Archilochus[51] formed one of a body of Parian colonists who planted themselves on it in the seventh century B. C., and carried on war, not always successful, against the Thracian tribe called Saians: on one occasion, Archilochus found himself compelled to throw away his shield. By their mines and their possessions on the mainland (which contained even richer mines, at Skaptê Hylê, and elsewhere, than those in the island), the Thasian Greeks rose to considerable power and population. And as they seem to have been the only Greeks, until the settlement of the Milesian Histiæus on the Strymôn about 510 B. C., who actively concerned themselves in the mining districts of Thrace opposite to their island, we cannot be surprised to hear that their clear surplus revenue before the Persian conquest, about 493 B. C., after defraying the charges of their government without any taxation, amounted to the large sum of two hundred talents, sometimes even to three hundred talents, in each year (from forty-six thousand to sixty-six thousand pounds). [46] Solinus, x, 10. [47] Herodot. i, 168; vii, 58-59, 109; Skymnus Chius, v, 675. [48] Thucyd. i, 100, iv, 102; Herodot. v, 11. Large quantities of corn are now exported from this territory to Constantinople (Leake, North. Gr. vol. iii, ch. 25, p. 172). [49] Herodot. vii, 108-109; Thucyd. i, 101. [50] ... ἥδε δ᾽ ὥστ᾽ ὄνου ῥαχις Ἕστηκεν, ὕλης ἀγρίας ἐπιστεφής. Archiloch. Fragm. 17-18, ed. Schneidewin. The striking propriety of this description, even after the lapse of two thousand five hundred years, may be seen in the Travels of Grisebach, vol. i. ch. 7, pp. 210-218, and in Prokesch, Denkwürdigkeiten des Orients, Th. 3, p. 612. The view of Thasus from the sea justifies the title Ἠερίη (Œnomaus ap. Euseb. Præpar. Evang. vii, p. 256; Steph. Byz. Θάσσος). Thasus (now Tasso) contains at present a population of about six thousand Greeks, dispersed in twelve small villages; it exports some good ship-timber, principally fir, of which there is abundance on the island, together with some olive oil and wax; but it cannot grow corn enough even for this small population. No mines either are now, or have been for a long time, in work. [51] Archiloch. Fragm. 5, ed. Schneidewin; Aristophan. Pac. 1298, with the Scholia; Strabo, x, p. 487, xii, p. 549; Thucyd. iv, 104.