a citizen of Phocaea, coming to Gaul in a merchant
galley, was invited by a Gallic chief to the marriage of his daughter;
according to the custom of this people, the young girl about the time
of the feast entered bearing a cup which she was to present to the one
whom she would choose for a husband; she stopped before the Greek and
offered him the cup. This unpremeditated act appeared to have been
inspired from heaven; the Gallic chief gave his daughter to Euxenus
and permitted him and his companions to found a city on the gulf of
Marseilles. Later the Phocaeans, seeing their city blockaded by the
Persian army, loaded on their ships their families, their movables,
the statues and treasures of their temple and went to sea, abandoning
their city. As they started, they threw into the sea a mass of red-hot
iron and swore never to return to Phocaea until the iron should rise to
the surface of the water. Many violated this oath and returned; but
the rest continued the voyage and after many adventures came to
Marseilles.

At Miletus the Ionians who founded the city had brought no wives with
them; they seized a city inhabited by the natives of Asia, slaughtered
all the men, and forcibly married the women and girls of the families
of their victims. It was said that the women, affronted in this
manner, swore never to eat food with their captors and never to call
them by the name of husband; this custom was for centuries preserved
among the women of Miletus.[49]

The colony at Cyrene in Africa was founded according to the express
command of the oracle of Apollo. The inhabitants of Thera, who had
received this order, did not care to go to an unknown country. They
yielded only at the end of seven years since their island was
afflicted with dearth; they believed that Apollo had sent misfortune
on them as a penalty. Nevertheless the citizens who were sent out
attempted to abandon the enterprise, but their fellow-citizens
attacked them and forced them to return. After having spent two years
on an island where no success came to them, they at last came to
settle at Cyrene, which soon became a prosperous city.[50]

=Importance of the Colonies.=--Wherever they settled, the colonists
constituted a new state which in no respect obeyed the mother town
from which they had come out. And so the whole Mediterranean found
itself surrounded by Greek cities independent one of the others. Of
these cities many became richer and more powerful than