which commercial cities rise, is exemplified by New York, which 120 years ago had no more than 1000 inhabitants, while at present its population amounts to upwards of 140,000. The same increase has taken place at Philadelphia. If, as is generally supposed, Sybaris at the time of its destruction had existed for two centuries, we may easily admit that it had become great and powerful, and hence there is nothing impossible in the statement, that it ruled over four nations and twenty-five towns. We must also bear in mind, that those Greek towns might grow up even with much greater rapidity than the English colonies in North America; for in the latter all the settlers were Europeans, and consequently quite foreign to the original population; in southern Italy, on the other hand, the greater part of the population consisted unquestionably of native Oenotrians, who were by no means foreign to the Greeks. In countries where the natives were foreign to them, as on the Euxine, their colonies never rose so rapidly as on the coasts of Asia Minor and Italy, where they settled among kindred tribes. Cyrene, which was a large city, perhaps forms the only exception in this respect. In regard to the history of Sybaris, it is certain that Sybaris and Tarentum, being Achaean and Dorian towns respectively, were hostile to each other, and that there was a time when Sybaris and Croton, both of Achaean origin, were on friendly terms. The object of the dispute with Tarentum was the fertile district between the Acalandrus and the Siris, which was called Siritis; and in order to maintain their possession of it, the Sybarites are said to have invited other Achaeans to come over, and these latter are reported to have founded—