Tacitus informs us, that, in the reign of Tiberius, a contest concerning their respective antiquity arose among eleven cities of Asia, which were heard by their deputies in presence of the Emperor. The Sardians rested their claims on an alleged affinity to the Etruscans, and, in support of their pretensions, produced an ancient decree, in which that people declared themselves descended from the followers of Tyrrhenus, who had left their native country of Lydia, and founded new settlements in Italy(15). Hellanicus of Lesbos, a Greek historian, nearly contemporary with Herodotus, and quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, asserted that the Etruscans were a tribe of Pelasgi, not from Lydia, but from Greece, who being driven out of their country by the Hellenes, sailed to the mouth of the Po, and leaving their ships in that river, built the inland town of Cortona, whence advancing, they peopled the whole territory afterwards called Tyrrhenia(16). Dionysius of Halicarnassus holds the account of those authors, who maintain that the Etruscans were descended from the Lydians, to be utterly fabulous, principally on the ground that Xantus, the chief historian of Lydia, says nothing of any colony having emigrated thence to Italy; and he is of opinion, that those also are mistaken, who, like Hellanicus of Lesbos, believed the Etruscans and Pelasgi to be the same people. He conceives them to have been Aborigines, or natives of the country, as they radically agreed with no other nation, either in their language or manner of life. He admits, however, that a tribe of Pelasgi passed from Thessaly to the mouth of the Po many ages previous to the Trojan war, and directing their course to the south, occupied a considerable portion of the heart of Italy. Soon after their arrival, they assisted the aboriginal Etruscans in their wars with the Siculi, whom they forced to seek refuge in Sicily, the seat of the ancient Sicani. Subsequent to this alliance, they were again dispersed in consequence of disease and famine; but a few still remained behind, and being incorporated with the original inhabitants, bestowed on them whatever in language or customs appeared to be common to the Etruscans, with other nations of Pelasgic descent(17).