Note 736 — Chapter XXII · WESTERN COLONIES OF GREECE — IN EPIRUS, ITALY, SICILY, AND GAUL.

The words of Strabo—ἠφανίσθη δ᾽ ὑπὸ Σαυνιτῶν (vi, p. 264) can hardly be connected with the immediately following narrative, which he gives out of Antiochus, respecting the revival of the place by new Achæan settlers, invited by the Achæans of Sybaris. For the latter place was reduced to impotence in 510 B. C.: invitations by the Achæans of Sybaris must, therefore, be anterior to that date. If Daulius despot of Krissa is to be admitted as the œkist of Metapontium, the plantation of it must be placed early in the first half of the sixth century B. C.; but there is great difficulty in admitting the extension of Samnite conquests to the gulf of Tarentum at so early a period as this. I therefore construe the words of Antiochus as referring to the original settlement of Metapontium by the Greeks, not to the revival of the town after its destruction by the Samnites.