16 HISTORY OF GREECE. many places of the richest quality, the spaces between the two are either mountain or barren low hill, forming a marked contrast with the rich alluvial basin of the Macedonian river Erigot. 1 The Pa^onians, in their north-western tribes, thus bordered upon the Macedonian Pelagonia, in their northern tribes, upon the Illyrian Dardani and Autariatoe, in their eastern, southern, and south-eastern tribes, upon the Thraciaus and Pierians; 2 that is, upon the second seats occupied by the expelled Pierians under Mount Pangaeus. Such was, as far as we can make it out, the position of the Macedonians and their immediate neighbors, in the seventh century B.C. It was first altered by the enterprise and ability of a family of exiled Greeks, who conducted a section of the Macedonian people to those conquests which their descendants, Philip and Alexander the Great, afterwards so marvellously multiplied. Respecting the primitive ancestry of these two princes, there were different stories, but all concurred in tracing the origin of the family to the Herakleid or Temenid race of Argos. Accord- ing to one story (which apparently cannot be traced higher than Theopompus), Karanus, brother of the despot Pheidon, had migrated from Argos to Macedonia, and established himself as conqueror at Edessa ; according to another tale, which we find in Herodotus, there were three exiles of the Temenid race, Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdikkas, who fled from Argos to Illyria, from whence they passed into Upper Macedonia, in such 1 See this contrast noticed in Grisebach, especially in reference to the wide but barren region called the plain of Mustapha, no great distance from the left bank of the Axius (Grisebach, Reisen, v, ii, p. 225; Boue, Voyage, vol. i, p. 168). For the description of the banks of the Axius (Vardar) and the Strymon, see Boue, Voyage en Turquie, vol. i, pp. 196-199. "La plaine ovale do Seres est un dcs diamans de la couronne de Byzance," etc. He remarks how incorrectly the course of the Strymon is depicted on the maps (vol. iv, p. 482). 8 The expression of Strabo or his Epitomator TTJV Haioviav fif^m HeAcr/oviaf Kal Hiepiac iKTeTuadai, seems quite exact, though Tafel finds a difficulty in it. See his Note on the Vatican Fragments of the seventh book of Strabo, Fr. 37 The Fragment 40 is expressed much more lordly Compare Herodot. r, 13-16, vii, 124; Thucyd. ii, 9G Diodor. vf, .
