“Lindus, Ialysus, and the white Cameirus,”
the city of the Rhodians not being yet founded.
Homer does not here mention Dorians by name, but means Æolians and Bœotians, since Hercules and Licymnius lived in Bœotia. If however, as others relate, Tlepolemus set out from Argos and Tiryns, even so the colony would not be Dorian, for it was settled before the return of the Heracleidæ.
And of the Coans also Homer says—
“their leaders were Pheidippus and Antiphus, two sons of Thessalus the King, an Heracleid;”[134]
and these names designate rather an Æolian than a Dorian origin.
7. Rhodes was formerly called Ophiussa and Stadia, then Telchinis, from the Telchines, who inhabited the island.[135]
These Telchines are called by some writers charmers and enchanters, who besprinkle animals and plants, with a view to destroy them, with the water of the Styx, mingled with sulphur. Others on the contrary say, that they were persons who excelled in certain mechanical arts, and that they were calumniated by jealous rivals, and thus acquired a bad reputation; that they came from Crete, and first landed at Cyprus, and then removed to Rhodes. They were the first workers in iron and brass, and were the makers of Saturn’s scythe.
I have spoken of them before, but the variety of fables [CAS. 654] which are related of them induces me to resume their history, and to supply what may have been omitted.
8. After the Telchines, the Heliadæ[136] were said, according to fabulous accounts, to have occupied the island. One of these Heliadæ, Cercaphus, and his wife Cydippe had children, who founded the cities called after their names—