dae and their Athenian protectors were victorious. The
memory of Macaria's self-sacrifices was perpetuated by the name of a
spring of water on the plain of Marathon, the spring Macaria. The
Heracleidae then endeavoured to effect their return to Peloponnesus.
Hyllus, the eldest of them, inquired of the oracle at Delphi respecting
their return; he was told to return by the _narrow passage_ and in the
_third harvest_. Accordingly, in the third year from that time Hyllus
led an army to the Isthmus of Corinth; but there he was encountered by
an army of Achaians and Arcadians, and fell in single combat with
Echemus, king of Tegea. Upon this defeat the Heracleidae retired to
northern Greece; there, after much wandering, they finally took refuge
with AEgimius, king of the Dorians, who appears to have been the fastest
friend of their house, and whose Dorian warriors formed the army which
at last achieved their return. But, for a hundred years from the date of
their first attempt, the Heracleidae were defeated in their successive
invasions of Peloponnesus. Cleolaus and Aristomachus, the son and
grandson of Hyllus, fell in unsuccessful expeditions. At length the sons
of Aristomachus, Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus, when grown up,
repaired to Delphi and taxed the oracle with the non-fulfilment of the
promise made to their ancestor Hyllus. But Apollo replied that his
oracle had been misunderstood; for that by the _third harvest_ he had
meant the third generation, and by the _narrow passage_ he had meant the
straits of the Corinthian Gulf. After this explanation the sons of
Aristomachus built a fleet at Naupactus; and finally, in the hundredth
year from the death of Hyllus and the eightieth from the fall of Troy,
the invasion was again attempted and was this time successful. The son
of Orestes, Tisamenus, who ruled both Argos and Lacedaemon, fell in
battle; many of his vanquished subjects left their homes and took refuge
in Achaia.

The spoil was now to be divided among the conquerors. Aristodemus, the
youngest of the sons of Aristomachus, did not survive to enjoy his
share. He was slain at Delphi by the sons of Pylades and Electra, the
kinsman, through their mother, of the house of Agamemnon, that house
which the Heracleidae with their Dorian army had dispossessed. The claims
of Aristodemus descended to his two sons, Procles and Eurysthenes,
children under the guardianship of their maternal uncle, Theras.
Temenus, the eldest