the island worshipped the hero Phoenix.[101] Of the island of Melos we learn that it was occupied by Phenicians of Byblus, and named by them after their mother city;[102] the island of Oliaros near Paros was, on the other hand, according to Heraclëides Ponticus, occupied by the Sidonians.[103] Strabo informs us that Samothrace was previously called Melite (Malta); from its height (the island is a mountain rising high in the sea and covered with oak forests; the summit reaches 5000 feet) it obtained the name of Samos, "for high places are called Sami;"[104] as a matter of fact the stem of the word of this meaning, like the name Melite, belongs to the Phenician language. Ephorus has already told us (p. 56) that the Samothracians sought for Harmonia at their festivals; Diodorus represents Cadmus as celebrating the marriage with Harmonia on Samothrace as well as at Thebes, and we learn from Herodotus that the Cabiri, _i.e._ the great gods of the Phenicians, were worshipped on Samothrace; votive tablets of the island dating from Roman times still bear the inscription, "to the great gods," _i.e._ to the Cabiri.[105] The islands of Imbros and Lemnos also worshipped the Cabiri; Lemnos especially worshipped Hephæstus, who had a leading place in this circle.[106] The island of Thasos is said, according to the statement of the Greeks, to have been called after a son of Phoenix, or Agenor, of the name of Thasos, who was consequently a brother of Cadmus. Herodotus saw on the island a temple which the Phenicians had built to Heracles, _i.e._ to Baal-Melkarth, and the mines which they had made on the coast opposite Samothrace; "they had overturned a great mountain in order to get gold from it."[107] Herodotus also tells us that the temple of Aphrodite Urania on the island of Cythera off the coast of Laconia was founded by the Phenicians, and Pausanias calls this temple the oldest and most sacred temple of Urania among the Hellenes; the wooden image in this temple exhibited the goddess in armour. Aphrodite Urania is with the Greeks the Syrian Aphrodite; if she was represented on Cythera in armour it is clear that she was worshipped there by the Phenicians as Astarte-Ashera, _i.e._ as the goddess of war and love.[108]