It appears that the fugitives were not very kindly received at Chios; at least, when they made a proposition for purchasing from the Chians the neighboring islands of Œnussæ as a permanent abode, the latter were induced to refuse by apprehensions of commercial rivalry. It was necessary to look farther for a settlement: and Arganthônius their protector, being now dead, Tartêssus was no longer inviting. Twenty years before, however, the colony of Alalia in the island of Corsica had been founded from Phôkæa by the direction of the oracle, and thither the general body of Phôkæans now resolved to repair. Having prepared their ships for this distant voyage, they first sailed back to Phôkæa, surprised the Persian garrison whom Harpagus had left in the town, and slew them: they then sunk in the harbor a great lump of iron, and bound themselves by a solemn and unanimous oath never again to see Phôkæa until that iron should come up to the surface. Nevertheless, in spite of the oath, the voyage of exile had been scarcely begun when more than half of them repented of having so bound themselves,—and became homesick.[359] They broke their vow and returned to Phôkæa. But as Herodotus does not mention any divine judgment as having been consequent on the perjury, we may, perhaps, suspect that some gray-headed citizen, to whom transportation to Corsica might be little less than a sentence of death, both persuaded himself, and certified to his companions, that he had seen the sunken lump of iron raised up and floating for a while buoyant upon the waves. Harpagus must have been induced to pardon the previous slaughter of his Persian garrison, or at least to believe that it had been done by those Phôkæans who still persisted in exile. He wanted tribute-paying subjects, not an empty military post, and the repentant home-seekers were allowed to number themselves among the slaves of the Great King. [359] Herodot. i, 165. ὑπερημίσεας τῶν ἀστῶν ἔλαβε πόθος τε καὶ οἶκτος τῆς πόλιος καὶ τῶν ἠθέων τῆς χώρης· ψευδόρκιοί τε γενόμενοι, etc. The colloquial term which I have ventured to place in the text expresses exactly, as well as briefly, the meaning of the historian. A public oath, taken by most of the Greek cities with similar ceremony of lumps of iron thrown into the sea, is mentioned in Plutarch, Aristid. c. 25.