slave-trade, and on one occasion 10,000 slaves are said to have been sold there in one day. From this fact some modern authors have made out, that this was the number of slaves sold there every day all the year round. At a later time Delos lost this importance; the piracy of the Cilicians and Cretans seems to have inflicted on Delos a deadly blow, and in the time of Augustus and Strabo it had lost its commercial importance, trade having taken a different direction. PAROS is celebrated for its white marble, the most beautiful for purposes of sculpture: the Carrara marble which enjoys a great reputation, is of a much inferior kind, containing more lime, while the Parian is more like crystal and precious stone, nor has it the disagreeable suggary whiteness of the Carrara marble, which becomes a little yellowish only by exposure to the air. Opposite to Paros is the small island of Antiparos, remarkable for its grotto with its stalactites, the most celebrated in the world, though the ancients do not mention it. In early times, the town of Paros was one of the most enterprising, and, in a commercial point of view, one of the most important places; besides the island itself, the Parians had colonies extending far into the interior of the Adriatic, and the town of Paros there is said to have been of Parian origin; they also took part in the establishment of a colony on the Liris. Archilochus, one of the greatest poets of Greece, was a native of Paros. Some Greeks whose judgment is of great weight, placed him by the side of Homer: and legendary stories say, that the gods were so favourably disposed towards him as to order Corax, who had murdered him, to quit their sanctuary and not to return to it, until he had propitiated the shade of the poet. Paros also possesses an excellent harbour, suited even to great ships of war; but it is little noticed in ancient history. It may be said in general that those islands were rich in harbours. SIPHNOS, remarkable in a mineralogical point of view, is not far distant from Paros; previous to the Persian period, it had silver mines, through which it became wealthy; but when they were exhausted, it sank into the greatest wretchedness, for it is a barren island. The neighbouring SERĪPHOS (not Serĭphos) is still more barren, being a mere rock; it acts a prominent part in the mythus about Perseus. The Romans in after-times banished their criminals to Seriphos and Cythnos.