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[CHAP,%% ANCIENT GBEECE,,n.most powerful, but was constantly reduced witliin narrowerlimits, and either emigrated to Italy and other countries ;or, where itpreserved its residence, as in Arcadia andAttica, was gradually mingled with the Hellenes, of whomthe power was constantly increasing, until every vestige ofit, as a separate race, was entirelylost. Whilst the Helleneswere thus spreading through Greece, the several chief tribesof them became more and more distinctly marked; and thisdivision was so lasting and so full of consequences, that theinternal history of the nation for the most part depended onit. Of the four most important branches, the lonians,Dorians, ^Eolians, and Achams, the two first(for theJjlolians were chiefly mingled with the1Dorians) and theAchsoans were so eminent, that they deserve to be regardedas the chief component partsof the nation. Itis important,,in order to become acquainted with the people,to know inwhat parts of Greece these several tribes had their places ofresidence. But these places did not remain unchanged;the event which had the greatest influence on them for thesucceeding time, happened shortly after the termination ofthe Trojan war. Till then tlie tribe of the Aehaeaus hadbeen so powerful, that Homer, who, as T hucyditks has already observed, 2had no general name for the whole nation,commonly distinguishes tluit tribe from the others which;ho sometimes designates collectively by the name of Pun-Lellencs. 3 It possessed at that time almost (ill the Peloponnesus, with the exception of the very district which afterwards was occupied byit and bore ite name, but which wasthen still called Ionia ;and as the territories of AgamemnonHellespontThis was so different from the language of the Hellenes, m Inhis opinion to prove a nation of a different stock. True, this is at variancewith his previous remarks, that the Dorians are of Hellenic, the lonlwis ofPelasgic origin. But the lonians whom he had in view, arc the Athenian??,difference of origin, we must discriminate between the Pelawgi,. ,For to affirm that the Pelasgi of the cities above named, had exchanged theirown languagefor another, would bo a wholly gratuitous HuppcwUknu1Euripides, enumerating in Ion, v, 1581, etc,, the tribes of the HellencH,makes no mention of the Jlolians.t**Thucycl L 3.IlavaAAtji/je waJ 'Axtol, as Iliad ii, 530, The Hellenes of Homer are particularly the inhabitants of Thessaly ;but the expansion IhwMlvm proventhat even then, or soon after, when the catalogueof the nhips was written, thname had begun to receive a general application.