
given in marriage to the son of Achilles, Neoptolemas, who reigned in
Thessaly. Mycenae maintained its independence to the Persian invasion, and
is rendered immortal by the Iliad and Odyssey. On the subsequent
ascendency of Sparta, the bones of Orestes were brought from Tegea, where
they had reposed for generations, in a coffin seven cubits long.

The other States of the Peloponnesus, have also their genealogical
legends, which trace their ancestors to gods and goddesses, which I omit,
and turn to those which belong to Attica.

(M334) The great Deucalian deluge, according to legend, happened during
the reign of Ogyges, 1796 years B.C., and 1020 before the first Olympiad.
After a long interval, Cecrops, half man and half serpent, became king of
the country. By some he is represented as a Pelasgian, by others, as an
Egyptian. He introduced the first elements of civilized life--marriage, the
twelve political divisions of Attica, and a new form of worship,
abolishing the bloody sacrifices to Zeus. He gave to the country the name
of Cecropia. During his reign there ensued a dispute between Athenae and
Poseidon, respecting the possession of the Acropolis. Poseidon struck the
rocks with his trident, and produced a well of salt water; Athenae planted
an olive tree. The twelve Olympian gods decided the dispute, and awarded
to Athenae the coveted possession, and she ever afterward remained the
protecting deity of Athens.

(M335) Among his descendants was Theseus, the great legendary hero of
Attica, who was one of the Argonauts, and also one of those who hunted the
Calidomian boar. He freed Attica from robbers and wild beasts, conquered
the celebrated Minotaur of Crete, and escaped from the labyrinth by the
aid of Ariadne, whom he carried off and abandoned. In the Iliad he is
represented as fighting against the centaurs, and in the Hesiodic poems he
is an amorous knight-errant, misguided by the beautiful AEgle. Among his
other feats, inferior only to those of Hercules, he vanquished the
Amazons--a nation of courageous and hardy women, who came from the country
about Caucasus, and whose principal seats w