According to Herodotus, the story goes something like this: Around 800 BC, there was a famine in Lydia (in what is now western Turkey). Eventually the king, “divided the people into two groups, and made them draw lots, so that the one group should remain and the other leave the country.”

It’s unclear which group this scenario actually favored, but according to Herodotus, the castaways eventually ended up in Italy.