Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/66

44 44 HISTORY OF THE jEolians, while the Ionic league includes twelve cities, exclusive of Smyrna*; for the same reason Herodotus is entirely ignorant of the Ephesian settlement in Smyrna. Hence it came to pass, that the Ionians — we know not exactly at what time — were expelled by the iEolians; upon which they withdrew to Colophon, and were mixed with the other Colophonians, always, however, retaining the wish of reco- vering Smyrna to the Ionic race. In later times the Colophonians, in fact, succeeded in conquering Smyrna, and in expelling the iEolians from it*f-; from which time Smyrna remained a purely Ionian city. Concerning the time when this change took place, no express testimony has been preserved ; all that we know for certain is, that it happened before the time of Gyges, king of Lydia, that is, before about the 20th Olympiad, or 700 B. C, since Gyges made war on Smyrna, together with Miletus and Colophon J, which proves the connexion of these cities. We also know of an Olympic victor, in Olymp. 23 (688 B. C), who was an Ionian of Smyrna §. Mimnermus, the elegiac poet, who flourished about Olymp. 37 (630 B. C), was descended from these Colophonians who had settled at Smyrna ||. It cannot be doubted that the meeting of these different tribes in this corner of the coast of Asia Minor contributed by the various elements which it put in motion to produce the active and stirring spirit which would give birth to such works as the Homeric poems. On the one side there were the Ionians from Athens, with their notions of their noble- minded, wise, and prudent goddess Athena, and of their brave and philan- thropic heroes, among whom Nestor, as the ancestor of the Ephesian and Milesian kings, is also to be reckoned. On the other side were the Achceans, the chief race among the iEolians of Cyme, with the princes of Agamemnon's family at their head^f, with all the claims which were bound up with the name of the king of men, and a large body of legends which referred to the exploits of the Pelopids, particularly the taking of Troy. United with them were various warlike bands from Locris, Thessaly, and Euboea ; but, especially colonists from Bceotia, with their Heliconian worship of the Muses and their hereditary love for poetry**. § 3. If this conflux and intermixture of different races contributed pow- The Homeric epigram 4, in Pseudo-Herod, c. 14, mentions Xaot fylxwcs as the founders of Smyrna; therrby meaning the Locrian tribe, which, deriving its origin from Phricion, near Thermopylae, fo mded Cyme Phriconis, and also Larissa Phri- conis. I Herod, i. 14; Patisanias, iv. 21, 3, also states distinctly that the Smyrnaeans were at that time Ionians. Nor would Mimnermus have sung the exploits of the Smyrnaeans in this war it' they had not been Ionians. § Pausan. v. 8, 3. || Mimnermus in Strabo, xiv. p. 634. ^f Strabo, xiii. p. 582. An Agamemnon, king of C^me, is mentioned by Pollux, ix. 83.
 * i. 149. f Herod, i. 150. comp. i. 16. Pausan. vii. 5, 1.
 * On the connexion of Cyme with Bceotia, see below, ch. 8. £ 1.