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Smyrna was Ionian before the twenty-third Olympiad (Paus. v. 8. 7), i.e. about the end of the eighth century. H. is confirmed by a poem of Mimnermus, who says (we Ionians) κεῖθεν δ᾽ ἀκτήεντος ἀπορνύμενοι ποταμοῖο θεῶν βουλῇ Σμύρνην εἵλομεν Αἰολίδα (Strabo, 634). Strabo, however, himself represents the town as a colony of Ephesus; this is obviously an Ionian invention to justify their aggression. The town, however, lying more than ten miles south of the Hermus, and having Phocaea on the coast between it and Cyme, belonged naturally to the Ionian sphere.

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    • Pausanias, Description of Greece, 5.8.7
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