Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/300

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og^ HISTORY OF GREECE. whole, the resistance of line Phokians was successful, for the power of the Thessalians never reached southward of the pass. 1 It will be recollected that these different ancient races, Pef- rhaebi, Magnetes, Achaeans, Malians, Dolopes, though tribu- taries of the Thessalians, still retained their Amphiktyonic franchise, and were considered as legitimate Hellenes : all except the Malians are, indeed, mentioned in the Iliad. We shall rarely have occasion to speak much of them in the course of this his- 1 )ry : they are found siding with Xerxes (chiefly by constraint) in his attack of Greece, and almost indifferent in the struggle between Sparta and Athens. That the Achaeans of Phthiotis are a portion of the same race as the Achaeans of Peloponnesus it seems reasonable to believe, though we trace no historical evidence to authenticate it. Achaea Phthiotis is the seat of Hellen, the patriarch of the entire race, of the primitive Hellas, by some treated as a town, by others as a district of some breadth, and of the great national hero, Achilles. Its con- nection with the Peloponnesian Achaeans is not unlike that of Doris with the Peloponnesian Dorians. 2 "We have, also, to notice another ethnical kindred, the date and circumstances of which are given to us only in a mythical form, but which seems, nevertheless, to be in itself a reality, that of the Magnetes on Pelion and Ossa, with the two divisions of Asiatic Magnetes, or Magnesia, on Mount Sipylus and Magnesia on the river Maean- der. It is said that these two Asiatic homonymous towns were founded by migrations of the Thessalian Magnetes, a body of whom became consecrated to the Delphian god, and chose a new abode under his directions. According to one story, these emi- grants were warriors, returning from the Siege of Troy ; accord- ing to another, they sought fresh seats, to escape from the Thesprotian conquerors of Thessaly. There was a third story, according to which the Thessalian Magnetes themselves were represented as colonists 3 from Delphi. Though we can elicit no 1 The story of invading Thessalians nt Kercssus, near Leuktra in Bocotia, (Pausan. ix. 13, 1,) is not at all probable.

  • One story was, that these Achseans of Phthia went into Peloponneswi

with Pelops, and settled in Laconia (Strabo, viii. p. 365). 1 Aristoteles ap. Athena; iv. p. 1 73 Conon, Narrat. 29 : Stnibo. xiv. f 647.