The line of conquest had now reached the Dorian cities of the coast, the Carians and Lycians. The Dorians and Carians made but little resistance.[40] The Greeks of Asia had not only been abandoned by their kinsmen beyond the sea, but also by their gods, or at any rate by their oracles. As Apollo of Miletus had bidden the Cymaeans to give up Pactyas, so Apollo of Delphi bade the Cnidians to desist from making their city impregnable. Cnidus lay on the western edge of a long and narrow promontory. The inhabitants had begun to cut a channel through the land with a view of securing themselves against the attack of the Persians. But though a large number of hands were engaged, the work did not make progress in the hard rock; and as many of the workmen were injured the city sent to Delphi to inquire the cause of their misfortunes. The priestess answered, according to the Cnidian account: "Ye must not fortify the Isthmus, nor cut through it; Zeus would have made it an island if he had wished."[41] The Cnidians desisted, and surrendered without a struggle to Harpagus on his approach. Among the Carians, the Pedasians alone, who had fortified Mount Lida, made a vigorous resistance; it cost Harpagus much trouble to take this fortification. The Lycians, who had never been subject to the kings of the Lydians, marched out against Harpagus. In the open field they fought bravely, though few against many. When conquered and driven into their city Xanthus (Arna, I. 577), they brought their wives and children, their servants, and their goods into the citadel and set them on fire; then they bound themselves by an oath, fell upon the Persian army, and maintained the conflict to the last man. Then the remaining towns of the Lycians, being robbed of their best defenders, submitted. The Caunians alone, as Herodotus tells us, followed almost exactly the example of the city of Xanthus.[42] Even the sea put no limit to the supremacy of the Persians. The Greeks of the islands of Chios and Lesbos voluntarily submitted to them, though, as Herodotus assures us, "they had nothing to fear," "for the Persians were not mariners, and the Phenicians were not their subjects at that time."[43] The two islands would not give up all hope of the possession of the districts on the coasts opposite.