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The name ‘Abdera’ is perhaps Phoenician (Strabo, 157). Abdera coined with the griffin of Teos as type, but it followed the Phoenician heavy standard (Head, H. N. 253 seq.). The town was famous as the birthplace of Democritus and Protagoras, yet its people were proverbially stupid (for their idea of wit cf. vii. 120). For the site cf. vii. 126 n.

Timesias had founded it about 653 B.C., driven from Clazomenae by his undeserved unpopularity (cf. Ael. V. H. xii. 9); for the formula οὐκ ἀπόνητο cf. Od. xi. 324; for hero-worship of a founder cf. Thuc. v. 11. 1 (at Amphipolis).

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