enicians in the island of Rhodes, and they likewise succeeded them in
the south of Gaul, and founded, at the mouth of the Rhone, a colony
called Rhodanusia or Rhoda, with the same name as that which they had
already founded on the north-east coast of Spain, and which is nowadays
the town of Rosas, in Catalonia. But the importance of the Rhodians on
the southern coast of Gaul was short-lived. It had already sunk very low
in the year 600 B.C., when Euxenes, a Greek trader, coming from Phocea,
an Ionian town of Asia Minor, to seek his fortune, landed from a bay
eastward of the Rhone. The Segobrigians, a tribe of the Gallic race,
were in occupation of the neighboring country. Nann, their chief, gave
the strangers kindly welcome, and took them home with him to a great
feast which he was giving for his daughter's marriage, who was called
Gyptis, according to some, and Petta, according to other historians. A
custom which exists still in several cantons of the Basque country, and
even at the centre of France in Morvan, a mountainous district of the
department of the Nievre, would that the maiden should appear only at the
end of the banquet, and holding in her hand a filled wine-cup, and that
the guest to whom she should present it should become the husband of her
choice. By accident, or quite another cause, say the ancient legends,
Gyptis stopped opposite Euxenes, and handed him the cup. Great was the
surprise, and, probably, anger amongst the Gauls who were present. But
Nann, believing he recognized a commandment from his gods, accepted the
Phocean as his son-in-law, and gave him as dowry the bay where he had
landed, with some cantons of the territory around. Euxenes, in
gratitude, gave his wife the Greek name of Aristoxena (that is, "the best
of hostesses"), sent away his ship to Phocea for colonists, and, whilst
waiting for them, laid in the centre of the bay, on a peninsula hollowed
out harbor-wise, towards the south, the foundations of a town, which he
called Massilia--thence Marseilles.

[Illustration: Gyptis presenting the Goblet to Euxenes----17]

Scarcely a year had elapsed when Euxenes' ship arrived from Phocea, and
with it several galleys, bringing colonists full of hope, and laden with
provisions, utensils, arms, seeds, vine-cuttings, and olive-cuttings,
and, moreover, a statue of Diana, which the colonists had gone to fetch
from the celebrated temple of that goddess at Ephesus, and which her
priestess, Ari