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These are the twelve divisions of what is now Achaea, and was
formerly Ionia; and it was owing to their coming from a country so
divided that the Ionians, on reaching Asia, founded their twelve
States: for it is the height of folly to maintain that these Ionians
are more Ionian than the rest, or in any respect better born, since
the truth is that no small portion of them were Abantians from
Euboea, who are not even Ionians in name; and, besides, there were
mixed up with the emigration Minyae from Orchomenus, Cadmeians,
Dryopians, Phocians from the several cities of Phocis,
Molossians, Arcadian Pelasgi, Dorians from Epidaurus, and many
other distinct tribes. Even those who came from the Prytaneum of
Athens, and reckon themselves the purest Ionians of all, brought no
wives with them to the new country, but married Carian girls, whose
fathers they had slain. Hence these women made a law, which they
bound themselves by an oath to observe, and which they handed down to
their daughters after them, "That none should ever sit at meat with
her husband, or call him by his name"; because the invaders slew
their fathers, their husbands, and their sons, and then forced them
to become their wives. It was at Miletus that these events took place.
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