not know at what date they
ventured to sail into the mysterious region of the Hesperides, nor by
what route they first reached it. It is possible that they passed from
Crete to Cythera, and from this to the Ionian Islands and to the point
of Calabria, on the other side of the straits of Otranto, whence they
were able to make their way gradually to Sicily.*

* Ed. Meyer thinks that the extension of Phoenician commerce
to the Western Mediterranean goes back to the XVIIIth
dynasty, or, at the latest, the XVth century before our era.
Without laying undue stress on this view, I am inclined to
ascribe with him, until we get further knowledge, the
colonisation of the West to the period immediately following
the movements of the People of the Sea and the diminution of
Phoenician trade in the Grecian Archipelago. Exploring
voyages had been made before this, but the founding of
colonies was not earlier than this epoch.

Did the fame of their discovery, we may ask, spread so rapidly in the
East as to excite there the cupidity and envy of their rivals? However
this may have been, the People of the Sea, after repeated checks
in Africa and Syria, and feeling more than ever the pressure of the
northern tribes encroaching on them, set out towards the west, following
the route pursued by the Phoenicians. The traditions current among
them and collected afterwards by the Greek historians give an account,
mingled with many fabulous details, of the causes which led to their
migrations and of the vicissitudes which they experienced in the course
of them. Daedalus having taken flight from Crete to Sicily, Minos, who
had followed in his steps, took possession of the greater part of the
island with his Eteocretes. Iolaos was the leader of Pelasgic bands,
whom he conducted first into Libya and finally to Sardinia. It came also
to pass that in the days of Atys, son of Manes, a famine broke out and
raged throughout Lydia: the king, unable to provide food for his people,
had them numbered, and decided by lot which of the two halves of the
population should expatriate themselves under the leadership of his son
Tyrsenos. Those-who were thus fated to leave their country assembled at
Smyrna, constructed ships there, and having embarked on board of them
what was necessary, set sail in quest of a new home. After a long
and devious voyage, they at length disembarked in the country of the
Umbrians, where