STORY AS GIVEN BY PLATO. 7 the incidents related, yet analogous in mythical feeling, and em- bodying alike the idea of a rightful reconquest. Moreover, the two accounts agree in representing both the entire conquest and the triple division of Dorian Peloponnesus as begun and com- pleted in one and the same enterprise, so as to constitute one single event, which Plato would probably have called the Return of the Achasans, but which was commonly known as the Returu of the Herakleids. Though this is both inadmissible and incon- sistent with other statements which approach close to the histori- cal times, yet it bears every mark of being the primitive view originally presented by the genealogical poets : the broad way in which the incidents are grouped together, was at once easy for Ihe imagination to follow, and impressive to the feelings. The existence of one legendary account must never be under stood as excluding the probability of other accounts, current at the same time, but inconsistent with it : and many such there were as to the first establishment of the Peloponnesian Dorians, In the narrative which I have given from Apollodorus, conceived apparently under the influence of Dorian feelings, Tisamenus is stated to have been slain in the invasion. But according to another narrative, which seems to have found favor with the his- torical Achasans on the north coast of Peloponnesus, Tisamenus, though expelled by the invaders from his kingdom of Sparta or Argos, was not slain : he was allowed to retire under agreement, together with a certain portion of his subjects, and he directed his steps towards the coast of Peloponnesus south of the Cor- inthian Gulf, then occupied by the lonians. As there were re- lations, not only of friendship, but of kindred origin, between lonians and Achteans, (the eponymous heroes Ion and Achaeus pass for brothers, both sons of Xuthus, (Tisamenus solicited from the lonians admission for himself and his fellow- fugitives into their territory. The leading lonians declining this request, under the apprehension that Tisamenus might be chosen as sovereign over the whole, the latter accomplished his object by force. After a vehement struggle, the lonians were vanquished and put tc flight, and Tisamenus thus acquired possession of Helike, as well as of the northern coast of the peninsula, westward from Sikyon ; which coast continued to be occupied by the Achceans, and re- ceived its name from them, throughout all the historical tune*
