[44] Herodot. vii, 122; viii, 127. Stephanus Byz. (v. Παλλήνη) gives us some idea of the mythes of the lost Greek writers, Hegesippus and Theagenês about Pallênê. On the scanty spaces, admitted by the mountainous promontory, or ridge, ending in Athos, were planted some Thracian and some Pelasgic settlements of the same inhabitants as those who occupied Lemnos and Imbros; a few Chalkidic citizens being domiciliated with them, and the people speaking both Pelasgic and Hellenic. But near the narrow isthmus which joins this promontory to Thrace, and along the north-western coast of the Strymonic gulf, were Grecian towns of considerable importance,—Sanê, Akanthus, Stageira, and Argilus, all colonies from Andros, which had itself been colonized from Eretria.[45] Akanthus and Stageira are said to have been founded in 654 B. C. [45] Thucyd. iv, 84, 103, 109. See Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 654 B. C. Following the southern coast of Thrace, from the mouth of the river Strymôn towards the east, we may doubt whether, in the year 560 B. C., any considerable independent colonies of Greeks had yet been formed upon it. The Ionic colony of Abdêra, eastward of the mouth of the river Nestus, formed from Teôs in Ionia, is of more recent date, though the Klazomenians[46] had begun an unsuccessful settlement there as early as the year 651 B. C.; while Dikæa—the Chian settlement of Marôneia—and the Lesbian settlement of Ænus at the mouth of the Hebrus, are of unknown date.[47] The important and valuable territory near the mouth of the Strymôn, where, after many ruinous failures,[48] the Athenian colony of Amphipolis afterwards maintained itself, was at the date here mentioned possessed by Edonian Thracians and Pierians: the various Thracian tribes,—Satræ, Edonians, Dersæans, Sapæans, Bistones, Kikones, Pætians, etc.—were in force on the principal part of the tract between Strymôn and Hebrus, even to the sea-coast. It is to be remarked, however, that the island of Thasus, and that of Samothrace, each possessed what in Greek was called a Peræa,[49]—a strip of the adjoining mainland cultivated and defended by means of fortified posts, or small towns: probably, these occupations are of very ancient date, since they seem almost indispensable as a means of support to the islands. For the barren Thasus, especially, merits even at this day the uninviting description applied to it by the poet Archilochus, in the seventh century B. C.,—“an ass’s backbone, overspread with wild wood:”[50] so wholly is it composed of mountain, naked or wooded, and so scanty are the patches of cultivable soil left in it, nearly all close to the sea-shore. This island was originally occupied by the Phenicians, who worked the gold mines in its mountains with a degree of industry which, even in its remains, excited the admiration of Herodotus. How and when it was evacuated by them, we do not know; but the poet