CHAPTER IV

.

And the cities of the Ionians in the islands were Samos near Mycale, and Chios opposite Mimas. The Samian Asius, the son of Amphiptolemus, has written in his poems that Phœnix had by Perimede (the daughter of Œneus) Astypalæa and Europe, and that Poseidon had by Astypalæa a son Ancæus, who was king over the Leleges, and married the daughter of the river-god Mæander, her name was Samia, and their children were Perilaus and Enudus and Samos and Alitherses and one daughter Parthenope, who bare Lycomedes to Apollo. Such is the account of Asius in his poems. Those who inhabited Samos at this time received the Ionian colonists rather of necessity than goodwill. The Ionian leader was Procles the son of Pityreus, an Epidaurian as also was a large number of his men, they had been banished from Epidauria by Deiphontes and the Argives, and Procles himself was a descendant of Ion the son of Xuthus. And Androclus and the Ephesians marched against Leogorus the son of Procles, who succeeded his father as king of Samos, and having defeated him in battle drove the Samians out of the island, on the pretext that they had joined the Carians in a plot against the Ionians. Of the Samians that were thus driven out of Samos some took a colony to the island near Thrace, which had been previously known as Dardania, but was henceforth called Samothrace; others under Leogorus built a fort on the mainland opposite at Anæa, and ten years afterwards crossed into Samos, drove out the Ephesians and recovered the island.

The temple of Hera in Samos was according to the tradition of some built by the Argonauts, who brought the statue of the goddess from Argos. But the Samians themselves think that the goddess was born in their island on the banks of the river Imbrasus, and under the willow-tree that still grows in the temple of Hera. That this temple could not have been very ancient one naturally infers from the statue, which is by the Æginetan Smilis, the son of Euclides, who was a contemporary of Dædalus, but has not acquired equal renown. For Dædalus, an Athenian of the royal stock called Metionidæ, was most remarkable of all men for his art and misfortunes. For having killed his sister’s son, and knowing the vengeance that awaited him in his country, he became a voluntary exile and fled to Minos and Crete, and made works of art for Minos and his daughters, as Homer has described in the Iliad. But being condemned for treason against Minos, and thrown into prison with his son, he escaped from Crete and went to Inycus, a city of Sicily, to the court of Cocalus, and caused a war between the Sicilians and Cretans, because Cocalus would not give him up at the request of Minos. And so much beloved was he by the daughters of Cocalus for his art, that these ladies entered into a plot against the life of Minos out of favour to Dædalus. And it is plain that his fame extended over all Sicily, and most of Italy. While Smilis, except among the Samians and at Elea, had no fame whatever out of his own country; but he went to Samos, and there he made the statue of Hera.

About Chios Ion the Tragedian has recorded that Poseidon went to that island when it was unoccupied, and had an intrigue there with a Nymph, and when she was in labour some snow fell, and so Poseidon called the boy Chios.[4] By another Nymph he had Agelus and Melas. And in process of time Œnopion sailed to Chios from Crete with his sons Talus and Euanthes and Melas and Salagus and Athamas. And during the reign of Œnopion some Carians came to the island, and the Abantes from Eubœa. And Œnopion and his sons were succeeded by Amphiclus, who came to Chios from Histiæa in Eubœa in accordance with the oracle at Delphi. And Hector the fourth in descent from Amphiclus, (for he too was king of Chios), fought against the Abantes and Carians that were still in the island, and slew some in various battles, and compelled others to leave the island upon conditions of war. And after the Chians had finished the war, then Hector bethought him that he and the Ionians ought to jointly sacrifice to the welfare of the Pan-Ionic league. And Ion says he received the present of a tripod from the community of the Ionians for his prowess. But Ion has not told us how it was the Chians got ranked as Ionians.

[4] The Greek for snow is _chion_. Hence the paronomasia.

##