The colonization of Libya by the Theran pioneers was among the latest colonizing projects of the Greeks, and was an isolated phenomenon. It is accordingly to be explained as arising from some specific situation[20] created, apparently, by overpopulation on the island of Thera (now Santorini). The initial impulse came from Delphi, and the influence of the Oracle on Cyrene remained strong down to the 4th century before the current era. Our chief source of knowledge of the first colonization is the fourth book of Herodotus, who transmits two parallel traditions, one Cyrenean and the other Theran. His account is supplemented by the contents of a fourth-century B.C. inscription found at Cyrene, which relates the grant of citizen-rights to a group of Therans — perhaps residents of the city — and preserves a part-account of the colonizing expedition.[21] According to the Theran tradition, Grinnos, king of the island, came to Delphi with Battus, son of Polymnestos, in his train, to consult the Oracle, whereupon the Pythia bade him found a colony in Libya, designating Battus leader. The Therans feared to obey because they knew nothing of Libya, but after a seven-years’ drought had afflicted their island, applied to Delphi and received the same response. People were then sent to Crete to seek information of the new country, and with the aid of a purple-fisher, Korobios, reached the island of Plataea,[22] off the shore of eastern Cyrenaica. They returned to Thera to announce their success, and a group of settlers was formed, consisting of one brother from every household with sons, under the leadership of Battus. Two ships set out for Plataea, but Korobios, who had remained on the island, was rescued from starvation by a Samian vessel which had been driven off course to Plataea on her way from Egypt.
So much for the Theran account. The Cyreneans, on the other hand, related that Battus, who was of Cretan origin on his mother’s side, consulted Delphi on a cure for his stammer, but was bidden by the Pythia to go to Libya as the founder of a settlement. When a Theran delegation arrived subsequently to consult the Pythia, it received the same order, whereupon two ships were despatched to Libya, one under Battus. After an unsuccessful attempt, the Therans settled on the island of Plataea. From this point, the accounts of settlement are identical in both traditions: after a two-years’ stay on Plataea and another appeal to Delphi, the settlers removed to the mainland and passed to Aziris,[23] somewhat westward, remaining there six years. Finally they were led by natives westward through the district of Irasa to Cyrene.
The Theran account evokes greater confidence than the Cyrenean in several respects. It is known that in this period Cretan maritime trade was flourishing, and the aid of Cretans to reconnoitre the Libyan coast was doubtless essential. The story of Korobios the pearl-fisher on Plataea can be understood on the analogy of the more recent practice of sponge fishers of wintering at their fishing grounds.[24] It is further notable that the version appearing in the 4th-century “Stele of the Founders” above referred to, is closer to the Theran account, in that having recorded the Cyrenean people’s resolution to grant the Therans equal citizen-rights on the authority of the oath sworn by their ancestors when the first expedition sailed, it describes the arrangements for despatching the mission as related by the Theran tradition transmitted by Herodotus, including the main clause, viz. the selection of one son from each family possessing sons. The Cyrenean tradition, on the other hand, is closer to Herodotus in one respect only — that it makes Battus himself the recipient of Apollo’s command to colonize Cyrene, but this is precisely what one would expect the Cyreneans to have told the historian.
The date of the foundation of the city has been the subject of numerous studies and discussions among scholars for many years, and we shall not become involved in this complex question. It will suffice to observe that the most recent scholar to discuss it[25] in detail in the light of old and new research alike, reaches the same conclusion as that accepted by the best scholars ever since Johannes Thrige,[26] to wit, that the Greek settlement was founded on the hill of Cyrene in 631 B.C. Yet it would seem today that the colonization was a more complex process than is reflected in Herodotus’ account; this is indicated by the testimony of the Lindus Chronicle, whose thirteenth chapter[27] relates how the Lindian sons of Pankis joined Battus to sail to Cyrene, and dedicated statues of Pallas and Heracles in her temple. Herodotus’ incident of the rescue of Koro-bios of Crete from the Isle of Plataea[28] by a ship of Samos also hints at Samian voyages along the Libyan coast in this period, the more so since the historian connects with the rescue the signing of a longstanding treaty between Cyrene and Samos. The presence of a sherd of Cameiran ware from Rhodes, dated to the late years of the 7th century,[29] in a well on the peninsula overlooking the harbour of Ptolemais (the port of Barka), where the earliest settlement may well have been established, is therefore not haphazard.[30] An Ionian sherd of the end of the 7th century comes from the area east of the Cyrenean Acropolis, while Rhodian and Cameiran wares of the second half of the same century are numerous at Teucheira[31] and also present at the early shrine of Opheles in the earliest Agora of Cyrene[32] with ample Chiote ware.[33] All this evidence points to the probability that the settlement was carried out not by one group, but was the work of a broader movement of colonization amongst whose initiators there were also elements from Rhodes, Samos and Crete.[34]
Cyrene was destined by its position to be a capital city. It lies on a defensible hill on the uppermost escarpment, commanding the second terrace (the Lusaita) to north, and its proximity to the sea ensured communication with mainland Greece and the islands. The hill itself is cut off by ravines on the west and south, and on the north by a cliff, from whose foot wells the spring of Kure, known as the Spring of Apollo, which flows over the pleasant terrace that lies between the cliff of the Acropolis and the escarpment. This terrace became in a short time the Sanctuary of the city and the site of the temples of Apollo and Artemis. The place is fortunate not only in its abundant water supply, its defensibility and its proximity to the sea, but in its ample rainfall, which at this point of the plateau is the highest in the country (600-1000 mm),[35] and in its situation as the centre of a rich red-soil plain. Those who saw Cyrene from the sea named her ‘the white shining breast’ (ἀργεννόεντι μαστῷ),[36] and no title more aptly expresses the majesty of her position and the beauty of her surroundings.
The name Cyrene (Κύράνα) belongs, as Chamoux noted,[37] to the wide class of Greek names embodying the suffix -ηνη, which means “place of”, and is annexed chiefly to roots denoting animals, plants and natural features. The poet Callimachus seems to have been right when he connected the name Cyrene with the Libyan root Κύρη, an iris,[38] the name associated with the spring that flows from the Acropolis hill. There would appear, therefore, to be no grounds for connecting the name with that of the nymph Cyrene, who was a Thessalian figure already known to Hesiod before the city’s foundation, nor does she appear among the Cyrenean deities till the end of the 4th century B.C., although Pindar in the 5th brings her from the woods of Pelion to Libya to celebrate her espousal with Apollo.[39]
21
22
The place has not been identified with certainty. Till a few years ago it was generally thought to be the island of Bomba off the east coast of Cyrenaica; Goodchild (
23
For the place’s identification and its description,
24
25
The basic problems were considered by J. Thrige,
27
C. Blinkenberg,
34
As noted by Parke,