Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/76

 00 STRABO. CASAUB. 383. It happened at that time that the country had such an abundance of inhabitants, that the Athenians sent out a colo- ny of lonians to Peloponnesus, and the tract of country which they occupied was called Ionia after their own name, instead of jEgialeia, and the inhabitants lonians instead of -rfJEgialeans, who were distributed among twelve cities. After the return of the Heracleidas, these lonians, being expelled by the Achaeans, returned to Athens, whence, in con- junction with the Codridas, (descendants of Codrus,) they sent out the Ionian colonists to Asia. 1 They founded twelve cities on the sea-coast of Caria and Lydia, having distributed them- selves over the country into as many parts as they occupied in Peloponnesus. 2 The Achaeans were Phthiotae by descent, and were settled at Lacedsemon, but when the Heracleida3 became masters of the country, having recovered their power under Tisarnenus, the son of Orestes, they attacked the lonians, as I said before, and defeated them. They drove the lonians out of the coun- try, and took possession of the territory, but retained the same partition of it which they found existing there. They became so powerful, that, although the Heracleidas, from whom they had revolted, occupied the rest of Peloponnesus, yet they defended themselves against them all, and called their own country Achsea. From Tisamenus to Ogyges they continued to be governed by kings. Afterwards they established a democracy, and ac- quired so great renown for their political wisdom, that the Italian Greeks, after their dissensions with the Pythagoreans, adopted most of the laws and institutions of the Achceans. After the battle of Leuctra the Thebans 3 committed the disputes of the cities among each other to the arbitration of the Achaeans. At a later period their community was dissolved by the Mace- donians, but they recovered by degrees their former power. At the time of the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy they be- 1 About 1044 B. c. 2 The twelve cities were Phocaea, Erythrae/Clazomenae, Teos, Lebedos, Colophon, Ephesus, Priene, Myus, Miletus, and Samos and Chios in the neighbouring islands. See b. xiv. c. i. 3. This account of the expul- sion of the lonians from Peloponnesus is taken from Polybius, b. ii. c. 41, and b. iv. c. 1. 3 And Lacedaemonians, adds Polybius, b. ii. c. 39.