Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/294

 278 HISTOUV uF GRKKCr,. necessity of first coasting along Akarnania and Epirus, then crossing, first to the island of Korkyra, and next to the gulf of Tarentum ; he then doubled the southernmost cape of Italy and followed the sinuosities of the Mediterranean coast, by Tyrr- henia, Liguria, southern Gaul, and eastern Iberia, to the Pillars of Herakles or strait of Gibraltar : or if he did not do this, he had the alternative of crossing the open sea from Krete or Pelop- onnesus to Libya, and then coasting westward along the perilous coast of the Syrtes until he arrived at the same point. Both voyages presented difficulties hard to be encountered ; but the most serious hazard of all, was the direct transit across the open sea from Krete to Libya. It was about the year G30 B. c. that the inhabitants of the island of Thera, starved out by a seven years' drought, were enjoined by the Delphian god to found a colony in Libya. Nothing short of the divine command would have induced them to obey so terrific a sentence of banishment ; for not only was the region named quite unknown to them, but they could not discover, by the most careful inquiries among practised Greek navigators, a single man who had ever intentionally made the voyage to Libya. 1 One Kretan only could they find, a fisherman named Korobius, who had been driven thither acci- dentally by violent gales, and he served them as guide. At this juncture, Egypt had only been recently opened to Greek commerce, Psammetichus having been the first king who partially relaxed the jealous exclusion of ships from the en- trance of the Nile, enforced by all his predecessors ; and the in- citement of so profitable a traffic emboldened some Ionian traders to make the direct voyage from Krete to the mouth of that river. It was in the prosecution of one of these voyages, and in connec- tion with the foundation of Kyrene (to be recounted in a future chapter), that we are made acquainted with the memorable ad- venture of the Samian merchant Koljeus. While bound for Egypt, he had been driven out of his course by contrary winds, and had found shelter on an uninhabited islet called Platea, off the coast of Libya, the spot where the emigrants intended for Kyrene first established themselves, not long afterwards. From hence he again started to proceed to Egypt, but again without ' Hcrodot. iv, 151.