12. But the most celebrated of all the Lacedæmonian colonies, and which really proceeded from Sparta, was Tarentum. The history of its origin is buried in fable, in the accounts of the first Messenian war; the accompanying circumstances will be mentioned below. The leader of this colony was Phalanthus, son of Aratus, a Heraclide.(513) Taras, on the other hand, is called the son of Poseidon, because this colony carried over the worship of that deity from Tænarum to Italy. These emigrants also brought with them other religious rites, as for instance the worship of Hyacinthus;(514) likewise many names from their native country, as that of the Eurotas, which they gave to the river Galæsus.(515) But the fruitful and luxuriant territory to which they had moved, its soft and voluptuous climate, and the commerce, for which Tarentum was well situated,(516) and always open (although it never carried it on in an active manner), helped to engender that effeminacy of character, which gave countenance to the fable of the founders having been the sons of unmarried women (παρθενίαι). Still, amidst all its degeneracy, Tarentum retained a certain degree of dependence on its mother-country: at the foundation of Heraclea the Tarentines allowed Cleandridas a Spartan to be one of the original colonists.(517) The friendship, moreover, of the Cnidians with the Tarentines,(518) as well as that with the Cyreneans, was founded on the recognition of a common origin. The colony of Croton (Olymp. 19. 2. 703 B.C., according to Eusebius) consisted indeed of Achæans, who came partly from the maritime town of Rhypæ,(519) and partly from Laconia:(520) it must, however, have been established under the authority of the Doric state of Sparta, since Apollo and Hercules, the Doric god and hero, were here worshipped with especial honour;(521) the early constitution was also Doric; and although in general we are not to look for truth in the poetry of Ovid, yet in this instance we may credit his statement that Myscellus the founder was a Heraclide.(522) In like manner the Locrians, who (in Olymp. 24. 2. 683 B.C.) founded Locri, must have procured Spartans as leaders,(523) since (as their coins also show) they paid particular honours to the Dioscuri, in time of distress in war the statues of these gods having been sent to them from Sparta, as being a people of the same origin;(524) and even in the Peloponnesian war they still adhered to the cause of Sparta.(525) Of a nature wholly different were the rapid and transitory settlements of Dorieus the son of Anaxandrides, king of Sparta, which this noble adventurer founded in Sicily and Libya; when, scorning to submit to a worthless brother, and confiding in his own strength, he hoped to obtain by conquest a kingdom in a distant country.(526) Finally, the Lyctians of Crete and other inhabitants of this island called themselves colonists of Sparta. In all probability many of the ancient Doric cities of this country received fresh settlers from Lacedæmon; which state, at the beginning of the Olympiads(527) in the time of Alcamenes, and even during the life of Lycurgus,(528) exercised a very considerable influence upon the internal affairs of Crete.