HERACLES 545ried Rhadamanthys, brother of Minos. In the version of Apollodorus, she mar-
ried Rhadamanthys in Thebes after the death of Amphitryon and was reunited
with him in the Underworld. As she was being carried out to burial in a coffin
Hermes, at the command of Zeus, substituted for her body a large stone, which
the sons of Heracles discovered (for the coffin had suddenly become very heavy)
and set up in a shrine sacred to her.^23THE RETURN OF THE HERACLIDAE
The saga of the descendants of Heracles (the Heraclidae) explains the occu-
pation of a large part of the Péloponnèse by Dorian tribes in the period after
the end of the Mycenaean Age. Hyllus married Iole as his father had com-
manded and consulted Delphi about his return to the Péloponnèse. He was
advised to wait "until the third fruit" and that victory would come "from the
Narrows." After waiting two more years, he attacked by way of the Isthmus
of Corinth. He himself was killed in single combat by Echemus, king of Tegea;
his army withdrew, and a truce of one hundred years was agreed upon. At
the end of that time, the Heraclid Temenus again consulted the oracle, who
told him that the "third fruit" meant not the third harvest but the third gen-
eration, and that "the Narrows" meant the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth.
Temenus therefore invaded the northwest Péloponnèse, crossing over near
Patrae and taking as a guide a "three-eyed man" in accordance with the ad-
vice of the oracle; this was an Aetolian exile named Oxylus, whom he found
riding a one-eyed horse. With his help, the Heraclids defeated the Pelopon-
nesian defenders, who were led by Tisamenus, son of Orestes. Thucydides
(1. 12) relates these events to the disruptions in Greece that followed the Tro-
jan War and the return of the Greek leaders. He says that "the Dorians with
the Heraclidae took possession of the Péloponnèse in the eightieth year [af-
ter the fall of Troy]."
Thus the "Return of the Heraclidae" took place. The leaders divided up
the three principal areas which they had conquered. Lacedaemon (Sparta) was
given to Procles and Eurysthenes, sons of the lately dead leader Aristodemus,
and they became founders of the two royal houses of Sparta. Argos fell to
Temenus, and Messene to Cresphontes. Temenus was killed by his sons,
whom he had passed over in the succession to his throne; Cresphontes was
also murdered, along with two of his sons, by a rival Heraclid, Polyphontes.
His widow, Merope, was forced to become Polyphontes' queen, but she suc-
ceeded in getting her surviving son Aepytus out of the kingdom to Aetolia,
where he grew up. Later he secretly returned to Messene and was recognized
by Merope, with whose connivance he killed Polyphontes and recovered his
father's throne. Of the three Dorian kingdoms, Sparta and Argos flourished
for many centuries, but Messene was subjugated by the Spartans within a
comparatively short time.