Did the fame of their discovery, we may ask, spread so rapidly in the East as to excite there the cupidity and envy of their rivals? However this may have been, the People of the Sea, after repeated checks in Africa and Syria, and feeling more than ever the pressure of the northern tribes encroaching on them, set out towards the west, following the route pursued by the Phoenicians. The traditions current among them and collected afterwards by the Greek historians give an account, mingled with many fabulous details, of the causes which led to their migrations and of the vicissitudes which they experienced in the course of them. Daedalus having taken flight from Crete to Sicily, Minos, who had followed in his steps, took possession of the greater part of the island with his Eteocretes. Iolaos was the leader of Pelasgic bands, whom he conducted first into Libya and finally to Sardinia. It came also to pass that in the days of Atys, son of Manes, a famine broke out and raged throughout Lydia: the king, unable to provide food for his people, had them numbered, and decided by lot which of the two halves of the population should expatriate themselves under the leadership of his son Tyrsenos. Those-who were thus fated to leave their country assembled at Smyrna, constructed ships there, and having embarked on board of them what was necessary, set sail in quest of a new home. After a long and devious voyage, they at length disembarked in the country of the Umbrians, where they built cities, and became a prosperous people under the name of Tyrseni, being thus called after their leader Tyrsenos.* * Herodotus, whence all the information of other classical writers is directly or indirectly taken. Most modern historians reject this tradition. I see no reason for my own part why they should do so, at least in the present state of our knowledge. The Etrurians of the historical period were the result of a fusion of several different elements, and there is nothing against the view that the Tursha--one of these elements--should have come from Asia Minor, as Herodotus says. Properly understood, the tradition seems well founded, and the details may have been added afterwards, either by the Lydians themselves, or by the Greek historians who collected the Lydian traditions.