mesis does not appear either at Ephesus or Colophon. The connecting link, therefore, between Smyrna and Rhamnus is entirely wanting.

To recapitulate briefly the foregoing considerations: the accounts of the foundation of Smyrna connected with the name of Tantalus belong to an ante-Hellenic city, to traditions of the Leleges or Lydians; those connected with the Amazon Smyrna belong not to history, but to mythology. Of the two Greek versions, the Ionian version of Strabo and the Aeolic version of Herodotus, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the latter. It remains for us to inquire whether we can determine the particular Aeolic city whence the emigrants started.

Two Aeolic towns claim this honor. To adjudicate their claims is an easy task. The island of Lesbos is mentioned as the metropolis; the authority for this is the questionable authority of Vellejus Paterculus,' and his assertion is not confirmed by any internal probability, nor by a single passage of any other writer. On the other hand we have testimony which goes back beyond the oldest logographers, into the shadowy times of epic song. We mean the epigram already referred to, and preserved by the author of the life of Homer, ascribed to Herodotus. The aoidos who wrote this epigram cannot, according to Welcker, Müller, and other eminent philologists, have lived long after the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey; he says in explicit words that Cyme is the metropolis of Smyrna; "the people of Phricon built the Aeolian Smyrna."

Ephorus, himself a Cymaean, and well acquainted with the history of his native town, arrives at the same conclusion. These direct testimonies in favor of Cyme are certainly not refuted by such historical notices of Cyme as have reached us. We cannot, indeed, lay much stress on the name of the mythical founder of Cyme, Myrina, identical with Smyrna, because, as we have seen, the worship of this deity was wide-spread before the Hellenic period, and the recurrence of the name simply proves an affinity between the

1 1, 4.

Lydians or Leleges who were driven from their homes in the two places by the aggressive Greeks. But the colonizing tendency of the Cymaeans was famous. While Ephesus, during her long and splendid career, never sent forth a single colony, Cyme and Larissa sent forth some thirty. Smyrna was without question one of these. And hence both the Colophonians and Cymaeans claimed Homer as their citizen. The Colophonians, because they took Smyrna; the Cymaeans, because they founded it.

The founder of the town, according to the Aeolic account, was, as we have seen, Theseus, who was sprung from the royal stock of Pherae, in Thessaly. The same family of Admetus are said by Parthenius to have founded Magnesia, on the Maeander; it is a coincidence to which Müller himself calls attention, that Magnesians are named among the founders of Cyme. Thus two entirely independent traditions agree, and guide us back by way of Cyme, to Pherae and Mount Phricion, to the Thessalian and Locrian tribes. Perhaps it will not be going too far to find in a Smyrnaean festival a trace of this Thessalian descent. The chief gymnastic festival of the Thessalian race was the Taupoкadára, a kind of bull-fight, in which the horseman leapt from the back of his horse on the back of a bull, seized him by the horns, and despatched him. On a Smyrnaean monument of late date to be sure a representation of this combat is found, and it may be that it was propagated from the earliest times.

The date of the foundation is fixed at the eighteenth year after the foundation of Cyme, or one hundred and sixtyeight years after the fall of Troy, that is, eleven hundred and two years before Christ. From this period a dark gap follows in the history of Smyrna. Of the Aeolic period hardly a vestige is left. And very naturally, since the subsequent Colophonian occupants brought with them their own Ionic traditions, and allowed the memory of Aeolic

C. I. 3212. In the epigram of Antipater (Pseudopl. v. Hom. 1, 4) "Thessaly, the mother of the Lapithac," is mentioned among the birthplaces of Homer; this is also a trace of the Cymaean-Thessalian account of the town of Smyrna.

deeds to die out. During this interval Cyme1 was engaged in hostilities with the Ionians, and the situation of Smyrna, as the outpost of the Aeolic colonies, makes it not improbable that she often bore the brunt of war. In fact Strabo says she was περιμάχητος ἀεί. From a hint preserved by the Plutarchian author of the life of Homer, we may also infer that the city was occasionally exposed to Lydian aggression; the story ran that about the time Neleus, the son of Codrus, led out the Ionian colonies, Smyrna was on one occasion actually in the possession of the Lydians, under king Maeon; but being hard pressed by the Aeolians, they gave it up. The story is made a little suspicious by the explanation of the name of Homer (from óμnpeîv to follow, because Homer followed the Lydians out) which is founded on it. It is to be observed, however, that the author of the life quotes the weighty authority of Aristotle; and there is no improbability in the circumstance itself, or flaw in the chronology to lead us to reject it.

One other historic incident we are inclined to refer to this period, an attack made by the Chians while the inhabitants. were engaged in the rites of Dionysos outside the city walls, in the hope that the town would fall an easy prey in its defenceless state. Contrary to the expectations of the Chians, however, the Smyrnaeans charged vigorously, routed and killed them, and took their ships. This repulse was long dwelt on with civic pride, and commemorated in religious rites; every year in the month of Anthesterion, when the festival of Dionysos took place, a galley was borne in procession to the Agora, in which sate the priest of Dionysos, and a coin1 of Smyrna, with the impress of a ship's prow, is thought to refer to the same incident. The time of this attack is indeed nowhere mentioned. But in the absence of other chronological determinations, the presumption is in favor of the Acolic period; in this case it would be an attack of Ionians on Aeolians; while, if we put it later it

1 Nicol. Dam. fr. 53.

2

1, 3.

8 Arist. Eu. Пoλ. I. p. 373; id. Пposp. I. p. 440; Philostr. Vitt. Soph. 1, 25, 1. Eckhel. I. 2, p. 553.

would be Ionians against Ionians, a thing not unheard of, to be sure, but yet not so probable. Furthermore, the cult of this Dionysos evidently goes back to the Aeolic period; the inscriptions of the town show that he bore the name of Βρησεύς οι Βρεισεύς (=Βρισεύς). The origin of this name was doubtful to the ancients themselves. Some1 derive it from the name of Brisa, a promontory of Lesbos; others from the verb ẞpičew. But all accounts agree in declaring it an Aeolic cult, the chief seat of which was at Lesbos. It belongs, therefore, in the early period of history; and we shall soon learn from a similar anecdote that the Aeolian festival of Dionysos was celebrated without the city walls.

The Cymacans were famous for the dulness of their perceptions. According to their neighbors they did not know enough to go into the house when it rained. At Smyrna new surroundings and stirring events must have awakened their descendants to a new life. Strangers thronged the streets of the town, and it was the great emporium for all the country round. Thus the harmonizing effect of commerce, the kindly nature of the soil and climate, and the sweet influences of their gentler Ionian neighbors prepared the way for a form of culture, of which we yearn in vain for some history. But though the incidents of that busy and restless time are gone irrevocably, the infinite grace and beauty of its culture are preserved to all time in the Homeric poems.

The increasing power of the Ionians began in time to be felt northward. Nearly on the boundary between Aeolis and Ionia lay the river Hermus, and doubtless they often looked with longing eyes to the fertile strip south of the Hermus, which was wanting to their geographical integrity. Still the accession of Smyrna to the Ionic confederation was not due to any concerted action of the Ionians as a whole, but to the treachery of exiles from a single Ionian city. The Smyrnaeans had sheltered some citizens of Colo

1

Steph. Byz. s. v. Bpíoa; Etymol. M. s. v. Bpioaîos. Cf. also O. Jahn ad Persii scholl. 1, 76. 3 Her. 1, 150.

Strab. 14, p. 622.

phon who had been banished from their town in a civil dissension; these exiles, watching their chance, while the natives were celebrating the Dionysia outside the town, suddenly closed the gates and gained the mastery. The news of this treachery brought the whole Aeolic league to the assistance of Smyrna, but singular to relate, the twelve cities united were not able to make head against the exiles -unassisted for all that we are expressly told. Probably, however, the Ionic confederation had come to the aid of the exiles, since Herodotus in speaking of the original capture of the town calls them "Colophonian men," but afterward in speaking of the agreement of the two contending parties speaks of "Ionians." 1

This was the downfall of the Aeolic town. The worsted Aeolians were allowed to take their movable possessions. and scatter among the remaining eleven Aeolic towns. Henceforth Smyrna appears in history as the thirteenth town in the Ionic league, to which it was admitted on the motion of the Ephesians.2

When did this important transfer take place? Herodotus gives no clue to the time, and Pausanias, whose brief notice is substantially the same with Herodotus, is equally dark. It was evidently before Ol. 23=688, B. C., since Pausanias (5, 8) and Eusebius (Can. Chron., p. 285) mention as the victor in the first boxing-match in the Olympic games one Onomastos, an Ionian Smyrnaean; Pausanias adding that Smyrna had at that time passed over into the hands of the Ionians. We have, therefore, a decided terminus ante quem. But is Ol. 23 the earliest terminus? May it not have occurred long before Ol. 23? There is certainly no proof to the contrary; and there are strong considerations in favor of the earlier epoch. Herodotus speaking in another place

1 Suidas finds in this compact the explanation of the name of Homer, from Bunpos, hostage.

2 Her. 1, 143. Paus. 7, 5, 1. Strab. 14 init. The name ПANINIOC (Mionnet, Descr. de Méd. III. p. 207, No. 1124) found on coins of Smyrna probably refers, as Eckhel I. 2, p. 509, has seen, to the Panionian Apollo. Vitruvius, 4, 1, makes an enormous blunder about the incorporation of Smyrna into the Ionic league, which is not worth repeating.