It has already been mentioned that the genealogy which makes Æolus, Xuthus and Dôrus sons of Hellên, is as old as the Hesiodic Catalogue; probably also that which makes Hellên son of Deukaliôn. Aëthlius also is an Hesiodic personage: whether Amphiktyôn be so or not, we have no proof.[229] They could not have been introduced into the legendary genealogy until after the Olympic games and the Amphiktyonic council had acquired an established ascendancy and universal reverence throughout Greece.
[229] Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. iv. 57. Τὸν δὲ Ἐνδυμίωνα Ἠσίοδος μὲν Ἀεθλίου τοῦ Διὸς καὶ Καλύκης παῖδα λέγει.... Καὶ Πείσανδρος δὲ τὰ αὐτά φησι, καὶ Ἀκουσίλαος, καὶ Φερεκύδης, καὶ Νίκανδρος ἐν δευτέρῳ Αἰτωλικῶν, καὶ Θεόπομπος ἐν Ἐποποιΐαις.
Respecting the parentage of Hellên, the references to Hesiod are very confused. Compare Schol. Homer. Odyss. x. 2, and Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. iii. 1086. See also Hellanic. Frag. 10. Didot.
Apollodôrus, and Pherekydês before him (Frag. 51. Didot), called Protôgeneia daughter of Deukaliôn; Pindar (Olymp. ix. 64) designated her as daughter of Opus. One of the stratagems mentioned by the Scholiast to get rid of this genealogical discrepancy was, the supposition that Deukaliôn had two names (διώνυμος); that he was also named Opus. (Schol. Pind. Olymp. ix. 85).
That the Deukalidæ or posterity of Deukaliôn reigned in Thessaly, was mentioned both by Hesiod and Hekatæus, ap. Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. iv. 265.
Respecting Dôrus the son of Hellên, we find neither legends nor legendary genealogy; respecting Xuthus, very little beyond the tale of Kreüsa and Iôn, which has its place more naturally among the Attic fables. Achæus however, who is here represented as the son of Xuthus, appears in other stories with very different parentage and accompaniments. According to the statement which we find in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Achæus, Phthius and Pelasgus are sons of Poseidôn and Larissa. They migrate from Peloponnêsus into Thessaly, and distribute the Thessalian territory between them, giving their names to its principal divisions: their descendants in the sixth generation were driven out of that country by the invasion of Deukaliôn at the head of the Kurêtes and the Leleges.[230] This was the story of those who wanted to provide an eponymus for the Achæans in the southern districts of Thessaly: Pausanias accomplishes the same object by different means, representing Achæus, the son of Xuthus as having gone back to Thessaly and occupied the portion of it to which his father was entitled. Then, by way of explaining how it was that there were Achæans at Sparta and at Argos, he tells us that Archander and Architelês, the sons of Archæus, came back from Thessaly to Peloponnêsus, and married two daughters of Danaus: they acquired great influence at Argos and Sparta, and gave to the people the name of Achæans after their father Achæus.[231]