a while it got embroiled with the Gaulish tribes of the neighbourhood, and
that a second Ionian colony came to strengthen the first. But this second
colony arrived B.C. 542, fifty-seven years after the first, and was due to
the taking of Phocaea by the Medes and Persians.

As a Greek mercantile colony Marseilles flourished, and sent forth other
colonies, that formed settlements along the Ligurian coast, as a Literal
crown from Ampurias and Rhode in Catalonia to the confines of Etruria.
Free, rich, protected by the Roman legions, these Greek settlements
cultivated the arts and sciences with ardour, as well as carrying on the
trade of the Mediterranean.

In the year B.C. 350 two of her most illustrious citizens, Pytheas and
Euthymenes, explored the northern and southern Atlantic. Pytheas was
charged to make a voyage of discovery towards the north. He coasted Spain,
Portugal, Aquitania, Brittany, discovered Great Britain, coasted it, and
reached Thule, which some have supposed to be Iceland, but others the
Orkney Isles. In a second voyage he penetrated the Baltic by the Cattegat
and Sound, and reached the mouths of the Dwina or the Vistula. On his
return he composed two works, records of his discoveries, of which precious
fragments have been preserved by Pliny and Strabo. Thanks to his labours,
Marseilles was the first town whose latitude was determined with some
precision.

About the same time, Euthymenes was commissioned to make explorations in
the opposite direction. He sailed south-west, traced the western coast of
Africa, and penetrated the mouths of the Senegal, whence he brought back
gold dust.

Marseilles was taken, B.C. 49, by Trebonius, the lieutenant of Julius