Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/195

MAGNESIA. 179 at length absorbed into the larger unity of Miletus ; its swampy territory having been rendered uninhabitable by a plague of gnats. Priene acquired an importance greater than naturally belonged to it, by its immediate vicinity to the holy Pan-Ionic temple and its function of administering the sacred rites, 1 a dignity which it probably was only permitted to enjoy in consequence of the jealousies of its greater neighbors Miletus, Ephesus, and Samos. 9 The territories of these Grecian cities seem to have been inter- spersed with Karian villages, probably in the condition of subjects It is rare to find a genuine Greek colony established at any distance from the sea ; but the two Asiatic towns called Magnesia form exceptions to this position, one situated on the south side of the Meander, or rather on the river Lethoeus, which runs into the Mocander ; the other more northerly, adjoining to the .ZEolic Greeks, on the northern declivity of Mount Sipylus, and near to the plain of the river Harmus. The settlement of both these towns dates before the period of history : the tale 3 which we read allirms them to be settlements from the Magnetes in Thessaly, formed by emigrants who had first passed into Krete, under the orders of the Delphian oracle, and next into Asia, where they are said to have extricated the Ionic and JEolic colonists, then recently arrived, from a position of danger and calamity. By the side of this story, which can neither be verified nor contradicted, it is proper to mention the opinion of Nicbuhr, that both these towns of Magnesia are remnants of a primitive Pelasgic population, akin to, but not emigrants frdm, the Magnetes of Thessaly, Pelas- gians whom he supposes to have occupied both the valley of the Ilermus and that of the Kaister, anterior to the ./Eolic and Ionic migrations. In support of this opinion, it may be stated that there were towns bearing the Pelasgic name of Larissa, both near the Ilermus and near the Mreander : Menekrates of Elrca considered the Pelasgians as having once occupied most part of that coast ; 1 Stfabo, xiv, pp. 636-638. * Thucyd. i, 116. 3 Conon, Narrat. 29 ; Strabo, xiv, pp. 636-647. The story in Parthenins about Leukippus, leader ruv dsKaTEvdevruv in 4>cp)/f i'-' 'AJ/i/y-ov, who came to the Ephesian territory and acquired pos- session of the place called Krctinieon,by the treachery of Leukophrye, daugh- ter of Mandrolytos, whether truth or romance, is one of the notices of The* Ji:in migration into those parts (Parthen. Narrat. 6).