The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [111]
25. Leaving only the paintings and works in stone or brass that could not be carried easily; and sailed for Chios. The Persians, on their return, took possession of an empty town.
26. Arrived at Chios, the Phocaeans made offers for the purchase of the islands called the Oenussae,
27. But the Chians refused, fearing that the Phocaeans would establish a trading centre there, and exclude the Chian merchants from the commerce of those seas.
28. So the Phocaeans, as Arganthonius of Tartessus was now dead, resolved to sail to Cyrnus (Corsica), where, twenty years earlier they had founded a colony called Alalia.
29. Before they set out, however, they sailed once more to Phocaea, and surprising the Persian troops left by Harpagus to garrison the town, killed them all.
30. After this they dropped a heavy mass of iron into the sea, and promised themselves never to return to Phocaea till that mass reappeared on the surface.
31. But as they were preparing to depart for Cyrnus, more than half their number were seized with such sadness and longing to see their city and homes once more, that they decided not to go, and sailed back to Phocaea.
32. The rest of the Phocaeans, who kept their resolve, proceeded without stopping on their voyage,
33. And when they came to Cyrnus they established themselves along with the earlier settlers at Alalia.
34. For five years they annoyed their neighbours by plundering and pillaging on all sides, until the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians leagued against them, and each sent a fleet of sixty ships to attack them.
35. The Phocaeans manned all their vessels, sixty in number, and met their enemy on the Sardinian Sea.
36. In the battle that followed the Phocaeans were victorious, but their success was an empty victory;
37. They lost forty ships, and the twenty which remained came out of the engagement too damaged for use.
38. The Phocaeans therefore returned to Alalia, and taking their wives and children on board, with such portion of their goods and chattels as the vessels could bear, sailed to Rhegium.
39. The Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, who had captured many Phocaeans from the crews of the forty vessels that were destroyed, landed their captives on the coast and stoned them all to death.
40. Afterwards the people of Agylla, who had been so horrified by this mass murder, instituted a custom of honouring the dead Phocaeans with magnificent funeral rites, and solemn games both gymnastic and equestrian.
41. Such, then, was the fate that befell the Phocaean prisoners. The other Phocaeans, who had fled to Rhegium, after a while founded the city called Vela, in the district of Oenotria. Thus fared it with the men of the city of Phocaea in Ionia.
Chapter 17
1. They of Teos did and suffered almost the same; for they too, when Harpagus raised his mound against their walls, took ship and sailed to Thrace, and founded there the city of Abdera.
2. The site was one which Timesius of Clazomenae had previously tried to colonise, but without success, for he was expelled by the Thracians.
3. Still the Teians of Abdera regard him to this day as a hero.
4. Of all the Ionians these two states alone, rather than submit to slavery, forsook their fatherland.
5. The others resisted Harpagus no less bravely than those who fled their country, and performed many feats of arms, each fighting in their own defence,
6. But one after another they were defeated; the cities were taken, and the inhabitants submitted, remaining in their respective countries, and obeying the behests of their new lords.
7. Thus was continental Ionia once more reduced to servitude; and when the Ionians of the islands saw their brethren on the mainland subjugated, they also, dreading the like, gave themselves up to Cyrus.
8. It was while the Ionians were in this distress, but still, amid it all, held their meetings, as of old, at the Panionium,
9. That Bias of Priene, who was present at the festival, recommended