Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/44

 28 mSTORY OF GREECE. These Minyoe from Lemnos and Imbros appear again as por- tions of another narrative respecting the settlement of the colony of Melos. It has already been mentioned, that when the Herak- leids and the Dorians invaded Laconia, Philonomus, an Achaean, treacherously betrayed to them the country, for which he received as his recompense the territory of Amyklas. He is said to have peopled this territory by introducing detachments of Minyse from Lemnos and Imbros, who, in the third generation after the return of the Herakleids, became so discontented and mutinous, that the Lacedemonians resolved to send them out of the country as emi- grants, under their chiefs Polis and Delphus. Taking the direc- tion of Krete, they stopped in their way to land a portion of their colonists on the island of Melos, which remained throughout the historical times a faithful and attached colony of Lacedasmun. 1 On arriving in Krete, they are said to have settled at the town of Gortyn. We find, moreover, that other Dorian establishments, either from Lacedaemon or Argos, were formed in Krete ; and Lyktos in particular, is noticed, not only as a colony of Sparta, but as distinguished for the analogy of its laws and customs. 9 It is even said that Krete, immediately after the Trojan war, had been visited by the wrath of the gods, and depopulated by famine and pestilence ; and that, in the third generation afterwards, so great was the influx of emigrants, the entire population of the island was renewed, with the exception of the Eteokretes at Polichnae and Praesus. 3 arriver les Minyens dans la Triphylic sous la conduite de Chloris, mere do Nestor ? " The story which M. Raoul Eochette thus puts aside, is quite equal in point of credibility to that which he accepts : in fact, no measure of credibility can be applied. 1 Conon, Narrat. 36. Compare Plutarch, Qusestion. Grajc. c. 21, where Tyrrhenians from Lemnos arc mentioned, as in the passage of Polysenns. referred to in a preceding note. 3 Herodot. vii. 171 (see above, Ch. xii. vol. i. p. 226). Diodorus (v. 80), as well as Herodotus, mentions generally large emigrations into Krete from Lacedaemon and Argos ; but even the laborious research of M. Raotil Ro- chettc (Histoire des Colonies Grecques, t. iii. c. 9, pp. 60-68) faih in collect cog any distinct particulars of them.
 * Strabo, x. p. 481 ; Aristot. Polit. ii. 10.