Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
And not many years afterwards Medon and Nileus, the eldest sons of
Codrus, quarrelled as to who should be king over the Athenians, and
Nileus said he would not submit to the rule of Medon, because Medon
was lame in one of his feet. But as they decided to submit the matter
to the oracle at Delphi, the Pythian Priestess assigned the kingdom to
Medon. So Nileus and the other sons of Codrus were sent on a colony,
and took with them whatever Athenians wished, and the Ionians formed
the largest part of the contingent. This was the third expedition
that had started from Greece under different kings and with different
peoples. The oldest expedition was that of Iolaus the Theban, the
nephew of Hercules, who led the Athenians and people of Thespiæ to
Sardinia. And, one generation before the Ionians sailed from Athens,
the Lacedæmonians and Minyæ who had been expelled by the Pelasgi
from Lemnos were led by Theras the Theban, the son of Autesion, to
the island henceforward called Theras after him, but formerly called
Calliste. And now thirdly the sons of Codrus were put at the head of
the Ionians, though they had no connection with them by race, being
as they were Messenians from Pylos as far as Codrus and Melanthus
were concerned, and Athenians only on their mother’s side. And the
following Greeks took part in this expedition of the Ionians, the
Thebans under Philotas, who was a descendant of Peneleus, and the
Minyæ from Orchomenus, who were kinsmen of the sons of Codrus. All the
Phocians also took part in it (except the people of Delphi), and the
Abantes from Eubœa. And to the Phocians the Athenians Philogenes and
Damon, the sons of Euctemon, gave ships to sail in, and themselves
led them to the colony. And when they had crossed over to Asia Minor,
different detachments went to different maritime towns, but Nileus and
his contingent to Miletus. The Milesians give the following account of
their early history. They say their country was for two generations
called Anactoria, during the reigns of Anax the Autochthon and Asterius
his son, and that, when Miletus put in there with an expedition of
Cretans, then the town and country changed its name to Miletus from
him. And Miletus and the force with him came from Crete fleeing from
Minos the son of Europa. And the Carians, who had settled earlier in
the neighbourhood of Miletus, admitted the Cretans to a joint share
with them. But now when the Ionians conquered the old inhabitants of
Miletus, they slew all the males except those that ran away from the
captured city, and married their wives and daughters. And the tomb of
Nileus is as you approach Didymi, not far from the gates on the left of
the road. And the temple and oracle of Apollo at Didymi are of earlier
date than the migration of the Ionians: as also is the worship of the
Ephesian Artemis. Not that Pindar in my opinion understood all about
the goddess, for he says that the Amazons who fought against Theseus
and Athens built the temple to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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