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Athenians, being one of their legendary kings. Among his great exploits was the slaying of the Minotaur—a monster which Minos, king of Crete, kept in a labyrinth, and fed upon youths and maidens sent from Athens as a forced tribute.

      Minos, king of Crete, was one of the greatest tribal heroes of the Dorians. Legend makes him a legislator of divine wisdom, the suppressor of piracy in the Grecian seas, and the founder of the first great maritime state of Hellas.

      THE ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.—Besides the labors and exploits of single heroes, the legends of the Greeks tell of several memorable enterprises conducted by bands of heroes. Among these were the Argonautic Expedition and the Siege of Troy.

      The tale of the Argonautic Expedition is told with many variations in the legends of the Greeks. Jason, a prince of Thessaly, with fifty companion heroes, among whom were Heracles, Theseus, and Orpheus, the latter a musician of superhuman skill, the music of whose lyre moved brutes and stones, set sail in "a fifty-oared galley," called the Argo (hence the name Argonauts, given to the heroes), in search of a "golden fleece" which was fabled to be nailed to a tree and watched by a dragon, in the Grove of Ares, on the eastern shores of the Euxine, an inhospitable region of unknown terrors. The expedition is successful, and, after many wonderful adventures, the heroes return in triumph with the sacred relic.

      Different meanings have been given to this tale. In its primitive form it was doubtless a pure myth of the rain-clouds; but in its later forms we may believe it to symbolize the maritime explorations in the eastern seas, of some of the tribes of Pelasgian Greece.

      THE TROJAN WAR (legendary date 1194–1184 B.C.).—The Trojan War was an event about which gathered a great circle of tales and poems, all full of an undying interest and fascination.

      Ilios, or Troy, was the capital of a strong empire, represented as Grecian in race and language, which had grown up in Asia Minor, along the shores of the Hellespont. The traditions tell how Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy, visited the Spartan king Menelaus, and ungenerously requited his hospitality by secretly bearing away to Troy his wife Helen, famous for her rare beauty.

      All the heroes of Greece flew to arms to avenge the wrong. A host of one hundred thousand warriors was speedily gathered. Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus and "king of men," was chosen leader of the expedition. Under him were the "lion-hearted Achilles," of Thessaly, the "crafty Ulysses" (Odysseus), king of Ithaca, Ajax, "the swift son of Oileus," the Telamonian Ajax, the aged Nestor, and many more—the most valiant heroes of all Hellas. Twelve hundred galleys bore the gathered clans from Aulis in Greece, across the Ægean to the Trojan shores.

      For ten years the Greeks and their allies hold in close siege the city of Priam. On the plains beneath the walls of the capital, the warriors of the two armies fight in general battle, or contend in single encounter. At first, Achilles is foremost in every fight; but a fair-faced maiden, who fell to him as a prize, having been taken from him by his chief, Agamemnon, he is filled with wrath, and sulks in his tent. Though the Greeks are often sorely pressed, still the angered hero refuses them his aid. At last, however, his friend Patroclus is killed by Hector, eldest son of Priam, and then Achilles goes forth to avenge his death. In a fierce combat he slays Hector, fastens his body to his chariot wheels, and drags it thrice around the walls of Troy.

      The city is at last taken through a device of the "crafty Ulysses." Upon the plain in sight of the walls is built a wooden statue of a horse, in the body of which are hidden several Grecian warriors. Then the Greeks retire to their ships, as though about to abandon the siege. The Trojans issue from the gates and gather in wondering crowds about the image. They believe it to be an offering sacred to Athena, and so dare not destroy it; but, on the other hand, misled by certain omens and by a lying Greek named Sinon, they level a place in the walls of their city, and drag the statue within. At night the concealed warriors issue from the horse, open the gates of the city to the Grecians, and Troy is sacked, and burned to the ground. The aged Priam is slain, after having seen his sons and many of his warriors perish before his face. Æneas, with his aged father, Anchises, and a few devoted followers, escapes, and, after long wanderings, becomes the fabled founder of the Roman race in Italy.

      It is a matter of difficulty to point out the nucleus of fact in this the most elaborate and interesting of the Grecian legends. Some believe it to be the dim recollection of a prehistoric conflict between the Greeks and the natives of Asia Minor, arising from the attempt of the former to secure a foothold upon the coast. That there really existed in prehistoric times such a city as Troy, has been placed beyond doubt by the excavations and discoveries of Dr. Schliemann.

      RETURN OF THE GRECIAN CHIEFTAINS.—After the fall of Troy, the Grecian chieftains and princes returned home. The poets represent the gods as withdrawing their protection from the hitherto favored heroes, because they had not respected the altars of the Trojans. So, many of them were driven in endless wanderings over sea and land. Homer's Odyssey portrays the sufferings of the "much-enduring" Odysseus (Ulysses), impelled by divine wrath to long journeyings through strange seas.

      In some cases, according to the tradition, advantage had been taken of the absence of the princes, and their thrones had been usurped. Thus at Argos, Ægisthus had won the unholy love of Clytemnestra, wife and queen of Agamemnon, who on his return was murdered by the guilty couple. In pleasing contrast with this we have exhibited to us the constancy of Penelope, although sought by many suitors during the absence of her husband Ulysses.

      THE DORIAN INVASION, OR THE RETURN OF THE HERACLIDÆ (legendary date 1104 B.C.).—We set the tradition of the return of the Heraclidæ apart from the legends of the enterprises just detailed, for the reason that it undoubtedly contains quite a large historical element. The legend tells how Heracles, an Achæan, in the times before the Trojan War, ruled over the Peloponnesian Achæans. Just before that event his children were driven from the land. Eighty years after the war, the hundred years of exile appointed by the Fates having expired, the descendants of the hero, at the head of the Dorians from Northern Greece, returned, and with their aid effected the conquest of the greater part of the Peloponnesus, and established themselves as conquerors and masters in the land that had formerly been ruled by their semi-divine ancestor.

      This legend seems to be a dim remembrance of a prehistoric invasion of the Peloponnesus by the Dorians from the north of Greece, and the expulsion or subjugation of the native inhabitants of the peninsula.

      Some of the dispossessed Achæans, crowding towards the north of the

       Peloponnesus, drove out the Ionians who occupied the southern shore of the

       Corinthian Gulf, and settling there, gave the name Achaia to all that region.

      Arcadia, in the centre of the Peloponnesus, was another district which did not fall into the hands of the Dorians. The people here, even down to the latest times, retained their primitive customs and country mode of life; hence Arcadian came to mean rustic and artless.

      MIGRATIONS TO ASIA MINOR.—The Greek legends represent that the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus resulted in three distinct migrations from the mother-land to the shores of Asia Minor and the adjoining islands.

      The northwestern shore of Asia Minor was settled, mainly, by Aeolian emigrants from Boeotia. The neighboring island of Lesbos became the home and centre of Æolian culture in poetry and music.

      The coast to the south of the Æolians was occupied by Ionian emigrants, who, uniting with their Ionian kinsmen already settled upon that shore, built up twelve splendid cities (Ephesus, Miletus, etc.), which finally united to form the celebrated Ionian confederacy.

      South of the Ionians, all along the southwestern shore of Asia Minor, the Dorians established their colonies. They also settled the important islands of Cos and Rhodes, and conquered and colonized Crete.

      The traditions of these various settlements represent them as having been effected in a very short period; but it is probable that the movement embraced several centuries—possibly a longer time than has been occupied by the English race in colonizing the different lands of the Western World.

      With these migrations to the Asiatic shores, the Legendary Age of Greece comes to an end. From this

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