7. When the Heraclidæ had been once separated from the Dorians as belonging to a different race, and Hyllus set down as only the adopted son of the Doric king, it immediately became a matter of doubt at what time the junction of the Dorians and Heraclidæ in one expedition should be fixed. Sometimes the Dorians are represented as joining the Heraclidæ before the first, sometimes before the second, sometimes before the third expedition; by one writer as setting out from Hestiæotis, and by another from Parnassus.(211) There were doubtless no real traditional grounds for any one report; and still less any sufficient to place the name Hyllus, and the events connected with it, at any fixed epoch. Hence also Hyllus is at one time called the contemporary of Atreus, and at another of Orestes;(212) Pamphylus and Dymas are stated to have lived from the time of Hercules to the conquest of Peloponnesus.(213) Nor is there any absurdity in this, inasmuch as they are the collective names of races which existed throughout this whole period. The descendants of Hyllus, however, are no longer races, but, as it appears, real persons; viz., his son Cleodæus,(214) and his grandson Aristomachus. These names stood at the head of the genealogy of the Heraclidæ; as, for example, of the kings of Sparta; and they can hardly have been mere creations of fancy. From their succession is probably calculated the celebrated epoch of the expedition of the Heraclidæ, viz., 80 years after the Trojan war, which was without doubt determined by the early historians, since Thucydides was acquainted with it. The Alexandrine critics generally adopted it, as we know expressly of Eratosthenes, Crates, and Apollodorus.(215) But all that is recounted of the expeditions of these two princes, however small in amount,(216) cannot have been acknowledged by those who, like Herodotus, and probably all the early writers, stated the armistice after the death of Hyllus as lasting 100 years.(217)
8. At length Apollo himself opens the eyes of the Heraclidæ to the meaning of the oracle. It was not across the _Isthmus_, but over the _Straits of Rhium_, that they were to cross into Peloponnesus, and after the third _generation_ had died away. They therefore first sailed from Naupactus, to the Molycrian promontory (Antirrhium), and thence to Rhium in Peloponnesus, which was only five stadia distant.(218) That the Dorians actually came on that side into Peloponnesus, is a statement which may be looked on as certain; agreeing (as it does) with the fact that the countries near the Isthmus were the last to which the Dorians penetrated. The name _Naupactus_ implies the existence of ship-building there in early times;(219) and there was a tradition that the Heraclidæ passed over on rafts, imitations of which were afterwards publicly exposed at a festival, and called Στεμματιαῖα, _i.e._ _crowned with garlands_.(220) This festival was doubtless the Carnea, since the Carnean Apollo was worshipped at Sparta under the name of _Stemmatias_. Now it is also stated that the Acarnanian soothsayer Carnus (who was reported to have founded the worship of the Carnean Apollo) was killed at the time of this expedition by Hippotes the son of Phylas, for which reason the Heraclidæ offered expiatory sacrifices to his memory.(221) We see from this that some rites of a peculiar worship of Apollo were observed at this passage, which were probably for the most part of an expiatory nature. Now I have shown elsewhere, that the Carnean or Hyacinthian worship of the Ægidæ originated at Thebes, and prevailed in Peloponnesus before the arrival of the Dorians, particularly at Amyclæ:(222) consequently, that prevalent near the straits of Naupactus might have been another, probably an Acarnanian(223) branch of the religion of Apollo, which was afterwards incorporated in the Carnean festival; a supposition which, if admitted, would enable us to explain many statements of ancient authors. The religious rites and festivals are in fact often so intermingled and confused together, that it is necessary to trace their component parts to many and distant sources.