Histories

Harpagus, after subjugating Ionia (region (general)), Europe Ionia, made an expedition against the Carians, Caunians, and Lycians, taking Ionians and Aeolians with him.

Of these, the Carians have come to the mainland from the islands; for in the past they were islanders, called Leleges and under the rule of Minos, not (as far as I can learn by report) paying tribute, but manning ships for him when he needed them.

Since Minos had subjected a good deal of territory for himself and was victorious in war, this made the Carians too at that time by far the most respected of all nations.

They invented three things in which they were followed by the Greeks: it was the Carians who originated wearing crests on their helmets and devices on their shields, and who first made grips for their shields; until then all who used shields carried them without these grips, and guided them with leather belts which they slung round the neck and over the left shoulder.[*](This is the management of the Homeric “man-covering” shield, as shown in the Iliad. The shield is not carried on the arm, but hangs by a belt which passes over the left shoulder and under the right arm-pit; by a pull on the telamw/n it can be shifted so as to protect breast or back.)

Then, a long time afterwards, the Carians were driven from the islands by Dorians and Ionians and so came to the mainland. This is the Cretan story about the Carians; but the Carians themselves do not subscribe to it, but believe that they are aboriginal inhabitants of the mainland and always bore the name which they bear now;

and they point to an ancient shrine of Carian Zeus at Mylasa [27.8,37.3167] (Perseus)Mylasa, to which Mysians and Lydians, as brethren of the Carians (for Lydus and Mysus, they say, were brothers of Car), are admitted, but not those who spoke the same language as the Carians but were of another people.