7. Thus much it was necessary to premise, in order to give a faithful description of the spot in which the Dorians first make their appearance in the traditions of Greece. They bordered on the Lapithæ, but inhabited the mountain district of Hestiæotis, according to Herodotus,(100) instead of the champaign country, like the latter race. Yet the same passage of that author implies that Tempe was within the territory of Hestiæotis, and belonged at that time to the Dorians; we shall see hereafter how much this account is confirmed by the altar of the Pythian Apollo in this valley.(101) It will moreover be rendered probable that the Pythium above mentioned was situated on the mountain heights. Hence we may well suppose the whole Tripolis to have at one time belonged to the Dorians; since even Azorium was not always inhabited by Illyrian Pelagones, but had once been held by the Hellenes.(102) It is also probable that Cyphus, a town said to have belonged to the Perrhæbians, was under the dominion of the Dorians; since this race possessed in their second settlement a town called Acyphas.(103) It is remarkable that no direct and positive account of any Doric town in this district has been preserved, a circumstance to be attributed to the loss of the epic poem of Ægimius.
8. This poem, written in the Hesiodean tone (although the author probably lived about the 30th Olympiad, 660 B.C. in the last period of epic poetry),(104) celebrated the most ancient exploits of the Doric race. Thus it sung how Ægimius, the Doric prince, whilst engaged in a difficult and dangerous war with the Lapithæ, called to his assistance the wandering Hercules, and by the promise of a third part of the territory obtained his alliance; by which means the enemies were beaten, their prince slain, and the disputed territory conquered.(105) The name of the poem is a sufficient proof that such would have been its contents.(106) Probably the heroes of Iolcus and the Phthiotans were also introduced as allies of the Lapithæ, and at least the adventures of Phrixus and Achilles.(107) The scene of the second book was Eubœa, the name of which island was there derived from the cow Io;(108) the attack of Hercules upon the Eubœan town of Œchalia also formed, as I conjecture, part of the subject. Ægimius was, however, supposed to reign in Hestiæotis, merely because the Dorians bordered in this direction upon the Lapithæ; he was easily carried over to the second settlements of the race under mount Œta.(109) This hero is in general the mythical progenitor and hero of the Doric nation; hence Pindar called the customs and laws of that people “the ordinances of Ægimius.”(110) Nevertheless only two tribes of the Dorians are stated to be descended from him, viz. the Dymanes and Pamphylians; the third and most distinguished, viz. the Hylleans, was supposed to be descended from Hyllus the son of Hercules, and adopted by Ægimius. And as the land in the Doric states was equally divided between these three tribes, Hercules was fabled to have received for his descendants a third part of the territory, which belonged of right to the Hylleans. This triple division of the land was expressly mentioned by the epic poet, who used the word τριχάϊκες to express that the Dorians had obtained and shared among themselves, at a distance from their native country (chiefly in Peloponnesus),(111) a territory apportioned into three parts. An examination of the opinion, that the first race was distinguished from the other two as of different origin, will be found in a following chapter.(112)
