Herodotus, The Histories (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hdt.].
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1.173.1 Such are their ways. The Lycians were from Crete in ancient times (for in the past none that lived on Crete were Greek). 1.173.2 Now there was a dispute in Crete about the royal power between Sarpedon and Minos, sons of Europa; Minos prevailed in this dispute and drove out Sarpedon and his partisans; who, after being driven out, came to the Milyan land in Asia. What is now possessed by the Lycians was in the past Milyan, and the Milyans were then called Solymi. 1.173.3 For a while Sarpedon ruled them, and the people were called Termilae, which was the name that they had brought with them and that is still given to the Lycians by their neighbors; but after Lycus son of Pandion came from Athens—banished as well by his brother, Aegeus—to join Sarpedon in the land of the Termilae, they came in time to be called Lycians after Lycus. 1.173.4 Their customs are partly Cretan and partly Carian. But they have one which is their own and shared by no other men: they take their names not from their fathers but from their mothers, 1.173.5 and when one is asked by his neighbor who he is, he will say that he is the son of such a mother, and rehearse the mothers of his mother. Indeed, if a female citizen marries a slave, her children are considered pure-blooded; but if a male citizen, even the most prominent of them, takes an alien wife or concubine, the children are dishonored.

ch. 174 1.174.1 Neither the Carians nor any Greeks who dwell in this country did any thing notable before they were all enslaved by Harpagus. 1.174.2 Among those who inhabit it are certain Cnidians, colonists from Lacedaemon. Their country (it is called the Triopion) lies between the sea and that part of the peninsula which belongs to Bubassus, and all but a small part of the Cnidian territory is washed by the sea 1.174.3 (for it is bounded on the north by the gulf of Ceramicus, and on the south by the sea off Syme and Rhodes). Now while Harpagus was conquering Ionia, the Cnidians dug a trench across this little space, which is about two-thirds of a mile wide, in order that their country might be an island. So they brought it all within the entrenchment; for the frontier between the Cnidian country and the mainland is on the isthmus across which they dug. 1.174.4 Many of them were at this work; and seeing that the workers were injured when breaking stones more often and less naturally than usual, some in other ways, but most in the eyes, the Cnidians sent envoys to Delphi to inquire what it was that opposed them. 1.174.5 Then, as they themselves say, the priestess gave them this answer in iambic verse: “Do not wall or trench the isthmus:
Zeus would have given you an island, if he had wanted to.”
1.174.6 At this answer from the priestess, the Cnidians stopped their digging, and when Harpagus came against them with his army they surrendered to him without resistance.

ch. 175 1.175.1 There were Pedaseans dwelling inland above Halicarnassus; when any misfortune was approaching them or their neighbors, the priestess of Athena grew a long beard. This had happened to them thrice. These were the only men near Caria who held out for long against Harpagus, and they gave him the most trouble; they fortified a hill called Lide.



Herodotus, The Histories (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hdt.].
<<Hdt. 1.171.1 Hdt. 1.173.5 (Greek) >>Hdt. 1.177.1

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