It has already been stated that the territory properly called Elis, apart from the enlargement which it acquired by conquest, included the westernmost land in Peloponnesus, south of Achaia, and west of Mount Pholoe1 and Olenus in Arcadia, but not extending so far southward as the river Alpheius, the course of which lay along the southern portion of Pisatis and on the borders of Triphylia. This territory, which appears in the Odyssey as “the divine Elis, where the Epeians hold sway,” is in the historical times occupied by a population of Ætolian origin. The connection of race between the historical Eleians and the historical Ætolians was recognised by both parties, and there is no ground for disputing it.

That Ætolian invaders or immigrants into Elis would cross from Naupaktus or some neighbouring point in the point in the Corinthian Gulf, is in the natural course of things, and such is the course which Oxylus, the conductor of the invasion, is represented by the Herakleid legend as taking. That legend (as has been already recounted) introduces Oxylus as the guide of the three Herakleid brothers—Têmenus, Kresphontês, and Aristodêmus, and as stipulating with them that in the new distribution about to take place of Peloponnesus, he shall be allowed to possess the Eleian territory, coupled with many holy privileges as to the celebration of the Olympic games.

In the preceding chapter. I have endeavoured to show that the settlements of the Dorians in and near the Argolic peninsula, so far as the probabilities of the case enable us to judge, were not accomplished by any inroad in this direction.