In enumerating these towns, we may follow a twofold system: we may either trace them along the coast, beginning with the one next to Tarentum and thus proceeding as far as Posidonia, or we may arrange them according to the Greek tribes to which they belonged, and according to the alleged periods of their foundation. The first system may be traced on any map where they follow one another in this order: Metapontum, Heraclea, Siris (which is found in very few maps), Sybaris (afterwards Thurii), Croton, Scylletion, Caulon, Locri, and Rhegium: on the other side, we have Hipponium, Laos, Pyxus, Elea, and Posidonia. These towns were colonies of different tribes, but the most important among them were of Achaean origin. The original number of the latter was four, which again became the mother towns of the rest; even in regard to the fourth, however, it is not certain whether it was not a colony of Croton. Sybaris was the most ancient among them: next came Croton; Metapontum, the third, was of much more recent origin; and the fourth, was Caulon or Caulonia, concerning which, as I have already said, it is doubtful whether it was an Achaean colony, or whether it received at the same time settlers from Croton, as was the case at Apollonia which was founded by Corinth and Corcyra conjointly. The colonies of the Locrians are equally ancient, and, according to tradition, they even belong to an earlier date. Both these sets of colonies again founded others: the Achaean Laos founded Scidros, Elea (a mixed colony), and Posidonia; and the Locrians built Hipponium and Medina. There were also Ionian colonies of different kinds; Siris was a very ancient Colophonian settlement; Rhegium, a Chalcidian colony of a more recent date, afterwards founded Pyxus. Elea, too, may be called Ionian, inasmuch as the fugitives from Phocaea were admitted there, as those from Colophon had been at Siris. They accordingly lie, as it were, in chronological strata above one another, not proceeding in their origin from the same points.