HERODOTUS T BOOK I CLIO HIS is a publication of the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, in order that the actions of men may not be effaced by time, nor the great and wondrous deeds displayed by both Greeks and barbarians 1 deprived of renown-and among the rest, for what cause they waged war upon each other. The learned among the Persians assert that the Phoenicians were the original authors of the quarrel; for that they having migrated from that which is called the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and having settled in the country which they now inhabit, forthwith applied themselves to distant voyages; and that having exported Egyptian and Assyrian merchandise, they touched at other places, and also at Argos. Now Argos at that period in every respect surpassed all those states which are now comprehended under the general appellation of Greece. They say, that on their arrival at Argos, the Phonicians exposed their merchandise to sale, and that on the fifth or sixth day after their arrival, and when they had almost disposed of their cargo, a great number of women came down to the sea-shore, and among them the king's daughter, whose name, as the Greeks also say, was Io, daughter of Inachus. 1 By barbarians the Greeks meant all who were not sprung from themselves all foreigners. The Phoenicians passed over-land from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, which in the text and in other Grecian writers is called "this sea." The region known by the name of Hellas or Greece, in the time of Herodotus, was, previous to the Trojan war, and indeed long afterward, only discriminated by the names of its different inhabitants. Homer speaks of the Danaans, Argives, Achaians, etc., but never gives these people the general name of Greeks.-Larcher. |