The History And Antiquities Of The Doric Race Vol. 1 By Karl Otfried Müller The History And Antiquities Of The Doric Race Book I. History Of The Doric Race, From The Earliest Times To The End Of The Peloponnesian War. Chapter I. § 1. Earliest Settlement of the Dorians in Thessaly. § 2. Description of the Vale of Tempe. § 3. Of the Passes of Olympus. § 4. And of Hestiæotis. § 5. The Perrhæbians. § 6. The Lapithæ. § 7. Limits of the Territory in Thessaly occupied by the Dorians. § 8. Contents of the Epic Poem Ægimius. § 9. Doric Migration from Thessaly to Crete. § 10. Relation of the Dorians to the Macedonians. 1. “From early times the Dorians and Ionians were the chief races of the Grecian nation; the latter of Pelasgic, the former of Hellenic origin; the latter an aboriginal people, the former a people much addicted to wandering. For the former, when under the dominion of Deucalion, dwelt in Phthiotis; and in the time of Dorus, the son of Hellen, they inhabited the country at the foot of Ossa and Olympus, which was called Hestiæotis. Afterwards, however, being driven from Hestiæotis by the Cadmeans, they dwelt under mount Pindus, and were called the Macednian nation. From thence they again migrated to Dryopis; and having passed from Dryopis into Peloponnesus, they were called the Doric race.” This connected account cannot be considered as derived immediately from ancient tradition; but can only be viewed as an attempt of the father of history to arrange and reconcile various legends. Nor indeed is it difficult to discover and examine the steps of the argument which led him to this conclusion. It is clear that he considers the genealogy of Hellen, viz. that he was the son of Deucalion and father of Dorus, Xuthus, and Æolus, as an historical fact; although it is at least more recent than the poems of Homer, where the name of Hellenes does not include these races, but is the appellation of a single nation in Phthiotis: and that his object is to establish the position, that the Dorians were the genuine Hellenes. Now since Deucalion, the father of Hellen and grandfather of Dorus, was supposed to have dwelt in Phthiotis, Herodotus represents the Dorians as also coming from Phthiotis; although the people meant in these legends by the names of Deucalion and Hellen were the real ancient Hellenes, the Myrmidons, who were afterwards under the dominion of the Æacidæ, and are entirely distinct from the Dorians. Dorus was next represented as succeeding Hellen as king of the same people; and then, since the name of Dorus was in these fabulous accounts connected with Hestiæotis, he infers that the Dorians went thither from Phthiotis. But the modern mythologist must of course abandon this whole deduction as unfounded; and he can only adopt the datum from which the historian started; namely, that, according to ancient tradition, “Dorus dwelt at the foot of Olympus and Ossa.”Here then the real fact presents itself to us. The chain of Olympus, the divider of nations, whose lofty summit is still called by the inhabitants thecelestial mansion, is the place in which the Dorians first appear in the history of Greece. 2. The mountain-valley, which in later times bore the name of Thessaly, was bounded to the west by Pindus, to the south by Othrys, to the east by Pelion and Ossa, and to the north by Olympus, under which name the ancient writers, for example Herodotus, also include the chain which in after-times (probably from an Illyrian word) was called the Cambunian mount. The course of the Peneus is so situated as to divide the open plain to the south, the ancient Pelasgic Argos, from the mountainous district to the north; towards the north-east it breaks through the mountain-ridge, dividing Ossa from Olympus; here too the river creeps under the loftier heights of mount Olympus; so that the path passes along the side of the more rugged and precipitous Ossa. This ravine was known by the ancient generic name of Tempea or Tempe (the cut, from τέμνω), and has been often poetically described, but seldom sufficiently considered as bearing upon the history of Greece. Before entering the pass, the traveller crosses a small round valley, agreeably situated; at the end of which on the left hand, where the mountains approach one another on both sides, was the ancient fortress of Gonnus (or Gonni), distant 160 stadia from Larissa, the chief city of the plain. From this point the mountains close upon one another more rapidly, until they rise on both sides of the glen in two rocky parapets, forming a gully, where in many places a path has been hewn along the river. About the middle of this path there stands now, upon a bold projection of Ossa, a fortress of Roman construction called Horæo-Castro, covering also a cross glen of that mountain: it was there probably that the strong-hold Gonnocondylum stood; which appears to have taken its name from the “windings” of the valley. Not far from this spot is the narrowest part of the ravine, hardly 100 feet in width: which is stated in an inscription to have been fortified by L. Cassius Longinus, the proconsul and partisan of J. Cæsar; but, without the aid of fortification, a few armed men would probably have been able to stop the progress of a force many times their number. The region has nothing beautiful or agreeable in its appearance, but presents rather a look of savage wildness: the perpendicular masses of rock of the same kind of stone appear, as it were, to have been rent asunder, and are without any covering of trees or grass; the blackness of the shadows in the deep hollow, and the dull echoes, increase the gloominess of the impression: beneath bubble the silver waters of the Peneus (ἀργυροδίνης). Not far from this narrow passage the defile opens towards the sea, to which the Peneus flows through marshes; and from hence may be seen the smiling country of Pieria, on the eastern side of Olympus, particularly the plains of Phila, Heracleum, and Leibethrum, which lead onwards to the southern parts of Macedonia. 3. This is the only road between Thessaly and the northern districts, which passes in its whole length along a valley; all the others are mountain- passes. Such was the other road to Macedonia, which crossed mount Olympus (ἐσβολὴ Ὀλυμπική). This road, too, begins at the strongly- fortified city of Gonnus, the key of the country towards the north; and it then goes along the southern side of Olympus, till it reaches the cities of Azorum and Doliche. Between these two towns is a place where three ways met. The chief road passes in a northerly direction over the summit of the Cambunian chain to the Macedonian highlands; and it was here that Xerxes set fire to the woods in order to open a passage for his army, which the Greeks had expected along the more practicable way through Pieria and the valley of Tempe; and it was often in the Roman wars traversed by large armies. From the south of Olympus two difficult mountain roads led over the heights of Olympus, connecting Northern Thessaly with Pieria. The one avoided the valley of Tempe, as it passed by the fortress of Lapathus to the north of that defile, then along the small lake of Ascurias, whence there was a view of the town of Dium on the sea-coast, at the distance of 96 stadia; after which it descended into the plains of Pieria. We should, however, more particularly notice the other road, taking a more northern direction, and passing over the lofty sides of Olympus, where formerly there stood the castle of Petra, and the temple of the Pythian Apollo, commonly called Pythium, together with a village of the same name, the height of which Xenagoras, by a geometrical measurement, ascertained to be 6096 Grecian feet. From this point there was a mountain- pass leading down to the coast to Heracleum and Phila in Pieria, and another way led along the ridge of Olympus by difficult and dangerous passages, as far as Upper Macedonia. These mountain-passes and defiles have not been explored by any modern traveller; but it was important for our subject to discover their position from the writings of the ancients. Not only did Perseus and Æmilius Paulus here contend for the fate of Macedonia, but it was in this region that the Greek nations of the heroic age disputed the possession of the fertile Thessaly. There was once a time when through these passes the nations pressed down, to whose lot the finest parts of Greece were once to fall; here every step was gained with labour, while the sons of the mountain inured themselves to hardships in their incessant wars. Of the numerous citadels which in these districts cover every important point, the greater number were probably built at a very early period. Thus there were three fortresses to defend the pass of Olympus, or the road from Gonnus to Azorum and Doliche, which two places, together with Pythium on the mountain, were comprehended under the name of the Pelagonian Tripolis. 4. The highlands which border on Macedonia are so rarely mentioned in Grecian history, that we find in them few names of places, while in the valley of the Peneus there were always some traditional and historical memorials extant. For although the northern mountains were not destitute of fountains, grassy slopes, and fertile pastures, still the nations continually pressed downward to the fertile lands of the valley.