The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2Müller, Karl Otfried
History
The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2
Müller, Karl Otfried
Dorians -- History; Greece -- Antiquities, Dorian; Greece -- History -- Dorian Invasions, approximately 1125-1025 B.C.
Selgæans founded Sagalassus,(511) which city is styled on its coins _The
Lacedæmonian_. Perhaps Praxander went at the same time from Therapne in
Laconia, with Cephas of Olenus (both Achæans by birth) to the island of
Cyprus, where they founded Lapathus and Ceronia.(512)
12. But the most celebrated of all the Lacedæmonian colonies, and which
really proceeded from Sparta, was Tarentum. The history of its origin is
buried in fable, in the accounts of the first Messenian war; the
accompanying circumstances will be mentioned below. The leader of this
colony was Phalanthus, son of Aratus, a Heraclide.(513) Taras, on the
other hand, is called the son of Poseidon, because this colony carried
over the worship of that deity from Tænarum to Italy. These emigrants also
brought with them other religious rites, as for instance the worship of
Hyacinthus;(514) likewise many names from their native country, as that of
the Eurotas, which they gave to the river Galæsus.(515) But the fruitful
and luxuriant territory to which they had moved, its soft and voluptuous
climate, and the commerce, for which Tarentum was well situated,(516) and
always open (although it never carried it on in an active manner), helped
to engender that effeminacy of character, which gave countenance to the
fable of the founders having been the sons of unmarried women (παρθενίαι).
Still, amidst all its degeneracy, Tarentum retained a certain degree of
dependence on its mother-country: at the foundation of Heraclea the
Tarentines allowed Cleandridas a Spartan to be one of the original
colonists.(517) The friendship, moreover, of the Cnidians with the
Tarentines,(518) as well as that with the Cyreneans, was founded on the
recognition of a common origin. The colony of Croton (Olymp. 19. 2. 703
B.C., according to Eusebius) consisted indeed of Achæans, who came partly
from the maritime town of Rhypæ,(519) and partly from Laconia:(520) it
must, however, have been established under the authority of the Doric
state of Sparta, since Apollo and Hercules, the Doric god and hero, were
here worshipped with especial honour;(521) the early constitution was also
Doric; and although in general we are not to look for truth in the poetry
of Ovid, yet in this instance we may credit his statement that Myscellus
the founder was a Heraclide.(522) In like manner the Locrians, who (in
Olymp. 24. 2. 683 B.C.) founded Locri, must have procured Spartans as
leaders,(523) since (as their coins also show) they paid particular
honours to the Dioscuri, in time of distress in war the statues of these
gods having been sent to them from Sparta, as being a people of the same
origin;(524) and even in the Peloponnesian war they still adhered to the
cause of Sparta.(525) Of a nature wholly different were the rapid and
transitory settlements of Dorieus the son of Anaxandrides, king of Sparta,
which this noble adventurer founded in Sicily and Libya; when, scorning to
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