It was said that the women, affronted in this
manner, swore never to eat food with their captors and never to call
them by the name of husband; this custom was for centuries preserved
among the women of Miletus.[49]
The colony at Cyrene in Africa was founded according to the express
command of the oracle of Apollo. The inhabitants of Thera, who had
received this order, did not care to go to an unknown country. They
yielded only at the end of seven years since their island was
afflicted with dearth; they believed that Apollo had sent misfortune
on them as a penalty. Nevertheless the citizens who were sent out
attempted to abandon the enterprise, but their fellow-citizens
attacked them and forced them to return. After having spent two years
on an island where no success came to them, they at last came to
settle at Cyrene, which soon became a prosperous city.[50]
=Importance of the Colonies.=--Wherever they settled, the colonists
constituted a new state which in no respect obeyed the mother town
from which they had come out. And so the whole Mediterranean found
itself surrounded by Greek cities independent one of the others.
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