the isthmus from the Saronic to the Corinthian gulf; next came Corinth, and to its west Sicyon; south of these two cities were Phlius and Cleonae: the Argolic peninsula was divided between Argos, Epidaurus, Troezen, and Hermione, the last of which, however, was inhabited by Dryopes, and not by Dorians. In the Saronic gulf, Aegina was peopled by Dorians. South of the Argive territory was Laconia, and to its west Messenia, both ruled by Dorians: the river Neda, which separated Messenia from Triphylia, included under Elis in its widest sense, was the boundary of the Dorian states on the western side of the peninsula. The districts just mentioned are represented in the Homeric poems as the seats of the great Achaean monarchies, and there is no allusion in these poems to any Doric population in Peloponnesus. In fact the name of the Dorians occurs only once in Homer, and then as one of the many tribes of Crete. The silence of Homer indicates that the Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus must have taken place subsequent to the time of the poet, and consequently must be assigned to a much later date than the one usually attributed to it. From the Peloponnesus the Dorians spread over various parts of the Aegean and its connected seas. Doric colonies were founded in mythical times in the islands of Crete, Melos, Thera, Rhodes, Cos, and ancient Doris (located on the southwest coast of modern Turkey). About the same time they founded upon the coast of Caria the towns of Cnidus and Halicarnassus: these two towns, together with Cos and the three Rhodian towns of Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus, formed a confederation usually called the Doric Hexapolis. The members of this hexapolis were accustomed to celebrate a festival, with games, on the Triopian promontory near Cnidus, in honour of the Triopian Apollo; the prizes in those games were brazen tripods, which the victors had to dedicate in the temple of Apollo; and Halicarnassus was struck out of the league, because one of her citizens carried the tripod to his own house instead of leaving it in the temple. The hexapolis thus became a pentapolis. The Doric colonies founded numerous further colonies in historic times. Corinth, the chief commercial city of the Dorians, colonised Corcyra, and planted several colonies on the western coast of Greece, of which Ambracia, Anactorium, Leucas, and Apollonia were the most important. Epidamnus,