PHOCAEA (mod. Fokia or Fokha), an ancient city on the western coast of Asia Minor, famous as the mother city of Mar seilles. It was the most northern of the Ionian cities, and was situ ated on the coast of the peninsula which separates the gulf of Cyme, occupied by Aeolian settlers, from the Hermaean Gulf, on which stood Smyrna and Clazomenae. Its position between two good harbours, Naustathmus and Lampter (Livy xxxvii. 31), led the inhabitants to devote themselves to maritime pursuits. Ac cording to Herodotus the Phocaeans were the first of all the Greeks to undertake distant voyages, and made known the coasts of the Adriatic, Tyrrhenia and Spain. Arganthonius, king of Tar tessus in Spain, invited them to emigrate in a body to his domin ions, and, on their declining, presented them with a large sum of money. This they employed in constructing a strong wall around their city, a defence which stood them in good stead when Ionia was attacked by Cyrus in 546. Eventually they determined to
seek a new home in the west, where they already had flourishing colonies, e.g., Alalia in Corsica and Massilia (mod. Marseilles). A large part of the emigrants proceeded only as far as Chios, returned to Phocaea, and submitted to the Persian yoke.
Phocaea continued to exist under the Persian government, but greatly reduced in population and commerce. Though it joined in the Ionian revolt against Persia in 500 it was able to send only three ships to the combined fleet which fought at Lade. But a Phocaean took the supreme command. It never again played a prominent part in Ionian history. The modern town in the immediate neighbourhood, still known as Fokia, was founded by the Genoese in 1421 on account of the rich alum mines in the neighbourhood. It has a fair natural harbour.