The number of Aeolian towns in Asia Minor and the neighbouring islands amounted to thirty, but they formed several separate groups. One of these groups, the real Αἰολὶς δωδεκάπολις, had Cyme for its capital. There was also an Αἰολὶς ἐν Ἴδῃ in the interior of the country, which probably included Tenedos and Hecatonnesoi. Lesbos contained six towns. These Aeolian towns (the name is applied in its most proper sense to the first group or the dodecapolis) cannot, generally speaking, be compared in importance with the Ionian and Dorian settlements; they were μικρὰ πολίχνια; Smyrna’s importance belongs to the time when it had ceased to be Aeolian. It would lead me too far here to enumerate all the Aeolian towns whose names are mentioned only by one author or another, for they are otherwise unimportant; hence I shall notice only the most celebrated, and in point of fact there are only two out of the eleven (after the separation of Smyrna) that deserve to be noticed. The first is CYME, with the surname _Phriconis_, which cannot be explained. The foundation of this place is assigned to an extremely early period, the report being, that it was built soon after the Trojan war. But not too much value must be attached to this tradition, any more than to most of the things belonging to the time anterior to the beginning of the Olympiads. Cyme is always spoken of as the greatest and most important among the Aeolian towns, but history does not justify this reputation, for the place nowhere appears possessed of power or influence. The historian Ephorus, who was born there, sheds considerable lustre upon it; the loss of his work is irreparable, and perhaps the most serious that we have to lament in ancient history. He cheerfully took the greatest pains to investigate the obscure periods of antiquity, and must be regarded as the first critical inquirer into the early history of Greece. He thoroughly deserves the respect paid to him by his contemporaries, although his style, according to the testimony of Isocrates, was dry and inferior to that of Theopompus: perhaps we should judge differently of him if we had his work. The opinion that Hesiod was a native of Cyme, seems to be a gross delusion, the origin of which, however, is not clear to me. We must also notice GRYNEON with its celebrated temple of Apollo, who is for this reason called _Gryneus_ by Virgil and Ovid. TEMNOS remained a somewhat important place even in later times. The other towns are quite insignificant.