The founder of this school was Xenophanes, born in Colophon, an Ionian city of Asia Minor, from which being expelled he wandered over Sicily as a rhapsodist, or minstrel, reciting his elegiac poetry on the loftiest truths, and at last, about the year 536 B.C., came to Elea, where he settled.

Much, has been said in praise of the Ionian philosophers; and justly, so far as their genius and loftiness of character are considered.

He was born, probably, at Smyrna, an Ionian city; the dates attributed to him range from the seventh to the twelfth century before Christ.

It was during the reign of Darius that Persia came in contact with Greece, in consequence of the revolt of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, which, however, was easily suppressed by the Persian satrap.

The evening was charming; the sun was already rolled from the Archipelago toward the Ionian Sea and had begun to slowly sink its radiant head in the water which shone turquoise-like.

No sooner had the greatest Egyptian kings, Thothmes and Rameses, ventured their armies into Asia, perhaps in vengeance on the incursions of Ionian pirates, perhaps in requital of the tyrannies of the hated Shepherd Kings, than they learned of the Hittites on the shores of the Euphrates.

32 Epidaurus, a maritime city of Dalmatia, Ragusa Ep[=i]rus, a country in Greece, between Macedonia, Achaia, and the Ionian Sea, by some now called Albania inferior Eporedorix, treacherously revolts from Caesar, G. vii.

By the magic of the Ionian minstrel's verse that world is still visible to the inner eye.

Chapter III The Extension of Italy to Its Natural Boundaries Natural Boundaries of Italy The Italian confederacy as it emerged from the crises of the fifth centuryor, in other words, the State of Italyunited the various civic and cantonal communities from the Apennines to the Ionian Sea under the hegemony of Rome.

Thus their transmarine possessions were not merely placed on the footing of land held by subjects, but were destined to remain on that footing in all time to come; whereas the official field recently marked off by law for the consuls, or, which is the same thing, the continental territory of the Romans, was to become a new and more extended Italy, which should reach from the Alps to the Ionian sea.

The Greek free cities on the Ionian and Aeolian coast, as well as the kingdom of Pergamus of a substantially similar nature, were certainly the natural pillars of the new Roman supreme power, which here too came forward essentially as protector of the Hellenes kindred in race.

If there be near me now a man of the Achaians who dwelleth far up the Ionian sea, he shall not upbraid me: I have faith in my proxeny: and among the folk of my own land I look forth with clear gaze, having done naught immoderate, and having put away all violence from before my feet.

Corinth, a noble city (Lumen Greciae, Tully calls it) the Eye of Greece, by reason of Cenchreas and Lecheus, those excellent ports, drew all that traffic of the Ionian and Aegean seas to it; and yet the country about it was curva et superciliosa, as [560]Strabo terms it, rugged and harsh.

That Isthmus of Corinth was likewise undertaken to be made navigable by Demetrius, by Julius Caesar, Nero, Domitian, Herodes Atticus, to make a speedy passage, and less dangerous, from the Ionian and Aegean seas; but because it could not be so well effected, the Peloponnesians built a wall like our Picts' wall about Schaenute, where Neptune's temple stood, and in the shortest cut over the Isthmus, of which Diodorus, lib. 11.

Clerambault followed its sweep with his eyes, and seemed, to fly with it, the distant hum of the human planet coming faintly to his ear, like a strange music of the spheres not foreseen by Ionian sages.

There are scores of smaller isles, such as Malta, Zante, Cephalonia (the two latter are included in the Ionian isles); but it would be endless work to particularize each spot of earth fertile or otherwise, inhabited or uninhabited in every sea, unless there be something positively interesting connected with them, or something important to be known concerning them.

"And so are the Ionian Islands, which include Zante, Cephalonia, and St. Maura: they are all pretty spots near the coast of Greece.

This Leucas was formerly a Part of Acarnania, being [joined to] it by a narrow Neck of Land, which the Sea has by length of Time overflowed and washed away; so that at present Leucas is divided from the Continent, and is a little Island in the Ionian Sea.

Here there showed a Venus sculptured in some Ionian isle before ever Caesar and his cohorts had pressed the soil of Gallia beneath their Roman sandals; there, a Ganymede or a Ceres or a Minerva gleamed wan and beautiful; beneath an ilex-tree a Bacchus leaned lightly on his marble thyrsus.

But after the flight of Pompey and of the senate beyond Ionian Sea, Caesar gained possession of Rome and of the Empire and released Aristobulus from his bonds.

This Leucas was formerly a Part of Acarnania, being [joined to] it by a narrow Neck of Land, which the Sea has by length of Time overflowed and washed away; so that at present Leucas is divided from the Continent, and is a little Island in the Ionian Sea.

'Behold a ripe and melting maid Bound 'prentice to the wanton trade: Ionian artists, at a mighty price, Instruct her in the mysteries of vice, What nets to spread, where subtle baits to lay; And with an early hand they form the temper'd clay.' (Roscommon).

[Sidenote: B.C. 266 (a.u. 488)]¶Though the Romans were faring in this manner and were constantly rising to greater heights they showed no haughtiness as yet: on the contrary, they surrendered to the Appolloniatians (Corinthian colonists on the Ionian Gulf) Quintus Fabius, a senator, because he had insulted some of their ambassadors.

Shall catch th' Ionian blandness of thy clime; And whilst the light and luxury of thy skies Give brighter smiles to beauteous woman's eyes, } The Arts, whose soul is love, shall all spontaneous rise.

I whisper; and all is silent save the surge still lifting round the coast the far voices of the old Ionian sea.