THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

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WHO WERE THE MAKERS ? 115
only falls in with the Pelasgic legend, but fits exactly into the
statements of the Homeric poems.
Mess EN I A.
The traditional account of the earliest settlement of
"
Messenia is as follows :
They say that the land was once
uninhabited, and that it received its first inhabitants in the
following manner. Lelex reigned in the country which is
now called Lacoiiia, but which was then called after him
Lelegia. When he died his elder son, Myles, succeeded to the
kingdom. Polycaon was a younger son, and therefore remained
in a private station, till he married an Argive wife,
Messene, daughter of Triopas, son of Phorbas. Now Mcssene
was proud for her father, for he was more illustrious and
powerful than any Greek of the ;
day and she thought
.scorn
that her husband should I'emain a private man. 80 they
gathered together a host from Argos and Lacedaemon, and
catne to this country, and the whole land was named Messene
after the wife of Polycann."
Messene and her husband built their palace at Andania '.
Tradition thus identifies the primal Messenian stock with
the early Pelasgian people
(jf
Argolis and Laconia.
The Messenians thfrefore ought
to l)e of the same race
as the serf populations of Argolis and Laconia. Nor are we
without good evidcnci' fir the connection between the Helots
and Messenians, for Thucydides- tells us (s[)eaking
of the revolt
of tht; Helots and certain of the I'erioeci in 404 H.c.) that
"most of the Helols were llir descendants of the old Messenians,
who wei-e enslaved at the time with whicii all ai'e
ac(|uaiijted, and foi' this ica^on the whole body
oi' them wei-e
called Messenians.' This is eoiroborated by another j)assage
in the same histoiian wherein we are told that one of the
reasons wli\' Demosthenes sci/.cl Pyliis and planted a gari'ison
of Messenians from Xaupartus there was that they
same dialect as the Lacc(|einoiii;ins''.'
1
I'ans. IV. 1, -2.
-
I. 101. iv. .i.
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spnke th(>
S ^ 2
116 WHO WERE THE MAKERS ?
Pylus. In Homer the Messenians are under the rule of
Nestor, the son of Neleus, who dwelt at Pylus, which under the
Dorian domination was named Corphasium. But Neleus was
not of the ancient royal house of Lelex and Messene, for he
was an invader from lolcus in Thessaly, a fact which seems to
have had no inconsiderable bearing on the action of the mass
of the people when the Dorians came.
'The old Messeniau commonalty,' sa3-s Pausanias, "was not
driven out by the Dorians, but submitted to be ruled by Cresphontes,
and to give the Dorians a share of their land. These
concessions they were induced to make by the suspicion with
which they regarded their own kings, because they were by
descent Minyans from lolcus \"
Another passage of Pausanias- describing the settlement of
Neleus tells us that the latter had conquered Pylus, having come
with the Pelasgians from lolcus. The territory conquered had
belonged to a tribe called the Epeans, who continued to occupy
a portion
of their ancient land, and later wdien the Eleans
conquered another portion of the .same area, the whole district
'
was known as Triphylia, the land of the Three Tribes.'
The evidence makes it clear (1) that the earliest inhabitants
were of the same race as the ancient ])()pnlation of Argolis and
Laconia, who were of the stock called by the early writers
Pelasgian; (2) that these were long i-uled by native kings; (3)
that in the movements of tribes brought about by th(^ con(piest
of Tliessalv l)y the Acheans of Phthiotis a body of Mniyans, one
of the Pelasgian tribes, as will soon Ix' shown, were driven out
of theii- aiu-iciit home at lolcus on the Pagasaean Gulf and that
thoy had undci' the leadei'ship of Neleus sought a new home in
Pelo])onnesus. and had made Pylus tln'ii- ca]>ital (i-) that no
;
Achcan coiKiucst of .McsscMiia had cvci' taken ))lac('
; (.')) that
no Achcan ilynasty had ever reigned at Pylus oi' in Messema ;
(()) that the mass of the |)opnhition which accepted the rule
of ( 'i-es])hontes
instea(l of that of the Neleidae. was eithei' of the
old Pehipoiinesian Pelasgian stock, or was descended ti'oni the
Pelasgians of Tiiessaly.
We may
therefoi'e conclude with some contidencc"
IV. -A. (i.
-
IV. :{(;. 1.
that oidy