4. When the Pythian god was either unwilling or unable to retain within his territory the crowds who had been collected in this manner, he sent them out as colonists; without, however, entirely giving up all claim to their obedience. The early Grecian history affords several examples of this proceeding: the earliest is a Doric tradition respecting the Dryopes, which differs in some respect from their own account. Hercules, here represented as a Doric hero, had subjugated the Dryopes, and brought them to Delphi as an offering to Apollo, by whom he was commanded to settle them on the southern coast of Argolis.(1107) That this nation, probably of Pelasgic origin, did not in early times worship the Doric god, is evident from the tradition that Leogoras the Dryopian violated the temple of Apollo.(1108) But it is equally certain that they were henceforth compelled to serve Apollo as their chief deity, especially in his character of Apollo Pythaëus at Argos.(1109) A part of this nation however remained at Delphi, where it is frequently mentioned in later times under the name of Craugallidæ, who, together with the Cirrhæans, appear as enemies to the temple;(1110) from which circumstance it may be inferred that most of these Cirrhæans were revolted subjects of the temple.
The migration of the Magnesians approaches rather nearer to the historical age. This race, dwelling under mount Pelion, felt itself, about the time of the Thessalian migration, so pressed for want of territory, that it had recourse to the Delphian oracle, by whose advice it decimated its numbers; that is, it sent off a tenth part of the young male population, who (like a _ver sacrum_ in Italy)(1111) renounced their native land.(1112) These young colonists were mostly despatched to the worshippers of Apollo in Crete, where they founded the town of Magnesia, which Plato speaks of as a place that had been destroyed, and considers as a prototype of his ideal state, Apollo having been its only legislator.(1113) The intercourse of Crete with the coast of Asia Minor soon carried over these sojourners to the banks of the Mæander and the Lethæus, at the confluence of which rivers they had been settled some time before the Ionic migration;(1114) being, as was afterwards declared by a Panhellenic decree, the first Greeks who settled in Asia Minor.(1115) Still, although thus separated from their mother country, they maintained, as sacred colonists (ἱεροὶ ἄποικοι), a perpetual connexion with Delphi, and were bound, in ancient times, to provide all travellers with food and lodging.(1116) The Delphians could expect a similar reception at Delos:(1117) and indeed an extended exercise of the duties of hospitality formed one of the principal objects of this worship. Pausanias(1118) gives an account of this very important worship of Apollo in Magnesia as follows:(1119) “At Hylæ, a place in the territory of the Magnesians,(1120) is a cavern consecrated to Apollo; not, indeed, remarkable for its size; but it contains a statue of Apollo of great antiquity, and which confers strength for every kind of work. Certain devotees throw themselves, by the assistance of this image, from steep and lofty precipices; or tearing large trees up by the roots, walk with their burden down the steepest paths.” We would attempt to trace more minutely the connexion of Magnesia with Crete and Delphi, had not all clue to history been necessarily broken off by the conquest of this proud and prosperous city by the Ephesians, and its complete destruction by the Treres, a Cimmerian tribe, in the time of the Lydian monarch Ardys.(1121)