herodotus

Salamis, nor was it by any want of courage on their part that they hadbeen left of the sea-fight.169. These then evaded the request of the Hellenes thus: but theCretans, when those of the Hellenes who had been appointed to dealwith these endeavoured to obtain their help, did thus, that is to say,they joined together and sent men to inquire of the god at Delphiwhether it would be better for them if they gave assistance to Hellas:and the Pythian prophetess answered: "Ye fools, do ye think those woestoo few,[160] which Minos sent upon you in his wrath,[161] because ofthe assistance that ye gave to Menelaos? seeing that, whereas they didnot join with you in taking vengeance for his death in Camicos, yenevertheless joined with them in taking vengeance for the woman who bya Barbarian was carried off from Sparta." When the Cretans heard thisanswer reported, they abstained from the giving of assistance. 170.For the story goes that Minos, having come to Sicania, which is nowcalled Sicily, in search of Daidalos, died there by a violent death;and after a time the Cretans, urged thereto by a god, all except themen of Polichne and Praisos, came with a great armament to Sicania andbesieged for seven years the city of Camicos, which in my time wasoccupied by the Agrigentines; and at last not being able either tocapture it or to remain before it, because they were hard pressed byfamine, they departed and went away. And when, as they sailed, theycame to be off the coast of Iapygia, a great storm seized them andcast them away upon the coast; and their vessels being dashed topieces, they, since they saw no longer any way of coming to Crete,founded there the city of Hyria; and there they stayed and werechanged so that they became instead of Cretans, Messapians of Iapygia,and instead of islanders, dwellers on the mainland: then from the cityof Hyria they founded those other settlements which the Tarentineslong afterwards endeavoured to destroy and suffer great disaster inthat enterprise, so that this in fact proved to be the greatestslaughter of Hellenes that is known to us, and not only of theTarentines themselves but of those citizens of Rhegion who werecompelled by Mikythos the son of Choiros to go to the assistance ofthe Tarentines, and of whom there were slain in this manner threethousand men: of the Tarentines themselves however, who were slainthere, there was no numbering made. This Mikythos, who was a servantof Anaxilaos, had been left by him in charge of Rhegion; and he it waswho after being driven out of Rhegion took up his abode at Tegea ofthe Arcadians and dedicated those many statues at Olympia. 171. Thisof the men of Rhegion and of the Tarentines has been an episode[162]in my narrative: in Crete however, as the men of Praisos report, afterit had been thus stripped of inhabitants, settlements were made byvarious nations, but especially by Hellenes; and in the nextgeneration but one after the death of Minos came the Trojan war, in