Note 171 — BOOK THE FOURTH

Footnote 171: (return) “It certainly seems to me, that, in a reference so distinct to the three great Peloponnesian cities which the Dorians invaded and possessed, Homer makes as broad an allusion to the conquests of the Heraclidæ, not only as would be consistent with the pride of an Ionic Greek in attesting the triumphs of the national Dorian foe, but as the nature of a theme cast in a distant period, and remarkably removed, in its general conduct, from the historical detail of subsequent events, would warrant to the poet.”—Bulwer, Athens, i. 8. The correctness of this view, however, depends upon the true date of Homer’s existence.