Such is the genealogy as we find it in Apollodôrus. In so far as the names and filiation are concerned, many points in it are given differently, or implicitly contradicted, by Euripidês and other writers. Though as literal and personal history it deserves no notice, its import is both intelligible and comprehensive. It expounds and symbolizes the first fraternal aggregation of Hellênic men, together with their territorial distribution and the institutions which they collectively venerated.
There were two great holding-points in common for every section of Greeks. One was the Amphiktyonic assembly, which met half-yearly, alternately at Delphi and at Thermopylæ; originally and chiefly for common religious purposes, but indirectly and occasionally embracing political and social objects along with them. The other was, the public festivals or games, of which the Olympic came first in importance; next, the Pythian, Nemean and Isthmian,—institutions which combined religious solemnities with recreative effusion and hearty sympathies, in a manner so imposing and so unparalleled. Amphiktyôn represents the first of these institutions, and Aëthlius the second. As the Amphiktyonic assembly was always especially connected with Thermopylæ and Thessaly, Amphiktyôn is made the son of the Thessalian Deukaliôn; but as the Olympic festival was nowise locally connected with Deukaliôn, Aëthlius is represented as having Zeus for his father, and as touching Deukaliôn only through the maternal line. It will be seen presently, that the only matter predicted respecting Aëthlius is, that he settled in the territory of Elis, and begat Endymiôn: this brings him into local contact with the Olympic games, and his function is then ended.
Having thus got Hellas as an aggregate with its main cementing forces, we march on to its subdivision into parts, through Æolus, Dôrus and Xuthus, the three sons of Hellen;[224] a distribution which is far from being exhaustive: nevertheless, the genealogists whom Apollodôrus follows recognize no more than three sons.
[224] How literally and implicitly even the ablest Greeks believed in eponymous persons, such as Hellên and Iôn, as the real progenitors of the races called after him, may be seen by this, that Aristotle gives this common descent as the definition of γένος (Metaphysic. iv. p. 118, Brandis):—