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πρώτῃ. Phocaea as leader is attacked first; cf. 152. 1 for a Phocaean spokesman. Harpagus changed the plan of campaign; Mazares had attacked the Ionian towns of the south (c. 161). The Thalassocracy of Phocaea is variously dated 602-560 and 577-533 B.C. (Myres, J. H. S. xxvi, pp. 102-3). Cf. Thuc. i. 13. 6 for their foundation of Massilia (which H. does not mention, though he knows the town: v. 9. 3), and for their ‘repeated victories’ over the Carthaginians; by this colony they secured the ‘tin-route’ across Gaul. For their coinage cf. Hill, G. C. pp. 8-11; Head, H. N. 587-9; it was both early and widespread. The coins of Phocaea, with those of Mytilene and Cyzicus, formed the chief currency for the coast towns of west Asia till the time of Alexander.

οἱ καταδέξαντες. H. rightly lays stress on the Phocaeans being ‘openers-up’ (not the discoverers; cf. iv. 153. 2 for Samians at Tartessus) of the West. Their activity gave the name to the ‘Ionian’ sea, south of Italy. Myres (u. s., p. 102) refers these voyages to the last half of the eighth century, but Tartessus was a ‘virgin’ market in 630 B.C. when Colaeus discovered it.

Ἀδρίην. The Adriatic Sea (cf. iv. 33. 1), named from the Etruscan town of Adria, near the mouth of the Po (Liv. v. 33. 8).

Ἰβηρίην: only mentioned here by H. (but Iberians among other western peoples: vii. 165. 1); probably he means north-east Spain near the Ebro. The Greeks had a colony here, Rhodae (hod. Rosas) near Emporiae; Strabo (654) ascribes it to the Rhodians before the first Olympiad, an impossible date; he adds that it was afterwards colonized by the Massiliots. Probably his statement is a mere etymological guess, and Rhodae was connected from the first with Massilia (and so with Phocaea), which certainly owned it later.

Ταρτησσόν: the region at the mouth of the Baetis, probably the Tarshish of the Old Testament (but cf. Hastings, D. B. s. v., where the evidence is fully given, for a different view). It was the Eldorado of the ancients (cf. Strabo, 146, for its gold, silver, brass, and iron); Stesichorus (Strabo, 148) sang of the ἀργυρόριζοι παγαί of the Tartessus river. Cf. Meyer, ii. 428-9, for the whole subject.

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