3.

It is said that the people who set out from Phricium, a Locrian mountain above Thermopylæ, settled on the spot where Cyme is now situated; and finding the Pelasgi, who had been great sufferers in the Trojan war, yet still in possession of Larisa, distant about 70 stadia from Cyme, erected as a defence against them what is at present called Neon-teichos, (or the New Wall,) 30 stadia from Larisa. They took Larisa,1521 founded Cyme, and transferred to it as settlers the surviving Pelasgi. Cyme is called Cyme Phriconis from the Locrian mountain, and Larisa also (Phriconis): it is now deserted.

That the Pelasgi were a great nation history, it is said, furnishes other evidence. For Menecrates of Elæa, in his work on the foundation of cities, says, that the whole of the present Ionian coast, beginning from Mycale and the neighbouring islands, were formerly inhabited by Pelasgi. But the Lesbians say, that they were commanded by Pylæus, who is called by the poet the chief of the Pelasgi, and that it was from him that the mountain in their country had the name of Pylæum.

The Chians also say, that the Pelasgi from Thessaly were their founders. The Pelasgi, however, were a nation disposed to wander, ready to remove from settlement to settlement, and experienced both a great increase and a sudden diminution of strength and numbers, particularly at the time of the Æolian and Ionian migrations to Asia.