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After conquering the Ionians, Harpagus proceeded to attack the
Carians, the Caunians, and the Lycians. The Ionians and
Aeolians were forced to serve in his army. Now, of the above nations
the Carians are a race who came into the mainland from the islands.
In ancient times they were subjects of king Minos, and went by the
name of Leleges, dwelling among the isles, and, so far as I have
been able to push my inquiries, never liable to give tribute to any
man. They served on board the ships of king Minos whenever he
required; and thus, as he was a great conqueror and prospered in his
wars, the Carians were in his day the most famous by far of all the
nations of the earth. They likewise were the inventors of three
things, the use of which was borrowed from them by the Greeks; they
were the first to fasten crests on helmets and to put devices on
shields, and they also invented handles for shields. In the earlier
times shields were without handles, and their wearers managed them by
the aid of a leathern thong, by which they were slung round the neck
and left shoulder. Long after the time of Minos, the Carians were
driven from the islands by the Ionians and Dorians, and so settled
upon the mainland. The above is the account which the Cretans give of
the Carians: the Carians themselves say very differently. They
maintain that they are the aboriginal inhabitants of the part of the
mainland where they now dwell, and never had any other name than that
which they still bear; and in proof of this they show an ancient temple
of Carian Jove in the country of the Mylasians, in which the
Mysians and Lydians have the right of worshipping, as brother races
to the Carians: for Lydus and Mysus, they say, were brothers of
Car. These nations, therefore, have the aforesaid right; but such
as are of a different race, even though they have come to use the
Carian tongue, are excluded from this temple.
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