rifice; his guest,
pretending to strike the sacrificial victim, slew the king, and so
got back his father's kingdom."

* * * * *

The events on which the action of the drama turns belong to the period
of transition from the heroic and fabulous to the human and historic age
of Greece. The doings of the hero Hercules, the ancestor of the
Messenian AEpytus, belong to fable; but the invasion of Peloponnesus by
the Dorians under chiefs claiming to be descended from Hercules, and
their settlement in Argos, Lacedaemon, and Messenia, belong to history.
AEpytus is descended on the father's side from Hercules, Perseus, and the
kings of Argos; on the mother's side from Pelasgus, and the aboriginal
kings of Arcadia. Callisto, the daughter of the wicked Lycaon, and the
mother, by Zeus, of Arcas, from whom the Arcadians took their name, was
the granddaughter of Pelasgus. The birth of Arcas brought upon Callisto
the anger of the virgin-goddess Artemis, whose service she followed: she
was changed into a she-bear, and in this form was chased by her own son,
grown to manhood. Zeus interposed, and the mother and son were removed
from the earth, and placed among the stars. Callisto became the famous
constellation of the Great Bear; her son became Arcturus, Arctophylax,
or Booetes. From this son of Callisto were descended Cypselus, the
maternal grandfather of AEpytus, and the children of Cypselus, Laias and
Merope.

The story of the life of Hercules, the paternal ancestor of AEpytus, is
so well known that there is no need to record it. The reader will
remember that, although entitled to the throne of Argos by right of
descent from Perseus and Danaus, and to the thrones of Sparta and
Messenia by right of conquest, Hercules yet passed his life in labours
and wanderings, subjected by the decree of fate to the commands of his
kinsman, the feeble and malignant Eurystheus. At his death he bequeathed
to his offspring, the Heracleidae, his own claims to the kingdoms of
Peloponnesus, and to the persecution of Eurystheus. They at first sought
shelter with Ceyx, king of Trachis; he was too weak to protect them, and
they then took refuge at Athens. The Athenians refused to deliver them
up at the demand of Eurystheus; he invaded Attica, and a battle was
fought near Marathon, in which, after Macaria, a daughter of Hercules,
had devoted herself for the preservation of her house, Eurystheus fell,
and the Heraclei