Histories

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.