5. But the Dorians, though hostile to their neighbours the Dryopians, were on friendly terms with the MALIANS. This people dwelt in the valley of the Spercheus, enclosed on all sides by rocky mountains, and open only in the direction of the sea; they were divided into the inhabitants of the coast, the Sacerdotal, and the Trachinians.(168) The second of these classes probably dwelt near to the Amphictyonic temple at Thermopylæ, the third on the rocky declivities of mount Œta. These are the people who were in such close alliance with the Dorians, that Diodorus speaks of Trachis as the mother-town of Lacedæmon.(169) The friendship between Ceyx and Hercules, together with that of his sons, is the mythical expression for this connexion. The Malians were always a warlike people, those persons only who had served as hoplites being admitted to a share in the government.(170) Their country was however chiefly famous for its slingers and darters.(171)
6. In after-times there came into these districts a nation which the ancient traditions of the country do not recognise, viz. the Hellenic ÆNIANES or Œtæans; the latter name denoting the region in which that nation was settled, the former their race;(172) although I do not assert that the fourteen Œtæan communities(173) constituted the entire nation of the Ænianes. For they also dwelt on the banks of the Inachus, and about the sources of the Spercheus, near the city of Hypata.(174) In early times they had inhabited the inland parts of Thessaly, and about the end of the fabulous period they descended into those settlements, from which in later times they were dislodged by the Illyrian Athamanes.(175) Although the Ænianes did not disavow a certain dependence on the Delphian oracle, and though they adopted among their traditions the fables respecting Hercules, anciently prevalent in their new settlements,(176) yet on account of their geographical position they lived in opposition and hostility to the Malians and Dorians;(177) who, as Strabo states, had been deprived by them of a part of their territory.(178) Nay more, it is probable that the emigration of the Dorians which conquered Peloponnesus, was in some way or other connected with the arrival of the Ænianes in this region. There was an _ancient enmity_ between the Lacedæmonians and the Œtæans.(179) It was chiefly on this account that Sparta founded the town of Heraclea in the country of Trachinia; which would doubtless have caused the revival of an important Doric power in this part of Greece, had not the jealousy of the Thessalians and Dolopians, and even of the Malians themselves, been awakened at its first establishment.