Around the 7th century BC, people from Thera went to the oracle at Delphi. The priestess there told them to found a colony in Libya. The Therans supposedly did nothing at first because they did not know where Libya actually was. To a Greek islander in the Aegean, “Libya” meant a vague, distant land somewhere in North Africa.
Decades later a drought struck Thera. The people returned to Delphi, asking what to do. The oracle basically said, in mythic language, “I already told you. Go to Libya.” So they finally sent a group of settlers led by a man named Battus I.
Those settlers eventually founded Cyrene around 631 BC, which became one of the richest Greek cities in Africa.
Interesting-Dream863 on
Funny how the ancients heavily relied on divination, signs and religious rites for direction and routinely ignored them afterwards.
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Around the 7th century BC, people from Thera went to the oracle at Delphi. The priestess there told them to found a colony in Libya. The Therans supposedly did nothing at first because they did not know where Libya actually was. To a Greek islander in the Aegean, “Libya” meant a vague, distant land somewhere in North Africa.
Decades later a drought struck Thera. The people returned to Delphi, asking what to do. The oracle basically said, in mythic language, “I already told you. Go to Libya.” So they finally sent a group of settlers led by a man named Battus I.
Those settlers eventually founded Cyrene around 631 BC, which became one of the richest Greek cities in Africa.
Funny how the ancients heavily relied on divination, signs and religious rites for direction and routinely ignored them afterwards.