5. It is, however, a matter even of still greater difficulty to determine the true history of several cities in Asia Minor, which are reported by tradition to have been colonies of Argos, and generally of the greatest antiquity. But it requires nothing short of absolute superstition to believe that Tarsus was founded by Io, or Perseus the Argive,(440) who, with his descendant Hercules, was worshipped in this place as a tutelar deity;(441) or that Mallus, Mopsuestia, Mopsucrene, and Phaselis were founded by Argive soothsayers at the time of the Trojan war.(442) To these may be added Aspendus in Pamphylia, Curium in Cyprus, and even Ione, near Antiochia, in Syria,(443) the founding of which place is attributed to the Argives. For, without considering the period at which the ancient Peloponnesians are represented to have undertaken such distant (and at that time impossible) voyages round the Chelidonian islands, it is most singular that Argos, which is at no time mentioned among the maritime nations of Greece, should have planted upon that one line of coast a series of colonies in so connected an order, and so completely useless to herself. We will therefore venture to advance an hypothesis, to which, though perhaps no complete proofs of it can be adduced, we have still sufficient traces to lead us, viz. that all these towns were colonised from Rhodes; but that, by a form frequently in use, they were led out in the name of Argos, the mother-country of Rhodes, and under the auspices of Argive gods and heroes.(444) In the first place, Argives and Rhodians are mentioned together as founders; as in the instance of Soli, which nevertheless only defended the Rhodians as a sister state before the Roman senate.(445) Of the manner in which heroes were adopted as founders, the city just mentioned furnishes a good instance. For the Argive soothsayer Amphilochus is said to have come hither, who, according to poems that went under the name of Hesiod, had been put to death by Apollo at Soli.(446) The following example gives a still clearer notion of the manner in which these fables were formed. The Rhodians built Phaselis at the same time with Gela (Olymp. 16. 713 B.C.); the founder is called Lacius, whom the Delphian oracle had sent to the east, as it had Antiphemus to the west.(447) Now it is shown in another part of this work(448) that Lacius is a Cretan form for Rhacius; and this was the name of the husband of Manto, and father of Mopsus, the ancient mythical prophet of the temple at Claros. For, leaving no doubt that this person is intended, the tradition also says, that this Mopsus, the son of Rhacius, founded Phaselis:(449) Pamphylia itself is called the daughter of Rhacius and of Manto;(450) and lastly, the same Lacius is represented as a contemporary of Mopsus, and as having been sent out by Manto as a founder at the same time with the latter.(451) The inference that we must draw is, that there was no such individual as Lacius who led the Lindians in person to Phaselis, but that he was merely a mythical being, and represents the Clarian oracle, which seems to have co-operated on this occasion.(452) Those who are versed in the interpretation of mythical narratives will also hence infer, that the same was the case with his contrary, Ἀντιόφημος. In order, however, to give the mother-state, Argos, a share in the mythical account of the foundation of the Pamphylian colonies, it was necessary that Amphilochus, who belonged to the family of the Amythaonidæ, should, together with Calchas, have some connexion with them all; and, in fact, it is not impossible that soothsayers from Argos, who called themselves descendants of this prophet and hero, were procured by the Rhodians for this service.