Greece -- History -- To 146 B.C.; History, Ancient
166. When these came to Kyrnos, for five years they dwelt together with
those who had come thither before, and they founded temples there.
Then, since they plundered the property of all their neighbours,
the Tyrsenians and Carthaginians 167 made expedition against them by
agreement with one another, each with sixty ships. And the Phocaians
also manned their vessels, sixty in number, and came to meet the enemy
in that which is called the Sardinian sea: and when they encountered one
another in the sea-fight the Phocaians won a kind of Cadmean victory,
for forty of their ships were destroyed and the remaining twenty were
disabled, having had their prows bent aside. So they sailed in to Alalia
and took up their children and their women and their other possessions
as much as their ships proved capable of carrying, and then they left
Kyrnos behind them and sailed to Rhegion.
167. But as for the crews of the ships that were destroyed, the
Carthaginians and Tyrsenians obtained much the greater number of them,
168 and these they brought to land and killed by stoning. After this the
men of Agylla found that everything which passed by the spot where the
Phocaians were laid after being stoned, became either distorted, or
crippled, or paralysed, both small cattle and beasts of burden and
human creatures: so the men of Agylla sent to Delphi desiring to purge
themselves of the offence; and the Pythian prophetess bade them do that
which the men of Agylla still continue to perform, that is to say, they
make great sacrifices in honour of the dead, and hold at the place a
contest of athletics and horse-racing. These then of the Phocaians had
the fate which I have said; but those of them who took refuge at Rhegion
started from thence and took possession of that city in the land of
Oinotria which now is called Hyele. This they founded having learnt from
a man of Poseidonia that the Pythian prophetess by her answer meant
them to found a temple to Kyrnos, who was a hero, and not to found a
settlement in the island of Kyrnos. 169
168. About Phocaia in Ionia it happened thus, and nearly the same thing
also was done by the men of Teos: for as soon as Harpagos took their
wall with a mound, they embarked in their ships and sailed straightway
for Thrace; and there they founded the city of Abdera, which before
them Timesios of Clazomenai founded and had no profit therefrom, but
was driven out by the Thracians; and now he is honoured as a hero by the
Teïans in Abdera.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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