Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/402

 386 HISTORY OF GREECE. ius, on their return from Troy. The proofs of the iormer were exhibited in the Avorship of the Neleid heroes, the proofs of the latter in the preservation of the reputed identical tools with which Epeius had constructed the Trojan horse. 1 Metapontium was planted on the territory of the Chonians or (Enotrians, but the first colony is said to have been destroyed by an attack of the Samnites, 2 at what period we do not know. It had been founded by some Achcean settlers, under the direction of the oekist Daulius, despot of the Phocian Krissa, and invited by the inhabitants of Sybaris, who feared that the place might bo appropriated by the neighboring Tarentines, colonists from Sparta and hereditary enemies in Peloponnesus of the Achaean race. Before the new settlers arrived, however, the place seems to have been already appropriated by the Tarentines ; for the Achrean Leukippus only obtained their permission to land by a fraudulent promise, and, after all, had to sustain a forcible struggle both with them and with the neighboring CEnotrians, which was compro- mised by a division of territory. The fertility of the Meta- pontine territory was hardly less celebrated than that of the Siritid.3 Farther eastward of Metapontium, again at the distance of about twenty-five miles, was situated the great city of Taras, or 1 Strabo, 1. c.; Justin, xx, 2; Velleius Paterc. i, 1 ; Aristot. Mirab. Aus- cult. c. 108. This story respecting the presence and implements of Epeius may have arisen through the Phocian settlers from Krissa. 2 The words of Strabo trfaviadr; 6' VTTO "ZavviTuv (vi, p. 264) can hardly be connected with the immediately following narrative, which he gives out of Antiochus, respecting the revival of the place by new Achaean settlers, invited by the Achaeans of Sybaris. For the latter place was reduced to impotence in 510 B. c. : invitations by the Achaeans of Sybaris must, there- fore, be anterior to that date. If Daulius despot of Krissa is to be admitted as the oekist of Metapontiam, the plantation of it must be placed early in the first half of the sixth century B. c. ; but there is great difficulty in admitting the extension of Samnite conquests to the gulf of Tarentum at so early a period as this. I therefore construe the words of Antiochus as referring to the original settlement of Metapontium by the Greeks, not to the revival of the town after its destruction by the Samnites. and Siris in a perplexing manner. Livy ("xxv, 15) recognizes Metapontium as Achaean: compare Heyne Opuscula, vol. ii, Prolus. xii. p. 207.
 * Strabo, I. c. ; Stephanus Byz. (v, Merairov-tov) identifies Metapontium