HOW THEY LOCATED A NEW CITY. There were several different lands to which they could go, just as the European of to-day may sail for the United States or South America or Australia. They could attempt to settle on the shores of the Black Sea, or cross over to northern Africa, or try to reach Italy and the more distant coasts of what are now France and Spain. In order to choose wisely, they generally asked the advice of the priests of their god Apollo at his temple at Delphi. These priests knew more about good places for settlements than most other persons, because travelers from everywhere came to Delphi and the priests were wise enough to inquire about all parts of the world. [Illustration: _The territory occupied by the Greeks is indicated by solid black_] The story is told that one group of emigrants was advised to locate their new colony opposite the "city of the blind." They discovered that these words meant that an earlier band of emigrants had passed by the wonderful harbor of the present city of Constantinople and had settled instead on the other shore of the Bosphorus. Taught by the oracle they chose the better place and began to build the city of Byzantium, which later became Constantinople. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER CITIES. Solemn ceremonies took place when colonists departed. They carried with them fire from the hearth of the mother city in order to light a similar fire on their new hearth, for every city had its hearthstone and on it a fire that was never quenched. The ties between the mother and the daughter city were close, and the enemies of one were the enemies of the other. He who wished to visit the colony usually went to the mother city to find a ship bound thither. WHERE THE SETTLEMENTS WERE MADE. When the Greek sailors first entered the Black Sea, they thought it a boundless ocean, and called it the Pontus, a word which means "The Main." Until that time they had been accustomed to sail only from island to island in the Aegean Sea. After a while they made settlements all around the shores of the Black Sea, and in later times Athens drew from this region her supply of grain. Still more important settlements were made in Sicily and southern Italy, for it was through these settlements that some of the things the Greeks knew, like the art of writing, were taught to the Italian tribes and to the Romans. DANGERS OF THE VOYAGE. At first Greek sailors feared the dangers of the western Mediterranean as much as those of the Black Sea. They imagined that the huge, misshapen, and dreadful monsters Scylla and Charybdis lurked in the Straits of Messina waiting to seize and swallow the unlucky passer-by. On the slopes of Mount Aetna dwelt, they thought, hideous, one-eyed giants, the Cyclops, who fed their fierce appetites with the quivering flesh of many captives. [Illustration: GREEK RUINS AT PAESTUM IN ITALY]