Greek Texts & Translations

It happened at that time that the country had such an abundance of inhabitants, that the Athenians sent out a colony of Ionians to Peloponnesus, and the tract of country which they occupied was called Ionia after their own name, instead of Aegialeia, and the inhabitants Ionians instead of Aegialeans, who were distributed among twelve cities.

After the return of the Heracleidae, these Ionians, being expelled by the Achaeans, returned to Athens, whence, in con- junction with the Codridae, (descendants of Codrus,) they sent cut the Ionian colonists to Asia. ^note They founded twelve cities on the sea-coast of Caria and Lydia, having distributed themselves over the country into as many parts as they occupied in Peloponnesus. ^note

The Achaeans were Phthiotae by descent, and were settled at Lacedaemon, but when the Heracleidae became masters of the country, having recovered their power under Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, they attacked the Ionians, as I said before, and defeated them. They drove the Ionians out of the country, and took possession of the territory, but retained the same partition of it which they found existing there. They became so powerful, that, although the Heracleidae, from whom they had revolted, occupied the rest of Peloponnesus, yet they defended themselves against them all, and called their own country Achaea.

From Tisamenus to Ogyges they continued to be governed by kings. Afterwards they established a democracy, and acquired so great renown for their political wisdom, that the Italian Greeks, after their dissensions with the Pythagoreans, adopted most of the laws and institutions of the Achaeans. After the battle of Leuctra the Thebans ^note committed the disputes of the cities among each other to the arbitration of the Achaeans. At a later period their community was dissolved by the Macedonians, but they recovered by degrees their former power. At the time of the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy they be-