HERODOTUS, BOOK 1

2. ...they say that these wrongs began with them. But after this, certain Greeks (whose names they cannot tell) landed at Tyre in Phoenicia and carried off the king’s daughter, Europa. These Greeks would have been Cretans. Herodotus is reporting the Persian view here, which rationalizes famous myths as historical abductions.
5 This, they say, made things even between them. But later, the Greeks were responsible for a second injustice. They sailed in a long ship original: "μακρῇ νηῒ" — a warship, usually a penteconter, rather than a rounded merchant vessel. to Aea in Colchis Modern-day Georgia on the Black Sea coast. and to the river Phasis; and when they had finished the business for which they had come, they carried off the king’s daughter, Medea.
10 The King of the Colchians sent a herald to Greece to demand justice for the abduction and to ask for his daughter back. But the Greeks answered that since the easterners had not given justice for the abduction of Io of Argos, they would not give any to them.

3. They say that in the second generation after this, Alexander, Known more commonly today as Paris.
15 the son of Priam, having heard these stories, wanted to get a wife for himself from Greece by abduction, being entirely sure that he would not have to pay a penalty, since the others had not done so. So he carried off Helen. Then the Greeks decided first to send messengers to demand Helen back and to ask for justice for
20 the abduction. But the Trojans, when these demands were made, brought up the abduction of Medea against them—reminding them that the Greeks themselves had not given justice or surrendered the woman when asked, yet now they wanted justice from others.

4. Up to this point, there had only been abductions from one another, but after this, the Greeks were greatly to blame;
25 for they were the first to begin a military campaign into Asia before the Persians invaded Europe. Now, the Persians say that while carrying off women is the act of wicked men, to make a serious effort to avenge them is the act of fools, and to pay no regard to them once they are carried off is the act of sensible men;
30 for it is clear that if the women did not wish it themselves, they would not have been abducted. The Persians say that they, the people of Asia, made no account of their women being carried off, but the Greeks, for the sake of a single Lacedaemonian Spartan. woman, gathered a great fleet and then came to Asia and destroyed the power of Priam.

9. the original: "την" omitted in manuscripts P, p, and R. || 17. nor original: "οὐδὲ" suggested by Schäfer: instead of "neither" original: "οὔτε".