According to the account of a lost historian, Meneklês,[58]—political dissension among the inhabitants of Thêra led to that emigration which founded Kyrênê; and the more ample legendary details which Herodotus collected, partly from Theræan, partly from Kyrenæan informants, are not positively inconsistent with this statement, though they indicate more particularly bad seasons, distress, and over-population. Both of them dwell emphatically on the Delphian oracle as the instigator as well as the director of the first emigrants, whose apprehensions of a dangerous voyage and an unknown country were very difficult to overcome. Both of them affirmed that the original œkist Battus was selected and consecrated to the work by the divine command: both called Battus the son of Polymnêstus, of the mythical breed called Minyæ. But on other points there was complete divergence between the two stories, and the Kyrenæans themselves, whose town was partly peopled by emigrants from Krête, described the mother of Battus as daughter of Etearchus, prince of the Kretan town of Axus.[59] Battus had an impediment in his speech, and it was on his intreating from the Delphian oracle a cure for this infirmity that he received directions to go as “a cattle-breeding œkist to Libya.” The suffering Theræans were directed to assist him, but neither he nor they knew where Libya was, nor could they find any resident in Krête who had ever visited it. Such was the limited reach of Grecian navigation to the south of the Ægean sea, even a century after the foundation of Syracuse. At length, by prolonged inquiry, they discovered a man employed in catching the purple shellfish, named Korôbius,—who said that he had been once forced by stress of weather to the island of Platea, close to the shores of Libya, and on the side not far removed from the western limit of Egypt. Some Theræans being sent along with Korôbius to inspect this island, left him there with a stock of provisions, and returned to Thêra to conduct the emigrants. From the seven districts into which Thêra was divided, emigrants were drafted for the colony, one brother being singled out by lot from the different numerous families. But so long was their return to Platea deferred, that the provisions of Korôbius were exhausted, and he was only saved from starvation by the accidental arrival of a Samian ship, driven by contrary winds out of her course on the voyage to Egypt. Kôlæus, the master of this ship (whose immense profits made by the first voyage to Tartêssus have been noticed in a former chapter), supplied him with provisions for a year,—an act of kindness, which is said to have laid the first foundation of the alliance and good feeling afterwards prevalent between Thêra, Kyrênê, and Samos. At length the expected emigrants reached the island, having found the voyage so perilous and difficult, that they once returned in despair to Thêra, where they were only prevented by force from relanding. The band which