termed in the Homeric Catalo^e as well as by -^^®
Herodotus), — an ancient Hellemc «Ajnphiktyonio ^^^•■*
race, who are said to haye passed through several successive
migrations in Thessaly and Epirus, but who in the histori-
cal times had their settlement and their chief town Hypata
in the upper valley of ilie SpercheiuS; on the northern
declivity of Mount (Eta. But other tribes were probably
also included in the name, such as those JBtolian tribes,
the Bomians and Elallians, whose high and cold abodes
approached near to the Haliac Oulf. It is in this sense
that we are to understand the name, as comprehending all
the predatory tribes along this extensive mountain range,
when we are told of the damage done by the (Etseans both
to the Malians on the east, and to the Dorians on the south:
but there are some cases in which the name (Etaeans seems
to designate expressly the ^nianes, especially when they
are mentioned as exercising the Amphiktyonic franchise. ^
The fine soil, abundant moisture, and genial exposure
of the southerly declivities of Othrys^ — especially the
valley of the Spercheius, through wmch river all these
waters pass away, and which annually gives forth a ferti-
lising inundation — ^present a marked contrast with the
barren, craggy, and naked masses of Mount (Eta, which
forms one side of the pass of Thermopylae. Southward of
the pass, the Lokrians, Phokians, and Dorians i^o^rians
occupied the mountains and passes between Phokians,
Thessaly and Boeotia. The coast opposite to i>o"»^»-
the western side of Euboea, fipom the neighbourhood of
ThermopylsB as far as the Boeotian frontier at AnthSd6n,
was possessed by the Lokrians, whose northern frontier
town, AlpSni, was conterminous with the Malians. There

> Plntaroh, Qusestion. Gvao. p. Holland^p Travels, oil. xrli. vol. U.
