Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/223

EMIGRATION OF THE PHOKJEANS. 203 It appears that the fugitives were not very kindly received at Chios ; at least, when they made a proposition for purchasing from the Chians the neighboring islands of CEnussae as a permanent abode, the latter were induced to refuse by apprehensions of com- mercial rivalry. It was necessary to look farther for a settlement : and Arganthonius their protector, being now dead, Tarlessus was no longer inviting. Twenty years before, however, the colony of Alalia in the island of Corsica had been founded from PhO- ka;a by the direction of the oracle, and thither the general body of Phokreans now resolved to repair. Having prepared their ships for this distant voyage, they first sailed back to Phokcea, surprised the Persian garrison whom Harpagus had left in the town, and slew them : they then sunk in the harbor a great lump of iron, and bound themselves by a solemn and unanimous oath never again to see Phokaea until that iron should come up to the surface. Nevertheless, in spite of the oath, the voyage of exile had been scarcely begun when more than half of them repented of having so bound themselves, and became homesick. 1 They broke their vow and returned to Phokaea. But as Herodotus does not mention any divine judgment as having been consequent on the perjury, we may, perhaps, suspect that some gray-headed citizen, to whom transportation to Corsica might be little less than a sentence of death, both persuaded himself, and certified to his companions, that he had seen the sunken lump of iron raised up and floating for a while buoyant upon the waves. Har- pagus must have been induced to pardon the previous slaughter of his Persian garrison, or at least to believe that it had been done by those Phokaeans who still persisted in exile. He wanted tribute-paying subjects, not an empty military post, and the re- pentant home-seekers were allowed to number themselves among the slaves of the Great King. Meanwhile the smaller but more resolute half of the Pho- kaeans executed their voyage to Alalia in Corsica, with their 1 Herodot. i, 165. inrEprifiiaeag TUV uaruv ihape 7ro$of re KOI o2/croc Tqt TroP.iof Kai TUV ridtuv T?/f p?7f i^EvdopKioi re yEvofiEvoi, etc. The collo- quial term which I have ventured to place in the text expresses exactly, as well as briefly, the meaning of the historian. A public oath, taken by most of the Greek cities with similar ceremony of lumps of iron thrown into tha lea, is mentioned in Plutarch, Aristid. c. 25.