IEOLIANS mixed race), an ancient Greek people, perhaps the very earliest Greek stock —a mixture of Hellenes and Pelasgi — before the special races like Ionians and Dorians had differentiated from it; as their language was not a distinct dialect like those, but is a mixture of elements from all and presents the closest link of any between Greek and Latin. The Homeric language is ?Eolic. The race extended from northeast to southwest through Greece, from the Pagasaic Gulf through Thessaly or at least Phthiotis, Bceotia, Phocis, Locris and 2Etolia, north of the Corinthian Gulf, to Elis and Messenia, south of it. The sons of ./Esculapius (q.v.), Philoctetes, Odysseus, Nestor and the Oilean Ajax, were /Eolians ; and legend accredits to the same stock Jason, Melampus the healer, who understood the song of birds, Sisyphus, the founder of Corinth, and Athamas, the great King of the Minyw, son-in-law of Cadmus and father of Phrixus and Helle. The Achmans, if not originally part of the same stock, became blent with them and are classed by the ancients as part of them; and there is no separate Aclucan dialect or art. Probably they were one, and the Peloponnesian Achzi were certainly part of them; and the great emigration commonly called the/Eolian was an emigration of Achman people. It seems prob able that the emigration from the Peloponnesus began before the Dorian invasion, or return of the Heraclidm, as it is often called, which caused so great a revolution in the peninsula.
Strabo says the .2Eolian settlements in Asia were four generations prior to the Ionian. Their colonies on the Asiatic mainland were widely spread, extending at least from Cyzicus, along the shores of the Hellespont and the lEgean to the river Caicus and even the Her mus. Many positions in the interior were also occupied by them as well as the fine island of Lesbos, with Tenedos and others of smaller importance. Homer mentions all these parts as possessed by a different people, which would be proof, if any were wanting, that the race of new settlers came after his time. There were 12 cities or states included in the older settlements in that tract of Asia Minor on the rEgean which was known in Greek geography by the name of "Solis and formed a part of the subsequent larger division of Mysia. Smyrna, one of them, which early fell into the hands of the Ionians, the neighbors of the dEolians, still exists nearly on the old spot, with exactly the same name; thus adding one to the many instances of the durable im pression made by Greek colonies wherever they settled.