Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/205

B. x. c. iv. $ 9, 10. CRETE. 197 Such is the statement of Ephorus ; the ancients on the other hand give a different account, and say that he was tyrannical and violent, and an exactor of tribute, and speak in the strain of tragedy about the Minotaur, the Labyrinth, and the adven- tures of Theseus and Dasdalus. 9. It is difficult to determine which is right. There is another story also not generally received ; some persons af- firming that Minos was a foreigner, others that he was a native of the island. Homer seems to support the latter opinion, when he says, that " Minos, the guardian of Crete, was the first offspring of Jupiter." ' It is generally admitted with regard to Crete that in an- cient times it was governed by good laws, and induced the wisest of the Greeks to imitate its form of government, and particularly the Lacedaemonians, as Plato shows in his " Laws," and Ephorus has described in his work " Europe." After- wards there was a change in the government, and for the most part for the worse. For the Tyrrheni, who chiefly in- fested our sea, were followed by the Cretans, who succeeded to the haunts and piratical practices of the former people, and these again afterwards were subject to the devastations of the Cilicians. But the Romans destroyed them all after the conquest of Crete, 2 and demolished the piratical strongholds of the Cilicians. At present Cnossus has even a colony of Romans. 10. So much then respecting Cnossus, a city to which I am no stranger ; but owing to the condition of human affairs, their vicissitudes and accidents, the connexion and inter- course that subsisted between ourselves and the city is at an end. Which may be thus explained. Dorylaiis, a military tactician, a friend of Mithridates Euergetes, was appointed, on account of his experience in military affairs, to levy a body of foreigners, and was frequently in Greece and Thrace, and often in the company of persons who came from Crete, before the Romans were in possession of the island. A great mul- titude of mercenary soldiers was collected there, from whom 1 II. xiii. 450. 2 The Cretan war was conducted by Q. Metellus, proconsul, who from thence obtained the cognomen of Creticus.