they were a Spanish_ people who fled from the Ligures in Italy_; he means the Ligures [218] who opposed Hercules when he returned from his expedition against Geryon in Spain, and endeavoured to pass the Alps out of Gaul into Italy. Hercules that year got into Italy, and made some conquests there, and founded the city Croton; and [219] after winter, upon the arrival of his fleet from Erythra in Spain, sailed to Sicily, and there left the Sicani:  for it was his custom to recruit his army with conquered people, and after they had assisted him in making new conquests to reward them with new seats:  this was the Egyptian Hercules, who had a potent fleet, and in the days of Solomon sailed to the Straits, and according to his custom set up pillars there, and conquered Geryon, and returned back by Italy and Sicily to Egypt, and was by the ancient Gauls called Ogmius, and by Egyptians [220] Nilus:  for Erythra and the country of Geryon were without the Straits. Dionysius [221] represents this Hercules contemporary to Evander.

The first inhabitants of Crete, according to Diodorus [222] were called Eteocretans; but whence they were, and how they came thither, is not said in history:  then sailed thither a Colony of Pelasgians from Greece; and soon after Teutamus, the grandfather of Minos, carried thither a Colony of Dorians from Laconia, and from the territory of Olympia in Peloponnesus:  and these several Colonies spake several languages, and fed on the spontaeous fruits of the earth, and lived quietly in caves and huts, ’till the invention of iron tools, in the days of Asterius the son of Teutamus; and at length were reduced into one Kingdom, and one People, by Minos, who was their first law-giver, and built many towns and ships, and introduced plowing and sowing, and in whose days the Curetes conquered his father’s friends in Crete and Peloponnesus.  The Curetes [223] sacrificed children to Saturn and according to Bochart [224] were Philistims; and Eusebius faith that Crete had its name from Cres, one of the Curetes who nursed up Jupiter:  but whatever was the original of the island, it seems to have been peopled by Colonies which spake different languages, ’till the days of Asterius and Minos; and might come thither two or three Generations before, and not above, for want of navigation in those seas.