Histories

Foca [26.75,38.666] (inhabited place), Izmir Ili, Ege kiyilari, Turkey, Asia Phocaea was the first Ionian town that he attacked. These Phocaeans were the earliest of the Greeks to make long sea-voyages, and it was they who discovered the Adriatic Sea [16,43] (sea), Europe Adriatic Sea, and Etruria (region (general)), Italy, EuropeTyrrhenia, and Iberian Peninsula (peninsula), EuropeIberia, and Tartessus,[*](The lower valley of the Guadalquivir (river), Andalusia, Spain, EuropeGuadalquivir. Later Tartessus was identified with Cadiz [-6.3,36.533] (inhabited place), Cadiz, Andalusia, Spain, EuropeGades (Cadiz [-6.3,36.533] (inhabited place), Cadiz, Andalusia, Spain, EuropeCadiz), which Herodotus (Hdt. 4.8) calls Cadiz [-6.3,36.533] (inhabited place), Cadiz, Andalusia, Spain, EuropeGadira.)

not sailing in round freightships but in fifty-oared vessels. When they came to Tartessus they made friends with the king of the Tartessians, whose name was Arganthonius; he ruled Tartessus for eighty years and lived a hundred and twenty.[*](A common Greek tradition, apparently; Anacreon (Fr. 8) says “I would not... rule Tartessus for an hundred and fifty years.)

The Phocaeans won this man's friendship to such a degree that he invited them to leave Ionia (region (general)), Europe Ionia and settle in his country wherever they liked; and then, when he could not persuade them to, and learned from them how the Median power was increasing, he gave them money to build a wall around their city.

He gave it generously: for the circuit of the wall is of not a few stades, and all this is made of great stones well fitted together.