llowed in the earliest times the Aeginetan, in
other words, that which originally prevailed throughout all European
Greece, and more especially the modification of it which is found
occurring in Euboea. The Achaean communities coined by the Corinthian
standard; and lastly the Doric colonies followed that which Solon
introduced in Attica in the year of Rome 160, with the exception
of Tarentum and Heraclea, which in their principal pieces adopted
rather the standard of their Achaean neighbours than that of the
Dorians in Sicily.

Time of the Greek Immigration

The dates of the earlier voyages and settlements will probably always
remain enveloped in darkness. We may still, however, distinctly
recognize a certain order of sequence. In the oldest Greek document,
which belongs, like the earliest intercourse with the west, to
the lonians of Asia Minor--the Homeric poems--the horizon scarcely
extends beyond the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. Sailors
driven by storms into the western sea might have brought to Asia
Minor accounts of the existence of a western land and possibly
also of its whirlpools and island-mountains vomiting fire: but in
the age of the Homeric poetry there was an utter want of trustworthy
information respecting Sicily and Italy, even in that Greek land
which was the earliest to enter into intercourse with the west;
and the story-tellers and poets of the east could without fear of
contradiction fill the vacant realms of the west, as those of the
west in their turn filled the fabulous east, with their castles in
the air. In the poems of Hesiod the outlines of Italy and Sicily
appear better defined; there is some acquaintance with the native
names of tribes, mountains, and cities in both countries; but Italy
is still regarded as a group of islands. On the other hand, in
all the literature subsequent to Hesiod, Sicily and even the whole
coast of Italy appear as known, at least in a general sense, to the
Hellenes. The order of succession of the Greek settlements may in
like manner be ascertained with some degree of precision. Thucydides
evidently regarded Cumae as the earliest settlement of note in the
west; and certainly he was not mistaken. It is true that many a
landing-place lay nearer at hand for the Greek mariner, but none
were so well protected from storms and from barbarians as the island
of Ischia, upon which the town was originally situated; and that
such were the prevailing consider