V. THE CONQUEST OF THE PELOPONNESUS, AND COLONIES IN ASIA MINOR.

Although not yet fully out of the fabulous era of Grecian history,
we now enter upon a period when the crude fictions of more than
mortal heroes begin to give place to the realities of human
existence; but still the vague, disputed, and often contradictory
annals on which we are obliged to rely shed only an uncertain
light around us; and even what we can gather as the most reliable
cannot be taken wholly as undoubted historic truth.

The immediate consequences of the Trojan war, as represented
by Greek historians, were scarcely less disastrous to the victors
than to the vanquished. The return of the Grecian heroes to their
homes is represented, as we have seen, to have been full of tragic
adventures, and their long absence encouraged usurpers to seize
many of their thrones. Hence arose fierce wars and intestine
commotions, which greatly retarded the progress of Grecian
civilization. Among these petty revolutions, however, no events
of general interest occurred until about sixty years after the
fall of Troy, when a people from Epi'rus, passing over the
mountain-chain of Pindus, descended into the rich plains which
lie along the banks of the Pene'us, and finally conquered the
country, to which they gave the name of Thessaly. The fugitives
from Thessaly, driven from their own country, passed over into
Boeo'tia, which they subdued after a long struggle, in their
turn driving out the ancient inhabitants of the land. This event
is supposed to have occurred in 1124 B.C.

The unsettled state of society caused by the Thessalian and
Boeotian conquests occasioned what is known as the "AEo'lian