



Produced by Anna Tuinman, Turgut Dincer and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net







  +----------------------------------------------------------------+
  | Transcriber's note:                                            |
  |                                                                |
  | In this book many city names are spelled in different ways.    |
  | When the correct spelling is obvious these have been corrected |
  | for the sake of consistency. See the list of modern spellings  |
  | at the end of volume III.                                      |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------+




   THE
   GEOGRAPHY
   OF
   STRABO.

   LITERALLY TRANSLATED, WITH NOTES.

   THE FIRST SIX BOOKS

   BY H. C. HAMILTON, ESQ.

   THE REMAINDER

   BY W. FALCONER, M.A.,

   LATE FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD.


   IN THREE VOLUMES.

   VOL. II.

   LONDON:
   HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
   MDCCCLVI.

   JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY.




STRABO’S GEOGRAPHY.




BOOK VIII.

EUROPE CONTINUED.--GREECE.

SUMMARY.


   The remaining parts of Macedonia are considered, and the whole
   of Greece; on this the author dwells some time on account of
   the great reputation of the country. He corrects minutely, and
   clears up, the confused and vague accounts respecting the
   cities contained therein, given by poets and historians, and
   especially in the Catalogue and in many other parts of the
   Poem.




CHAPTER I.


1. After having described as much of the western parts of Europe as is
comprised within the interior and exterior seas, and surveyed all the
barbarous nations which it contains, as far as the Don[1] and a small
part of Greece, [namely, Macedonia,][2] we propose to give an account of
the remainder of the Helladic geography. Homer was the first writer on
the subject of geography, and was followed by many others, some of whom
composed particular treatises, and entitled them “Harbours,” “Voyages,”
“Circuits of the Earth,”[3] or gave them some name of this kind, and
these comprised the description of the Helladic country. Some, as
Ephorus and Polybius, included in their general history a separate
topography of the continents; others, as Posidonius and Hipparchus,
introduced matter relating to geography in their writings on physical
and mathematical subjects.

It is easy to form an opinion of the other writers, but the poems of
Homer require critical consideration, both because he speaks as a poet,
and because he describes things not as [CAS. 333] they exist at present,
but as they existed anciently, and the greater part of which have been
rendered obscure by time.

We must however undertake this inquiry as far as we are able, beginning
from the point where our description ended.

It ended with an account of the Epirotic and Illyrian nations on the
west and north, and of Macedonia as far as Byzantium on the east.

After the Epirotæ and Illyrii follow the Acarnanes,[4] the Ætoli, the
Locri-Ozolæ, then the Phocæenses and Bœoti, Grecian nations. Opposite to
these on the other side of the strait is Peloponnesus, which comprises
the Gulf of Corinth,[5] interposed between, and determining the figure
of the latter, from which it also receives its own. Next to Macedonia[6]
are the Thessalians,[7] extending as far as the Malienses,[8] and the
other nations, situated on both sides of the isthmus.

2. There are many Greek tribes, but the chief people are equal in number
to the Greek dialects with which we are acquainted, namely, four. Of
these, the Ionic is the same as the ancient Attic; (for Iones was the
former name of the inhabitants of Attica; from thence came the Iones who
settled in Asia,[9] and use the dialect now called Ionic;) the Doric was
the same as the Æolic dialect, for all the people on the other side of
the isthmus except the Athenians, the Megareans, and the Dorians about
Parnassus, are even now called Æolians; it is probable that the Dorians,
from their being a small nation, and occupying a most rugged country,
and from want of intercourse [with the Æolians], no longer resemble that
people either in language or customs, and, although of the same race,
have lost all appearance of affinity. It was the same with the
Athenians, who inhabiting a rugged country with a light soil, escaped
the ravages of invaders. As they always occupied the same territory, and
no enemy attempted to expel them, nor had any desire to take possession
of it themselves, on this account they were, according to Thucydides,
regarded as Autochthones, or an indigenous race. This was probably the
reason, although they were a small nation, why they remained a distinct
people with a distinct dialect.

It was not in the parts only on the other side of the isthmus, that the
Æolian nation was powerful, but those on this side also were formerly
Æolians. They were afterwards intermixed first with Ionians who came
from Attica, and got possession of Ægialus,[10] and secondly with
Dorians, who under the conduct of the Heracleidæ founded Megara and many
of the cities in the Peloponnesus. The Iones were soon expelled by the
Achæi, an Æolian tribe; and there remained in Peloponnesus the two
nations, the Æolic and the Doric. Those nations then that had little
intercourse with the Dorians used the Æolian dialect. (This was the case
with the Arcadians and Eleians, the former of whom were altogether a
mountain tribe, and did not share in the partition of the Peloponnesus;
the latter were considered as dedicated to the service of the Olympian
Jupiter, and lived for a long period in peace, principally because they
were of Æolian descent, and had admitted into their country the army of
Oxylus, about the time of the return of the Heracleidæ.[11]) The rest
used a kind of dialect composed of both, some of them having more,
others less, of the Æolic dialect. Even at present the inhabitants of
different cities use different dialects, but all seem to Dorize, or use
the Doric dialect, on account of the ascendency of that nation.

Such then is the number of the Grecian nations, and thus in general are
they distinguished from each other.

I shall resume my account of them, and describe each nation in their
proper order.

3. According to Ephorus, Acarnania is the commencement of Greece on the
west, for it is the first country which lies contiguous to the Epirotic
nations. As this author follows the coast in his measurements, and
begins from thence, considering the sea the most important guide of
topographical description, (for otherwise he might have placed the
beginning of Greece in Macedonia and Thessaly,) so ought I, observing
[CAS. 334] the natural character of places, to keep in view the sea as
a mark by which I should direct the course of my description.

The sea coming from Sicily spreads itself on one side towards the
Corinthian Gulf, and on the other forms a large peninsula, the
Peloponnesus, united to the mainland by a narrow isthmus.

The two largest bodies of country in Greece are that within the isthmus,
and that without the isthmus, [extending to the mouths of the river
Peneius]. That within the isthmus is however larger, and more
celebrated. The Peloponnesus is, as it were, the acropolis or citadel of
all Greece; and all Greece in a manner holds the chief or leading
position in Europe. For independently of the fame and power of the
nations which inhabited it, the position itself of the places in it
suggests this superiority. One site succeeds another diversified with
numerous most remarkable bays, and large peninsulas. The first of these
peninsulas is the Peloponnesus, closed in by an isthmus of forty stadia
in extent. The second comprehends the first, and has an isthmus reaching
from Pagæ in Megaris to Nisæa, which is the naval arsenal of the
Megareans; the passage across the isthmus from sea to sea is 120 stadia.

The third peninsula also comprises the latter. Its isthmus extends from
the farthest recess of the Crissæan Gulf to Thermopylæ. The line
supposed to be drawn between these is about 508 stadia in length,
including within it the whole of Bœotia, and cutting Phocis and the
country of the Epicnemidii obliquely. The fourth peninsula has the
isthmus extending from the Ambracian Gulf through Mount Œta and
Traclinia to the Maliac Gulf and Thermopylæ, about 800 stadia.

There is another isthmus of more than 1000 stadia reaching from the same
Gulf of Ambracia, and passing through the country of the Thessalians and
Macedonians to the recess of the Thermæan Gulf.

The succession of peninsulas furnishes a convenient order to be followed
in describing the country.

We must begin from the smallest, as being also the most famous of these
peninsulas.[12]




CHAPTER II.


1. The Peloponnesus resembles in figure the leaf of a plane tree.[13]
Its length and breadth are nearly equal, each about 1400 stadia. The
former is reckoned from west to east, that is, from the promontory
Chelonatas through Olympia and the territory Megalopolitis to the
isthmus; the latter from south to north, or from Maliæ through Arcadia to
Ægium.

The circumference, according to Polybius, exclusive of the circuit of
the bays, is 4000 stadia. Artemidorus however adds to this 400 stadia,
and if we include the measure of the bays, it exceeds 5600 stadia. We
have already said that the isthmus at the road where they draw vessels
over-land from one sea to the other is 40 stadia across.

2. Eleians and Messenians occupy the western side of this peninsula.
Their territory is washed by the Sicilian Sea. They possess the coast
also on each side. Elis bends towards the north and the commencement of
the Corinthian Gulf as far as the promontory Araxus,[14] opposite to
which across the strait is Acarnania; the islands Zacynthus,[15]
Cephallenia,[16] Ithaca,[17] and the Echinades, to which belongs
Dulichium, lie in front of it. The greater part of Messenia is open to
the south and to the Libyan Sea as far as the islands Thyrides near
Tænarum.[18]

Next to Elis, is the nation of the Achæi looking towards the north, and
stretching along the Corinthian Gulf they terminate at Sicyonia. Then
follow Sicyon[19] and Corinth, extending as far as the isthmus. Next
after Messenia are [CAS. 335] Laconia and Argeia, which latter country
also reaches as far as the isthmus.

The bays of the Peloponnesus are the Messeniac,[20] the Laconian,[21] a
third the Argolic,[22] and a fourth the Hermionic,[23] or the
Saronic,[24] which some writers call the Salaminiac bay. Some of these
bays are supplied by the Libyan, others by the Cretan and Myrtoan Seas.
Some call even the Saronic Gulf a sea. In the middle of Peloponnesus is
Arcadia, lying contiguous to all the other nations.

3. The Corinthian Gulf begins from the mouths of the Evenus,[25] (some
say from the mouths of the Achelous,[26] which is the boundary between
the Acarnanes and Ætoli,) and from the promontory Araxus. For there the
shores on both sides first begin to contract, and have a considerable
inclination towards each other; as they advance farther onwards they
nearly meet at Rhium[27] and Antirrhium,[28] leaving a channel of only
about 5 stadia between them.

Rhium is a promontory of Achaia, it is low, and bends inwards like a
sickle, (indeed it has the name of Drepanum, or the Sickle,) and lies
between Patræ[29] and Ægium,[30] on it there is a temple of Neptune.
Antirrhium is situated on the confines of Ætolia and Locris. It is
called Rhium Molycrium. From this point the sea-shore again parts in a
moderate degree on each side, and advancing into the Crissæan Gulf,
terminates there, being shut in by the western boundaries of Bœotia and
Megaris.

The Corinthian Gulf is 2230 stadia in circuit from the river Evenus to
the promontory Araxus; and if we reckon from the Achelous, it would be
increased by about 100 stadia.

The tract from the Achelous to the Evenus is occupied by Acarnanians;
next are the Ætoli, reaching to the Cape Antirrhium. The remainder of
the country, as far as the isthmus, is occupied by Phocis, Bœotia, and
by Megaris, it extends 1118 stadia.

The sea from Cape Antirrhium as far as the isthmus is [the Crissæan
Gulf, but from the city Creusa it is called the Sea of] Alcyonis, and is
a portion of the Crissæan Gulf.[31]

From the isthmus to the promontory Araxus is a distance of 1030 stadia.

Such in general then is the nature and extent of the Peloponnesus, and
of the country on the other side of the strait up to the farther recess
of the gulf. Such also is the nature of the gulf between both.

We shall next describe each country in particular, beginning with Elis.




CHAPTER III.


1. At present the whole sea-coast lying between the Achæi and Messenii
is called Eleia, it stretches into the inland parts towards Arcadia at
Pholoe, and the Azanes, and Parrhasii. Anciently it was divided into
several states; afterwards into two, Elis of the Epeii, and Elis under
Nestor, the son of Neleus. As Homer says, who mentions Elis of the Epeii
by name,

   “Sacred Elis, where the Epeii rule.”[32]

The other he calls Pylus subject to Nestor, through which, he says, the
Alpheius flows:

   “Alpheius, that flows in a straight line through the land
   of the Pylians.”[33]

The poet was also acquainted with a city Pylus;

   “They arrived at Pylus, the well-built city of Neleus.”[34]

The Alpheius however does not flow through nor beside the city, but
another river flows beside it, which some call Pamisus, others Amathus,
from which Pylus seems to be termed Emathöeis, but the Alpheius flows
through the Eleian territory.

2. Elis, the present city, was not yet founded in the time of Homer, but
the inhabitants of the country lived in villages. It was called Cœle [or
Hollow] Elis, from the accident of its locality, for the largest and
best part of it is situated in a hollow. It was at a late period, and
after the Persian war, that the people collected together out of many
demi, or [CAS. 337] burghs, into one city. And, with the exception of a
few, the other places in the Peloponnesus which the poet enumerates are
not to be called cities, but districts. Each contained several
assemblages of demi or burghs, out of which the famous cities were
afterwards formed, as Mantineia in Arcadia, which was furnished with
inhabitants from five burghs by Argives; Tegea from nine; Heræa from as
many during the reign of Cleombrotus, or Cleonymus; Ægium out of seven,
or eight; Patræ out of seven; Dyme out of eight; thus Elis also was
formed out of the surrounding burghs. The demus of the Agriades was one
of those added to it. The Peneius[35] flows through the city by the
Gymnasium, which the Eleii constructed long after the countries which
were subject to Nestor had passed into their possession.

3. These were the Pisatis, of which Olympia is a part, and Triphylia,
and the territory of the Caucones. The Triphylii had their name from the
accident of the union of three tribes; of the Epeii, the original
inhabitants; of the Minyæ, who afterwards settled there; and last of all
of the Eleii, who made themselves masters of the country. Instead of the
Minyæ some writers substitute Arcadians, who had frequently disputed the
possession of the territory, whence Pylus had the epithet Arcadian as
well as Triphylian. Homer calls all this tract as far as Messene by the
name of Pylus, the name of the city. The names of the chiefs, and of
their abodes in the Catalogue of the Ships, show that Cœle Elis, or the
Hollow Elis, was distinct from the country subject to Nestor.

I say this on comparing the present places with Homer’s description of
them, for we must compare one with the other in consideration of the
fame of the poet, and our being bred up in an acquaintance with his
writings; and every one will conclude that our present inquiry is
rightly conducted, if nothing is found repugnant to his accounts of
places, which have been received with the fullest reliance on their
credibility and his veracity.

We must describe these places as they exist at present, and as they are
represented by the poet, comparing them together as far as is required
by the design of this work.

4. The Araxus is a promontory of Eleia situated on the north, 60 stadia
from Dyme, an Achæan city. This promontory we consider the commencement
of the coast of Eleia. Proceeding thence towards the west is
Cyllene,[36] the naval arsenal of the Eleii, from whence is an ascent of
120 stadia to the present city. This Cyllene Homer mentions in these
words,

   “Cyllenian Otus, chief of the Epeii,”

for he would not have given the title of chief of Epeii to one who came
from the Arcadian mountain of this name. It is a village of moderate
size, in which is preserved the Æsculapius of Colotes, a statue of
ivory, of admirable workmanship.

Next to Cyllene is the promontory Chelonatas,[37] the most westerly
point of the Peloponnesus. In front of it there is a small island and
shoals on the confines of Hollow Elis, and the territory of the Pisatæ.
From hence [Cyllene] to Cephallenia is a voyage of not more than 80
stadia. Somewhere on the above-mentioned confines is the river Elisson,
or Elissa.

5. Between the Chelonatas and Cyllene the river Peneius empties itself,
and that also called by the poet Selleïs, which flows from the mountain
Pholoe. On this river is situated Ephyra, a city to be distinguished
from the Thesprotian, Thessalian, and Corinthian Ephyras; being a fourth
city of this name, situated on the road leading to the Lasion sea-coast,
and which may be either the same place as Bœonoa, (for it is the custom
to call Œnoe by this name,) or a city near this, distant from Elis 120
stadia. This Ephyra seems to be the reputed birth-place of Astyochea,
the mother of Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules,

   “Whom Hercules brought from Ephyra, from the river Selleis;”[38]

(for this was the principal scene of the adventures of Hercules; at the
other places called Ephyra, there is no river Selleis;) hence came the
armour of Meges,

   “Which Phyleus formerly brought from Ephyra, from the river
      Selleis;”[39]

from this Ephyra came also mortal poisons. For Minerva says, that
Ulysses went to Ephyra

   “In search of a mortal poison wherewith to anoint his arrows.”[40]

And the suitors say of Telemachus;

   “Or he will go to the rich country of Ephyra to bring back poison
      destructive of our lives.”[41]

[CAS. 338] And Nestor introduces the daughter of Augeas, king of the
Epeii, in his account of the war with that people, as one who
administered poisons:

   “I first slew a man,[42] Mulius, a brave soldier. He was son-in-law of
   Augeas; he had married his eldest daughter; she was acquainted with
   all the poisons which the earth brings forth.”

There is also near Sicyon a river, Selleis, and a village of the name of
Ephyra near it; and a village Ephyra in the territory of Agræa in
Ætolia, the people of which are called Ephyri. There are also other
Ephyri among the Perrhæbi near Macedonia, who are Crannonians,[43] and
the Thesprotic Ephyri of Cichyrus, which was formerly called Ephyra.

6. Apollodorus, when he informs us in what manner the poet usually
distinguishes places with the same names, as Orchomenus for instance,
designating that in Arcadia by the epithet, “abounding with sheep;” the
Bœotian Orchomenus, as “Minyeïus;” by applying to Samos the term
Thracian, and adds,

   “Between Samos and Imbros,”[44]

to distinguish it from Ionian Samos; so he says the Thesprotic Ephyra is
distinguished from others by the words, “at a distance,” and “from the
river Selleis.” This does not agree with what Demetrius of Scepsis says,
from whom he borrows most of his information. For Demetrius does not say
that there is a river Selleis in Thesprotia, but in Elis, near the
Thesprotic Ephyra, as I have said before.

What he says also about Œchalia requires examination, where he asserts
that the city of Eurytus of Œchalia is the only city, when there is more
than one city of that name. It is therefore evident that he means the
Thessalian city mentioned by Homer:

   “And they who occupied Œchalia, the city of Eurytus,
   the Œchalian.”[45]

What city, then, is that on the road from which “Thamyris the Thracian
was met by the Muses, and deprived of the power of song,” for he says,

   “Coming from Œchalia, from the dwelling of Eurytus,
   the Œchalian.”[46]

If this were the city in Thessaly, the Scepsian is mistaken in
mentioning some city in Arcadia, which is now called Andania. If he is
not mistaken, still the Arcadian Œchalia is said to be the city of
Eurytus, so that there is not one city only of that name, although
Apollodorus asserts that there is but one.

7. There existed between the mouths of the Peneius and the Selleis near
Scollis, a Pylus, not the city of Nestor, but another of that name,
having nothing in common with that on the Alpheius, nor even with that
on the Pamisus, or, if we must so call it, the Amathus. Some writers,
through their solicitude for the fame and noble descent of Nestor, give
a forced meaning to these words. Since there are three places in
Peloponnesus of the name of Pylus, (whence the saying originated,

   “There is a Pylus in front of Pylus, and still there is
   another Pylus,”)

namely, this and the Lepreatic Pylus in Triphylia, and a third, the
Messeniac near Coryphasium,[47] the advocates for each place endeavour
to show that the river in his own country is (Emathois) ἠμαθόεις,
or sandy, and declare that to be the country of Nestor.

The greater number of other writers, both historians and poets, say,
that Nestor was a Messenian, assigning as his birth-place the Pylus,
which continued to exist to their times. Those, however, who adhere to
Homer and follow his poem as their guide, say, that the Pylus of Nestor
is where the territory is traversed by the Alpheius. Now this river
passes through the Pisatis and Triphylia. The inhabitants of the Hollow
Elis were emulous of the same honour respecting the Pylus in their own
country, and point out distinctive marks, as a place called Gerenus, and
a river Geron, and another river Geranius, and endeavour to confirm this
opinion by pretending that Nestor had the epithet Gerenius from these
places.

The Messenians argue in the very same manner, but [CAS. 340] apparently
with more probability on their side. For they say, that in their
territory there is a place better known, called Gerena, and once well
inhabited.

Such then is the present state of the Hollow Elis.[48]

8. The poet however, after having divided the country into four parts,
and mentioned the four chiefs, does not clearly express himself, when he
says:

   “those who inhabit Buprasium and the sacred Elis, all whom
   Hyrminē and Myrsinus, situated at the extremity of the
   territory and the Olenian rock, and Aleisium contain, these
   were led by four chiefs; ten swift vessels accompanied each,
   and multitudes of Epeii were embarked in them.”[49]

For, by applying the name Epeii to both people, the Buprasians and the
Eleii, and by never applying the name Eleii to the Buprasians, he may
seem to divide, not Eleia, but the country of the Epeii, into four
parts, which he had before divided into two; nor would Buprasium then be
a part of Elis, but rather of the country of the Epeii. For that he
terms the Buprasians Epeii, is evident from these words:

   “As when the Epeii were burying King Amarynces at
   Buprasium.”[50]

Again, by enumerating together “Buprasium and sacred Elis,” and then by
making a fourfold division, he seems to arrange these very four
divisions in common under both Buprasium and Elis.

Buprasium, it is probable, was a considerable settlement in Eleia, which
does not exist at present. But the territory only has this name, which
lies on the road to Dyme from Elis the present city. It might be
supposed that Buprasium had at that time some superiority over Elis, as
the Epeii had over the Eleii, but afterwards they had the name of Eleii
instead of Epeii.

Buprasium then was a part of Elis, and they say, that Homer, by a
poetical figure, speaks of the whole and of the part together, as in
these lines:

   “through Greece and the middle of Argos;”[51] “through Greece
   and Phthia;”[52] “the Curetes and the Ætoli were fighting;”[53]
   “those from Dulichium and the sacred Echinades;”[54]

for Dulichium is one of the Echinades. Modern writers also use this
figure, as Hipponax,

   “they eat the bread of the Cyprians and the wheat of the
   Amathusii;”

for the Amathusii are Cyprians: and Alcman;

   “leaving the beloved Cyprus, and Paphos, washed on all sides
   by the sea:”

and Æschylus;

   “possessing as your share by lot the whole of Cyprus and Paphos.”

If Homer has not called the Buprasii by the name of Eleii, we shall
reply, nor has he mentioned many other places and things which exist.
For this is not a proof that they did not exist, but only that he has
not mentioned them.

9. But Hecatæus of Miletus says, that the Epeii are a different people
from the Eleii; that the Epeii accompanied Hercules in his expedition
against Augeas, and joined him in destroying Elis, and defeating Augeas.
He also says, that Dyme was both an Epeian and an Achæan city.

The ancient historians, accustomed from childhood to falsehood through
the tales of mythologists, speak of many things that never existed.
Hence they do not even agree with one another, in their accounts of the
same things. Not that it is improbable that the Epeii, although a
different people and at variance with the Eleii, when they had gained
the ascendency, united together, forming a common state, and their power
extended even as far as Dyme. The poet does not mention Dyme, but it is
not improbable that at that time it was subject to the Epeii, and
afterwards to the Iones, or perhaps not even to this people, but to the
Achæi, who were in possession of the country of the Iones.

Of the four portions, which include Buprasium, Hyrminē and Myrsinus
belong to the territory of Eleia. The rest, according to the opinion of
some writers, are situated close on the borders of the Pisatis.

10. Hyrminē was a small town, which exists no longer, but there is a
mountainous promontory near Cyllene, called Hormina or Hyrmina.

Myrsinus is the present Myrtuntium, a settlement extending to the sea,
and situated on the road from Dyme to Elis, at the distance of 70 stadia
from the city of the Eleii.

It is conjectured that the Olenian rock is the present Scollis. For we
might mention probable conjectures, since both places and names have
undergone changes, and the poet himself does not explain his meaning
clearly in many passages.

Scollis [CAS. 341] is a rocky mountain, common to the Dymæi, and
Tritæenses, and Eleii, situated close to Lampeia, another mountain in
Arcadia, which is distant from Elis 130 stadia, from Tritæa 100, and an
equal number [from Dyme] Achæan cities.

Aleisium is the present Alesiæum, a place near Amphidolis, where the
neighbouring people hold a market every month. It is situated upon the
mountain road leading from Elis to Olympia. Formerly, it was a city of
the Pisatis, the boundaries of the country being different at different
times on account of the change of masters. The poet also calls Aleisium,
the hill of Aleisius, when he says,

   “Till we brought our horses to Buprasium rich in grain, and to
   the Olenian rock, and to the place which is called the hill of
   Aleisium,”[55]

for we must understand the words by the figure hyperbaton. Some also
point out a river Aleisius.

11. Since a tribe of Caucones is mentioned in Triphylia near Messenia,
and as Dyme is called by some writers Cauconis, and since between Dyme
and Tritæa in the Dymæan district there is also a river called Caucon, a
question arises respecting the Caucones, whether there are two nations
of this name, one situate about Triphylia, and another about Dyme, Elis,
and Caucon. This river empties itself into another which is called
Teutheas, in the masculine gender, and is the name of a small town that
was one of those that composed Dyme; except that the town is of the
feminine gender, and is pronounced Teuthea, without the s, and the last
syllable is long.

There is a temple of Diana Nemydia (Nemeæa?). The Teutheas discharges
itself into the Achelous, which runs by Dyme, and has the same name as
that in Acarnania, and the name also of Peirus. In the lines of Hesiod,

   “he lived near the Olenian rock on the banks of the broad
   Peirus,”

some change the last word Πείροιο to Πώροιο, but improperly.[56] [But
it is the opinion of some writers, who make the Caucones a subject of
inquiry, that when Minerva in the Odyssey, who has assumed the form of
Mentor, says to Nestor;

   “At sunrise I go to the magnanimous Caucones, where a debt
   neither of a late date nor of small amount is owing to me.[57]
   When Telemachus comes to thy house send him with thy son, thy
   chariot, and thy horses;”

a certain district in the territory of the Epeii appears to be
designated, which the Caucones, a different nation from that in
Triphylia, possessed, and who perhaps extended even as far as the Dymean
territory.] But it was not proper to omit, whence Dyme had the name
Cauconitis, nor why the river was called Caucon, because the question
is, who the Caucones[58] were, to whom Minerva says, she is going to
recover a debt. For if we understand the poet to mean those in Triphylia
about Lepreum, I know not how this is probable; whence some persons even
write the passage,

   “where a large debt is owing to me in the sacred Elis.”

This will appear more clearly, when we describe the Pisatis, and after
it Triphylia as far as the confines of Messenia.

12. Next to the Chelonatas is the long tract of coast of the Pisatæ;
then follows a promontory, Pheia; there was also a small town of this
name;

   “by the walls of Pheia about the stream of the Jardanes,”[59]

for there is a small river near it.

Some writers say, that Pheia is the commencement of the Pisatis. In
front of Pheia is a small island and a harbour; thence to Olympia by
sea, which is the shortest way, is 120 stadia. Then immediately follows
another promontory, [Icthys,] projecting very far towards the west, like
the Chelonatas; from this promontory to Cephallenia are 120 stadia. Next
the Alpheius discharges itself, at the distance from the Chelonatas of
280, and from the Araxus of 545, stadia. It flows from the same places
as the Eurotas. There is a village of the name of Asea in the
Megalopolitis, where the two sources, whence the above-mentioned rivers
issue, are near to one another. After running under the earth the
distance of many stadia, they then rise to the surface, when one takes
its course to Laconia, the other to the Pisatis. The Eurotas reappears
at the commencement of the district Bleminates, flowing close beside
Sparta, and passing through a long valley near Helos, which the poet
mentions, empties itself between Gythium, the naval arsenal of Sparta,
and Acræa. But the Alpheius, after receiving the Celadon, (Ladon?) and
Erymanthus, and other obscure streams, pursues its course through
Phrixa, and the Pisatis, and Triphylia, close to Olympia, [CAS. 343]
and discharges itself into the Sicilian Sea between Pheia and Epitalium.
At its mouth, and at the distance of 80 stadia from Olympia, is situated
the grove of Artemis Alpheionia, or Alpheiusa, for both words are in
use. At Olympia an annual festival, to which multitudes resort, is
celebrated in honour of this goddess, as well as of Diana Elaphia and
Diana Daphnia. The whole country is full of temples dedicated to Diana,
and Aphrodite, and the Nymphs, which are situated amidst flowery groves,
and generally where there is abundance of water. Hermeia, or images of
Mercury, are frequently met with on the road, and on the sea-shore,
temples dedicated to Neptune. In the temple of Diana Alpheionia are
pictures by Cleanthes and Aregon, Corinthian painters; the former has
depicted the taking of Troy, and the birth of Minerva; the latter, Diana
borne upon a griffin; which are highly esteemed.

13. Next is the mountain, which separates Macistia in Triphylia from the
Pisatis; then follows another river Chalcis, and a spring called Cruni,
and Chalcis a village, and next to these the Samicum, where is the
temple of the Samian Neptune, which is held in the highest honour. There
is also a grove full of wild olive trees. It was intrusted to the care
of the Macistii, whose business it was to announce the Samian truce as
it is called. All the Triphylii contribute to the temple.

[The temple of the Scilluntian Minerva at Scillus in the neighbourhood
of Olympia, opposite the Phellon, is among the celebrated temples.][60]

14. Near these temples, at the distance of 30 stadia, or a little more,
above the sea-coast, is situated the Triphyliac, or Lepreatic, Pylus,
which the poet calls Emathoeis, or Sandy, and transmits to us as the
native country of Nestor, as may be collected from his poetry. It had
the epithet Emathoeis either from the river, which flows by the city
towards the north, and was formerly called Amathus, but now Mamaus, or
Arcadicus; or because this river was called Pamisus, the same name as
that of two rivers in Messenia, while with respect to the city, the
epithet Emathoeis, or sandy, is of uncertain origin, since it is not the
fact, it is said, that either the river or the country abounds with
sand.

Towards the east is a mountain near Pylus, named after Minthe, who,
according to the fable, was the mistress of Hades, and being deluded by
Proserpine, was transformed into the garden mint, which some call
hedyosmus, or the sweet-smelling mint. There is also near the mountain
an enclosure, sacred to Hades, held in great veneration by the Macistii;
and a grove dedicated to Ceres, situated above the Pyliac plain. This
plain is fertile, and situated close to the sea-coast; it extends along
the interval between the Samicum and the river Neda. The sea-shore is
sandy and narrow, so that no one could be censured for asserting that
Pylus was called “sandy” from this tract.

15. Towards the north there were two small Triphyliac towns, Hypana and
Typaneæ, bordering upon Pylus; the former of which was incorporated with
Elis, the other remained separate. Two rivers flow near, the Dalion and
the Acheron, and empty themselves into the Alpheius. The Acheron has its
name from its relation to Hades. For at that place were held in
extraordinary reverence the temples of Ceres, Proserpine, and Hades,
perhaps on account of the contrariety of the properties of the country,
which Demetrius of Scepsis mentions. For Triphylia is fertile, but the
soil is subject to mildew, and produces rushes,[61] whence in these
places, instead of the product being large, there is frequently no crop
whatever.

16. Towards the south of Pylus is Lepreum. This also was a city,
situated 40 stadia above the sea-coast. Between the Lepreum and the
Annius (Anigrus? Alphæus?) is the temple of the Samian Neptune. These
places are distant 100 stadia from each other. This is the temple in
which the poet says that the Pylii were found by Telemachus engaged in
offering sacrifice:

   “They came to Pylus, the well-built city of Neleus; the people
   were sacrificing on the sea-shore bulls, entirely black, to
   Neptune, the god of the dark locks, who shakes the earth.”[62]

For the poet was at liberty to feign things which did not exist, but
when it is possible to adapt poetry to reality, and [CAS. 345] preserve
the narrative ... it is better to abstain from fiction.

The Lepreatæ possessed a fertile country, on the confines of which were
situated the Cyparissenses. But Caucones were masters of both these
tracts, and even of the Macistus, which some call Platanistus. The town
has the same name as the territory. It is said, that in the Lepreatis
there is even a monument of a Caucon, who had the name of the nation,
either because he was a chief, or for some other reason.

17. There are many accounts respecting the Caucones. They are said to be
an Arcadian tribe, like the Pelasgi, and also, like them, a wandering
people. Thus the poet relates, that they came as auxiliaries to the
Trojans, but from what country he does not mention, but it is supposed
from Paphlagonia. For in that country there is a tribe of the name of
Cauconiatæ, that border upon the Mariandyni, who are themselves
Paphlagonians. We shall say more of them when we describe that
country.[63]

At present I must add some remarks concerning the Caucones in Triphylia.
For some writers say, that the whole of the present Elis, from Messenia
to Dyme, was called Cauconia. Antimachus calls them all Epeii and
Caucones. But some writers say that they did not possess the whole
country, but inhabited it when they were divided into two bodies, one of
which settled in Triphylia towards Messenia, the other in the Buprasian
district towards Dyme, and in the Hollow Elis. And there, and not in any
other place, Aristotle considered them to be situated. The last opinion
agrees better with the language of Homer, and the preceding question is
resolved. For Nestor is supposed to have lived at the Triphyliac Pylus,
the parts of which towards the south and the east (and these coincide
towards Messenia and Laconia) was the country subject to Nestor, but the
Caucones now occupy it, so that those who are going from Pylus to
Lacedæmon must necessarily take the road through the Caucones. The
temple of the Samian Neptune, and the naval station near it, where
Telemachus landed, incline to the west and to the north. If then the
Caucones lived there only, the account of the poet must be erroneous.

[For, according to Sotades, Minerva enjoins Nestor to send his son with
Telemachus in a chariot to Lacedæmon towards the east, while she herself
returns back to the west, to pass the night in the vessel;

   “but at sunrise she sets out to the magnanimous Caucones,”

to obtain payment of the debt, in a forward direction. How then are we
to reconcile these opinions? for Nestor might say, “The Caucones are my
subjects, and lie directly in the road of persons who are going to
Lacedæmon; why then do you not accompany Telemachus and his friends on
his journey, but take a road in an opposite direction?” Besides, it was
natural for one, who was going to recover payment of a debt, and that a
considerable sum, as she says, from a people under the command of
Nestor, to request some assistance from him in case they should be so
unjust, as usually happens, as to refuse to discharge it. But she did
not do this.

If therefore the Caucones are to be found in one situation only, these
absurdities would follow. But if one division of this tribe occupied the
places in Elis near Dymē, Minerva might be said to direct her journey
thither, and even the return to the ship would not be absurd, nor the
separation from the company of Telemachus, when her road was in an
opposite direction.

The question respecting Pylus may perhaps be resolved in a similar
manner, when we come, as we proceed, to the description of the Messenian
Pylus.[64]]

18. There is also, it is said, a nation, the Paroreatæ, who occupy, in
the hilly district of Triphylia, the mountains, which extend from about
Lepreum and Macistum to the sea near the Samian grove sacred to Neptune.

19. Below these people on the coast are two caves; one, of the nymphs
Anigriades; the other, the scene of the adventures of the
Atlantides,[65] and of the birth of Dardanus. There also are the groves,
both the Ionæum and Eurycydeium.

Samicum is a fortress. Formerly there was a city of the name of Samos,
which perhaps had its designation from its [CAS. 336] height, since
they called heights Sami; perhaps also this was the acropolis of Arēnē,
which the poet mentions in the Catalogue of the Ships;

   “who inhabited Pylus, and the pleasant Arene;”[66]

for as the position of Arēnē has not been clearly discovered anywhere,
it is conjectured, that it was most probably situated where the
adjoining river Anigrus, formerly called Minyeius, empties itself. As no
inconsiderable proof of this, Homer says,

   “There is a river Minyeius, which empties itself into the sea, near
      Arene.”[67]

Now near the cave of the nymphs Anigriades is a fountain, by which the
subjacent country is rendered marshy, and filled with pools of water.
The Anigrus however receives the greater part of the water, being deep,
but with so little current that it stagnates. The place is full of mud,
emits an offensive smell perceptible at a distance of 26 stadia, and
renders the fish unfit for food. Some writers give this fabulous account
of these waters, and attribute the latter effect to the venom of the
Hydra, which some of the Centaurs[68] washed from their wounds; others
say, that Melampus used these cleansing waters for the purification of
the Prœtades.[69] They are a cure for alphi, or leprous eruptions, and
the white tetter, and the leichen. They say also that the Alpheus had
its name from its property of curing the disease alphi.[70]

Since then the sluggishness of the Anigrus, and the recoil of the waters
of the sea, produce a state of rest rather than a current, they say,
that its former name was Minyeïus, but that some persons perverted the
name and altered it to Minteïus. The etymology of the name may be
derived from other sources; either from those who accompanied Chloris,
the mother of Nestor, from the Minyeian Orchomenus; or, from the Minyæ
descendants of the Argonauts, who were banished from Lemnos, and went to
Lacedæmon, and thence to Triphylia, and settled about Arēnē, in the
country now called Hypæsia, which however no longer contains places
built by the Minyæ.

Some of these people, with Theras the son of Autesion, who was a
descendant of Polynices, having set sail to the country between Cyrenæa
and the island of Crete, “formerly Calliste, but afterwards called
Thera,” according to Callimachus, founded Thera, the capital of Cyrene,
and gave the same name to the city, and to the island.

20. Between the Anigrus and the mountain from which the Jardanes rises,
a meadow and a sepulchre are shown, and the Achææ, which are rocks
broken off from the same mountain, above which was situated, as I have
said, the city Samos. Samos is not mentioned by any of the authors of
Peripli, or Circumnavigations; because perhaps it had been long since
destroyed, and perhaps also on account of its position. For the
Poseidium is a grove, as I have said, near the sea, a lofty eminence
rises above it, situated in front of the present Samicum, where Samos
once stood, so that it cannot be seen from the sea.

Here also is the plain called Samicus, from which we may further
conjecture that there was once a city Samos.

According to the poem Rhadinē, of which Stesichorus seems to have been
the author, and which begins in this manner,

   “Come, tuneful Muse, Erato, begin the melodious song, in
   praise of the lovely Samian youths, sounding the strings of
   the delightful lyre:”

these youths were natives of this Samos. For he says that Rhadinē being
given in marriage to the tyrant, set sail from Samos to Corinth with a
westerly wind, and therefore certainly not from the Ionian Samos. By the
same wind her brother, who was archi-theorus, arrived at Delphi. Her
cousin, who was in love with her, set out after her in a chariot to
Corinth. The tyrant put both of them to death, and sent away the bodies
in a chariot, but changing his mind, he recalled the chariot, and buried
them.

21. From this Pylus and the Lepreum to the Messenian Pylus[71] and the
Coryphasium, fortresses situated upon the sea, [CAS. 348] and to the
adjoining island Sphagia, is a distance of about 400 stadia, and from
the Alpheius a distance of 750, and from the promontory Chelonatas 1030
stadia. In the intervening distance are the temple of the Macistian
Hercules, and the river Acidon, which flows beside the tomb of Jardanus,
and Chaa, a city which was once near Lepreum, where also is the Æpasian
plain. It was for this Chaa, it is said, that the Arcadians and Pylians
went to war with each other, which war Homer has mentioned, and it is
thought that the verse ought to be written,

   “Oh that I were young as when multitudes of Pylii, and of
   Arcades, handling the spear, fought together at the
   swift-flowing Acidon near the walls of Chaa,”[72]

not Celadon, nor Pheia, for this place is nearer the tomb of Jardanus
and the Arcades than the other.

22. On the Triphylian Sea are situated Cyparissia, and Pyrgi, and the
rivers Acidon and Neda. At present the boundary of Triphylia towards
Messenia is the impetuous stream of the Neda descending from the Lycæus,
a mountain of Arcadia, and rising from a source which, according to the
fable, burst forth to furnish water in which Rhea was to wash herself
after the birth of Jupiter. It flows near Phigalia, and empties itself
into the sea where the Pyrgitæ, the extreme tribe of the Triphylii,
approach the Cyparissenses, the first of the Messenian nation. But,
anciently, the country had other boundaries, so that the dominions of
Nestor included some places on the other side of the Neda, as the
Cyparisseïs, and some others beyond that tract, in the same manner as
the poet extends the Pylian sea as far as the seven cities, which
Agamemnon promised to Achilles,

   “All near the sea bordering upon the sandy Pylus,”[73]

which is equivalent to, near the Pylian sea.

23. Next in order to the Cyparisseïs in traversing the coast towards the
Messenian Pylus and the Coryphasium, we meet with Erana, (Eranna,) which
some writers incorrectly suppose was formerly called Arene, by the same
name as the Pylian city, and the promontory Platamodes, from which to
the Coryphasium, and to the place at present called Pylus, are 100
stadia.[74] There is also a cenotaph and a small town in it both of the
same name--Protē.

We ought not perhaps to carry our inquiries so far into antiquity, and
it might be sufficient to describe the present state of each place, if
certain reports about them had not been delivered down to us in
childhood; but as different writers give different accounts, it is
necessary to examine them. The most famous and the most ancient writers
being the first in point of personal knowledge of the places, are, in
general, persons of the most credit. Now as Homer surpasses all others
in these respects, we must examine what he says, and compare his
descriptions with the present state of places, as we have just said. We
have already considered his description of the Hollow Elis and of
Buprasium.

24. He describes the dominions of Nestor in these words:

   “And they who inhabited Pylus, and the beautiful Arene, and
   Thryum, a passage across the Alpheius, and the well-built Æpy,
   and Cyparisseis, and Amphigeneia, and Pteleum, and Helos, and
   Dorium, where the Muses having met with Thamyris the Thracian,
   deprived him of the power of song, as he was coming from
   Œchalia, from the house of Eurytus the Œchalian.”[75]

It is Pylus, therefore, to which the question relates, and we shall soon
treat of it. We have already spoken of Arene. The places, which he here
calls Thryum, in another passage he calls Thryoessa,

   “There is a city Thryoessa, lofty, situated on a hill,
   Far off, on the banks of the Alpheius.”[76]

He calls it the ford or passage of the Alpheius, because, according to
these verses, it seems as if it could be crossed at this place on foot.
Thryum is at present called Epitalium, a village of Macistia.

With respect to εὔκτιτον Αἶπυ, “Æpy the
well-built,” some writers ask which of these words is the epithet of the
other, and what is the city, and whether it is the present Margalæ of
Amphidolia, but this Margalæ is not a natural fortress, but another is
meant, a natural stronghold in Macistia. Writers who suppose this place
to be meant, say, that Æpy is the name of the city, and infer it from
its natural properties, as in the example of Helos,[77] Ægialos,[78] and
many others: [CAS. 349] those who suppose Margalæ to be meant here,
will assert the contrary.

Thryum, or Thryoessa, they say, is Epitalium, because all the country
is θρυώδης, or sedgy, and particularly the banks of the rivers, but
this appears more clearly at the fordable places of the stream. Perhaps
Thryum is meant by the ford, and by “the well-built Æpy,” Epitalium,
which is naturally strong, and in the other part of the passage he
mentions a lofty hill;

   “The city Thryoessa, a lofty hill,
   Far away by the Alpheus.”[79]

25. Cyparisseïs is near the old Macistia, which then extended even to
the other side of the Neda, but it is not inhabited, as neither is
Macistum. There is also another, the Messenian Cyparissia, not having
quite the same name, but one like it. The city of Macistia is at present
called Cyparissia, in the singular number, and feminine gender, but the
name of the river is Cyparisseis.

Amphigeneia, also belonging to Macistia, is near Hypsoeis, where is the
temple of Latona.

Pteleum was founded by the colony that came from Pteleum in Thessaly,
for it is mentioned in this line,

   “Antron on the sea-coast, and the grassy Pteleum.”[80]

It is a woody place, uninhabited, called Pteleasimum.

Some writers say, that Helos was some spot near the Alpheius; others,
that it was a city like that in Laconia,

   “and Helos, a small city on the sea;”[81]

others say that it is the marsh near Alorium, where is a temple of the
Eleian Artemis, (Diana of the Marsh,) belonging to the Arcadians, for
this people had the priesthood.

Dorium is said by some authors to be a mountain, by others a plain, but
nothing is now to be seen; yet it is alleged, that the present Oluris,
or Olura, situated in the Aulon, as it is called, of Messenia, is
Dorium. Somewhere there also is Œchalia of Eurytus, the present Andania,
a small Arcadian town of the same name as those in Thessaly and Eubœa,
whence the poet says, Thamyris, the Thracian, came to Dorium, and was
deprived by the Muses of the power of song.

26. Hence it is evident that the country under the command of Nestor is
on each side of the Alpheius, all of which tract he calls the country
of the Pylians, but nowhere does the Alpheius touch Messenia, nor the
Hollow Elis.[82]

It is in this district that we have the native country of Nestor, which
we call the Triphylian, the Arcadian, and the Lepreatic Pylus. For we
know that other places of the name of Pylus are pointed out, situated
upon the sea, but this is distant more than 30 stadia from it, as
appears from the poem. A messenger is sent to the vessel, to the
companions of Telemachus,--to invite them to a hospitable entertainment.
Telemachus, upon his return from Sparta, does not permit Peisistratus to
go to the city, but diverts him from it, and prevails upon him to hasten
to the ship, whence it appears that the same road did not lead both to
the city and to the haven. The departure of Telemachus may in this
manner be aptly understood:

   “they went past Cruni, and the beautiful streams of Chalcis;
   the sun set, and all the villages were in shade and darkness;
   but the ship, exulting in the gales of Jove, arrived at Pheæ.
   She passed also the divine Elis, where the Epeii rule;”[83]

for to this place the direction of the vessel was towards the north, and
thence it turns to the east. The vessel leaves its first and straight
course in the direction of Ithaca, because the suitors had placed an
ambush there,

   “In the strait between Ithaca and Samos,
   And from thence he directed the vessel to the sharp-pointed islands,
     νήσοισι θοῇσι;”[84]

the sharp-pointed (ὀξείαι) he calls θοαὶ.
They belong to the Echinades, and are near the commencement of the
Corinthian Gulf and the mouths of the Achelous. After having sailed past
Ithaca so as to leave the island behind him, he turns to the proper
course between Acarnania and Ithaca, and disembarks on the other side of
the island, not at the strait of Cephallenia, where the suitors were on
the watch.

27. If any one therefore should suppose that the Eleian Pylus is the
Pylus of Nestor, the ship would not properly be said, after setting off
thence, to take its course along Cruni and Chalcis, as far as the west,
then to arrive by night at Pheæ, and afterwards to sail along the
territory of Eleia, for [CAS. 351] these places are to the south of
Eleia, first Pheæ, then Chalcis, then Cruni, then the Triphylian Pylus,
and the Samicum. In sailing then to the south from the Eleian Pylus this
would be the course. In sailing to the north, where Ithaca lies, all
these places are left behind, but they must sail along Eleia itself, and
before, although he says after, sunset. Again, on the other side, if
any one should suppose the Messenian Pylus and the Coryphasium to be the
commencement of the voyage after leaving the country of Nestor, the
distance would be great, and would occupy more time. For the distance
only to the Triphylian Pylus and the Samian Poseidium is 400 stadia, and
the voyage would not be along Cruni, and Chalcis, and Pheæ, the names of
obscure places and rivers, or rather of streams, but first along the
Neda, then Acidon, next Alpheius, and the places and countries lying
between these rivers, and lastly, if we must mention them, along the
former, because the voyage was along the former places and rivers also.

28. Besides, Nestor’s account of the war between the Pylians and
Eleians, which he relates to Patroclus, agrees with our arguments, if
any one examines the lines. For he says there, that Hercules laid waste
Pylus, and that all the youth were exterminated; that out of twelve sons
of Neleus, he himself alone survived, and was a very young man, and that
the Epeii, despising Neleus on account of his old age and destitute
state, treated the Pylians with haughtiness and insult. Nestor
therefore, in order to avenge this wrong, collected as large a body of
his people as he was able, made an inroad into Eleia, and carried away a
large quantity of booty;

   “Fifty herds of oxen, as many flocks of sheep,
   As many herds of swine,”[85]

and as many flocks of goats, an hundred and fifty brood mares,
bay-, most of which had foals, and “these,” he says,

   “We drove away to Pylus, belonging to Neleus,
   By night towards the city;”[86]

so that the capture of the booty, and the flight of those who came to
the assistance of people who were robbed, happened in the day-time,
when, he says, he slew Itamon; and they returned by night, so that they
arrived by night at the city. When they were engaged in dividing the
booty, and in sacrificing, the Epeii, having assembled in multitudes, on
the third day marched against them with an army of horse and foot, and
encamped about Thryum, which is situated on the Alpheius. The Pylians
were no sooner informed of this than they immediately set out to the
relief of this place, and having passed the night on the river Minyeius
near Arene, thence arrive at the Alpheius at noon. After sacrificing to
the gods, and passing the night on the banks of the river, they
immediately, in the morning, engaged in battle. The rout of the enemy
was complete, and they did not desist from the pursuit and slaughter,
till they came to Buprasium,

   “and the Olenian rock, where is a tumulus of Alesius, whence
   again Minerva repulsed the multitudes;”[87]

and adds below,

                                         “but the Achæi
   Turned back their swift horses from Buprasium to Pylus.”

29. From these verses how can it be supposed that Eleian or Messenian
Pylus is meant. I say the Eleian, because when this was destroyed by
Hercules, the country of the Epeii also was ravaged at the same time,
that is, Eleia. How then could those, who were of the same tribe, and
who had been plundered at that time, show such pride and insult to
persons, who were suffering under the same injuries? How could they
overrun and ravage their own country? How could Augeas and Neleus be
kings of the same people, and yet be mutual enemies; for to Neleus

   “a great debt was owing at the divine Elis; four horses, which
   had won the prize; they came with their chariots to contend
   for prizes; they were about to run in the race for a tripod;
   and Augeas, king of men, detained them there, but dismissed
   the charioteer.”[88]

If Neleus lived there, there Nestor also lived. How then were there

   “four chiefs of Eleians and Buprasians, with ten swift ships
   accompanying each, and with many Epeii embarked in them?”

The country also was divided into four parts, none of which was subject
to Nestor, but those tribes were under his command,

   “who lived at Pylus, and the pleasant Arēnē,”

and at the places that follow next as far as Messene. [CAS. 352] How
came the Epeii, when marching against the Pylians, to set out towards
the Alpheius and Thryum, and after being defeated there in battle, to
fly to Buprasium? But on the other side, if Hercules laid waste the
Messenian Pylus, how could they, who were at such a distance, treat the
Pylians with insult, or have so much intercourse and traffic with them,
and defraud them by refusing to discharge a debt, so that war should
ensue on that account? How too could Nestor, after having got, in his
marauding adventure, so large a quantity of booty, a prey of swine and
sheep, none of which are swift-footed, nor able to go a long journey,
accomplish a march of more than 1000 stadia to Pylus near Coryphasium?
Yet all the Epeii arrive at Thryoessa and the river Alpheius on the
third day, ready to lay siege to the stronghold. How also did these
districts belong to the chiefs of Messenia, when the Caucones, and
Triphylii, and Pisatæ occupied them? But the territory Gerena, or
Gerenia, for it is written both ways, might have a name which some
persons applied designedly, or which might have originated even in
accident.

Since, however, Messenia was entirely under the dominion of Menelaus, to
whom Laconia also was subject, as will be evident from what will be said
hereafter, and since the rivers, the Pamisus and the Nedon, flow through
this country, and not the Alpheius at all, which runs in a straight line
through the country of the Pylians, of which Nestor was ruler, can that
account be credible, by which it appears that one man takes possession
by force of the dominion of another, and deprives him of the cities,
which are said to be his property in the Catalogue of the Ships, and
makes others subject to the usurper.

30. It remains that we speak of Olympia, and of the manner in which
everything fell into the power of the Eleii.

The temple is in the district Pisatis, at the distance of less than 300
stadia from Elis. In front of it is a grove of wild olive trees, where
is the stadium. The Alpheius flows beside it, taking its course out of
Arcadia to the Triphylian Sea between the west and the south. The fame
of the temple was originally owing to the oracle of the Olympian Jove;
yet after that had ceased, the renown of the temple continued, and
increased, as we know, to a high degree of celebrity, both on account of
the assembly of the people of Greece, which was held there, and of the
Olympic games, in which the victor was crowned. These games were
esteemed sacred, and ranked above all others. The temple was decorated
with abundance of offerings, the contributions of all Greece. Among
these offerings was a Jupiter of beaten gold, presented by Cypselus, the
tyrant of Corinth. The largest was a statue of Jupiter in ivory, the
workmanship of Phidias of Athens, the son of Charmides. Its height was
so great, that although the temple is very large, the artist seems to
have mistaken its proportions, and although he made the figure sitting,
yet the head nearly touches the roof, and presents the appearance that,
if it should rise, and stand upright, it would unroof the temple. Some
writers have given the measurement of the statue, and Callimachus has
expressed it in some iambic verses. Panænus, the painter, his nephew,
and joint labourer, afforded great assistance in the completion of the
statue with respect to the colours with which it was ornamented, and
particularly the drapery.

There are exhibited also many and admirable pictures around the temple,
the work of this painter. It is recorded of Phidias, that to Panænus,
who was inquiring after what model he intended to form the figure of
Jupiter, he replied, that it would be from that of Homer delineated in
these words;

   “He spoke, and gave the nod with his sable brows, the
   ambrosial hair shook on the immortal head of the king of gods,
   and vast Olympus trembled.”[89]

[This is well expressed, and the poet, as from other circumstances, so
particularly from the brows, suggests the thought that he is depicting
some grand conception, and great power worthy of Jupiter. So also in his
description of Juno, in both he preserves the peculiar decorum of each
character, for he says,

   “she moved herself upon the throne, and shook vast Olympus:”[90]

this was effected by the motion of her whole body, but Olympus shakes
when Jupiter only nods with his brows, the hair of his head partaking of
the motion. It was elegantly said [of Homer] that he was the only person
who had seen and had made visible the figures of the gods.][91]

To [CAS. 354] the Eleii above all other people is to be ascribed the
magnificence of the temple at Olympia, and the reverence in which it was
held. For about the Trojan times, and even before that period, they were
not in a flourishing state, having been reduced to a low condition by
war with the Pylii, and afterwards by Hercules, when Augeas their king
was overthrown. The proof is this. The Eleii sent forty ships to Troy,
but the Pylians and Nestor ninety; then after the return of the
Heracleidæ the contrary happened. For the Ætoli returning with the
Heracleidæ under the command of Oxylus, became joint settlers with the
Epeii, on the ground of ancient affinity. They extended the bounds of
Hollow Elis, got possession of a large portion of the Pisatis, and
subjected Olympia to their power. It was these people who invented the
Olympic games,[92] and instituted the first Olympiad. For we must reject
the ancient stories both respecting the foundation of the temple, and
the establishment of the games, some alleging that Hercules, one of the
Idæan Dactyli, was the founder; others, that the son of Alcmene and
Jupiter founded them, who also was the first combatant and victor. For
such things are variously reported, and not entitled to much credit. It
is more probable, that from the first Olympiad,[93] when Corœbus the
Eleian was the victor in the race in the stadium, to the twenty-sixth,
the Eleians presided over the temple, and at the games. But in the
Trojan times, either there were no games where a crown was awarded, or
they had not yet acquired any fame, neither these nor any of the games
which are now so renowned. Homer does not speak of these games, but of
others of a different kind, which were celebrated at funerals. Some
persons however are of opinion that he does mention the Olympic games,
when he says, that Augeas detained four victorious horses, which had
been sent to contend for the prize. It is also said that the Pisatæ did
not take any part in the Trojan war, being considered as consecrated to
the service of Jupiter. But neither was the Pisatis, the tract of
country in which Olympia is situated, subject at that time to Augeas,
but Eleia only, nor were the Olympic games celebrated even once in the
Eleian district, but always at Olympia. But the games, of which Homer
speaks, seem to have taken place in Elis, where the debt was owing,

   “For a great debt was owing in the divine Elis,
   Namely, four victorious horses.”[94]

But it was not in these, but in the Olympic games, that the victor was
crowned, for here they were to contend for a tripod.

After the twenty-sixth Olympiad, the Pisatæ, having recovered their
territory, instituted games themselves, when they perceived that these
games were obtaining celebrity. But in after-times, when the territory
of the Pisatis reverted to the Eleii, the presidency and celebration of
the games reverted to them also. The Lacedæmonians too, after the last
defeat of the Messenians, co-operated with the Eleii as allies, contrary
to the conduct of the descendants of Nestor and of the Arcadians, who
were allies of the Messenians. And they assisted them so effectually
that all the country as far as Messene was called Eleia, and the name
continues even to the present time. But of the Pisatæ, and Triphylii,
and Caucones, not even the names remain. They united also Pylus
Emathoeis itself with Lepreum in order to gratify the Lepreatæ, who had
taken no part in the war. They razed many other towns, and imposed a
tribute upon as many as were inclined to maintain their independence.

31. The Pisatis obtained the highest celebrity from the great power of
its sovereigns, Œnomaus and his successor Pelops, and the number of
their children. Salmoneus is said to have reigned there, and one of the
eight cities, into which the Pisatis is divided, has the name of
Salmone. For these reasons, and on account of the temple at Olympia, the
fame of the country spread everywhere.

We must however receive ancient histories, as not entirely agreeing with
one another, for modern writers, entertaining different opinions, are
accustomed to contradict them frequently; as for example, according to
some writers, Augeas was king of the Pisatis, and Œnomaus and Salmoneus
kings of Eleia, while others consider the two nations as one. Still we
ought to follow in general what is received as true, since writers are
not agreed even upon the derivation of the word Pisatis. Some derive it
from Pisa, (Πῖσα,) a city of the same [CAS. 356] name as
the fountain, and say that the fountain had that name, as much as to say
Pistra, (Πίστρα,) which means Potistra, (ποτίστρα,) or “potable.” The
city of Pisa is shown, situated on an eminence between two mountains,
which have the same names as those in Thessaly, Ossa and Olympus. Some
say, that there was no such city as Pisa, for it would have been one of
the eight, but a fountain only, which is now called Bisa, near Cicysium,
the largest of the eight cities. But Stesichorus calls the tract of
country named Pisa, a city, as the poet calls <DW26>s, a city of Macar;
and Euripides in the play of Ion says

   “Eubœa is a neighbour city to Athens,”

and so in the play of Rhadamanthus,

   “they who occupy the land of Eubœa, an adjoining state;”

thus Sophocles also in the play of the Mysi,

   “O stranger, all this country is called Asia,
   But the state of the Mysi is called Mysia.”

32. Salmonē is near the fountain of the same name, the source of the
Enipeus. It discharges itself into the Alpheius, [and at present it is
called Barnichius.[95]] Tyro, it is said, was enamoured of this river;

   “who was enamoured of the river, the divine Enipeus.”[96]

for there her father Salmoneus was king, as Euripides says in the play
of Æolus. [The river in Thessaly some call Eniseus, which, flowing from
the Othrys, receives the Apidanus, that descends from the mountain
Pharsalus.[97]] Near Salmonē is Heracleia, which is one of the eight
cities, distant about 40 stadia from Olympia on the river Cytherius,
where there is a temple of the nymphs, the Ioniades, who are believed to
heal diseases by means of the waters of the river.

Near Olympia is Arpīna, which also is one of the eight cities. The river
Parthenius runs through it in the direction of the road to Pheræa.
Pheræa belongs to Arcadia. [It is situated above Dymæa, Buprasium, and
Elis, which lie to the north of the Pisatis.[98]] There also is
Cicysium, one of the eight cities; and Dyspontium, on the road from Elis
to Olympia, situated in a plain. But it was razed, and the greatest
part of the inhabitants removed to Epidamnus and Apollonia.

Above and so very near Olympia, is Pholoe, an Arcadian mountain, that
the country at its foot belongs to the Pisatis. Indeed the whole of the
Pisatis and a great part of Triphylia border upon Arcadia. For this
reason, most of the places, which have the name of Pylian in the
Catalogue of the Ships, seem to be Arcadian. Persons, however, who are
well informed, say, that the river Erymanthus, one of those that empty
themselves into the Alpheius, is the boundary of Arcadia, and that the
places called Pylian are beyond the Erymanthus.

33. According to Ephorus, “Ætolus, being banished by Salmoneus, king of
the Epeii, and the Pisatæ, from Eleia to Ætolia, called the country
after his own name, and settled the cities there. His descendant Oxylus
was the friend of Temenus, and the Heracleidæ his companions, and was
their guide on their journey to Peloponnesus; he divided among them the
hostile territory, and suggested instructions relative to the
acquisition of the country. In return for these services he was to be
requited by the restoration of Elis, which had belonged to his
ancestors. He returned with an army collected out of Ætolia, for the
purpose of attacking the Epeii, who occupied Elis. On the approach of
the Epeii in arms, when the forces were drawn up in array against each
other, there advanced in front, and engaged in single combat according
to an ancient custom of the Greeks, Pyræchmes, an Ætolian, and Degmenus,
an Epeian: the latter was lightly armed with a bow, and thought to
vanquish easily from a distance a heavy-armed soldier; the former, when
he perceived the stratagem of his adversary, provided himself with a
sling, and a scrip filled with stones. The kind of sling also happened
to have been lately invented by the Ætolians. As a sling reaches its
object at a greater distance than a bow, Degmenus fell; the Ætolians
took possession of the country, and ejected the Epeii. They assumed also
the superintendence of the temple at Olympia, which the Epeii exercised;
and on account of the friendship which subsisted between Oxylus and the
Heracleidæ, it was generally agreed upon, and confirmed by an oath, that
the Eleian territory was sacred to Jupiter, and that any one who invaded
that country with an army, was a sacrilegious person: he also was to be
accounted sacrilegious, who did not [CAS. 358] defend it against the
invader to the utmost of his power. It was for this reason, that the
later founders of the city left it without walls, and those who are
passing through the country with an army, deliver up their arms and
receive them again upon quitting the borders. Iphitus instituted there
the Olympic games, because the Eleians were a sacred people. Hence it
was that they increased in numbers, for while other nations were
continually engaged in war with each other, they alone enjoyed profound
peace, and not themselves only, but strangers also, so that on this
account they were a more populous state than all the others.”

Pheidon the Argive was the tenth in descent from Temenus, and the most
powerful prince of his age; he was the inventor of the weights and
measures called Pheidonian, and stamped money, silver in particular. He
recovered the whole inheritance of Temenus, which had been severed into
many portions. He attacked also the cities which Hercules had formerly
taken, and claimed the privilege of celebrating the games which Hercules
had established, and among these the Olympian games. He entered their
country by force and celebrated the games, for the Eleians had no army
to prevent it, as they were in a state of peace, and the rest were
oppressed by his power. The Eleians however did not solemnly inscribe in
their records this celebration of the games, but on this occasion
procured arms, and began to defend themselves. The Lacedæmonians also
afforded assistance, either because they were jealous of the prosperity,
which was the effect of the peaceful state of the Eleians, or because
they supposed that they should have the aid of the Eleians in destroying
the power of Pheidon, who had deprived them of the sovereignty (ἡγεμονίαν)
of Peloponnesus, which they before possessed. They succeeded in their
joint attempt to overthrow Pheidon, and the Eleians with this assistance
obtained possession of Pisatis and Triphylia.

The whole of the coasting voyage along the present Eleian territory
comprises, with the exception of the bays, 1200 stadia.

So much then respecting the Eleian territory.




CHAPTER IV.


1. Messenia is continuous with the Eleian territory, inclining for the
most part towards the south, and the Libyan Sea. Being part of Laconia,
it was subject in the Trojan times to Menelaus. The name of the country
was Messene. But the present city called Messene, the acropolis of which
was Ithome, was not then founded. After the death of Menelaus, when the
power of those who succeeded to the possession of Laconia was altogether
weakened, the Neleidæ governed Messenia. At the time of the return of
the Heracleidæ, and according to the partition of the country at that
time, Melanthus was king of the Messenians, who were a separate
community, but formerly subject to Menelaus. As a proof of this, in the
space from the Messenian Gulf and the continuous gulf, (called the
Asinæan from the Messenian Asine,) were situated the seven cities which
Agamemnon promised to Achilles;

   “Cardamyle, Enope, the grassy Hira, the divine Pheræ,[99]
   Antheia with rich meadows, the beautiful Æpeia, and Pedasus
   abounding with vines.”[100]

He certainly would not have promised what did not belong either to
himself or to his brother. The poet mentions those, who accompanied
Menelaus from Pheræ to the war,[101] and speaks of (Œtylus) in the
Laconian catalogue, a city situated on the Gulf of Messenia.

Messene follows next to Triphylia. The promontory, after which are the
Coryphasium and Cyparissia, is common to both. At the distance of 7
stadia is a mountain, the Ægaleum, situated above Coryphasium and the
sea.

2. The ancient Messenian Pylus was a city lying below the Ægaleum, and
after it was razed, some of the inhabitants settled under the
Coryphasium. But the Athenians in their second expedition against
Sicily, under the command of Eurymedon and Stratocles, got possession of
it, and used it as a stronghold against the Lacedæmonians.[102] Here
also is the Messenian Cyparissia, (and the island Prote,) lying close
[CAS. 359] to Pylus, the island Sphagia, called also Sphacteria. It was
here that the Lacedæmonians lost three hundred men,[103] who were
besieged by the Athenians and taken prisoners.

Two islands, called Strophades,[104] belonging to the Cyparissii, lie
off at sea in front of this coast, at the distance of about 400 stadia
from the continent, in the Libyan and southern sea. According to
Thucydides this Pylus was the naval station of the Messenians. It is
distant from Sparta 400 stadia.

3. Next is Methone.[105] This city, called by the poet Pedasus, was one
of the seven, it is said, which Agamemnon promised to Achilles. There
Agrippa killed, in the Actian war, Bogus, the king of the Maurusii, a
partisan of Antony’s, having got possession of the place by an attack by
sea.

4. Continuous with Methone is Acritas,[106] where the Messenian Gulf
begins, which they call also Asinæus from Asine, a small city, the first
we meet with on the gulf, and having the same name as the Hermionic
Asine.

This is the commencement of the gulf towards the west. Towards the east
are the Thyrides,[107] as they are called, bordering upon the present
Laconia near Cænepolis,[108] and Tænarum.

In the intervening distance, if we begin from the Thyrides, we meet with
Œtylus,[109] by some called Beitylus; then Leuctrum, a colony of the
Leuctri in Bœotia; next, situated upon a steep rock, Cardamyle;[110]
then Pheræ, bordering upon Thuria, and Gerenia, from which place they
say Nestor had the epithet Gerenian, because he escaped thither, as we
have mentioned before. They show in the Gerenian territory a temple of
Æsculapius Triccæus, copied from that at the Thessalian Tricca. Pelops
is said to have founded Leuctrum, and Charadra, and Thalami, now called
the Bœotian Thalami, having brought with him, when he married his sister
Niobe to Amphion, some colonists from Bœotia.

The Nedon, a different river from the Neda, flows through Laconia, and
discharges its waters near Pheræ. It has upon its banks a remarkable
temple of the Nedusian Minerva. At Pœaessa also there is a temple of the
Nedusian Minerva, which derives its name from a place called Nedon,[111]
whence, they say, Teleclus colonized Pœaessa,[112] and Echeiæ, and
Tragium.

5. With respect to the seven cities promised to Achilles, we have
already spoken of Cardamyle, and Pheræ, and Pedasus. Enope, some say is
Pellana; others, some place near Cardamyle; others, Gerenia.[113] Hira
is pointed out near a mountain in the neighbourhood of Megalopolis[114]
in Arcadia, on the road to Andania, which we have said is called by the
poet Œchalia. Others say that the present Mesola was called Hira, which
extends to the bay situated between Taÿgetum and Messenia. Æpeia is now
called Thuria, which we said bordered upon Pheræ. It is situated upon a
lofty hill, whence its name.[115] The Thuriatic Gulf has its name from
Thuria; upon the gulf is a single city, named Rhium, opposite Tænarum.
Some say that Antheia is Thuria, and Æpeia Methone; others, that Antheia
is Asine, situated between Methone and Thuria, to which, of all the
Messenian cities, the description, “with its rich pastures,” is most
appropriate. Near it on the sea is Corone. There are some writers who
say that this town is called Pedasus by the poet. These cities are “all
near the sea;” Cardamyle close to it; Pheræ at the distance of 5 stadia,
having an anchorage, which is used in the summer. The rest are situated
at unequal distances from the sea.

6. Near Corone, about the middle of the gulf, the river Pamisus[116]
discharges itself, having, on the right hand, this city, and the rest in
succession, the last of which, towards the west, are Pylus and
Cyparissia, and between these is Erana, which some writers erroneously
suppose to be the ancient [CAS. 361] Arene; on the left hand it has
Thyria and Pheræ. It is the largest (in width) of the rivers within the
isthmus, although its course from its springs does not exceed 100 stadia
in length; it has an abundant supply of water, and traverses the
Messenian plain, and the district called Macaria.[117] It is distant
from the present city of the Messenians 50 stadia.[118] There is also
another Pamisus, a small torrent stream, running near Leuctrum of
Laconia, which was a subject of dispute between the Messenians and
Lacedæmonians in the time of Philip.

I have before said that some persons called the Pamisus, Amathus.[119]

7. Ephorus relates that Cresphontes, after he had taken Messene, divided
it into five cities, and chose Stenyclarus, situated in the middle of
this district, to be the royal seat of his kingdom. To the other cities,
Pylus, Rhium, (Mesola,) and Hyameitis, he appointed kings, and put all
the Messenians on an equal footing with the Dorians as to rights and
privileges. The Dorians, however, taking offence, he changed his
intention, and determined that Stenyclarus alone should have the rank of
a city, and here he assembled all the Dorians.

8. The city of the Messenians[120] resembles Corinth, for above each
city is a lofty and precipitous mountain, enclosed by a common wall in
such a manner as to be used as an acropolis; the Messenian mountain is
Ithome,[121] that near Corinth is Acrocorinthus. Demetrius of Pharos
seemed to have counselled Philip the son of Demetrius well, when he
advised him to make himself master of both cities, if he desired to get
possession of Peloponnesus; “for,” said he, “when you have seized both
horns, the cow will be your own;” meaning, by the horns, Ithome and
Acrocorinthus, and, by the cow, Peloponnesus. It was no doubt their
convenient situation which made these cities subjects of contention. The
Romans therefore razed Corinth, and again rebuilt it. The Lacedæmonians
destroyed Messene, and the Thebans, and subsequently Philip, the son of
Amyntas, restored it. The citadels however continued unoccupied.

9. The temple of Diana in Limnæ (in the Marshes), where the Messenians
are supposed to have violated the virgins who came there to offer
sacrifice, is on the confines of Laconia and Messenia, where the
inhabitants of both countries usually celebrated a common festival, and
performed sacrifices; but after the violation of the virgins, the
Messenians did not make any reparation, and war, it is said, ensued. The
Limnæan temple of Diana at Sparta is said to have its name from the
Limnæ here.

10. There were frequent wars (between the Lacedæmonians and Messenians)
on account of the revolts of the Messenians. Tyrtæus mentions, in his
poems, that their first subjugation was in the time of their
grandfathers;[122] the second, when in conjunction with their allies the
Eleians [Arcadians], Argives, and Pisatæ, they revolted; the leader of
the Arcadians was Aristocrates, king of Orchomenus, and of the Pisatæ,
Pantaleon, son of Omphalion. In this war, Tyrtæus says, he himself
commanded the Lacedæmonian army, for in his elegiac poem, entitled
Eunomia, he says he came from Erineum;

   “for Jupiter himself, the son of Saturn, and husband of Juno
   with the beautiful crown, gave this city to the Heracleidæ,
   with whom we left the windy Erineum, and arrived at the
   spacious island of Pelops.”

Wherefore we must either invalidate the authority of the elegiac verses,
or we must disbelieve Philochorus, and Callisthenes, and many other
writers, who say that he came from Athens, or Aphidnæ, at the request of
the Lacedæmonians, whom an oracle had enjoined to receive a commander
from the Athenians.

The second war then occurred in the time of Tyrtæus. But they mention a
third, and even a fourth war, in which the Messenians were
destroyed.[123]

The [CAS. 362] whole voyage along the Messenian coast comprises about
800 stadia, including the measurement of the bays.

11. I have exceeded the limits of moderation in this description, by
attending to the multitude of facts which are related of a country, the
greatest part of which is deserted. Even Laconia itself is deficient in
population, if we compare its present state with its ancient
populousness. For, with the exception of Sparta, the remaining small
cities are about thirty; but, anciently, Laconia had the name of
Hecatompolis, and that for this reason hecatombs were annually
sacrificed.




CHAPTER V.


1. Next after the Messenian is the Laconian Gulf, situated between
Tænarum and Maleæ, declining a little from the south to the east.
Thyrides, a precipitous rock, beaten by the waves, is in the Messenian
Gulf, and distant from Tænarum 100 stadia. Above is Taÿgetum, a lofty
and perpendicular mountain, at a short distance from the sea,
approaching on the northern side close to the Arcadian mountains, so as
to leave between them a valley, where Messenia is continuous with
Laconia.

At the foot of Taÿgetum, in the inland parts, lie Sparta and
Amyclæ,[124] where is the temple of Apollo, and Pharis. The site of
Sparta is in rather a hollow, although it comprises mountains within it;
no part of it, however, is marshy, although, anciently, the suburbs were
so, which were called Limnæ. The temple of Bacchus, also in Limnæ, was
in a wet situation, but now stands on a dry ground.

In the bay on the coast is Tænarum, a promontory projecting into the
sea.[125] Upon it, in a grove, is the temple of Neptune, and near the
temple a cave, through which, according to the fable, Cerberus was
brought up by Hercules from Hades. Thence to the promontory Phycus in
Cyrenaica, is a passage across towards the south of 3000 stadia; and to
Pachynus, towards the west, the promontory of Sicily, 4600, or,
according to some writers, 4000 stadia; to Maleæ, towards the east,
including the measurement of the bays, 670 stadia; to Onugnathus,[126] a
low peninsula a little within Maleæ, 520 stadia. (In front of
Onugnathus, at the distance of 40 stadia, lies Cythera,[127] an island
with a good harbour, and a city of the same name, which was the private
property of Eurycles, the commander of the Lacedæmonians in our time. It
is surrounded by several small islands, some near it, others lying
somewhat farther off.) To Corycus, a promontory of Crete, the nearest
passage by sea is 250 stadia.[128]

2. Next to Tænarum on the voyage to Onugnathus and to Maleæ[129] is
Amathus, (Psamathus,) a city; then follow Asine, and Gythium,[130] the
naval arsenal of Sparta, situated at an interval of 240 stadia. Its
station for vessels, they say, is excavated by art. Farther on, between
Gythium and Acræa, is the mouth of the Eurotas.[131] To this place the
voyage along the coast is about 240 stadia; then succeeds a marshy
tract, and a village, Helos, which formerly was a city, according to
Homer;

   “They who occupied Amyclæ, and Helos, a small town on
   the sea-coast.”[132]

They say that it was founded by Helius the son of Perseus. There is a
plain also call Leuce; then Cyparissia,[133] a city upon a peninsula,
with a harbour; then Onugnathus with a harbour; next Bœa, a city; then
Maleæ. From these cities to Onugnathus are 150 stadia. There is also
Asopus,[134] a city in Laconia.

3. Among the places enumerated by Homer in the Catalogue of the Ships,
Messa, they say, is no longer to be found; and that Messoa is not a part
of Laconia, but a part of Sparta itself, as was the Limnæum near
Thornax. Some understand [CAS. 364] Messē to be a contraction of
Messene, for it is said that this was a part of Laconia. [They allege as
examples from the poet, the words “cri,” and “do,” and “maps,”[135] and
this passage also;

   “The horses were yoked by Automedon and Alcimus,”[136]

instead of Alcimedon. And the words of Hesiod, who uses βρῖ for βριθὺ
and βριαρὸν; and Sophocles and Io, who have ῥᾳ for ῥᾴδιον; and
Epicharmus, λῖ for λίαν, and Συρακὼ for Συράκουσαι; Empedocles also has
ὂψ for ὄψις (μία γίγνεται ἀμφοτέρων ὄψ or ὄψις); and Antimachus,
Δήμητρός τοι Ἐλευσινίης ἱερὴ ὄψ, and ἄλφι for ἄλφιτον; Euphorion has ἧλ
for ἧλος; Philetes has δμωίδες εἰς ταλάρους λευκὸν ἄγουσιν ἔρι for
ἔριον; Aratus, εἰς ἄνεμον δὲ τὰ πηδά for τὰ πηδάλια; Simmias, Dodo for
Dodona.][137]

Of the rest of the places mentioned by the poet, some are extinct; of
others traces remain, and of others the names are changed, as Augeiæ
into Ægææ: [the city] of that name in Locris exists no longer. With
respect to Las, the Dioscuri are said to have taken it by siege
formerly, whence they had the name of Lapersæ, (Destroyers of Las,) and
Sophocles says somewhere, “by the two Lapersæ, by Eurotas, by the gods
in Argos and Sparta.”

4. Ephorus says that the Heracleidæ, Eurysthenes and Procles, having
obtained possession of Laconia, divided it into six parts, and founded
cities throughout the country, and assigned Amyclæ to him who betrayed
to them Laconia, and who prevailed upon the person that occupied it to
retire, on certain conditions, with the Achæi, into Ionia. Sparta they
retained themselves as the royal seat of the kingdom. To the other
cities they sent kings, permitting them to receive whatever strangers
might be disposed to settle there, on account of the scarcity of
inhabitants. Las was used as a naval station, because it had a
convenient harbour; Ægys, as a stronghold, from whence to attack
surrounding enemies; Pheræa, as a place to deposit treasure, because it
afforded security from[138] attempts from without. * * * * that all the
neighbouring people submitted to the Spartiatæ, but were to enjoy an
equality of rights, and to have a share in the government and in the
offices of state. They were called Heilotæ. But Agis, the son of
Eurysthenes, deprived them of the equality of rights, and ordered them
to pay tribute to Sparta. The rest submitted; but the Heleii, who
occupied Helos, revolted, and were made prisoners in the course of the
war; they were adjudged to be slaves, with the conditions, that the
owner should not be allowed to give them their liberty, nor sell them
beyond the boundaries of the country. This was called the war of the
Heilotæ.[139] The system of Heilote-slavery, which continued from that
time to the establishment of the dominion of the Romans, was almost
entirely the contrivance of Agis. They were a kind of public slaves, to
whom the Lacedæmonians assigned habitations, and required from them
peculiar services.

5. With respect to the government of the Lacones, and the changes which
have taken place among them, many things, as being well known, may be
passed over, but some it may be worth while to relate. It is said that
the Achæan Phthiotæ, who, with Pelops, made an irruption into
Peloponnesus, settled in Laconia, and were so much distinguished for
their valour, that Peloponnesus, which for a long period up to this time
had the name of Argos, was then called Achæan Argos; and not
Peloponnesus alone had this name, but Laconia also was thus peculiarly
designated. Some even understand the words of the poet,

   “Where was Menelaus, was he not at Achæan Argos?”[140]

as implying, was he not in Laconia? But about the time of the return of
the Heracleidæ, when Philonomus betrayed the country to the Dorians,
they removed from Laconia to the country of the Ionians, which at
present is called Achaia. We shall speak of them in our description of
Achaia.

Those who were in possession of Laconia, at first conducted themselves
with moderation, but after they had intrusted to Lycurgus the formation
of a political constitution, they acquired such a superiority over the
other Greeks, that they alone obtained the sovereignty both by sea and
land, and continued to be the chiefs of the Greeks, till the Thebans,
and soon afterwards the Macedonians, deprived them of this ascendency.

They [CAS. 365] did not however entirely submit even to these, but,
preserving their independence, were continually disputing the
sovereignty both with the other Greeks and with the Macedonian kings.
After the overthrow of the latter by the Romans, the Lacones living
under a bad government at that time, and under the power of tyrants, had
given some slight offence to the generals whom the Romans sent into the
province. They however recovered themselves, and were held in very great
honour. They remained free, and performed no other services but those
expected from allies. Lately however Eurycles[141] excited some
disturbances amongst them, having abused excessively, in the exercise of
his authority, the friendship of Cæsar. The government soon came to an
end by the death of Eurycles, and the son rejected all such friendships.
The Eleuthero-Lacones[142] however did obtain some regular form of
government, when the surrounding people, and especially the Heilotæ, at
the time that Sparta was governed by tyrants, were the first to attach
themselves to the Romans.

Hellanicus says that Eurysthenes and Procles regulated the form of
government, but Ephorus reproaches him with not mentioning Lycurgus at
all, and with ascribing the acts of the latter to persons who had no
concern in them; to Lycurgus only is a temple erected, and sacrifices
are annually performed in his honour, but to Eurysthenes and Procles,
although they were the founders of Sparta, yet not even these honours
were paid to them, that their descendants should bear the respective
appellations of Eurysthenidæ and Procleidæ.[143] [The descendants of
Agis, however, the son of Eurysthenes, were called Agides, and the
descendants of Eurypon, the son of Procles, were called Eurypontiadæ.
The former were legitimate princes; the others, having admitted
strangers as settlers, reigned by their means; whence they were not
regarded as original authors of the settlement, an honour usually
conferred upon all founders of cities.]

6. As to the nature of the places in Laconia and Messenia, we may take
the description of Euripides;[144]

   “Laconia has much land capable of tillage, but difficult to be
   worked, for it is hollow, surrounded by mountains, rugged, and
   difficult of access to an enemy.”

Messenia he describes in this manner:

   “It bears excellent fruit; is watered by innumerable streams;
   it affords the finest pasture to herds and flocks; it is not
   subject to the blasts of winter, nor too much heated by the
   coursers of the sun;”

and a little farther on, speaking of the division of the country by the
Heracleidæ according to lot, the first was

   “lord of the Lacænian land, a bad soil,”

the second was Messene,

   “whose excellence no language could express;”

and Tyrtæus speaks of it in the same manner.

But we cannot admit that Laconia and Messenia are bounded, as Euripides
says,

   “by the Pamisus,[145] which empties itself into the sea;”

this river flows through the middle of Messenia, and does not touch any
part of the present Laconia. Nor is he right, when he says that Messenia
is inaccessible to sailors, whereas it borders upon the sea, in the same
manner as Laconia.

Nor does he give the right boundaries of Elis;

   “after passing the river is Elis, the neighbour of Jove;”

and he adduces a proof unnecessarily. For if he means the present Eleian
territory, which is on the confines of Messenia, this the Pamisus does
not touch, any more than it touches Laconia, for, as has been said
before, it flows through the middle of Messenia: or, if he meant the
ancient Eleia, called the Hollow, this is a still greater deviation from
the truth. For after crossing the Pamisus, there is a large tract of the
Messenian country, then the whole district of [the Lepreatæ], and of the
[Macistii], which is called Triphylia; then the Pisatis, and Olympia;
then at the distance of 300 stadia is Elis.

7. As some persons write the epithet applied by Homer to Lacedæmon,
κητώεσσαν, and others καιετάεσσαν, how are we to understand κητώεσσα,
whether it is derived from Cetos,[146] or [CAS. 367] whether it denotes
“large,” which is most probable. Some understand καιετάεσσα
to signify, “abounding with calaminthus;” others suppose, as
the fissures occasioned by earthquakes are called Cæeti, that this is
the origin of the epithet. Hence Cæietas also, the name of the prison
among the Lacedæmonians, which is a sort of cave. Some however say, that
such kind of hollows are rather called Coi, whence the expression of
Homer,[147] applied to wild beasts, φηρσὶν ὀρεσκῴοισιν, which live in
mountain caves. Laconia however is subject to earthquakes, and some
writers relate, that certain peaks of Taÿgetum have been broken off by
the shocks.[148]

Laconia contains also quarries of valuable marble. Those of the Tænarian
marble in Tænarum[149] are ancient, and certain persons, assisted by the
wealth of the Romans, lately opened a large quarry in Taÿgetum.

8. It appears from Homer, that both the country and the city had the
name of Lacedæmon; I mean the country together with Messenia. When he
speaks of the bow and quiver of Ulysses, he says,

   “A present from Iphitus Eurytides, a stranger, who met him in
   Lacedæmon,”[150]

and adds,

   “They met at Messene in the house of Ortilochus.”

He means the country which was a part of Messenia.[151] There was then
no difference whether he said “A stranger, whom he met at Lacedæmon,
gave him,” or, “they met at Messene;” for it is evident that Pheræ was
the home of Ortilochus:

   “they arrived at Pheræ, and went to the house of Diocles the
   son of Ortilochus,”[152]

namely, Telemachus and Pisistratus. Now Pheræ[153] belongs to Messenia.
But after saying, that Telemachus and his friend set out from Pheræ, and
were driving their two horses the whole day, he adds,

   “The sun was setting; they came to the hollow Lacedæmon
   (κητώεσσαν), and drove their chariot to the
   palace of Menelaus.”[154]

Here we must understand the city; and if we do not, the poet says, that
they journeyed from Lacedæmon to Lacedæmon. It is not otherwise
improbable that the palace of Menelaus should not be at Sparta; and if
it was not there, that Telemachus should say,

   “for I am going to Sparta, and to Pylus,”[155]

for this seems to agree with the epithets applied to the country,[156]
unless indeed any one should allow this to be a poetical licence; for,
if Messenia was a part of Laconia, it would be a contradiction that
Messene should not be placed together with Laconia, or with Pylus,
(which was under the command of Nestor,) nor by itself in the Catalogue
of Ships, as though it had no part in the expedition.




CHAPTER VI.


1. After Maleæ follow the Argolic and Hermionic Gulfs; the former
extends as far as Scyllæum,[157] it looks to the east, and towards
the Cyclades;[158] the latter lies still more towards the east than
the former, reaching Ægina and the Epidaurian territory.[159] The
Laconians occupy the first part of the Argolic Gulf, and the Argives
the rest. Among the places occupied by the Laconians are Delium,[160]
a temple of Apollo, of [CAS. 368] the same name as that in Bœotia;
Minoa, a fortress of the same name as that in Megara; and according to
Artemidorus, Epidaurus Limera;[161] Apollodorus, however, places it
near Cythera,[162] and having a convenient harbour, (λιμὴν, limen,)
it was called Limenera, which was altered by contraction to Limera.
A great part of the coast of Laconia, beginning immediately from
Maleæ, is rugged. It has however shelters for vessels, and harbours.
The remainder of the coast has good ports; there are also many small
islands, not worthy of mention, lying in front of it.

2. To the Argives belong Prasiæ,[163] and Temenium[164] where Temenus
lies buried. Before coming to Temenium is the district through which the
river Lerna flows, that having the same name as the lake, where is laid
the scene of the fable of the Hydra. The Temenium is distant from Argos
26 stadia from the sea-coast; from Argos to Heræum are 40, and thence to
Mycenæ 10 stadia.

Next to Temenium is Nauplia, the naval station of the Argives. Its name
is derived from its being accessible to ships. Here they say the fiction
of the moderns originated respecting Nauplius and his sons, for Homer
would not have omitted to mention them, if Palamedes displayed so much
wisdom and intelligence, and was unjustly put to death; and if Nauplius
had destroyed so many people at Caphareus.[165] But the genealogy
offends both against the mythology, and against chronology. For if we
allow that he was the son of Neptune,[166] how could he be the son of
Amymone, and be still living in the Trojan times.

Next to Nauplia are caves, and labyrinths constructed in them, which
caves they call Cyclopeia.

3. Then follow other places, and after these the Hermionic Gulf. Since
the poet places this gulf in the Argive territory, we must not overlook
this division of the circumference of this country. It begins from the
small city Asine;[167] then follow Hermione,[168] and Trœzen.[169] In
the voyage along the coast the island Calauria[170] lies opposite; it
has a compass of 30 stadia, and is separated from the continent by a
strait of 4 stadia.

4. Then follows the Saronic Gulf; some call it a Pontus or sea, others a
Porus or passage, whence it is also termed the Saronic pelagos or deep.
The whole of the passage, or Porus, extending from the Hermionic Sea,
and the sea about the Isthmus (of Corinth) to the Myrtoan and Cretan
Seas, has this name.

To the Saronic Gulf belong Epidaurus,[171] and the island in front of
it, Ægina; then Cenchreæ, the naval station of the Corinthians towards
the eastern parts; then Schœnus,[172] a harbour at the distance of 45
stadia by sea; from Maleæ the whole number of stadia is about 1800.

At Schœnus is the Diolcus, or place where they draw the vessels across
the Isthmus: it is the narrowest part of it. Near Schœnus is the temple
of the Isthmian Neptune. At present, however, I shall not proceed with
the description of these places, for they are not situated within the
Argive territory, but resume the account of those which it contains.

5. And first, we may observe how frequently Argos is mentioned by the
poet, both by itself and with the epithet designating it as Achæan
Argos, Argos Jasum, Argos Hippium, or Hippoboton, or Pelasgicum. The
city, too, is called Argos,

   “Argos and Sparta”--[173]

those who occupied Argos

   “and Tiryns;”[174]

and Peloponnesus is called Argos,

   “at our house in Argos,”[175]

for the city could not be called his house; and he calls the whole of
Greece, Argos, for he calls all Argives, as he calls them Danai, and
Achæans.

He [CAS. 369] distinguishes the identity of name by epithets; he calls
Thessaly, Pelasgic Argos;

   “all who dwelt in Pelasgic Argos;”[176]

and the Peloponnesus, the Achæan Argos;

   “if we should return to Achæan Argos;”[177]

   “was he not at Achæan Argos?”[178]

intimating in these lines that the Peloponnesians were called peculiarly
Achæans according to another designation.

He calls also the Peloponnesus, Argos Jasum;

   “if all the Achæans throughout Argos Jasum should see you,”[179]

meaning Penelope, she then would have a greater number of suitors; for
it is not probable that he means those from the whole of Greece, but
those from the neighbourhood of Ithaca. He applies also to Argos terms
common to other places,

   “pasturing horses,” and “abounding with horses.”

6. There is a controversy about the names Hellas and Hellenes.
Thucydides[180] says that Homer nowhere mentions Barbarians, because the
Greeks were not distinguished by any single name, which expressed its
opposite. Apollodorus also says, that the inhabitants of Thessaly alone
were called Hellenes, and alleges this verse of the poet,

   “they were called Myrmidones, and Hellenes;”[181]

but Hesiod, and Archilochus, in their time knew that they were all
called Hellenes, and Panhellenes: the former calls them by this name in
speaking of the Prœtides, and says that Panhellenes were their suitors;
the latter, where he says

   “that the calamities of the Panhellenes centred in Thasus.”

But others oppose to this, that Homer does mention Barbarians, when he
says of the Carians, that they spoke a barbarous language, and that all
the Hellenes were comprised in the term Hellas;

   “of the man, whose fame spread throughout Hellas and Argos.”[182]

And again,

   “but if you wish to turn aside and pass through Greece and the
   midst of Argos.”[183]

7. The greater part of the city of the Argives is situated in a plain.
It has a citadel called Larisa, a hill moderately fortified, and upon it
a temple of Jupiter. Near it flows the Inachus, a torrent river; its
source is in Lyrceium [the Arcadian mountain near Cynuria]. We have said
before that the fabulous stories about its sources are the inventions of
poets; it is a fiction also that Argos is without water--

   “but the gods made Argos a land without water.”

Now the ground consists of hollows, it is intersected by rivers, and is
full of marshes and lakes; the city also has a copious supply of water
from many wells, which rises near the surface.

They attribute the mistake to this verse,

   “and I shall return disgraced to Argos (πολυδίψιον)
   the very thirsty.”[184]

This word is used for πολυπόθητον, or

   “much longed after,”

or without the δ for πολυίψιον,
equivalent to the expression πολύφθορον in
Sophocles,

   “this house of the Pelopidæ abounding in slaughter,”[185]

[for προϊάψαι and ἰάψαι and ἴψασθαι, denote some injury or destruction;

   “at present he is making the attempt, and he will soon destroy
   (ἴψεται) the sons of the Achæi;”[186]

and again, lest

   “she should injure (ἰάψῃ) her beautiful skin;”[187]

and,

   “has prematurely sent down, προΐαψεν, to Ades.”[188]][189]

Besides, he does not mean the city Argos, for it was not thither that he
was about to return, but he meant Peloponnesus, which, certainly, is not
a thirsty land.

With respect to the letter δ, they introduce the conjunction
by the figure hyperbaton, and make an elision of the vowel, so that the
verse would run thus,

   Καί κεν ἐλέγχιστος πολὺ δ’ ἴψιον Ἄργος ἱκοίμην,

that is, πολυίψιον Ἄργοσδε ἱκοίμην, instead of, εἰς Ἄργος.[189]

8. The Inachus[190] is one of the rivers, which flows through the Argive
territory; there is also another in Argia, the [CAS. 371] Erasīnus. It
has its source in Stymphalus in Arcadia, and in the lake there called
Stymphalis, where the scene is laid of the fable of the birds called
Stymphalides, which Hercules drove away by wounding them with arrows,
and by the noise of drums. It is said that this river passes
under-ground, and issues forth in the Argian territory, and waters the
plain. The Erasīnus is also called Arsīnus.

Another river of the same name flows out of Arcadia to the coast near
Buras. There is another Erasinus also in Eretria, and one in Attica near
Brauron.

Near Lerna a fountain is shown, called Amymone. The lake Lerna, the
haunt of the Hydra, according to the fable, belongs to the Argive and
Messenian districts. The expiatory purifications performed at this place
by persons guilty of crimes gave rise to the proverb, “A Lerna of
evils.”

It is allowed that, although the city itself lies in a spot where there
are no running streams of water, there is an abundance of wells, which
are attributed to the Danaïdes as their invention; hence the line,

   “the Danaïdes made waterless Argos, Argos the watered.”

Four of the wells are esteemed sacred, and held in peculiar veneration.
Hence they occasioned a want of water, while they supplied it
abundantly.

9. Danaus is said to have built the citadel of the Argives. He seems to
have possessed so much more power than the former rulers of the country,
that, according to Euripides,

   “he made a law that those who were formerly called Pelasgiotæ,
   should be called Danai throughout Greece.”

His tomb, called Palinthus, is in the middle of the market-place of the
Argives. I suppose that the celebrity of this city was the reason of all
the Greeks having the name of Pelasgiotæ, and Danai, as well as Argives.

Modern writers speak of Iasidæ, and Argos Iasum, and Apia, and Apidones.
Homer does not mention Apidones, and uses the word apia only to express
distance. That he means Peloponnesus by Argos we may conclude from these
lines,

   “Argive Helen;”[191]

and,

   “in the farthest part of Argos is a city Ephyra;”[192]

and,

   “the middle of Argos;”[193]

and,

   “to rule over many islands, and the whole of Argos.”[194]

Argos, among modern writers, denotes a plain, but not once in Homer. It
seems rather a Macedonian and Thessalian use of the word.

10. After the descendants of Danaus had succeeded to the sovereignty at
Argos, and the Amythaonidæ, who came from Pisatis and Triphylia, were
intermixed with them by marriages, it is not surprising that, being
allied to one another, they at first divided the country into two
kingdoms, in such a manner that the two cities, the intended capitals,
Argos and Mycenæ, were not distant from each other more than 50 stadia,
and that the Heræum at Mycenæ should be a temple common to both. In this
temple were the statues the workmanship of Polycletus. In display of art
they surpassed all others, but in magnitude and cost they were inferior
to those of Pheidias.

At first Argos was the most powerful of the two cities. Afterwards
Mycenæ received a great increase of inhabitants in consequence of the
migration thither of the Pelopidæ. For when everything had fallen under
the power of the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon, the elder, assumed the
sovereign authority, and by good fortune and valour annexed to his
possessions a large tract of country. He also added the Laconian to the
Mycenæan district.[195] Menelaus had Laconia, and Agamemnon Mycenæ, and
the country as far as Corinth, and Sicyon, and the territory which was
then said to be the country of Iones and Ægialians, and afterwards of
Achæi.

After the Trojan war, when the dominion of Agamemnon was at an end, the
declension of Mycenæ ensued, and particularly after the return of the
Heracleidæ.[196] For when these people got possession of Peloponnesus,
they expelled its former masters, so that they who had Argos possessed
Mycenæ likewise, as composing one body. In subsequent times Mycenæ was
razed by the Argives, so that at present not even a trace is to be
discovered of the city of the Mycenæans.[197]

If [CAS. 372] Mycenæ experienced this fate, it is not surprising that
some of the cities mentioned in the Catalogue of the Ships, and said to
be subject to Argos, have disappeared. These are the words of the
Catalogue:

   “They who occupied Argos, and Tiryns, with strong walls, and
   Hermione, and Asine situated on a deep bay, and Eïones, and
   Epidaurus with its vines, and the valiant Achæan youths who
   occupied Ægina, and Mases.”[198]

Among these we have already spoken of Argos; we must now speak of the
rest.

11. Prœtus seems to have used Tiryns as a stronghold, and to have
fortified it by means of the Cyclopes. There were seven of them, and
were called Gasterocheires,[199] because they subsisted by their art.
They were sent for and came from Lycia. Perhaps the caverns about
Nauplia, and the works there, have their name from these people. The
citadel Licymna has its name from Licymnius. It is distant from Nauplia
about 12 stadia. This place is deserted, as well as the neighbouring
Midéa, which is different from the Bœotian Mídea, for that is
accentuated Mídea, like πρόνοια, but this is accentuated Midéa, like
Tegéa.

Prosymna borders upon Midéa; it has also a temple of Juno. The Argives
have depopulated most of these for their refusal to submit to their
authority. Of the inhabitants some went from Tiryns to Epidaurus; others
from Hermione to the Halieis (the Fishermen), as they are called; others
were transferred by the Lacedæmonians to Messenia from Asine, (which is
itself a village in the Argive territory near Nauplia,) and they built a
small city of the same name as the Argolic Asine. For the Lacedæmonians,
according to Theopompus, got possession of a large tract of country
belonging to other nations, and settled there whatever fugitives they
had received, who had taken refuge among them; and it was to this
country the Nauplians had retreated.

12. Hermione is one of the cities, not undistinguished. The coast is
occupied by Halieis, as they are called, a tribe who subsist by being
employed on the sea in fishing. There is a general opinion among the
Hermionenses that there is a short descent from their country to Hades,
and hence they do not place in the mouths of the dead the fare for
crossing the Styx.

13. It is said that Asine as well as Hermione was inhabited by Dryopes;
either Dryops the Arcadian having transferred them thither from the
places near the Spercheius, according to Aristotle; or, Hercules
expelled them from Doris near Parnassus.

Scyllæum near Hermione has its name, it is said, from Scylla, daughter
of Nisus. According to report, she was enamoured of Minos, and betrayed
to him Nisæa. She was drowned by order of her father, and her body was
thrown upon the shore, and buried here.

Eïones was a kind of village which the Mycenæi depopulated, and
converted into a station for vessels. It was afterwards destroyed, and
is no longer a naval station.

14. Trœzen is sacred to Neptune,[200] from whom it was formerly called
Poseidonia. It is situated 15 stadia from the sea. Nor is this an
obscure city. In front of its harbour, called Pogon,[201] lies Calauria,
a small island, of about 30 stadia in compass. Here was a temple of
Neptune, which served as an asylum for fugitives. It is said that this
god exchanged Delos for Calauria with Latona, and Tænarum for Pytho with
Apollo. Ephorus mentions the oracle respecting it:

   “It is the same thing to possess Delos, or Calauria,
   The divine Pytho, or the windy Tænarum.”

There was a sort of Amphictyonic body to whom the concerns of this
temple belonged, consisting of seven cities, which performed sacrifices
in common. These were Hermon, Epidaurus, Ægina, Athenæ, Prasiæ, Nauplia,
and Orchomenus Minyeius. The Argives contributed in behalf of Nauplia,
and the Lacedæmonians in behalf of Prasiæ. The veneration for this god
prevailed so strongly among the Greeks, that the Macedonians, even when
masters of the country, nevertheless preserved even to the present time
the privilege of the asylum, and were restrained by shame from dragging
away the suppliants who took refuge at Calauria. Archias even, with a
body of soldiers, did not dare to use force to [CAS. 374] Demosthenes,
although he had received orders from Antipater to bring him alive, and
all other orators he could find, who were accused of the same crimes. He
attempted persuasion, but in vain, for Demosthenes deprived himself of
life by taking poison in the temple.[202]

Trœzen and Pittheus, the sons of Pelops, having set out from Pisatis to
Argos, the former left behind him a city of his own name; Pittheus
succeeded him, and became king. Anthes, who occupied the territory
before, set sail, and founded Halicarnassus. We shall speak of him in
our account of Caria and the Troad.

15. Epidaurus was called Epitaurus [Epicarus?]. Aristotle says, that
Carians occupied both this place and Hermione, but upon the return of
the Heracleidæ those Ionians, who had accompanied them from the Athenian
Tetrapolis to Argos, settled there together with the Carians.

Epidaurus[203] was a distinguished city, remarkable particularly on
account of the fame of Æsculapius, who was supposed to cure every kind
of disease, and whose temple is crowded constantly with sick persons,
and its walls covered with votive tablets, which are hung upon the
walls, and contain accounts of the cures, in the same manner as is
practised at Cos, and at Tricca. The city lies in the recess of the
Saronic Gulf, with a coasting navigation of 15 stadia, and its aspect is
towards the point of summer sunrise. It is surrounded with lofty
mountains, which extend to the coast, so that it is strongly fortified
by nature on all sides.

Between Trœzen and Epidaurus, there was a fortress Methana,[204] and a
peninsula of the same name. In some copies of Thucydides Methone is the
common reading,[205] a place of the same name with the Macedonian city,
at the siege of which Philip lost an eye. Hence Demetrius of Scepsis is
of opinion, that some persons were led into error by the name, and
supposed that it was Methone near Trœzen. It was against this town, it
is said, that the persons sent by Agamemnon to levy sailors, uttered the
imprecation, that

   “they might never cease to build walls,”

but it was not these people; but the Macedonians, according to
Theopompus, who refused the levy of men; besides it is not probable that
those, who were in the neighbourhood of Agamemnon, would disobey his
orders.

16. Ægina is a place in the territory of Epidaurus. There is in front of
this continent, an island, of which the poet means to speak in the lines
before cited. Wherefore some write,

   “and the island Ægina,”

instead of

   “and they who occupied Ægina,”

making a distinction between the places of the same name.

It is unnecessary to remark, that this island is among the most
celebrated. It was the country of Æacus and his descendants. It was this
island which once possessed so much power at sea, and formerly disputed
the superiority with the Athenians in the sea-fight at Salamis during
the Persian war.[206] The circuit of the island is said to be about 180
stadia. It has a city of the same name on the south-west. Around it are
Attica, and Megara, and the parts of Peloponnesus as far as Epidaurus.
It is distant from each about 100 stadia. The eastern and southern sides
are washed by the Myrtoan and Cretan seas. Many small islands surround
it on the side towards the continent, but Belbina is situated on the
side towards the open sea. The land has soil at a certain depth, but it
is stony at the surface, particularly the plain country, whence the
whole has a bare appearance, but yields large crops of barley. It is
said that the Æginetæ were called Myrmidones, not as the fable accounts
for the name, when the ants were metamorphosed into men, at the time of
a great famine, by the prayer of Æacus; but because by digging, like
ants, they threw up the earth upon the rocks, and were thus made able to
cultivate the ground, and because they lived in excavations
under-ground, abstaining from the use of bricks and sparing of the soil
for this purpose.

Its ancient name was Œnone, which is the name of two of the demi in
Attica, one near Eleutheræ;

   “to inhabit the plains close to Œnone, (Œnoe,) and Eleutheræ;”

and another, one of the cities of the Tetrapolis near Marathon, to which
the proverb is applied,

   “Œnone (Œnoe?) and its torrent.”

Its [CAS. 375] inhabitants were in succession Argives, Cretans,
Epidaurians, and Dorians. At last the Athenians divided the island by
lot among settlers of their own. The Lacedæmonians, however, deprived
the Athenians of it, and restored it to the ancient inhabitants.

The Æginetæ sent out colonists to Cydonia[207] in Crete, and to the
Ombrici. According to Ephorus, silver was first struck as money by
Pheidon. The island became a mart, the inhabitants, on account of the
fertility of its soil, employing themselves at sea as traders; whence
goods of a small kind had the name of “Ægina wares.”

17. The poet frequently speaks of places in succession as they are
situated;

   “they who inhabited Hyria, and Aulis;”[208]

   “and they who occupied Argos, and Tiryns,
             Hermione, and Asine,
           Trœzen, and Eïones.”[209]

At other times he does not observe any order;

   “Schœnus, and Scolus,
   Thespeia, and Græa.”[210]

He also mentions together places on the continent and islands

     “they who held Ithaca,
   and inhabited Crocyleia,”[211]

for Crocyleia is in Acarnania. Thus he here joins with Ægina Mases,
which belongs to the continent of Argolis.

Homer does not mention Thyreæ, but other writers speak of it as well
known. It was the occasion of a contest between the three hundred
Argives against the same number of Lacedæmonians; the latter were
conquerors by means of a stratagem of Othryadas. Thucydides places
Thyreæ in Cynuria, on the confines of Argia and Laconia.[212]

Hysiæ also is a celebrated place in Argolica; and Cenchreæ, which lies
on the road from Tegea to Argos, over the mountain Parthenius, and the
Creopolus.[213] But Homer was not acquainted with either of these
places, [nor with the Lyrceium, nor Orneæ, and yet they are villages in
the Argian territory; the former of the same name as the mountain there;
the latter of the same name as the Orneæ, situated between Corinth and
Sicyon].[214]

18. Among the cities of the Peloponnesus, the most celebrated were, and
are at this time, Argos and Sparta, and as their renown is spread
everywhere, it is not necessary to describe them at length, for if we
did so, we should seem to repeat what is said by all writers.

Anciently, Argos was the most celebrated, but afterwards the
Lacedæmonians obtained the superiority, and continued to maintain their
independence, except during some short interval, when they experienced a
reverse of fortune.

The Argives did not admit Pyrrhus within the city. He fell before the
walls, an old woman having let a tile drop from a house upon his head.

They were, however, under the sway of other kings. When they belonged to
the Achæan league they were subjected, together with the other members
of that confederacy, to the power of the Romans. The city subsists at
present, and is second in rank to Sparta.

19. We shall next speak of those places which are said, in the Catalogue
of the Ships, to be under the government of Mycenæ and Agamemnon: the
lines are these:

        “Those who inhabited Mycenæ, a well-built city,
        and the wealthy Corinth, and Cleonæ well built,
            and Orneiæ, and the lovely Aræthyrea,
          and Sicyon, where Adrastus first reigned,
   and they who inhabited Hyperesia, and the lofty Gonoessa,
                  and Pellene, and Ægium,
        and the whole range of the coast, and those who
           lived near the spacious Helice.”[215]

Mycenæ exists no longer. It was founded by Perseus. Sthenelus succeeded
Perseus; and Eurystheus, Sthenelus. These same persons were kings of
Argos also. It is said that Eurystheus, having engaged, with the
assistance of the Athenians, in an expedition to Marathon against the
descendants of Hercules and Iolaus, fell in battle, and that the
remainder of his body was buried at Gargettus, but his head apart from
it at Tricorythus[216] (Corinth?), Iolaus having severed it from the
body near the fountain Macaria, close to the chariot-road. The spot
itself has the name of “Eurystheus’-head.”

Mycenæ then passed into the possession of the Pelopidæ, who had left the
Pisatis, then into that of the Heracleidæ, [CAS. 377] who were also
masters of Argos. But after the sea-fight at Salamis, the Argives,
together with the Cleonæi, and the Tegetæ, invaded Mycenæ, and razed it,
and divided the territory among themselves. The tragic writers, on
account of the proximity of the two cities, speak of them as one, and
use the name of one for the other. Euripides in the same play calls the
same city in one place Mycenæ, and in another Argos, as in the
Iphigeneia,[217] and in the Orestes.[218]

Cleonæ is a town situated upon the road leading from Argos to Corinth,
on an eminence, which is surrounded on all sides by dwellings, and well
fortified, whence, in my opinion, Cleonæ was properly described as “well
built.” There also, between Cleonæ and Phlius, is Nemea, and the grove
where it was the custom of the Argives to celebrate the Nemean games:
here is the scene of the fable of the Nemean Lion, and here also the
village Bembina. Cleonæ is distant from Argos 120 stadia, and 80 from
Corinth. And we have ourselves beheld the city from the Acrocorinthus.

20. Corinth is said to be opulent from its mart. It is situated upon the
isthmus. It commands two harbours, one near Asia, the other near Italy,
and facilitates, by reason of so short a distance between them, an
exchange of commodities on each side.

As the Sicilian strait, so formerly these seas were of difficult
navigation, and particularly the sea above Maleæ, on account of the
prevalence of contrary winds; whence the common proverb,

   “When you double Maleæ forget your home.”

It was a desirable thing for the merchants coming from Asia, and from
Italy, to discharge their lading at Corinth without being obliged to
double Cape Maleæ. For goods exported from Peloponnesus, or imported by
land, a toll was paid to those who had the keys of the country. This
continued afterwards for ever. In after-times they enjoyed even
additional advantages, for the Isthmian games, which were celebrated
there, brought thither great multitudes of people. The Bacchiadæ, a rich
and numerous family, and of illustrious descent, were their rulers,
governed the state for nearly two hundred years, and peaceably enjoyed
the profits of the mart. Their power was destroyed by Cypselus, who
became king himself, and his descendants continued to exist for three
generations. A proof of the wealth of this family is the offering which
Cypselus dedicated at Olympia, a statue of Jupiter of beaten gold.

Demaratus, one of those who had been tyrant at Corinth, flying from the
seditions which prevailed there, carried with him from his home to
Tyrrhenia so much wealth, that he became sovereign of the city which had
received him, and his son became even king of the Romans.

The temple of Venus at Corinth was so rich, that it had more than a
thousand women consecrated to the service of the goddess, courtesans,
whom both men and women had dedicated as offerings to the goddess. The
city was frequented and enriched by the multitudes who resorted thither
on account of these women. Masters of ships freely squandered all their
money, and hence the proverb,

   “It is not in every man’s power to go to Corinth.”[219]

The answer is related of a courtesan to a woman who was reproaching her
with disliking work, and not employing herself in spinning;

   “Although I am what you see, yet, in this short time, I have
   already finished three distaffs.”[220]

21. The position of the city as it is described by Hieronymus, and
Eudoxus, and others, and from our own observation, since its restoration
by the Romans, is as follows.

That which is called the Acrocorinthus is a lofty mountain,
perpendicular, and about three stadia and a half in height. There is an
ascent of 30 stadia, and it terminates in a sharp point. The steepest
part is towards the north. Below it lies the city in a plain of the form
of a trapezium, at the very foot of the Acrocorinthus. The compass of
the city itself was 40 stadia, and all that part which was not protected
by the mountain was fortified by a wall. Even the mountain itself, the
Acrocorinthus, was comprehended within this wall, wherever it would
admit of fortification. As I ascended it, the ruins of the circuit of
the foundation were apparent, which gave a circumference of about 85
stadia. The other sides of the mountain are less steep; hence, however,
it stretches onwards, [CAS. 379] and is visible everywhere. The summit
has upon it a small temple of Venus, and below it is the fountain
Peirene, which has no efflux, but is continually full of water, which is
transparent, and fit for drinking. They say, that from the compression
of this, and of some other small under-ground veins, originates that
spring at the foot of the mountain, which runs into the city, and
furnishes the inhabitants with a sufficient supply of water. There is a
large number of wells in the city, and it is said in the Acrocorinthus
also, but this I did not see. When Euripides says,

   “I come from the Acrocorinthus, well-watered on all sides, the
   sacred hill and habitation of Venus,”

the epithet “well-watered on all sides,” must be understood to refer to
depth; pure springs and under-ground rills are dispersed through the
mountain; or we must suppose, that, anciently, the Peirene overflowed,
and irrigated the mountain. There, it is said, Pegasus was taken by
Bellerophon, while drinking; this was a winged horse, which sprung from
the neck of Medusa when the head of the Gorgon was severed from the
body. This was the horse, it is said, which caused the Hippocrene, or
Horse’s Fountain, to spring up in Helicon by striking the rock with its
hoof.

Below Peirene is the Sisypheium, which preserves a large portion of the
ruins of a temple, or palace, built of white marble. From the summit
towards the north are seen Parnassus and Helicon, lofty mountains
covered with snow; then the Crissæan Gulf,[221] lying below both, and
surrounded by Phocis, Bœotia, Megaris, by the Corinthian district
opposite to Phocis, and by Sicyonia on the west. * * * *

Above all these are situated the Oneia[222] mountains, as they are
called, extending as far as Bœotia and Cithæron, from the Sceironides
rocks, where the road leads along them to Attica.

22. Lechæum is the commencement of the coast on one side; and on the
other, Cenchreæ, a village with a harbour, distant from the city about
70 stadia. The latter serves for the trade with Asia, and Lechæum for
that with Italy.

Lechæum is situated below the city, and is not well inhabited.

There are long walls of about 12 stadia in length, stretching on each
side of the road towards Lechæum. The sea-shore, extending hence to Pagæ
in Megaris, is washed by the Corinthian Gulf. It is curved, and forms
the Diolcus, or the passage along which vessels are drawn over the
Isthmus to the opposite coast at Schœnus near Cenchreæ.

Between Lechæum and Pagæ, anciently, there was the oracle of the Acræan
Juno, and Olmiæ, the promontory that forms the gulf, on which are
situated Œnoe, and Pagæ; the former is a fortress of the Megarians; and
Œnoe is a fortress of the Corinthians.

Next to Cenchreæ[223] is Schœnus, where is the narrow part of the
Diolcus, then Crommyonia. In front of this coast lies the Saronic Gulf,
and the Eleusiniac, which is almost the same, and continuous with the
Hermionic. Upon the Isthmus is the temple of the Isthmian Neptune,
shaded above with a grove of pine trees, where the Corinthians
celebrated the Isthmian games.

Crommyon[224] is a village of the Corinthian district, and formerly
belonging to that of Megaris, where is laid the scene of the fable of
the Crommyonian sow, which, it is said, was the dam of the Calydonian
boar, and, according to tradition, the destruction of this sow was one
of the labours of Theseus.

Tenea is a village of the Corinthian territory, where there was a temple
of Apollo Teneates. It is said that Archias, who equipped a colony for
Syracuse, was accompanied by a great number of settlers from this place;
and that this settlement afterwards flourished more than any others, and
at length had an independent form of government of its own. When they
revolted from the Corinthians, they attached themselves to the Romans,
and continued to subsist when Corinth was destroyed.

An answer of an oracle is circulated, which was returned to an Asiatic,
who inquired whether it was better to migrate to Corinth;

   “Corinth is prosperous, but I would belong to Tenea”

which [CAS. 380] last word was perverted by some through ignorance, and
altered to Tegea. Here, it is said, Polybus brought up Œdipus.

There seems to be some affinity between the Tenedii and these people,
through Tennus, the son of Cycnus, according to Aristotle; the
similarity, too, of the divine honours paid by both to Apollo affords no
slight proof of this relationship.[225]

23. The Corinthians, when subject to Philip, espoused his party very
zealously, and individually conducted themselves so contemptuously
towards the Romans, that persons ventured to throw down filth upon their
ambassadors, when passing by their houses. They were immediately
punished for these and other offences and insults. A large army was sent
out under the command of Lucius Mummius, who razed the city.[226] The
rest of the country, as far as Macedonia, was subjected to the Romans
under different generals. The Sicyonii, however, had the largest part of
the Corinthian territory.

Polybius relates with regret what occurred at the capture of the city,
and speaks of the indifference the soldiers showed for works of art, and
the sacred offerings of the temples. He says, that he was present, and
saw pictures thrown upon the ground, and soldiers playing at dice upon
them. Among others, he specifies by name the picture of Bacchus[227] by
Aristeides, (to which it is said the proverb was applied, “Nothing to
the Bacchus,”) and Hercules tortured in the robe, the gift of
Deïaneira.[228] This I have not myself seen, but I have seen the picture
of the Bacchus suspended in the Demetreium at Rome, a very beautiful
piece of art, which, together with the temple, was lately consumed by
fire. The greatest number and the finest of the other offerings in Rome
were brought from Corinth. Some of them were in the possession of the
cities in the neighbourhood of Rome. For Mummius being more brave and
generous than an admirer of the arts, presented them without hesitation
to those who asked for them.[229] Lucullus, having built the temple of
Good Fortune, and a portico, requested of Mummius the use of some
statues, under the pretext of ornamenting the temple with them at the
time of its dedication, and promised to restore them. He did not,
however, restore, but presented them as sacred offerings, and told
Mummius to take them away if he pleased. Mummius did not resent this
conduct, not caring about the statues, but obtained more honour than
Lucullus, who presented them as sacred offerings.

Corinth remained a long time deserted, till at length it was restored on
account of its natural advantages by divus Cæsar, who sent colonists
thither, who consisted, for the most part, of the descendants of
free-men.

On moving the ruins, and digging open the sepulchres, an abundance of
works in pottery with figures on them, and many in brass, were found.
The workmanship was admired, and all the sepulchres were examined with
the greatest care. Thus was obtained a large quantity of things, which
were disposed of at a great price, and Rome filled with Necro-Corinthia,
by which name were distinguished the articles taken out of the
sepulchres, and particularly the pottery. At first these latter were
held in as much esteem as the works of the Corinthian artists in brass,
but this desire to have them did not continue, not only because the
supply failed, but because the greatest part of them were not well
executed.[230]

The city of Corinth was large and opulent at all periods, and produced a
great number of statesmen and artists. For here in particular, and at
Sicyon, flourished painting, and modelling, and every art of this kind.

The soil was not very fertile; its surface was uneven and [CAS. 382]
rugged, whence all writers describe Corinth as full of brows of hills,
and apply the proverb,

   “Corinth rises with brows of hills, and sinks into hollows.”

24. Orneæ has the same name as the river which flows beside it. At
present it is deserted; formerly, it was well inhabited, and contained a
temple of Priapus, held in veneration. It is from this place that
Euphronius, (Euphorius?) the author of a poem, the Priapeia, applies the
epithet Orneates to the god.

It was situated above the plain of the Sicyonians, but the Argives were
masters of the country.

Aræthyrea[231] is now called Phliasia. It had a city of the same name as
the country near the mountain Celossa. They afterwards removed thence
and built a city at the distance of 30 stadia, which they called
Phlius.[232] Part of the mountain Celossa is the Carneates, whence the
Asopus takes its rise, which flows by Sicyon,[233] and forms the Asopian
district, which is a part of Sicyonia. There is also an Asopus, which
flows by Thebes, and Platæa, and Tanagra. There is another also in
Heracleia Trachinia, which flows beside a village, called Parasopii, and
a fourth at Paros.

Phlius is situated in the middle of a circle formed by Sicyonia, Argeia,
Cleonæ, and Stymphalus. At Phlius and at Sicyon the temple of Dia, a
name given to Hebe, is held in veneration.

25. Sicyon was formerly called Mecone, and at a still earlier period,
Ægiali. It was rebuilt high up in the country about 20, others say,
about 12, stadia from the sea, upon an eminence naturally strong, which
is sacred to Ceres. The buildings anciently consisted of a naval arsenal
and a harbour.

Sicyonia is separated by the river Nemea from the Corinthian territory.
It was formerly governed for a very long period by tyrants, but they
were always persons of mild and moderate disposition. Of these, the most
illustrious was Aratus, who made the city free, and was the chief of the
Achæans, who voluntarily conferred upon him that power; he extended the
confederacy by annexing to it his own country, and the other
neighbouring cities.

Hyperesia, and the cities next in order in the Catalogue of the poet,
and Ægialus,[234] [or the sea-coast,] as far as Dyme, and the borders of
the Eleian territory, belong to the Achæans.




CHAPTER VII.


1. The Ionians, who were descendants of the Athenians, were, anciently,
masters of this country. It was formerly called Ægialeia, and the
inhabitants Ægialeans, but in later times, Ionia, from the former
people, as Attica had the name of Ionia, from Ion the son of Xuthus.

It is said, that Hellen was the son of Deucalion, and that he governed
the country about Phthia between the Peneius and Asopus, and transmitted
to his eldest son these dominions, sending the others out of their
native country to seek a settlement each of them for himself. Dorus, one
of them, settled the Dorians about Parnassus, and when he left them,
they bore his name. Xuthus, another, married the daughter of Erechtheus,
and was the founder of the Tetrapolis of Attica, which consisted of
Œnoe, Marathon, Probalinthus, and Tricorythus.

Achæus, one of the sons of Xuthus, having committed an accidental
murder, fled to Lacedæmon, and occasioned the inhabitants to take the
name of Achæans.[235]

Ion, the other son, having vanquished the Thracian army with their
leader Eumolpus, obtained so much renown, that the Athenians intrusted
him with the government of their state. It was he who first distributed
the mass of the people into four tribes, and these again into four
classes according to their occupations, husbandmen, artificers, priests,
and the fourth, military guards; after having made many more regulations
of this kind, he left to the country his own name.

It [CAS. 383] happened at that time that the country had such an
abundance of inhabitants, that the Athenians sent out a colony of
Ionians to Peloponnesus, and the tract of country which they occupied
was called Ionia after their own name, instead of Ægialeia, and the
inhabitants Ionians instead of Ægialeans, who were distributed among
twelve cities.

After the return of the Heracleidæ, these Ionians, being expelled by the
Achæans, returned to Athens, whence, in conjunction with the Codridæ,
(descendants of Codrus,) they sent out the Ionian colonists to
Asia.[236] They founded twelve cities on the sea-coast of Caria and
Lydia, having distributed themselves over the country into as many parts
as they occupied in Peloponnesus.[237]

The Achæans were Phthiotæ by descent, and were settled at Lacedæmon, but
when the Heracleidæ became masters of the country, having recovered
their power under Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, they attacked the
Ionians, as I said before, and defeated them. They drove the Ionians out
of the country, and took possession of the territory, but retained the
same partition of it which they found existing there. They became so
powerful, that, although the Heracleidæ, from whom they had revolted,
occupied the rest of Peloponnesus, yet they defended themselves against
them all, and called their own country Achæa.

From Tisamenus to Ogyges they continued to be governed by kings.
Afterwards they established a democracy, and acquired so great renown
for their political wisdom, that the Italian Greeks, after their
dissensions with the Pythagoreans, adopted most of the laws and
institutions of the Achæans. After the battle of Leuctra the
Thebans[238] committed the disputes of the cities among each other to
the arbitration of the Achæans. At a later period their community was
dissolved by the Macedonians, but they recovered by degrees their former
power. At the time of the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy they began
with the union of four cities, among which were Patræ and Dyme.[239]
They then had an accession of the twelve cities, with the exception of
Olenus and Helice; the former refused to join the league; the other was
swallowed up by the waves.

2. For the sea was raised to a great height by an earthquake, and
overwhelmed both Helice and the temple of the Heliconian Neptune, whom
the Ionians still hold in great veneration, and offer sacrifices to his
honour. They celebrate at that spot the Panionian festival.[240]
According to the conjecture of some persons, Homer refers to these
sacrifices in these lines,

  “But he breathed out his soul, and bellowed, as a bull
  Bellows when he is dragged round the altar of the Heliconian
     king.”[241]

It is conjectured that the age[242] of the poet is later than the
migration of the Ionian colony, because he mentions the Panionian
sacrifices, which the Ionians perform in honour of the Heliconian
Neptune in the territory of Priene; for the Prienians themselves are
said to have come from Helice; a young man also of Priene is appointed
to preside as king at these sacrifices, and to superintend the
celebration of the sacred rites. A still stronger proof is adduced from
what is said by the poet respecting the bull, for the Ionians suppose,
that sacrifice is performed with favourable omens, when the bull bellows
at the instant that he is wounded at the altar.

Others deny this, and transfer to Helice the proofs alleged of the bull
and the sacrifice, asserting that these things were done there by
established custom, and that the poet drew his comparison from the
festival celebrated there. Helice[243] was overwhelmed by the waves two
years before the battle of [CAS. 384] Leuctra. Eratosthenes says, that
he himself saw the place, and the ferrymen told him that there formerly
stood in the strait a brazen statue of Neptune, holding in his hand a
hippocampus,[244] an animal which is dangerous to fishermen.

According to Heracleides, the inundation took place in his time, and
during the night. The city was at the distance of 12 stadia from the
sea, which overwhelmed the whole intermediate country as well as the
city. Two thousand men were sent by the Achæans to collect the dead
bodies, but in vain. The territory was divided among the bordering
people. This calamity happened in consequence of the anger of Neptune,
for the Ionians, who were driven from Helice, sent particularly to
request the people of Helice to give them the image of Neptune, or if
they were unwilling to give that, to furnish them with the model of the
temple. On their refusal, the Ionians sent to the Achæan body, who
decreed, that they should comply with the request, but they would not
obey even this injunction. The disaster occurred in the following
winter, and after this the Achæans gave the Ionians the model of the
temple.

Hesiod mentions another Helice in Thessaly.

3. The Achæans, during a period of five and twenty years, elected,
annually, a common secretary, and two military chiefs. Their common
assembly of the council met at one place, called Arnarium, (Homarium, or
Amarium,) where these persons, and, before their time, the Ionians,
consulted on public affairs. They afterwards resolved to elect one
military chief. When Aratus held this post, he took the Acrocorinthus
from Antigonus, and annexed the city as well as his own country to the
Achæan league.[245] He admitted the Megareans also into the body, and,
having destroyed the tyrannical governments in each state, he made them
members, after they were restored to liberty, of the Achæan league. * *
* * * He freed, in a short time, Peloponnesus from the existing
tyrannies; thus Argos, Hermion, Phlius, and Megalopolis, the largest of
the Arcadian cities, were added to the Achæan body, when they attained
their greatest increase of numbers. It was at this time that the Romans,
having expelled the Carthaginians from Sicily, undertook an expedition
against the Galatæ, who were settled about the Po.[246] The Achæans
remained firmly united until Philopœmen had the military command, but
their union was gradually dissolved, after the Romans had obtained
possession of the whole of Greece. The Romans did not treat each state
in the same manner, but permitted some to retain their own form of
government, and dissolved that of others. * * * * *

[He then assigns reasons for expatiating on the subject of the Achæans,
namely, their attainment of such a degree of power as to be superior to
the Lacedæmonians, and because they were not as well known as they
deserved to be from their importance.][247]

4. The order of the places which the Achæans inhabited, according to the
distribution into twelve parts, is as follows. Next to Sicyon is
Pellene; Ægeira, the second; the third, Ægæ, with a temple of Neptune;
Bura, the fourth; then Helice, where the Ionians took refuge after their
defeat by the Achæans, and from which place they were at last banished;
after Helice are Ægium, Rhypes, Patræ, and Phara; then Olenus, beside
which runs the large river [Peirus?]; then Dyme, and Tritæeis. The
Ionians dwelt in villages, but the Achæans founded cities, to some of
which they afterwards united others transferred from other quarters, as
Ægæ to Ægeira, (the inhabitants, however, were called Ægæi,) and Olenus
to Dyme.

Traces of the ancient settlement of the Olenii are to be seen between
Patræ and Dyme: there also is the famous temple of Æsculapius, distant
from Dyme 40, and from Patræ 80 stadia.

In Eubœa there is a place of the same name with the [CAS. 386] Ægæ
here, and there is a town of the name of Olenus in Ætolia, of which
there remain only vestiges.

The poet does not mention the Olenus in Achaia, nor many other people
living near Ægialus, but speaks in general terms;

   “along the whole of Ægialus, and about the spacious Helice.”[248]

But he mentions the Ætolian Olenus in these words;

   “those who occupied Pleuron and Olenus.”[249]

He mentions both the places of the name of Ægæ; the Achæan Ægæ in these
terms,

   “who bring presents to Helice, and to Ægæ.”[250]

But when he says,

   “Ægæ, where his palace is in the depths of the sea,
   There Neptune stopped his coursers,”[251]

it is better to understand Ægæ in Eubœa; whence it is probable the Ægæan
Sea had its name. On this sea, according to story, Neptune made his
preparations for the Trojan war.

Close to the Achæan Ægæ flows the river Crathis,[252] augmented by the
waters of two rivers, and deriving its name from the mixture of their
streams. To this circumstance the river Crathis in Italy owes its name.

5. Each of these twelve portions contained seven or eight demi, so great
was the population of the country.

Pellene,[253] situated at the distance of 60 stadia from the sea, is a
strong fortress. There is also a village of the name of Pellene, whence
they bring the Pellenian mantles, which are offered as prizes at the
public games. It lies between Ægium[254] and Pellene. But Pellana, a
different place from these, belongs to the Lacedæmonians, and is
situated towards the territory of Megalopolitis.

Ægeira[255] is situated upon a hill. Bura is at the distance from the
sea-coast of about 40 stadia. It was swallowed up by an earthquake. It
is said, that from the fountain Sybaris which is there, the river
Sybaris in Italy had its name.

Æga (for this is the name by which Ægæ is called) is not now inhabited,
but the Ægienses occupy the territory. Ægium, however, is well
inhabited. It was here, it is said, that Jupiter was suckled by a goat,
as Aratus also says,

   “the sacred goat, which is said to have applied its teats to
   the lips of Jupiter.”[256]

He adds, that,

   “the priests call it the Olenian goat of Jupiter,”

and indicates the place because it was near Olenus. There also is
Ceryneia, situated upon a lofty rock. This place, and Helice, belong to
the Ægienses,[257] and the Ænarium, [Homarium,] the grove of Jupiter,
where the Achæans held their convention, when they were to deliberate
upon their common affairs.

The river Selinus flows through the city of the Ægienses. It has the
same name as that which was beside Artemisium at Ephesus, and that in
Elis, which has its course along the spot, that Xenophon[258] says he
purchased in compliance with the injunction of an oracle, in honour of
Artemis. There is also another Selinus in the country of the Hyblæi
Megarenses, whom the Carthaginians expelled.

Of the remaining Achæan cities, or portions, Rhypes is not inhabited,
but the territory called Rhypis was occupied by Ægienses and Pharians.
Æschylus also says somewhere,

   “the sacred Bura, and Rhypes struck with lightning.”

Myscellus, the founder of Croton, was a native of Rhypes. Leuctrum,
belonging to the district Rhypis, was a demus of Rhypes. Between these
was Patræ, a considerable city, and in the intervening country, at the
distance of 40 stadia from Patræ, are Rhium,[259] and opposite to it,
Antirrhium.[260] Not long since the Romans, after the victory at Actium,
stationed there a large portion of their army, and at [CAS. 387]
present it is very well peopled, since it is a colony of the Romans. It
has also a tolerably good shelter for vessels. Next is Dyme,[261] a city
without a harbour, the most westerly of all the cities, whence also it
has its name. It was formerly called Stratos.[262] It is separated from
Eleia at Buprasium by the river Larisus,[263] which rises in a mountain,
called by some persons Scollis, but by Homer, the Olenian rock.

Antimachus having called Dyme Cauconis, some writers suppose that the
latter word is used as an epithet derived from the Caucones, who
extended as far as this quarter, as I have said before. Others think
that it is derived from a river Caucon, in the same way as Thebes has
the appellation of Dircæan, and Asopian; and as Argos is called
Inachian, and Troy, Simuntis.[264]

A little before our time, Dyme had received a colony consisting of a
mixed body of people, a remnant of the piratical bands, whose haunts
Pompey had destroyed. Some he settled at Soli in Cilicia, and others in
other places, and some in this spot.

Phara borders upon the Dymæan territory. The inhabitants of this Phara
are called Pharenses; those of the Messenian Phara, Pharatæ. In the
territory of Phara there is a fountain Dirce, of the same name as that
at Thebes.

Olenus is deserted. It lies between Patræ and Dyme. The territory is
occupied by the Dymæi. Next is Araxus,[265] the promontory of the Eleian
district, distant from the isthmus 1000 stadia.




CHAPTER VIII.


1. Arcadia is situated in the middle of Peloponnesus, and contains the
greatest portion of the mountainous tract in that country. Its largest
mountain is Cyllene.[266] Its perpendicular height, according to some
writers, is 20, according to others, about 15 stadia.

The Arcadian nations, as the Azanes, and Parrhasii, and other similar
tribes, seem to be the most ancient people of Greece.[267]

In consequence of the complete devastation of this country, it is
unnecessary to give a long description of it. The cities, although
formerly celebrated, have been destroyed by continual wars; and the
husbandmen abandoned the country at the time that most of the cities
were united in that called Megalopolis (the Great City). At present
Megalopolis itself has undergone the fate expressed by the comic poet;

   “the great city is a great desert.”

There are rich pastures for cattle, and particularly for horses and
asses, which are used as stallions. The race of Arcadian horses, as well
as the Argolic and Epidaurian, is preferred before all others. The
uninhabited tracts of country in Ætolia and Acarnania are not less
adapted to the breeding of horses than Thessaly.

2. Mantinea owes its fame to Epaminondas, who conquered the
Lacedæmonians there in a second battle, in which he lost his life.[268]

This city, together with Orchomenus, Heræa, Cleitor, Pheneus,
Stymphalus, Mænalus, Methydrium, Caphyeis, and Cynætha, either exist no
longer, or traces and signs only of their existence are visible. There
are still some remains of Tegea, and the temple of the Alæan Minerva
remains. The latter is yet held in some little veneration, as well as
the temple of the Lycæan Jupiter on the Lycæan mountain. But the places
mentioned by the poet, as

   “Rhipe, and Stratia, and the windy Enispe,”

are difficult to discover, and if discovered, would be of no use from
the deserted condition of the country.

3. [CAS. 389] The mountains of note, besides Cyllene, are Pholoë,[269]
Lycæum,[270] Mænalus, and the Parthenium,[271] as it is called, which
extends from the territory of Tegea to that of Argos.

4. We have spoken of the extraordinary circumstances relative to the
Alpheius, Eurotas, and the Erasinus, which issues out of the lake
Stymphalis, and now flows into the Argive country.

Formerly, the Erasinus had no efflux, for the Berethra, which the
Arcadians call Zerethra,[272] had no outlet, so that the city of the
Stymphalii, which at that time was situated upon the lake, is now at the
distance of 50 stadia.

The contrary was the case with the Ladon, which was at one time
prevented running in a continuous stream by the obstruction of its
sources. For the Berethra near Pheneum, through which it now passes,
fell in, in consequence of an earthquake, which stopped the waters of the
river, and affected far down the veins which supplied its source. This
is the account of some writers.

Eratosthenes says, that about the Pheneus, the river called Anias forms
a lake, and then sinks under-ground into certain openings, which they
call Zerethra. When these are obstructed, the water sometimes overflows
into the plains, and when they are again open the water escapes in a
body from the plains, and is discharged into the Ladon[273] and the
Alpheius,[274] so that it happened once at Olympia, that the land about
the temple was inundated, but the lake was partly emptied. The
Erasinus[275] also, he says, which flows by Stymphalus, sinks into the
ground under the mountain (Chaon?), and reappears in the Argive
territory. It was this that induced Iphicrates, when besieging
Stymphalus, and making no progress, to attempt to obstruct the descent
of the river into the ground by means of a large quantity of sponges,
but desisted in consequence of some portentous signs in the heavens.

Near the Pheneus there is also the water of the Styx, as it is called, a
dripping spring of poisonous water, which was esteemed to be sacred.

So much then respecting Arcadia.

5.[276] Polybius having said, that from Maleæ towards the north as far
as the Danube the distance is about 10,000 stadia, is corrected by
Artemidorus, and not without reason; for, according to the latter, from
Maleæ to Ægium the distance is 1400 stadia, from hence to Cirrha is a
distance by sea of 200 stadia; hence by Heraclea to Thaumaci a journey
of 500 stadia; thence to Larisa and the river Peneus, 340 stadia; then
through Tempe to the mouth of the Peneus, 240 stadia; then to
Thessalonica, 660 stadia; then to the Danube, through Idomene, and
Stobi, and Dardanii, it is 3200 stadia. According to Artemidorus,
therefore, the distance from the Danube to Maleæ would be 6500. The
cause of this difference is that he does not give the measurement by the
shortest road, but by some accidental route pursued by a general of an
army.

It is not, perhaps, out of place to add the founders mentioned by
Ephorus, who settled colonies in Peloponnesus after the return of the
Heracleidæ; as Aletes, the founder of Corinth; Phalces, of Sicyon;
Tisamenus, of cities in Achæa; Oxylus, of Elis, Cresphontes, of Messene;
Eurysthenes and Procles, of Lacedæmon; Temenus and Cissus, of Argos; and
Agræus and Deïphontes, of the towns about Acte.




BOOK IX.[CAS. 390]

SUMMARY.


   Continuation of the geography of Greece. A panegyrical account
   of Athens. A description of Bœotia and Thessaly, with the
   sea-coast.




CHAPTER I.


1. Having completed the description of Peloponnesus, which we said was
the first and least of the peninsulas of which Greece consists, we must
next proceed to those which are continuous with it.[277]

We described the second to be that which joins Megaris to the
Peloponnesus [so that Crommyon belongs to Megaris, and not to the
Corinthians];[278] the third to be that which is situated near the
former, comprising Attica and Bœotia, some part of Phocis, and of the
Locri Epicnemidii. Of these we are now to speak.

Eudoxus says, that if we imagine a straight line to be drawn towards the
east from the Ceraunian Mountains to Sunium, the promontory of Attica,
it would leave, on the right hand, to the south, the whole of
Peloponnesus, and on the left, to the north, the continuous coast from
the Ceraunian Mountains to the Crisæan Gulf, and the whole of Megaris
and Attica. He is of opinion that the shore which extends from Sunium to
the Isthmus, would not have so great a curvature, nor have so great a
bend, if, to this shore, were not added the parts continuous with the
Isthmus and extending to the Hermionic Bay and Acté; that in the same
manner the shore, from the Ceraunian Mountains to the Gulf of Corinth,
has a similar bend, so as to make a curvature, forming within it a sort
of gulf, where Rhium and Antirrhium contracting together give it this
figure. The same is the case with the shore about Crissa and the recess,
where the Crisæan Sea terminates.[279]

2. As this is the description given by Eudoxus, a mathematician, skilled
in the delineations of figures and the inclinations of places,
acquainted also with the places themselves, we must consider the sides
of Attica and Megaris, extending from Sunium as far as the Isthmus, to
be curved, although slightly so. About the middle of the above-mentioned
line[280] is the Piræus, the naval arsenal of the Athenians. It is
distant from Schœnus, at the Isthmus, about 350 stadia; from Sunium 330.
The distance from the Piræus to Pagæ[281] and from the Piræus to Schœnus
is nearly the same, yet the former is said to exceed the latter by 10
stadia. After having doubled Sunium, the navigation along the coast is
to the north with a declination to the west.

3. Acte (Attica) is washed by two seas; it is at first narrow, then it
widens towards the middle, yet it, nevertheless, takes a lunated bend
towards Oropus in Bœotia, having the convex side towards the sea. This
is the second, the eastern side of Attica.

The remaining side is that to the north, extending from the territory of
Oropus towards the west, as far as Megaris, and consists of the
mountainous tract of Attica, having a variety of names, and dividing
Bœotia from Attica; so that, as I have before remarked, Bœotia, by being
connected with [CAS. 391] two seas, becomes the Isthmus of the third
peninsula, which we have mentioned before, and this Isthmus includes
within it the Peloponnesus, Megaris, and Attica. For this reason
therefore the present Attica was called by a play upon the words Acta
and Actica, because the greatest part of it lies under the mountains,
and borders on the sea; it is narrow, and stretches forwards a
considerable length as far as Sunium. We shall therefore resume the
description of these sides, beginning from the sea-coast, at the point
where we left off.

4. After Crommyon, rising above Attica, are the rocks called Scironides,
which afford no passage along the sea-side. Over them, however, is a
road which leads to Megara and Attica from the Isthmus. The road
approaches so near the rocks that in many places it runs along the edge
of precipices, for the overhanging mountain is of great height, and
impassable.

Here is laid the scene of the fable of Sciron, and the Pityocamptes, or
the pine-breaker, one of those who infested with their robberies the
above-mentioned mountainous tract. They were slain by Theseus.

The wind Argestes,[282] which blows from the left with violence, from
these summits is called by the Athenians Sciron.

After the rocks Scironides there projects the promontory Minoa, forming
the harbour of Nisæa. Nisæa is the arsenal of Megara, and distant 18
stadia from the city; it is joined to it by walls on each side.[283]
This also had the name of Minoa.

5. In former times the Ionians occupied this country, and were also in
possession of Attica, before the time of the building of Megara,
wherefore the poet does not mention these places by any appropriate
name, but when he calls all those dwelling in Attica, Athenians, he
comprehends these also in the common appellation, regarding them as
Athenians; so when, in the Catalogue of the Ships, he says,

   “And they who occupied Athens, a well-built city,”[284]

we must understand the present Megarenses also, as having taken a part
in the expedition. The proof of this is, that Attica was, in former
times, called Ionia, and Ias, and when the poet says,

   “There the Bœoti, Iaones,”[285]

he means the Athenians. But of this Ionia Megaris was a part.

6. Besides, the Peloponnesians and Ionians having had frequent disputes
respecting their boundaries, on which Crommyonia also was situated,
assembled and agreed upon a spot of the Isthmus itself, on which they
erected a pillar having an inscription on the part towards Peloponnesus,

   “THIS IS PELOPONNESUS, NOT IONIA;”

and on the side towards Megara,

   “THIS IS NOT PELOPONNESUS, BUT IONIA.”

Although those, who wrote on the history of Attica,[286] differ in many
respects, yet those of any note agree in this, that when there were four
Pandionidæ, Ægeus, Lycus, Pallas, and Nisus; and when Attica was divided
into four portions, Nisus obtained, by lot, Megaris, and founded Nisæa.
Philochorus says, that his government extended from the Isthmus to
Pythium,[287] but according to Andron, as far as Eleusis and the
Thriasian plain.

Since, then, different writers give different accounts of the division
of the country into four parts, it is enough to adduce these lines from
Sophocles where Ægeus says,

   “My father determined that I should go away to Acte, having
   assigned to me, as the elder, the best part of the land; to
   Lycus, the opposite garden of Eubœa; for Nisus he selects the
   irregular tract of the shore of Sciron; and the rugged Pallas,
   breeder of giants, obtained by lot the part to the
   south.”[288]

Such are the proofs which are adduced to show that Megaris was a part of
Attica.

7. After the return of the Heraclidæ, and the partition of the country,
many of the former possessors were banished from their own land by the
Heraclidæ, and by the Dorians, who came with them, and migrated to
Attica. Among these was Melanthus, the king of Messene. He was
voluntarily [CAS. 393] appointed king of the Athenians, after having
overcome in single combat, Xanthus, the king of the Bœotians. When
Attica became populous by the accession of fugitives, the Heraclidæ were
alarmed, and invaded Attica, chiefly at the instigation of the
Corinthians and Messenians; the former of whom were influenced by
proximity of situation, the latter by the circumstance that Codrus, the
son of Melanthus, was at that time king of Attica. They were, however,
defeated in battle and relinquished the whole of the country, except the
territory of Megara, of which they kept possession, and founded the city
Megara, where they introduced as inhabitants Dorians in place of
Ionians. They destroyed the pillar also which was the boundary of the
country of the Ionians and the Peloponnesians.

8. The city of the Megarenses, after having experienced many changes,
still subsists. It once had schools of philosophers, who had the name of
the Megaric sect. They succeeded Euclides, the Socratic philosopher, who
was by birth a Megarensian, in the same manner as the Eleiaci, among
whom was Pyrrhon, who succeeded Phædon, the Eleian, who was also a
Socratic philosopher, and as the Eretriaci succeeded Menedemus the
Eretrean.

Megaris, like Attica, is very sterile, and the greater part of it is
occupied by what are called the Oneii mountains, a kind of ridge, which,
extending from the Scironides rocks to Bœotia and to Cithæron, separates
the sea at Nisæa from that near Pagæ, called the Alcyonian Sea.

9. In sailing from Nisæa to Attica there lie, in the course of the
voyage, five small islands. Then succeeds Salamis, which is about 70,
and according to others, 80, stadia in length. It has two cities of the
same name. The ancient city, which looked towards Ægina and to the
south, as Æschylus has described it;

   “Ægina lies towards the blasts of the south:”

it is uninhabited. The other is situated in a bay on a spot of a
peninsular form contiguous to Attica. In former times it had other
names, for it was called Sciras, and Cychreia, from certain heroes; from
the former Minerva is called Sciras; hence also Scira, a place in
Attica; Episcirosis, a religious rite; and Scirophorion, one of the
months. From Cychreia the serpent Cychrides had its name, which Hesiod
says Cychreus bred, and Eurylochus ejected, because it infested the
island, but that Ceres admitted it into Eleusis, and it became her
attendant. Salamis was called also Pityussa from “pitys,” the pine tree.
The island obtained its renown from the Æacidæ, who were masters of it,
particularly from Ajax, the son of Telamon, and from the defeat of
Xerxes by the Greeks in a battle on the coast, and by his flight to his
own country. The Æginetæ participated in the glory of that engagement,
both as neighbours, and as having furnished a considerable naval force.
[In Salamis is the river Bocarus, now called Bocalia.][289]

10. At present the Athenians possess the island Salamis. In former times
they disputed the possession of it with the Megarians. Some allege, that
Pisistratus, others that Solon, inserted in the Catalogue of Ships
immediately after this verse,

   “Ajax conducted from Salamis twelve vessels,”[290]

the following words,

   “And stationed them by the side of the Athenian forces;”

and appealed to the poet as a witness, that the island originally
belonged to the Athenians. But this is not admitted by the critics,
because many other lines testify the contrary. For why does Ajax appear
at the extremity of the line not with the Athenians, but with the
Thessalians under the command of Protesilaus;

   “There were the vessels of Ajax, and Protesilaus.”[291]

And Agamemnon, in the Review[4] of the troops,

   “found the son of Peteus, Menestheus, the tamer of horses,
   standing, and around were the Athenians skilful in war: near
   stood the wily Ulysses, and around him and at his side, the
   ranks of the Cephalleni;”[292]

and again, respecting Ajax and the Salaminii;

   “he came to the Ajaces,”[293]

and near them,

   “Idomeneus on the other side amidst the Cretans,”[294]

not Menestheus. The Athenians then seem to have alleged [CAS. 394] some
such evidence as this from Homer as a pretext, and the Megarians to have
replied in an opposite strain of this kind;

   “Ajax conducted ships from Salamis, from Polichna, from
   Ægirussa, from Nisæa, and from Tripodes,”[295]

which are places in Megaris, of which Tripodes has the name of
Tripodiscium, situated near the present forum of Megara.

11. Some say, that Salamis is unconnected with Attica, because the
priestess of Minerva Polias, who may not eat the new cheese of Attica,
but the produce only of a foreign land, yet uses the Salaminian cheese.
But this is a mistake, for she uses that which is brought from other
islands, that are confessedly near Attica, for the authors of this
custom considered all produce as foreign which was brought over sea.

It seems as if anciently the present Salamis was a separate state, and
that Megara was a part of Attica.

On the sea-coast, opposite to Salamis, the boundaries of Megara and
Attica are two mountains called Cerata, or Horns.[296]

12. Next is the city Eleusis,[297] in which is the temple of the
Eleusinian Ceres, and the Mystic Enclosure (Secos),[298] which Ictinus
built,[299] capable of containing the crowd of a theatre. It was this
person that built[300] the Parthenon in the Acropolis, in honour of
Minerva, when Pericles was the superintendent of the public works. The
city is enumerated among the demi, or burghs.

13. Then follows the Thriasian plain, and the coast, a demus of the same
name,[301] then the promontory Amphiale,[302] above which is a stone
quarry; and then the passage across the sea to Salamis, of about 2
stadia, which Xerxes endeavoured to fill up with heaps of earth, but the
sea-fight and the flight of the Persians occurred before he had
accomplished it.

There also are the Pharmacussæ,[303] two small islands, in the larger
of which is shown the tomb of Circe.

14. Above this coast is a mountain called Corydallus, and the demus
Corydalleis: then the harbour of Phoron, (Robbers,) and Psyttalia, a
small rocky desert island, which, according to some writers, is the
eye-sore of the Piræus.

Near it is Atalanta, of the same name as that between Eubœa and the
Locri; and another small island similar to Psyttalia; then the Piræus,
which is also reckoned among the demi, and the Munychia.

15. The Munychia is a hill in the shape of a peninsula, hollow, and a
great part of it excavated both by nature and art, so as to serve for
dwellings, with an entrance by a narrow opening. Beneath it are three
harbours. Formerly the Munychia was surrounded by a wall, and occupied
by dwellings, nearly in the same manner as the city of the Rhodians,
comprehending within the circuit of the walls the Piræus and the
harbours full of materials for ship-building; here also was the armoury,
the work of Philon. The naval station was capable of receiving the four
hundred vessels; which was the smallest number the Athenians were in the
habit of keeping in readiness for sea. With this wall were connected the
legs, that stretched out from the Asty. These were the long walls, 40
stadia in length, joining the Asty[304] to the Piræus. But in
consequence of frequent wars, the wall and the fortification of the
Munychia were demolished; the Piræus was contracted to a small town,
extending round the harbours and the temple of Jupiter Soter. The small
porticoes of the temple contain admirable paintings, the work of
celebrated artists, and the hypæthrum, statues. The long walls also were
destroyed, first demolished by the Lacedæmonians, and afterwards by the
Romans, when Sylla took the Piræus and the Asty by siege.[305]

16. What is properly the Asty is a rock, situated in a plain, with
dwellings around it. Upon the rock is the temple [CAS. 396] of Minerva,
and the ancient shrine of Minerva Polias, in which is the
never-extinguished lamp; and the Parthenon, built by Ictinus, in which
is the Minerva, in ivory, the work of Pheidias.

When, however, I consider the multitude of objects, so celebrated and
far-famed, belonging to this city, I am reluctant to enlarge upon them,
lest what I write should depart too far from the proposed design of this
work.[306] For the words of Hegesias[307] occur to me;

   “I behold the acropolis, there is the symbol of the great
   trident;[308] I see Eleusis; I am initiated in the sacred
   mysteries; that is Leocorium;[309] this the Theseium.[310] To
   describe all is beyond my power, for Attica is the chosen
   residence of the gods; and the possession of heroes its
   progenitors.”

Yet this very writer mentions only one of the remarkable things to be
seen in the Acropolis. Polemo Periegetes[311] however composed four
books on the subject of the sacred offerings which were there. Hegesias
is similarly sparing of remarks on other parts of the city, and of the
territory: after speaking of Eleusis, one of the hundred and seventy
demi, to which as they say four are to be added, he mentions no other by
name.

17. Many, if not all the demi, have various fabulous tales and histories
connected with them: with Aphidna is connected the rape of Helen by
Theseus, the sack of the place by the Dioscuri, and the recovery of
their sister; with Marathon, the battle with the Persians; at Rhamnus
was the statue of Nemesis, which, according to some writers, is the work
of Diodotus, according to others, of Agoracritus, the Parian, so well
executed, both as to size and beauty, as to rival the art of Pheidias.
Deceleia was the rendezvous of the Peloponnesians in the Decelic war.
From Phyle Thrasybulus brought back the people to the Piræus, and thence
to the Asty. Thus also much might be told respecting many other places;
the Leocorium, the Theseium, and the Lyceum have their own fables, and
the Olympicum, called also the Olympium, which the king, who dedicated
it, left, at his death, half finished; so also much might be said of the
Academia, of the gardens of the philosophers, of the Odeium,[312] of the
Stoa Pœcile, [or painted Portico,] and of the temples in the city, all
of which contain the works of illustrious artists.

18. The account would be much longer if we were to inquire who were the
founders of the city from the time of Cecrops, for writers do not agree,
as is evident from the names of persons and of places. For example,
Attica,[313] they say, was derived from Actæon; Atthis, and Attica, from
Atthis, the daughter of Cranaus, from whom the inhabitants had the name
Cranaï; Mopsopia from Mopsopus; Ionia from Ion, the son of Xuthus;
Poseidonia and Athenæ, from the deities of that name. We have said, that
the nation of the Pelasgi seem to have come into this country in the
course of their migrations, and were called from their wanderings, by
the Attici, Pelargi, or storks.

19. In proportion as an earnest desire is excited to ascertain the truth
about remarkable places and events, and in proportion as writers, on
these subjects, are more numerous, so much the more is an author exposed
to censure, who does not make himself master of what has been written.
For example, in “the Collection of the Rivers,” Callimachus says, that
he should laugh at the person, who would venture to describe the
Athenian virgins as

   “drinking of the pure waters of the Eridanus,”[CAS. 397]

from which even the herds would turn away. There are indeed fountains of
water, pure and fit for drinking, it is said, without the gate called
Diochares, near the Lyceium; formerly also a fountain was erected near
it, which afforded a large supply of excellent water; but if it is not
so at present, is it at all strange, that a fountain supplying abundance
of pure and potable water at one period of time, should afterwards have
the property of its waters altered?

In subjects, however, which are so numerous, we cannot enter into
detail; yet they are not so entirely to be passed over in silence as to
abstain from giving a condensed account of some of them.

20. It will suffice then to add, that, according to Philochorus, when
the country was devastated on the side of the sea by the Carians, and by
land by the Bœotians, whom they called Aones, Cecrops first settled a
large body of people in twelve cities, the names of which were Cecropia,
Tetrapolis, Epacria, Deceleia, Eleusis, Aphidna, (although some persons
write it in the plural number, Aphidnæ,) Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus,
Sphettus, Cephisia [Phalerus]. Again, at a subsequent period, Theseus is
said to have collected the inhabitants of the twelve cities into one,
the present city.

Formerly, the Athenians were governed by kings; they afterwards changed
the government to a democracy; then tyrants were their masters, as
Pisistratus and his sons; afterwards there was an oligarchy both of the
four hundred and of the thirty tyrants, whom the Lacedæmonii set over
them; these were expelled by the Athenians, who retained the form of a
democracy, till the Romans established their empire. For, although they
were somewhat oppressed by the Macedonian kings, so as to be compelled
to obey them, yet they preserved entire the same form of government.
Some say, that the government was very well administered during a period
of ten years, at the time that Casander was king of the Macedonians. For
this person, although in other respects he was disposed to be
tyrannical, yet, when he was master of the city, treated the Athenians
with kindness and generosity. He placed at the head of the citizens
Demetrius the Phalerean, a disciple of Theophrastus the philosopher,
who, far from dissolving, restored the democracy. This appears from his
memoirs, which he composed concerning this mode of government. But so
much hatred and dislike prevailed against anything connected with
oligarchy, that, after the death of Casander, he was obliged to fly into
Egypt.[314] The insurgents pulled down more than three hundred of his
statues, which were melted down, and according to some were cast into
chamber-pots. The Romans, after their conquest, finding them governed by
a democracy,[315] maintained their independence and liberty. During the
Mithridatic war, the king set over them such tyrants as he pleased.
Aristio, who was the most powerful of these persons, oppressed the city;
he was taken by Sylla, the Roman general, after a siege,[316] and put to
death. The citizens were pardoned, and, to this time, the city enjoys
liberty, and is respected by the Romans.

21. Next to the Piræus is the demus Phalereis, on the succeeding line of
coast, then Halimusii, Æxoneis, Alæeis, the Æxonici, Anagyrasii; then
Theoris, Lampesis; Ægilieis, Anaphlystii, Azenieis; these extend as far
as the promontory Sunium. Between the above-mentioned demi is a long
promontory, Zoster,[317] the first after the Æxoneis; then another
promontory after Thoreis, Astypalæa; in the front of the former of these
is an island, Phabra,[318] and of the latter an island, Eleüssa,[319]
opposite the Æxoneis is Hydrussa. About Anaphlystum is the Paneum, and
the temple of Venus Colias. Here, they say, were thrown up by the waves
the last portions of the wrecks of the vessels after the naval
engagement with the Persians near Salamis, of which remains Apollo
predicted,

   “The women of Colias shall shudder at the sight of oars.”

In front of these places lies off, at no great distance, the island
Belbina; and the rampart of Patroclus; but most of these islands are
uninhabited.

22. On doubling the promontory at Sunium, we meet with Sunium, a
considerable demus; then Thoricus, next a demus called Potamus, from
which the inhabitants are called Potamii; next Prasia,[320] Steiria,
Brauron, where is the temple of [CAS. 399] Diana Brauronia, Halæ
Araphenides, where is the temple of Diana Tauropola; then Myrrhinus,
Probalinthus, Marathon, where Miltiades entirely destroyed the army of
Datis the Persian, without waiting for the Lacedæmonians, who deferred
setting out till the full moon. There is laid the scene of the fable of
the Marathonian bull, which Theseus killed.

Next to Marathon is Tricorynthus, then Rhamnus, where is the temple of
Nemesis; then Psaphis, a city of the Oropii. Somewhere about this spot
is the Amphiaraeum, an oracle once in repute, to which Amphiareus fled,
as Sophocles says,

   “The dusty Theban soil opened and received him with his
   armour, and the four-horse chariot.”

Oropus has frequently been a subject of contention, for it is situated
on the confines of Attica and Bœotia.

In front of this coast, before Thoricum and Sunium, is the island
Helena; it is rocky and uninhabited, extending in length about 60
stadia, which, they say, the poet mentions in the words, in which
Alexander addresses Helen,

   “Not when first I carried thee away from the pleasant
   Lacedæmon, across the deep, and in the island Cranaë embraced
   thee.”[321]

For Cranaë, from the kind of intercourse which took place there, is now
called Helena. Next to Helena,[322] Eubœa[323] lies in front of the
following tract of coast. It is long and narrow, and stretching along
the continent like Helena. From Sunium to the southern point of Eubœa,
which is called Leuce Acte,[324] [or, the white coast,] is a voyage of
300 stadia, but we shall speak hereafter of Eubœa.

It would be tedious to recite the names of the Demi of Attica in the
inland parts, on account of their number.[325]

23. Among the mountains which are most celebrated, are the Hymettus,
Brilessus, Lycabettus, Parnes, and Corydallus.[326] Near the city are
excellent quarries of Hymettian and Pentelic marble. The Hymettus
produces also the finest honey. The silver mines in Attica were at first
of importance, but are now exhausted. The workmen, when the mines
yielded a bad return to their labour, committed to the furnace the old
refuse and scoria, and hence obtained very pure silver, for the former
workmen had carried on the process in the furnace unskilfully.

Although the Attic is the best of all the kinds of honey, yet by far the
best of the Attic honey is that found in the country of the silver
mines,[327] which they call acapniston, or unsmoked, from the mode of
its preparation.

24. Among the rivers is the Cephissus, having its source from the
Trinemeis, it flows through the plain (where are the Gephyra, and the
Gephyrismi) between the legs or walls extending from the Asty to the
Piræus, and empties itself into the Phalericum. Its character is chiefly
that of a winter torrent, for in the summer time it fails altogether.
Such also, for the most part, is the Ilissus, which flows from the other
side of the Asty to the same coast, from the parts above Agra, and the
Lyceium, and the fountain celebrated by Plato in the Phædrus. So much
then respecting Attica.




CHAPTER II.


1. Next in order is Bœotia. When I speak of this country, and of the
contiguous nations, I must, for the sake of perspicuity, repeat what I
have said before.

We have said, that the sea-coast stretches from Sunium to the north as
far as Thessalonica, inclining a little toward the west, and having the
sea on the east, that parts situated above this shore towards the west
extend like belts[328] parallel to one another through the whole
country. The first of these belts is Attica with Megaris, the eastern
side of which extends [CAS. 400] from Sunium to Oropus, and Bœotia; on
the western side is the isthmus, and the Alcyonian sea commencing at
Pagæ and extending as far as the boundaries of Bœotia near Creusa, the
remaining two sides are formed by the sea-shore from Sunium to the
Isthmus, and the mountain tract nearly parallel with this, which
separates Attica from Bœotia.

The second belt is Bœotia, stretching from east to west from the Eubœan
sea to the Crisæan Gulf, nearly of equal length with Attica, or perhaps
somewhat less; in quality of soil however it greatly surpasses Attica.

2. Ephorus declares the superiority of Bœotia over the bordering nations
not only in this respect, but also because it alone has three seas
adjoining it, and a great number of harbours. At the Crisæan and
Corinthian Gulfs it received the commodities of Italy, Sicily, and
Africa. Towards Eubœa the sea-coast branches off on each side of the
Euripus; in one direction towards Aulis and Tanagrica, in the other, to
Salganeus and Anthedon; on one side there is an open sea to Egypt, and
Cyprus, and the islands; on the other to Macedonia, the Propontis, and
the Hellespont. He adds also that Eubœa is almost a part of Bœotia,
because the Euripus is very narrow, and the opposite shores are brought
into communication by a bridge of two plethra in length.[329]

For these reasons he praises the country, and says, that it has natural
advantages for obtaining supreme command, but that from want of careful
education and learning, even those who were from time to time at the
head of affairs did not long maintain the ascendency they had acquired,
as appears from the example of Epaminondas; at his death the Thebans
immediately lost the supremacy they had just acquired. This is to be
attributed, says Ephorus, to their neglect of learning, and of
intercourse with mankind, and to their exclusive cultivation of military
virtues. It must be added also, that learning and knowledge are
peculiarly useful in dealing with Greeks, but in the case of Barbarians,
force is preferable to reason. In fact the Romans in early times, when
carrying on war with savage nations, did not require such
accomplishments, but from the time that they began to be concerned in
transactions with more civilized people, they applied themselves to
learning, and so established universal dominion.

3. Bœotia was first occupied by Barbarians, Aones, and Temmices, a
wandering people from Sunium, by Leleges, and Hyantes. Then the
Phœnicians, who accompanied Cadmus, possessed it. He fortified the
Cadmeian land, and transmitted the government to his descendants. The
Phœnicians founded Thebes, and added it to the Cadmeian territory. They
preserved their dominion, and exercised it over the greatest part of the
Bœotians till the time of the expedition of the Epigoni. At this period
they abandoned Thebes for a short time, but returned again. In the same
manner when they were ejected by Thracians and Pelasgi, they established
their rule in Thessaly together with the Arnæi for a long period, so
that all the inhabitants obtained the name of Bœotians. They returned
afterwards to their own country, at the time the Æolian expedition was
preparing at Aulis in Bœotia which the descendants of Orestes were
equipping for Asia. After having united the Orchomenian tract to Bœotia
(for formerly they did not form one community, nor has Homer enumerated
these people with the Bœotians, but by themselves, calling them Minyæ)
with the assistance of the Orchomenians they drove out the Pelasgi, who
went to Athens, a part of which city is called from this people
Pelasgic. The Pelasgi however settled below Hymettus. The Thracians
retreated to Parnassus. The Hyantes founded Hyampolis in Phocis.

4. Ephorus relates that the Thracians, after making treaty with the
Bœotians, attacked them by night, when encamped in a careless manner
during a time of peace. The Thracians when reproached, and accused of
breaking the treaty, replied, that they had not broken it, for the
conditions were “by day,” whereas they had made the attack by night,
whence the common proverb, “a Thracian shuffle.”

The Pelasgi and the Bœotians also went during the war to consult the
oracle. He cannot tell, he says, what answer was given to the Pelasgi,
but the prophetess replied to the Bœotians that they would prosper by
committing some act of impiety. The messengers sent to consult the
oracle suspecting the prophetess of favouring the Pelasgi on account of
their relationship, (for the temple had originally belonged to the
Pelasgi,) seized the woman, and threw her upon a burning pile,
considering, that whether her conduct had been right or [CAS. 402]
wrong, in either case they were right; for if she had uttered a
deceitful answer she was duly punished; but if not, they had only
complied with the command of the oracle. Those in charge of the temple
did not like to put to death, particularly in the temple, the
perpetrators of this act without a formal judgment, and therefore
subjected them to a trial. They were summoned before the priestesses,
who were also the prophetesses, being the two survivors out of the
three. The Bœotians alleged that there was no law permitting women to
act as judges; an equal number of men were therefore chosen. The men
acquitted; the women condemned. As the votes were equal, those for
acquittal prevailed. Hence at Dodona it is to the Bœotians only that men
deliver oracles. The prophetesses however give a different meaning to
the answer of the oracle, and say, that the god enjoins the Bœotians to
steal the tripods used at home, and to send them annually to Dodona.
This they did, for they were in the habit of carrying away by night some
of the dedicated tripods, which they concealed in their clothes, in
order to convey them clandestinely as offerings to Dodona.

5. After this they assisted Penthilus in sending out the Æolian colony,
and despatched a large body of their own people with him, so that it was
called the Bœotian colony.

A long time afterwards the country was devastated during the war with
the Persians at Platææ. They afterwards so far recovered their power,
that the Thebans, having vanquished the Lacedæmonians in two
battles,[330] disputed the sovereignty of Greece. Epaminondas, however,
was killed, and they were disappointed in their hope of obtaining this
supremacy. They, nevertheless, fought in defence of the Greeks against
the Phocæans, who had plundered their common temple. Reduced by this
war, and by the Macedonians, at the time they invaded Greece, they lost
their city, which was afterwards restored to them, and rebuilt by the
Macedonians themselves, who had razed it.[331] From that period to our
own times their affairs have continued to decline, nor do they retain
the appearance even of a considerable village. Other cities (of Bœotia)
have experienced a similar fate, with the exception of Tanagra and
Thespiæ, which in comparison with Thebes are in a tolerable condition.

6. We are next to make a circuit of the country, beginning at the
sea-coast, opposite Eubœa, which is continuous with that of Attica.

We begin this circuit from Oropus, and the Sacred Harbour,[332] which is
called Delphinium, opposite to which is the ancient Eretria in Eubœa,
having a passage across of 60 stadia. After Delphinium, at the distance
of 20 stadia, is Oropus, and opposite to this is the present
Eretria.[333] There is a passage over to it of 40 stadia.

7. Next is Delium,[334] a place sacred to Apollo, in imitation of that
at Delos. It is a small town of the Tanagræans, at the distance of 30
stadia from Aulis.

To this place the Athenians, after their defeat in battle, fled in
disorder.[335] In the flight, Socrates the philosopher (who having lost
his horse, was serving on foot) observed Xenophon, the son of Gryllus,
upon the ground, fallen from his horse; he raised him upon his shoulders
and carried him away in safety, a distance of many stadia, until the
rout was at an end.

8. Then follows a great harbour, which is called Bathys (or deep
harbour): then Aulis,[336] a rocky spot, and a village of the
Tanagræans, with a harbour capable of containing 50 small vessels. So
that probably the naval station of the [CAS. 403] Greeks was in the
Great Harbour. Near it is the Chalcidic Euripus, to which, from Sunium,
are 70 stadia. On the Euripus, as I have already said, there is a bridge
of two plethra in length;[337] at each end is a tower, one on the side
of Chalcis, the other on the side of Bœotia; and a passage (for the
water) is constructed between them.[338] With regard to the tide of the
Euripus, it is sufficient to say thus much, that according to report, it
changes seven times each day and night; the cause must be investigated
elsewhere.

9. Salganeus is a place situated near the Euripus, upon a height. It has
its name from Salganeus, a Bœotian, who was buried there. He was guide
to the Persians, when they sailed into this passage from the Maliac
Gulf. It is said, that he was put to death before they reached the
Euripus, by the commander of the fleet, Megabates, as a traitor, for
conducting the fleet deceitfully into a narrow opening of the sea,
having no outlet. The Barbarian, however, perceived his mistake, and
regretting what he had done, thought him worthy of burial, because he
had been unjustly put to death.

10. Near Oropus[339] is a place called Graia, the temple also of
Amphiaraus, and the monument of Narcissus the Eretrian, surnamed
Sigelus, (the Silent,) because passers-by keep silence. Some say that
Graia and Tanagra[340] are the same. The territory of Pœmandris,
however, is the same as that of Tanagra. The Tanagræans are also called
Gephyræans. The temple of Amphiaraus was transferred by command of an
oracle to this place from the Thebaic Cnopia.

11. Mycalessus is a village in the Tanagrian district. It lies upon
the road from Thebes to Chalcis. It is called in the Bœotian dialect
Mycalettus. Harma, also, an uninhabited village in the Tanagrian
territory, derives its name from the chariot (ἅρμα) of Amphiaraus, and
is a different place from Harma in Attica, near Phyle,[341] a demus of
Attica bordering upon Tanagra. There the proverb originated,

   “When it has lightened through Harma,”

The Pythaïstæ, as they are called, signify, by the order of an oracle,
the occurrence of any lightning when they are looking in the direction
of Harma, and despatch the sacrifice to Delphi whenever it is observed.
They were to keep watch for three months, and for three days and nights
in each month, at the altar of Jupiter Astrapius, or Dispenser of
lightning. This altar is in the wall, between the Pythium and the
Olympium. Respecting the Bœotian Harma, some say, that Amphiaraus fell
in battle out of his chariot, [harma,] near the spot where his temple
now stands, and that the chariot was drawn empty to the place, which
bears the same name [Harma].[342] Others say, that the chariot of
Adrastus, in his flight, was there dashed in pieces, but that he himself
escaped on his horse Areion. According to Philochorus, his life was
preserved by the inhabitants of the village; in consequence of which
they obtained among the Argives the right of citizenship.

12. On going from Thebes to Argos,[343] on the left hand is Tanagra; and
[near the road] on the right lies Hyria. Hyria now belongs to the
Tanagrian territory, but formerly to the Thebais. Here Hyrieus is fabled
to have lived, and here is the scene of the birth of Orion, which Pindar
mentions in the dithyrambics. It is situated near Aulis. Some persons
say that Hysiæ is called Hyria, which belongs to Parasopia, situated
below Cithæron, near Erythræ, in the inland parts; it is a colony of the
Hyrienses, and was founded by Nycteus, the father of Antiope. There is
also in the Argive territory a village, Hysiæ, the inhabitants of which
are called Hysiatæ. Erythræ in Ionia is a colony of this Erythræ.

Heleon, [CAS. 405] a Tanagrian village, has its name from (Hele) the
marshes there.

13. After Salganeus is Anthedon, a city with a harbour, the last on the
Bœotian coast towards Eubœa, as the poet says,

   “Anthedon at the extremity.”[344]

As we proceed a little farther, there are besides two small towns,
belonging to the Bœotians, Larymna, near which the Cephissus discharges
its waters; and farther above, Halæ, of the same name as the Attic
demus. Opposite to this coast is situated, it is said, Ægæ[345] in
Eubœa, where is the temple of the Ægæan Neptune, of which we have before
spoken. There is a passage across from Anthedon to Ægæ of 120 stadia,
and from the other places much less than this. The temple is situated
upon a lofty hill, where was once a city. Near Ægæ was Orobiæ.[346] In
the Anthedonian territory is the mountain Messapius,[347] which has its
name from Messapus, who when he came into Iapygia called it Messapia.
Here is laid the scene of the fable respecting the Anthedonian Glaucus,
who, it is said, was transformed into a sea-monster.[348]

14. Near Anthedon is a place called Isus, and esteemed sacred, belonging
to Bœotia; it contains remains of a city, and the first syllable of Isus
is short. Some persons are of opinion, that the verse ought to be
written, Ἶσόν τε ζαθέην Ἀνθηδόνα τ’ ἐσχατόωσαν,

   “The sacred Isus, and the extreme Anthedon,”

lengthening the first syllable by poetical licence for the sake of the
metre, instead of Νῖσάν τε ζαθέην,

   “The sacred Nisa;”

for Nisa is not to be found anywhere in Bœotia, as Apollodorus says in
his observations on the Catalogue of the Ships; so that Nisa could not
stand in this passage, unless by Nisa Homer meant Isus, for there was a
city Nisa, in Megaris, from whence Isus was colonized, situated at the
base of Cithæron, but it exists no longer.[349] Some however write
Κρεῦσάν τε ζαθέην,

   “The sacred Creusa,”

meaning the present Creusa, the arsenal of the Thespieans, situated on
the Crisæan Gulf. Others write the passage Φαράς τε ζαθέας,

   “The sacred Pharæ,”

Pharæ is one of the four villages, (or Tetracomiæ,) near Tanagra,
namely, Heleon, Harma, Mycalessus, Pharæ. Others again write the passage
thus, Νῦσάν τε ζαθέην,

   “The sacred Nysa.”

Nysa is a village of Helicon.

Such then is the description of the sea-coast opposite Eubœa.

15. The places next in order, in the inland parts, are hollow plains,
surrounded everywhere on the east and west by mountains; on the south by
the mountains of Attica, on the north by those of Phocis: on the west,
Cithæron inclines, obliquely, a little above the Crisæan Sea; it begins
contiguous to the mountains of Megaris and Attica, and then makes a bend
towards the plains, and terminates near the Theban territory.

16. Some of these plains become lakes, by rivers spreading over or
falling into them and then flowing off. Some are dried up, and being
very fertile, are cultivated in every possible way. But as the ground
underneath is full of caverns and fissures, it has frequently happened,
that violent earthquakes have obstructed some passages, and formed
others under-ground, or on the surface, the water being carried off,
either by subterranean channels, or by the formation of lakes and rivers
on the surface. If the deep subterranean passages are stopped up, the
waters of the lakes increase, so as to inundate and cover cities and
whole districts, which become uncovered, if the same or other passages
are again opened. The same regions are thus traversed in boats or on
foot, according [CAS. 405] to circumstances; and the same cities are,
occasionally, on the borders of, or at a distance from, a lake.

17. One of two things took place. The cities either retained their
sites, when the rise of the water was insufficient to overflow the
houses, or they were deserted and rebuilt in some other place, when the
inhabitants, being frequently exposed to danger from their vicinity to
the lake, released themselves from further apprehension, by changing
to a more distant or higher situation. It followed that the cities
thus rebuilt retained the same name. Formerly, they might have had a
name derived from some accidental local circumstance, but now the site
does not correspond with the derivation of the name. For example, it
is probable that Platææ was so called, from πλάτη, or the flat part of
the oar, and Platæans from gaining their livelihood by rowing; but at
present, since they live at a distance from the lake, the name can no
longer, with equal propriety, be derived from this local circumstance.
Helos also, and Heleon, and Heilesium[350] were so called from their
situation close to ἕλη, (Hele,) or marshes; but at present the case is
different with all these places; either they have been rebuilt, or the
lake has been greatly reduced in height by a subsequent efflux of its
waters; for this is possible.

18. This is exemplified particularly in the Cephissus,[351] which fills
the lake Copais.[352] When the increase of the water of that lake was so
great, that Copæ was in danger of being swallowed up, (the city is
mentioned by the poet, and from it the lake had its name,)[353] a
fissure in the ground, which took place not far from the lake, and near
Copæ, opened a subterraneous channel, of about 30 stadia in length, and
received the river, which reappeared on the surface, near Upper Larymna
in Locris; for, as has been mentioned, there is another Larymna, in
Bœotia, on the sea, surnamed the Upper by the Romans. The place where
the river rises again is called Anchoë, as also the lake near it. It is
from this point that the Cephissus begins its course[354] to the sea.
When the overflowing of the water ceased, there was also a cessation of
danger to the inhabitants on the banks, but not before some cities had
been already swallowed up. When the outlets were again obstructed,
Crates the Miner, a man of Chalcis, began to clear away the
obstructions, but desisted in consequence of the Bœotians being in a
state of insurrection; although, as he himself says, in the letter to
Alexander, many places had been already drained; among these, some
writers supposed was the site of the ancient Orchomenus; others, that of
Eleusis, and of Athens on the Triton. These cities are said to have been
founded by Cecrops, when he ruled over Bœotia, then called Ogygia, but
that they were afterwards destroyed by inundations. It is said, that
there was a fissure in the earth near Orchomenus, that admitted the
river Melas,[355] which flows through the territory of Haliartus, and
forms there a marsh, where the reed grows of which the musical pipe is
made.[356] But this river has entirely disappeared, being carried off by
the subterraneous channels of the chasm, or absorbed by the lakes and
marshes about Haliartus; whence the poet calls Haliartus grassy,

   “And the grassy Haliartus.”[357]

19. These rivers descend from the Phocian mountains, and among them the
Cephissus,[358] having its source at Lilæa, a Phocian city, as Homer
describes it;

   “And they who occupied Lilæa, at the sources of
   Cephissus.”[359]

It flows through Elateia,[360] the largest of the cities among the
Phocians, through the Parapotamii, and the Phanoteis, which are also
Phocian towns; it then goes onwards to Chæroneia in Bœotia; afterwards,
it traverses the districts of Orchomenus and Coroneia, and discharges
its waters into the lake Copais. The Permessus and the Olmeius[361]
descend from Helicon, and uniting their streams, fall into the lake
Copais near Haliartus. The waters of other streams likewise discharge
themselves into it. It is a large lake with a circuit of 380
stadia;[362] the outlets are nowhere visible, if we [CAS. 407] except
the chasm which receives the Cephissus, and the marshes.

20. Among the neighbouring lakes are Trephea[363] and Cephissis. Homer
mentions it;

   “Who dwelt in Hyla, intent upon amassing wealth, close to the
   lake Cephissis;”[364]

for he did not mean to specify the lake Copais, as some suppose, but
that called Hylicus,[365] from the neighbouring village, which is called
Hylæ: nor did he mean Hyda, as some write the passage,

   “He lived in Hyda,”

for there is a place of this name in Lydia,

   “at the foot of the snowy Tmolus, in the fruitful country of
   Hyda;”[366]

and another in Bœotia; he therefore adds to

   “behind the lake Cephissis,”

these words,

   “near dwelt other Bœotians.”

For the Copais is of great extent, and not situated in the Theban
district, but the other is small, and filled from the former by
subterraneous channels; it is situated between Thebes[367] and Anthedon.
Homer however makes use of the word in the singular number, sometimes
making the first syllable long by poetical licence, as in the Catalogue,
ἠδ’ Ὕλην καὶ Πετεῶνα,[368] and sometimes shortening it, as in this
instance; Ὅς ῥ’ ἐν Ὗλῃ ναίεσκε; and again, Tychius Σκυτοτόμων ὄχ’
ἄριστος Ὕλῃ ἔνι οἰκία ναίων.[369] Nor do some persons correctly write in
this passage, Ὗδῃ ἔνι,

   “In Hyda,”

for Ajax was not to send for his shield from Lydia.

21. [370]The lakes themselves would indicate the order in which the
places stand, and thence it would be easy to perceive that the poet,
when naming them, whether they were places of importance or otherwise,
has observed no order. Indeed it would be difficult in the enumeration
of so many places, obscure for the most part, and situated in the
interior, to preserve a regular order. The sea-coast affords more
convenient means of doing this; the places there are better known, and
the sea affords greater facilities for marking their position. We shall
therefore endeavour to take our point of departure from the sea-coast,
and without further discussion, shall follow the poet in his enumeration
of places; at the same time, taking from other sources whatever may
prove useful to us, but which has been omitted by him. He begins from
Hyria and Aulis, of which we have already spoken.

22. Schœnus[371] is a district of the Theban territory on the road to
Anthedon, distant from Thebes about 50 stadia. A river of the name of
Schœnus flows through it.

23. Scolus[372] is a village belonging to the district of Parasopia
situated at the foot of Cithæron; it is a rugged place, and scarcely
habitable, hence the proverbial saying,

   “Neither go yourself, nor follow any one going to Scolus.”

It is said that Pentheus was brought from thence, and torn in pieces.
There was among the cities near Olynthus another of the name of Scolus.
We have said that in the Heracleian Trachinia there was a village of the
name of Parasopii, beside which runs a river Asopus, and that there is
another river Asopus in Sicyonia, and that the country through which it
flows is called Asopia. There are however other rivers of the same name.

24. The name of Eteonus was changed to that of Scarphe, which belongs to
Parasopia. [Parasopia belongs to the Thebais,] for the Asopus and the
Ismenus flow through the plain in front of Thebes. There is the fountain
Dirce, and also Potniæ, where is laid the fable of Glaucus of Potniæ,
who was torn in pieces near the city by Potnian mares. The Cithæron[373]
terminates not far from Thebes. The Asopus flows by it, and washes the
foot of the mountain, and occasions the Parasopii to be distributed
among several settlements, but all of these bodies of people are subject
to the [CAS. 409] Thebans. (Other writers say, that Scolus, Eteonus,
and Erythræ, are in the district of Platææ, for the Asopus flows past
Platææ, and discharges its waters into the sea near Tanagra.) In the
Theban territory are Therapnæ and Teumessus, which Antimachus has
extolled in a long poem, enumerating excellencies which it had not;

   “There is a small hill exposed to the winds,” &c.:

but the lines are well known.

25. He calls the present place Thespiæ[374] by the name of Thespia, for
there are many names, of which some are used both in the singular and in
the plural number, in the masculine and in the feminine gender, and some
in either one or the other only. It is a city close to Helicon, lying
more to the south. The city itself and Helicon are situated on the
Crisæan Gulf. Thespiæ has an arsenal Creusa, or, as it is also named,
Creusia. In the Thespian territory, in the part lying towards Helicon,
is Ascra,[375] the birth-place of Hesiod. It is on the right of Helicon,
situated upon a lofty and rocky spot, at the distance of about 40 stadia
from Thespiæ. Hesiod has satirized it in verses addressed to his father,
for formerly emigrating (to this place) from Cume in Ætolia, as follows:

   “He dwelt near Helicon in a wretched village, Ascra; bad in
   winter, in summer intolerable, and worthless at any
   season.”[376]

Helicon is contiguous to Phocis on its northern, and partly on its
western side, as far as the last harbour of Phocis, which is called from
its characteristic situation, Mychus, or the Recess.

Just above this part of the Crisæan Gulf, Helicon, Ascra, Thespiæ, and
its arsenal Creusa, are situated. This is considered as the part of the
Crisæan and of the Corinthian Gulf which recedes most inland. The coast
extends 90 stadia from the recess of the harbour to Creusa, and thence
120 as far as the promontory called Holmiæ. In the most retired part of
the Crisæan Gulf, Pagæ and Œnoa, which I have already mentioned, are
situated.

Helicon, not far distant from Parnassus, rivals it in height[377] and
circumference. Both mountains are covered with snow, and are rocky. They
do not occupy a circuit of ground of great extent. There are, the fane
of the Muses, the Horse-fountain Hippocrene,[378] and the grottoes of
the nymphs, the Leibethrides. Hence it might be conjectured, that
Helicon was consecrated to the Muses, by Thracians, who dedicated also
Pieris, the Leibethrum, and Pimpleia to the same goddesses. The
Thracians were called Pieres, and since their expulsion, the Macedonians
possess these places.

It has been remarked, that the Thracians, (having expelled the Bœotians
by force,) and the Pelasgi, and other barbarous people, settled in this
part of Bœotia.

Thespiæ was formerly celebrated for a statue of Cupid by Praxiteles.
Glycera the courtesan, a native of Thespiæ, received it as a present
from the artist, and dedicated it as a public offering to her
fellow-citizens.

Persons formerly used to repair thither to see the Cupid, where there
was nothing else worth seeing. This city, and Tanagra, alone of the
Bœotian cities exist at present, while of others there remain nothing
but ruins and names.

26. [CAS. 410] After Thespiæ the poet enumerates Graia and Mycalessus,
of which we have before spoken.

He proceeds as before,

   “They who lived near Harma, Eilesium, and Erythræ,
   And they who occupied Eleon, Hyle, and Peteon.”[379]

Peteon is a village of the Thebais near the road to Anthedon. Ocalea is
midway between Haliartus,[380] and Alalcomenæ,[381] it is distant from
each 30 stadia. A small river of the same name flows by it. Medeon,
belonging to Phocis, is on the Crisæan Gulf, distant from Bœotia 160
stadia. The Medeon of Bœotia has its name from that in Phocis. It is
near Onchestus, under the mountain Phœnicium,[382] whence it has the
appellation of Phœnicis. This mountain is likewise assigned to the
Theban district, but by others to the territories of Haliartus, as also
Medeon and Ocalea.

27. Homer afterwards names,

   “Copæ, and Eutresis, and Thisbe, abounding with doves.”[383]

We have spoken of Copæ. It lies towards the north on the lake Copais.
The other cities around are, Acræphiæ, Phœnicis, Onchestus, Haliartus,
Ocalea, Alalcomenæ, Tilphusium, Coroneia. Formerly, the lake had no one
general name, but derived its appellation from every settlement on its
banks, as Copaïs from Copæ,[384] Haliartis from Haliartus, and other
names from other places, but latterly the whole has been called Copaïs,
for the lake is remarkable for forming at Copæ the deepest hollow.
Pindar calls it Cephissis, and places near it, not far from Haliartus
and Alalcomenæ, the fountain Tilphossa, which flows at the foot of Mount
Tilphossius. At the fountain is the monument of Teiresias, and in the
same place the temple of the Tilphossian Apollo.

28. After Copæ, the poet mentions Eutresis, a small village of the
Thespians.[385] Here Zethus and Amphion lived before they became kings
of Thebes.

Thisbē is now called Thisbæ. The place is situated a little above the
sea-coast on the confines of the Thespienses, and the territory of
Coroneia; on the south it lies at the foot of Cithæron. It has an
arsenal in a rocky situation abounding with doves, whence the poet terms
it

   “Thisbe, with its flights of doves.”

Thence to Sicyon is a voyage of 160 stadia.

29. He next recites the names of Coroneia, Haliartus, Platææ, and
Glissas.

Coroneia[386] is situated upon an eminence, near Helicon. The Bœotians
took possession of it on their return from the Thessalian Arne, after
the Trojan war, when they also occupied Orchomenus. Having become
masters of Coroneia, they built in the plain before the city the temple
of the Itonian Minerva, of the same name as that in Thessaly, and called
the river [CAS. 411] flowing by it, Cuarius, the name of the Thessalian
river. Alcæus, however, calls it Coralius in these words,

   “Minerva, warrior queen, who o’er Coroneia keepest watch
   before thy temple, on the banks of Coralius.”

The festival Pambœotia was here celebrated. Hades is associated with
Minerva, in the dedication of the temple, for some mystical reason. The
inhabitants of the Bœotian Coroneia are called Coronii, those of the
Messenian Coroneia, Coronenses.

30. Haliartus[387] is no longer in existence, it was razed in the war
against Perseus. The territory is occupied by the Athenians, to whom it
was given by the Romans. It was situated in a narrow spot between an
overhanging mountain and the lake Copaïs, near the Permessus, the
Olmeïus, and the marsh that produces the flute-reed.

31. Platææ, which the poet uses in the singular number, lies at the foot
of Cithæron, between this mountain and Thebes, on the road to Athens and
Megara; it is on the borders of Attica and Bœotia, for Eleutheræ is
near, which some say belongs to Attica, others to Bœotia. We have said
that the Asopus flows beside Platææ. There the army of the Greeks
entirely destroyed Mardonius and three hundred thousand Persians. They
dedicated there a temple to Jupiter Eleutherius, and instituted
gymnastic games, called Eleutheria, in which the victor was crowned. The
tombs erected at the public expense, in honour of those who died in the
battle, are to be seen there. In the Sicyonian district is a demus
called Platææ, where the poet Mnasalces was born:

   “the monument of Mnasalces of Platææ.”

Glissas,[388] Homer says, is a village on Mount Hypatus, which is near
Teumessus and Cadmeia, in the Theban territory. * * * * * * * beneath is
what is called the Aonian plain, which extends from Mount Hypatus [to
Cadmeia?].[389]

32. By these words of the poet,

   “those who occupied under Thebes,”

some understand a small town, called Under-Thebes, others Potniæ, for
Thebes was abandoned after the expedition of the Epigoni, and took no
part in the Trojan war. Others say that they did take part in it, but
that they lived at that time under Cadmeia, in the plain country, after
the incursion of the Epigoni, being unable to rebuild the Cadmeia. As
Thebes was called Cadmeia, the poet says that the Thebans of that time
lived “under Thebes” instead of “under Cadmeia.”

33. The Amphictyonic council usually assembled at Onchestus, in the
territory of Haliartus, near the lake Copaïs, and the Teneric plain. It
is situated on a height, devoid of trees, where is a temple of Neptune
also without trees. For the poets, for the sake of ornament, called all
sacred places groves, although they were without trees. Such is the
language of Pindar, when speaking of Apollo:

   “He traversed in his onward way the earth and sea; he stood
   upon the heights of the lofty mountains; he shook the caves in
   their deep recesses, and overthrew the foundations of the
   sacred groves” or temples.

As Alcæus is mistaken in the altering the name of the river Cuarius, so
he makes a great error in placing Onchestus at the extremities of
Helicon, whereas it is situated very far from this mountain.

34. The Teneric plain has its name from Tenerus. According to mythology,
he was the son of Apollo and Melia, and declared the answers of the
oracle at the mountain Ptoum,[391] which, the same poet says, had three
peaks:

   “At one time he occupied the caves of the three-headed Ptoum;”

and he calls Tenerus

   “the prophet, dwelling in the temple, and having the same name
   as the soil on which it stands.”

The Ptoum is situated above the Teneric plain, and the lake Copaïs, near
Acræphium.

Both [CAS. 413] the oracle and the mountain belonged to the Thebans.

Acræphium[392] itself is situated upon a height. This, it is said, is
the place called Arnē by the poet, having the same name as the
Thessalian Arnē.

35. Some say that Arnē and Mideia were swallowed up by the lake.
Zenodotus, however, when he writes the verse thus,

   “they who occupied Ascra abounding with vines,”[393]

does not seem to have read Hesiod’s description of his native country,
and what has been said by Eudoxus, who relates things much more to the
disparagement of Ascra. For how could any one believe that such a place
could have been described by the poet as

   “abounding with vines?”

Neither are those persons in the right, who substitute in this passage
Tarnē for Arnē, for there is not a place of the name of Tarne to be
found in Bœotia, although there is in Lydia. Homer mentions it,

   “Idomeneus then slew Phæstus, the son of Borus, the artificer,
   who came from the fruitful soil of Tarnē.”[394]

Besides Alalcomenæ and Tilphossium, which are near the lake, Chæroneia,
Lebadia, and Leuctra, are worthy of notice.

36. The poet mentions Alalcomenæ,[395] but not in the Catalogue;

   “the Argive Juno and Minerva of Alalcomenæ.”[396]

It has an ancient temple of Minerva, which is held in great veneration.
It is said that this was the place of her birth, as Argos was that of
Juno, and that Homer gave to both these goddesses designations derived
from their native places. Perhaps for this reason he has not mentioned,
in the Catalogue, the inhabitants; for having a sacred character, they
were exempted from military service. Indeed the city has never suffered
devastation by an enemy, although it is inconsiderable in size, and its
position is weak, for it is situated in a plain.

All in reverence to the goddess abstained from every act of violence;
wherefore the Thebans, at the time of the expedition of the Epigoni,
abandoning their own city, are said to have taken refuge here, and on
the strong mountain above it, the Tilphossium.[397] Below Tilphossium is
the fountain Tilphossa, and the monument of Teiresias, who died there on
the retreat.

37. Chæroneia[398] is near Orchomenus,[399] where Philip, the son of
Amyntas, after having overcome, in a great battle,[400] the Athenians,
Bœotians, and Corinthians, became the master of Greece. There are seen
the sepulchres erected at the public charge of the persons who fell in
that battle.

38. At Lebadeia[401] is the oracle of Jupiter Trophonius, having a
descent through an opening, which leads under-ground. The person himself,
who consults the oracle, descends into it. It is situated between
Helicon and Chæroneia, near Coroneia.

39. Leuctra[402] is the place where Epaminondas overcame the
Lacedæmonians in a great battle, and first weakened their power; for
after that time they were never able to regain the supremacy over the
Greeks, which they before possessed, and particularly after they were
defeated in a second battle at Mantinea. Even after these reverses they
preserved their independence until the establishment of the Roman
dominion, and were always respected by that people on account of the
excellency of their form of government. The field of battle is shown on
the road which leads from Platææ to Thespiæ.

40. The poet next mentions the Orchomenians in the Catalogue, and
distinguishes them from the Bœotian nation. He gives to Orchomenus the
epithet Minyeian from the nation of the Minyæ. They say that a colony of
the Minyeians went hence to Iolcus,[403] and from this circumstance the
Argonauts were called Minyæ. It appears that, anciently, it was a rich
[CAS. 414] and very powerful city. Homer bears witness to its wealth,
for in his enumeration of places of great opulence, he says,

   “Not all that is brought to Orchomenus, or to Ægyptian Thebes.”[404]

Of its power there is this proof, that the Thebans always paid tribute
to the Orchomenians, and to Erginus their king, who it is said was put
to death by Hercules. Eteocles, one of the kings that reigned at
Orchomenus, first displayed both wealth and power. He built a temple
dedicated to the Graces, who were thus honoured by him, either because
he had been fortunate in receiving or conferring favours, or perhaps for
both these reasons.

[For one who was inclined thus to honour these goddesses, must have been
naturally disposed to be a benefactor, and he must have possessed the
power. But for this purpose wealth is required. For he who has not much
cannot give much, nor can he who does not receive much possess much; but
when giving and receiving unite, then there is a just exchange. For a
vessel which is simultaneously emptied and filled is always full; but he
who gives and does not receive cannot succeed in either giving or
receiving, for the giver must desist from giving from failure of means.
Givers also will desist from giving to him who receives only, and
confers no benefits, so that he must fail in receiving. The same may be
said of power. For independently of the common saying,

   “That money is the thing most highly valued,
   And has the greatest influence in human affairs,”[405]

we may examine the subject more in detail. We say, for example, that
kings have the greatest power, (μάλιστα δύνασθαι,) whence the name,
dynasty. Their power is exerted by leading the multitude whither they
like, by persuasion or by force. Their power of persuasion chiefly
rests in doing acts of kindness; for persuasion by words is not
princely, but belongs to the orator. By princely persuasion, I mean,
when kings direct and lead men whither they please by acts of kindness.
They persuade by acts of kindness, but compel by means of arms. Both
power and possessions may be purchased by money. For he has the largest
body of forces, who is able to maintain the largest; and he who has the
largest possessions, can confer the greatest benefits.[406]]

The spot which the present lake Copaïs occupies, was formerly, it is
said, dry ground, and was cultivated in various ways by the
Orchomenians, who lived near it; and this is alleged as a proof of
wealth.

41. Some persons use the word Aspledon[407] without the first syllable,
Spledon. The name both of the city and of the territory was changed to
Eudeielos,[408] which expressed perhaps some peculiar advantage the
inhabitants derived from their western position, and especially the mild
winters. The extreme parts of the day are the coldest. Of these the
evening is colder than the morning, for as night approaches the cold is
more intense, and as night retires the cold abates. The severity of the
cold is mitigated by the heat of the sun, and the part which during the
coldest season has received most of the sun’s heat, is mildest in
winter.

It is distant from Orchomenus[409] 20 stadia. The river Melas is between
them.

42. Panopeus, a Phocian city, and Hyampolis[410] are situated above
Orchomenus. Opus, the metropolis of the Locri Epicnemidii, borders upon
these places. It is said, that Orchomenus was formerly situated on a
plain, but, as the waters overflowed, the settlers removed to the
mountain Acontium, which extends 60 stadia in length, as far as
Parapotamii in Phocis. It is said, that those people, who are called
Achæi in Pontus, are colonists from the Orchomenians, who, after the
capture of Troy, wandered thither under the conduct of Ialmenus. There
was also an Orchomenus near Carystus.

The writers on the Catalogue of Ships [in Homer], have furnished us with
these materials, and they have been followed, wherever they introduced
anything adapted to the design of this work.




CHAPTER III.


1. Next to Bœotia and Orchomenus is Phocis, lying along the side of
Bœotia to the north, and, anciently, nearly from sea [CAS. 416] to sea.
For at that time Daphnus belonged to Phocis, dividing Locris into two
parts, and situated midway between the Opuntian Gulf and the sea-coast
of the Epicnemidii. At present, however, the district belongs to the
Locri; but the town is in ruins, so that Phocis no longer extends to the
sea opposite Eubœa; but it is close to the Crisæan Gulf. For Crisa
itself belongs to Phocis, and is situated immediately upon the sea.
Cirrha, Anticyra,[411] and the places above them, in the interior near
Parnassus in continuous succession, namely, Delphi,[412] Cirphis, and
Daulis,[413] belong to Phocis, so also Parnassus itself, which is the
boundary of the western side.

In the same manner as Phocis lies along the side of Bœotia, so are both
the divisions of Locris situated with respect to Phocis, for Locris is
composed of two parts, being divided by Parnassus. The western part lies
along the side of Parnassus, occupies a portion of it, and extends to
the Crisæan Gulf; the eastern part terminates at the sea near Eubœa. The
inhabitants of the former are called Locri Hesperii, or Locri Ozolæ, and
have engraven on their public seal the star Hesperus. The rest are again
divided into two bodies: one, the Opuntii, who have their name from the
chief city, and border upon the Phocæans and Bœotians; the other, the
Epicnemidii, who have their name from the mountain Cnemis;[414] and
adjoin the Œtæi, and the Malienses. In the midst of the Hesperii, and
the other Locri, is Parnassus, lying lengthwise towards the northern
part, and extending from the neighbourhood of Delphi to the junction of
the Œtæan, and the Ætolian mountains, and to the Dorians, who are
situated between them. For as both divisions of Locris extend along the
side of Phocis, so also the region of Œta with Ætolia, and some of the
places situated in the Doric Tetrapolis, extend along the sides of the
two Locri, Parnassus and the Dorians. Immediately above these are
situated the Thessalians, the northern Ætolians, the Acarnanians, and
some of the Epirotic and Macedonian nations, as I observed before, the
above-mentioned tracts of country may be considered as a kind of
parallel bands stretching from the west to the east.

The whole of Parnassus is esteemed sacred, it contains caves, and other
places, which are regarded with honour and reverence. Of these the most
celebrated and the most beautiful is Corycium, a cave of the nymphs,
having the same name as that in Cilicia. Of the sides of Parnassus, the
western is occupied by the Locri Ozolæ, and by some of the Dorians, and
by the Ætoli, situated near Corax, an Ætolian mountain. The eastern side
is occupied by Phocians and by the greater part of the Dorians, who hold
the Tetrapolis, situated as it were round the side of Parnassus, but
spreading out in the largest extent towards the east. The sides of the
above-mentioned tracts and each of the bands are parallel, one side
being northern, and the other southern. The western sides, however, are
not parallel to the eastern, for the sea-coast from the Crisæan Gulf to
Actium[415] is not parallel to the coast opposite Eubœa, and extending
to Thessalonica. It is on these shores the above-mentioned nations
terminate. For the figure of these countries is to be understood from
the notion of lines drawn parallel to the base of a triangle, where the
separate parts lie parallel to one another, and have their sides in
latitude parallel, but not their sides in longitude. This is a rough
sketch of the country which remains to be examined. We shall examine
each separate part in order, beginning with Phocis.

2. The two most celebrated cities of this country are Delphi and
Elateia. Delphi is renowned for the temple of the Pythian Apollo, and
the antiquity of its oracle; since Agamemnon is said by the poet to have
consulted it; for the minstrel is introduced singing of the

   “fierce contest of Ulysses, and Achilles, the son of Peleus,
   how once they contended together, and Agamemnon king of men
   was pleased, for so Phœbus Apollo had foretold by the oracle
   in the illustrious Pytho.”[416]

Delphi then was celebrated on this account. Elateia was famous as being
the largest of the cities in that quarter, and for its very convenient
position upon the straits; for he, who is the master of this city,
commands the entrances into Phocis and Bœotia. First, there are the
Œtæan mountains, next the mountains of the Locri, and the Phocians; they
are not every where passable for invading armies, coming from Thessaly,
but having narrow passes distinct from each other, which the adjacent
cities guard. Those, who take the cities, are masters [CAS. 418] of the
passes also. But since from its celebrity the temple at Delphi possesses
a pre-eminence, this, together with the position of the places, (for
they are the most westerly parts of Phocis,) suggest a natural
commencement of our description, and we shall begin from thence.

3. We have remarked, that Parnassus itself is situated on the western
boundaries of Phocis. The western side of this mountain is occupied by
the Locri Ozolæ; on the southern is Delphi, a rocky spot, resembling in
shape a theatre; on its summit is the oracle, and also the city, which
comprehends a circle of 16 stadia. Above it lies Lycoreia; here the
Delphians were formerly settled above the temple. At present they live
close to it around the Castalian fountain. In front of the city, on the
southern part, is Cirphis, a precipitous hill, leaving in the
intermediate space a wooded ravine, through which the river Pleistus
flows. Below Cirphis near the sea is Cirrha, an ancient city, from which
there is an ascent to Delphi of about 80 stadia. It is situated opposite
to Sicyon. Adjoining to Cirrha is the fertile Crisæan plain. Again, next
in order follows another city Crisa, from which the Crisæan Gulf has its
name; then Anticyra,[417] of the same name as the city, on the Maliac
Gulf, and near Œta. The best hellebore is said to grow in the Maliac
Anticyra,[418] but here it is prepared in a better manner; on this
account many persons resort hither for the purpose of experiencing its
purgative qualities, and of being cured of their maladies. In the
Phocian territory there is found a medicinal plant, resembling Sesamum,
(Sesamoides,) with which the Œtæan hellebore is prepared.

4. Anticyra still remains, but Cirrha and Crisa[419] are in ruins;
Cirrha was destroyed by the Crisæans; and Crisa, afterwards, by
Eurylochus the Thessalian, in the Crisæan war; for the Crisæi enriched
themselves by duties levied on merchandise brought from Sicily and
Italy, and laid grievous imposts on those who resorted to the temple,
contrary to the decrees of the Amphictyons. The same was the case with
the Amphissenses, who belong to the Locri Ozolæ. This people made an
irruption into the country, and took possession of Crisa, and restored
it. The plain, which had been consecrated by the Amphictyons, was
diligently cultivated, but strangers were more harshly treated than by
the Crisæans before them. The Amphictyons punished them and restored the
territory to the god. The temple at Delphi is now much neglected,
although formerly it was held in the greatest veneration. Proofs of the
respect which was paid to it are, the treasuries constructed at the
expense of communities and princes, where was deposited the wealth
dedicated to sacred uses, the works of the most eminent artists, the
Pythian games, and a multitude of celebrated oracles.

5. The place where the oracle is delivered, is said to be a deep hollow
cavern, the entrance to which is not very wide. From it rises up an
exhalation which inspires a divine frenzy: over the mouth is placed a
lofty tripod on which the Pythian priestess ascends to receive the
exhalation, after which she gives the prophetic response in verse or
prose. The prose is adapted to measure by poets who are in the service
of the temple. Phemonoë is said to have been the first Pythian
prophetess, and both the prophetess and the city obtained their
appellation from the word Pythesthai, to inquire, (πυθέσθαι).
The first syllable was lengthened, as in the words ἀθάνατος, ἀκάματος,
διάκονος.

[420][The establishment of cities, and the honour paid to common
temples, are due to the same feelings and causes. Men were collected
together into cities and nations, from a natural disposition to society,
and for the purpose of mutual assistance. Hence common temples were
resorted to, festivals celebrated, and meetings held of the general body
of the people. For friendship commences from and is promoted by
attending the same feasts, uniting in the same worship, and dwelling
under the same roof. The advantages derived from these meetings were
naturally estimated from the number of persons who attended them, as
also from the number of places from whence they came.]

6. Although the highest honour was paid to this temple on account of the
oracle, (for it was the most exempt of any from deception,) yet its
reputation was owing in part to its situation in the centre of all
Greece, both within and without the isthmus. It was also supposed to be
the centre of the habitable [CAS. 420] earth, and was called the Navel
of the earth. A fable, referred to by Pindar, was invented, according to
which two eagles, (or, as others say, two crows,) set free by Jupiter,
one from the east, the other from the west, alighted together at Delphi.
In the temple is seen a sort of navel wrapped in bands, and surmounted
by figures representing the birds of the fable.

7. As the situation of Delphi is convenient, persons easily assembled
there, particularly those from the neighbourhood, of whom the
Amphictyonic body is composed. It is the business of this body to
deliberate on public affairs, and to it is more particularly intrusted
the guardianship of the temple for the common good; for large sums of
money were deposited there, and votive offerings, which required great
vigilance and religious care. The early history of this body is unknown,
but among the names which are recorded, Acrisius appears to have been
the first who regulated its constitution, to have determined what cities
were to have votes in the council, and to have assigned the number of
votes and mode of voting. To some cities he gave a single vote each, or
a vote to two cities, or to several cities conjointly. He also defined
the class of questions which might arise between the different cities,
which were to be submitted to the decision of the Amphictyonic tribunal;
and subsequently many other regulations were made, but this body, like
that of the Achæans, was finally dissolved.

At first twelve cities are said to have assembled, each of which sent a
Pylagoras. The convention was held twice a year, in spring and autumn.
But latterly a greater number of cities assembled. They called both the
vernal and the autumnal convention Pylæan, because it was held at Pylæ,
which has the name also of Thermopylæ. The Pylagoræ sacrificed to Ceres.

In the beginning, the persons in the neighbourhood only assembled, or
consulted the oracle, but afterwards people repaired thither from a
distance for this purpose, sent gifts, and constructed treasuries, as
Crœsus, and his father Alyattes, some of the Italians also, and the
Siceli (Sicilians).

8. But the wealth, being an object of cupidity, was guarded with
difficulty, although dedicated to sacred uses. At present, however,
whatever it might have been, the temple at Delphi is exceedingly poor.
Some of the offerings have been taken away for the sake of the money,
but the greater part remain there. It is true that the temple was once
very opulent, as Homer testifies;

   “Nor all the wealth, which the marble threshold of Phœbus
   Apollo, the Archer, (Aphetor,)[421] contains in the rocky
   Pytho.”[422]

The treasuries indicate its riches, and the plunder committed by the
Phocians, which gave rise to the Phocic or Sacred war, as it was called.
It is however supposed that a spoliation of the temple must have taken
place at some more remote period, when the wealth mentioned by Homer
disappeared; for no vestige of it whatever was preserved to later times,
when Onomarchus and Phayllus pillaged the temple, as the property [then]
removed was of a more recent date than that referred to by the poet. For
there were once deposited in the treasuries, offerings from spoils,
bearing inscriptions with the names of the donors, as of Gyges, of
Crœsus, of the Sybaritæ, of the Spinetæ on the Adriatic, and of others
also. It would be unbecoming to suppose[423] that modern and ancient
treasures were confounded together: other places pillaged by these
people confirm this view.

Some persons, however, understanding the word Aphetor to signify
treasure, and the threshold of the aphetor the repository of the
treasure under-ground, say, that this wealth was buried beneath the
temple, and that Onomarchus and his companions attempted to dig it up by
night; violent shocks of an earthquake caused them to fly out of the
temple, and desist from their excavation; thus others were impressed
with a dread of making similar attempts.

9. Of the shrines, the winged shrine[424] is to be placed among fabulous
stories. The second is said to have been the workmanship of Trophonius
and Agamedes, but the present shrine[425] was built by the Amphictyons.
A tomb of Neoptolemus is shown in the sacred enclosure. It was built
according [CAS. 421] to the injunction of an oracle. Neoptolemus was
killed by Machæreus, a Delphian, when, as the fable goes, he was seeking
redress from the god for the murder of his father, but, probably, he was
preparing to pillage the temple. Branchus, who presided over the temple
at Didyma, is said to have been a descendant of Machæreus.

10. There was anciently a contest held at Delphi, of players on the
cithara, who executed a pæan in honour of the god. It was instituted by
Delphians. But after the Crisæan war the Amphictyons, in the time of
Eurylochus, established contests for horses, and gymnastic sports, in
which the victor was crowned. These were called Pythian games. The
players[426] on the cithara were accompanied by players on the flute,
and by citharists,[427] who performed without singing. They performed a
strain (Melos),[428] called the Pythian mood (Nomos).[429] It consisted
of five parts; the anacrusis, the ampeira, cataceleusmus, iambics and
dactyls, and pipes.[430] Timosthenes, the commander of the fleet of the
Second Ptolemy, and who was the author of a work in ten books on
Harbours, composed a melos. His object was to celebrate in this melos
the contest of Apollo with the serpent Python. The anacrusis was
intended to express the prelude; the ampeira, the first onset of the
contest; the cataceleusmus, the contest itself; the iambics and dactyls
denoted the triumphal strain on obtaining the victory, together with
musical measures, of which the dactyl is peculiarly appropriated to
praise, and the use of the iambic to insult and reproach; the syringes
or pipes described the death, the players imitating the hissings of the
expiring monster.[431]

11. Ephorus, whom we generally follow, on account of his exactness in
these matters, (as Polybius, a writer of repute, testifies,) seems to
proceed contrary to his proposed plan, and to the promise which he made
at the beginning of his work. For after having censured those writers
who are fond of intermixing fable with history, and after having spoken
in praise of truth, he introduces, with reference to this oracle, a
grave declaration, that he considers truth preferable at all times, but
especially in treating subjects of this kind. For it is absurd, he says,
if, in other things, we constantly follow this practice, but that when
we come to speak of the oracle, which of all others is the most exempt
from deception, we should introduce tales so incredible and false. Yet
immediately afterwards he says, that it is the received opinion that
Apollo, by the aid of Themis, established this oracle with a view to
benefit the human race. He then explains these benefits, by saying, that
men were invited to pursue a more civilized mode of life, and were
taught maxims of wisdom by oracles; by injunctions to perform or to
abstain, or by positive refusal to attend to the prayers of petitioners.
Some, he says, suppose, that the god himself in a bodily form directs
these things; others, that he communicates an intimation of his will to
men [by words].

12. And lower down, when speaking of the Delphians and their origin, he
says, that certain persons, called Parnassii, an indigenous tribe,
anciently inhabited Parnassus, about which time Apollo, traversing the
country, reclaimed men from their savage state, by inducing them to
adopt a more civilized mode of life and subsistence; that, setting out
from Athens on his way to Delphi, he took the same road along which the
Athenians at present conduct the procession of the Pythias; that when he
arrived at the Panopeis, he put to death Tityus, who was master of the
district, a violent and lawless man; that the Parnassii having joined
him informed him of Python, another desperate man, surnamed the Dragon.
Whilst he was despatching this man with his arrows, they shouted, Hie
Paian;[432] whence has been transmitted the custom of singing the Pæan
before the onset of a battle; that after the death of the Python the
Delphians burnt even his tent, as they still continue to burn a tent in
memorial of these events. Now what can be more fabulous than Apollo
discharging his arrows, chastising Tityi and Pythons, his journey from
Athens to Delphi, and his travels over the whole country? If he did not
consider these as fables, why did he call the fabulous Themis a woman,
and the fabulous dragon a man, unless he intended to confound the
provinces of history and fable. His account of the Ætolians is similar
to this. After having [CAS. 423] asserted that their country was never
ravaged at any period, he says, that at one time it was inhabited by
Ætolians, who had expelled the Barbarians; that at another time, Ætolus,
together with the Epeii from Elis, inhabited it; [that Ætolus was
overthrown by the Epeii,] and these again by Alcmæon and Diomedes.

I now return to the Phocians.

13. Immediately on the sea-coast, next after Anticyra,[433] and
behind[434] it, is the small city Marathus; then a promontory,
Pharygium, which has a shelter for vessels; then the harbour at the
farthest end, called Mychus,[435] from the accident of its situation
between Helicon[436] and Ascra.

Nor is Abæ,[437] the seat of an oracle, far from these places, nor
Ambrysus,[438] nor Medeon, of the same name as a city in Bœotia.

In the inland parts, next after Delphi, towards the east is Daulis,[439]
a small town, where, it is said, Tereus, the Thracian, was prince; and
there they say is the scene of the fable of Philomela and Procne;
Thucydides lays it there; but other writers refer it to Megara. The name
of the place is derived from the thickets there, for they call thickets
Dauli. Homer calls it Daulis, but subsequent writers Daulia, and the
words

   “they who occupied Cyparissus,”[440]

are understood in a double sense; some persons supposing it to have its
name from the tree of the country, but others from a village situated
below the Lycoreian territory.

14. Panopeus, the present Phanoteus, the country of Epeius, is on the
confines of the district of Lebadeia. Here the fable places the abode of
Tityus. But Homer says, that the Phæacians conducted Rhadamanthus to
Eubœa,

   “in order to see Tityus, son of the earth;”[441]

they show also in the island a cave called Elarium, from Elara the
mother of Tityus, and an Heroum of Tityus, and some kind of honours are
spoken of, which are paid to him.

Near Lebadeia is Trachin, having the same name as that in Œtæa; it is a
small Phocian town. The inhabitants are called Trachinii.

15. Anemoreia[442] has its name from a physical accident, to which it is
liable. It is exposed to violent gusts of wind from a place called
Catopterius,[443] a precipitous mountain, extending from Parnassus. It
was a boundary between Delphi and the Phocians, when the Lacedæmonians
made the Delphians separate themselves from the common body of the
Phocians,[444] and permitted them to form an independent state.

Some call the place Anemoleia; it was afterwards called by others
Hyampolis,[445] (and also Hya,) whither we said the Hyantes were
banished from Bœotia. It is situated quite in the interior, near
Parapotamii, and is a different place from Hyampea on Parnassus.

Elateia[446] is the largest of the Phocian cities, but Homer was not
acquainted with it, for it is later than his times. It is conveniently
situated to repel incursions on the side of Thessaly. Demosthenes[447]
points out the advantage of its position, in speaking of the confusion
which suddenly arose, when a messenger arrived to inform the Prytaneis
of the capture of Elateia.

16. Parapotamii is a settlement on the Cephissus, in the neighbourhood
of Phanoteus, Chæroneia, and Elateia. This place, according to
Theopompus, is distant from Chæroneia about 40 stadia, and is the
boundary between the Ambryseis, Panopeis, and Daulieis. It is situated
at the entrance from Bœotia to the Phocians, upon an eminence of
moderate height, between Parnassus and the mountain [Hadylium, where
there is an open space] of 5 stadia in extent, through which runs the
Cephissus, affording on each side a narrow pass. This river has its
source at Lilæa, a Phocian city, as Homer testifies;[CAS. 424]

   “they who occupied Lilæa, near the source of the Cephissus;”[448]

and empties itself into the lake Copais. But Hadylium extends 60 stadia,
as far as Hyphanteium, on which Orchomenus is situated. Hesiod also
enlarges on the river and its stream, how it takes through the whole of
Phocis an oblique and serpentine course;

   “which, like a serpent, winds along Panopeus and the strong
   Glechon, and through Orchomenus.”[449]

The narrow pass near Parapotamii, or Parapotamia, (for the name is
written both ways,) was disputed in [the Phocian war,] for this is the
only entrance [into Phocis].[450]

There is a Cephissus in Phocis, another at Athens, and another at
Salamis. There is a fourth and a fifth at Sicyon and at Scyrus; [a sixth
at Argos, having its source in the Lyrceium].[451] At Apollonia,[452]
also, near Epidamnus,[453] there is near the Gymnasium a spring, which
is called Cephissus.

17. Daphnus[454] is at present in ruins. It was at one time a city of
Phocis, and lay close to the Eubœan Sea; it divided the Locri
Epicnemidii into two bodies, namely, the Locri on the side of
Bœotia,[455] and the Locri on the side of Phocis, which then extended
from sea to sea. A proof of this is the Schedieum, [in Daphnus,] called
the tomb of Schedius.[456] [It has been already said] that Daphnus
[divides] Locris into two parts, [in such a manner as to prevent] the
Epicnemidii and Opuntii from touching upon each other in any part. In
after-times Daphnus was included within the boundaries of the [Opuntii].

On the subject of Phocis, this may suffice.




CHAPTER IV.


1. Locris, which we are now to describe, follows next in order.

It is divided into two parts, one of which is occupied by the Locri
opposite Eubœa, and, as we have already said, formerly consisted of two
bodies, situated one on each side of Daphnus. The Locri Opuntii had
their surname from Opus,[457] the capital; the Epicnemidii from a
mountain called Cnemis.[458] The rest are the Locri Hesperii, who are
called also Locri Ozolæ. These are separated from the Locri Opuntii and
Epicnemidii by Parnassus, which lies between them, and by the Tetrapolis
of the Dorians. We shall first speak of the Opuntii.

2. Immediately after Halæ, where the Bœotian coast opposite Eubœa
terminates, is the Opuntian bay. Opus is the capital, as the inscription
intimates, which is engraved on the first of the five pillars at
Thermopylæ, near the Polyandrium:[459]

   “Opoeis, the capital of the Locri, hides in its bosom those
   who died in defence of Greece against the Medes.”

It is distant from the sea about 15 stadia, and 60 from the naval
arsenal. The arsenal is Cynus,[460] a promontory, which forms the
boundary of the Opuntian bay. The latter is 40 stadia in extent. Between
Opus and Cynus is a fertile plain, opposite to Ædepsus in Eubœa, where
are the warm baths[461] of Hercules, and is separated by a strait of 160
stadia. Deucalion is said to have lived at Cynus. There also is shown
the tomb of Pyrrha; but that of Deucalion is at Athens. Cynus is distant
from Mount Cnemis about 50 stadia. The island Atalanta[462] is opposite
to Opus, having the [CAS. 425] same name as the island in front of
Attica. It is said, that some Opuntii are to be found in the Eleian
territory, whom it is not worth while to notice, except that they
pretend to trace some affinity subsisting between themselves and the
Locri Opuntii. Homer[463] says that Patroclus was from Opus, and that
having committed murder undesignedly, he fled to Peleus, but that the
father Menœtius remained in his native country; for it is to Opus that
Achilles promised Menœtius that he would bring back Patroclus on his
return from the Trojan expedition.[464] Not that Menœtius was king of
the Opuntii, but Ajax the Locrian, who, according to report, was born at
Narycus. The name of the person killed by Patroclus was Æanes; a grove,
called after him Æaneium, and a fountain, Æanis, are shown.

3. Next after Cynus is Alopē[465] and Daphnus, which last, we have said,
is in ruins. At Alopē is a harbour, distant from Cynus about 90 stadia,
and 120 from Elateia, in the interior of the country. But these belong
to the Maliac, which is continuous with the Opuntian Gulf.

4. Next to Daphnus, at the distance of about 20 stadia by sea, is
Cnemides, a strong place, opposite to which in Eubœa is Cenæum, a
promontory, looking towards the west and the Maliac Gulf, and separated
by a strait of nearly 20 stadia.

At Cnemides we are in the territory of the Locri Epicnemidii. Here are
the Lichades, as they are called, three islands, having their name from
Lichas; they lie in front of Cnemides. Other islands also are met with
in sailing along this coast, which we purposely pass over.

At the distance of 20 stadia from Cnemides is a harbour, above which at
the same distance, in the interior, is situated Thronium.[466] Then the
Boagrius, which flows beside Thronium, empties itself into the sea. It
has another name also, that of Manes. It is a winter torrent; whence its
bed may be crossed at times dry-shod, and at another it is two plethra
in width.

Then after these is Scarpheia, at a distance of 10 stadia from the sea,
and of 30 from Thronium, but at a little [less from its harbour.][467]
Next are Nicæa and Thermopylæ.

5. It is not worth while to speak of any of the other cities. Of those
mentioned by Homer, Calliarus is no longer inhabited, it is now a
well-cultivated plain. Bessa, a sort of plain, does not now exist. It
has its name from an accidental quality, for it abounds with woods.
χώραν ἔχουσι Σκαρφιεῖς, &c. It ought to be written with a double s,
for it has its name from Bessa, a wooded valley, like Napē,[468] in
the plain of Methymna,[469] which Hellanicus, through ignorance of the
local circumstances, improperly calls Lapē; but the demus in Attica,
from which the burghers are called Besæenses, is written with a single
s.

6. Tarphē is situated upon a height, at the distance of 20 stadia from
[Thronium]. It has a territory, productive and well wooded; for this
place also has its name from its being thickly wooded. It is now called
Pharygæ. A temple of Juno Pharygæa is there, called so from the Argive
Juno at Pharygæ; and the inhabitants assert that they are of Argive
origin.

7. Homer does not mention, at least not in express words, the Locri
Hesperii, but only seems to distinguish them from the people of whom we
have spoken;

   “Locri, who dwell beyond the sacred Eubœa;”[470]

as if there were other Locri. They occupied the cities Amphissa[471] and
Naupactus.[472] The latter still subsists near Antirrhium.[473] It has
its name from the ships that were built there, either because the
Heraclidæ constructed their fleet at this place, or because the Locri,
as Ephorus states, had built vessels there long before that time. At
present it belongs to the Ætolians, by a decree of Philip.

8. There also is Chalcis, mentioned by the poet[474] in the Ætolian
Catalogue. It is below Calydon. There also is the hill Taphiassus, on
which is the monument of Nessus, and of the other Centaurs. From the
putrefaction of the bodies of these people there flows, it is said, from
beneath the foot of that hill a stream of water, which exhales a fœtid
odour, and [CAS. 427] contains clots of blood. Hence also the nation
had the name of Ozolæ.[475]

Opposite Antirrhium is Molycreia,[476] a small Ætolian city.

Amphissa is situated at the extremity of the Crisæan plain. It was
razed, as we have said before, by the Amphictyons. Œanthia and Eupalium
belong to the Locri. The whole voyage along the coast of the Locri is a
little more than 200 stadia.

9. There is an Alope[477] both here among the Locri Ozolæ, as also among
the Epicnemidii, and in the Phthiotis. These are a colony of the
Epicnemidii, and the Epizephyrii a colony of the Ozolæ.

10. Ætolians are continuous with the Locri Hesperii, and the Ænianes,
who occupy Œta with the Epicnemidii, and between them Dorians. These
last are the people who inhabited the Tetrapolis, which is called the
capital of all the Dorians. They possessed the cities Erineus, Bœum,
Pindus, Cytinium. Pindus is situated above Erineus. A river of the same
name flows beside it, and empties itself into the Cephissus, not far
from Lilæa. Some writers call Pindus, Acyphas.

Ægimius, king of these Dorians, when an exile from his kingdom, was
restored, as they relate, by Hercules. He requited this favour after the
death of Hercules at Œta by adopting Hyllus, the eldest of the sons of
Hercules, and both he and his descendants succeeded him in the kingdom.
It was from this place that the Heracleidæ set out on their return to
Peloponnesus.

11. These cities were for some time of importance, although they were
small, and their territory not fruitful. They were afterwards neglected.
After what they suffered in the Phocian war and under the dominion of
the Macedonians, Ætolians, and Athamanes, it is surprising that even a
vestige of them should have remained to the time of the Romans.

It was the same with the Ænianes, who were exterminated by Ætolians and
Athamanes. The Ætolians were a very powerful people, and carried on war
together with the Acarnanians. The Athamanes were the last of the
Epeirotæ, who attained distinction when the rest were declining, and
acquired power by the assistance of their king Amynander. The Ænianes,
however, kept possession of Œta.

12. This mountain extends from Thermopylæ and the east, to the
Ambracian Gulf and the west; it may be said to cut at right angles the
mountainous tract, extending from Parnassus as far as Pindus, and to the
Barbarians who live beyond. The portion of this mountain verging towards
Thermopylæ[478] is called Œta; it is 200 stadia in length, rocky and
elevated, but the highest part is at Thermopylæ, for there it forms a
peak, and terminates with acute and abrupt rocks, continued to the sea.
It leaves a narrow passage for those who are going from Thessaly to
Locris.

13. This passage is called Pylæ, or gates, straits, and Thermopylæ,
because near the straits are hot springs, which are held in honour as
sacred to Hercules. The mountain above is called Callidromus; but some
writers call by the name of Callidromus the remaining part of the range
extending through Ætolia and Acarnania to the Ambracian Gulf.

At Thermopylæ within the straits are strongholds, as Nicæa, on the sea
of the Locri, Teichius and Heracleia above it, formerly called Trachin,
founded by the Lacedæmonians. Heracleia is distant from the ancient
Trachin about 6 stadia. Next follows Rhoduntia, strong by its position.

14. These places are rendered difficult of access by a rocky country,
and by bodies of water, forming ravines through which they pass. For
besides the Spercheius,[479] which flows past Anticyra, there is the
Dyras, which, it is said, endeavoured to extinguish the funeral pile of
Hercules, and another river, the Melas, distant about 5 stadia from
Trachin. Herodotus says,[480] that to the south of Trachin there is a
deep fissure, through which the Asopus, (which has the same name as
other rivers that we have mentioned,) empties itself into the sea
without the Pylæ, having received the river Phœnix which flows from the
south, and unites with it. The latter river bears the name of the hero,
whose tomb is shown near it. From the Asopus (Phœnix?) to Thermopylæ are
15 stadia.

15. These places were of the greatest celebrity when they formed the
keys of the straits. There were frequent contests for the ascendency
between the inhabitants without and those within the straits. Philip
used to call Chalcis and Corinth the fetters of Greece with reference to
the opportunity which they afforded for invasions from Macedonia; and
persons in [CAS. 429] later times called both these places and
Demetrias “the fetters,” for Demetrias commanding Pelion and Ossa,
commanded also the passes at Tempe. Afterwards, however, when the whole
country was subject to one power, the passes were freely open to
all.[481]

16. It was at these straits that Leonidas and his companions, together
with a small body of persons from the neighbourhood, resisted the
numerous forces of the Persians, until the Barbarians, making a circuit
of the mountains along narrow paths, surrounded and cut them to pieces.
Their place of burial, the Polyandrium, is still to be seen there, and
the celebrated inscription sculptured on the Lacedæmonian pillar;
“Stranger, go tell Lacedæmon that we lie here in obedience to her laws.”

17. There is also a large harbour here and a temple of Ceres, in which
the Amphictyons at the time of every Pylæan assembly offered sacrifice.
From the harbour to the Heracleian Trachin are 40 stadia by land, but by
sea to Cenæum[482] it is 70 stadia. The Spercheius empties itself
immediately without the Pylæ. To Pylæ from the Euripus are 530 stadia.
And here Locris terminates. The parts without the Pylæ towards the east,
and the Maliac Gulf, belong to the Thessalians; those towards the west,
to the Ætolians and Acarnanians. The Athamanes are extinct.

18. The Thessalians form the largest and most ancient community. One
part of them has been mentioned by Homer, and the rest by many other
writers. Homer constantly mentions the Ætolians under one name; he
places cities, and not nations dependent upon them, if we except the
Curetes, whom we must place in the division of Ætolians.

We must begin our account with the Thessalians, omitting very ancient
and fabulous stories, and what is not generally admitted, (as we have
done in other instances,) but propose to mention what appears suited to
our purpose.




CHAPTER V.


1. The sea-coast, extending from Thermopylæ to the mouths of the
Peneius,[483] and the extremities of Pelion, looking towards the east,
and the northern extremities of Eubœa, is that of Thessaly. The parts
opposite Eubœa and Thermopylæ are occupied by Malienses, and by Achæan
Phthiotæ; those towards Pelion by the Magnetes. This may be called the
eastern and maritime side of Thessaly. From either side from Pelion, and
the Peneius, towards the inland parts are Macedonians, who extend as far
as Pæonia, (Pindus?) and the Epeirotic nations. From Thermopylæ, the
Œtæan and Ætolian mountains, which approach close to the Dorians, and
Parnassus, are parallel to the Macedonians. The side towards the
Macedonians may be called the northern side; the other, the southern.
There remains the western side, enclosed by Ætolians and Acarnanians, by
Amphilochians and Athamanes, who are Epirotæ; by the territory of the
Molotti, formerly said to be that of the Æthices, and, in short, by the
country about Pindus. Thessaly,[484] in the interior, is a plain country
for the most part, and has no mountains, except Pelion and Ossa. These
mountains rise to a considerable height, but do not encompass a large
tract of country, but terminate in the plains.

2. These are the middle parts of Thessaly, a district of very fertile
country, except that part of it which is overflowed by rivers. The
Peneius flows through the middle of the country, and receiving many
rivers, frequently overflows. Formerly, according to report, the plain
was a lake; it is enclosed on all sides inland by mountains, and the
sea-coast is more elevated than the plains. When a chasm was formed, at
the place now called Tempe, by shocks of an earthquake, and Ossa was
riven from Olympus, the Peneius flowed out through it to the sea, and
drained this tract of country. Still there remained the large lake
Nessonis, and the lake Bœbeis; which is of less extent than the
Nessonis, and nearer to the sea-coast.

3. [CAS. 430] Such then is Thessaly, which is divided into four parts,
Phthiotis, Hestiæotis, Thessaliotis, and Pelasgiotis.

Phthiotis comprises the southern parts, extending along Œta from the
Maliac and (or) Pylaïc Gulf[485] as far as Dolopia and Pindus,
increasing in breadth to Pharsalia and the Thessalian plains.

Hestiæotis comprises the western parts and those between Pindus and
Upper Macedonia; the rest is occupied by the inhabitants of the plains
below Hestiæotis, who are called Pelasgiotæ, and approach close to the
Lower Macedonians; by the [Thessalians] also, who possess the country
next in order, as far as the coast of Magnesia.

The names of many cities might here be enumerated, which are celebrated
on other accounts, but particularly as being mentioned by Homer; few of
them, however, but most of all Larisa, preserve their ancient
importance.

4. The poet having divided the whole of the country, which we call
Thessaly, into ten[486] parts and dynasties, and having taken in
addition some portion of the Œtæan and Locrian territory, and of that
also which is now assigned to the Macedonians, shows (what commonly
happened to every country) the changes which, entirely or in part, they
undergo according to the power possessed by their respective governors.

5. The poet first enumerates the Thessalians subject to Achilles, who
occupied the southern side, and adjoined Œta, and the Locri Epicnemidii;

   “All who dwelt in Pelasgic Argos; they who occupied Alus,
   Alope, and Trachin; they who possessed Phthia, and Hellas,
   abounding with beautiful women, were called Myrmidones,
   Hellenes, and Achæi.”[487]

He joins together with these the people under the command of Phœnix, and
makes them compose one common expedition. The poet nowhere mentions the
Dolopian forces in the battles near Ilium, neither does he introduce
their leader Phœnix, as undertaking, like Nestor, dangerous enterprises.
But Phœnix is mentioned by others, as by Pindar,

   “Who led a brave band of Dolopian slingers,
   Who were to aid the javelins of the Danai, tamers of horses.”

The words of the poet are to be understood according to the figure of
the grammarians, by which something is suppressed, for it would be
ridiculous for the king to engage in the expedition,

   (“I live at the extremity of Phthia, chief of the Dolopians,”[488])

and his subjects not to accompany him. For [thus] he would not appear to
be a comrade of Achilles in the expedition, but only as the commander of
a small body of men, and a speaker, and if so, a counsellor. The verses
seem to imply this meaning, for they are to this effect,

   “To be an eloquent speaker, and to achieve great deeds.”[489]

From this it appears that Homer considered the forces under Achilles and
Phœnix as constituting one body; but the places mentioned as being under
the authority of Achilles, are subjects of controversy.

Some have understood Pelasgic Argos to be a Thessalian city, formerly
situated near Larisa, but now no longer in existence. Others do not
understand a city to be meant by this name, but the Thessalian plain,
and to have been so called by Abas, who established a colony there from
Argos.

6. With respect to Phthia, some suppose it to be the same as Hellas and
Achaia, and that these countries form the southern portion in the
division of Thessaly into two parts. But others distinguish Phthia and
Hellas. The poet seems to distinguish them in these verses;

   “they who occupied Phthia and Hellas,”[490]

as if they were two countries. And, again,

   “Then far away through wide Greece I fled and came to Phthia,”[491]

and,

   “There are many Achæan women in Hellas and Phthia.”[492]

The poet then makes these places to be two, but whether cities or
countries he does not expressly say. Some of the later writers, who
affirm that it is a country, suppose it to have extended from
Palæpharsalus to Thebæ Phthiotides. In this country also is Thetidium,
near both the ancient and the modern Pharsalus; and it is conjectured
from [CAS. 432] Thetidium that the country, in which it is situated,
was a part of that under the command of Achilles. Others, who regard it
as a city, allege that the Pharsalii show at the distance of 60 stadia
from their own city, a city in ruins, which they believe to be Hellas,
and two springs near it, Messeïs and Hypereia. But the Melitæenses say,
that at the distance of about 10 stadia from their city, was situated
Hellas on the other side of the Enipeus,[493] when their own city had
the name of Pyrrha, and that the Hellenes migrated from Hellas, which
was built in a low situation, to theirs. They adduce in proof of this
the tomb of Hellen, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, which is in their
market-place. For according to historians, Deucalion was king of
Phthiotis and of all Thessaly. The Enipeus flows from Othrys[494] beside
Pharsalus,[495] and empties itself into the Apidanus,[496] and the
latter into the Peneius.

Thus much, then, respecting the Hellenes.

7. The people under the command of Achilles, Protesilaus, and
Philoctetes, are called Phthii. The poet furnishes evidence of this.
Having recited in the Catalogue of those under the command of Achilles,

   “the people of Phthia,”[497]

he represents them at the battle at the ships, as remaining in the ships
with Achilles, and inactive; but those under the command of Philoctetes,
as fighting with Medon [as their leader], and those under the command of
Protesilaus, with Podarces [as their chief]. Of these the poet speaks in
general terms;

   “there were Bœoti and Iaones wearing long robes, Locri,
   Phthii, and illustrious Epeii.”[498]

But here he particularizes them;

   “at the head of the Phthii fought Medon and Podarces, firm in
   battle. These armed with breastplates fought together with
   Bœoti, at the head of the magnanimous Phthii, keeping away the
   enemy from the ships.”[499]

Perhaps the people with Eurypylus were called Phthii, as they bordered
upon the country of the latter. At present, however, historians assign
to Magnesia the country about Ormenium, which was subject to Eurypylus,
and the whole of that subject to Philoctetes; but they regard the
country under the command of Protesilaus as belonging to Phthia, from
Dolopia and Pindus to the sea of Magnesia; but as far as the city
Antron, (now written in the plural number,) which was subject to
Protesilaus, beginning from Trachinia and Œta, is the width of the
territory belonging to Peleus and Achilles. But this is nearly the whole
length of the Maliac Gulf.

8. They entertain doubts respecting Halus and Alope, whether Homer means
the places which are now comprised in the Phthiotic government, or those
among the Locri, since the dominion of Achilles extended hither as well
as to Trachin and the Œtæan territory. For Halus and Halius, as well as
Alope, are on the coast of the Locri. But some substitute Halius for
Alope, and write the verse in this manner;

   “they who inhabited Halus, and Halius, and Trachin.”[500]

But the Phthiotic Halus lies under the extremity of the mountain Othrys,
which lies to the north of Phthiotis, and borders upon the mountain
Typhrestus and the Dolopians, and thence stretches along to the country
near the Maliac Gulf. Halus,[501] either masculine or feminine, for it
is used in both genders, is distant from Itonus[502] about 60 stadia.
Athamas founded Halus; it was destroyed, but subsequently [restored by
the Pharsalii]. It is situated above the Crocian plain, and the river
Amphrysus[503] flows by its walls. Below the Crocian plain lies Thebæ
Phthiotides; Halus likewise, which is in Achaia, is called Phthiotis;
this, as well as the foot of Mount Othrys, approaches close to the
Malienses. As Phylace too, which was under the command of Protesilaus,
so Halus also belongs to Phthiotis, which adjoins to the Malienses.
Halus is distant from Thebes about 100 stadia, and lies in the middle
between Pharsalus and Thebæ Phthiotides. Philip, however, took it from
the latter, and assigned it to the Pharsalii. Thus it happens, as we
have said before, that boundaries and the distribution of nations and
places are in a state of continual change. Thus Sophocles also called
Phthiotis, Trachinia, Artemidorus places Halus on the coast beyond the
Maliac Gulf, but as belonging to Phthiotis. For proceeding thence in the
direction of the Peneius, he places Pteleum after Antron, then Halus at
the distance of 110 stadia from Pteleum.

[CAS. 433] I have already spoken of Trachin, and described the nature of
the place. The poet mentions it by name.

9. As Homer frequently mentions the Spercheius as a river of the
country, having its source in the Typhrestus, a Dryopian mountain,
formerly called [Tymphrestus], and emptying itself near Thermopylæ,
between Trachin and Lamia,[504] he might imply that whatever parts of
the Maliac Gulf were either within or without the Pylæ, were subject to
Achilles.

The Spercheius is distant about 30 stadia from Lamia, which lies above a
plain, extending to the Maliac Gulf. That the Spercheius is a river of
the country [subject to Achilles], appears from the words of Achilles,
who says, that he had devoted his hair to the Spercheius; and from the
circumstance, that Menesthius, one of his commanders, was said to be the
son of Spercheius and the sister of Achilles.

It is probable that all the people under the command of Achilles and
Patroclus, and who had accompanied Peleus in his banishment from Ægina,
had the name of Myrmidons, but all the Phthiotæ were called Achæans.

10. They reckon in the Phthiotic district, which was subject to
Achilles, beginning from the Malienses, a considerable number of towns,
and among them Thebæ Phthiotides, Echinus, Lamia, near which the war was
carried on between the Macedonians and Antipater, against the Athenians.
In this war Leosthenes, the Athenian general, was killed, [and
Leonnatus,] one of the companions of Alexander the king. Besides the
above-mentioned towns, we must add [Narthac]ium, Erineus, Coroneia, of
the same name as the town in Bœotia, Melitæa, Thaumaci, Proerna,
Pharsalus, Eretria, of the same name as the Euboic town, Paracheloïtæ,
of the same name as those in Ætolia; for here also, near Lamia, is a
river Achelous, on the banks of which live the Paracheloïtæ.

This district, lying to the north, extended to the north-western
territory of the Asclepiadæ, and to the territory of Eurypylus and
Protesilaus, inclining to the east; on the south it adjoined the Œtæan
territory, which was divided into fourteen demi, and contained Heracleia
and Dryopis, which was once a community of four cities, (a Tetrapolis,)
like Doris, and accounted the capital of the Dryopes in Peloponnesus. To
the Œtæan district belong also the Acyphas, Parasopias, Œneiadæ, and
Anticyra, of the same name as the town among the Locri Hesperii. I do
not mean that these divisions always continued the same, for they
underwent various changes. The most remarkable, however, are worthy of
notice.

11. The poet with sufficient clearness describes the situation of the
Dolopes, as at the extremity of Phthia, and says that both they and the
Phthiotæ were under the command of the same chief, Peleus;

   “I lived,” he says, “at the farthest part of Phthia, king of
   the Dolopes.”[505]

Peleus, however, had conferred on him the authority.

This region is close to Pindus, and the places about it, most of which
belong to the Thessalians. For in consequence of the renown and
ascendency of the Thessalians and Macedonians, those Epeirotæ, who
bordered nearest upon them, became, some voluntarily, others by force,
incorporated among the Macedonians and Thessalians. In this manner the
Athamanes, Æthices, and Talares were joined to the Thessalians, and the
Orestæ, Pelagones, and Elimiotæ to the Macedonians.

12. Pindus is a large mountain, having on the north Macedonia, on the
west Perrhæbi, settlers from another country, on the south Dolopes, [and
on the east Hestiæotis] which belongs to Thessaly. Close upon Pindus
dwelt Talares, a tribe of Molotti, detached from the Molotti about Mount
Tomarus, and Æthices, among whom the poet says the Centaurs took refuge
when expelled by Peirithous.[506] They are at present, it is said,
extinct. But this extinction is to be understood in two senses; either
the inhabitants have been exterminated, and the country deserted, or the
name of the nation exists no longer, or the community does not preserve
its ancient form. Whenever the community, which continues, is
insignificant, we do not think it worth while to record either its
existence or its change of name. But when it has any just pretensions to
notice, it is necessary to remark the change which it has undergone.

13. It remains for us to describe the tract of sea-coast subject to
Achilles: we begin from Thermopylæ, for we have spoken of the coast of
Locris, and of the interior.

Thermopylæ is separated from the Cenæum by a strait 70 stadia across.
Coasting beyond the Pylæ, it is at a distance from the Spercheius of
about 10, (60?) and thence to Phalara of 20 stadia. Above Phalara, 50
stadia from the sea, lies the city of the [Lamians]. Then coasting along
the shore 100 stadia, we find above it, Echinus. At the distance [CAS.
435] of 20 stadia from the following tract of coast, in the interior, is
Larisa Cremaste, which has the name also of Larisa Pelasgia.

14. Then follows a small island, Myonnesus; next Antron; which was
subject to Protesilaus. Thus much concerning the territory subject to
Achilles.

As the poet, in naming the chiefs, and cities under their rule, has
divided the country into numerous well-known parts, and has given an
accurate account of the whole circuit of Thessaly, we shall follow him,
as before, in completing the description of this region.

Next to the people under the command of Achilles, he enumerates those
under the command of Protesilaus. They were situated, next, along the
sea-coast which was subject to Achilles, as far as Antron. The boundary
of the country under the command of Protesilaus, is determined by its
being situated without the Maliac Gulf, yet still in Phthiotis, though
not within Phthiotis subject to Achilles.

Phylacē[507] is near Thebæ Phthiotides, which was subject to
Protesilaus, as were also Halus, Larisa Cremaste, and Demetrium, all of
which lie to the east of Mount Othrys.

The Demetrium he speaks of[508] as an enclosure sacred to Ceres, and
calls it Pyrasus. Pyrasus was a city with a good harbour, having at the
distance of 2 stadia from it a grove, and a temple consecrated to Ceres.
It is distant from Thebæ 20 stadia. The latter is situated above
Pyrasus. Above Thebæ in the inland parts is the Crocian plain at the
extremity of the mountain Othrys. Through this plain flows the river
Amphrysus. Above it is the Itonus, where is the temple of the Itonian
Minerva, from which that in Bœotia has its name, also the river Cuarius.
[Of this river and] of Arnē we have spoken in our account of Bœotia.

These places are in Thessaliotis, one of the four divisions of all
Thessaly, in which were the possessions of Eurypylus. Phyllus, where is
a temple of the Phyllæan Apollo, Ichnæ, where the Ichnæan Themis is
worshipped, Cierus, and [all the places as far as] Athamania, are
included in Thessaliotis.

At Antron, in the strait near Eubœa, is a sunk rock, called
“the Ass of Antron.” Next are Pteleum and Halus; next the temple of
Ceres, and Pyrasus in ruins; above these, Thebæ; then Pyrrha, a
promontory, and two small islands near, one of which is called Pyrrha,
the other Deucalion. Somewhere here ends the territory of Phthiotis.

15. The poet next mentions the people under Eumelus, and the continuous
tract of coast which now belongs to Magnesia, and the Pelasgiotis.

Pheræ is the termination of the Pelasgic plains towards Magnesia, which
plains extend as far as Pelion, a distance of 160 stadia. Pagasæ is
the naval arsenal of Pheræ, from which it is distant 90 stadia, and
20 from Iolcus. Iolcus has been razed from ancient times. It was from
this place that Pelias despatched Jason and the ship Argo. Pagasæ
had its name,[509] according to mythologists, from the building of
the ship Argo at this place. Others, with more probability, suppose
that the name of the place was derived from the springs, (πηγαί,)
which are very numerous and copious. Near it is Aphetæ, (so named) as
the starting-place[510] from which the Argonauts set off. Iolcus is
situated 7 stadia from Demetrias, overlooking the sea. Demetrias was
founded by Demetrius Poliorcetes, who called it after his own name. It
is situated between Nelia and Pagasæ on the sea. He collected there the
inhabitants of the neighbouring small cities, Nelia, Pagasæ, Ormenium,
and besides these, Rhizus, Sepias, Olizon, Bœbe, and Iolcus, which are
at present villages belonging to Demetrias. For a long time it was a
station for vessels, and a royal seat of the Macedonian kings. It had
the command of Tempe, and of both the mountains Pelion and Ossa. At
present its extent of power is diminished, yet it still surpasses all
the cities in Magnesia.

The lake Bœbeis[511] is near Pheræ,[512] and approaches close to the
extremities of Pelion and Magnesia. Bœbe is a small place situated on
the lake.

As civil dissensions and usurpations reduced the flourishing condition
of Iolcus, formerly so powerful, so they affected Pheræ in the same
manner, which was raised to prosperity, and was destroyed by tyrants.

Near Demetrias flows the Anaurus. The continuous line [CAS. 436] of
coast is called also Iolcus. Here was held the Pylaic (Peliac?) assembly
and festival.

Artemidorus places the Gulf of Pagasæ farther from Demetrias, near the
places subject to Philoctetes. In the gulf he says is the island
Cicynethus,[513] and a small town of the same name.

16. The poet next enumerates the cities subject to Philoctetes.

Methone is not the Thracian Methone razed by Philip. We have already
noticed the change of name these places and others in the Peloponnesus
have undergone. Other places enumerated as subject to Philoctetes, are
Thaumacia, Olizon, and Melibœa, all along the shore next adjacent.

In front of the Magnetes lie clusters of islands; the most celebrated
are Sciathus,[514] Peparethus,[515] Icus,[516] Halonnesus, and
Scyrus,[517] which contain cities of the same name. Scyrus however is
the most famous of any for the friendship which subsisted between
Lycomedes and Achilles, and for the birth and education of Neoptolemus,
the son of Achilles. In after times, when Philip became powerful,
perceiving that the Athenians were masters of the sea, and sovereigns
both of these and other islands, he made those islands which lay near
his own country more celebrated than any of the rest. For as his object
in waging war was the sovereignty of Greece, he attacked those places
first which were near him; and as he attached to Macedonia many parts of
Magnesia itself, of Thrace, and of the rest of the surrounding country,
so also he seized upon the islands in front of Magnesia, and made the
possession of islands which were before entirely unknown, a subject of
warlike contention, and brought them into notice.

Scyrus however is particularly celebrated in ancient histories. It is
also highly reputed for the excellence of its goats, and the quarries of
variegated marble, such as the Carystian, the Deucallian, (Docimæan?)
the Synnadic, and the Hierapolitic kinds. For there may be seen at Rome
columns, consisting of a single stone, and large slabs of variegated
marble, (from Scyrus,) with which the city is embellished both at the
public charge and at the expense of individuals, which has caused works
of white marble to be little esteemed.

17. The poet having proceeded so far along the Magnesian coast, returns
to Upper Thessaly, for beginning from Dolopia and Pindus he goes through
the region extending along Phthiotis to Lower Thessaly.

   “They who occupy Tricca and rocky Ithome.”[518]

These places belong to Histiæotis, which was formerly called Doris. When
it was in the possession of the Perrhæbi, who destroyed Histiæotis in
Eubœa, and had removed the inhabitants by force to the continent, they
gave the country the name of Histiæotis, on account of the great numbers
of Histiæans among the settlers. This country and Dolopia are called
Upper Thessaly, which is in a straight line with Upper Macedonia, as
Lower Thessaly is in a straight line with Lower Macedonia.

Tricca,[519] where there is a very ancient and famous temple of
Æsculapius, borders upon the Dolopes, and the parts about Pindus.

Ithome, which has the same name as the Messenian Ithome, ought not, they
say, to be pronounced in this manner, but should be pronounced without
the first syllable, Thome, for this was its former name. At present, it
is changed to [Thumæum]. It is a spot strong by nature, and in reality
rocky. It lies between four strongholds, which form a square, Tricca,
Metropolis, Pelinnæum, and Gomphi.[520] Ithome belongs to the district
of the Metropolitæ. Metropolis was formed at first out of three small
obscure cities, and afterwards more were included, and among these
Ithome. Callimachus says in his Iambics,

   “among the Venuses, (for the goddess bears several titles,)
   Venus Castnietis surpasses all others in wisdom,”

for she alone accepts the sacrifice of swine. Certainly Callimachus, if
any person could be said to possess information, was well informed, and
it was his object, as he himself says, all his life to relate these
fables. Later writers, however, have proved that there was not one Venus
only, but several, who accepted that sacrifice, from among whom the
goddess worshipped at Metropolis came, and that this [foreign] rite was
delivered down by one of the cities which contributed to form that
settlement.

Pharcadon [CAS. 438] also is situated in the Hestiæotis. The Peneius
and the Curalius flow through it. The Curalius, after flowing beside the
temple of the Itonian Minerva, empties itself into the Peneius.

The Peneius itself rises in Mount Pindus, as I have before said. It
leaves Tricca, Pelinnæum, and Pharcadon on the left hand, and takes its
course beside Atrax and Larisa. After having received the rivers of the
Thessaliotis it flows onwards through Tempe, and it empties itself into
the sea.

Historians speak of Œchalia, the city of Eurytus, as existing in these
parts, in Eubœa also, and in Arcadia; but some give it one name, others
another, as I have said in the description of Peloponnesus.

They inquire particularly, which of these was the city taken by
Hercules, and which was the city intended by the author of the poem,
“The Capture of Œchalia”?

The places, however, were subject to the Asclepiadæ.

18. The poet next mentions the country which was under the dominion of
Eurypylus;

   “They who possessed Ormenium and the spring Hypereia,
   And they who occupied Asterium and the white peaks of Titanus.”[521]

Ormenium is now called Orminium. It is a village situated below Pelion,
near the Pagasitic Gulf, but was one of the cities which contributed to
form the settlement of Demetrias, as I have before said.

The lake Bœbeis must be near, because both Bœbe and Ormenium belonged to
the cities lying around Demetrias.

Ormenium is distant by land 27 stadia from Demetrias. The site of
Iolcus, which is on the road, is distant 7 stadia from Demetrias, and
the remaining 20 from Ormenium.

Demetrius of Scepsis says, that Phœnix came from Ormenium, and that he
fled thence from his father Amyntor, the son of Ormenus, to Phthia, to
king Peleus. For this place was founded by Ormenus, the son of
Cercaphus, the son of Æolus. The sons of Ormenus were Amyntor and
Euæmon; the son of the former was Phœnix, and of the latter, Eurypylus.
The succession to his possessions was preserved secure for Eurypylus,
after the departure of Phœnix from his home, and we ought to write the
verse of the poet in this manner:

   “as when I first left Ormenium, abounding with flocks,”[522]

instead of

   “left Hellas, abounding with beautiful women.”

But Crates makes Phœnix a Phocæan, conjecturing this from the helmet of
Meges, which Ulysses wore on the night expedition; of which helmet the
poet says,

   “Autolycus brought it away from Eleon, out of the house of
   Amyntor, the son of Ormenus, having broken through the thick
   walls.”[523]

Now Eleon was a small city on Parnassus, and by Amyntor, the son of
Ormenus, he could not mean any other person than the father of Phœnix,
and that Autolycus, who lived on Parnassus, was in the habit of digging
through the houses of his neighbours, which is the common practice of
every house-breaker, and not of persons living at a distance. But
Demetrius the Scepsian says, that there is no such place on Parnassus as
Eleon, but Neon, which was built after the Trojan war, and that digging
through houses was not confined to robbers of the neighbourhood. Other
things might be advanced, but I am unwilling to insist long on this
subject. Others write the words

   “from Heleon;”

but this is a Tanagrian town; and the words

   “Then far away I fled through Hellas and came to Phthia,”[524]

would make this passage absurd.

Hypereia is a spring in the middle of the city of the Pheræi [subject to
Eumelus]. It would therefore be absurd [to assign it to Eurypylus].

Titanus[525] had its name from the accident of its colour, for the soil
of the country near Arne and [Aphe]tæ is white, and Asterium is not far
from these places.

19. Continuous with this portion of Thessaly are the people subject to
Polypœtes.

   “They who possessed Argissa; those who inhabited Gyrtone,[526]
   Orthe, Elone, and the white city Oloosson.”[527]

This country was formerly inhabited by Perrhæbi, who [CAS. 439]
possessed the part towards the sea and the Peneius, as far as[528] its
mouth and the city Gyrton, belonging to the district Perrhæbis.
Afterwards the Lapithæ, Ixion and his son Peirithous, having reduced the
Perrhæbi,[529] got possession of these places. Peirithous took
possession also of Pelion, having expelled by force the Centaurs, a
savage tribe, who inhabited it. These

   “he drove from Pelion to the neighbourhood of the Æthices,”[530]

but he delivered up the plains to the Lapithæ. The Perrhæbi kept
possession of some of these parts, those, namely, towards Olympus, and
in some places they lived intermixed altogether with the Lapithæ.

Argissa, the present Argura, is situated upon the banks of the Peneius.
Atrax lies above it at the distance of 40 stadia, close to the river.
The intermediate country along the side of the river was occupied by
Perrhæbi.

Some call Orthe the citadel of the Phalannæi. Phalanna is a Perrhæbic
city on the Peneius, near Tempe.

The Perrhæbi, oppressed by the Lapithæ, retreated in great numbers to
the mountainous country about Pindus, and to the Athamanes and Dolopes;
but the Larisæi became masters of the country and of the Perrhæbi who
remained there. The Larisæi lived near the Peneius, but in the
neighbourhood of the Perrhæbi. They occupied the most fertile portion of
the plains, except some of the very deep valleys near the lake Nessonis,
into which the river, when it overflowed, usually carried away a portion
of the arable ground belonging to the Larisæi, who afterwards remedied
this by making embankments.

These people were in possession of Perrhæbia, and levied imposts until
Philip became master of the country.

Larisa is a place situated on Ossa, and there is Larisa Cremaste, by
some called Pelasgia. In Crete also is a city Larisa, the inhabitants of
which were embodied with those of Hierapytna; and from this place the
plain below is called the Larisian plain. In Peloponnesus the citadel of
the Argives is called Larisa, and there is a river Larisus, which
separates Eleia from Dyme. Theopompus mentions a city Larisa, situated
on the immediate confines of this country. In Asia is Larisa Phriconis
near Cume, and another Larisa near Hamaxitus, in the Troad. There is
also an Ephesian Larisa, and a Larisa in Syria. At 50 stadia from
Mitylene are the Larisæan rocks, on the road to Methymne. There is a
Larisa in Attica; and a village of this name at the distance of 30
stadia from Tralleis, situated above the city, on the road to the plain
of the Cayster, passing by Mesogis towards the temple of Mater Isodroma.
This Larisa has a similar position, and possesses similar advantages to
those of Larisa Cremaste; for it has abundance of water and vineyards.
Perhaps Jupiter had the appellation of Larisæus from this place. There
is also on the left side of the Pontus (Euxine) a village called Larisa,
near the extremities of Mount Hæmus, between Naulochus [and
Odessus].[531]

Oloosson, called the White, from its chalky soil, Elone, and Gonnus are
Perrhæbic cities. The name of Elone was changed to that of Leimone. It
is now in ruins. Both lie at the foot of Olympus, not very far from the
river Eurotas, which the poet calls Titaresius.

20. The poet speaks both of this river and of the Perrhæbi in the
subsequent verses, when he says,

   “Guneus brought from Cyphus two and twenty vessels. His
   followers were Enienes and Peræbi, firm in battle. They dwelt
   near the wintry Dodona, and tilled the fields about the lovely
   Titaresius.”[532]

He mentions therefore these places as belonging to the Perrhæbi, which
comprised a part of the Hestiæotis.[533] They were in part Perrhæbic
towns, which were subject to Polypœtes. He assigned them however to the
Lapithæ, because these people and the Perrhæbi lived intermixed
together, and the Lapithæ occupied the plains. The country, which
belonged to the Perrhæbi, was, for the most part, subject to the
Lapithæ, but the Perrhæbi possessed the more mountainous tracts towards
Olympus and Tempe, such as Cyphus, Dodonē, and the country about the
river Titaresius. This river rises [CAS. 441] in the mountain Titarius,
which is part of Olympus. It flows into the plain near Tempe belonging
to Perrhæbia, and somewhere there enters the Peneius.

The water of the Peneius is clear, that of the Titaresius is unctuous; a
property arising from some matter, which prevents the streams mingling
with each other,

   “but runs over the surface like oil.”[534]

Because the Perrhæbi and Lapithæ lived intermingled together, Simonides
calls all those people Pelasgiotæ, who occupy the eastern parts about
Gyrton and the mouths of the Peneius, Ossa, Pelion, and the country
about Demetrias, and the places in the plain, Larisa, Crannon, Scotussa,
Mopsium, Atrax, and the parts near the lakes Nessonis and Bœbeis. The
poet mentions a few only of these places, either because they were not
inhabited at all, or badly inhabited on account of the inundations which
had happened at various times. For the poet does not mention even the
lake Nessonis, but the Bœbeis only, which is much smaller, for its water
remained constant, and this alone remains, while the former probably was
at one time filled irregularly to excess, and at another contained no
water.

We have mentioned Scotussa in our accounts of Dodona, and of the oracle,
in Thessaly, when we observed that it was near Scotussa. Near Scotussa
is a tract called Cynoscephalæ. It was here that the Romans with their
allies the Ætolians, and their general Titus Quintius, defeated in a
great battle Philip, son of Demetrius, king of Macedon.

21. Something of the same kind has happened in the territory of
Magnetis. For Homer having enumerated many places of this country, calls
none of them Magnetes, but those only whom he indicates in terms
obscure, and not easily understood;

   “They who dwelt about Peneius and Pelion with waving woods.”[535]

Now about the Peneius and Pelion dwell those (already mentioned by
Homer) who occupied Gyrton, and Ormenium, and many other nations. At a
still greater distance from Pelion, according to later writers, were
Magnetes, beginning from the people, that were subject to Eumelus. These
writers, on account of the continual removals from one settlement to
another, alterations in the forms of government, and intermixture of
races, seem to confound both names and nations, which sometimes
perplexes persons in these times, as is first to be observed in the
instances of Crannon and Gyrton.

Formerly they called the Gyrtonians Phlegyæ, from Phlegyas, the brother
of Ixion; and the Crannonii, Ephyri, so that there is a doubt, when the
poet says,

   “These two from Thrace appeared with breastplates armed
   against Ephyri, or haughty Phlegyæ,”[536]

what people he meant.

22. The same is the case with the Perrhæbi and Ænianes, for Homer joins
them together, as if they dwelt near each other; and it is said by later
writers, that, for a long period, the settlement of the Ænianes was in
the Dotian plain. Now this plain is near Perrhæbia, which we have just
mentioned, Ossa, and the lake Bœbeis: it is situated about the middle of
Thessaly, but enclosed by itself within hills. Hesiod speaks of it in
this manner;

   “Or, as a pure virgin, who dwells on the sacred heights of the
   Twin hills, comes to the Dotian plain, in front of Amyrus,
   abounding with vines, to bathe her feet in the lake Bœbias.”

The greater part of the Ænianes were expelled by the Lapithæ, and took
refuge in Œta, where they established their power, having deprived the
Dorians and the Malienses of some portions of country, extending as far
as Heracleia and Echinus. Some of them however remained about Cyphus, a
Perrhæbic mountain, where is a settlement of the same name. As to the
Perrhæbi, some of them collected about the western parts of Olympus and
settled there, on the borders of the Macedonians. But a large body took
shelter among the mountains near Athamania, and Pindus. But at present
few, if any, traces of them are to be found.

The Magnetes, who are mentioned last in the Thessalian catalogue of the
poet, must be understood to be those situated within Tempe, extending
from the Peneius and Ossa to Pelion, and bordering upon the Pieriotæ in
Macedonia, who occupy the country on the other side of the Peneius as
far as the sea.

Homolium, or Homolē, (for both words are in use,) must be [CAS. 443]
assigned to the Magnetes. I have said in the description of Macedonia,
that Homolium is near Ossa at the beginning of the course which the
Peneius takes through Tempe.

If we are to extend their possessions as far as the sea-coast, which is
very near Homolium, there is reason for assigning to them Rhizus, and
Erymnæ, which lies on the sea-coast in the tract subject to Philoctetes
and Eumelus. Let this however remain unsettled. For the order in which
the places as far as the Peneius follow one another, is not clearly
expressed, and as the places are not of any note, we need not consider
that uncertainty as very important. The coast of Sepias, however, is
mentioned by tragic writers, and was chaunted in songs on account of the
destruction of the Persian fleet. It consists of a chain of rocks.

Between Sepias and Casthanæa, a village situated below Pelion, is the
sea-shore, where the fleet of Xerxes was lying, when an east wind began
to blow violently; some of the vessels were forced on shore, and
immediately went to pieces, others were driven on Hipnus, a rocky spot
near Pelion, others were lost at Melibœa, others at Casthanæa.

The whole of the coasting voyage along Pelion, to the extent of about 80
stadia, is among rocks. That along Ossa is of the same kind and to the
same extent.

Between them is a bay of more than 200 stadia in extent, upon which is
situated Melibœa.

The whole voyage from Demetrias, including the winding of the bays, to
the Peneius is more than 1000 stadia, from the Spercheius 800 stadia
more, and from the Euripus 2350 stadia.

Hieronymus assigns a circuit of 3000 stadia to the plain country in
Thessaly and Magnesia, and says, that it was inhabited by Pelasgi, but
that these people were driven into Italy by Lapithæ, and that the
present Pelasgic plain is that in which are situated Larisa, Gyrton,
Pheræ, Mopsium, Bœbeis, Ossa, Homole, Pelion, and Magnetis. Mopsium has
not its name from Mopsus, the son of Manto the daughter of Teiresias,
but from Mopsus, one of the Lapithæ, who sailed with the Argonauts.
Mopsopus, from whom Attica is called Mopsopia, is a different person.

23. This then is the account of the several parts of Thessaly.

In general we say, that it was formerly called Pyrrhæa, from Pyrrha, the
wife of Deucalion; Hæmonia, from Hæmon; and Thettalia, from Thettalus,
the son of Hæmon. But some writers, after dividing it into two portions,
say, that Deucalion obtained by lot the southern part, and called it
Pandora, from his mother; that the other fell to the share of Hæmon,
from whom it was called Hæmonia; that the name of one part was changed
to Hellas, from Hellen, the son of Deucalion, and of the other to
Thettalia, from Thettalus, the son of Hæmon. But, according to some
writers, it was the descendants of Antiphus and Pheidippus, sons of
Thettalus, descended from Hercules, who invaded the country from Ephyra
in Thesprotia, and called it after the name of Thettalus their
progenitor. It has been already said that once it had the name of
Nessonis, as well as the lake, from Nesson, the son of Thettalus.




BOOK X.

GREECE.

SUMMARY.


   The Tenth Book contains Ætolia and the neighbouring islands;
   also the whole of Crete, on which the author dwells some time
   in narrating the institutions of the islanders and of the
   Curetes. He describes at length the origin of the Idæan
   Dactyli in Crete, their customs and religious rites. Strabo
   mentions the connexion of his own family with Crete. The Book
   contains an account of the numerous islands about Crete,
   including the Sporades and some of the Cyclades.




CHAPTER I.


1. Since Eubœa[537] stretches along the whole of this coast from Sunium
to Thessaly, except the extremity on each side,[538] it may be
convenient to connect the description of this island with that of
Thessaly. We shall then pass on to Ætolia and Acarnania, parts of Europe
of which it remains to give an account.

2. The island is oblong, and extends nearly 1200 stadia from Cenæum[539]
to Geræstus.[540] Its greatest breadth is about 150 stadia, but it is
irregular.[541]

Cenæum is opposite to Thermopylæ, and in a small degree to the parts
beyond Thermopylæ: Geræstus[542] and Petalia[543] are opposite to
Sunium.

Eubœa then fronts[544] Attica, Bœotia, Locris, and the Malienses. From
its narrowness, and its length, which we have mentioned, it was called
by the ancients Macris.[545]

It approaches nearest to the continent at Chalcis. It projects with a
convex bend towards the places in Bœotia near Aulis, and forms the
Euripus,[546] of which we have before spoken at length. We have also
mentioned nearly all the places on either side of the Euripus, opposite
to each other across the strait, both on the continent and on the
island. If anything is omitted we shall now give a further explanation.

And first, the parts lying between Aulis (Chalcis?) and the places about
Geræstus are called the Hollows of Eubœa, for the sea-coast swells into
bays, and, as it approaches Chalcis, juts out again towards the
continent.

3. The island had the name not of Macris only, but of Abantis also. The
poet in speaking of Eubœa never calls the inhabitants from the name of
the island, Eubœans, but always Abantes;

   “they who possessed Eubœa, the resolute Abantes;”[547]

   “in his train Abantes were following.”

Aristotle says that Thracians, taking their departure from Aba, the
Phocian city, settled with the other inhabitants in the island, and gave
the name of Abantes to those who already occupied it; other writers say
that they had their name from a hero,[548] as that of Eubœa was derived
from a heroine.[549] But perhaps as a certain cave on the sea-coast
fronting the [CAS. 445] Ægean Sea is called Boos-Aule, (or the Cow’s
Stall,) where Io is said to have brought forth Epaphus, so the island
may have had the name Eubœa[550] on this account.

It was also called Oché, which is the name of one of the largest
mountains[551] there.

It had the name of Ellopia, from Ellops, the son of Ion; according to
others, he was the brother of Æclus, and Cothus, who is said to have
founded Ellopia,[552] a small place situated in the district called Oria
of the Histiæotis, near the mountain Telethrius.[553] He also possessed
Histiæa, Perias, Cerinthus, Ædepsus,[554] and Orobiæ, where was an
oracle very free from deception. There also was an oracle of Apollo
Selinuntius.

The Ellopians, after the battle of Leuctra, were compelled by the tyrant
Philistides to remove to the city Histiæa, and augmented the number of
its inhabitants. Demosthenes[555] says that Philistides was appointed by
Philip tyrant of the Oreitæ also, for afterwards the Histiæans had that
name, and the city, instead of Histiæa, was called Oreus. According to
some writers, Histiæa was colonized by Athenians from the demus of the
Histiæeis, as Eretria was from the demus of the Eretrieis. But
Theopompus says, that when Pericles had reduced Eubœa, the Histiæans
agreed to remove into Macedonia, and that two thousand Athenians, who
formerly composed the demus of the Histiæans, came, and founded
Oreus.[556]

4. It is situated below Mount Telethrius, at a place called Drymus, near
the river Callas, on a lofty rock;[557] whence perhaps because the
Ellopians, the former inhabitants, were a mountain tribe,[558] the city
had the name of Oreus. Orion, who was brought up there, seems to have
had his name from the place. But according to some writers, the Oreitæ,
who had a city of their own, being attacked by the Ellopians, migrated,
and settled with the Histiæans, and although it was a single city it had
both appellations, as Lacedæmon and Sparta were the same city. We have
said, that the Histiæotis in Thessaly had its name from the people who
were carried away from this country by the Perrhæbi.

5. As Ellopia induced us to commence our description with Histiæa and
Oreus, we shall proceed with the places continuous with these.

The promontory Cenæum is near Oreus, and on the promontory is situated
Dium,[559] and Athenæ Diades, a town founded by Athenians, and overlooks
the passage across the strait to Cynus. Canæ in Æolia received colonists
from Dium. These places are situated near Histiæa, and besides these
Cerinthus, a small city, close to the sea. Near it is a river Budorus,
of the same name as the mountain in Salamis on the side of Attica.

6. Carystus[560] lies at the foot of the mountain Oche, and near it are
Styra[561] and Marmarium,[562] where is a quarry, from which are
obtained the Carystian columns. It has a temple of Apollo Marmarinus,
where there is a passage across to Halæ-Araphenides. At Carystus there
is found in the earth a stone,[563] which is combed like wool, and
woven, so that napkins are made of this substance, which, when soiled,
are thrown into the fire, and cleaned, as in the washing of linen.[564]
These places are said to be inhabited by colonists from the Tetrapolis
of Marathon, and by Steirieis. Styra was destroyed in the Maliac
(Lamiac?) war by Phædrus, the general of the Athenians. But the
Eretrians are in possession of the territory. There is also a Carystus
in Laconia, a place belonging to Ægys, towards Arcadia; from whence
comes the Carystian wine, spoken of by Alcman.

7. Geræstus[565] is not mentioned by Homer in the Catalogue of the
Ships; it is however mentioned by him elsewhere;[CAS. 447]

   “The vessels came to Geræstus by night;”[566]

which shows, that the place being near Sunium lies conveniently for
persons who cross from Asia to Attica. It has a temple of Neptune the
most remarkable of any in that quarter, and a considerable number of
inhabitants.

8. Next to Geræstus is Eretria, which, after Chalcis, is the largest
city in Eubœa. Next follows Chalcis, the capital as it were of the
island, situated immediately on the Euripus. Both these cities are said
to have been founded by Athenians before the Trojan war; [but it is also
said that] after the Trojan war, Æclus and Cothus took their departure
from Athens; the former to found Eretria, and Cothus, Chalcis. A body of
Æolians who belonged to the expedition of Penthilus remained in the
island. Anciently, even Arabians[567] settled there, who came over with
Cadmus.

These cities, Eretria and Chalcis, when their population was greatly
augmented, sent out considerable colonies to Macedonia, for Eretria
founded cities about Pallene and Mount Athos; Chalcis founded some near
Olynthus, which Philip destroyed. There are also many settlements in
Italy and Sicily, founded by Chalcidians. These colonies were sent out,
according to Aristotle,[568] when the government of the Hippobatæ, (or
Knights,) as it is called, was established; it was an aristocratical
government, the heads of which held their office by virtue of the amount
of their property. At the time that Alexander passed over into Asia,
they enlarged the compass of the walls of their city, including within
them Canethus,[569] and the Euripus, and erected towers upon the bridge,
a wall, and gates.

9. Above the city of the Chalcidians is the plain called Lelantum, in
which are hot springs, adapted to the cure of diseases, and which were
used by Cornelius Sylla, the Roman general. There was also an
extraordinary mine which produced both copper and iron; such, writers
say, is not to be found elsewhere. At present, however, both are
exhausted.

The whole of Eubœa is subject to earthquakes, especially the part near
the strait. It is also exposed to violent subterraneous blasts, like
Bœotia, and other places of which I have before spoken at length.[570]
The city of the same name as the island is said to have been swallowed
up by an earthquake.[571] It is mentioned by Æschylus in his tragedy of
Glaucus Pontius;

   “Euboïs near the bending shore of Jupiter Cenæus, close to the
   tomb of the wretched Lichas.”

There is also in Ætolia a town of the name of Chalcis,

   “Chalcis on the sea-coast, and the rocky Calydon,”[572]

and another in the present Eleian territory;

   “they passed along Cruni, and the rocky Chalcis,”[573]

speaking of Telemachus and his companions, when they left Nestor to
return to their own country.

10. Some say, that the Eretrians were a colony from Macistus in
Triphylia, under the conduct of Eretrieus; others, that they came from
Eretria, in Attica, where now a market is held. There is an Eretria also
near Pharsalus. In the Eretrian district there was a city, Tamynæ,
sacred to Apollo. The temple (which was near the strait) is said to have
been built by Admetus, whom the god, according to report, served a
year[574] for hire.

Eretria,[575] formerly, had the names of Melaneïs and Arotria. The
village Amarynthus, at the distance of 7 stadia from the walls, belongs
to it.

The Persians razed the ancient city, having enclosed with multitudes the
inhabitants, according to the expression of Herodotus,[576] in a net, by
spreading the Barbarians around the walls. The foundations are still
shown, and the place is called ancient Eretria. The present city is
built near it.

The power which the Eretrians once possessed, is evinced by a pillar
which was placed in the temple of Diana Amarynthia. There is an
inscription on it to this effect, that their processions upon their
public festivals consisted of three thousand heavy-armed soldiers, six
hundred horsemen, and [CAS. 448] sixty chariots. They were masters,
besides other islands, of Andros, Tenos, and Ceos. They received
colonists from Elis, whence their frequent use of the letter R, (ρ,)[577]
not only at the end, but in the middle of words, which exposed them to
the raillery of comic writers.

Œchalia,[578] a village, the remains of a city destroyed by Hercules,
belongs to the district of Eretria. It has the same name as that in
Trachinia, as that near Tricca,[579] as that in Arcadia, (which later
writers call Andania,) and as that in Ætolia near the Eurytanes.

11. At present Chalcis[580] is allowed, without dispute, to hold the
first rank, and is called the capital of the Eubœans. Eretria holds the
second place. Even in former times these cities had great influence both
in war and peace, so that they afforded to philosophers an agreeable and
tranquil retreat. A proof of this is the establishment at Eretria of the
school of Eretrian philosophers, disciples of Menedemus; and at an
earlier period the residence of Aristotle[581] at Chalcis, where he also
died.

12. These cities generally lived in harmony with each other, and when a
dispute arose between them respecting Lelantum, they did not even then
suspend all intercourse so as to act in war entirely without regard to
each other, but they agreed upon certain conditions, on which the war
was to be conducted. This appears by a column standing in the
Amarynthium, which interdicts the use of missiles. [For with respect to
warlike usages and armour, there neither is nor was any common usage;
for some nations employ soldiers who use missile weapons, such as bows,
slings, and javelins; others employ men who engage in close fight, and
use a sword, or charge with a spear.[582] For there are two methods of
using the spear; one is to retain it in the hand; the other, to hurl it
like a dart; the pike[583] answers both purposes, for it is used in
close encounter and is hurled to a distance. The sarissa and the hyssus
are similarly made use of.][584]

13. The Eubœans excelled in standing[585] fight, which was also called
close fight,[586] and fight hand to hand.[587] They used spears extended
at length according to the words of the poet;

   “warriors eager to break through breastplates with extended
   ashen spears.”[588]

The missile weapons were perhaps of different kinds, as, probably, was
the ashen spear of Pelion, which, as the poet says,

   “Achilles alone knew how to hurl.”[589]

When the poet says,

   “I strike farther with a spear than any other person with an
   arrow,”[590]

he means with a missile spear. They, too, who engage in single combat,
are first introduced as using missile spears, and then having recourse
to swords. But they who engage in single combat do not use the sword
only, but a spear also held in the hand, as the poet describes it,

   “he wounded him with a polished spear, pointed with brass, and
   unbraced his limbs.”[591]

He represents the Eubœans as fighting in this manner; but he describes
the Locrian mode as contrary to this;

   “It was not their practice to engage in close fight, but they
   followed him to Ilium with their bows, clothed in the pliant
   fleece of the sheep.”[592]

An answer of an oracle is commonly repeated, which was returned to the
Ægienses;

   “a Thessalian horse, a Lacedæmonian woman, and the men who
   drink the water of the sacred Arethusa,”

meaning the Chalcideans as superior to all other people, for Arethusa
belongs to them.

14. At present the rivers of Eubœa are the Cereus and Neleus. The cattle
which drink of the water of the former become white, and those that
drink of the water of the latter become black. We have said that a
similar effect is produced by the water of the Crathis.[593]

15. As some of the Eubœans, on their return from Troy, were driven out
of their course among the Illyrians; pursued their journey homewards
through Macedonia, and stopped in the neighbourhood of Edessa; having
assisted the people in a war, who had received them hospitably; they
founded a city, [CAS. 450] Eubœa. There was a Eubœa in Sicily, founded
by the Chalcideans, who were settled there. It was destroyed by Gelon,
and became a stronghold of the Syracusans. In Corcyra also, and at
Lemnus, there was a place called Eubœa, and a hill of this name in the
Argive territory.

16. We have said, that Ætolians, Acarnanians, and Athamanes are situated
to the west of the Thessalians and Œtæans, if indeed we must call the
Athamanes,[594] Greeks. It remains, in order that we may complete the
description of Greece, to give some account of these people, of the
islands which lie nearest to Greece, and are inhabited by Greeks, which
we have not yet mentioned.




CHAPTER II.


1. Ætolians and Acarnanians border on one another, having between them
the river Achelous,[595] which flows from the north, and from Pindus
towards the south, through the country of the Agræi, an Ætolian tribe,
and of the Amphilochians.

Acarnanians occupy the western side of the river as far as the Ambracian
Gulf,[596] opposite to the Amphilochians, and the temple of Apollo
Actius. Ætolians occupy the part towards the east as far as the Locri
Ozolæ, Parnassus, and the Œtæans.

Amphilochians are situated above the Acarnanians in the interior towards
the north; above the Amphilochians are situated Dolopes, and Mount
Pindus; above the Ætolians are Perrhæbi, Athamanes, and a body of the
Ænianes who occupy Œta.

The southern side, as well the Acarnanian as the Ætolian, is washed by
the sea, forming the Corinthian Gulf, into which the Achelous empties
itself. This river (at its mouth) is the boundary of the Ætolian and the
Acarnanian coast. The Achelous was formerly called Thoas. There is a
river of this name near Dyme,[597] as we have said, and another near
Lamia.[598] We have also said,[599] that the mouth of this river is
considered by some writers as the commencement of the Corinthian Gulf.

2. The cities of the Acarnanians are, Anactorium, situated upon a
peninsula[600] near Actium, and a mart of Nicopolis, which has been
built in our time; Stratus,[601] to which vessels sail up the Achelous,
a distance of more than 200 stadia; and Œniadæ[602] is also on the banks
of the river. The ancient city is not inhabited, and lies at an equal
distance from the sea and from Stratus. The present city is at the
distance of 70 stadia above the mouth of the river.

There are also other cities, Palærus,[603] Alyzia,[604] Leucas,[605] the
Amphilochian Argos,[606] and Ambracia:[607] most of these, if not all,
are dependent upon Nicopolis.

Stratus lies half-way between Alyzia and Anactorium.[608]

3. To the Ætolians belong both Calydon[609] and Pleuron, which at
present are in a reduced condition, but, anciently, these settlements
were an ornament to Greece.

Ætolia was divided into two portions, one called the Old, the other the
Epictetus (the Acquired). The Old comprised the sea-coast from the
Achelous as far as Calydon, extending far into the inland parts, which
are fertile, and consist of plains. Here are situated Stratus and
Trichonium, which has an excellent soil. The Epictetus, that reaches
close to the Locri in the direction of Naupactus[610] and Eupalium,[611]
[CAS. 451] is a rugged and sterile tract, extending as far as Œtæa, to
the territory of the Athamanes, and the mountains and nations following
next in order, and which lie around towards the north.

4. There is in Ætolia a very large mountain, the Corax,[612] which is
contiguous to Œta. Among the other mountains, more in the middle of the
country, is the Aracynthus,[613] near which the founders built the
modern Pleuron, having abandoned the ancient city situated near Calydon,
which was in a fertile plain country, when Demetrius, surnamed Ætolicus,
laid waste the district.

Above Molycreia[614] are Taphiassus[615] and Chalcis,[616] mountains of
considerable height, on which are situated the small cities, Macynia and
Chalcis, (having the same name as the mountain,) or, as it is also
called, Hypochalcis. Mount Curium is near the ancient Pleuron, from
which some supposed the Pleuronii had the appellation of Curetes.

5. The river Evenus rises in the country of the Bomianses, a nation
situated among the Ophienses, and an Ætolian tribe like the Eurytanes,
Agræi, Curetes, and others. It does not flow, at its commencement,
through the territory of the Curetes, which is the same as Pleuronia,
but through the country more towards the east along Chalcis and Calydon;
it then makes a bend backwards to the plains of the ancient Pleuron, and
having changed its course to the west, turns again to the south, where
it empties itself. It was formerly called Lycormas. There Nessus, who
had the post of ferryman, is said to have been killed by Hercules for
having attempted to force Deïaneira while he was conveying her across
the river.

6. The poet calls Olenus and Pylene Ætolian cities, the former of which,
of the same name as the Achæan city, was razed by the Æolians. It is
near the new city Pleuron. The Acarnanians disputed the possession of
the territory. They transferred Pylene to a higher situation, and
changed its name to Proschium. Hellanicus was not at all acquainted with
the history of these cities, but speaks of them as still existing in
their ancient condition, but Macynia and Molycria, which were built
subsequent to the return of the Heracleidæ, he enumerates among ancient
cities, and shows the greatest carelessness in almost every part of his
work.

7. This, then, is the general account of the country of the Acarnanians
and Ætolians. We must annex to this some description of the sea-coast
and of the islands lying in front of it.

If we begin from the entrance of the Ambracian Gulf, the first place we
meet with in Acarnania is Actium. The temple of Apollo Actius has the
same name as the promontory, which forms the entrance of the Gulf, and
has a harbour on the outside.

At the distance of 40 stadia from the temple is Anactorium, situated on
the Gulf; and at the distance of 240 stadia is Leucas.[617]

8. This was, anciently, a peninsula belonging to the territory of the
Acarnanians. The poet calls it the coast of Epirus, meaning by Epirus
the country on the other side of Ithaca,[618] and Cephallenia,[619]
which country is Acarnania; so that by the words of the poet,

   “the coast of Epirus,”

we must understand the coast of Acarnania.

To Leucas also belonged Neritus, which Laertes said he took--

   “as when I was chief of the Cephallenians, and took Nericus, a
   well-built city, on the coast of Epirus,”[620]

and the cities which he mentions in the Catalogue,

   “and they who inhabited Crocyleia, and the rugged Ægilips.”[621]

But the Corinthians who were despatched by Cypselus and Gorgus, obtained
possession of this coast, and advanced as far as the Ambracian Gulf.
Ambracia and Anactorium were both founded. They cut through the isthmus
of the peninsula, converted Leucas into an island, transferred Neritus
to the spot, which was once an isthmus, but is now a channel connected
with the land by a bridge, and changed the name to Leucas from Leucatas,
as I suppose, which is a white rock, projecting from Leucas into the sea
towards Cephallenia, so that it might take its name from this
circumstance.

9. [CAS. 452] It has upon it the temple of Apollo Leucatas, and the
Leap, which, it was thought, was a termination of love.

   “Here Sappho first ’tis said,” (according to Menander,) “in
   pursuit of the haughty Phaon, and urged on by maddening
   desire, threw herself[622] from the aerial rock, imploring
   Thee, Lord, and King.”

Menander then says that Sappho was the first who took the leap, but
persons better acquainted with ancient accounts assert that it was
Cephalus, who was in love with Pterelas, the son of Deïoneus.[623] It
was also a custom of the country among the Leucadians at the annual
sacrifice performed in honour of Apollo, to precipitate from the rock
one of the condemned criminals, with a view to avert evil. Various kinds
of wings were attached to him, and even birds were suspended from his
body, to lighten by their fluttering the fall of the leap. Below many
persons were stationed around in small fishing boats to receive, and to
preserve his life, if possible, and to carry him beyond the boundaries
of the country. The author of the Alcmæonis says that Icarius, the
father of Penelope, had two sons, Alyzeus, and Leucadius, who reigned
after their father in Acarnania, whence Ephorus thinks that the cities
were called after their names.

10. At present those are called Cephallenians who inhabit Cephallenia.
But Homer calls all those under the command of Ulysses by this name,
among whom are the Acarnanians; for when he says,

   “Ulysses led the Cephallenians, those who possessed Ithaca,
   and Neritum, waving with woods,”[624]

(the remarkable mountain in this island; so also,

   “they who came from Dulichium, and the sacred Echinades,”[625]

for Dulichium itself was one of the Echinades; and again,

   “Buprasium and Elis,”[626]

when Buprasium is situated in Elis; and so,

   “they who inhabited Eubœa, Chalcis, and Eretria,”[627]

when the latter places are in Eubœa; so again,

   “Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians,”[628]

and these also were Trojans): but after mentioning Neritum, he says,

   “and they who inhabited Crocyleia and rocky Ægilips,
   Zacynthus, Samos, Epirus, and the country opposite to these
   islands;”[629]

he means by Epirus the country opposite to the islands, intending to
include together with Leucas the rest of Acarnania, of which he says,

   “twelve herds, and as many flocks of sheep in Epirus,”[630]

because the district of Epirus (the Epirotis) extended anciently perhaps
as far as this place, and was designated by the common name Epirus.

The present Cephallenia he calls Samos, as when he says,

   “in the strait between Ithaca and the hilly Samos,”[631]

he makes a distinction between places of the same name by an epithet,
assigning the name not to the city, but to the island. For the island
contains four cities, one of which, called Samos, or Same, for it had
either appellation, bore the same name as the island. But when the poet
says,

   “all the chiefs of the islands, Dulichium, Same, and the woody
   Zacynthus,”[632]

he is evidently enumerating the islands, and calls that Same which he
had before called Samos.

But Apollodorus at one time says that the ambiguity is removed by the
epithet, which the poet uses, when he says,

   “and hilly Samos,”

meaning the island; and at another time he pretends that we ought to
write

   “Dulichium, and Samos,”

and not

   “Same,”

and evidently supposes that the city is called by either name, Samos or
Samé, but the island by that of Samos only. That the city is called Samé
is evident from the enumeration of the suitors from each city, where the
poet says,

   “there are four and twenty from Samé,”[633]

and from what is said about Ctimene,[CAS. 454]

   “they afterwards gave her in marriage at Samé.”[634]

There is reason in this. For the poet does not express himself
distinctly either about Cephallenia, or Ithaca, or the other
neighbouring places, so that both historians and commentators differ
from one another.

11. For instance, with respect to Ithaca, when the poet says,

   “and they who possessed Ithaca, and Neritum with its waving
   woods,”[635]

he denotes by the epithet, that he means Neritum the mountain. In other
passages he expressly mentions the mountain;

   “I dwell at Ithaca, turned to the western sun; where is a
   mountain, Neritum, seen from afar with its waving woods;”[636]

but whether he means the city, or the island, is not clear, at least
from this verse;

   “they who possessed Ithaca, and Neritum.”

Any one would understand these words in their proper sense to mean the
city, as we speak of Athens, Lycabettus, Rhodes, Atabyris, Lacedæmon,
and Taygetus, but in a poetical sense the contrary is implied.

In the verses,

   “I dwell at Ithaca, turned to the western sun, in which is a
   mountain Neritum,”

the meaning is plain, because the mountain is on the island and not in
the city; and when he says,

   “we came from Ithaca situated under Neium,”[637]

it is uncertain whether he means that Neium was the same as Neritum, or
whether it is another, either mountain or place. [He, who writes Nericum
for Neritum, or the reverse, is quite mistaken. For the poet describes
the former as “waving with woods;” the other as a “well-built city;” one
in Ithaca, the other on the sea-beach of Epirus.][638]

12. But this line seems to imply some contradiction;

   “it lies in the sea both low, and very high,”[639]

for χθαμαλὴ is low, and depressed, but πανυπερτάτη expresses great
height, as he describes it in other passages, calling it Cranae, (or
rugged,) and the road leading from the harbour, as,

   “a rocky way through a woody spot,”[640]

and again,

   “for there is not any island in the sea exposed to the western
   sun,[641] and with good pastures, least of all Ithaca.”[642]

The expression does imply contradictions, which admit however of some
explanation. They do not understand χθαμαλὴ to signify in that place
“low,” but its contiguity to the continent, to which it approaches very
close; nor by πανυπερτάτη great elevation, but the farthest advance
towards darkness, (πρὸς ζόφον,) that is, placed towards the north more
than all the other islands, for this is what the poet means by “towards
darkness,” the contrary to which is towards the south, (πρὸς νότον,)

   “the rest far off (ἄνευθε) towards the morning,
   and the sun.”[643]

For the word ἄνευθε denotes “at a distance,” and
“apart,” as if the other islands lay to the south, and more distant from
the continent, but Ithaca near the continent and towards the north. That
the poet designates the southern part (of the heavens) in this manner
appears from these words,

   “whether they go to the right hand, towards the morning and
   the sun, or to the left, towards cloudy darkness;”[644]

and still more evidently in these lines,

   “my friends, we know not where darkness nor where morning lie,
   nor where sets nor where rises the sun which brings light to
   man.”[645]

We may here understand the four climates,[646] and suppose the morning
to denote the southern part (of the heavens), and this has some
probability; but it is better to consider what is near to the path of
the sun to be opposite to the northern part (of the heavens). For the
speech in Homer is intended to indicate some great change in the
celestial appearances, not a mere obscuration of the _climates_. For
this must happen [CAS. 455] during every cloudy season either by day or
by night. Now the celestial appearances alter very much as we advance
more or less towards the south, or the contrary; but this alteration
does not prevent our observing the setting and rising of the sun, for in
fine weather these phenomena are always visible whether in the south or
the north. For the pole is the most northerly point: when this moves,
and is sometimes over our heads and sometimes below the earth, the
arctic circles change their position with it. Sometimes they disappear
during these movements, so that you cannot discern the position of the
northern _climate_, nor where it commences;[647] and if this is so,
neither can you distinguish the contrary _climate_.

The circuit of Ithaca is about 80[648] stadia. So much then concerning
Ithaca.

13. The poet does not mention Cephallenia, which contains four cities,
by its present name, nor any of the cities except one, either Samé or
Samos, which no longer exists, but traces of it are shown in the middle
of the Strait near Ithaca. The inhabitants have the name of Samæ. The
rest still exist at present, they are small cities, Paleis, Pronesus,
and Cranii. In our time Caius Antonius, the uncle of Marcus Antonius,
founded an additional city, when (being an exile after his consulship in
which he was the colleague of Cicero the orator) he lived at
Cephallenia, and was master of the whole island, as if it had been his
own property. He returned from exile before he completed the foundation
of the settlement, and died when engaged in more important affairs.

14. Some writers do not hesitate to affirm, that Cephallenia and
Dulichium are the same; others identify it with Taphos, and the
Cephallenians with Taphians, and these again with Teleboæ. They assert
that Amphitryon, with the aid of Cephalus, the son of Deïoneus, an exile
from Athens, undertook an expedition against the island, and having got
possession of it, delivered it up to Cephalus; hence this city bore his
name, and the rest those of his children. But this is not in accordance
with Homer, for the Cephallenians were subject to Ulysses and Laertes,
and Taphos to Mentes;

   “I boast that I am Mentes, son of the valiant Anchialus,
   And king of the Taphians, skilful rowers.”[649]

Taphos is now called Taphius.[650] Nor does Hellanicus follow Homer
when he calls Cephallenia, Dulichium, for Dulichium, and the other
Echinades, are said to be under the command of Meges, and the
inhabitants, Epeii, who came from Elis; wherefore he calls Otus the
Cyllenian,

   “companion of Phyleides, chief of the magnanimous Epeii;”[651]

   “but Ulysses led the magnanimous Cephallenes.”[652]

Neither, as Andro asserts, is Cephallenia, according to Homer,
Dulichium, nor does Dulichium belong to Cephallenia, for Epeii possessed
Dulichium, and Cephallenians the whole of Cephallenia, the former of
whom were under the command of Ulysses, the latter of Meges. Paleis is
not called Dulichium by Homer, as Pherecydes says. But he who asserts
that Cephallenia and Dulichium are the same contradicts most strongly
the account of Homer; for as fifty-two of the suitors came from
Dulichium, and twenty-four from Samé, would he not say, that from the
whole island came such a number of suitors, and from a single city of
the four came half the number within two? If any one should admit this,
we shall inquire what the Samé could be, which is mentioned in this
line,

   “Dulichium and Samé, and the woody Zacynthus.”[653]

15. Cephallenia is situated opposite to Acarnania, at the distance from
Leucatas of about 50, or according to others, of 40 stadia, and from
Chelonatas[654] of about 80 stadia. It is about 300 stadia (1300?) in
circumference. It extends in length towards the south-east (Eurus). It
is mountainous; the largest mountain in it is the Ænus,[655] on which is
the temple of Jupiter Ænesius. Here is the narrowest part of the island,
which forms a low isthmus, that is frequently overflowed from sea to
sea.[656] Cranii[657] and Paleis[658] are situated near the straits in
the Gulf.

16. Between Ithaca and Cephallenia is the small island [CAS. 457]
Asteria,[659] or Asteris, as it is called by the poet, which, according
to Demetrius, the Scepsian, does not remain in the state described by
the poet,

   “there are harbours in it, open on both sides, for the reception
   of vessels.”[660]

But Apollodorus says that it exists even at present, and mentions a
small city in it, Alalcomenæ, situated quite upon the isthmus.

17. The poet also gives the name of Samos to Thracia, which we now call
Samothracé. He was probably acquainted with the Ionian island, for he
seems to have been acquainted with the Ionian migration. He would not,
otherwise, have made a distinction between islands of the same names,
for in speaking of Samothrace, he makes the distinction sometimes by the
epithet,

   “on high, upon the loftiest summit of the woody Samos,
   the Thracian,”[661]

sometimes by uniting it with the neighbouring islands,

   “to Samos, and Imbros, and inaccessible Lemnos;”[662]

and again,

   “between Samos and rocky Imbros.”[663]

He was therefore acquainted with the Ionian island, although he has not
mentioned its name. Nor had it formerly always the same name, but was
called Melamphylus, then Anthemis, then Parthenia, from the river
Parthenius, the name of which was changed to Imbrasus. Since then both
Cephallenia and Samothracé were called Samos[664] at the time of the
Trojan war, (for if it had not been so Hecuba would not have been
introduced saying, that Achilles would sell any of her children that he
could seize at Samos and Imbros,[665]) Ionian Samos was not yet
colonized (by Ionians), which is evident from its having the same name
from one of the islands earlier (called Samos), that had it before;
whence this also is clear, that those persons contradict ancient
history, who assert, that colonists came from Samos after the Ionian
migration, and the arrival of Tembrion, and gave the name of Samos to
Samothracé. The Samians invented this story out of vanity. Those are
more entitled to credit, who say, that heights are called Sami,[666]
and that the island obtained its name from this circumstance, for from
thence

   “was seen all Ida, the city of Priam, and the ships
   of the Greeks.”[667]

But according to some writers, Samos had its name from the Saii, a
Thracian tribe, who formerly inhabited it, and who occupied also the
adjoining continent, whether they were the same people as the Sapæ, or
the Sinti, whom the poet calls Sinties, or a different nation.
Archilochus mentions the Saii;

   “one of the Saii is exulting in the possession of an
   honourable shield, which I left against my will near a
   thicket.”

18. Of the islands subject to Ulysses there remains to be described
Zacynthus.[668] It verges a little more than Cephallenia to the west of
Peloponnesus, but approaches closer to it. It is 160 stadia in
circumference, and distant from Cephallenia about 60 stadia. It is
woody, but fertile, and has a considerable city of the same name. Thence
to the Hesperides belonging to Africa are 3300[669] stadia.

19. To the east of this island, and of Cephallenia, are situated the
Echinades[670] islands; among which is Dulichium, at present called
Dolicha, and the islands called Oxeiæ, to which the poet gives the name
of Thoæ.[671]

Dolicha is situated opposite to the Œniadæ, and the mouth of the
Achelous: it is distant from Araxus,[672] the promontory of Elis, 100
stadia. The rest of the Echinades are numerous, they are all barren and
rocky, and lie in front of the mouth of the Achelous, the most remote of
them at the distance of 15, the nearest at the distance of 5 stadia;
they formerly were farther out at sea, but the accumulation of earth,
which is brought down in great quantity by the Achelous, has already
joined some, and will join others, to the continent. This accumulation
of soil anciently formed the tract Paracheloitis, which the river
overflows, a subject of contention, as it was continually confounding
boundaries, which had been determined by the Acarnanians and the
Ætolians. For want of arbitrators they decided their dispute by arms.
The most [CAS. 458] powerful gained the victory. This gave occasion to
a fable, how Hercules overcame the Achelous in fight, and received in
marriage as the prize of his victory, Deïaneira, daughter of Œneus.
Sophocles introduces her, saying,

   “My suitor was a river, I mean the Achelous, who demanded me
   of my father under three forms; one while coming as a bull of
   perfect form, another time as a spotted writhing serpent, at
   another with the body of a man and the forehead of a
   bull.”[673]

Some writers add, that this was the horn of Amaltheia, which Hercules
broke off from the Achelous, and presented to Œneus as a bridal gift.
Others, conjecturing the truth included in this story, say, that
Achelous is reported to have resembled a bull, like other rivers, in the
roar of their waters, and the bendings of their streams, which they term
horns; and a serpent from its length and oblique course; and
bull-fronted because it was compared to a bull’s head; and that
Hercules, who, on other occasions, was disposed to perform acts of
kindness for the public benefit, so particularly, when he was desirous
of contracting an alliance with Œneus, performed for him these services;
he prevented the river from overflowing its banks, by constructing
mounds and by diverting its streams by canals, and by draining a large
tract of the Paracheloïtis, which had been injured by the river; and
this is the horn of Amaltheia.

Homer says, that in the time of the Trojan war the Echinades, and the
Oxeiæ were subject to Meges,

   “son of the hero Phyleus, beloved of Jupiter, who formerly
   repaired to Dulichium on account of a quarrel with his
   father.”[674]

The father of Phyleus was Augeas, king of Elis, and of the Epeii. The
Epeii then, who possessed these islands, were those who had migrated to
Dulichium with Phyleus.

20. The islands of the Taphii, and formerly of the Teleboæ, among which
was Taphus, now called Taphius, were distinct from the Echinades, not
separated by distance, (for they lie near one another,) but because they
were ranged under different chiefs, Taphii and Teleboæ. In earlier times
Amphitryon, in conjunction with Cephalus, the son of Deïoneus, an exile
from Athens, attacked, and then delivered them up to the government of
Cephalus. But the poet says that Mentes was their chief, and calls them
robbers, which was the character of all the Teleboæ.

So much then concerning the islands off Acarnania.

21. Between Leucas and the Ambracian gulf is a sea-lake, called
Myrtuntium.[675] Next to Leucas followed Palærus, and Alyzia, cities of
Acarnania, of which Alyzia is distant from the sea 15 stadia. Opposite
to it is a harbour sacred to Hercules, and a grove from whence a Roman
governor transported to Rome “the labours of Hercules,” the workmanship
of Lysippus, which was lying in an unsuitable place, being a deserted
spot.[676]

Next are Crithote,[677] a promontory, and the Echinades, and Astacus,
used in the singular number, a city of the same name as that near
Nicomedia, and the Gulf of Astacus, Crithote, a city of the same name as
that in the Thracian Chersonesus. All the coast between these places has
good harbours. Then follows Œniadæ, and the Achelous; then a lake
belonging to the Œniadæ, called Melite, 30 stadia in length, and in
breadth 20; then another Cynia, of double the breadth and length of
Melite; a third Uria,[678] much less than either of the former. Cynia
even empties itself into the sea; the others are situated above it at
the distance of about half a stadium.

Next is the river Evenus, which is distant from Actium 670 stadia.

Then follows the mountain Chalcis, which Artemidorus calls Chalcia;
[next Pleuron, then Licyrna, a village, above which in the interior is
situated Calydon at the distance of 30 stadia. Near Calydon is the
temple of Apollo Laphrius;][679] then the mountain Taphiassus; then
Macynia, a city; then Molycria, and near it Antirrhium, the boundary of
Ætolia and of Locris. To Antirrhium from the Evenus are about 120
stadia.

Artemidorus does not place the mountain, whether Chalcis or Chalcia,
between the Achelous and Pleuron, but Apollodorus, [CAS. 460] as I have
said before, places Chalcis and Taphiassus above Molycria; and Calydon
between Pleuron and Chalcis. Are we then to place one mountain of the
name of Chalcia near Pleuron, and another of the name of Chalcis near
Molycria?

Near Calydon is a large lake, abounding with fish. It belongs to the
Romans of Patræ.

22. Apollodorus says, that there is in the inland parts of Acarnania, a
tribe of Erysichæi, mentioned by Aleman,

   “not an Erysichæan, nor a shepherd; but I came from the
   extremities of Sardis.”

Olenus belonged to Ætolia; Homer mentions it in the Ætolian
Catalogue,[680] but traces alone remain of it near Pleuron below
Aracynthus.[681]

Lysimachia also was near Olenus. This place has disappeared. It was
situated upon the lake, the present Lysimachia, formerly Hydra, between
Pleuron and the city Arsinoë,[682] formerly a village of the name of
Conopa. It was founded by Arsinoë, wife and also sister of the second
Ptolemy. It is conveniently situated above the passage across the
Achelous.

Pylene has experienced nearly the same fate as Olenus.

When the poet describes Calydon[683] as lofty, and rocky, we must
understand these epithets as relating to the character of the country.
For we have said before, that when they divided the country into two
parts, they assigned the mountainous portion and the Epictetus[684] to
Calydon, and the tract of plains to Pleuron.

23. The Acarnanians, and the Ætolians, like many other nations, are at
present worn out, and exhausted by continual wars. The Ætolians however,
in conjunction with the Acarnanians, during a long period withstood the
Macedonians and the other Greeks, and lastly the Romans, in their
contest for independence.

But since Homer, and others, both poets and historians, frequently
mention them, sometimes in clear and undisputed terms, and sometimes
less explicitly, as appears from what we have already said of these
people, we must avail ourselves of some of the more ancient accounts,
which will supply us with a beginning, or with an occasion of inquiring
into what is controverted.

24. First then with respect to Acarnania. We have already said, that it
was occupied by Laertes and the Cephallenians; but as many writers have
advanced statements respecting the first occupants in terms sufficiently
clear, indeed, but contradictory, the inquiry and discussion are left
open to us.

They say, that the Taphii and Teleboæ, as they are called, were the
first inhabitants of Acarnania, and that their chief, Cephalus, who was
appointed by Amphitryon sovereign of the islands about Taphus, was
master also of this country. Hence is related of him the fable, that he
was the first person who took the reputed leap from Leucatas. But the
poet does not say, that the Taphii inhabited Acarnania before the
arrival of the Cephallenians and Laertes, but that they were friends of
the Ithacenses; consequently, in his time, either they had not the
entire command of these places, or had voluntarily retired, or had even
become joint settlers.

A colony of certain from Lacedæmon seems to have settled in Acarnania,
who were followers of Icarius, father of Penelope, for the poet in the
Odyssey represents him and the brothers of Penelope as then living;

   “who did not dare to go to the palace of Icarius with a view
   of his disposing of his daughter in marriage.”[685]

And with respect to the brothers;

   “for now a long time both her father and her brothers were
   urging her to marry Eurymachus.”[686]

Nor is it probable that they were living at Lacedæmon, for Telemachus
would not, in that case, have been the guest of Menelaus upon his
arrival, nor is there a tradition, that they had any other habitation.
But they say that Tyndareus and his brother Icarius, after being
banished from their own country by Hippocoon, repaired to Thestius, the
king of the Pleuronii, and assisted in obtaining possession of a large
tract of country on the other side of the Achelous on condition of
receiving a portion of it; that Tyndareus, having espoused Leda the
daughter of Thestius, returned home; that Icarius continued there in
possession of a portion of Acarnania, and had Penelope and her brothers
by his wife Polycasta, daughter of Lygæus.

We [CAS. 461] have shown by the Catalogue of the Ships in Homer, that
the Acarnanians were enumerated among the people who took part in the
war of Troy; and among these are reckoned the inhabitants of the Acté,
and besides these,

   “they who occupied Epirus, and cultivated the land opposite.”

But Epirus was never called Acarnania, nor Acté, Leucas.

25. Ephorus does not say that they took part in the expedition against
Troy; but he says that Alcmæon, the son of Amphiaraus, who was the
companion of Diomede, and the other Epigoni in their expedition, having
brought the war against the Thebans to a successful issue, went with
Diomede to assist in punishing the enemies of Œneus, and having
delivered up Ætolia to Diomede, he himself passed over into Acarnania,
which country also he subdued. In the mean time Agamemnon attacked the
Argives, and easily overcame them, the greatest part having attached
themselves to the followers of Diomede. But a short time afterwards,
when the expedition took place against Troy, he was afraid, lest, in his
absence with the army, Diomede and his troops should return home, (for
there was a rumour that he had collected a large force,) and should
regain possession of a territory to which they had the best right, one
being the heir of Adrastus, the other of his father. Reflecting then on
these circumstances, he invited them to unite in the recovery of Argos,
and to take part in the war. Diomede consented to take part in the
expedition, but Alcmæon was indignant and refused; whence the
Acarnanians were the only people who did not participate in the
expedition with the Greeks. The Acarnanians, probably by following this
account, are said to have imposed upon the Romans, and to have obtained
from them the privilege of an independent state, because they alone had
not taken part in the expedition against the ancestors of the Romans,
for their names are neither in the Ætolian Catalogue, nor are they
mentioned by themselves, nor is their name mentioned anywhere in the
poem.

26. Ephorus then having represented Acarnania as subject to Alcmæon
before the Trojan war, ascribes to him the foundation of Amphilochian
Argos, and says that Acarnania had its name from his son Acarnan, and
the Amphilochians from his brother Amphilochus; thus he turns aside to
reports contrary to the history in Homer. But Thucydides and other
writers say, that Amphilochus, on his return from the Trojan expedition,
being displeased with the state of affairs at Argos, dwelt in this
country; according to some writers, he obtained it by succeeding to the
dominions of his brother; others represent it differently. So much then
respecting the Acarnanians considered by themselves. We shall now speak
of their affairs where they are intermixed in common with those of the
Ætolians, and we shall then relate as much of the history of the
Ætolians as we proposed to add to our former account of this people.




CHAPTER III.


1. Some writers reckon the Curetes among the Acarnanians, others among
the Ætolians; some allege that they came from Crete, others that they
came from Eubœa. Since, however, they are mentioned by Homer, we must
first examine his account of them. It is thought that he does not mean
the Acarnanians, but the Ætolians, in the following verses, for the sons
of Porthaon were,

   “Agrius, Melas, and the hero Œneus,
   These dwelt at Pleuron, and the lofty Calydon,”[687]

both of which are Ætolian cities, and are mentioned in the Ætolian
Catalogue; wherefore since those who inhabited Pleuron appear to be,
according to Homer, Curetes, they might be Ætolians. The opponents of
this conclusion are misled by the mode of expression in these verses,

   “Curetes and Ætolians, firm in battle, were righting for the city
   Calydon,”[688]

for neither would he have used appropriate terms if he had said,

   “Bœotians and Thebans were contending against each other,”

nor

   “Argives and Peloponnesians.”

But we have shown in a former part of this work, that this mode of
expression is usual with Homer, and even trite among other poets. This
objection then is easily answered. But let the objectors explain, how,
if these people were not Ætolians, [CAS. 463] the poet came to reckon
the Pleuronii among the Ætolians.

2. Ephorus, after having asserted that the nation of the Ætolians were
never in subjection to any other people, but, from all times of which
any memorial remains, their country continued exempt from the ravages of
war, both on account of its local obstacles and their own experience in
warfare, says, that from the beginning Curetes were in possession of the
whole country, but on the arrival of Ætōlus, the son of Endymion, from
Elis, who defeated them in various battles, the Curetes retreated to the
present Acarnania, and the Ætolians returned with a body of Epeii, and
founded ten of the most ancient cities in Ætolia; and in the tenth
generation afterwards Elis was founded, in conjunction with that people,
by Oxylus, the son of Hæmon, who had passed over from Ætolia. They
produce, as proofs of these facts, inscriptions, one sculptured on the
base of the statue of Ætolus at Therma in Ætolia, where, according to
the custom of the country, they assemble to elect their magistrates;

   “this statue of Ætolus, son of Endymion, brought up near the
   streams of the Alpheius, and in the neighbourhood of the
   stadia of Olympia, Ætolians dedicated as a public monument of
   his merits.”

And the other inscription on the statue of Oxylus is in the market-place
of Elis;

   “Ætolus, having formerly abandoned the original inhabitants of
   this country, won by the toils of war the land of the Curetes.
   But Oxylus, the son of Hæmon, the tenth scion of that race,
   founded this ancient city.”

3. He rightly alleges, as a proof of the affinity subsisting
reciprocally between the Eleii and the Ætolians, these inscriptions,
both of which recognise not the affinity alone, but also that their
founders had established settlers in each other’s country. Whence he
clearly convicts those of falsehood who assert, that the Eleii were a
colony of Ætolians, and that the Ætolians were not a colony of Eleii.
But he seems to exhibit the same inconsistency in his positions here,
that we proved[689] with regard to the oracle at Delphi. For after
asserting that Ætolia had never been ravaged by war from all time of
which there was any memorial, and saying, that from the first the
Curetes were in possession of this country, he ought to have inferred
from such premises, that the Curetes continued to occupy the country of
Ætolia to his days. For in this manner it might be understood never to
have been devastated, nor in subjection to any other nation. But
forgetting his position, he does not infer this, but the contrary, that
Ætolus came from Elis, and having defeated the Curetes in various
battles, these people retreated into Acarnania. What else then is there
peculiar to the devastation of a country than the defeat of the
inhabitants in war and their abandonment of their land, which is evinced
by the inscription among the Eleii; for speaking of Ætolus the words
are,

   “he obtained possession of the country of the Curetes by the
   continued toils of war.”

4. But perhaps some person may say, that he means Ætolia was not laid
waste, reckoning from the time that it had this name after the arrival
of Ætolus; but he takes away the ground of this supposition, by saying
afterwards, that the greatest part of the people, that remained among
the Ætolians, were those called Epeii, with whom Ætolians were
afterwards intermingled, who had been expelled from Thessaly together
with Bœotians, and possessed the country in common with these people.
But is it probable that, without any hostilities, they invaded the
country of another nation and divided it among themselves and the
original possessors, who did not require such a partition of their land?
If this is not probable, is it to be believed that the victors agreed to
an equal division of the territory? What else then is devastation of a
country, but the conquest of it by arms? Besides, Apollodorus says that,
according to history, the Hyantes abandoned Bœotia and came and settled
among the Ætolians, and concludes as confident that his opinion is right
by saying it is our custom to relate these and similar facts exactly,
whenever any of them is altogether dubious, or concerning which
erroneous opinions are entertained.

5. Notwithstanding these faults in Ephorus, still he is superior to
other writers. Polybius himself, who has studiously given him so much
praise, has said that Eudoxus has written well on Grecian affairs, but
that Ephorus has given the best account of the foundation of cities, of
the relationship subsisting between nations, of changes of settlements,
and of leaders of colonies, in these words, “but I shall explain the
[CAS. 465] present state of places, both as to position and distances;
for this is the peculiar province of chorography.”[690]

But you, Polybius, who introduce popular hearsay, and rumours on the
subject of distances, not only of places beyond Greece, but in Greece
itself, have you not been called to answer the charges sometimes of
Posidonius, sometimes of Artemidorus, and of many other writers? ought
you not therefore to excuse us, and not to be offended, if in
transferring into our own work a large part of the historical poets from
such writers we commit some errors, and to commend us when we are
generally more exact in what we say than others, or supply what they
omitted through want of information.

6. With respect to the Curetes, some facts are related which belong more
immediately, some more remotely, to the history of the Ætolians and
Acarnanians. The facts more immediately relating to them, are those
which have been mentioned before, as that the Curetes were living in the
country which is now called Ætolia, and that a body of Ætolians under
the command of Ætolus came there, and drove them into Acarnania; and
these facts besides, that Æolians invaded Pleuronia, which was inhabited
by Curetes, and called Curetis, took away their territory, and expelled
the possessors.

But Archemachus[691] of Eubœa says that the Curetes had their
settlement at Chalcis, but being continually at war about the plain
Lelantum, and finding that the enemy used to seize and drag them by
the hair of the forehead, they wore their hair long behind, and cut
the hair short in front, whence they had the name of Curetes, (or the
shorn,) from cura, (κουρά,) or the tonsure which they had undergone;
that they removed to Ætolia, and occupied the places about Pleuron;
that others, who lived on the other side of the Achelous, because they
kept their heads unshorn, were called Acarnanians.[692]

But according to some writers each tribe derived its name from some
hero;[693] according to others, that they had the name of Curetes from
the mountain Curium,[694] which is situated above Pleuron, and that this
is an Ætolian tribe, like the Ophieis, Agræi, Eurytanes, and many
others.

But, as we have before said, when Ætolia was divided into two parts, the
country about Calydon was said to be in the possession of Œneus; and a
portion of Pleuronia in that of the Porthaonidæ of the branch of
Agrius,[695] for

   “they dwelt at Pleuron, and the lofty Calydon.”[696]

Thestius however, father-in-law of Œneus, and father of Althæa, chief of
the Curetes, was master of Pleuronia. But when war broke out between the
Thestiadæ, Œneus, and Meleager about a boar’s head and skin, according
to the poet,[697] following the fable concerning the boar of Calydon,
but, as is probable, the dispute related to a portion of the territory;
the words are these,

   “Curetes and Ætolians, firm in battle, fought against
      one another.”[698]

These then are the facts more immediately connected (with geography).

7. There[699] are others more remote from the subject of this [CAS.
466] work, which have been erroneously placed by historians under one
head on account of the sameness of name: for instance, accounts relating
to “Curetic affairs” and “concerning the Curetes” have been considered
as identical with accounts “concerning the people (of the same name) who
inhabited Ætolia and Acarnania.” But the former differ from the latter,
and resemble rather the accounts which we have of Satyri and Silenes,
Bacchæ and Tityri; for the Curetes are represented as certain dæmons, or
ministers of the gods, by those who have handed down the traditions
respecting Cretan and Phrygian affairs, and which involve certain
religious rites, some mystical, others the contrary, relative to the
nurture of Jupiter in Crete; the celebration of orgies in honour of the
mother of the gods, in Phrygia, and in the neighbourhood of the Trojan
Ida. There is however a very great variety[700] in these accounts.
According to some, the Corybantes, Cabeiri, Idæan Dactyli, and Telchines
are represented as the same persons as the Curetes; according to others,
they are related to, yet distinguished from, each other by some slight
differences; but to describe them in general terms and more at length,
they are inspired with an enthusiastic and Bacchic frenzy, which is
exhibited by them as ministers at the celebration of the sacred rites,
by inspiring terror with armed dances, accompanied with the tumult and
noise of cymbals, drums, and armour, and with the sound of pipes and
shouting; so that these sacred ceremonies are nearly the same as those
that are performed among the Samothracians in Lemnus, and in many other
places; since the ministers of the god are said to be the same.[701] The
whole of this kind of discussion is of a theological nature, and is not
alien to the contemplation of the philosopher.

8. But since even the historians, through the similarity of the name
Curetes, have collected into one body a mass of dissimilar facts, I
myself do not hesitate to speak of them at length by way of digression,
adding the physical considerations which belong to the history.[702]
Some writers however endeavour to reconcile one account with the other,
and perhaps they have some degree of probability in their favour. They
say, for instance, that the people about Ætolia have the name of Curetes
from wearing long dresses like girls, (κόραι,) and that
there was, among the Greeks, a fondness for some such fashion. The
Ionians also were called “tunic-trailers,”[703] and the soldiers of
Leonidas,[704] who went out to battle with their hair dressed, were
despised by the Persians, but subjects of their admiration in the
contest. In short, the application of art to the hair consists in
attending to its growth, and the manner of cutting it,[705] and both
these are the peculiar care of girls and youths;[706] whence in several
ways it is easy to find a derivation of the name Curetes. It is also
probable, that the practice of armed dances, first introduced by persons
who paid so much attention to their hair and their dress, and who were
called Curetes, afforded a pretence for men more warlike than others,
and who passed their lives in arms, to be themselves called by the same
name of Curetes, I mean those in Eubœa, Ætolia, and Acarnania. Homer
also gives this name to the young soldiers;

   “selecting Curetes, the bravest of the Achæans, to carry from
   the swift ship, presents, which, yesterday, we promised to
   Achilles.”[707]

[CAS. 467] And again;

   “Curetes Achæi carried the presents.”[708]

So much then on the subject of the etymology of the name Curetes. [The
dance in armour is a military dance; this is shown by the Pyrrhic dance
and by Pyrrichus, who, it is said, invented this kind of exercise for
youths, to prepare them for military service.][709]

9. We are now to consider how the names of these people agree together,
and the theology, which is contained in their history.

Now this is common both to the Greeks and the Barbarians, to perform
their religious ceremonies with the observance of a festival, and a
relaxation from labour; some are performed with enthusiasm, others
without any emotion; some accompanied with music, others without music;
some in mysterious privacy, others publicly; and these are the dictates
of nature.[710] For relaxation from labour withdraws the thoughts from
human occupations, and directs the reflecting mind to the divinity:
enthusiasm seems to be attended with a certain divine inspiration, and
to approach the prophetic character; the mystical concealment of the
sacred rites excites veneration for the divinity, and imitates his
nature, which shuns human senses and perception; music also, accompanied
with the dance, rhythm, and song, for the same reason brings us near the
deity by the pleasure which it excites, and by the charms of art. For it
has been justly said, that men resemble the gods chiefly in doing good,
but it may be said more properly, when they are happy; and this
happiness consists in rejoicing, in festivals, in philosophy, and in
music.[711] For let not the art be blamed, if it should sometimes be
abused by the musician employing it to excite voluptuousness in
convivial meetings at banquets, on the stage, or under other
circumstances, but let the nature of the institutions which are founded
on it be examined.[712]

10. Hence Plato, and, before his time, the Pythagoreans, called music
philosophy. They maintained that the world subsisted by harmony, and
considered every kind of music to be the work of the gods. It is thus
that the muses are regarded as deities, and Apollo has the name of
President of the Muses, and all poetry divine, as being conversant about
the praises of the gods. Thus also they ascribe to music the formation
of manners, as everything which refines the mind approximates to the
power of the gods.

The greater part of the Greeks attribute to Bacchus, Apollo, Hecate, the
Muses, and Ceres, everything connected with orgies and Bacchanalian
rites, dances, and the mysteries attended upon initiation. They call
also Bacchus, Dionysus, and the chief Dæmon of the mysteries of
Ceres.[713] The carrying about of branches of trees, dances, and
initiations are common to the worship of these gods. But with respect to
Apollo and the Muses, the latter preside over choirs of singers and
dancers; the former presides both over these and divination. All persons
instructed in science, and particularly those who have cultivated music,
are ministers of the Muses; these and also all who are engaged in
divination are ministers of Apollo. Those of Ceres, are the Mystæ,
torch-bearers and Hierophants; of Dionysus, Seileni, Satyri, Tityri,
Bacchæ, Lenæ, Thyiæ, Mimallones, Naïdes, and Nymphæ, as they are called.

11. But in Crete both these, and the sacred rites of Jupiter in
particular, were celebrated with the performance of orgies, and
by ministers, like the Satyri, who are employed in the worship of
Dionysus. These were called Curetes, certain youths who executed
military movements in armour, accompanied with dancing, exhibiting the
fable of the birth of Jupiter, in which Saturn was introduced, whose
custom it was to devour his children immediately after their birth;
Rhea attempts to conceal the pains of childbirth, and to remove the
new-born infant out of sight, using her utmost endeavours to preserve
it. [CAS. 468] In this she has the assistance of the Curetes who
surround the goddess, and by the noise of drums and other similar
sounds, by dancing in armour and by tumult, endeavour to strike terror
into Saturn, and escape notice whilst removing his child. The child is
then delivered into their hands to be brought up with the same care by
which he was rescued. The Curetes therefore obtained this appellation,
either because they were boys (κόροι), or because they educated Jupiter
in his youth (κουροτροφεῖν), for there are two explanations, inasmuch
as they acted the same part with respect to Jupiter as the Satyri (with
respect to Dionysus). Such then is the worship of the Greeks, as far as
relates to the celebration of orgies.

12. But the Berecyntes, a tribe of Phrygians, the Phrygians in general,
and the Trojans, who live about Mount Ida, themselves also worship Rhea,
and perform orgies in her honour; they call her mother of gods,
Agdistis, and Phrygia,[714] the Great Goddess; from the places also
where she is worshipped, Idæa, and Dindymene,[715] Sipylene,[716]
Pessinuntis,[717] and Cybele.[718] The Greeks call her ministers by the
same name Curetes, not that they follow the same mythology, but they
mean a different kind of persons, a sort of agents analogous to the
Satyri. These same ministers are also called by them Corybantes.

13. We have the testimony of the poets in favour of these opinions.
Pindar, in the Dithyrambus, which begins in this manner;

   “formerly the dithyrambus used to creep upon the ground, long
   and trailing.”

After mentioning the hymns, both ancient and modern, in honour of
Bacchus, he makes a digression, and says,

   “for thee, O Mother, resound the large circles of the cymbals,
   and the ringing crotala; for thee, blaze the torches of the
   yellow pine;”

where he combines with one another the rites celebrated among the Greeks
in honour of Dionysus with those performed among the Phrygians in honour
of the mother of the gods. Euripides, in the Bacchæ, does the same
thing, conjoining, from the proximity of the countries,[719] Lydian and
Phrygian customs.

   “Then forsaking Tmolus, the rampart of Lydia, my maidens, my
   pride, [whom I took from among barbarians and made the
   partners and companions of my way, raise on high the
   tambourine of Phrygia, the tambourine of the great mother
   Rhea,] my invention.

   “Blest and happy he who, initiated into the sacred rites of
   the gods, leads a pure life; who celebrating the orgies of the
   Great Mother Cybele, who brandishing on high the thyrsus and
   with ivy crowned, becomes Dionysus’ worshipper. Haste,
   Bacchanalians, haste, and bring Bromius Dionysus down from the
   Phrygian mountains to the wide plains of Greece.”

And again, in what follows, he combines with these the Cretan rites.

   “Hail, sacred haunt of the Curetes, and divine inhabitants of
   Crete, progenitors of Jove, where for me the triple-crested
   Corybantes in their caves invented this skin-stretched circle
   [of the tambourine], who mingled with Bacchic strains the
   sweet breath of harmony from Phrygian pipes, and placed in
   Rhea’s hands this instrument which re-echoes to the joyous
   shouts of Bacchanalians; from the Mother Rhea the frantic
   Satyri succeeded in obtaining it, and introduced it into the
   dances of the Trieterides, among whom Dionysus delights to
   dwell.”[720]

And [CAS. 470] the chorus in Palamedes says,

   “Not revelling with Dionysus, who together with his mother was
   cheered with the resounding drums along the tops of Ida.”

14. Conjoining then Seilenus, Marsyas, and Olympus, and ascribing to
them the invention of the flute, they thus again combine Dionysiac and
Phrygian rites, frequently confounding Ida and Olympus,[721] and making
them re-echo with their noise, as if they were the same mountain. There
are four peaks of Ida called Olympi, opposite Antandros.[722] There is
also a Mysian Olympus, bordering upon Ida, but not the same mountain.
Sophocles represents Menelaus in the Polyxena as setting sail in haste
from Troy, and Agamemnon as wishing to remain behind a short time, with
a view to propitiate Minerva. He introduces Menelaus as saying,

   “But do thou remain there on the Idæan land,
   Collect the flocks on Olympus, and offer sacrifice.”[723]

15. They invented terms appropriate to the sounds of the pipe, of the
crotala, cymbals, and drums; to the noise also of shouts; to the cries
of Evoe; and to the beating of the ground with the feet. They invented
certain well-known names also to designate the ministers, dancers, and
servants employed about the sacred rites, as Cabeiri, Corybantes, Pans,
Satyri, Tityri, the god Bacchus; Rhea, Cybele, Cybebe, and Dindymene,
from the places where she was worshipped. [The god] Sabazius belongs to
the Phrygian rites, and may be considered the child as it were of the
[Great] Mother. The traditional ceremonies observed in his worship are
those of Bacchus.[724]

16. The rites called Cotytia, and Bendideia,[725] celebrated among the
Thracians, resemble these. The Orphic ceremonies had their origin among
these people. Æschylus mentions the goddess Cotys, and the instruments
used in her worship among the Edoni.[726] For after saying,

   “O divine Cotys, goddess of the Edoni,
   With the instruments of the mountain worship;”

immediately introduces the followers of Dionysus,

   “one holding the bombyces, the admirable work of the turner,
   with the fingers makes the loud notes resound, exciting
   frenzy; another makes the brass-bound cotylæ to re-echo.”

And in another passage;

   “The song of victory is poured forth; invisible mimes low and
   bellow from time to time like bulls, inspiring fear, and the
   echo of the drum rolls along like the noise of subterranean
   thunder;”[727]

for these are like the Phrygian ceremonies, nor is it at all improbable
that, as the Phrygians themselves are a colony of Thracians, so they
brought from Thrace their sacred ceremonies, and by joining together
Dionysus and the Edonian Lycurgus they intimate a similarity in the mode
of the worship of both.

17. From the song, the rhythm, and the instruments, all Thracian music
is supposed to be Asiatic. This is evident also from the places where
the Muses are held in honour. For Pieria, Olympus, Pimpla, and
Leibethrum were anciently places, and mountains, belonging to the
Thracians, but at present they are in the possession of the Macedonians.
The Thracians, who were settled in Bœotia, dedicated Helicon to the
Muses, and consecrated the cave of the Nymphs, Leibethriades. The
cultivators of ancient music are said to have been Thracians, as
Orpheus, Musæus, Thamyris; hence also Eumolpus had his name. Those who
regard the whole of Asia as far as India as consecrated to Bacchus,
refer to that country as the origin of a great portion of the present
music. One author speaks of “striking forcibly the Asiatic cithara:”
another calls the pipes Berecynthian and Phrygian. [CAS. 471] Some of
the instruments also have barbarous names, as Nablas, Sambyce,[728]
Barbitus,[729] Magadis,[730] and many others.

18. As in other things the Athenians always showed their admiration of
foreign customs, so they displayed it in what respected the gods. They
adopted many foreign sacred ceremonies, particularly those of Thrace and
Phrygia; for which they were ridiculed in comedies. Plato mentions the
Bendidean, and Demosthenes the Phrygian rites, where he is exposing
Æschines and his mother to the scorn of the people; the former for
having been present when his mother was sacrificing, and for frequently
joining the band of Bacchanalians in celebrating their festivals, and
shouting, Evoï, Saboï, Hyes Attes, and Attes Hyes, for these cries
belong to the rites of Sabazius and the Great Mother.

19. But there may be discovered respecting these dæmons, and the variety
of their names, that they were not called ministers only of the gods,
but themselves were called gods. For Hesiod says that Hecaterus and the
daughter of Phoroneus had five daughters,

   “From whom sprung the goddesses, the mountain nymphs,
   And the worthless and idle race of satyrs,
   And the gods Curetes, lovers of sport and dance.”

The author of the Phoronis calls the Curetes, players upon the pipe, and
Phrygians; others call them “earth-born, and wearing brazen shields.”
Another author terms the Corybantes, and not the Curetes, Phrygians, and
the Curetes, Cretans. Brazen shields were first worn in Eubœa, whence
the people had the name of Chalcidenses.[731] Others say, that the
Corybantes who came from Bactriana, or, according to some writers, from
the Colchi, were given to Rhea, as a band of armed ministers, by Titan.
But in the Cretan history the Curetes are called nurses and guardians of
Jove, and are described as having been sent for from Phrygia to Crete by
Rhea. According to other writers, there were nine Telchines in Rhodes,
who accompanied Rhea to Crete, and from nursing[732] Jupiter had the
name of Curetes;[733] that Corybus, one of their party, was the founder
of Hierapytna, and furnished the Prasians[734] in Rhodes with the
pretext for saying that Corybantes were certain dæmons, children of
Minerva and the sun. By others, the Corybantes are represented to be the
children of Saturn; by others, of Jupiter and Calliope, or to be the
same persons as the Cabeiri; that they went away[735] to
Samothrace,[736] which was formerly called Melite; but their lives and
actions are mysterious.

20. The Scepsian (Demetrius) who has collected fabulous stories of this
kind, does not receive this account because no mysterious tradition
about the Cabeiri is preserved in Samothrace, yet he gives the opinion
of Stesimbrotus of Thasus, to the effect that the sacred rites in
Samothrace were celebrated in honour of the Cabeiri.[737] Demetrius,
however, says that they had their name from Cabeirus, the mountain in
Berecynthia. According to others, the Curetes were the same as the
Corybantes, and were ministers of Hecate.

The Scepsian says in another place, in contradiction to Euripides, that
it is not the custom in Crete to pay divine honours to Rhea, and that
these rites were not established there, but in Phrygia only, and in the
Troad, and that they who affirm the contrary are mythologists rather
than historians; and were probably misled by an identity of name, for
Ida is a mountain both in the Troad and in Crete; and Dicte is a spot in
the Scepsian territory, and a mountain in Crete.[738] Pytna is a peak of
Ida, (and a mountain in Crete,) whence the city Hierapytna has its name.
There is Hippocorona in the territory of Adramyttium, and
Hippocoronium[739] in Crete. Samonium also is the eastern promontory of
the island, and a plain in the Neandris,[740] and in the territory of
the Alexandrians (Alexandria Troas).

21. But Acusilaus, the Argive, mentions a Camillus, the [CAS. 473] son
of Cabeira and Vulcan; who had three sons, Cabeiri, (and three
daughters,) the Nymphs Cabeirides.[741]

According to Pherecydes, there sprung from Apollo and Rhetia nine
Corybantes, who lived in Samothrace; that from Cabeira, the daughter of
Proteus and Vulcan, there were three Cabeiri, and three Nymphs,
Cabeirides, and that each had their own sacred rites. But it was at
Lemnos and Imbros that the Cabeiri were more especially the objects of
divine worship, and in some of the cities of the Troad; their names are
mystical.

Herodotus[742] mentions, that there were at Memphis temples of the
Cabeiri as well as of Vulcan, which were destroyed by Cambyses. The
places where these dæmons received divine honours are uninhabited, as
Corybantium in the territory Hamaxitia belonging to the country of the
Alexandrians, near Sminthium;[743] and Corybissa in the Scepsian
territory about the river Eureïs, and a village of the same name, and
the winter torrent Æthaloeïs.[744]

The Scepsian says, that it is probable that the Curetes and Corybantes
are the same persons, who as youths and boys were employed to perform
the armed dance in the worship of the mother of the gods. They were
called Corybantes[745] from their dancing gait, and butting with their
head (κορύπτοντας); by the poet they were called βητάρμονες,

   “Come hither, you who are the best skilled Betarmones among
   the Phæacians.”[746]

Because the Corybantes are dancers, and are frantic, we call those
persons by this name whose movements are furious.

22. Some writers say that the first inhabitants of the country at the
foot of Mount Ida were called Idæan Dactyli, for the country below
mountains is called the foot, and the summits of mountains their heads;
so the separate extremities of Ida (and all are sacred to the mother of
the gods) are called Idæan Dactyli.[747]

But Sophocles[748] supposes, that the first five were males, who
discovered and forged iron,[749] and many other things which were useful
for the purposes of life; that these persons had five sisters, and from
their number had the name of Dactyli.[750] Different persons however
relate these fables differently, connecting one uncertainty with
another. They differ both with respect to the numbers and the names of
these persons; some of whom they call Celmis, and Damnameneus, and
Hercules, and Acmon, who, according to some writers, were natives of
Ida, according to others, were settlers, but all agree that they were
the first workers in iron, and upon Mount Ida. All writers suppose them
to have been magicians, attendants upon the mother of the gods, and to
have lived in Phrygia about Mount Ida. They call the Troad Phrygia,
because, after the devastation of Troy, the neighbouring Phrygians
became masters of the country. It is also supposed that the Curetes and
the Corybantes were descendants of the Idæan Dactyli, and that they gave
the name of Idæan Dactyli to the first hundred persons who were born in
Crete; that from these descended nine Curetes, each of whom had ten
children, who were called Idæan Dactyli.[751]

23. Although we are not fond of fabulous stories, yet we have expatiated
upon these, because they belong to subjects of a theological nature.

All discussion respecting the gods requires an examination of ancient
opinions, and of fables, since the ancients expressed enigmatically
their physical notions concerning the nature of things, and always
intermixed fable with their discoveries. It is not easy therefore to
solve these enigmas exactly, but if we lay before the reader a multitude
of fabulous tales, some consistent with each other, others which are
contradictory, we [CAS. 474] may thus with less difficulty form
conjectures about the truth. For example, mythologists probably
represented the ministers of the gods, and the gods themselves, as
coursing over the mountains, and their enthusiastic behaviour, for the
same reason that they considered the gods to be celestial beings, and to
exercise a providential care over all things, and especially over signs
and presages. Mining, hunting, and a search after things useful for the
purposes of life, appeared to have a relation to this coursing over the
mountains, but juggling and magic to be connected with enthusiastic
behaviour, religious rites, and divination. Of such a nature, and
connected in particular with the improvement of the arts of life, were
the Dionysiac and Orphic arts. But enough of this subject.




CHAPTER IV.


1. Having described the islands about the Peloponnesus, and other
islands also, some of which are upon, and others in front of, the
Corinthian Gulf, we are next to speak of Crete,[752] (for it belongs to
the Peloponnesus,) and the islands near Crete, among which are the
Cyclades and the Sporades. Some of these are worthy of notice, others
are inconsiderable.

2. At present we are to speak first of Crete.

According to Eudoxus, it is situated in the Ægæan sea, but he ought not
to have described its situation in that manner, but have said, that it
lies between Cyrenaica and the part of Greece comprehended between
Sunium and Laconia,[753] extending in length in the direction from west
to east, and parallel to these countries;[754] that it is washed on the
north by the Ægæan and Cretan seas, and on the south by the African,
which joins the Ægyptian sea.

The western extremity of the island is near Phalasarna;[755] its breadth
is about 200 stadia, and divided into two promontories; of which the
southern is called Criu-Metopon, (or Ram’s head,) and that on the north,
Cimarus.[756] The eastern promontory is Samonium,[757] which does not
stretch much further towards the east than Sunium.[758]

3. Sosicrates, who, according to Apollodorus, had an exact knowledge of
this island, determines its length (not?)[759] to exceed 2300 stadia,
and its breadth (about 300),[760] so that according to Sosicrates the
circuit of the island is not more than 5000 stadia, but Artemidorus
makes it 4100. Hieronymus [CAS. 475] says, that its length is 2000
stadia, and its breadth irregular, and that the circuit would exceed the
number of stadia assigned by Artemidorus. Throughout one-third of its
length, (beginning from the western parts, the island is of a tolerable
width).[761] Then there is an isthmus of about 100 stadia, on the
northern shore of which is a settlement, called Amphimalla;[762] on the
southern shore is Phœnix,[763] belonging to the Lampeis.

The greatest breadth is in the middle of the island.

Here again the shores approach, and form an isthmus narrower than the
former, of about 60 stadia in extent, reckoning from Minoa,[764] in the
district of the Lyctii,[765] to Therapytna,[766] and the African sea.
The city is on the bay. The shores then terminate in a pointed
promontory, the Samonium, looking towards Ægypt and the islands of the
Rhodians.[767]

4. The island is mountainous and woody, but has fertile valleys.

The mountains towards the west are called Leuca, or the White
Mountains,[768] not inferior in height to the Taÿgetum,[769] and
extending in length about 300 stadia. They form a ridge, which
terminates at the narrow parts (the isthmus). In the middle of the
island, in the widest part, is (Ida),[770] the highest of the mountains
there. Its compass is about 600 stadia. It is surrounded by the
principal cities. There are other mountains equal in height to the White
Mountains, some of which terminate on the south, others towards the
east.

5. From the Cyrenæan[771] territory to Criu-metopon[772] is a voyage of
two days and nights. From Cimarus [to Malea] are 700 stadia.[773] In the
midway is Cythera.[774] From the promontory Samonium[775] to Ægypt a
ship sails in four days and nights, but, according to other writers, in
three. Some say that it is a voyage of 5000 stadia; others, of still
less than this. According to Eratosthenes, the distance from Cyrenaïca
to Criu-Metopon is 2000 stadia, and thence to Peloponnesus less than
[1000].[776]

6. One language is intermixed with another, says the poet; there are in
Crete,

   “Achæi, the brave Eteocretans, Cydones, Dorians divided into
   three bands,[777] and the divine Pelasgi.”[778]

Of these people, says Staphylus, the Dorians occupy the eastern parts of
the island, Cydonians the western, Eteocretans the southern, to whom
Prasus, a small town, belonged, where is the temple of the Dictæan
Jupiter; the other nations, being more powerful, inhabited the plains.
It is probable that the Eteocretans[779] and Cydonians were aboriginal
inhabitants, and that the others were foreigners, who Andron says came
from Thessaly, formerly called Doris, but now Hestiæotis, from which
country he says the Dorians, who were settled about Parnassus, migrated,
and founded Erineum, Bœum, and Cytinium, whence they are called by the
poet Trichaïces, or tripartite. But the account of Andron is not
generally admitted, who represents the Tetrapolis Doris as composed of
three cities, and the metropolis of the Dorians as a colony of
Thessalians. The epithet Trichaïces[780] is understood to be derived
either from their wearing a triple crest,[781] or from having crests of
hair.[782]

7. There are many cities in Crete, but the largest and most
distinguished are Cnossus,[783] Gortyna,[784] Cydonia.[785] Both Homer
and later writers celebrate Cnossus[783] above the rest, [CAS. 476]
calling it vast, and the palace of Minos. It maintained its pre-eminence
for a long period. It afterwards lost its ascendency, and was deprived
of many of its customs and privileges. The superiority was transferred
to Gortyna and Lyctus.[786] But it afterwards recovered its ancient rank
of the capital city. Cnossus lies in a plain, with its ancient
circumference of 30 stadia, between the Lyctian and Gortynian territory;
[distant] 200 stadia from Gortyna, and from Lyttus 120, which the
poet[787] calls Lyctus. Cnossus is at the distance of 25 stadia from the
northern sea; Gortyna 90, and Lyctus 80, stadia from the African sea.
Cnossus has a marine arsenal, Heracleium.[788]

8. Minos, it is said, used as an arsenal Amnisus,[789] where is a temple
of Eileithyia. Cnossus formerly had the name of Cæratus, which is the
name of the river[790] which runs beside it.

Minos[791] is regarded as an excellent legislator, and the first who
possessed the sovereignty of the sea. He divided the island into three
portions, in each of which he built a city; Cnossus * * * * * * *,[792]
opposite to Peloponnesus, which lies toward the north.

According to Ephorus, Minos was an imitator of Rhadamanthus, an ancient
personage, and a most just man. He had the same name as his brother, who
appears to have been the first to civilize the island by laws and
institutions, by founding cities, and by establishing forms of
government. He pretended to receive from Jupiter the decrees which he
promulgated. It was probably in imitation of Rhadamanthus that Minos
went up to the cave of Jupiter, at intervals of nine years, and brought
from thence a set of ordinances, which he said were the commands of
Jove; for which reason the poet thus expresses himself;

   “There reigned Minos, who every ninth year conversed with the
   great Jupiter.”[793]

Such is the statement of Ephorus; the ancients on the other hand give a
different account, and say that he was tyrannical and violent, and an
exactor of tribute, and speak in the strain of tragedy about the
Minotaur, the Labyrinth, and the adventures of Theseus and Dædalus.

9. It is difficult to determine which is right. There is another story
also not generally received; some persons affirming that Minos was a
foreigner, others that he was a native of the island. Homer seems to
support the latter opinion, when he says, that

   “Minos, the guardian of Crete, was the first offspring of
   Jupiter.”[794]

It is generally admitted with regard to Crete that in ancient times it
was governed by good laws, and induced the wisest of the Greeks to
imitate its form of government, and particularly the Lacedæmonians, as
Plato shows in his “Laws,” and Ephorus has described in his work
“Europe.” Afterwards there was a change in the government, and for the
most part for the worse. For the Tyrrheni, who chiefly infested our sea,
were followed by the Cretans, who succeeded to the haunts and piratical
practices of the former people, and these again afterwards were subject
to the devastations of the Cilicians. But the Romans destroyed them all
after the conquest of Crete,[795] and demolished the piratical
strongholds of the Cilicians. At present Cnossus has even a colony of
Romans.

10. So much then respecting Cnossus, a city to which I am no stranger;
but owing to the condition of human affairs, their vicissitudes and
accidents, the connexion and intercourse that subsisted between
ourselves and the city is at an end. Which may be thus explained.
Dorylaüs, a military tactician, a friend of Mithridates Euergetes, was
appointed, on account of his experience in military affairs, to levy a
body of foreigners, and was frequently in Greece and Thrace, and often
in the company of persons who came from Crete, before the Romans were in
possession of the island. A great multitude of mercenary soldiers was
collected there, from whom [CAS. 478] even the bands of pirates were
recruited. During the stay of Dorylaüs in the island, a war happened to
break out between the Cnossians and the Gortynians. He was appointed
general by the Cnossians, and having finished the war speedily and
successfully, he obtained the highest honours. A short time afterwards,
being informed that Euergetes had been treacherously put to death by his
courtiers at Sinope, and that he was succeeded in the government by his
wife and children, he abandoned everything there, remained at Cnossus,
and married a Macedonian woman of the name of Sterope, by whom he had
two sons, Lagetas and Stratarchas, (the latter I myself saw when in
extreme old age,) and one daughter. Of the two sons of Euergetes, he who
was surnamed Eupator succeeded to the throne when he was eleven years of
age; Dorylaüs, the son of Philetærus, was his foster-brother. Philetærus
was the brother of Dorylaüs the Tactician. The king had been so much
pleased with his intimacy with Dorylaüs when they lived together as
children, that on attaining manhood he not only promoted Dorylaüs to the
highest honours, but extended his regard to his relations and sent for
them from Cnossus. At this time Lagetas and his brother had lost their
father, and were themselves grown up to manhood. They quitted Cnossus,
and came to Mithridates. My mother’s mother was the daughter of Lagetas.
While he enjoyed prosperity, they also prospered; but upon his downfall
(for he was detected in attempting to transfer the kingdom to the Romans
with a view to his own appointment to the sovereignty) the affairs of
Cnossus were involved in his ruin and disgrace; and all intercourse with
the Cnossians, who themselves had experienced innumerable vicissitudes
of fortune, was suspended.

So much then respecting Cnossus.

11. After Cnossus, the city Gortyna seems to have held the second place
in rank and power. For when these cities acted in concert they held in
subjection all the rest of the inhabitants, and when they were at
variance there was discord throughout the island; and whichever party
Cydonia espoused, to them she was a most important accession.

The city of the Gortynians lies in a plain, and was perhaps anciently
protected by a wall, as Homer also intimates,

   “and Gortyna, a walled city;”[796]

it lost afterwards its walls, which were destroyed from their
foundation, and it has remained ever since without walls; for Ptolemy
Philopator, who began to build a wall, proceeded with it to the distance
only of about 8 stadia. Formerly the building occupied a considerable
compass, extending nearly 50 stadia. It is distant from the African sea,
and from Leben its mart, 90 stadia. It has also another arsenal,
Matalum.[797] It is distant from that 130 stadia. The river Lethæus[798]
flows through the whole of the city.

12. Leucocomas and Euxynthetus his erastes (or lover), whom Theophrastus
mentions in his discourse on Love, were natives of Leben.[799] One of
the tasks enjoined Euxynthetus by Leucocomas was this, according to
Theophrastus, to bring him his dog from Prasus.[800] The Prasii border
upon the Lebenii at the distance of 60 stadia from the sea, and from
Gortyn 180. We have said that Prasus was subject to the Eteocretans, and
that the temple of the Dictæan Jupiter was there. For Dicte[801] is
near; not, as Aratus[802] alleges, near Ida; since Dicte is distant 1000
stadia from Mount Ida, and situated at that distance from it towards the
rising sun; and 100 stadia from the promontory Samonium. Prasus was
situated between the promontory Samonium, and the Cherrhonesus, at the
distance of 60 stadia from the sea. It was razed by the Hierapytnii. He
says, too, that Callimachus[803] is not right in asserting that
Britomartis, in her escape from the violence offered by Minos, leaped
from Dicte among the nets of the fishermen (δίκτυα), and
that hence she had the name of Dictynna from the Cydoniatæ, and the
mountain that of [CAS. 479] Dicte. For Cydonia is not at all situated
in the neighbourhood of these places, but lies at the western extremity
of the island. The mountain Tityrus[804] belongs to the Cydonian
territory; upon it is situated a temple, not called Dictæan, but
Dictynnæan.

13. Cydonia is situated on the sea, fronting Laconia, at an equal
distance from both Cnossus and Gortyn, about 800 stadia, and from Aptera
80, and from the sea in this quarter 40 stadia. Cisamus[805] is the
naval arsenal of Aptera.[806] The Polyrrhenii border upon the Cydoniatæ
towards the west; in their territory is the temple of Dictynna. They are
at the distance of about 30 stadia from the sea, and 60 from Phalasarna.
Formerly they lived in villages; then Achæans and Laconians settled
there together, and fortified with a wall a strong site fronting the
south.

14. Of the three cities founded by Minos, the last, which was
Phæstus,[807] was razed by the Gortynians; it was at the distance of 60
stadia from Gortyn, 20 from the sea, and from Matalum, the arsenal, 40
stadia. They who razed the city possess the territory. Rhytium also
together with Phæstus belongs to the Gortynians,

   “both Phæstus and Rhytium.”[808]

Epimenides, who performed lustrations by the means of his poetry, is
said to have been a native of Phæstus. Olyssa (Lisses?) also belonged to
the territory of Phæstus.

Cherrhonesus,[809] as it is called, is the arsenal of Lyttus or
(Lyctus), which we have before mentioned; on the former is the temple of
Britomartis.

Miletus and Lycastus, the cities which were enumerated together with
Lyctus, no longer exist; but the territory, after they had razed the
city (Lyctus), was partitioned among Lyctians and Cnossians.

15. As the poet in one place speaks of Crete as having a hundred, and in
another ninety, cities, Ephorus says, that ten were founded in later
times after the Trojan war by the Dorians, who accompanied Althæmenes
the Argive, and that hence Ulysses speaks of its ninety cities. This
account is probable. But others say, that the ten were razed by the
enemies of Idomeneus; but the poet does not say that Crete had a hundred
cities at the time of the Trojan war, but in his own age, for he speaks
in his own person; but if the words had been those of some person then
living, as those in the Odyssey, where Ulysses says, Crete had ninety
cities, they might have been properly understood in this manner. But
even if we admit this, the subsequent verses will not be exempt from
objection. For neither at the time of the expedition, nor after the
return of Idomeneus, is it probable that these cities were destroyed by
his enemies, for the poet says,

   “but Idomeneus brought back all his companions who had
   survived the war to Crete; the sea had not deprived him of any
   of them;”[810]

for he would have mentioned such a misfortune. Ulysses indeed might not
have been acquainted with the destruction of these cities, for he had
not had any intercourse with any of the Greeks either during or after
his wanderings; but (Nestor), who had been the companion of Idomeneus in
the expedition and in his escape from shipwreck, could not be ignorant
of what had happened at home during the expedition and before his
return. But he must certainly have been aware of what occurred after his
return. For if he and all his companions escaped, he returned so
powerful that their enemies were not in a position to deprive them of
ten cities.

Such then is the general description of the country of Crete.

16. With respect to the form of government, which Ephorus has described
at large, it will be sufficient to give a cursory account of the
principal parts. The law-giver, says Ephorus, seems to lay, as the
foundation of his constitution, the greatest good that states can enjoy,
namely, liberty; for it is this alone which makes the property of every
kind which a man possesses his own; in a state of slavery it belongs to
the governor, and not to the governed. The liberty also which men enjoy
must be guarded. Unanimity ensues, when the dissensions that arise from
covetousness and luxury[811] are [CAS. 481] removed. Now where all live
temperately and frugally, neither envy, nor injuries, nor hatred have
place among equals. Whence the young were enjoined to repair to the
Agelæ, and those of mature age to assemble at the Syssitia, or common
meals, called Andreia, in order that the poorer sort, who were fed at
the public charge, might partake of the same fare as the rich.

With a view that courage, and not fear, should predominate, they were
accustomed from childhood to the use of arms, and to endure fatigue.
Hence they disregarded heat and cold, rugged and steep roads, blows
received in gymnastic exercises and in set battles.

They practised archery, and the dance in armour, which the Curetes first
invented, and was afterwards perfected by Pyrrhichus, and called after
him Pyrrhiche. Hence even their sports were not without their use in
their training for war. With the same intention they used the Cretan
measures in their songs; the tones of these measures are extremely loud;
they were invented by Thales, to whom are ascribed the pæans and other
native songs and many of their usages. They adopted a military dress
also, and shoes, and considered armour as the most valuable of all
presents.

17. Some, he says, alleged that many of the institutions supposed to be
Cretan were of Lacedæmonian origin; but the truth is, they were invented
by the former, but perfected by the Spartans. The Cretans, when their
cities, and particularly Cnossus, were ravaged, neglected military
affairs, but some usages were more observed by the Lyttii and Gortynii,
and some other small cities, than by the Cnossians. Those persons, who
maintain the priority of the Laconian institutions, adduce as evidence
of this those of the Lyttii, because as colonists they would retain the
customs of the parent state. Otherwise, it would be absurd for those,
who lived under a better form of constitution and government, to be
imitators of a worse. But this is not correct. For we ought not to form
conjectures respecting the ancient from the present state of things, for
each has undergone contrary changes. The Cretans were formerly powerful
at sea, so that it was a proverbial saying addressed to those who
pretended to be ignorant of what they knew, “a Cretan, and not know the
sea;” but at present they have abandoned nautical affairs.

Nor did it follow necessarily that, because there were some cities in
Crete colonized by Spartans, they should continue to observe Spartan
usages, since many of the cities of colonists do not preserve the
customs of the mother country; and there are many cities in Crete, the
inhabitants of which are not colonists, and yet have the same usages as
those that have received colonies.

18. Lycurgus, the Spartan legislator, he says, was five generations
later than Althæmenes, who conducted the colony into Crete. He is said
by historians to have been the son of Cissus, who founded Argos[812]
about the same time that Procles was engaged in establishing a colony at
Sparta. It is also generally admitted that Lycurgus was the sixth in
descent from Procles.[813] Copies do not precede the models, nor modern
precede ancient things. The usual kind of dancing practised among the
Lacedæmonians, the measures, and the pæans sung according to a certain
mood, and many other usages, are called among them Cretan, as if they
came from Crete. But among the ancient customs, those relative to the
administration of the state have the same designations as in Crete,[814]
as the council of Gerontes[815] and that of the Knights,[816] except
that in Crete the knights had horses; whence it is conjectured, that the
council of Knights in Crete is more ancient, since the origin of the
appellation is preserved. But the Spartan knight did not keep a horse.
They who perform the same functions as the Cosmi in Crete, have the
different title of Ephori [in Sparta]. The Syssitia, or common meal, is
even at present called Andreia among the Cretans; but among the Spartans
they did not continue to call it by its former name, as it is found in
the poet Alcman;

   “In festivals and in joyous assemblies of the Andreia, it is
   fit to begin the pæan in honour of the guests.”

19. The occasion of the journey of Lycurgus to Crete is said by the
inhabitants to be as follows. The elder brother of Lycurgus was
Polydectes, who, at his death, left his wife pregnant. Lycurgus reigned
in place of his brother till the [CAS. 483] birth of a son. He then
became the guardian of the child, who was heir to the kingdom. Some one
said to him insultingly, he was sure Lycurgus would be king. Suspecting
that by this speech he might be accused of contriving a plot against the
child, and fearing that, if the child should die by any accident, his
enemies might impute its death to him, he departed to Crete. This is
said to have been the cause of his journey. Upon his arrival in Crete he
became acquainted with Thales, the lyric poet and legislator. He learnt
from this person the plan adopted by Rhadamanthus in former times, and
afterwards by Minos in promulgating their laws, so as to procure a
belief that they proceeded from Jupiter. He was also in Ægypt, and
obtained information respecting the laws and customs of that
country.[817] According to some writers, he met at Chios with Homer, who
was living there, and then returned to his own country, where he found
Charilaus, the son of his brother Polydectes, upon the throne. He then
began to frame laws, repairing to the god at Delphi, and bringing thence
ordinances, as Minos brought his from the cave of Jupiter.[818] The
greater part of these ordinances were similar to those of Minos.

20. The following are the principal of the laws of Crete, which Ephorus
has given in detail.

All the Cretans, who are selected at the same time from the troop
(ἀγέλη) of youths, are compelled to marry at once. They do not
however take the young women whom they have married immediately to their
homes, until they are qualified to administer household affairs.

The woman’s dower, if she has brothers, is half of the brother’s
portion.

The children are taught to read, to chaunt songs taken from the laws,
and some kinds of music.

While they are still very young they are taken to the Syssitia, called
Andreia. They sit on the ground, eating their food together, dressed in
mean garments, which are not changed in winter or summer. They wait upon
themselves and on the men. Both those of the same and those of different
messes have battles with one another. A trainer of boys presides over
each Andreion. As they grow older they are formed into (Ἀγέλαι) or
troops of youths. The most illustrious and powerful of the youths form
Agelæ, each individual assembling together as many as he can collect.
The governor of the troop is generally the father of the youth who has
assembled them together, and has the power of taking them to hunt and to
exercise themselves in running, and of punishing the disobedient. They
are maintained at the public charge.

On certain set days troop encounters troop, marching in time to the
sound of the pipe and lyre, as is their custom in actual war. They
inflict blows, some with the hand, and some even with iron weapons.

21. They have a peculiar custom with respect to their attachments. They
do not influence the objects of their love by persuasion, but have
recourse to violent abduction. The lover apprizes the friends of the
youth, three or more days beforehand, of his intention to carry off the
object of his affection. It is reckoned a most base act to conceal the
youth, or not to permit him to walk about as usual, since it would be an
acknowledgment that the youth was unworthy of such a lover. But if they
are informed that the ravisher is equal or superior in rank, or other
circumstances, to the youth, they pursue and oppose the former slightly,
merely in conformity with the custom. They then willingly allow him to
carry off the youth. If however he is an unworthy person, they take the
youth from him. This show of resistance does not end, till the youth is
received into the Andreium to which the ravisher belongs. They do not
regard as an object of affection a youth exceedingly handsome, but him
who is distinguished for courage and modesty. The lover makes the youth
presents, and takes him away to whatever place he likes. The persons
present at the abduction accompany them, and having passed two months in
feasting, and in the chase, (for it is not permitted to detain the youth
longer,) they return to the city. The youth is dismissed with presents,
which consist of a military dress, an ox, and a drinking cup; the last
are prescribed by law, and besides these many other very costly gifts,
so that the friends contribute each their share in order to diminish the
expense.

The youth sacrifices the ox to Jupiter, and entertains at a feast those
who came down with him from the mountains. He then declares concerning
the intercourse with the lover, [CAS. 484] whether it took place with
his consent or not, since the law allows him, if any violence is used in
the abduction, to insist upon redress, and set him free from his
engagement with the lover. But for the beautiful and high-born not to
have lovers is disgraceful, since this neglect would be attributed to a
bad disposition.

The parastathentes, for this is the name which they give to those youths
who have been carried away, enjoy certain honours. At races and at
festivals they have the principal places. They are permitted to wear the
stole, which distinguishes them from other persons, and which has been
presented to them by their lovers; and not only at that time, but in
mature age, they appear in a distinctive dress, by which each individual
is recognised as Kleinos, for this name is given to the object of their
attachment, and that of Philetor to the lover.

These then are the usages respecting attachments.

22. They elect ten Archons. On matters of highest moment they have
recourse to the counsel of the Gerontes, as they are called. They admit
into this council those who have been thought worthy of the office of
Cosmi, and who were otherwise persons of tried worth.

I considered the form of government among the Cretans as worthy of
description, on account both of its peculiarity and its fame. Few of
these institutions are now in existence, and the administration of
affairs is chiefly conducted according to the orders of the Romans, as
is the case also in their other provinces.




CHAPTER V.


1. The islands about Crete are Thera,[819] the capital of the Cyrenæans,
and a colony of the Lacedæmonians; and near Thera is Anaphe,[820] in
which is the temple of Apollo Ægletes. Callimachus speaks of it in one
place, thus,

   “And Æglete Anaphe, close to the Lacedæmonian Thera;”

and in another, he mentions Thera only,

   “Mother of my country, celebrated for its fine breed of horses.”

Thera is a long island, about 200 stadia in circumference. It lies
opposite to the island Dia,[821] towards the Cnossian Heracleium. It is
distant about 700 stadia from Crete. Near it are Anaphe and
Therasia.[822] The little island Ios[823] is distant from the latter
about 100 stadia. Here according to some authors the poet Homer was
buried.[824] In going from Ios towards the west are Sicenus[825] and
Lagusa,[826] and Pholegandrus,[827] which Aratus calls the iron island,
on account of its rocks. Near these islands is Cimolus,[828] whence is
obtained the Cimolian earth. From Cimolus Siphnus[829] is visible. To
this island is applied the proverb, “a Siphnian bone (astragalus),” on
account of its insignificance. Still nearer, both to Cimolus and Crete,
is Melos,[830] more considerable than these. It is distant from the
Hermionic promontory, the Scyllæum,[831] 700 stadia, and nearly as many
from the Dictynnæan promontory. The Athenians formerly despatched an
army to Melos,[832] and put to death the inhabitants from youth upwards.

These islands are situated in the Cretan sea. Delos,[833] the Cyclades
about it, and the Sporades adjacent to these, belong rather to the Ægæan
sea. To the Sporades also are to be referred the islands about Crete,
which I have already mentioned.

2. The city of Delos is in a plain. Delos contains the temple of Apollo,
and the Latoum, or temple of Latona. The Cynthus,[834] a naked and
rugged mountain, overhangs the city. [CAS. 485] The Inopus,[835] not a
large river, for the island is small, flows through it. Anciently, even
from the heroic times, this island has been held in veneration on
account of the divinities worshipped here. Here, according to the fable,
Latona was relieved from the pains of labour, and gave birth to Apollo
and Diana.

   “Before this time,” (says Pindar,[836]) “Delos was carried
   about by the waves, and by winds blowing from every quarter,
   but when the daughter of Cœus set her foot upon it, who was
   then suffering the sharp pangs of approaching childbirth, at
   that instant four upright columns, resting on adamant, sprang
   from the depths of the earth and retained it fast on the
   rugged rock; there she brought forth, and beheld her happy
   offspring.”

The islands lying about it, called Cyclades, gave it celebrity, since
they were in the habit of sending at the public charge, as a testimony
of respect, sacred delegates, (Theori,) sacrifices, and bands of
virgins; they also repaired thither in great multitudes to celebrate
festivals.[837]

3. Originally, there were said to be twelve Cyclades, but many others
were added to them. Artemidorus enumerates (fifteen?) where he is
speaking of the island Helena,[838] and of which he says that it extends
from Thoricus[839] to Sunium,[840] and is about 60 stadia in length; it
is from this island, he says, the Cyclades, as they are called, begin.
He names Ceos,[841] as the nearest island to Helena, and next to this
Cythnus, Seriphus,[842] Melos, Siphnus, Cimolus, Prepesinthus,[843]
Oliarus,[844] and besides these Paros,[845] Naxos,[846] Syros,[847]
Myconus,[848] Tenos,[849] Andros,[850] Gyarus.[851] The rest I consider
as belonging to the Twelve, but not Prepesinthus, Oliarus, and Gyarus.
When I put in at the latter island I found a small village inhabited by
fishermen. When we left it we took in a fisherman, deputed from the
inhabitants to go to Cæsar, who was at Corinth on his way to celebrate
his triumph after the victory at Actium.[852] He told his
fellow-passengers, that he was deputed to apply for an abatement of the
tribute, for they were required to pay 150 drachmæ, when it was with
difficulty they could pay 100.

Aratus,[853] in his Details, intimates how poor they were;

   “O Latona, thou art shortly going to pass by me [_an
   insignificant island_] like to the iron-bound Pholegandrus, or
   to unhappy Gyarus.

4. Although Delos[854] was so famous, yet it became still more so, and
flourished after the destruction of Corinth by the Romans.[855] For the
merchants resorted thither, induced by the immunities of the temple, and
the convenience of its harbour. It lies favourably[856] for those who
are sailing from Italy and Greece to Asia. The general festival held
there serves the purposes of commerce, and the Romans particularly
frequented it even before the destruction of Corinth.[857] The
Athenians, after having taken the island, paid equal attention to the
affairs both of religion and of commerce. But the generals[858] of
Mithridates, and the tyrant,[859] who had occasioned the defection of
(Athens from the Romans), ravaged it entirely. The Romans received the
island in a desolate state on the departure of the king to his own
country; and it has continued in an impoverished condition to the
present time.[860] The Athenians are now in possession of it.

5. Rheneia[861] is a small desert island 4 stadia from Delos, where are
the sepulchral monuments of the Delians. For it is not permitted to bury
the dead in Delos, nor to burn a [CAS. 486] dead body there. It is not
permitted even to keep a dog in Delos.

Formerly it had the name of Ortygia.[862]

6. Ceos[863] once contained four cities. Two remain, Iulis and Carthæ,
to which the inhabitants of the others were transferred; those of
Pœëessa to Carthæ, and those of Coressia to Iulis. Simonides the lyric
poet, and Bacchylides his nephew, and after their times Erasistratus the
physician, and Ariston the Peripatetic philosopher, the imitator of
Bion,[864] the Borysthenite, were natives of this city.

There was an ancient law among these people, mentioned by Menander.

   “Phanias, that is a good law of the Ceans; who cannot live
   comfortably (or well), let him not live miserably (or
   ill).”[865]

For the law, it seems, ordained that those above sixty years old should
be compelled to drink hemlock, in order that there might be sufficient
food for the rest. It is said that once when they were besieged by the
Athenians, a decree was passed to the effect that the oldest persons,
fixing the age, should be put to death, and that the besiegers retired
in consequence.

The city lies on a mountain, at a distance from the sea of about 25
stadia. Its arsenal is the place on which Coressia was built, which does
not contain the population even of a village. Near the Coressian
territory and Pœëessa is a temple of Apollo Sminthius. But between the
temple and the ruins of Pœëessa is the temple of Minerva Nedusia, built
by Nestor, on his return from Troy. The river Elixus runs around the
territory of Coressia.

7. After Ceos are Naxos[866] and Andros,[867] considerable islands, and
Paros, the birth-place of the poet Archilochus. Thasos[868] was founded
by Parians, and Parium,[869] a city in the Propontis. In this last place
there is said to be an altar worthy of notice, each of whose sides is a
stadium in length.

In Paros is obtained the Parian marble, the best adapted for statuary
work.[870]

8. Here also is Syros, (the first syllable is long,) where Pherecydes
the son of Babys was born. The Athenian Pherecydes is younger than the
latter person. The poet seems to have mentioned this island under the
name of Syria;

   “above Ortygia is an island called Syria.”[871]

9. Myconus[872] is an island beneath which, according to the
mythologists, lie the last of the giants, destroyed by Hercules; whence
the proverb, “all under one Myconus,” applied to persons who collect
under one title things that are disjoined by nature. Some also call bald
persons Miconians, because baldness is frequent among the inhabitants of
the island.[873]

10. Seriphos[874] is the island where is laid the scene of the fable of
Dictys, who drew to land in his net the chest in which were enclosed
Perseus and his mother Danaë, who were thrown into the sea by order of
Acrisius, the father of Danaë. There it is said Perseus was brought up,
and to this island he brought the head of the Gorgon; he exhibited it to
the Seriphians, and turned them all into stone. This he did to avenge
the wrongs of his mother, because their king Polydectes, with the
assistance of his subjects, desired to make her his wife by force.
Seriphus abounds so much with rocks, that they say in jest that it was
the work of the Gorgon.

11. Tenos[875] has a small city, but there is, in a grove beyond it, a
large temple of Neptune worthy of notice. It contains large banqueting
rooms, a proof of the great multitudes that repair thither from the
neighbouring places to celebrate a feast, and to perform a common
sacrifice in honour of Neptune.

12. To the Sporades belongs Amorgos,[876] the birth-place of [CAS. 488]
Simonides, the Iambic poet; Lebinthus[877] also, and Leria (Leros).[878]
Phocylides refers to Leria in these lines;

   “the Lerians are bad, not some, but all, except Procles; but
   Procles is a Lerian;”

for the Lerians are reputed to have bad dispositions.

13. Near these islands are Patmos,[879] and the Corassiæ[880] islands,
situated to the west of Icaria,[881] as the latter is with respect to
Samos.

Icaria has no inhabitants, but it has pastures, of which the Samians
avail themselves. Notwithstanding its condition it is famous, and gives
the name of Icarian to the sea in front of it, in which are situated
Samos, Cos, and the islands just mentioned,[882] the Corassiæ, Patmos,
and Leros[883] [in Samos is the mountain the Cerceteus, more celebrated
than the Ampelus, which overhangs the city of the Samians].[884]
Continuous to the Icarian sea, towards the south, is the Carpathian sea,
and the Ægyptian sea to this; to the west are the Cretan and African
seas.

14. In the Carpathian sea, between Cos, Rhodes, and Crete, are situated
many of the Sporades, as Astypalæa,[885] Telos,[886] Chalcia,[887] and
those mentioned by Homer in the Catalogue.

   “They who occupied Nisyrus, Crapathus, Casus, and Cos,
   The city of Eurypylus, and the Calydnæ islands.”[888]

Except Cos, and Rhodes, of which we shall speak hereafter, we place the
rest among the Sporades, and we mention them here although they do not
lie near Europe, but Asia, because the course of my work induces me to
include the Sporades in the description of Crete and of the Cyclades.

We shall traverse in the description of Asia the considerable islands
adjacent to that country, as Cyprus, Rhodes, Cos, and those situated on
the succeeding line of coast, Samos, Chios, <DW26>s, and Tenedos. At
present we are to describe the remaining islands of the Sporades, which
deserve mention.

15. Astypalæa lies far out at sea, and contains a city.

Telos, which is long, high, and narrow, in circumference about 140
stadia, with a shelter for vessels, extends along the Cnidian territory.

Chalcia is distant from Telos 80, from Carpathus 400 stadia, and about
double this number from Astypalæa. It has a settlement of the same name,
a temple of Apollo, and a harbour.

16. Nisyrus lies to the north of Telos, at the distance of about 60
stadia, which is its distance also from Cos. It is round, lofty, and
rocky, and has abundance of mill-stone, whence the neighbouring people
are well supplied with stones for grinding. It contains a city of the
same name, a harbour, hot springs, and a temple of Neptune. Its
circumference is 80 stadia. Near it are small islands, called the
islands of the Nisyrians. Nisyrus is said to be a fragment broken off
from Cos; a story is also told of Neptune, that when pursuing Polybotes,
one of the giants, he broke off with his trident a piece of the island
Cos, and hurled it at him, and that the missile became the island
Nisyrus, with the giant lying beneath it. But some say that the giant
lies beneath Cos.

17. Carpathus, which the poet calls Crapathus, is lofty, having a
circumference of 200 stadia. It contained four cities, and its name was
famous, which it imparted to the surrounding sea. One of the cities was
called Nisyrus, after the name of the island Nisyrus. It lies opposite
Leuce Acte in Africa, which is distant about 1000 stadia from
Alexandria, and about 4000 from Carpathus.

18. Casus is distant from Carpathus 70, and from the promontory
Salmonium in Crete 250 stadia. It is 80 stadia in circumference. It
contains a city of the same name; and many islands, called the islands
of the Casii, lie about it.

19. They say that the poet calls the Sporades, Calydnæ, [CAS. 489] one
of which is Calymna.[889] But it is probable that as the islands, which
are near and dependent, have their names from the Nisyrii and Casii, so
those that lie around Calymna had their name from that island, which was
then perhaps called Calydna. Some say that the Calydnæ islands are two,
Leros and Calymna, and that the poet means these. But the Scepsian says,
that the name of the island was used in the plural number, Calymnæ, like
Athenæ, Thebæ, and that the words of the poet must be understood
according to the figure hyperbaton, or inversion, for he does not say,
the islands Calydnæ, but,

   “they who occupied the islands Nisyrus, Crapathus, Casus, and
   Cos, the city of Eurypylus, and Calydnæ.”

All the honey of the islands is, for the most part, excellent, and
rivals that of Attica; but the honey of these islands surpasses it,
particularly that of Calymna.[890]




BOOK XI.

ASIA.

SUMMARY.


   The Eleventh Book commences with Asia and the river Don,
   which, taking its rise in the northern regions, separates
   Europe from Asia. It includes the nations situated in Asia
   near its sources on the east and south, and the barbarous
   Asiatic nations who occupy the neighbourhood of Mount
   Caucasus, among whom are the Amazones, Massagetæ, Scythians,
   Albani, Iberes, Bactriani, Caspii, Medes, Persians, and the
   two Armenias, extending to Mesopotamia. Among these nations
   are included the Troglodytæ, Heniochi, Sceptuchi, Soanes,
   Assyrians, Polyphagi, Nabiani, Siraci, and Tapyri. Mention is
   made of Jason and Medea, and of the cities founded by
   them:--of Xerxes, Mithridates, and Alexander, son of Philip.




CHAPTER I.


1. Asia is contiguous to Europe, approaching close to it at the Tanaïs
or Don.

I am to describe this country next, after dividing it, for the sake of
perspicuity, by certain natural boundaries. What Eratosthenes has done
with respect to the whole habitable earth, this I propose to do with
respect to Asia.

2. The Taurus, extending from west to east, embraces the middle of this
continent, like a girdle, leaving one portion to the north, another to
the south. The Greeks call the former Asia Within the Taurus,[891] the
latter, Asia Without the Taurus. We have said this before, but it is
repeated now to assist the memory.

3. The Taurus has in many places a breadth of 3000 stadia; its length
equals that of Asia, namely 45,000 stadia,[892] [CAS. 491] reckoning
from the continent opposite to Rhodes to the eastern extremities of
India and Scythia.

4. It is divided into many parts, which are circumscribed by boundaries
of greater or less extent, and distinguished by various names.

But as such an extended range of mountains must comprise nations some of
which are little known, and others with whom we are well acquainted, as
Parthians,[893] Medes, Armenians, some of the Cappadocians, Cilicians,
and Pisidians; those which approach near the northern parts must be
assigned to the north, (northern Asia,) those approximating the southern
parts, to the south, (southern Asia,) and those situated in the middle
of the mountains must be placed on account of the similarity of the
temperature of the air, for it is cold to the north, while the air of
the south is warm.

The currents of almost all the rivers which flow from the Taurus are in
a direction contrary to each other, some running to the north, others to
the south, at least at the commencement of their course, although
afterwards some bend towards the east or west. They naturally suggest
the adoption of this chain of mountains as a boundary in the division of
Asia into two portions; in the same manner that the sea within the
Pillars, which for the most part runs in the same line with these
mountains, conveniently forms two continents, Europe and Africa, and is
a remarkable boundary to both.

5. In passing in our geographical description from Europe to Asia, the
first parts of the country which present themselves are those in the
northern division, and we shall therefore begin with these.

Of these parts the first are those about the Tanaïs, (or Don,) which we
have assumed as the boundary of Europe and Asia. These have a kind of
peninsular form, for they are surrounded on the west by the river Tanaïs
(or Don) and the Palus Mæotis[894] as far as the Cimmerian
Bosporus,[895] and that part of the coast of the Euxine which terminates
at Colchis; on the north by the Ocean, as far as the mouth of the
Caspian Sea; on the east by the same sea, as far as the confines of
Albania and Armenia, where the rivers Cyrus[896] and Araxes[897] empty
themselves; the latter flowing through Armenia, and the Cyrus through
Iberia[898] and Albania;[899] on the south is the tract of country
extending from the mouth of the Cyrus as far as Colchis, and comprising
about 3000 stadia from sea to sea, across the territory of the Albani,
and Iberes,[900] so as to represent an isthmus.[901]

Those writers do not deserve attention who contract the isthmus as much
as Cleitarchus, according to whom it is subject to inundations of the
sea from either side. According to Posidonius the isthmus is 1500 stadia
in extent, that is, as large as the isthmus from Pelusium to the Red
Sea. And I think, says he, that the isthmus between the Palus Mæotis and
the Ocean is not very different from this in extent.

6. I know not how any one can rely upon his authority respecting what is
uncertain, when he has nothing probable to advance on the subject; for
he reasons so falsely respecting things which are evident, and this too
when he enjoyed the friendship of Pompey, who had carried on war against
the Iberes and Albani, and was acquainted with both the Caspian and
Colchian[902] Seas on each side of the isthmus. It is related, that when
Pompey[903] was at Rhodes, on his expedition against the pirates, (he
was soon afterwards to carry on war against Mithridates and the nations
as far as the Caspian Sea,) he accidentally heard a philosophical
lecture of Posidonius; and on his departure he asked Posidonius if he
had any commands; to which he replied, [CAS. 492]

   “To stand the first in worth, as in command.”[904]

Add to this, that he wrote the history of Pompey. For these reasons he
ought to have paid a greater regard to truth.

7. The second portion is that above the Hyrcanian,[905] which we also
call the Caspian Sea, extending as far as the Scythians near the
Indians.

The third portion is continuous with the above-mentioned isthmus, and
consists of the country following next in order to the isthmus and the
Caspian Gates,[906] and approaching nearest the parts within the Taurus,
and to Europe; these are Media, Armenia, Cappadocia, and the intervening
country.[907]

The fourth portion consists of the tract within the Halys,[908] and the
parts upon and without the Taurus, which coincide with the peninsula
formed by the isthmus,[909] which separates the Euxine and the Cilician
Seas. Among the other countries beyond the Taurus we place Indica and
Ariana,[910] as far as the nations which extend to the Persian Sea, the
Arabian Gulf, and the Nile, and to the Ægyptian and the Issic seas.




CHAPTER II.


1. According to this disposition, the first portion towards the north
and the Ocean is inhabited by certain tribes of Scythians, shepherds,
(nomades,) and Hamaxœci (or those who live in waggon-houses). Within
these tribes live Sarmatians, who also are Scythians, Aorsi,[911] and
Siraci, extending as far as the Caucasian Mountains towards the south.
Some of these are Nomades, or shepherd tribes, others Scenitæ, (or
dwellers in tents,) and Georgi, or tillers of the ground. About the lake
Mæotis live the Mæotæ. Close to the sea is the Asiatic portion of the
Bosporus and Sindica.[912] Next follow Achæi, Zygi, Heniochi,[913]
Cercetæ, and Macropogones (or the long-beards). Above these people are
situated the passes of the Phtheirophagi (or Lice-eaters). After the
Heniochi is Colchis, lying at the foot of the Caucasian and Moschic
mountains. Having assumed the Tanaïs as the boundary of Europe and Asia,
we must begin our description in detail from this river.

2. [CAS. 493] The Tanaïs or Don flows from the northern parts. It does
not however flow in a direction diametrically opposite to the Nile, as
some suppose, but its course is more to the east than that of the latter
river; its sources, like those of the Nile, are unknown. A great part of
the course of the Nile is apparent, for it traverses a country the whole
of which is easy of access, and its stream is navigable to a great
distance from its mouth. We are acquainted with the mouths of the Don,
(there are two in the most northerly parts of the Mæotis, distant 60
stadia from each other,) but a small part only of the tract above the
mouths is explored, on account of the severity of the cold, and the
destitute state of the country; the natives are able to endure it, who
subsist, like the wandering shepherd tribes, on the flesh of their
animals and on milk, but strangers cannot bear the climate nor its
privations. Besides, the nomades dislike intercourse with other people,
and being a strong and numerous tribe have excluded travellers from
every part of the country which is accessible, and from all such rivers
as are navigable. For this reason some have supposed that the sources of
the river are among the Caucasian mountains, that, after flowing in a
full stream towards the north, it then makes a bend, and discharges
itself into the Mæotis. Theophanes[914] of Mitylene is of the same
opinion with these writers. Others suppose that it comes from the higher
parts of the Danube, but they do not produce any proof of so remote a
source, and in other climates, though they seem to think it impossible
for it to rise at no great distance and in the north.

3. Upon the river, and on the lake, stands a city Tanaïs, founded by the
Greeks, who possess the Bosporus; but lately the King Polemon[915] laid
it waste on account of the refractory disposition of the inhabitants. It
was the common mart both of the Asiatic and of the European nomades, and
of those who navigate the lake from the Bosporus, some of whom bring
slaves and hides, or any other nomadic commodity; others exchange wine
for clothes, and other articles peculiar to a civilized mode of life.

In front of the mart at the distance of 100 stadia is an island
Alopecia, a settlement of a mixed people. There are other small islands
not far off in the lake.

The city Tanaïs,[916] to those who sail in a direct line towards the
north, is distant from the mouth of the Mæotis 2200 stadia, nor is the
distance much greater in sailing along the coast (on the east).

4. In the voyage along the coast, the first object which presents itself
to those who have proceeded to the distance of 800 stadia from the
Tanaïs, is the Great Rhombites, as it is called, where large quantities
of fish are captured for the purpose of being salted. Then at the
distance of 800 stadia more is the Lesser Rhombites,[917] and a
promontory, which has smaller fisheries. The [nomades] at the former
have small islands as stations for their vessels, those at the Lesser
Rhombites are the Mæotæ who cultivate the ground. For along the whole of
this coasting voyage live Mæotæ, who are husbandmen, but not less
addicted to war than the nomades. They are divided into several tribes;
those near the Tanaïs are more savage, those contiguous to the Bosporus
are more gentle in their manners.

From the Lesser Rhombites to Tyrambe, and the river Anticeites, are 600
stadia; then 120 to the Cimmerian village, whence vessels set out on
their voyage along the lake. In this coasting voyage we meet with some
look-out places, (for observing the fish,) said to belong to the
Clazomenians.

5. Cimmericum was formerly a city built upon a peninsula, the isthmus of
which it enclosed with a ditch and mound. The Cimmerii once possessed
great power in the Bosporus, whence it was called the Cimmerian
Bosporus. These are the people who overran the territory of the
inhabitants of the inland parts, on the right of the Euxine, as far as
Ionia. They were dislodged from these places by Scythians, and the
Scythians by Greeks, who founded Panticapæum,[918] and the other cities
on the Bosporus.

6. [CAS. 494] Next to the village Achilleium,[919] where is the temple
of Achilles, are 20 stadia. Here is the narrowest passage, 20 stadia or
more, across the mouth of the Mæotis; on the opposite continent is
Myrmecium, a village. Near are Heracleium and Parthenium.

7. Thence to the monument of Satyrus are 90 stadia; this is a mound
raised on a promontory,[920] in memory of one of the illustrious princes
of the Bosporus.

8. Near it is Patræus,[921] a village, from which to Corocondame,[922] a
village, are 130 stadia. This is the termination of the Cimmerian
Bosporus, as it is called. The narrow passage at the mouth of the Mæotis
derives its name from the straits opposite the Achilleium, and the
Myrmecium; it extends as far as Corocondame and a small village opposite
to it in the territory of the Panticapæans, called Acra,[923] and
separated by a channel of 70 stadia in width. The ice reaches even to
this place, for the Mæotis is frozen during severe frost so as to become
passable on foot. The whole of this narrow passage has good harbours.

9. Beyond Corocondame is a large lake[924] which is called from the
place Corocondametis. It discharges itself into the sea at the distance
of 10 stadia from the village. A branch[925] of the river Anticeites
empties itself into the lake, and forms an island, which is surrounded
by the waters of the lake, of the Mæotis, and of the river. Some persons
give this river the name of Hypanis,[926] as well as to that[927] near
the Borysthenes.[928]

10. Upon sailing[929] into the Corocondametis, we meet with Phanagoria,
a considerable city, Cepi, Hermonassa, and Apaturum, the temple of Venus
(Apatura). Of these cities Phanagoria and Cepi are situated in the
above-mentioned island on the left hand at the entrance of the lake; the
others are on the right hand in Sindica beyond the Hypanis. There is
Gorgipia,[930] but the royal seat of the Sindi is in Sindica near the
sea, and Aborace.

All those who are subject to the princes of the Bosporus are called
Bosporani. The capital of the European Bosporani is Panticapæum, and of
the Asian Bosporani, the city of Phanagorium,[931] for this is the name
given to it. Phanagoria seems to be the mart for those commodities which
are brought down from the Mæotis, and from the barbarous country lying
above it; and Panticapæum, the mart for the commodities which are
transported thither from the sea. There is also in Phanagoria a
magnificent temple of Venus Apatura, the Deceitful. This epithet of the
goddess is derived from a fable, according to which the giants assaulted
her in this place. Having obtained the assistance of Hercules she hid
him in a cave, and then admitted the giants one by one into her
presence, and delivered them over to Hercules, thus craftily[932] to be
put to death.

11. The Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatæ, Agri, Arrhechi, and besides these, the
Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, Dosci, and many others, belong to the
Mæotæ; to this people belong the Aspurgiani also, who live between
Phanagoria and Gorgipia, at the distance of 500 stadia [from the
Mæotis?]. Polemon, the king, entered the country of these people under a
[CAS. 495] show of friendship, but his design was discovered, and they
on their part attacked him unawares. He was taken prisoner, and put to
death.

With respect to the Asian Mæotæ in general, some of them were the
subjects of those who possessed the mart on the Tanaïs; others, of the
Bosporani; and different bodies have revolted at different times. The
princes of the Bosporani were frequently masters of the country as far
as the Tanaïs, and particularly the last princes, Pharnaces, Asander,
and Polemon.

Pharnaces is said to have once brought even the river Hypanis over the
territory of the Dandarii through some ancient canal, which he had
caused to be cleared, and inundated the country.

12. Next to Sindica, and Gorgipia upon the sea, is the sea-coast
inhabited by the Achæi, Zygi, and Heniochi. It is for the most part
without harbours and mountainous, being a portion of the Caucasus.

These people subsist by piracy.

Their boats are slender, narrow, light, and capable of holding about
five and twenty men, and rarely thirty. The Greeks call them camaræ.
They say, that at the time of the expedition of Jason the Achæi Phthiotæ
founded the Achaia there, and the Lacedæmonians, Heniochia. Their
leaders were Rhecas, and Amphistratus, the charioteers[933] of the
Dioscuri; it is probable that the Heniochi had their name from these
persons. They equip fleets consisting of these camaræ, and being masters
of the sea sometimes attack vessels of burden, or invade a territory, or
even a city. Sometimes even those who occupy the Bosporus assist them,
by furnishing places of shelter for their vessels, and supply them with
provision and means for the disposal of their booty. When they return to
their own country, not having places suitable for mooring their vessels,
they put their camaræ on their shoulders, and carry them up into the
forests, among which they live, and where they cultivate a poor soil.
When the season arrives for navigation, they bring them down again to
the coast. Their habits are the same even in a foreign country, for they
are acquainted with wooded tracts, in which, after concealing their
camaræ, they wander about on foot day and night, for the purpose of
capturing the inhabitants and reducing them to slavery. But they readily
allow whatever is taken to be ransomed, and signify this after their
departure to those who have lost their property. In places where there
is a regular government, the injured find means of repelling them. For,
frequently, the pirates are attacked in return, and are carried off
together with their camaræ. But the country subject to the Romans is not
so well protected, in consequence of the neglect of those who are sent
there.

13. Such then is their mode of life. But even these people are governed
by persons called Sceptuchi, and these again are subject to the
authority of tyrants, or of kings. The Heniochi had four kings at the
time that Mithridates Eupator fled from the country of his ancestors to
the Bosporus, and passed through their country, which was open to him,
but he avoided that of the Zygi on account of its ruggedness, and the
savage character of the people. He proceeded with difficulty along the
sea-coast, frequently embarking in vessels, till he came to the country
of the Achæi, by whom he was hospitably received. He had then completed
a journey from the Phasis of not much less than 4000 stadia.

14. From Corocondame, the course of the voyage is directly towards the
east. At the distance of 180 stadia is the Sindic harbour, and a city.
Then at the distance of 400 stadia is Bata,[934] as it is called, a
village with a harbour. It is at this place that Sinope on the south
seems to be directly opposite to this coast, as Carambis[935] has been
said to be opposite to Criu-Metopon.[936]

Next to Bata Artemidorus places the coast of the Cercetæ, which has
places of shelter for vessels, and villages along an extent of about 850
stadia; then at 500 stadia more the coast of the Achæi, then that of the
Heniochi, at 1000 stadia, then the Great Pityus, from which to
Dioscurias are 360 stadia.

The authors most worthy of credit who have written the history of the
Mithridatic wars, enumerate the Achæi first, then Zygi, then Heniochi,
then Cercetæ, Moschi, Colchi, and above these the Phtheirophagi, Soanes,
and other smaller nations about the Caucasus.

The [CAS. 497] direction of the sea-coast is at first, as I have said,
towards the east, with a southern aspect; but from Bata it makes a bend
for a small distance, then fronts the west, and terminates towards
Pityus, and Dioscurias, for these places are contiguous to the coast of
Colchis, which I have already mentioned. Next to Dioscurias is the
remainder of the coast of Colchis, and Trapezus contiguous to it; where
the coast, having made a considerable turn, then extends nearly in a
straight line, and forms the side on the right hand of the Euxine,
looking to the north.

The whole of the coast of the Achæi, and of the other nations, as far as
Dioscurias, and the inland places lying in a straight line towards the
south, are at the foot of the Caucasus.

15. This mountain overhangs both the Euxine and the Caspian seas,
forming a kind of rampart to the isthmus which separates one sea from
the other. To the south it is the boundary of Albania and Iberia, to the
north, of the plains of the Sarmatians. It is well wooded, and contains
various kinds of timber, and especially trees adapted to ship-building.
Eratosthenes says that the Caucasus is called Mount Caspius by the
natives, a name borrowed perhaps from the Caspii. It throws out forks
towards the south, which embrace the middle of Iberia, and touch the
Armenian and those called the Moschic mountains,[937] and besides these
the mountains of Scydises, and the Paryadres. All these are portions of
the Taurus, which forms the southern side of Armenia, and are broken off
in a manner from it towards the north, and extend as far as Caucasus,
and the coast of the Euxine which lies between Colchis and
Themiscyra.[938]

16. Situated on a bay of this kind, and occupying the most easterly
point of the whole sea, is Dioscurias,[939] called the recess of the
Euxine Sea, and the extreme boundary of navigation, for in this sense we
are to understand the proverbial saying,

   “To Phasis where ships end their course.”

Not as if the author of the iambic intended to speak of the river, nor
of the city of the same name upon the river, but Colchis designated by a
part, because from the city and the river there remains a voyage of not
less than 600 stadia in a straight line to the recess of the bay. This
same Dioscurias is the commencement of the isthmus lying between the
Caspian Sea and the Euxine. It is a common mart of the nations situated
above it, and in its neighbourhood. There assemble at Dioscurias 70 or,
according to some writers who are careless in their statements,[940] 300
nations. All speak different languages, from living dispersed in various
places and without intercourse, in consequence of their fierce and
savage manners. They are chiefly Sarmatians, but all of them Caucasian
tribes. So much then respecting Dioscurias.

17. The greater part of the rest of Colchis lies upon the sea. The
Phasis,[941] a large river, flows through it. It has its source in
Armenia, and receives the Glaucus,[942] and the Hippus,[943] which issue
from the neighbouring mountains. Vessels ascend it as far as the
fortress of Sarapana,[944] which is capable of containing the population
even of a city. Persons proceed thence by land to the Cyrus in four days
along a carriage road.[945] Upon the Phasis is a city of the same name,
a mart of the Colchians, bounded on one side by the river, on another by
a lake, on the third by the sea. Thence it is a voyage of three or
two[946] days to Amisus and Sinope, on account of the softness of the
shores caused by the discharge of rivers.[947]

The country is fertile and its produce is good, except the [CAS. 498]
honey, which has generally a bitter taste. It furnishes all materials
for ship-building. It produces them in great plenty, and they are
conveyed down by its rivers. It supplies flax, hemp, wax, and pitch, in
great abundance. Its linen manufacture is celebrated, for it was
exported to foreign parts; and those who wish to establish an affinity
of race between the Colchians and the Ægyptians, advance this as a proof
of it.

Above the rivers which I have mentioned in the Moschic territory is the
temple of Leucothea,[948] founded by Phrixus[949] and his oracle, where
a ram is not sacrificed. It was once rich, but was plundered in our time
by Pharnaces, and a little afterwards by Mithridates of Pergamus.[950]
For when a country is devastated, in the words of Euripides,

   “respect to the gods languishes, and they are not honoured.”[951]

18. How great anciently was the celebrity of this country, appears from
the fables which refer obscurely to the expedition of Jason, who
advanced as far even as Media; and still earlier intimations of it are
found in the fables relative to the expedition of Phrixus. The kings
that preceded, and who possessed the country when it was divided into
Sceptuchies,[952] were not very powerful, but when Mithridates Eupator
had enlarged his territory, this country fell under his dominion. One of
his courtiers was always sent as sub-governor and administrator of its
public affairs. Of this number was Moaphernes, my mother’s paternal
uncle. It was from this country that the king derived the greatest part
of his supplies for the equipment of his naval armament. But upon the
overthrow of Mithridates, all the country subject to his power was
disunited, and divided among several persons. At last Polemon obtained
possession of Colchis, and after his death his wife Pythodoris reigned
over the Colchians, Trapezus, Pharnacia, and the Barbarians situated
above them, of whom I shall speak in another place.

The territory of the Moschi, in which is situated the temple, is divided
into three portions, one of which is occupied by Colchians, another by
Iberians, and the third by Armenians. There is in Iberia on the confines
of Colchis, a small city, the city of Phrixus, the present Idessa, a
place of strength. The river Charis[953] flows near Dioscurias.

19. Among the nations that assemble at Dioscurias are the Phtheiropagi,
who have their appellation from their dirt and filth.

Near them live the Soanes, not less dirty in their habits, but superior
perhaps to all the tribes in strength and courage. They are masters of
the country around them, and occupy the heights of Caucasus above
Dioscurias. They have a king, and a council of three hundred persons.
They can assemble, it is said, an army of two hundred thousand men, for
all their people are fighting men, but not distributed into certain
orders. In their country the winter torrents are said to bring down even
gold, which the Barbarians collect in troughs pierced with holes, and
lined with fleeces; and hence the fable of the golden fleece. Some[954]
say that they are called Iberians (the same name as the western
Iberians) from the gold mines found in both countries. The Soanes use
poison of an extraordinary kind for the points of their weapons; even
the odour of this poison is a cause of suffering to those who are
wounded by arrows thus prepared.

The other neighbouring nations about the Caucasus occupy barren and
narrow tracts of land. But the tribes of the Albanians and Iberians, who
possess nearly the whole of the above-mentioned isthmus, may also be
denominated Caucasian, and yet they live in a fertile country and
capable of being well peopled.




CHAPTER III.


1. [CAS. 499] The greater part of Iberia is well inhabited, and contains
cities and villages where the houses have roofs covered with tiles, and
display skill in building; there are market-places in them, and various
kinds of public edifices.

2. Some part of the country is encompassed by the Caucasian mountains;
for branches of this range advance, as I have said, towards the south.
These districts are fruitful, comprise the whole of Iberia, and extend
to Armenia and Colchis. In the middle is a plain watered by rivers, the
largest of which is the Cyrus, which, rising in Armenia, immediately
enters the above-mentioned plain, having received the Aragus,[955] which
flows at the foot of the Caucasus, and other streams, passes through a
narrow channel into Albania. It flows however between this country and
Armenia in a large body through plains, which afford excellent pasture.
After having received several rivers, and among these the
Alazonius,[956] Sandobanes, the Rhœtaces, and Chanes, all of which are
navigable, it discharges itself into the Caspian Sea. Its former name
was Corus.

3. The plain is occupied by those Iberians who are more disposed to
agriculture, and are inclined to peace. Their dress is after the
Armenian and Median fashion. Those who inhabit the mountainous country,
and they are the most numerous, are addicted to war, live like the
Sarmatians and Scythians, on whose country they border, and with whom
they are connected by affinity of race. These people however engage in
agriculture also, and can assemble many myriads of persons from among
themselves, and from the Scythians and Sarmatians, whenever any
disturbance occurs.

4. There are four passes into the country; one through Sarapana, a
Colchian fortress, and through the defiles near it, along which the
Phasis, rendered passable from one side to the other by a hundred and
twenty bridges, in consequence of the winding of its stream, descends
abruptly and violently into Colchis. The places in its course are
hollowed by numerous torrents, during the rainy season. It rises in the
mountains which lie above, and many springs contribute to swell its
stream. In the plains it receives other rivers also, among which are the
Glaucus[957] and the Hippus.[958] The stream thus filled and navigable
discharges itself into the Pontus. It has on its banks a city of the
same name, and near it a lake. Such is the nature of the entrance into
Iberia from Colchis, shut in by rocks and strongholds, and by rivers
running through ravines.

5. From the Nomades on the north there is a difficult ascent for three
days, and then a narrow road by the side of the river Aragus, a journey
of four days, which road admits only one person to pass at a time. The
termination of the road is guarded by an impregnable wall.

From Albania the entrance is at first cut through rocks, then passes
over a marsh formed by the river (Alazonius),[959] in its descent from
the Caucasus. On the side of Armenia are the narrow passes on the Cyrus,
and those on the Aragus, for before the junction of these rivers they
have on their banks strong cities set upon rocks, at the distance from
each other of about 18 stadia, as Harmozica[960] on the Cyrus, and on
the other (Aragus) Seusamora. Pompey formerly in his way from Armenia,
and afterwards Canidius, marched through these passes into Iberia.

6. The inhabitants of this country are also divided into four classes;
the first and chief is that from which the kings are appointed. The king
is the oldest and the nearest of his predecessor’s relations. The second
administers justice, and is commander of the army.

The second class consists of priests, whose business it is to settle the
respective rights of their own and the bordering people.

The third is composed of soldiers and husbandmen. The fourth comprehends
the common people, who are royal slaves, and perform all the duties of
ordinary life.

Possessions [CAS. 501] are common property in families, but the eldest
governs, and is the steward of each.

Such is the character of the Iberians, and the nature of their country.




CHAPTER IV.


1. The Albanians pursue rather a shepherd life, and resemble more the
nomadic tribes, except that they are not savages, and hence they are
little disposed to war. They inhabit the country between the Iberians
and the Caspian Sea, approaching close to the sea on the east, and on
the west border upon the Iberians.

Of the remaining sides the northern is protected by the Caucasian
mountains, for these overhang the plains, and are called, particularly
those near the sea, Ceraunian mountains. The southern side is formed by
Armenia, which extends along it. A large portion of it consists of
plains, and a large portion also of mountains, as Cambysene, where the
Armenians approach close both to the Iberians and the Albanians.

2. The Cyrus, which flows through Albania, and the other rivers which
swell the stream of the Cyrus, improve the qualities of the land, but
remove the sea to a distance. For the mud, accumulating in great
quantity, fills up the channel in such a manner, that the small adjacent
islands are annexed to the continent, irregular marshes are formed, and
difficult to be avoided; the reverberation also of the tide increases
the irregular formation of the marshes. The mouth of the river is said
to be divided into twelve branches, some of which afford no passage
through them, others are so shallow as to leave no shelter for vessels.
The shore for an extent of more than 60 stadia is inundated by the sea,
and by the rivers; all that part of it is inaccessible; the mud reaches
even as far as 500 stadia, and forms a bank along the coast. The
Araxes[961] discharges its waters not far off, coming with an impetuous
stream from Armenia, but the mud which this river impels forward,
making the channel pervious, is replaced by the Cyrus.

3. Perhaps such a race of people have no need of the sea, for they do
not make a proper use even of the land, which produces every kind of
fruit, even the most delicate, and every kind of plant and evergreen. It
is not cultivated with the least care; but all that is excellent grows
without sowing, and without ploughing, according to the accounts of
persons who have accompanied armies there, and describe the inhabitants
as leading a Cyclopean mode of life. In many places the ground, which
has been sowed once, produces two or three crops, the first of which is
even fifty-fold, and that without a fallow, nor is the ground turned
with an iron instrument, but with a plough made entirely of wood. The
whole plain is better watered than Babylon or Ægypt, by rivers and
streams, so that it always presents the appearance of herbage, and it
affords excellent pasture. The air here is better than in those
countries. The vines remain always without digging round them, and are
pruned every five years. The young trees bear fruit even the second
year, but the full grown yield so much that a large quantity of it is
left on the branches. The cattle, both tame and wild, thrive well in
this country.

4. The men are distinguished for beauty of person and for size. They are
simple in their dealings and not fraudulent, for they do not in general
use coined money; nor are they acquainted with any number above a
hundred, and transact their exchanges by loads. They are careless with
regard to the other circumstances of life. They are ignorant of weights
and measures as far as exactness is concerned; they are improvident with
respect to war, government, and agriculture. They fight however on foot
and on horseback, both in light and in heavy armour, like the Armenians.

5. They can send into the field a larger army than the Iberians, for
they can equip 60,000 infantry and 22,000 horsemen; with such a force
they offered resistance to Pompey. The Nomades also co-operate with them
against foreigners, as they do with the Iberians on similar occasions.
When there is no war they frequently attack these people and prevent
them from cultivating the ground. They use javelins and bows, and wear
breastplates, shields, and coverings for the [CAS. 502] head, made of
the hides of wild animals, like the Iberians.

To the country of the Albanians belongs Caspiana, and has its name from
the Caspian tribe, from whom the sea also has its appellation; the
Caspian tribe is now extinct.

The entrance from Iberia into Albania is through the Cambysene, a
country without water, and rocky, to the river Alazonius. The people
themselves and their dogs are excessively fond of the chase, pursuing it
with equal eagerness and skill.

6. Their kings differ from one another; at present one king governs all
the tribes. Formerly each tribe was governed by a king, who spoke the
peculiar language of each. They speak six and twenty languages from the
want of mutual intercourse and communication with one another.

The country produces some venomous reptiles, as scorpions and
tarantulas. These tarantulas cause death in some instances by laughter,
in others by grief and a longing to return home.

7. The gods they worship are the Sun, Jupiter, and the Moon, but the
Moon above the rest. She has a temple near Iberia. The priest is a
person who, next to the king, receives the highest honours. He has the
government of the sacred land, which is extensive and populous, and
authority over the sacred attendants, many of whom are divinely
inspired, and prophesy. Whoever of these persons, being violently
possessed, wanders alone in the woods, is seized by the priest, who,
having bound him with sacred fetters, maintains him sumptuously during
that year. Afterwards he is brought forth at the sacrifice performed in
honour of the goddess, and is anointed with fragrant ointment and
sacrificed together with other victims. The sacrifice is performed in
the following manner. A person, having in his hand a sacred lance, with
which it is the custom to sacrifice human victims, advances out of the
crowd and pierces the heart through the side, which he does from
experience in this office. When the man has fallen, certain
prognostications are indicated by the manner of the fall, and these are
publicly declared. The body is carried away to a certain spot, and then
they all trample upon it, performing this action as a mode of
purification of themselves.

8. The Albanians pay the greatest respect to old age, which is not
confined to their parents, but is extended to old persons in general.
It is regarded as impious to show any concern for the dead, or to
mention their names. Their money is buried with them, hence they live in
poverty, having no patrimony.

So much concerning the Albanians. It is said that when Jason,
accompanied by Armenus the Thessalian, undertook the voyage to the
Colchi, they advanced as far as the Caspian Sea, and traversed Iberia,
Albania, a great part of Armenia, and Media, as the Jasoneia and many
other monuments testify. Armenus, they say, was a native of Armenium,
one of the cities on the lake Bœbeis, between Pheræ and Parisa, and that
his companions settled in Acilisene, and the Suspiritis, and occupied
the country as far as Calachene and Adiabene, and that he gave his own
name to Armenia.




CHAPTER V.


1. The Amazons are said to live among the mountains above Albania.
Theophanes, who accompanied Pompey in his wars, and was in the country
of the Albanians, says that Gelæ and Legæ,[962] Scythian tribes, live
between the Amazons and the Albanians, and that the river
Mermadalis[963] takes its course in the country lying in the middle
between these people and the Amazons. But other writers, and among these
Metrodorus of Scepsis, and Hypsicrates, who were themselves acquainted
with these places, say that the Amazons bordered upon the
Gargarenses[964] on the north, at the foot of the Caucasian mountains,
which are called Ceraunia.

When [CAS. 504] at home they are occupied in performing with their own
hands the work of ploughing, planting, pasturing cattle, and
particularly in training horses. The strongest among them spend much of
their time in hunting on horseback, and practise warlike exercises. All
of them from infancy have the right breast seared, in order that they
may use the arm with ease for all manner of purposes, and particularly
for throwing the javelin. They employ the bow also, and sagaris, (a kind
of sword,) and wear a buckler. They make helmets, and coverings for the
body, and girdles, of the skins of wild animals. They pass two months of
the spring on a neighbouring mountain, which is the boundary between
them and the Gargarenses. The latter also ascend the mountain according
to some ancient custom for the purpose of performing common sacrifices,
and of having intercourse with the women with a view to offspring, in
secret and in darkness, the man with the first woman he meets. When the
women are pregnant they are sent away. The female children that may be
born are retained by the Amazons themselves, but the males are taken to
the Gargarenses to be brought up. The children are distributed among
families, in which the master treats them as his own, it being
impossible to ascertain the contrary.

2. The Mermodas,[965] descending like a torrent from the mountains
through the country of the Amazons, the Siracene, and the intervening
desert, discharges itself into the Mæotis.[966]

It is said that the Gargarenses ascended together with the Amazons from
Themiscyra to these places, that they then separated, and with the
assistance of some Thracians and Eubœans, who had wandered as far as
this country, made war against the Amazons, and at length, upon its
termination, entered into a compact on the conditions above mentioned,
namely, that there should be a companionship only with respect to
offspring, and that they should live each independent of the other.

3. There is a peculiarity in the history of the Amazons. In other
histories the fabulous and the historical parts are kept distinct. For
what is ancient, false, and marvellous is called fable. But history has
truth for its object, whether it be old or new, and it either rejects or
rarely admits the marvellous. But, with regard to the Amazons, the same
facts are related both by modern and by ancient writers; they are
marvellous and exceed belief. For who can believe that an army of women,
or a city, or a nation, could ever subsist without men? and not only
subsist, but make inroads upon the territory of other people, and obtain
possession not only of the places near them, and advance even as far as
the present Ionia, but even despatch an expedition across the sea to
Attica? This is as much as to say that the men of those days were women,
and the women men. But even now the same things are told of the Amazons,
and the peculiarity of their history is increased by the credit which is
given to ancient, in preference to modern, accounts.

4. They are said to have founded cities, and to have given their names
to them, as Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyme, Myrina, besides leaving sepulchres
and other memorials. Themiscyra, the plains about the Thermodon, and the
mountains lying above, are mentioned by all writers as once belonging to
the Amazons, from whence, they say, they were driven out. Where they are
at present few writers undertake to point out, nor do they advance
proofs or probability for what they state; as in the case of Thalestria,
queen of the Amazons, with whom Alexander is said to have had
intercourse in Hyrcania with the hope of having offspring. Writers are
not agreed on this point, and among many who have paid the greatest
regard to truth none mention the circumstance, nor do writers of the
highest credit mention anything of the kind, nor do those who record it
relate the same facts. Cleitarchus says that Thalestria set out from the
Caspian Gates and Thermodon to meet Alexander. Now from the Caspian
Gates to Thermodon are more than 6000 stadia.

5. Stories circulated for the purpose of exalting the fame [of eminent
persons] are not received with equal favour by all; the object of the
inventors was flattery rather than truth; [CAS. 505] they transferred,
for example, the Caucasus to the mountains of India, and to the eastern
sea, which approaches close to them, from the mountains situated above
Colchis, and the Euxine Sea. These are the mountains to which the Greeks
give the name of Caucasus, and are distant more than 30,000 stadia from
India. Here they lay the scene of Prometheus and his chains, for these
were the farthest places towards the east with which the people of those
times were acquainted. The expeditions of Bacchus and of Hercules
against the Indi indicate a mythological story of later date, for
Hercules is said to have released Prometheus a thousand years after he
was first chained to the rock. It was more glorious too for Alexander to
subjugate Asia as far as the mountains of India, than to the recess only
of the Euxine Sea and the Caucasus. The celebrity, and the name of the
mountain, together with the persuasion that Jason and his companions had
accomplished the most distant of all expeditions when they had arrived
in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus, and the tradition that Prometheus
had been chained on Caucasus at the extremity of the earth, induced
writers to suppose that they should gratify the king by transferring the
name of the mountain to India.

6. The highest points of the actual Caucasus are the most southerly, and
lie near Albania, Iberia, the Colchi, and Heniochi. They are inhabited
by the people whom I have mentioned as assembling at Dioscurias. They
resort thither chiefly for the purpose of procuring salt. Of these
tribes some occupy the heights; others live in wooded valleys, and
subsist chiefly on the flesh of wild animals, wild fruits, and milk. The
heights are impassable in winter; in summer they are ascended by
fastening on the feet shoes as wide as drums, made of raw hide, and
furnished with spikes on account of the snow and ice. The natives in
descending with their loads slide down seated upon skins, which is the
practice in Media, Atropatia, and at Mount Masius in Armenia, but there
they fasten circular disks of wood with spikes to the soles of their
feet. Such then is the nature of the heights of Caucasus.

7. On descending to the country lying at the foot of these heights the
climate is more northerly, but milder, for the land below the heights
joins the plains of the Siraces. There are some tribes of Troglodytæ who
inhabit caves on account of the cold. There is plenty[967] of grain to
be had in the country.

Next to the Troglodytæ are Chamæcœtæ,[968] and a tribe called Polyphagi
(the voracious), and the villages of the Eisadici, who are able to
cultivate the ground because they are not altogether exposed to the
north.

8. Immediately afterwards follow shepherd tribes, situated between the
Mæotis and the Caspian Sea, Nabiani, Pangani,[969] the tribes also of
the Siraces and Aorsi.

The Aorsi and Siraces seem to be a fugitive people from parts situated
above. The Aorsi lie more to the north.[970]

Abeacus, king of the Siraces, when Pharnases occupied the Bosporus,
equipped 20,000 horse, and Spadines, king of the Aorsi 200,000, and the
Upper Aorsi even a larger body, for they were masters of a greater
extent of territory, and nearly the largest part of the coast of the
Caspian Sea was under their power. They were thus enabled to transport
on camels the merchandise of India and Babylonia, receiving it from
Armenians and Medes. They wore gold also in their dress in consequence
of their wealth.

The Aorsi live on the banks of the Tanaïs, and the Siraces on those of
Achardeus, which rises in Caucasus, and discharges itself into the
Mæotis.




CHAPTER VI.


1. The second portion of northern Asia begins from the Caspian Sea,
where the first terminates. This sea is called also the Hyrcanian Sea.
We must first speak of this sea, and of the nations that live near its
shores.

It is a bay extending from the Ocean to the south. At its commencement
it is very narrow; as it advances further inwards, and particularly
towards the extremity, it widens to the extent of about 500 stadia. The
voyage from the entrance [CAS. 507] to the extremity may exceed that a
little, the entrance approaching very near the uninhabited regions.

Eratosthenes says that the navigation of this sea was known to the
Greeks, that the part of the voyage along the coast of the Albanians and
Cadusïi[971] comprised 5400 stadia; and the part along the country of
the Anariaci, Mardi, [or Amardi,] and Hyrcani, as far as the mouth of
the river Oxus,[972] 4800 stadia, and thence to the Iaxartes[973] 2400
stadia.

But with respect to the places situated in this portion of Asia, and to
those lying so far removed from our own country, we must not understand
the accounts of writers in too literal a sense, particularly with regard
to distances.

2. Upon sailing into the Caspian, on the right hand, contiguous to the
Europeans, Scythians and Sarmatians occupy the country between the
Tanaïs and this sea; they are chiefly Nomades, or shepherd tribes, of
whom I have already spoken. On the left hand are the Eastern Scythian
Nomades, who extend as far as the Eastern sea, and India.

The ancient Greek historians called all the nations towards the north by
the common name of Scythians, and Kelto-Scythians. Writers still more
ancient than these called the nations living above the Euxine, Danube,
and Adriatic, Hyperboreans, Sauromatæ, and Arimaspi.[974] But in
speaking of the nations on the other side the Caspian Sea, they called
some Sacæ,[975] others Massagetæ. They were unable to give any exact
account of them, although they relate the history of the war of Cyrus
with the Massagetæ. Concerning these nations no one has ascertained the
truth, and the ancient histories of Persia, Media, and Syria have not
obtained much credit on account of the credulity of the writers and
their love of fable.

3. For these authors, having observed that those who professedly were
writers of fables obtained repute and success, supposed that they also
should make their writings agreeable, if, under the form of history,
they related what they had never seen nor heard, (not at least from
eye-witnesses,) and had no other object than to please and surprise the
reader. A person would more readily believe the stories of the heroes in
Hesiod, Homer, and in the tragic poets, than Ctesias, Herodotus,
Hellanicus, and writers of this kind.

4. We cannot easily credit the generality of the historians of
Alexander, for they practise deception with a view to enhance the glory
of Alexander; the expedition also was directed to the extremities of
Asia, at a great distance from our country, and it is difficult to
ascertain or detect the truth or falsehood of what is remote. The
dominion of the Romans and of the Parthians has added very much to
former discoveries, and the writers who speak of these people describe
nations and places, where certain actions were performed, in a manner
more likely to produce belief than preceding historians, for they had
better opportunities of personal observation.




CHAPTER VII.


1. The nomades, or wandering tribes, who live on the left side of the
coast on entering the Caspian Sea, are called by the moderns Dahæ, and
surnamed Parni.[976] Then there intervenes a desert tract, which is
followed by Hyrcania; here the Caspian spreads like a deep sea till it
approaches the Median and Armenian mountains. The shape of these hills
at the foot is lunated.[977] Their extremities terminate at the sea, and
form the recess of the bay.

A small part of this country at the foot of the mountains, as far as the
heights, if we reckon from the sea, is inhabited by some tribes of
Albanians and Armenians, but the greater portion by Gelæ, Cadusii,
Amardi, Vitii, and Anariacæ. It is said, that some Parrhasii were
settled together with the Anariacæ, who are now called Parrhasii,
(Parsii?) and that the Ænianes built a walled city in the territory of
the Vitii, which city is [CAS. 508] now called Æniana (Ænia). Grecian
armour, brazen vessels, and sepulchres are shown there. There also is a
city Anariacæ, in which it is said an oracle is shown, where the answer
is given to those who consult it, during sleep, [and some vestiges of
Greek colonization, but all these] tribes are predatory, and more
disposed to war than husbandry, which arises from the rugged nature of
the country. The greater part of the coast at the foot of the
mountainous region is occupied by Cadusii, to the extent of nearly 5000
stadia, according to Patrocles, who thinks that this sea equals the
Euxine in size. These countries are sterile.

2. Hyrcania[978] is very fertile, and extensive, consisting for the most
part of plains, and has considerable cities dispersed throughout it, as
Talabroce, Samariane, Carta, and the royal residence, Tape,[979] which
is said to be situated a little above the sea, and distant 1400 stadia
from the Caspian Gates. The following facts are narrated as indications
of the fertility of the country.[980] The vine produces a metretes[981]
of wine; the fig-tree sixty medimni[982] of fruit; the corn grows from
the seed which falls out of the stalk; bees make their hives in the
trees, and honey drops from among the leaves. This is the case also in
the territory of Matiane in Media, and in the Sacasene, and Araxene of
Armenia.[983]

But neither this country, nor the sea which is named after it, has
received proper care and attention from the inhabitants, for there are
no vessels upon the sea, nor is it turned to any use. According to some
writers there are islands on it, capable of being inhabited, in which
gold is found. The cause of this neglect is this; the first governors of
Hyrcania were barbarians, Medes, and Persians, and lastly, people who
were more oppressive than these, namely, Parthians. The whole of the
neighbouring country was the haunt of robbers and wandering tribes, and
abounded with tracts of desert land. For a short time Macedonians were
sovereigns of the country, but being engaged in war were unable to
attend to remote possessions. Aristobulus says that Hyrcania has
forests, and produces the oak, but not the pitch pine,[984] nor the
fir,[985] nor the pine,[986] but that India abounds with these trees.

Nesæa[987] belongs to Hyrcania, but some writers make it an independent
district.

3. Hyrcania[988] is watered by the rivers Ochus and Oxus as far as their
entrance into the sea. The Ochus flows through Nesæa, but some writers
say that the Ochus empties itself into the Oxus.

Aristobulus avers that the Oxus was the largest river, except those in
India, which he had seen in Asia. He says also that it is navigable with
ease, (this circumstance both Aristobulus and Eratosthenes borrow from
Patrocles,) and that large quantities of Indian merchandise are conveyed
by it to the Hyrcanian Sea, and are transferred from thence into Albania
by the Cyrus, and through the adjoining countries to the Euxine. The
Ochus is not often mentioned by the ancients, but Apollodorus, the
author of the Parthica, frequently mentions it, [and describes it] as
flowing very near the Parthians.

4. Many additional falsehoods were invented inspecting this sea, to
flatter the ambition of Alexander and his love of glory; for, as it was
generally acknowledged that the river Tanaïs separated Europe from Asia
throughout its whole course, and that a large part of Asia, lying
between this sea and the Tanaïs, had never been subjected to the power
of the Macedonians, it was resolved to invent an expedition, in order
that, according to fame at least, Alexander might seem to have conquered
those countries. They therefore made the lake Mæotis, which receives the
Tanaïs, and the Caspian Sea, which also they call a lake, one body of
water, affirming that there was a subterraneous opening between both,
and that one was part of the other. Polycleitus produces proofs to show
that this sea is a lake, for instance, that it breeds serpents, and that
the water is sweetish.[989] That it was not a [CAS. 510] different lake
from the Mæotis, he conjectures from the circumstance of the Tanaïs
discharging itself into it. From the same mountains in India, where the
Ochus and the Oxus rise, many other rivers take their course, and among
these the Iaxartes, which like the former empties itself into the
Caspian Sea, although it is the most northerly of them all. This river
then they called Tanaïs, and alleged, as a proof that it was the Tanaïs
mentioned by Polycleitus, that the country on the other side of the
river produced the fir-tree, and that the Scythians there used arrows
made of fir-wood. It was a proof also that the country on the other side
of the river was a part of Europe and not of Asia, that Upper and
Eastern Asia do not produce the fir-tree. But Eratosthenes says that the
fir does grow even in India, and that Alexander built his ships of that
wood. Eratosthenes collects many things of this kind, with a view to
show their contradictory character. But I have said enough about them.

5. Among the peculiarities recorded of the Hyrcanian sea, Eudoxus and
others relate the following. There is a certain coast in front of the
sea hollowed out into caverns, between which and the sea there lies a
flat shore. Rivers on reaching this coast descend from the precipices
above with sufficient force to dart the water into the sea without
wetting the intervening shore, so that even an army could pass
underneath sheltered by the stream above. The inhabitants frequently
resort to this place for the purposes of festivity and of performing
sacrifices, one while reclining beneath the caverns, at another basking
in the sun (even) beneath the fall of water. They divert themselves in
various ways, having in sight on each side the sea and shore, the latter
of which by the dew [and moisture of the falls] is rendered a grassy and
flowery meadow.




CHAPTER VIII.


1. In proceeding from the Hyrcanian Sea towards the east, on the right
hand are the mountains which the Greeks call Taurus, extending as far as
India. They begin from Pamphylia and Cilicia, and stretch to this part
from the west in a continuous line, bearing different names in different
places. The northern parts[990] of this range are occupied first by
Gelæ, Cadusii, and Amardi, as we have said, and by some tribes of
Hyrcanians; then follow, as we proceed towards the east and the Ochus,
the nation of the Parthians, then that of the Margiani and Arii, and the
desert country which the river Sarnius separates from Hyrcania. The
mountain, which extends to this country, or within a small distance of
it, from Armenia, is called Parachoathras.

From the Hyrcanian sea to the Arii are about 6000 stadia.[991] Next
follow Bactriana, Sogdiana, and lastly nomade Scythians. The Macedonians
gave the name of Caucasus to all the mountains which follow after
Ariana,[992] but among the barbarians the heights and the northern parts
of the Parapomisus were called Emoda, and Mount Imaus;[993] and other
names of this kind were assigned to each portion of this range.

2. On the left hand[994] opposite to these parts are situated the
Scythian and nomadic nations, occupying the whole of the northern side.
Most of the Scythians, beginning from the Caspian Sea, are called Dahæ
Scythæ, and those situated more towards the east Massagetæ and Sacæ; the
rest have the common appellation of Scythians, but each separate tribe
has its peculiar name. All, or the greatest part of them, are nomades.
The best known tribes are those who deprived the Greeks of Bactriana,
the Asii, Pasiani, (Asiani?) Tochari, and Sacarauli, who came from the
country on the other side of the Iaxartes,[995] opposite the Sacæ and
Sogdiani, and which country was also occupied by Sacæ; some tribes of
the Dahæ are surnamed Aparni, some Xanthii, others Pissuri.[996]
[CAS. 511] The Aparni approach the nearest of any of these people to
Hyrcania, and to the Caspian Sea. The others extend as far as the
country opposite to Aria.

3. Between these people, Hyrcania, and Parthia as far as Aria lies a
vast and arid desert, which they crossed by long journeys, and overran
Hyrcania, the Nesæan country, and the plains of Parthia. These people
agreed to pay a tribute on condition of having permission to overrun the
country at stated times, and to carry away the plunder. But when these
incursions became more frequent than the agreement allowed, war ensued,
afterwards peace was made, and then again war was renewed. Such is the
kind of life which the other Nomades also lead, continually attacking
their neighbours, and then making peace with them.

4. The Sacæ had made incursions similar to those of the Cimmerians and
Treres, some near their own country, others at a greater distance. They
occupied Bactriana, and got possession of the most fertile tract in
Armenia, which was called after their own name, Sacasene. They advanced
even as far as the Cappadocians, those particularly situated near the
Euxine; who are now called Pontici. When they were assembled together
and feasting on the division of the booty, they were attacked by night
by the Persian generals who were then stationed in that quarter, and
were utterly exterminated. The Persians raised a mound of earth in the
form of a hill over a rock in the plain, (where this occurred,) and
fortified it. They erected there a temple to Anaïtis and the gods Omanus
and Anadatus, Persian deities who have a common altar.[997] They also
instituted an annual festival, (in memory of the event,) the Sacæa,
which the occupiers of Zela, for this is the name of the place,
celebrate to this day. It is a small city chiefly appropriated to the
sacred attendants. Pompey added to it a considerable tract of territory,
the inhabitants of which he collected within the walls. It was one of
the cities which he settled after the overthrow of Mithridates.

5. Such is the account which is given of the Sacæ by some writers.
Others say, that Cyrus in an expedition against the Sacæ was defeated,
and fled. He advanced with his army to the spot where he had left his
stores, consisting of large supplies of every kind, particularly of
wine; he stopped a short time to refresh his army, and set out in the
evening, as though he continued his flight, the tents being left full of
provisions. He proceeded as far as he thought requisite, and then
halted. The Sacæ pursued, who, finding the camp abandoned and full of
the means of gratifying their appetites, indulged themselves without
restraint. Cyrus then returned and found them drunk and frantic; some
were killed, stretched on the ground drowsy or asleep; others, dancing
and maddened with wine, fell defenceless on the weapons of their
enemies. Nearly all of them perished. Cyrus ascribed this success to the
gods; he consecrated the day to the goddess worshipped in his own
country, and called it Sacæa. Wherever there is a temple of this
goddess, there the Sacæan festival, a sort of Bacchanalian feast, is
celebrated, in which both men and women, dressed in the Scythian habit,
pass day and night in drinking and wanton play.

6. The Massagetæ signalized their bravery in the war with Cyrus, of
which many writers have published accounts; we must get our information
from them. Such particulars as the following are narrated respecting
this nation; some tribes inhabit mountains, some plains, others live
among marshes formed by the rivers, others on the islands among the
marshes. The Araxes is said to be the river which is the chief cause of
inundating the country; it is divided into various branches and
discharges itself by many mouths into the other sea[998] towards the
north, but by one only into the Hyrcanian Gulf. The Massagetæ regard no
other deity than the sun, and to his honour they sacrifice a horse. Each
man marries only one wife, but they have intercourse with the wives of
each other without any concealment. He who has intercourse with the wife
of another man hangs up his quiver on a waggon, and lies with her
openly. They account the best mode of death to be chopped up when they
grow old with the flesh of sheep, and both to be devoured together.
Those who die of disease are cast out as impious, and only fit to be the
prey of wild beasts; they are excellent horsemen, and also fight well on
foot. They use bows, swords, breastplates, and sagares [CAS. 513] of
brass, they wear golden belts, and turbans[999] on their heads in
battle. Their horses have bits of gold, and golden breastplates; they
have no silver, iron in small quantity, but gold and brass in great
plenty.

7. Those who live in the islands have no corn-fields. Their food
consists of roots and wild fruits. Their clothes are made of the bark of
trees, for they have no sheep. They press out and drink the juice of the
fruit of certain trees.

The inhabitants of the marshes eat fish. They are clothed in the skins
of seals, which come upon the island from the sea.

The mountaineers subsist on wild fruits. They have besides a few sheep,
but they kill them sparingly, and keep them for the sake of their wool
and milk. Their clothes they variegate by steeping them in dyes, which
produce a colour not easily effaced.

The inhabitants of the plains, although they possess land, do not
cultivate it, but derive their subsistence from their fiocks, and from
fish, after the manner of the nomades and Scythians. I have frequently
described a certain way of life common to all these people. Their
burial-places and their manners are alike, and their whole manner of
living is independent, but rude, savage, and hostile; in their compacts,
however, they are simple and without deceit.

8. The Attasii (Augasii?) and the Chorasmii belong to the Massagetæ and
Sacæ, to whom Spitamenes directed his flight from Bactria and Sogdiana.
He was one of the Persians who, like Bessus, made his escape from
Alexander by flight, as Arsaces afterwards fled from Seleucus
Callinicus, and retreated among the Aspasiacæ.

Eratosthenes says, that the Bactrians lie along the Arachoti and
Massagetæ on the west near the Oxus, and that Sacæ and Sogdiani, through
the whole extent of their territory,[1000] are opposite to India, but
the Bactrii in part only, for the greater part of their country lies
parallel to the Parapomisus; that the Sacæ and Sogdiani are separated by
the Iaxartes, and the Sogdiani and Bactriani by the Oxus; that Tapyri
occupy the country between Hyrcani and Arii; that around the shores of
the sea, next to the Hyrcani, are Amardi, Anariacæ, Cadusii, Albani,
Caspii, Vitii, and perhaps other tribes extending as far as the
Scythians; that on the other side of the Hyrcani are Derbices, that the
Caducii are contiguous both to the Medes and Matiani below the
Parachoathras.

9. These are the distances which he gives.


                                                                 Stadia.
   From the Caspian Sea to the Cyrus about                         1800
   Thence to the Caspian Gates                                     5600
   Thence to Alexandreia in the territory of the Arii              6400
   Thence to the city Bactra, which is called also Zariaspa        3870
   Thence to the river Iaxartes, which Alexander reached, about    5000
                                                                 ------
   Making a total of                                             22,670
                                                                 ------

He also assigns the following distances from the Caspian Gates to India.
                                                          Stadia.
   To Hecatompylos[1001]                                       1960
   To Alexandreia[1002] in the country of the Arii (Ariana)    4530
   Thence to Prophthasia[1003] in Dranga[1004]
     (or according to others 1500)                             1600
   Thence to the city Arachoti[1005]                           4120
   Thence to Ortospana on the three roads from Bactra[1006]    2000
   Thence to the confines of India                             1000
                                                             ------
   Which together amount to                                  15,300[1007]
                                                             ------
We [CAS. 514] must regard as continuous with this distance, in a
straight line, the length of India, reckoned from the Indus to the
Eastern Sea.

Thus much then respecting the Sacæ.




CHAPTER IX.


1. Parthia is not an extensive tract of country; for this reason it was
united with the Hyrcani for the purpose of paying tribute under the
Persian dominion and afterwards, during a long period when the
Macedonians were masters of the country. Besides its small extent, it is
thickly wooded, mountainous, and produces nothing; so that the kings
with their multitude of followers pass with great speed through the
country, which is unable to furnish subsistence for such numbers even
for a short time. At present it is augmented in extent. Comisene[1008]
and Chorene are parts of Parthiene, and perhaps also the country as far
as the Caspian Gates, Rhagæ, and the Tapyri, which formerly belonged to
Media. Apameia and Heracleia are cities in the neighbourhood of Rhagæ.

From the Caspian Gates to Rhagæ are 500 stadia according to Apollodorus,
and to Hecatompylos, the royal seat of the Parthians, 1260 stadia.
Rhagæ[1009] is said to have had its name from the earthquakes which
occurred in that country, by which many cities and two thousand
villages, as Poseidonius relates, were overthrown. The Tapyri are said
to live between the Derbices and the Hyrcani. Historians say, that it is
a custom among the Tapyri to surrender the married women to other men,
even when the husbands have had two or three children by them, as Cato
surrendered Marcia in our times, according to an ancient custom of the
Romans, to Hortensius, at his request.

2. Disturbances having arisen in the countries beyond the Taurus in
consequence of the kings of Syria and Media, who possessed the tract of
which we are speaking, being engaged in other affairs,[1010] those who
were intrusted with the government of it occasioned first the revolt of
Bactriana; then Euthydemus and his party the revolt of all the country
near that province. Afterwards Arsaces, a Scythian, (with the Parni,
called nomades, a tribe of the Dahæ, who live on the banks of the
Ochus,) invaded Parthia, and made himself master of it. At first both
Arsaces and his successors were weakened by maintaining wars with those
who had been deprived of their territory. Afterwards they became so
powerful, in consequence of their successful warfare, continually
depriving their neighbours of portions of their territory, that at last
they took possession of all the country within the Euphrates. They
deprived Eucratidas, and then the Scythians, by force of arms, of a part
of Bactriana. They now have an empire comprehending so large an extent
of country, and so many nations, that it almost rivals that of the
Romans in magnitude. This is to be attributed to their mode of life and
manners, which have indeed much of the barbarous and Scythian character,
but are very well adapted for establishing dominion, and for insuring
success in war.

3. They say that the Dahæ Parni were an emigrant tribe from the Dahæ
above the Mæotis, who are called Xandii and Parii. But it is not
generally acknowledged that Dahæ are to be found among the Scythians
above the Mæotis, yet from these Arsaces according to some was
descended; according to others he was a Bactrian, and withdrawing
himself from the increasing power of Diodotus, occasioned the revolt of
Parthia.

We have enlarged on the subject of the Parthian customs in the sixth
book of historical commentaries, and in the second of those, which are a
sequel to Polybius: we shall omit what we said, in order to avoid
repetition; adding this only, that Poseidonius affirms that the council
of the Parthians is composed of two classes, one of relatives, (of the
royal family,) and another of wise men and magi, by both of which kings
are chosen.




CHAPTER X.


1. Aria and Margiana, which are the best districts in this portion of
Asia, are partly composed of valleys enclosed by [CAS. 516] mountains,
and partly of inhabited plains. Some tribes of Scenitæ (dwellers in
tents) occupy the mountains; the plains are watered by the rivers Arius
and by the Margus.

Aria borders upon Bactriana, and the mountain[1011] which has Bactriana
at its foot. It is distant from [the] Hyrcania[n sea] about 6000 stadia.

Drangiana as far as Carmania furnished jointly with Aria payment of the
tribute. The greater part of this country is situated at the foot of the
southern side of the mountains; some tracts however approach the
northern side opposite Aria.

Arachosia, which belongs to the territory of Aria, is not far distant;
it lies at the foot of the southern side of the mountains, and extends
to the river Indus.

The length of Aria is about 2000 stadia, and the breadth of the plain
300 stadia. Its cities are Artacaëna, Alexandreia, and Achaïa, which are
called after the names of their founders.

The soil produces excellent wines, which may be kept for three
generations in unpitched vessels.

2. Margiana is like this country, but the plain is surrounded by
deserts. Antiochus Soter admired its fertility; he enclosed a circle of
1500 stadia with a wall, and founded a city, Antiocheia. The soil is
well adapted to vines. They say that a vine stem has been frequently
seen there which would require two men to girth it, and bunches of
grapes two cubits in size.




CHAPTER XI.


1. Some parts of Bactria lie along Aria to the north, but the greater
part stretches beyond (Aria) to the east. It is an extensive country,
and produces everything except oil.

The Greeks who occasioned its revolt became so powerful by means of the
fertility and advantages of the country, that they became masters of
Ariana and India, according to Apollodorus of Artamita. Their chiefs,
particularly Menander, (if he really crossed the Hypanis to the east and
reached Isamus,)[1012] conquered more nations than Alexander. These
conquests were achieved partly by Menander, partly by Demetrius, son of
Euthydemus, king of the Bactrians. They got possession not only of
Pattalene,[1013] but of the kingdoms of Saraostus, and Sigerdis, which
constitute the remainder of the coast. Apollodorus in short says that
Bactriana is the ornament of all Ariana. They extended their empire even
as far as the Seres and Phryni.

2. Their cities were Bactra, which they call also Zariaspa, (a river of
the same name flows through it, and empties itself into the Oxus,) and
Darapsa,[1014] and many others. Among these was Eucratidia, which had
its name from Eucratidas, the king. When the Greeks got possession of
the country, they divided it into satrapies; that of Aspionus and
Turiva[1015] the Parthians took from Eucratidas. They possessed Sogdiana
also, situated above Bactriana to the east, between the river Oxus
(which bounds Bactriana and Sogdiana) and the Iaxartes; the latter river
separates the Sogdii and the nomades.

3. Anciently the Sogdiani and Bactriani did not differ much from the
nomades in their mode of life and manners, yet the manners of the
Bactriani were a little more civilized. Onesicritus however does not
give the most favourable account of this people. Those who are disabled
by disease or old age are thrown alive to be devoured by dogs kept
expressly for this purpose, and whom in the language of the country they
call entombers.[1016] The places on the exterior of the walls of the
capital of the Bactrians are clean, but the interior is for the most
part full of human bones. Alexander abolished this custom. Something of
the same kind is related of the Caspii also, who, when their parents
have attained the age of 70 years, confine them, and let them die of
hunger. This custom, although Scythian in character, is more tolerable
than that of the Bactrians, and is similar to the domestic law of the
Cei;[1017] the custom however of the Bactrians is much more according to
Scythian manners. We may be justly at a loss [CAS. 517] to
conjecture,[1018] if Alexander found such customs prevailing there, what
were the customs which probably were observed by them in the time of the
first kings of Persia, and of the princes who preceded them.

4. Alexander, it is said, founded eight cities in Bactriana and
Sogdiana; some he razed, among which were Cariatæ in Bactriana, where
Callisthenes was seized and imprisoned; Maracanda in Sogdiana, and Cyra,
the last of the places founded by Cyrus, situated upon the river
Iaxartes, and the boundary of the Persian empire. This also, although it
was attached to Cyrus, he razed on account of its frequent revolts.

Alexander took also, it is said, by means of treachery, strong fortified
rocks; one of which belonged to Sisimithres in Bactriana, where Oxyartes
kept his daughter Roxana; another to Oxus in Sogdiana, or, according to
some writers, to Ariamazas. The stronghold of Sisimithres is described
by historians to have been fifteen stadia in height, and eighty stadia
in circuit. On the summit is a level ground, which is fertile and
capable of maintaining 500 men. Here Alexander was entertained with
sumptuous hospitality, and here he espoused Roxana the daughter of
Oxyartes. The height of the fortress in Sogdiana is double the height of
this. It was near these places that he destroyed the city of the
Branchidæ, whom Xerxes settled there, and who had voluntarily
accompanied him from their own country. They had delivered up to the
Persians the riches of the god at Didymi, and the treasure there
deposited. Alexander destroyed their city in abhorrence of their
treachery and sacrilege.

5. Aristobulus calls the river, which runs through Sogdiana,
Polytimetus, a name imposed by the Macedonians, as they imposed many
others, some of which were altogether new, others were deflections[1019]
from the native appellations. This river after watering the country
flows through a desert and sandy soil, and is absorbed in the sand, like
the Arius, which flows through the territory of the Arii.

It is said that on digging near the river Ochus a spring of oil was
discovered. It is probable, that as certain nitrous, astringent,
bituminous, and sulphurous fluids permeate the earth, greasy fluids may
be found, but the rarity of their occurrence makes their existence
almost doubtful.

The course of the Ochus, according to some writers, is through
Bactriana, according to others parallel to it. Some allege that, taking
a more southerly direction, it is distinct from the Oxus to its mouths,
but that they both discharge themselves (separately) into the Caspian in
Hyrcania. Others again say that it is distinct, at its commencement,
from the Oxus, but that it (afterwards) unites with the latter river,
having in many places a breadth of six or seven stadia.

The Iaxartes is distinct from the Oxus from its commencement to its
termination, and empties itself into the same sea. Their mouths,
according to Patrocles, are about 80 parasangs distant from each other.
The Persian parasang some say contains 60, others 30 or 40, stadia.

When I was sailing up the Nile, schœni of different measures were used
in passing from one city to another, so that the same number of schoeni
gave in some places a longer, in others a shorter, length to the voyage.
This mode of computation has been handed down from an early period, and
is continued to the present time.

6. In proceeding from Hyrcania towards the rising sun as far as
Sogdiana, the nations beyond (within?) the Taurus were known first to
the Persians, and afterwards to the Macedonians and Parthians. The
nations lying in a straight line[1020] above these people are supposed
to be Scythian, from their resemblance to that nation. But we are not
acquainted with any expeditions which have been undertaken against them,
nor against the most northerly tribes of the nomades. Alexander proposed
to conduct his army against them, when he was in pursuit of Bessus and
Spitamenes, but when Bessus was taken prisoner, and Spitamenes put to
death by the Barbarians, he desisted from executing his intention.

It is not generally admitted, that persons have passed round by sea from
India to Hyrcania, but Patrocles asserts that it may be done.

7. It is said that the termination of Taurus, which is called Imaus,
approaches close to the Indian Sea, and neither advances towards nor
recedes from the East more than India itself. But on passing to the
northern side, the sea contracts (throughout the whole coast) the length
and breadth of India, so as to shorten on the East the portion of Asia
we are now [CAS. 519] describing, comprehended between the Taurus and
the Northern Ocean, which forms the Caspian Sea.

The greatest length of this portion, reckoned from the Hyrcanian Sea to
the (Eastern) Ocean opposite Imaus, is about 30,000 stadia,[1021] the
route being along the mountainous tract of Taurus; the breadth is less
than 10,000 stadia.[1022] We have said before, that[1023] from the bay
of Issus to the eastern sea along the coast of India is about 40,000
stadia, and to Issus from the western extremities at the pillars 30,000
stadia. The recess of the bay of Issus is little, if at all, more to the
east than Amisus; from Amisus to Hyrcania is about 10,000 stadia in a
line parallel to that which we have described as drawn from the bay of
Issus to India. There remains therefore for the portion now delineated
the above-mentioned length towards the east, namely, 30,000
stadia.[1024]

Again, since the breadth of the longest part of the habitable earth,
which has the shape of a chlamys, (or a military cloak,) is about 30,000
stadia, this distance would be near the meridian line drawn through the
Hyrcanian and the Persian Seas, for the length of the habitable earth is
70,000 stadia. If therefore from Hyrcania to Artemita[1025] in Babylonia
are 8000 stadia according to Apollodorus of Artemita, and thence to the
mouth of the Persian Sea 8000, and again 8000, or a little short of that
number, to the places on the same parallel with the extremities of
Æthiopia, there would remain, to complete the breadth as I have
described it, of the habitable earth, the number of stadia[1026] which I
have mentioned, reckoning from the recess of the Hyrcanian Sea to its
mouth. This segment of the earth being truncated towards the eastern
parts, its figure would resemble a cook’s knife, for the mountainous
range being prolonged in a straight line, answers to the edge, while the
shape of the coast from the mouth of the Hyrcanian Sea to Tamarus on the
other side terminates in a circular truncated line.

8. [CAS. 519] We must mention some of the extraordinary circumstances
which are related of those tribes which are perfectly barbarous, living
about Mount Caucasus, and the other mountainous districts.

What Euripides expresses in the following lines is said to be a custom
among them;

   “they lament the birth of the new-born on account of the many
   evils to which they are exposed; but the dead, and one at rest
   from his troubles, is carried forth from his home with joy and
   gratulation.”

Other tribes do not put to death even the greatest offenders, but only
banish them from their territories together with their children; which
is contrary to the custom of the Derbices, who punish even slight
offences with death. The Derbices worship the earth. They neither
sacrifice, nor eat the female of any animal. Persons who attain the age
of above seventy years are put to death by them, and their nearest
relations eat their flesh. Old women are strangled, and then buried.
Those who die under seventy years of age are not eaten, but are only
buried.

The Siginni in general practise Persian customs. They have small horses
with shaggy hair, but which are not able to carry a rider. Four of these
horses are harnessed together, driven by women, who are trained to this
employment from childhood. The best driver marries whom she pleases.
Some, they say, make it their study to appear with heads as long as
possible, and with foreheads projecting over their chins.

The Tapyrii have a custom for the men to dress in black, and wear their
hair long, and the women to dress in white, and wear their hair short.
[They live between the Derbices and Hyrcani.][1027] He who is esteemed
the bravest marries whom he likes.

The Caspii starve to death those who are above seventy years old, by
exposing them in a desert place. The exposed are observed at a distance;
if they are dragged from their resting-place by birds, they are then
pronounced happy; but if by wild beasts, or dogs, less fortunate; but if
by none of these, ill-fated.




CHAPTER XII.


1. Since the Taurus constitutes the northern parts of Asia, which are
called also the parts within the Taurus, I propose to speak first of
these.

They are situated either entirely, or chiefly, among the mountains.
Those to the east of the Caspian Gates admit of a shorter description on
account of the rude state of the people, nor is there much difference
whether they are referred to one climate[1028] or the other. All the
western countries furnish abundant matter for description. We must
therefore proceed to the places situated near the Caspian Gates.

Media lies towards the west, an extensive country, and formerly
powerful; it is situated in the middle of Taurus, which here has many
branches, and contains large valleys, as is the case in Armenia.

2. This mountain has its beginning in Caria and Lycia, but does not
exhibit there either considerable breadth or height. It first appears to
have a great altitude opposite the Chelidoneæ,[1029] which are islands
situated in front of the commencement of the Pamphylian coast. It
extends towards the east, and includes the long valleys of Cilicia. Then
on one side the Amanus[1030] is detached from it, and on the other the
Anti-Taurus.[1031] In the latter is situated Comana,[1032] belonging to
the Upper Cappadocia. It terminates in Cataonia, but Mount Amanus is
continued as far as the Euphrates, and Melitene,[1033] where Commagene
extends along Cappadocia. It receives the mountains beyond the
Euphrates, which are continuous with those before mentioned, except the
part which is intercepted by the river flowing through the middle of
them. [CAS. 521] Here its height and breadth become greater, and its
branches more numerous. The Taurus extends the farthest distance towards
the south, where it separates Armenia from Mesopotamia.

3. From the south flow both rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, which
encircle Mesopotamia, and approach close to each other at Babylonia, and
then discharge themselves into the sea on the coast of Persia. The
Euphrates is the larger river, and traverses a greater tract of country
with a tortuous course, it rises in the northern part of Taurus, and
flows toward the west through Armenia the Greater, as it is called, to
Armenia the Less, having the latter on the right and Acilisene on the
left hand. It then turns to the south, and at its bend touches the
boundaries of Cappadocia. It leaves this and Commagene on the right
hand; on the left Acilisene and Sophene,[1034] belonging to the Greater
Armenia. It proceeds onwards to Syria, and again makes another bend in
its way to Babylonia and the Persian Gulf.

The Tigris takes its course from the southern part of the same mountains
to Seleucia,[1035] approaches close to the Euphrates, with which it
forms Mesopotamia. It then empties itself into the same gulf.

The sources of the Tigris and of the Euphrates are distant from each
other about 2500 stadia.

4. Towards the north there are many forks which branch away from the
Taurus. One of these is called Anti-Taurus, for there the mountain had
this name, and includes Sophene in a valley situated between Anti-Taurus
and the Taurus.

Next to the Anti-Taurus on the other side of the Euphrates, along the
Lesser Armenia, there stretches towards the north a large mountain with
many branches, one of which is called Paryadres,[1036] another the
Moschic mountains, and others by other names. The Moschic mountains
comprehend the whole of Armenians as far as the Iberians and Albanians.
Other mountains again rise towards the east above the Caspian Sea, and
extend as far as Media the Greater, and the Atropatian-Media. They call
all these parts of the mountains Parachoathras, as well as those which
extend to the Caspian Gates, and those still farther above towards the
east, which are contiguous to Asia. The following are the names of the
mountains towards the north.

The southern mountains on the other side of the Euphrates, extending
towards the east from Cappadocia and Commagene,[1037] at their
commencement have the name of Taurus, which separates Sophene and the
rest of Armenia from Mesopotamia, but some writers call them the
Gordyæan mountains.[1038] Among these is Mount Masius,[1039] which is
situated above Nisibis,[1040] and Tigranocerta.[1041] It then becomes
more elevated, and is called Niphates.[1042] Somewhere in this part on
the southern side of the mountainous chain are the sources of the
Tigris. Then the ridge of mountains continuing to extend from the
Niphates forms the mountain Zagrius, which separates Media and
Babylonia. After the Zagrius follows above Babylonia the mountainous
range of the Elymæi and Parætaceni, and above Media that of the Cossæi.

In the middle of these branches are situated Media and Armenia, which
comprise many mountains, and many mountain plains, as well as plains and
large valleys. Numerous small tribes live around among the mountains,
who are for the most part robbers.

We thus place within the Taurus Armenia and Media, to which belong the
Caspian Gates.

5. In our opinion these nations may be considered as situated to the
north, since they are within the Taurus. But Eratosthenes, having
divided Asia into southern and northern portions, and what he calls
seals, (or sections,)[1043] designating some as northern, others as
southern, makes the Caspian Gates the boundary of both climates. He
might without any impropriety have represented the more southern parts
of the Caspian Gates as in southern Asia, among which are Media and
Armenia, and the parts more to the north than the Caspian Gates in
northern Asia, which might be the case according to different
descriptions of the country. But perhaps Eratosthenes did not attend to
the circumstance, that there [CAS. 523] is no part of Armenia nor of
Media towards the south on the other side of the Taurus.




CHAPTER XIII.


1. Media is divided into two parts, one of which is called the Greater
Media. Its capital is Ecbatana,[1044] a large city containing the royal
seat of the Median empire. This palace the Parthians continue to occupy
even at this time. Here their kings pass the summer, for the air of
Media is cool. Their winter residence is at Seleucia, on the Tigris,
near Babylon.

The other division is Atropatian Media. It had its name from Atropatus,
a chief who prevented this country, which is a part of Greater Media,
from being subjected to the dominion of the Macedonians. When he was
made king he established the independence of this country; his
successors continue to the present day, and have at different times
contracted marriages with the kings of Armenia, Syria, and Parthia.

2. Atropatian Media borders upon Armenia and Matiane[1045] towards the
east, towards the west on the Greater Media, and on both towards the
north; towards the south it is contiguous to the people living about the
recess of the Hyrcanian Sea, and to Matiane.

According to Apollonides its strength is not inconsiderable, since it
can furnish 10,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry.

It contains a lake called Spauta,[1046] (Kapauta,) in which salt
effloresces, and is consolidated. The salt occasions itching and pain,
but oil is a cure for both, and sweet water restores the colour of
clothes, which have the appearance of being burnt,[1047] when they have
been immersed in the lake by ignorant persons for the purpose of washing
them.

They have powerful neighbours in the Armenians and Parthians, by whom
they are frequently plundered; they resist however, and recover what has
been taken away, as they recovered Symbace[1048] from the Armenians, who
were defeated by the Romans, and they themselves became the friends of
Cæsar. They at the same time endeavour to conciliate the Parthians.

3. The summer palace is at Gazaka, situated in a plain; the winter
palace[1049] is in Vera, a strong fortress which Antony besieged in his
expedition against the Parthians. The last is distant from the Araxes,
which separates Armenia and Atropatene, 2400 stadia, according to
Dellius, the friend of Antony, who wrote an account of the expedition of
Antony against the Parthians, which he himself accompanied, and in which
he held a command.

The other parts of this country are fertile, but that towards the north
is mountainous, rugged, and cold, the abode of the mountain tribes of
Cadusii, Amardi, Tapyri, Curtii, and other similar nations, who are
migratory, and robbers. These people are scattered over the Zagrus and
Niphates. The Curtii in Persia, and Mardi, (for so they call the
Amardi,) and those in Armenia, and who bear the same name at present,
have the same kind of character.

4. The Cadusii have an army of foot soldiers not inferior in number to
that of the Ariani. They are very expert in throwing the javelin. In the
rocky places the soldiers engage in battle on foot, instead of on their
horses. The expedition of Antony was harassing to the army, not by the
nature of the country, but by the conduct of their guide, Artavasdes,
king of the Armenii, whom Antony rashly made his adviser, and master of
his intentions respecting the war, when at the same time that prince was
contriving a plan for his destruction. Antony punished Artavasdes, but
too late; the latter had been the cause of many calamities to the
Romans, in conjunction with another person; he made the march from the
Zeugma on the Euphrates to the borders of Atropatene to exceed 8000
stadia, or double the distance of the direct course, [by leading the
army] over mountains, and places where there were no roads, and by a
circuitous route.

5. [CAS. 524] The Greater Media anciently governed the whole of Asia,
after the overthrow of the Syrian empire: but afterwards, in the time of
Astyages, the Medes were deprived of this extensive sovereignty by Cyrus
and the Persians, yet they retained much of their ancient importance.
Ecbatana was the winter (royal?) residence[1050] of the Persian kings,
as it was of the Macedonian princes, who overthrew the Persian empire,
and got possession of Syria. It still continues to serve the same
purpose, and affords security to the kings of Parthia.

6. Media is bounded on the east by Parthia, and by the mountains of the
Cossæi, a predatory tribe. They once furnished the Elymæi, whose allies
they were in the war against the Susii and Babylonians, with 13,000
archers. Nearchus says that there were four robber tribes; the Mardi,
who were contiguous to the Persians; the Uxii and Elymæi, who were on
the borders of the Persians and Susii; and the Cossæi, on those of the
Medes; that all of them exacted tribute from the kings; that the Cossæi
received presents, when the king, having passed his summer at Ecbatana
went down to Babylonia; that Alexander attacked them in the winter time,
and repressed their excessive insolence. Media is bounded on the east by
these nations, and by the Parætaceni, who are contiguous to the
Persians, and are mountaineers, and robbers; on the north by the
Cadusii, who live above the Hyrcanian Sea, and by other nations, whom we
have just enumerated; on the south by the Apolloniatis, which the
ancients called Sitacene, and by the Zagrus, along which lies
Massabatica, which belongs to Media, but according to others, to Elymæa;
on the west by the Atropatii, and by some tribes of the Armenians.

There are also Grecian cities in Media, founded by Macedonians, as
Laodiceia, Apameia, Heracleia near Rhagæ, and Rhaga itself, founded by
Nicator, who called it Europus, and the Parthians Arsacia, situated
about 500 stadia to the south of the Caspian Gates, according to
Apollodorus of Artemita.

7. The greater part of Media consists of high ground, and is cold; such
are the mountains above Ecbatana, and the places about Rhagæ and the
Caspian Gates, and the northern parts in general extending thence as far
as Matiane and Armenia.

The country below the Caspian Gates consists of flat grounds and
valleys. It is very fertile, and produces everything except the olive,
or if it grows anywhere it does not yield oil, and is dry. The country
is peculiarly adapted, as well as Armenia, for breeding horses. There is
a meadow tract called Hippobotus, which is traversed by travellers on
their way from Persia and Babylonia to the Caspian Gates. Here, it is
said, fifty thousand mares were pastured in the time of the Persians,
and were the king’s stud. The Nesæan horses, the best and largest in the
king’s province, were of this breed, according to some writers, but
according to others they came from Armenia. Their shape is peculiar, as
is that of the Parthian horses, compared with those of Greece and others
in our country.

The herbage which constitutes the chief food of the horses we call
peculiarly by the name of Medic, from its growing in Media in great
abundance. The country produces Silphium,[1051] from which is obtained
the Medic juice, much inferior to the Cyrenaic, but sometimes it excels
the latter, which may be accounted for by the difference of places, or
from a change the plant may undergo, or from the mode of extracting and
preparing the juice so as to continue good when laid by for use.

8. Such then is the nature of the country with respect to magnitude; its
length and breadth are nearly equal. The greatest breadth
(length?)[1052] however seems to be that reckoned from the pass across
the Zagrus, which is called the Median Gate, to the Caspian Gates,
through the country of Sigriana, 4100 stadia.

The account of the tribute paid agrees with the extent and wealth of the
country. Cappadocia paid to the Persians yearly, in addition to a
tribute in silver, 1500 horses, 2000 mules, and 50,000 sheep, and the
Medes contributed nearly double this amount.

9. Many of their customs are the same as those of the Armenians, from
the similarity of the countries which they inhabit. The Medes however
were the first to communicate them to the Armenians, and still before
that time to the Persians, who were their masters, and successors in the
empire of Asia.

[CAS. 526] The Persian stole, as it is now called, the pursuit of
archery and horsemanship, the court paid to their kings, their attire,
and veneration fitting for gods paid by the subjects to the
prince,--these the Persians derived from the Medes. That this is the
fact appears chiefly from their dress. A tiara, a citaris, a hat,[1053]
tunics with sleeves reaching to the hands, and trowsers, are proper to
be worn in cold and northerly places, such as those in Media, but they
are not by any means adapted to inhabitants of the south. The Persians
had their principal settlements on the Gulf of Persia, being situated
more to the south than the Babylonians and the Susii. But after the
overthrow of the Medes they gained possession of some tracts of country
contiguous to Media. The custom however of the vanquished appeared to
the conquerors to be so noble, and appropriate to royal state, that
instead of nakedness or scanty clothing, they endured the use of the
feminine stole, and were entirely covered with dress to the feet.

10. Some writers say that Medeia, when with Jason she ruled in these
countries, introduced this kind of dress, and concealed her countenance
as often as she appeared in public in place of the king; that the
memorials of Jason are, the Jasonian heroa,[1054] held in great
reverence by the Barbarians, (besides a great mountain above the Caspian
Gates on the left hand, called Jasonium,) and that the memorials of
Medeia are the kind of dress, and the name of the country. Medus, her
son, is said to have been her successor in the kingdom, and the country
to have been called after his name. In agreement with this are the
Jasonia in Armenia, the name of the country, and many other
circumstances which we shall mention.

11. It is a Median custom to elect the bravest person as king, but this
does not generally prevail, being confined to the mountain tribes. The
custom for the kings to have many wives is more general, it is found
among all the mountaineers also, but they are not permitted to have less
than five. In the same manner the women think it honourable for husbands
to have as many wives as possible, and esteem it a misfortune if they
have less than five.

While the rest of Media is very fertile, the northern and mountainous
part is barren. The people subsist upon the produce of trees. They make
cakes of apples, sliced and dried, and bread of roasted almonds; they
express a wine from some kind of roots. They eat the flesh of wild
animals, and do not breed any tame animals. So much then respecting the
Medes. As to the laws and customs in common use throughout the whole of
Media, as they are the same as those of the Persians in consequence of
the establishment of the Persian empire, I shall speak of them when I
give an account of the latter nation.




CHAPTER XIV.


1. The southern parts of Armenia lie in front of the Taurus, which
separates Armenia from the whole of the country situated between the
Euphrates and the Tigris, and which is called Mesopotamia. The eastern
parts are contiguous to the Greater Media, and to Atropatene. To the
north are the range of the mountains of Parachoathras lying above the
Caspian Sea, the Albanians, Iberians, and the Caucasus. The Caucasus
encircles these nations, and approaches close to the Armenians, the
Moschic and Colchic mountains, and extends as far as the country of the
people called Tibareni. On the west are these nations and the mountains
Paryadres and Scydises, extending to the Lesser Armenia, and the country
on the side of the Euphrates, which divides Armenia from Cappadocia and
Commagene.

2. The Euphrates rises in the northern side of the Taurus, and flows at
first towards the west through Armenia, it then makes a bend to the
south, and intersects the Taurus between the Armenians, Cappadocians,
and Commageni. Then issuing outwards and entering Syria, it turns
towards the winter sunrise as far as Babylon, and forms Mesopotamia
with the Tigris. Both these rivers terminate in the Persian Gulf.

Such is the nature of the places around Armenia, almost all of them
mountainous and rugged, except a few tracts which verge towards Media.

To the above-mentioned Taurus, which commences again in the country on
the other side of the Euphrates, occupied [CAS. 527] by the Commageni,
and Meliteni formed by the Euphrates, belongs Mount Masius, which is
situated on the south above the Mygdones in Mesopotamia, in whose
territory is Nisibis; on the northern parts is Sophene, lying between
the Masius and Anti-Taurus. Anti-Taurus begins from the Euphrates and
the Taurus, and terminates at the eastern parts of Armenia, enclosing
within it Sophene. It has on the other side Acilisene, which lies
between [Anti-]Taurus and the bed of the Euphrates before it turns to
the south. The royal city of Sophene is Carcathiocerta.[1055]

Above Mount Masius far to the east along Gordyene is the Niphates, then
the Abus,[1056] from which flow both the Euphrates and the Araxes, the
former to the west, the latter to the east; then the Nibarus, which
extends as far as Media.

3. We have described the course of the Euphrates. The Araxes, after
running to the east as far as Atropatene, makes a bend towards the west
and north. It then first flows beside Azara, then by Artaxata,[1057] a
city of the Armenians; afterwards it passes through the plain of
Araxenus to discharge itself into the Caspian Sea.

4. There are many mountains in Armenia, and many mountain plains, in
which not even the vine grows. There are also many valleys, some are
moderately fertile, others are very productive, as the Araxenian plain,
through which the river Araxes flows to the extremities of Albania, and
empties itself into the Caspian Sea. Next is Sacasene, which borders
upon Albania, and the river Cyrus; then Gogarene. All this district
abounds with products of the soil, cultivated fruit trees and
evergreens. It bears also the olive.

There is Phauene, (Phanenæ, Phasiana?) a province of Armenia, Comisene,
and Orchistene, which furnishes large bodies of cavalry.

Chorzene[1058] and Cambysene are the most northerly countries, and
particularly subject to falls of snow. They are contiguous to the
Caucasian mountains, to Iberia, and Colchis. Here, they say, on the
passes over mountains, it frequently happens that whole companies of
persons have been overwhelmed in violent snow-storms. Travellers are
provided against such dangerous accidents with poles, which they force
upwards to the surface of the snow, for the purpose of breathing, and of
signifying their situation to other travellers who may come that way, so
that they may receive assistance, be extricated, and so escape alive.

They say that hollow masses are consolidated in the snow, which contain
good water, enveloped as in a coat; that animals are bred in the snow,
which Apollonides call scoleces,[1059] and Theophanes, thripes, and that
these hollow masses contain good water, which is obtained by breaking
open their coats or coverings. The generation of these animals is
supposed to be similar to that of the gnats, (or mosquitos,) from
flames, and the sparks in mines.

5. According to historians, Armenia, which was formerly a small country,
was enlarged by Artaxias and Zariadris, who had been generals of
Antiochus the Great, and at last, after his overthrow, when they became
kings, (the former of Sophene, Acisene, (Amphissene?) Odomantis, and
some other places, the latter of the country about Artaxata,) they
simultaneously aggrandized themselves, by taking away portions of the
territory of the surrounding nations: from the Medes they took the
Caspiana, Phaunitis, and Basoropeda; from the Iberians, the country at
the foot of the Paryadres, the Chorzene, and Gogarene, which is on the
other side of the Cyrus; from the Chalybes, and the Mosynœci, Carenitis
and Xerxene, which border upon the Lesser Armenia, or are even parts of
it; from the Cataones, Acilisene,[1060] and the country about the
Anti-Taurus; from the Syrians, Taronitis;[1061] hence they all speak the
same language.

6. The cities of Armenia are Artaxata, called also Artaxiasata, [CAS.
529] built by Hannibal for the king Artaxias, and Arxata, both situated
on the Araxes; Arxata on the confines of Atropatia, and Artaxata near
the Araxenian plain; it is well inhabited, and the seat of the kings of
the country. It lies upon a peninsular elbow of land; the river
encircles the walls except at the isthmus, which is enclosed by a ditch
and rampart.

Not far from the city are the treasure-storehouses of Tigranes and
Artavasdes, the strong fortresses Babyrsa, and Olane. There were others
also upon the Euphrates. Ador, (Addon?) the governor of the fortress,
occasioned the revolt of Artageræ, but the generals of Cæsar retook it
after a long siege, and destroyed the walls.

7. There are many rivers in the country. The most celebrated are the
Phasis and Lycus; they empty themselves into the Euxine; (Eratosthenes
instead of the Lycus mentions the Thermodon, but erroneously;) the Cyrus
and the Araxes into the Caspian, and the Euphrates and the Tigris into
the Persian Gulf.

8. There are also large lakes in Armenia; one the Mantiane,[1062] which
word translated signifies Cyane, or Blue, the largest salt-water lake,
it is said, after the Palus Mæotis, extending as far as (Media-)
Atropatia. It has salt pans for the concretion of salt.

The next is Arsene,[1063] which is also called Thopitis. Its waters
contain nitre, and are used for cleaning and fulling clothes. It is
unfit by these qualities for drinking. The Tigris passes through this
lake[1064] after issuing from the mountainous country near the Niphates,
and by its rapidity keeps its stream unmixed with the water of the lake,
whence it has its name, for the Medes call an arrow, Tigris. This river
contains fish of various kinds, but the lake one kind only.

At the extremity of the lake the river falls into a deep cavity in the
earth. After pursuing a long course under-ground, it reappears in the
Chalonitis; thence it goes to Opis, and to the wall of Semiramis, as it
is called, leaving the Gordyæi[1065] and the whole of Mesopotamia on the
right hand. The Euphrates, on the contrary, has the same country on the
left. Having approached one another, and formed Mesopotamia, one
traverses Seleucia in its course to the Persian Gulf, the other Babylon,
as I have said in replying to Eratosthenes and Hipparchus.

9. There are mines of gold in the Hyspiratis,[1066] near Caballa.
Alexander sent Menon to the mines with a body of soldiers, but he was
strangled[1067] by the inhabitants of the country. There are other
mines, and also a mine of Sandyx as it is called, to which is given the
name of Armenian colour, it resembles the Calche.[1068]

This country is so well adapted, being nothing inferior in this respect
to Media, for breeding horses, that the race of Nesæan horses, which the
kings of Persia used, is found here also; the satrap of Armenia used to
send annually to the king of Persia 20,000 foals at the time of the
festival of the Mithracina. Artavasdes, when he accompanied Antony in
his invasion of Media, exhibited, besides other bodies of cavalry, 6000
horse covered with complete armour drawn up in array.

Not only do the Medes and Armenians, but the Albanians also, admire this
kind of cavalry, for the latter use horses covered with armour.

10. Of the riches and power of this country, this is no slight proof,
that when Pompey imposed upon Tigranes, the father of Artavasdes, the
payment of 6000 talents of silver, he immediately distributed the money
among the Roman army, to each soldier 50 drachmæ, 1000 to a centurion,
and a talent to a Hipparch and a Chiliarch.

11. Theophanes represents this as the size of the country; its breadth
to be 100 schœni, and its length double this number, reckoning the
schœnus at 40 stadia; but this computation exceeds the truth. It is
nearer the truth to take the [CAS. 530] length as he has given it, and
the breadth at one half, or a little more.

Such then is the nature of the country of Armenia, and its power.

12. There exists an ancient account of the origin of this nation to the
following effect. Armenus of Armenium, a Thessalian city, which lies
between Pheræ and Larisa on the lake Bœbe, accompanied Jason, as we have
already said, in his expedition into Armenia, and from Armenus the
country had its name, according to Cyrsilus the Pharsalian and Medius
the Larisæan, persons who had accompanied the army of Alexander. Some of
the followers of Armenus settled in Acilisene, which was formerly
subject to the Sopheni; others in the Syspiritis, and spread as far as
Calachene and Adiabene, beyond the borders of Armenia.

The dress of the Armenian people is said to be of Thessalian origin;
such are the long tunics, which in tragedies are called Thessalian; they
are fastened about the body with a girdle, and with a clasp on the
shoulder. The tragedians, for they required some additional decoration
of this kind, imitate the Thessalians in their attire. The Thessalians
in particular, from wearing a long dress, (probably because they inhabit
the most northerly and the coldest country in all Greece,) afforded the
most appropriate subject of imitation to actors for their theatrical
representations. The passion for riding and the care of horses
characterize the Thessalians, and are common to Armenians and Medes.

The Jasonia are evidence of the expedition of Jason: some of these
memorials the sovereigns of the country restored, as Parmenio restored
the temple of Jason at Abdera.

13. It is supposed that Armenus and his companions called the Araxes
by this name on account of its resemblance to the Peneius, for the
Peneius had the name of Araxes from bursting through Tempe, and rending
(ἀπαράξαι) Ossa from Olympus. The Araxes also in Armenia, descending
from the mountains, is said to have spread itself in ancient times,
and to have overflowed the plains, like a sea, having no outlet; that
Jason, in imitation of what is to be seen at Tempe, made the opening
through which the water at present precipitates itself into the Caspian
Sea; that upon this the Araxenian plain, through which the river flows
to the cataract, became uncovered. This story which is told of the
river Araxes contains some probability; that of Herodotus[1069] none
whatever. For he says that, after flowing out of the country of the
Matiani, it is divided into forty rivers, and separates the Scythians
from the Bactrians. Callisthenes has followed Herodotus.

14. Some tribes of Ænianes are mentioned, some of whom settled in Vitia,
others above the Armenians beyond the Abus and the Nibarus. These latter
are branches of Taurus; the Abus is near the road which leads to
Ecbatana by the temple of Baris (Zaris?).

Some tribes of Thracians, surnamed Saraparæ, or decapitators, are said
to live above Armenia, near the Gouranii and Medes. They are a savage
people, intractable mountaineers, and scalp and decapitate strangers;
for such is the meaning of the term Saraparæ.

I have spoken of Medeia in the account of Media, and it is conjectured
from all the circumstances that the Medes and Armenians are allied in
some way to the Thessalians, descended from Jason and Medeia.

15. This is the ancient account, but the more recent, and extending from
the time of the Persians to our own age, may be given summarily, and in
part only (as follows); Persians and Macedonians gained possession of
Armenia, next those who were masters of Syria and Media. The last was
Orontes, a descendant of Hydarnes, one of the seven Persians: it was
then divided into two portions by Artaxias and Zariadris, generals of
Antiochus the Great, who made war against the Romans. These were
governors by permission of the king, but upon his overthrow they
attached themselves to the Romans, were declared independent, and had
the title of kings. Tigranes was a descendant of Artaxias, and had
Armenia, properly so called. This country was contiguous to Media, to
the Albani, and to the Iberes, and extended as far as Colchis, and
Cappadocia upon the Euxine.

Artanes the Sophenian was the descendant of Zariadris, and had the
southern parts of Armenia, which verge rather to the west. He was
defeated by Tigranes, who became master of the whole country. He had
experienced many vicissitudes of fortune. At first he had served as a
[CAS. 532] hostage among the Parthians; then by their means he returned
to his country, in compensation for which service they obtained seventy
valleys in Armenia. When he acquired power, he recovered these valleys,
and devastated the country of the Parthians, the territory about Ninus,
and that about Arbela.[1070] He subjected to his authority the
Atropatenians, and the Gordyæans; by force of arms he obtained
possession also of the rest of Mesopotamia, and, after crossing the
Euphrates, of Syria and Phœnicia. Having attained this height of
prosperity, he even founded near Iberia,[1071] between this country and
the Zeugma on the Euphrates, a city, which he named Tigranocerta, and
collected inhabitants out of twelve Grecian cities, which he had
depopulated. But Lucullus, who had commanded in the war against
Mithridates, surprised him, thus engaged, and dismissed the inhabitants
to their respective homes. The buildings which were half finished he
demolished, and left a small village remaining. He drove Tigranes both
out of Syria and Phœnicia.

Artavasdes, his successor, prospered as long as he continued a friend of
the Romans. But having betrayed Antony to the Parthians in the war with
that people, he suffered punishment for his treachery. He was carried in
chains to Alexandria, by order of Antony, led in procession through the
city, and kept in prison for a time. On the breaking out of the Actiac
war he was then put to death. Many kings reigned after Artavasdes, who
were dependent upon Cæsar and the Romans. The country is still governed
in the same manner.

16. Both the Medes and Armenians have adopted all the sacred rites of
the Persians, but the Armenians pay particular reverence to Anaïtis, and
have built temples to her honour in several places, especially in
Acilisene. They dedicate there to her service male and female slaves; in
this there is nothing remarkable, but it is surprising that persons of
the highest rank in the nation consecrate their virgin daughters to the
goddess. It is customary for these women, after being prostituted a
long period at the temple of Anaïtis, to be disposed of in marriage, no
one disdaining a connexion with such persons. Herodotus mentions
something similar respecting the Lydian women, all of whom prostitute
themselves. But they treat their paramours with much kindness, they
entertain them hospitably, and frequently make a return of more presents
than they receive, being amply supplied with means derived from their
wealthy connexions. They do not admit into their dwellings accidental
strangers, but prefer those of a rank equal to their own.




BOOK XII.

CAPPADOCIA.

SUMMARY.


   The Twelfth Book contains the remainder of Pontus, viz.
   Cappadocia, Galatia, Bithynia, Mysia, Phrygia, and Mæonia: the
   cities, Sinope in Pontus, Heracleia, and Amaseia, and likewise
   Isauria, Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, with the islands lying
   along the coast; the mountains and rivers.




CHAPTER I.


1.[1072]Cappadocia consists of many parts, and has experienced frequent
changes.

The nations speaking the same language are chiefly those who are bounded
on the south by the Cilician Taurus,[1073] as it is called; on the east
by Armenia, Colchis, and by the intervening nations who speak different
languages; on the north by the Euxine, as far as the mouth of the
Halys;[1074] on the west by the Paphlagonians, and by the Galatians, who
migrated into Phrygia, and spread themselves as far as Lycaonia, and the
Cilicians, who occupy Cilicia Tracheia (Cilicia the mountainous).[1075]

2. Among the nations that speak the same language, the ancients placed
the Cataonians by themselves, contra-distinguishing them from the
Cappadocians, whom they considered as a different people. In the
enumeration of the nations they placed Cataonia after Cappadocia, then
the Euphrates, and the nations on the other side of that river, so as to
include even Melitene in Cataonia, although Melitene lies between
Cataonia and the Euphrates, approaches close to Commagene, and
constitutes a tenth portion of Cappadocia, according to the division of
the country into ten provinces. For the kings in our times who preceded
Archelaus[1076] usually divided the kingdom of Cappadocia in this
manner.

Cataonia is a tenth portion of Cappadocia. In our time each province had
its own governor, and since no difference appears in the language of the
Cataonians compared with that of the other Cappadocians, nor any
difference in their customs, it is surprising how entirely the
characteristic marks of a foreign nation have disappeared, yet they were
distinct nations; Ariarathes, the first who bore the title of king of
the Cappadocians, annexed the Cataonians to Cappadocia.

3. This country composes the isthmus, as it were, of a large peninsula
formed by two seas; by the bay of Issus, extending to Cilicia Tracheia,
and by the Euxine lying between Sinope and the coast of the Tibareni.

The isthmus cuts off what we call the peninsula; the whole tract lying
to the west of the Cappadocians, to which Herodotus[1077] gives the name
of the country within the Halys. This is the country the whole of which
was the kingdom of Crœsus. Herodotus calls him king of the nations on
this side the river Halys. But writers of the present time give the name
of Asia, which is the appellation of the whole continent, to the country
within the Taurus.

This Asia comprises, first, the nations on the east, Paphlagonians,
Phrygians, and Lycaonians; then Bithynians, Mysians, and the Epictetus;
besides these, Troas, and Hellespontia; next to these, and situated on
the sea, are the Æolians and Ionians, who are Greeks; the inhabitants of
the remaining portions are Carians and Lycians, and in the inland parts
are Lydians.

We shall speak hereafter of the other nations.

4. The Macedonians obtained possession of Cappadocia after it had been
divided by the Persians into two satrapies, and permitted, partly with
and partly without the consent of the people, the satrapies to be
altered to two kingdoms, one of which they called Cappadocia Proper, and
Cappadocia [CAS. 534] near the Taurus, or Cappadocia the Great; the
other they called Pontus, but according to other writers, Cappadocia on
Pontus.

We are ignorant at present how Cappadocia the Great was at first
distributed; upon the death of Archelaus the king, Cæsar and the senate
decreed that it should be a Roman province. But when the country was
divided in the time of Archelaus and of preceding kings into ten
provinces, they reckoned five near the Taurus, Melitene, Cataonia,
Cilicia, Tyanītis, and Garsaurītis; the remaining five were Laviansene,
Sargarausene, Saravene, Chamanene, Morimene. The Romans afterwards
assigned to the predecessors of Archelaus an eleventh province formed
out of Cilicia, consisting of the country about Castabala and
Cybistra,[1078] extending to Derbe, belonging to Antipater, the robber.
Cilicia Trachea about Elæussa was assigned to Archelaus, and all the
country which served as the haunts of pirates.




CHAPTER II.


1. Melitene resembles Commagene, for the whole of it is planted with
fruit-trees, and is the only part of all Cappadocia which is planted in
this manner. It produces oil, and the wine Monarites, which vies with
the wines of Greece. It is situated opposite to Sophene, having the
river Euphrates flowing between it and Commagene, which borders upon it.
In the country on the other side of the river is Tomisa, a considerable
fortress of the Cappadocians. It was sold to the prince of Sophene for a
hundred talents. Lucullus presented it afterwards as a reward of valour
to the Cappadocian prince for his services in the war against
Mithridates.

2. Cataonia is a plain, wide and hollow,[1079] and produces everything
except evergreen trees. It is surrounded by mountains, and among others
by the Amanus on the side towards the south, a mass separated from the
Cilician Taurus, and also by the Anti-Taurus,[1080] a mass rent off in a
contrary direction. The Amanus extends from Cataonia to Cilicia, and
the Syrian sea towards the west and south. In this intervening space it
comprises the whole of the gulf of Issus, and the plains of the
Cilicians which lie towards the Taurus. But the Anti-Taurus inclines to
the north, and a little also to the east, and then terminates in the
interior of the country.

3. In the Anti-Taurus are deep and narrow valleys, in which is situated
Comana,[1081] and the temple of Enyus (Bellona), which they call Ma.
It is a considerable city. It contains a very great multitude of
persons who at times are actuated by divine impulse, and of servants of
the temple. It is inhabited by Cataonians, who are chiefly under the
command of the priest, but in other respects subject to the king. The
former presides over the temple, and has authority over the servants
belonging to it, who, at the time that I was there, exceeded in number
six thousand persons, including men and women. A large tract of land
adjoins the temple, the revenue of which the priest enjoys. He is
second in rank in Cappadocia after the king, and, in general, the
priests are descended from the same family as the kings. Orestes, when
he came hither with his sister Iphigenia from Tauric Scythia,[1082]
is thought to have introduced the sacred rites performed in honour of
Diana Tauropolus, and to have deposited here the tresses (Coman, κόμην)
of mourning, from which the city had the name of Comana.

The river Sarus flows through this city, and passes out through the
valleys of the Taurus to the plains of Cilicia, and to the sea lying
below them.

4. The Pyramus,[1083] which has its source in the middle of the plain,
is navigable throughout Cataonia. There is a large subterraneous
channel, through which the water flows under-ground to a great distance,
and then may be seen springing up again to the surface. If an arrow is
let down into the pit from above, the resistance of the water is so
great that it is scarcely immersed. Although it pursues its course with
great[1084] depth and breadth, it undergoes an extraordinary contraction
of its size by the time it has reached the Taurus. There is also an
extraordinary fissure in the mountain, through which the stream is
carried. For, as in rocks which have burst and split in two [CAS. 536]
parts, the projections in one correspond so exactly with the hollows in
the other that they might even be fitted together, so here I have seen
the rocks at the distance of two or three plethra, overhanging the river
on each side, and nearly reaching to the summit of the mountain, with
hollows on one side answering to projections on the other. The bed
between (the mountains) is entirely rock; it has a deep and very narrow
fissure through the middle, so that a dog and a hare might leap across
it. This is the channel of the river; it is full to the margin, and in
breadth resembles a canal.[1085] But on account of the winding of its
course, the great contraction of the stream, and the depth of the
ravine, a noise, like that of thunder, strikes at a distance on the ears
of those who approach it. In passing out through the mountains, it
brings down from Cataonia, and from the Cilician plains, so great a
quantity of alluvial soil to the sea, that an oracle to the following
effect is reported to have been uttered respecting it:

   “The time will come, when Pyramus, with its deep whirlpools,
   by advancing on the sea-shore, will reach the sacred Cyprus.”

Something similar to this takes place in Egypt. The Nile is continually
converting the sea into continent by an accumulation of earth;
accordingly Herodotus calls Egypt a gift of the river, and Homer says,
that the Pharos was formerly out at sea, not as it is at present
connected with the mainland of Egypt.

5. [The third[1086] in rank is the Dacian priesthood of Jupiter,
inferior to this, but still of importance.] There is at this place a
body of salt water, having the circumference of a considerable lake. It
is shut in by lofty and perpendicular hills, so that the descent is by
steps. The water it is said does not increase in quantity, nor has it
anywhere an apparent outlet.

6. Neither the plain of the Cataonians nor Melitene have any city, but
strongholds upon the mountains, as Azamora, and Dastarcum, round which
runs the river Carmalas.[1087] There is also the temple of the Cataonian
Apollo, which is venerated throughout the whole of Cappadocia, and
which the Cappadocians have taken as a model of their own temples. Nor
have the other provinces, except two, any cities. Of the rest,
Sargarausene has a small town Herpa, and a river Carmalas, which also
discharges itself into the Cilician sea.[1088] In the other provinces is
Argos, a lofty fortress near the Taurus, and Nora, now called Neroassus,
in which Eumenes sustained a long siege. In our time it was a
treasure-hold of Sisinus, who attempted to take possession of the
kingdom of Cappadocia. To him belonged Cadena, a royal seat, built after
the form of a city. Situated upon the borders of Lycaonia is Garsauira,
a village town, said to have been formerly the capital of the country.

In Morimene, among the Venasii, is a temple of Jupiter, with buildings
capable of receiving nearly three thousand servants of the temple. It
has a tract of sacred land attached to it, very fertile, and affording
to the priest a yearly revenue of fifteen talents. The priest is
appointed for life like the priest at Comana, and is next to him in
rank.

7. Two provinces only have cities. In the Tyanitis is Tyana,[1089] lying
at the foot of the Taurus at the Cilician Gates,[1090] where are the
easiest and the most frequented passes into Cilicia and Syria. It is
called, “Eusebeia at the Taurus.” Tyanitis is fertile, and the greatest
part of it consists of plains. Tyana is built upon the mound of
Semiramis, which is fortified with good walls. At a little distance from
this city are Castabala and Cybistra, towns which approach still nearer
to the mountain. At Castabala is a temple of Diana Perasia, where, it is
said, the priestesses walk with naked feet unhurt upon burning coals. To
this place some persons apply the story respecting Orestes and Diana
Tauropolus, and say that the goddess was called Perasia, because she was
conveyed from beyond (πέραθεν) sea.

In Tyanitis, one of the ten provinces above mentioned, is the city
Tyana. But with these I do not reckon the cities that were afterwards
added, Castabala, and Cybistra, and those in Cilicia Tracheia, to which
belongs Elæussa, a small [CAS. 538] fertile island, which Archelaus
furnished with excellent buildings, where he passed the greater part of
his time.

In the Cilician province, as it is called, is Mazaca,[1091] the capital
of the nation. It is also called “Eusebeia,” with the addition “at the
Argæus,” for it is situated at the foot of the Argæus,[1092] the highest
mountain in that district; its summit is always covered with snow.
Persons who ascend it (but they are not many) say that both the Euxine
and the sea of Issus may be seen from thence in clear weather.

Mazaca is not adapted in other respects by nature for the settlement of
a city, for it is without water, and unfortified. Through the neglect of
the governors, it is without walls, perhaps intentionally, lest,
trusting to the wall as to a fortification, the inhabitants of a plain,
which has hills situated above it, and not exposed to the attacks of
missile weapons, should addict themselves to robbery. The country about,
although it consists of plains, is entirely barren and uncultivated, for
the soil is sandy, and rocky underneath. At a little distance further
there are burning plains, and pits full of fire to an extent of many
stadia, so that the necessaries of life are brought from a distance.
What seems to be a peculiar advantage (abundance of wood) is a source of
danger. For though nearly the whole of Cappadocia is without timber, the
Argæus is surrounded by a forest, so that wood may be procured near at
hand, yet even the region lying below the forest contains fire in many
parts, and springs of cold water; but as neither the fire nor the water
break out upon the surface, the greatest part of the country is covered
with herbage. In some parts the bottom is marshy, and flames burst out
from the ground by night. Those acquainted with the country collect wood
with caution; but there is danger to others, and particularly to cattle,
which fall into these hidden pits of fire.

8. In the plain in front of the city, and about 40 stadia from it, is a
river of the name of Melas,[1093] whose source is in ground lower than
the level of the city. It is useless to the inhabitants, because it
does not flow from an elevated situation. It spreads abroad in marshes
and lakes, and in the summer-time corrupts the air round the city. A
valuable stone quarry is rendered almost useless by it. For there are
extensive beds of stone, from which the Mazaceni obtain an abundant
supply of materials for building, but the slabs, being covered with
water, are not easily detached by the workmen. These are the marshes
which in every part are subject to take fire.

Ariarathes the king filled in some narrow channels by which the Melas
entered the Halys, and converted the neighbouring plain into a wide
lake. There he selected some small islands like the Cyclades, where he
passed his time in boyish and frivolous diversions. The barrier,
however, was broken down all at once, and the waters again flowed abroad
and swelled the Halys, which swept away a large part of the Cappadocian
territory, and destroyed many buildings and plantations; it also damaged
a considerable part of the country of the Galatians, who occupy Phrygia.
In compensation for this injury he paid a fine of three hundred talents
to the inhabitants, who had referred the matter to the decision of the
Romans. The same was the case at Herpa; for he there obstructed the
stream of the Carmalas, and, on the bursting of the <DW18>, the water
damaged some of the places in the Cilician territories about Mallus; he
was obliged to make compensation to those who had sustained injury.

9. Although the territory of the Mazaceni is destitute in many respects
of natural advantages, it seems to have been preferred by the kings as a
place of residence, because it was nearest the centre of those districts
which supplied timber, stone for building, and fodder, of which a very
large quantity was required for the subsistence of their cattle. Their
city was almost a camp. The security of their persons and treasure[1094]
depended upon the protection afforded by numerous fortresses, some of
which belonged to the king, others to their friends.

Mazaca is distant from Pontus[1095] about 800 stadia to the south, and
from the Euphrates a little less than double that distance; from the
Cilician Gates and the camp of Cyrus, a [CAS. 539] journey of six days
by way of Tyana,[1096] which is situated about the middle of the route,
and is distant from Cybistra 300 stadia. The Mazaceni adopt the laws of
Charondas, and elect a Nomōdist, (or Chanter of the Laws,) who, like the
Jurisconsults of the Romans, is the interpreter of their laws. Tigranes
the Armenian, when he overran Cappadocia, treated them with great
severity. He forced them to abandon their settlements, and go into
Mesopotamia; they peopled Tigranocerta, chiefly by their numbers.
Afterwards, upon the capture of Tigranocerta, those who were able
returned to their own country.

10. The breadth of the country from Pontus to the Taurus is about 1800
stadia; the length from Lycaonia and Phrygia, as far as the Euphrates to
the east, and Armenia, is about 3000 stadia. The soil is fertile, and
abounds with fruits of the earth, particularly corn, and with cattle of
all kinds. Although it lies more to the south than Pontus, it is colder.
Bagadania, although a plain country, and situated more towards the south
than any district in Cappadocia, (for it lies at the foot of the
Taurus,) produces scarcely any fruit-bearing trees. It affords pasture
for wild asses, as does a large portion of the other parts of the
country, particularly that about Garsauira, Lycaonia, and Morimene.

In Cappadocia is found the red earth called the Sinopic, which is better
than that of any other country. The Spanish only can rival it. It had
the name of Sinopic, because the merchants used to bring it down from
Sinope, before the traffic of the Ephesians extended as far as the
people of Cappadocia. It is said that even plates of crystal and of the
onyx stone were discovered by the miners of Archelaus near the country
of the Galatians. There was a place where was found a white stone of the
colour of ivory in pieces of the size of small whetstones, from which
were made handles for small swords. Another place produced large masses
of transparent stone for windows, which were exported.

The boundary of Pontus and Cappadocia is a mountainous range parallel
to the Taurus, commencing from the western extremities of Chammanene,
(where stands Dasmenda, a fortress built upon a precipice,) and
extending to the eastern parts of Laviansene. Both Chammanene and
Laviansene are provinces of Cappadocia.

11. When the Romans, after the defeat of Antiochus, first governed Asia,
they made treaties of friendship and alliance both with the nations and
with the kings. This honour was conferred upon the other kings
separately and independently, but upon the king of Cappadocia in common
with the nation. On the extinction of the royal race, the Romans
admitted the independence of the Cappadocians according to the treaty of
friendship and alliance which they had made with the nation. The
deputies excused themselves from accepting the liberty which was offered
to them, declaring that they were unable to bear it, and requested that
a king might be appointed. The Romans were surprised that any people
should be unwilling to enjoy liberty, but permitted[1097] them to elect
by suffrage any one they pleased from among themselves. They elected
Ariobarzanes. The race became extinct in the third generation.
Archelaus, who was not connected with the nation, was appointed king by
Antony.

So much respecting the Greater Cappadocia.

With regard to Cilicia Tracheia, which was annexed to the Greater
Cappadocia, it will be better to describe it when we give an account of
the whole of Cilicia.




CHAPTER III.


1. Mithridates Eupator was appointed King of Pontus. His kingdom
consisted of the country bounded by the Halys,[1098] extending to the
Tibareni,[1099] to Armenia, to the territory within the Halys, extending
as far as Amastris,[1100] and to some parts of Paphlagonia. He annexed
to (the kingdom of) Pontus the sea-coast towards the west as far as
Heracleia,[1101] the birth-place of Heracleides the Platonic philosopher,
and towards [CAS. 541] the east, the country extending to Colchis, and
the Lesser Armenia. Pompey, after the overthrow of Mithridates, found
the kingdom comprised within these boundaries. He distributed the
country towards Armenia and towards Colchis among the princes who had
assisted him in the war; the remainder he divided into eleven
governments, and annexed them to Bithynia, so that out of both there was
formed one province. Some people in the inland parts he subjected to the
kings descended from Pylæmenes, in the same manner as he delivered over
the Galatians to be governed by tetrarchs of that nation.

In later times the Roman emperors made different divisions of the same
country, appointing kings and rulers, making some cities free, and
subjecting others to the authority of rulers, others again were left
under the dominion of the Roman people.

As we proceed in our description according to the present state of
things, we shall touch slightly on their former condition, whenever it
may be useful.

I shall begin from Heracleia,[1102] which is the most westerly of these
places.

2. In sailing out of the Propontis into the Euxine Sea, on the left hand
are the parts adjoining to Byzantium, (Constantinople,) and these belong
to the Thracians. The parts on the left of the Pontus are called
Aristera (or left) of Pontus; the parts on the right are contiguous to
Chalcedon. Of these the first tract of country belongs to the
Bithynians, the next to the Mariandyni, or, as some say, to the
Caucones; next is that of the Paphlagonians, extending to the Halys,
then that of the Cappadocians near the Pontus, and then a district
reaching to Colchis.[1103] All this country has the name of the Dexia
(or right) of Pontus. This whole coast, from Colchis to Heracleia, was
subject to Mithridates Eupator. But the parts on the other side to the
mouth of the Euxine and Chalcedon, remained under the government of the
king of Bithynia. After the overthrow of the kings the Romans preserved
the same boundaries of the kingdoms; Heracleia was annexed to Pontus,
and the country beyond assigned to the Bithynians.

3. It is generally acknowledged by writers, that the Bithynians, who
were formerly Mysians, received this name from Bithynians and Thyni,
Thracian people, who came and settled among them. They advance as a
proof of their statement, first as regards the Bithynians, that there
still exists in Thrace a people called Bithynians, and then, as regards
the Thyni, that the sea-shore, near Apollonia[1104] and
Salmydessus,[1105] is called Thynias. The Bebryces, who preceded them as
settlers in Mysia, were, as I conjecture, Thracians. We have said[1106]
that the Mysians themselves were a colony of those Thracians who are now
called Mæsi.

Such is the account given of these people.

4. There is not, however, the same agreement among writers with regard
to the Mariandyni, and the Caucones. For they say that Heracleia is
situated among the Mariandyni, and was founded by Milesians.[1107] But
who they are, or whence they came, nothing is said. There is no
difference in language, nor any other apparent national distinction
between them and the Bithynians, whom they resemble in all respects. It
is probable therefore the Mariandyni were a Thracian tribe.

Theopompus says that Mariandynus, who governed a part of Paphlagonia,
which was subject to many masters, invaded and obtained possession of
the country of the Bebryces, and that he gave his own name to the
territory which he had before occupied. It is also said that the
Milesians who first founded Heracleia, compelled the Mariandyni, the
former possessors of the place, to serve as Helots, and even sold them,
but not beyond the boundaries of their country. For they were sold on
the same conditions as the class of persons called Mnoans, who were
slaves to the Cretans, and the Penestæ,[1108] who were slaves of the
Thessalians.

5. The Caucones, who, according to history, inhabited the line of
sea-coast which extends from the Mariandyni as far as the river
Parthenius, and to whom belonged the city Tieium,[1109] [CAS. 542] are
said by some writers to be Scythians, by others a tribe of Macedonians,
and by others a tribe of Pelasgi. We have already spoken of these people
elsewhere.[1110] Callisthenes in his comment upon the enumeration of the
ships inserts after this verse,

   “Cromna, Ægialus, and the lofty Erythini,”[1111]

these lines,

   “The brave son of Polycles led the Caucones,
   Who inhabited the well-known dwellings about the river Parthenius,”

for the territory extends from Heracleia, and the Mariandyni as far as
the Leucosyri, whom we call Cappadocians. But the tribe of the Caucones
about Tieium extends to the Parthenius; that of the Heneti, who occupy
Cytorum,[1112] immediately follows the Parthenius, and even at present
some Caucones are living about the Parthenius.

6. Heracleia is a city with a good harbour, and of importance in other
respects. It has sent out colonies, among which are the
Cherronesus,[1113] and the Callatis.[1114] It was once independent,
afterwards for some time it was under the power of tyrants; it again
recovered its freedom; but at last, when subject to the Romans, it was
governed by kings. It received a colony of Romans, which was settled in
a portion of the city, and of its territory. A little before the battle
of Actium, Adiatorix, the son of Domnecleius the tetrarch of Galatia,
who had received from Antony that portion of the city of which the
Heracleiotæ were in possession, attacked the Romans by night, and put
them to death by the command, as he said, of Antony; but after the
victory at Actium, he was led in triumph, and put to death together with
his son. The city belongs to the province of Pontus, which was annexed
to Bithynia.

7. Between Chalcedon and Heracleia are several rivers, as the
Psillis,[1115] the Calpas, and the Sangarius, of which last the poet
makes mention.[1116] It has its source at the village Sangias, at the
distance of 150 stadia from Pessinus. It flows through the greater part
of Phrygia Epictetus, and a part also of Bithynia, so that it is distant
from Nicomedia a little more than 300 stadia, where the river Gallus
unites with it. The latter river has its source at Modra in Phrygia on
the Hellespont, which is the same country as the Epictetus, and was
formerly occupied by the Bithynians.

The Sangarius thus increased in bulk, and navigable, although not so
formerly, is the boundary of Bithynia at the part of the coast where it
discharges itself. In front of this coast is the island Thynia.

In the territory of Heracleia grows the aconite.

This city is distant from the temple at Chalcedon about 1500, and from
the Sangarius 500, stadia.

8. Tieium is now a small town and has nothing remarkable belonging to
it, except that it was the birth-place of Philetærus, the founder of the
family of the Attalic kings.

Next is the river Parthenius, flowing through a country abounding with
flowers; from these it obtained its name.[1117] Its source is in
Paphlagonia. Then succeeded Paphlagonia, and the Heneti. It is a
question what Heneti the poet means, when he says,

   “the brave Pylæmenes led the Paphlagonians out of the country
   of the Heneti, where they have a race of wild mules;”[1118]

for at present, they say, no Heneti are to be found in Paphlagonia.
Others say that it is a village on the shore distant ten schœni from
Amastris. But Zenodotus writes the verse in this manner, “From Heneta,”
and says that it means the present Amisus. According to others it was a
tribe bordering upon the Cappadocians, which engaged in an expedition
with the Cimmerians, and were afterwards driven away into Adria. But the
account most generally received is, that the Heneti were the most
considerable tribe of the Paphlagonians; that Pylæmenes was descended
from it; that a large body of this people accompanied him to the Trojan
war; that when they had lost their leader they passed over to Thrace
upon the capture of Troy; and in the course of their wanderings arrived
at the present Henetic territory.

Some writers say that both Antenor and his sons participated in this
expedition, and settled at the inner recess of the [CAS. 544] gulf of
Adria, as we have said in the description of Italy.[1119] It is probable
that this was the cause of the extinction of the Heneti, and that they
were no longer to be found in Paphlagonia.

9. The boundary of the Paphlagonians to the east is the river Halys,
which flows from the south between the Syrians and the Paphlagonians;
and according to Herodotus,[1120] (who means Cappadocians, when he is
speaking of Syrians,) discharges itself into the Euxine Sea. Even at
present they are called Leuco-Syrians, (or White Syrians,) while those
without the Taurus are called Syrians. In comparison with the people
within the Taurus, the latter have a burnt complexion; but the former,
not having it, received the appellation of Leuco-Syrians (or White
Syrians). Pindar says that

   “the Amazons commanded a Syrian band, armed with spears with
   broad iron heads;”

thus designating the people that lived at Themiscyra.[1121] Themiscyra
belongs to the Amiseni,[1122] and the district of the Amiseni to the
Leuco-Syrians settled beyond the Halys.

The river Halys forms the boundary of the Paphlagonians to the east;
Phrygians and the Galatians settled among that people, on the south; and
on the west Bithynians and Mariandyni (for the race of the Caucones has
everywhere entirely disappeared); on the north the Euxine. This country
is divided into two parts, the inland, and the maritime, extending from
the Halys as far as Bithynia. Mithridates Eupator possessed the maritime
part as far as Heracleia, and of the inland country he had the district
nearest to Heracleia, some parts of which extended even beyond the
Halys. These are also the limits of the Roman province of Pontus. The
remainder was subject to chiefs, even after the overthrow of
Mithridates.

We shall afterwards speak of those Paphlagonians in the inland parts,
who were not subject to Mithridates; we propose at present to describe
the country which he governed, called Pontus.

10. After the river Parthenius is Amastris, bearing the same name as the
princess by whom it was founded. It is situated upon a peninsula, with
harbours on each side of the isthmus. Amastris was the wife of
Dionysius, the tyrant of Heracleia, and daughter of Oxyathres, the
brother of the Darius who fought against Alexander. She formed the
settlement out of four cities, Sesamus, Cytorum, Cromna, (mentioned by
Homer in his recital of the Paphlagonian forces,[1123]) and Tieium,
which city however soon separated from the others, but the rest
continued united. Of these, Sesamus is called the citadel of Amastris.
Cytorum was formerly a mart of the people of Sinope. It had its name
from Cytorus, the son of Phrixus, according to Ephorus. Box-wood of the
best quality grows in great abundance in the territory of Amastris, and
particularly about Cytorum.

Ægialus is a line of sea-coast, in length more than 100 stadia. On it is
a village of the same name,[1124] which the poet mentions in these
lines,

   “Cromna, and Ægialus, and the lofty Erythini;”[1125]

but some authors write,

   “Cromna and Cobialus.”

The Erythini are said to be the present Erythrini, and to have their
name from their (red) colour. They are two rocks.[1126]

Next to Ægialus is Carambis, a large promontory stretching towards the
north, and the Scythian Chersonesus. We have frequently mentioned this
promontory, and the Criu-metopon opposite it, which divides the Euxine
into two seas.[1127]

Next to Carambis is Cinolis,[1128] and Anti-Cinolis, and
Aboniteichos,[1129] a small city, and Armene,[1130] which gave rise to
the common proverb;

   “He who had nothing to do built a wall about Armene.”

It is a village of the Sinopenses, with a harbour.

11. Next is Sinope itself, distant from Armene 50 stadia, the most
considerable of all the cities in that quarter. It was founded by
Milesians, and when the inhabitants had established a naval force they
commanded the sea within the Cyanean [CAS. 545] rocks, and were allies
of the Greeks in many naval battles beyond these limits. Although this
city was independent for a long period, it did not preserve its liberty
to the last, but was taken by siege, and became subject first to
Pharnaces, then to his successors, to the time when the Romans put an
end to the power of Mithridates Eupator. This prince was born and
brought up in this city, on which he conferred distinguished honour, and
made it a capital of the kingdom. It has received advantages from nature
which have been improved by art. It is built upon the neck of a
peninsula; on each side of the isthmus are harbours, stations for
vessels, and fisheries worthy of admiration for the capture of the
pelamydes. Of these fisheries we have said[1131] that the people of
Sinope have the second, and the Byzantines the third, in point of
excellence.

The peninsula projects in a circular form; the shores are surrounded by
a chain of rocks, and in some parts there are cavities, like rocky pits,
which are called Chœnicides. These are filled when the sea is high. For
the above reason, the place is not easily approached; besides which,
along the whole surface of rock the road is covered with sharp-pointed
stones, and persons cannot walk upon it with naked feet. The lands in
the higher parts and above the city have a good soil, and are adorned
with fields dressed as gardens, and this is the case in a still greater
degree in the suburbs. The city itself is well secured with walls, and
magnificently ornamented with a gymnasium, forum, and porticos.
Notwithstanding these advantages for defence, it was twice taken; first
by Pharnaces, who attacked it unexpectedly; afterwards by Lucullus, who
besieged it while it was harassed by an insidious tyrant within the
walls. For Bacchides,[1132] who was appointed by the king commander of
the garrison, being always suspicious of treachery on the part of those
within the city, had disgraced and put many to death. He thus prevented
the citizens both from defending themselves with bravery, although
capable of making a gallant defence, and from offering terms for a
capitulation. The city was therefore captured. Lucullus took away the
Sphere of Billarus,[1133] and the Autolycus,[1134] the workmanship of
Sthenis, whom the citizens regarded as a founder, and honoured as a god;
he left the other ornaments of the city untouched. There was there an
oracle of Sthenis. He seems to have been one of the companions of Jason
in his voyage, and to have got possession of this place. In after times
the Milesians, observing the natural advantages of the city, and the
weakness of the inhabitants, appropriated it as their own, and sent out
colonists. It has at present a Roman colony, and a part of the city and
of the territory belongs to the Romans. It is distant from Hieron[1135]
3500, from Heracleia 2000, and from Carambis 700, stadia. It has
produced men distinguished among philosophers, Diogenes the Cynic, and
Timotheus surnamed Patrion; among poets, Diphilus, the writer of comedy;
among historians, Baton,[1136] who wrote the history of Persia.

12. Proceeding thence, next in order is the mouth of the river Halys. It
has its name from the _hales_, or salt mines,[1137] near which it flows.
It has its source in the Greater Cappadocia, near the territory of
Pontus, in Camisene. It flows in a large stream towards the west, then
turning to the north through the country of the Galatians and
Paphlagonians, forms the boundary of their territory, and of that of the
Leuco-Syrians. The tract of land belonging to Sinope and all the
mountainous country as far as Bithynia, situated above the sea-coast,
which has been described, furnishes timber of excellent quality for
ship-building, and is easily conveyed away. The territory of [CAS. 546]
Sinope produces the maple, and the mountain nut tree, from which wood
for tables is cut. The whole country is planted with the olive, and
cultivation begins a little above the sea-coast.

13. Next to the mouth of the Halys is Gadilonítis, extending as far as
the Saramene; it is a fertile country, wholly consisting of plains, and
produces every kind of fruit. It affords also pasture for flocks of
sheep which are covered[1138] with skins, and produce a soft wool; very
little of this wool is to be found throughout Cappadocia and Pontus.
There are also deer,[1139] which are rare in other parts.

The Amiseni possess one part of this country. Pompey gave another to
Deïotarus, as well as the tract about Pharnacia and Trapezus as far as
Colchis and the Lesser Armenia. Pompey appointed him king of these
people and countries: he had already inherited the tetrarchy of the
Galatians, called the Tolistobogii. Upon his death various persons
succeeded to the different parts of his kingdom.

14. Next to Gadilon[1140] are the Saramene,[1141] and Amisus, a
considerable city distant from Sinope about 900 stadia. Theopompus says
that the Milesians were the first founders, * * * * * * *[1142] [then by]
a chief of the Cappadocians; in the third place it received a colony of
Athenians under the conduct of Athenocles, and its name was changed to
Piræeus.

This city also was in the possession of the kings. Mithridates Eupator
embellished it with temples, and added a part to it. Lucullus, and
afterwards Pharnaces, who came from across the Bosporus, besieged it.
Antony surrendered it to the kings of Pontus, after it had been declared
free by Divus Cæsar. Then the Tyrant Strato oppressed the inhabitants,
who again recovered their liberty under Cæsar Augustus after the battle
of Actium. They are now in a prosperous condition. Among other fertile
spots is Themiscyra,[1143] the abode of the Amazons, and Sidene.[1144]

15. Themiscyra is a plain, partly washed by the sea, and distant about
60 stadia from the city (Amisus); and partly situated at the foot of a
mountainous country, which is well wooded, and intersected with rivers,
which have their source among the mountains. A river, named Thermodon,
which receives the water of all these rivers, traverses the plain.

Another river very similar to this, of the name of Iris,[1145] flowing
from a place called Phanarœa,[1146] traverses the same plain. It has its
sources in Pontus. Flowing westward through the city of Pontic
Comana,[1147] and through Dazimonitis,[1148] a fertile plain, it then
turns to the north beside Gaziura,[1149] an ancient seat of the kings,
but now deserted; it then again returns to the east, where, uniting with
the Scylax[1150] and other rivers, and taking its course beside the
walls of my native place, Amaseia,[1151] a very strongly fortified city,
proceeds to Phanarœa. There when joined by the Lycus,[1152] which rises
in Armenia, it becomes the Iris. It then enters Themiscyra, and
discharges itself into the Euxine. This plain, therefore, is well
watered with dews, is constantly covered with herbage, and is capable of
affording food to herds of cattle as well as to horses. The largest
crops there consist of panic and millet, or rather they never fail, for
the supply of water more than counteracts the effect of all drought;
these people, therefore, never on any occasion experience a famine. The
country at the foot of the mountains produces so large an autumnal crop
of spontaneous-grown wild fruits, of the vine, the pear, the apple, and
hazel, that, in all seasons of the year, persons who go into the woods
to cut timber gather them in large quantities; the fruit is found either
yet hanging upon the trees or lying beneath a deep covering of fallen
leaves thickly strewed upon the ground. Wild animals of all kinds, which
resort here on account of the abundance of food, are frequently hunted.

16. Next to Themiscyra is Sidene, a fertile plain, but not watered in
the same manner by rivers as Themiscyra. It has strongholds on the
sea-coast, as Side,[1153] from which Sidene has [CAS. 548] its name,
Chabaca and Phabda (Phauda).[1154] Amisene extends as far as this place.

Among the natives of Amisus[1155] distinguished for their learning were
the mathematicians Demetrius, the son of Rathenus, and Dionysodorus, of
the same name as the Ionian (Milesian?) geometrician, and Tyrannion the
grammarian, whose lessons I attended.

17. Next to Sidene is Pharnacia[1156] a small fortified city, and then
follows Trapezus,[1157] a Greek city, to which from Amisus is a voyage
of about 2200 stadia; thence to the Phasis about 1400 stadia, so that
the sum total of stadia from the Hieron[1158] to the Phasis is about
8000 stadia, either more or less.

In sailing along this coast from Amisus we first come to the Heracleian
promontory;[1159] then succeeds another promontory, Jasonium,[1160] and
the Genetes;[1161] then Cytorus (Cotyorus) a small city,[1162] from
which Pharnacia received a colony; then Ischopolis, which is in ruins.
Next is a bay on which are situated Cerasus, and Hermonassa,[1163] small
settlements. Near Hermonassa is Trapezus, then Colchis. Somewhere about
this place is a settlement called Zygopolis.

I have already spoken of Colchis, and of the sea-coast beyond.[1164]

18. Above Trapezus and Pharnacia are situated Tibareni, Chaldæi, Sanni,
(who were formerly called Macrones,[1165]) and the Lesser Armenia. The
Appaïtæ also, formerly called Cercitæ, are not far from these places.
Through the country belonging to these people stretches the
Scydises,[1166] a very rugged mountain, contiguous to the Moschic
mountains[1167] above Colchis. The heights of the Scydises are occupied
by the Heptacometæ.[1168] This country is likewise traversed by the
Paryadres,[1169] which extends from the neighbourhood of Sidene and
Themiscyra to the Lesser Armenia, and forms the eastern side of the
Pontus.

All the inhabitants of these mountains are quite savage, but
the Heptacometæ are more so than all the others. Some of them live among
trees, or in small towers, whence the ancients called them
Mosynœci,[1170] because the towers were called mosȳnes. Their food
consists of the flesh of wild animals and the fruits of trees. They
attack travellers, leaping down from the floors of their dwellings among
the trees. The Heptacometæ cut off three of Pompey’s cohorts, as they
were passing through the mountains, by placing on their road vessels
filled with maddening honey, which is procured from the branches of
trees. The men who had tasted the honey and lost their senses were
attacked and easily despatched. Some of these barbarians were called
Byzeres.

19. The present Chaldæi were anciently called Chalybes. It is in their
territory chiefly that Pharnacia is situated. On the sea-coast it has
natural advantages for the capture of the pelamydes. For this fish is
first caught at this place. On the mainland there are at present mines
of iron; formerly there were also mines of silver. The sea-shore along
all these places is very narrow, for directly above it are hills, which
abound with mines and forests; much, however, of the country is not
cultivated. The miners derive their subsistence from the mines, and the
fishermen from the fisheries, especially from the capture of pelamydes
and dolphins. The dolphins pursue shoals of fish, the cordyla, the
tunny, and even the pelamys; they grow fat on them, and as they approach
the land incautiously, are easily taken. They are caught with a bait and
then cut into pieces; large quantities of the fat are used for all
purposes.

20. These I suppose are the people who are called by Homer Halizoni, who
in his Catalogue follow the Paphlagonians.

   “But Odius and Epistrophus led the Halizoni
   Far from Alybe, where there are silver mines;”[1171]

whether the writing was changed from “far from Chalybe,” or whether the
people were formerly called Alybes instead of Chalybes. We cannot at
present say that it is possible that Chaldæi should be read for
Chalybes, but it cannot be maintained that formerly Chalybes could not
be read for Alybes, especially [CAS. 549] when we know that names are
subject to many changes, more especially among barbarians. For example,
a tribe of Thracians were called Sinties, then Sinti, then Saii, in
whose country Archilochus is said to have thrown away his shield:

   “one of the Saii exults in having a shield, which, without
   blame, I involuntarily left behind in a thicket.”

This same people have now the name of Sapæi. For all these people were
settled about Abdera, they also held Lemnos and the islands about
Lemnos. Thus also Brygi, Briges, and Phryges are the same people; and
Mysi, Mæones, and Meones are the same people. But it is unnecessary to
multiply instances of this kind.

The Scepsian (Demetrius) throws some doubt on the alteration of the name
from Alybes to Chalybes, but not understanding what follows, nor what
accords with it, nor, in particular, why the poet calls the Chalybes
Alizoni, he rejects the opinion that there has been an alteration of
name. In comparing his opinion with my own I shall consider also the
hypotheses entertained by others.

21. Some persons alter the word to Alazones, others to Amazons, and
“Alybe” to “Alope,” or “Alobe,” calling the Scythians above the
Borysthenes Alazones and Callipidæ, and by other names, about which
Hellanicus, Herodotus, and Eudoxus have talked very absurdly; some say
that the Amazons were situated between Mysia, Caria, and Lydia near
Cyme, which is the opinion also of Ephorus, who was a native of the
latter place. And this opinion may not be unreasonable, for he may mean
the country which in later times was inhabited by the Æolians and
Ionians, but formerly by Amazons. There are some cities, it is said,
which have their names from the Amazons; as Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyme, and
Myrina. But would any one think of inquiring in these places after
Alybe, or, according to some writers, Alope, or Alobe; what would be the
meaning of “from afar,” or where is the silver mine?

22. These objections he solves by an alteration in the text, for he
writes the verses in this manner,

   “But Odius and Epistrophus led the Amazons,
   Who came from Alope, whence the tribe of the Amazonides.”

But by this solution he has invented another fiction. For Alope is
nowhere to be found in that situation, and the alteration in the text,
itself a great change, and contrary to the authority of ancient copies,
looks like an adaptation formed for the occasion.

The Scepsian (Demetrius) does not adopt the opinion of Ephorus, nor does
he agree with those who suppose them to be the Halizoni about Pallene,
whom we mentioned in the description of Macedonia. He is at a loss also
to understand how any one could suppose that auxiliaries could come to
the Trojans from the Nomades situated above the Borysthenes. He much
approves of the opinion of Hecatæus the Milesian, and of Menecrates of
Elea, disciples of Xenocrates, and that of Palæphatus. The first of
these says in his work entitled “the Circuit of the Earth,” “near the
city Alazia is the river Odrysses, which after flowing through the plain
of Mygdonia from the west, out of the lake Dascylitis, empties itself
into the Rhyndacus.” He further relates that Alazia is now deserted, but
that many villages of the Alazones through which the Odrysses flows are
inhabited. In these villages Apollo is worshipped with peculiar honours,
and especially on the confines of the Cyziceni.

Menecrates, in his work “the Circuit of the Hellespont,” says that above
the places near Myrleia there is a continuous mountain tract occupied by
the nation of the Halizoni. The name, he says, ought to be written with
two l’s, Hallizoni, but the poet uses one only on account of the metre.

Palæphatus says that Odius and Epistrophus levied their army from among
the Amazons then living in Alope, but at present in Zeleia.[1172]

Do the opinions of these persons deserve approbation? For besides their
alteration of the ancient text, and the position of this people, they
neither point out the silver mines, nor where in Myrleatis Alope is
situated, nor how they, who came thence to Troy, came “from afar,”
although it should be granted that there existed an Alope, or an Alazia.
For these are much nearer Troy than the places about Ephesus. Those,
however, are triflers, in the opinion of Demetrius, who speak of the
existence of Amazons near Pygela, between Ephesus, Magnesia, and Priene,
for the words “from afar” do not agree with the spot; much less will
they agree with a situation about Mysia, and Teuthrania.

23. [CAS. 551] This may be true, says he, but some expressions are to be
understood as loosely applied, such as these,

   “Far from Ascania,”[1173]

and

   “His name was Arnæus, given to him by his honoured mother,”[1174]

and

   “Penelope seized the well-turned key with her firm hand.”[1175]

But admitting this, the other assertions are not to be allowed to which
Demetrius is disposed to attend; nor has he refuted in a convincing
manner those persons who maintain that we ought to read “far from
Chalybe.” For having conceded that, although at present there are not
silver mines among the Chalybes, they might formerly have existed, he
does not grant that they were far-famed, and worthy of notice, like the
iron mines. But some one may say, what should prevent them from being as
famous as the iron mines, or does an abundance of iron make a place
celebrated, and not an abundance of silver? Again, if the silver mines
had obtained celebrity in the age of Homer, but not in the heroic times,
can any one blame the poet’s representation? How did their fame reach
him? How did the fame of the copper mines at Temesa in Italy, or of the
wealth of Thebes in Egypt, reach his ears, although Egyptian Thebes was
situated almost at double the distance of the Chaldæi.

But Demetrius does not altogether agree with those whose opinions he
espouses. For when he is describing the neighbourhood of Scepsis his own
birth-place, he mentions Enea, a village, Argyria, and Alazonia, as near
Scepsis, and the Æsepus;[1176] but if these places exist at all, they
must be near the sources of the Æsepus. Hecatæus places them beyond the
mouths of that river. Palæphatus, who says that the Amazons formerly
occupied Alope, and at present Zeleia, does not advance anything in
agreement with these statements. But if Menecrates agrees with
Demetrius, neither does Menecrates say what this Alope, or Alobe, is,
(or, in whatever manner they please to write the name,) nor yet does
Demetrius himself.

24. With regard to Apollodorus, who mentions these places in his
discourse on the array of the Trojan forces, we have said much before
in reply to him, and we must now speak of him again.[1177] He is of
opinion that we ought not to understand the Halizoni without the Halys,
for no auxiliaries came to Troy from the country on the other side of
the Halys. First, then, we will inquire of him who are the Halizoni
within the Halys, and situated

   “far from Alybe, where are silver mines?”

He will not be able to reply. Next we will ask the reason why he does
not admit that some auxiliaries came from the country on the other side
of the Halys. For if it was the case, that all the rest were living on
this side the Halys, except the Thracians, nothing prevented this one
body of allies from coming from afar, from the country beyond the
Leuco-Syrians? Or, was it possible for the persons immediately engaged
in the war to pass over from those places, and from the country beyond
them, as the Amazons, Treres, and Cimmerians, but impossible for allies
to do so?

The Amazons were not allies, because Priam had fought in alliance with
the Phrygians against them:

   “at that time, says Priam, I was among their auxiliaries on
   that day, when the Amazons came to attack them.”[1178]

The people also who were living on the borders of the country of the
Amazons were not situated at so great a distance that it was difficult
to send for them from thence, nor did any animosity exist, I suppose, at
that time to prevent them from affording assistance.

25. Nor is there any foundation for the opinion, that all the ancients
agree that no people from the country beyond the Halys took part in the
Trojan war. Testimony may be found to the contrary. Mæandrius at least
says that Heneti came from the country of the Leuco-Syrians to assist
the Trojans in the war; that they set sail thence with the Thracians,
and settled about the recess of the Adriatic; and that the Heneti, who
had no place in the expedition, were Cappadocians. This account seems to
agree with the circumstance, that the people inhabiting the whole of
that part of Cappadocia near the Halys, which extends along Paphlagonia,
speak two dialects, and that their language abounds with Paphlagonian
names, as [CAS. 553] Bagas, Biasas, Æniates, Rhatotes, Zardoces,
Tibius, Gasys, Oligasys, and Manes. For these names are frequently to be
found in the Bamonitis, the Pimolitis, the Gazaluïtis, and Gazacene, and
in most of the other districts. Apollodorus himself quotes the words of
Homer, altered by Zenodotus;

   “from Henete, whence comes a race of wild mules,”

and says, that Hecatæus the Milesian understands Henete to mean Amisus.
But we have shown that Amisus belongs to the Leuco-Syrians, and is
situated beyond the Halys.

26. He also somewhere says that the poet obtained his knowledge of the
Paphlagonians, situated in the interior, from persons who had travelled
through the country on foot, but that he was not acquainted with the
sea-coast any more than with the rest of the territory of Pontus; for
otherwise he would have mentioned it by name. We may, on the contrary,
after the description which has just been given of the country, retort
and say that he has traversed the whole of the sea-coast, and has
omitted nothing worthy of record which existed at that time. It is not
surprising that he does not mention Heracleia, Amastris, or Sinope, for
they were not founded; nor is it strange that he should omit to speak of
the interior of the country; nor is it a proof of ignorance not to
specify by name many places which were well known, as we have shown in a
preceding part of this work.

He says that Homer was ignorant of much that was remarkable in Pontus,
as rivers and nations, otherwise he would have mentioned their names.
This may be admitted with respect to some very remarkable nations and
rivers, as the Scythians, the Palus Mæotis, and the Danube. For he would
not have described the Nomades, by characteristic signs, as living on
milk, Abii, a people without certain means of subsistence, “most just”
and “renowned Hippemolgi,” (milkers of mares,) and not distinguished
them as Scythians, or Sauromatæ, or Sarmatæ, if, indeed, they had these
names among the Greeks (at that time). Nor in mentioning the Thracians
and Mysians, who live near the Danube, would he have passed over in
silence the Danube itself, one of the largest rivers, particularly as,
in other instances, he is inclined to mark the boundaries of places by
rivers; nor in speaking of the Cimmerians would he have omitted the
Bosporus, or the Mæotis.

27. With respect then to places not so remarkable, or not famous at that
time, or not illustrating the subject of his poem, who can blame the
poet for omitting them? As, for example, omitting to mention the Don,
famed only as it is for being the boundary of Asia and Europe. The
persons however of that time were not accustomed to use the name either
of Asia or Europe, nor was the habitable earth divided into three
continents; otherwise he would have mentioned them by name on account of
their strong characteristic marks, as he mentioned by name Libya
(Africa), and the Libs (the south-west wind), blowing from the western
parts of Africa. But as the continents were not yet distinguished, it
was not necessary that he should mention the Don. There were many things
worthy of record, which did not occur to him. For both in actions and in
discourse much is done and said without any cause or motive, by merely
spontaneously presenting itself to the mind.

It is evident from all these circumstances that every person who
concludes that because a certain thing is not mentioned by the poet he
was therefore ignorant of it, uses a bad argument; and we must prove by
several examples that it is bad, for many persons employ this kind of
evidence to a great extent. We must refute them therefore by producing
such instances as these which follow, although we shall repeat what has
been already said.

If any one should maintain that the poet was not acquainted with a river
which he has not mentioned, we should say that his argument is absurd,
for he has not mentioned by name even the river Meles, which runs by
Smyrna, his birth-place according to many writers, while he has
mentioned the rivers Hermus and Hyllus by name, but yet not the
Pactolus,[1179] which discharges itself into the same channel as these
rivers, and rises in the mountain Tmolus.[1180] He does not mention
either Smyrna itself, or the other cities of the Ionians, or most of
those of the Æolians, although he specifies Miletus, Samos, <DW26>s, and
Tenedos. He does not mention the Lethæus, which flows beside
Magnesia,[1181] nor the Marsyas, which rivers empty themselves into the
Mæander,[1182] which he mentions by name, as well as [CAS. 554]

   “the Rhesus, Heptaporus, Caresus, and Rhodius,”[1183]

and others, many of which are not more than small streams. While he
specifies by name many countries and cities, sometimes he makes an
enumeration of rivers and mountains, sometimes he does not do so. He
does not mention the rivers in Ætolia and Attica, nor many others. And
if, in mentioning people that live afar off, he does not mention those
who are very near, it is certainly not through ignorance of them, for
they were well known to other writers. With respect to people who were
all equally near, he does not observe one rule, for some he mentions,
and not others, as for instance he mentions the Lycii, and Solymi, but
not the Milyæ, nor Pamphylians, nor Pisidians; the Paphlagonians,
Phrygians, and Mysians, but not the Mariandyni, nor Thyni, nor
Bithynians, nor Bebryces; the Amazons, but not the Leuco-Syrians, nor
Syrians, nor Cappadocians, nor Lycaonians, while he frequently speaks of
the Phœnicians, Ægyptians, and Æthiopians. He mentions the Aleian plain,
and the Arimi mountains, but not the nation among which these are
situated.

The argument drawn from this is false; the true argument would have been
to show that the poet has asserted what is not true. Apollodorus has not
succeeded in this attempt, and he has more particularly failed when he
ventures to call by the name of fiction “the renowned Hippemolgi and
Galactophagi.”[1184] So much then in reply to Apollodorus. I now return
to the part of my description which follows next in order.

28. Above the places about Pharnacia and Trapezus are the Tibareni, and
Chaldæi, extending as far as the Lesser Armenia.

The Lesser Armenia is sufficiently fertile. Like Sophene it was always
governed by princes who were sometimes in alliance with the other
Armenians, and sometimes acting independently. They held in subjection
the Chaldæi and Tibareni. Their dominion extended as far as Trapezus and
Pharnacia. When Mithridates Eupator became powerful, he made himself
master of Colchis, and of all those places which were ceded to him by
Antipater the son of Sisis. He bestowed however so much care upon them,
that he built seventy-five strongholds, in which he deposited the
greatest part of his treasure. The most considerable of these were
Hydara, Basgœdariza, and Sinoria, a fortress situated on the borders of
the Greater Armenia, whence Theophanes parodied the name, and called it
Synoria.

All the mountainous range of the Paryadres has many such convenient
situations for fortresses, being well supplied with water and timber, it
is intersected in many places by abrupt ravines and precipices. Here he
built most of the strongholds for keeping his treasure. At last on the
invasion of the country by Pompey he took refuge in these extreme parts
of the kingdom of Pontus, and occupied a mountain near Dasteira in
Acilisene, which was well supplied with water. The Euphrates also was
near, which is the boundary between Acilisene and the Lesser Armenia.
Mithridates remained there till he was besieged and compelled to fly
across the mountains into Colchis, and thence to Bosporus. Pompey built
near this same place in the Lesser Armenia Nicopolis, a city which yet
subsists, and is well inhabited.

29. The Lesser Armenia, which was in the possession of different persons
at different times, according to the pleasure of the Romans, was at last
subject to Archelaus. The Tibareni, however, and Chaldæi, extending as
far as Colchis, Pharnacia, and Trapezus, are under the government of
Pythodoris, a prudent woman, and capable of presiding over the
management of public affairs. She is the daughter of Pythodorus of
Tralles. She was the wife of Polemo, and reigned conjointly with him for
some time. She succeeded, after his death, to the throne. He died in the
country of the Aspurgiani, a tribe of barbarians living about Sindica.
She had two sons by Polemo, and a daughter who was married to Cotys the
Sapæan. He was treacherously murdered, and she became a widow. She had
children by him, the eldest of whom is now king. Of the sons of
Pythodoris, one as a private person, administers, together with his
mother, the affairs of the kingdom, the other has been lately made king
of the Greater Armenia. Pythodoris however married Archelaus, and
remained with him till his death. At present she is a widow, and in
possession of the countries before mentioned, and of others still more
beautiful, of which we shall next speak.

30. Sidene, and Themiscyra are contiguous to Pharnacia. Above these
countries is situated Phanarœa, containing the best portion of the
Pontus, for it produces excellent oil and [CAS. 556] wine, and
possesses every other property of a good soil. On the eastern side it
lies in front of the Paryadres which runs parallel to it; on the western
side it has the Lithrus, and the Ophlimus. It forms a valley of
considerable length and breadth. The Lycus, coming out of Armenia, flows
through this valley, and the Iris, which issues from the passes near
Amaseia. Both these rivers unite about the middle of the valley. A city
stands at their confluence which the first founder called Eupatoria,
after his own name. Pompey found it half-finished, and added to it a
territory, furnished it with inhabitants, and called it Magnopolis. It
lies in the middle of the plain. Close to the foot of the Paryadres is
situated Cabeira, about 150 stadia further to the south than Magnopolis,
about which distance likewise, but towards the west, is Amaseia. At
Cabeira was the palace of Mithridates, the water-mill, the park for
keeping wild animals, the hunting-ground in the neighbourhood, and the
mines.

31. There also is the Cainochorion, (New Castle,) as it is called, a
fortified and precipitous rock, distant from Cabeira less than 200
stadia. On its summit is a spring, which throws up abundance of water,
and at its foot a river, and a deep ravine. The ridge of rocks on which
it stands is of very great height, so that it cannot be taken by siege.
It is enclosed with an excellent wall, except the part where it has been
demolished by the Romans. The whole country around is so covered with
wood, so mountainous, and destitute of water, that an enemy cannot
encamp within the distance of 120 stadia. There Mithridates had
deposited his most valuable effects, which are now in the Capitol, as
offerings dedicated by Pompey.

Pythodoris is in possession of all this country; (for it is contiguous
to that of the barbarians, which she holds as a conquered country;) she
also holds the Zelitis and the Megalopolitis. After Pompey had raised
Cabeira to the rank of a city, and called it Diospolis, Pythodoris
improved it still more, changed its name to Sebaste, (or Augusta,) and
considers it a royal city.

She has also the temple of Mēn surnamed of Pharnaces, at Ameria, a
village city, inhabited by a large body of sacred menials, and having
annexed to it a sacred territory, the produce of which is always enjoyed
by the priest. The kings held this temple in such exceeding veneration,
that this was the Royal oath, “by the fortune of the king, and by Mēn
of Pharnaces.” This is also the temple of the moon, like that among the
Albani, and those in Phrygia, namely the temple of Mēn in a place of the
same name, the temple of Ascæus at Antioch in Pisidia, and another in
the territory of Antioch.

32. Above Phanarœa is Comana[1185] in Pontus, of the same name as that
in the Greater Cappadocia, and dedicated to the same goddess. The temple
is a copy of that in Cappadocia, and nearly the same course of religious
rites is practised there; the mode of delivering the oracles is the
same; the same respect is paid to the priests, as was more particularly
the case in the time of the first kings, when twice a year, at what is
called the Exodi of the goddess, (when her image is carried in
procession,) the priest wore the diadem of the goddess and received the
chief honours after the king.

33. We have formerly mentioned Dorylaus the Tactician, who was my
mother’s great grandfather; and another Dorylaus, who was the nephew of
the former, and the son of Philetærus; I said that, although he had
obtained from Mithridates the highest dignities and even the priesthood
of Comana, he was detected in the fact of attempting the revolt of the
kingdom to the Romans. Upon his fall the family also was disgraced. At a
later period however Moaphernes, my mother’s uncle, rose to distinction
near upon the dissolution of the kingdom. But a second time he and his
friends shared in the misfortunes of the king, except those persons who
had anticipated the calamity and deserted him early. This was the case
with my maternal grandfather, who, perceiving the unfortunate progress
of the affairs of the king in the war with Lucullus, and at the same
time being alienated from him by resentment for having lately put to
death his nephew Tibius, and his son Theophilus, undertook to avenge
their wrongs and his own. He obtained pledges of security from Lucullus,
and caused fifteen fortresses to revolt; in return he received
magnificent promises. On the arrival of Pompey, who succeeded Lucullus
in the conduct of the war, he regarded as enemies (in consequence of the
enmity which subsisted between himself and that general) all those
persons who had performed any services that were acceptable to Lucullus.
On his return home at the conclusion of the war he prevailed upon the
senate not to confirm those honours which Lucullus had promised to some
persons of [CAS. 558] Pontus, maintaining it to be unjust towards a
general who had brought the war to a successful issue, that the rewards
and distribution of honours should be placed in the hands of another.

34. The affairs of Comana were administered as has been described in the
time of the kings. Pompey, when he had obtained the power, appointed
Archelaus priest, and assigned to him a district of two schœni, or 60
stadia in circuit, in addition to the sacred territory, and gave orders
to the inhabitants to obey Archelaus. He was their governor, and master
of the sacred slaves who inhabited the city, but had not the power of
selling them. The slaves amounted to no less than six thousand.

This Archelaus was the son of that Archelaus who received honours from
Sylla and the senate; he was the friend of Gabinius, a person of
consular rank. When the former was sent into Syria, he came with the
expectation of accompanying him, when he was making preparations for the
Parthian war, but the senate would not permit him to do so, and he
abandoned this, and conceived a greater design.

Ptolemy, the father of Cleopatra, happened at this time to be ejected
from his kingdom by the Ægyptians. His daughter however, the elder
sister of Cleopatra, was in possession of the throne. When inquiries
were making in order to marry her to a husband of royal descent,
Archelaus presented himself to those who were negotiating the affair,
and pretended to be the son of Mithridates Eupator. He was accepted, but
reigned only six months. He was killed by Gabinius in a pitched battle,
in his attempt to restore Ptolemy.

35. His son however succeeded to the priesthood, and Lycomedes succeeded
him, to whom was assigned an additional district of four schœni (or 120
stadia) in extent. When Lycomedes was dispossessed he was succeeded by
Dyteutus, the son of Adiatorix, who still occupies the post, and appears
to have obtained this honour from Cæsar Augustus on account of his good
conduct on the following occasion.

Cæsar, after leading in triumph Adiatorix, with his wife and children,
had resolved to put him to death together with the eldest of his sons.
Dyteutus was the eldest; but when the second of his brothers told the
soldiers who were leading them away to execution that he was the eldest,
there was a contest between the two brothers, which continued for some
time, till the parents prevailed upon Dyteutus to yield to the younger,
assigning as a reason, that the eldest would be a better person to
protect his mother and his remaining brother. The younger was put to
death together with his father; the elder was saved, and obtained this
office. When Cæsar was informed of the execution of these persons, he
regretted it, and, considering the survivors worthy of his favour and
protection, bestowed upon them this honourable appointment.

36. Comana is populous, and is a considerable mart, frequented by
persons coming from Armenia. Men and women assemble there from all
quarters from the cities and the country to celebrate the festival at
the time of the exodi or processions of the goddess. Some persons under
the obligation of a vow are always residing there, and perform
sacrifices in honour of the goddess.

The inhabitants are voluptuous in their mode of life. All their property
is planted with vines, and there is a multitude of women, who make a
gain of their persons, most of whom are dedicated to the goddess. The
city is almost a little Corinth. On account of the multitude of harlots
at Corinth, who are dedicated to Venus, and attracted by the festivities
of the place, strangers resorted thither in great numbers. Merchants and
soldiers were quite ruined, so that hence the proverb originated,

   “every man cannot go to Corinth.”

Such is the character of Comana.

37. All the country around is subject to Pythodoris, and she possesses
also Phanarœa, the Zelitis, and the Megalopolitis.

We have already spoken of Phanarœa.

In the district Zelitis is the city Zela,[1186] built upon the mound of
Semiramis. It contains the temple of Anaïtis, whom the Armenians also
worship. Sacrifices are performed with more pomp than in other places,
and all the people of Pontus take oaths here in affairs of highest
concern. The multitude of the sacred menials, and the honours conferred
upon the priests, were in the time of the kings, upon the plan which I
have before described. At present, however, everything is under the
power of Pythodoris, but many persons had previously reduced the number
of the sacred attendants, injured the property and diminished the
revenue belonging to the [CAS. 560] temple. The adjacent district of
Zelitis, (in which is the city Zela, on the mound of Semiramis,) was
reduced by being divided into several governments. Anciently, the kings
did not govern Zela as a city, but regarded it as a temple of the
Persian gods; the priest was the director of everything relating to its
administration. It was inhabited by a multitude of sacred menials, by
the priest, who possessed great wealth, and by his numerous attendants;
the sacred territory was under the authority of the priest, and it was
his own property. Pompey added many provinces to Zelitis, and gave the
name of city to Zela, as well as to Megalopolis. He formed Zelitis,
Culupene, and Camisene, into one district. The two latter bordered upon
the Lesser Armenia, and upon Laviansene. Fossile salt was found in them,
and there was an ancient fortress called Camisa, at present in ruins.
The Roman governors who next succeeded assigned one portion of these two
governments to the priests of Comana, another to the priest of Zela, and
another to Ateporix, a chief of the family of the tetrarchs of Galatia;
upon his death, this portion, which was not large, became subject to the
Romans under the name of a province. This little state is a political
body of itself, Carana[1187] being united with it as a colony, and hence
the district has the name of Caranitis. The other parts are in the
possession of Pythodoris, and Dyteutus.

38. There remain to be described the parts of Pontus, situated between
this country and the districts of Amisus, and Sinope, extending towards
Cappadocia, the Galatians, and the Paphlagonians.

Next to the territory of the Amiseni is Phazemonitis,[1188] which
extends as far as the Halys, and which Pompey called Neapolitis. He
raised the village Phazemon to the rank of a city, and increasing its
extent gave to it the name of Neapolis.[1189] The northern side of this
tract is bounded by the Gazelonitis, and by the country of the Amiseni;
the western side by the Halys; the eastern by Phanarœa; the remainder by
the territory of Amasis, my native country, which surpasses all the rest
in extent and fertility.

The part of Phazemonitis towards Phanarœa is occupied by a lake,
sea-like in magnitude, called Stiphane,[1190] which abounds with fish,
and has around it a large range of pasture adapted to all kinds of
animals. Close upon it is a strong fortress, Cizari, [Icizari,] at
present deserted, and near it a royal seat in ruins. The rest of the
country in general is bare, but produces corn.

Above the district of Amasis are the hot springs[1191] of the
Phazemonitæ, highly salubrious, and the Sagylium,[1192] a stronghold
situated on a lofty perpendicular hill, stretching upwards and
terminating in a sharp peak. In this fortress is a reservoir well
supplied with water, which is at present neglected, but was useful, on
many occasions, to the kings. Here the sons of Pharnaces the king
captured and put to death Arsaces, who was governing without the
authority of the Roman generals, and endeavouring to produce a
revolution in the state. The fortress was taken by Polemo and Lycomedes,
both of them kings, by famine and not by storm. Arsaces, being prevented
from escaping into the plains, fled to the mountains without provisions.
There he found the wells choked up with large pieces of rock. This had
been done by order of Pompey, who had directed the fortresses to be
demolished, and to leave nothing in them that could be serviceable to
robbers, who might use them as places of refuge. Such was the settlement
of the Phazemonitis made by Pompey. Those who came afterwards divided
this district among various kings.

39. My native city, Amaseia, lies in a deep and extensive valley,
through which runs the river Iris.[1193] It is indebted to nature and
art for its admirable position and construction. It [CAS. 561] answers
the double purpose of a city and a fortress. It is a high rock,
precipitous on all sides, descending rapidly down to the river: on the
margin of the river, where the city stands, is a wall, and a wall also
which ascends on each side of the city to the peaks, of which there are
two, united by nature, and completely fortified with towers. In this
circuit of the wall are the palace, and the monuments of the kings. The
peaks are connected together by a very narrow ridge, in height five or
six stadia on each side, as you ascend from the banks of the river, and
from the suburbs. From the ridge to the peaks there remains another
sharp ascent of a stadium in length, which defies the attacks of an
enemy. Within the rock are reservoirs of water, the supply from which
the inhabitants cannot be deprived of, as two channels are cut, one in
the direction of the river, the other of the ridge. Two bridges are
built over the river, one leading from the city to the suburbs, the
other from the suburbs to the country beyond; for near this bridge the
mountain, which overhangs the rock, terminates.

A valley extends from the river; it is not very wide at its
commencement, but afterwards increases in breadth, and forms the plain
called the Chiliocomon (The Thousand Villages). Next is the Diacopene,
and the Pimolisene, the whole of which is a fertile district extending
to the Halys.

These are the northern parts of the country of the Amasenses, and are in
length about 500 stadia. Then follows the remainder, which is much
longer, extending as far as Babanomus, and the Ximene,[1194] which
itself reaches to the Halys. The breadth is reckoned from north to
south, to the Zelitis and the Greater Cappadocia, as far as the
Trocmi.[1195] In Ximene there is found fossile salt, (ἅλες, Hales,) from
which it is supposed the river had the name of Halys. There are many
ruined fortresses in my native country, and large tracts of land made a
desert by the Mithridatic war. The whole of it, however, abounds with
trees. It affords pasture for horses, and is adapted to the subsistence
of other animals; the whole of it is very habitable. Amaseia was given
to the kings, but at present it is a (Roman) province.

40. There remains to be described the country within the Halys,
belonging to the province of Pontus, and situated about the
Olgassys,[1196] and contiguous to the Sinopic district. The Olgassys is
a very lofty mountain, and difficult to be passed. The Paphlagonians
have erected temples in every part of this mountain. The country around,
the Blaene, and the Domanītis, through which the river Amnias[1197]
runs, is sufficiently fertile. Here it was that Mithridates Eupator
entirely destroyed[1198] the army of Nicomedes the Bithynian, not in
person, for he himself happened to be absent, but by his generals.
Nicomedes fled with a few followers, and escaped into his own country,
and thence sailed to Italy. Mithridates pursued him, and made himself
master of Bithynia as soon as he entered it, and obtained possession of
Asia as far as Caria and Lycia. Here is situated Pompeiopolis,[1199] in
which city is the Sandaracurgium,[1200] (or Sandaraca works,) it is not
far distant from Pimolisa, a royal fortress in ruins, from which the
country on each side of the river is called Pimolisene. The
Sandaracurgium is a mountain hollowed out by large trenches made by
workmen in the process of mining. The work is always carried on at the
public charge, and slaves were employed in the mine who had been sold on
account of their crimes. Besides the great labour of the employment, the
air is said to be destructive of life, and scarcely endurable in
consequence of the strong odour issuing from the masses of mineral;
hence the slaves are short-lived. The mining is frequently suspended
from its becoming unprofitable, for great expense is incurred by the
employment of more than two hundred workmen, whose number is continually
diminishing by disease and fatal accidents.

So much respecting Pontus.

41. Next to Pompeiopolis is the remainder of the inland parts of
Paphlagonia as far as Bithynia towards the west. This tract, although
small in extent, was governed, a little before our time, by several
princes, but their race is extinct; at present it is in possession of
the Romans. The parts bordering upon Bithynia are called Timonitis; the
country of Gezatorix, [CAS. 562] Marmolitis, Sanisene, and Potamia.
There was also a Cimiatene, in which was Cimiata, a strong fortress
situated at the foot of the mountainous range of the Olgassys.
Mithridates, surnamed Ctistes, (or the Founder,) made it his
head-quarters when engaged in the conquest of Pontus, and his successors
kept possession of it to the time of Mithridates Eupator. The last king
of Paphlagonia was Deïotarus,[1201] son of Castor, and surnamed
Philadelphus, who possessed Gangra,[1202] containing the palace of
Morzeus, a small town, and a fortress.

42. Eudoxus, without defining the spot, says, that fossil fish[1203] are
found in Paphlagonia in dry ground, and in marshy ground also about the
lake Ascanius,[1204] which is below Cius, but he gives no clear
information on the subject.

We have described Paphlagonia bordering upon Pontus; and as the
Bithynians border upon the Paphlagonians towards the west, we shall
endeavour to describe this region also. We shall then set out again from
the Bithynians and the Paphlagonians, and describe the parts of the
country next to these nations lying towards the south; they extend as
far as the Taurus, and are parallel to Pontus and Cappadocia; for some
order and division of this kind are suggested by the nature of the
places.




CHAPTER IV.


1. Bithynia is bounded on the east by the Paphlagonians, Mariandyni, and
by some tribes of the Epicteti; on the north by the line of the
sea-coast of the Euxine, extending from the mouth of the Sangarius[1205]
to the straits at Byzantium and Chalcedon; on the west by the Propontis;
on the south by Mysia and Phrygia Epictetus, as it is called, which has
the name also of Hellespontic Phrygia.

2. Here upon the mouth of the Pontus is situated Chalcedon, founded by
the Megareans,[1206] the village Chrysopolis, and the Chalcedonian
temple. In the country a little above the sea-coast is a fountain,
Azaritia, (Azaretia?) which breeds small crocodiles.

Next follows the coast of the Chalcedonians, the bay of Astacus,[1207]
as it is called, which is a part of the Propontis.

Here Nicomedia[1208] is situated, bearing the name of one of the
Bithynian kings by whom it was founded. Many kings however have taken
the same name, as the Ptolemies, on account of the fame of the first
person who bore it.

On the same bay was Astacus a city founded by Megareans and Athenians;
it was afterwards again colonized by Dœdalsus. The bay had its name from
the city. It was razed by Lysimachus. The founder of Nicomedia
transferred its inhabitants to the latter city.

3. There is another bay[1209] continuous with that of Astacus, which
advances further towards the east, and where is situated Prusias,[1210]
formerly called Cius. Philip, the son of Demetrius, and father of
Perseus, gave it to Prusias, son of Zelas, who had assisted him in
destroying both this and Myrleia,[1211] a neighbouring city, and also
situated near Prusa. He rebuilt them from their ruins, and called the
city Cius Prusias, after his own name, and Myrleia he called Apameia,
after that of his wife. This is the Prusias who received Hannibal, (who
took refuge with him hither after the defeat of Antiochus,) and retired
from Phrygia[1212] on the Hellespont, according to agreement with the
Attalici.[1213] This country was formerly called Lesser Phrygia, but by
the Attalici Phrygia Epictetus.[1214] Above Prusias is a mountain which
is called Arganthonius.[1215] Here is the scene of the fable of Hylas,
one of the companions of Hercules in the ship Argo, who, having
disembarked in order to obtain water for the vessel, was carried away by
nymphs. Cius, as the story goes, was a friend and companion of Hercules;
on his return from Colchis, he settled there and founded the city which
bears his name. At the present time a festival called Oreibasia, [CAS.
564] is celebrated by the Prusienses, who wander about the mountains and
woods, a rebel rout, calling on Hylas by name, as though in search of
him.

The Prusienses having shown a friendly disposition towards the Romans in
their administration of public affairs, obtained their freedom. But the
Apamies were obliged to admit a Roman colony.

Prusa, situated below the Mysian Olympus, on the borders of the
Phrygians and the Mysians, is a well-governed city; it was founded by
Cyrus,[1216] who made war against Crœsus.

4. It is difficult to define the boundaries of the Bithynians, Mysians,
Phrygians, of the Doliones about Cyzicus, and of the Mygdones and Troes;
it is generally admitted that each of these tribes ought to be placed
apart from the other. A proverbial saying is applied to the Phrygians
and Mysians,

   “The boundaries of the Mysi and Phryges are apart from one
   another,”

but it is difficult to define them respectively. The reason is this;
strangers who came into the country were soldiers and barbarians; they
had no fixed settlement in the country of which they obtained
possession, but were, for the most part, wanderers, expelling others
from their territory, and being expelled themselves. All these nations
might be supposed to be Thracians, because Thracians occupy the country
on the other side, and because they do not differ much from one another.

5. But as far as we are able to conjecture, we may place Mysia between
Bithynia and the mouth of the Æsepus, contiguous to the sea, and nearly
along the whole of Olympus. Around it, in the interior, is the
Epictetus, nowhere reaching the sea, and extending as far as the eastern
parts of the Ascanian lake and district, for both bear the same name.
Part of this territory was Phrygian, and part Mysian; the Phrygian was
further distant from Troy; and so we must understand the words of the
poet[1217], when he says,

   “Phorcys, and the godlike Ascanius, were the leaders of the
   Phryges far from Ascania,”

that is, the Phrygian Ascania; for the other, the Mysian Ascania, was
nearer to the present Nicæa, which he mentions, when he says,

   “Palmys, Ascanius, and Morys, sons of Hippotion, the leader of
   the Mysi, fighting in close combat, who came from the fertile
   soil of Ascania, as auxiliaries.”[1218]

It is not then surprising that he should speak of an Ascanius, a leader
of the Phrygians, who came from Ascania, and of an Ascanius, a leader of
the Mysians, coming also from Ascania, for there is much repetition of
names derived from rivers, lakes, and places.

6. The poet himself assigns the Æsepus as the boundary of the Mysians,
for after having described the country above Ilium, and lying along the
foot of the mountains subject to Æneas, and which he calls Dardania, he
places next towards the north Lycia, which was subject to Pandarus, and
where Zeleia[1219] was situated; he says,

   “They who inhabited Zeleia, at the very foot of Ida, Aphneii
   Trojans, who drink of the dark stream of Æsepus;”[1220]

below Zeleia, towards the sea, on this side of Æsepus, lies the plain of
Adrasteia, and Tereia, Pitya, and in general the present district of
Cyzicene near Priapus,[1221] which he afterwards describes. He then
returns again to the parts towards the east, and to those lying above,
by which he shows that he considered the country as far as the Æsepus
the northern and eastern boundary of the Troad. Next to the Troad are
Mysia and Olympus.[1222] Ancient tradition then suggests some such
disposition of these nations. But the present changes have produced many
differences in consequence of the continual succession of governors of
the country, who confounded together people and districts, and separated
others. The Phrygians and Mysians were masters of the country after the
capture of Troy; afterwards the Lydians; then the Æolians and Ionians;
next, the Persians and Macedonians; lastly, the Romans, under whose
government most of the tribes have lost even their languages and names,
in consequence of a new partition of the country having been made. It
will be proper to take this into consideration when we describe its
present state, at the same time showing a due regard to antiquity.

7. In the inland parts of Bithynia is Bithynium,[1223] situated above
Tieium,[1224] and to which belongs the country about Salon, [CAS. 565]
affording the best pasturage for cattle, whence comes the cheese of
Salon. Nicæa,[1225] the capital of Bithynia, is situated on the Ascanian
lake. It is surrounded by a very large and very fertile plain, which in
the summer is not very healthy. Its first founder was Antigonus, the son
of Philip, who called it Antigonia. It was then rebuilt by Lysimachus,
who changed its name to that of his wife Nicæa. She was the daughter of
Antipater. The city is situated in a plain. Its shape is quadrangular,
eleven stadia in circuit. It has four gates. Its streets are divided at
right angles, so that the four gates may be seen from a single stone,
set up in the middle of the Gymnasium. A little above the Ascanian lake
is Otrœa, a small town situated just on the borders of Bithynia towards
the east. It is conjectured that Otrœa was so called from Otreus.

8. That Bithynia was a colony of the Mysians, first Scylax of Caryanda
will testify, who says that Phrygians and Mysians dwell around the
Ascanian lake. The next witness is Dionysius, who composed a work on
“the foundation of cities.” He says that the straits at Chalcedon, and
Byzantium, which are now called the Thracian, were formerly called the
Mysian Bosporus. Some person might allege this as a proof that the
Mysians were Thracians; and Euphorio says,

   “by the waters of the Mysian Ascanius;”

and thus also Alexander the Ætolian,

   “who have their dwellings near the Ascanian waters, on the
   margin of the Ascanian lake, where Dolion dwelt, the son of
   Silenus and of Melia.”

These authors testify the same thing, because the Ascanian lake is found
in no other situation but this.

9. Men distinguished for their learning, natives of Bithynia, were
Xenocrates the philosopher, Dionysius the dialectician, Hipparchus,
Theodosius and his sons the mathematicians, Cleophanes the rhetorician
of Myrleia, and Asclepiades the physician of Prusa.[1226]

10. To the south of the Bithynians are the Mysians about Olympus (whom
some writers call Bithyni Olympeni, and others Hellespontii) and Phrygia
upon the Hellespont. To the south of the Paphlagonians are the
Galatians, and still further to the south of both these nations are the
Greater Phrygia, and Lycaonia, extending as far as the Cilician and
Pisidian Taurus. But since the parts continuous with Paphlagonia adjoin
Pontus, Cappadocia, and the nations which we have just described, it may
be proper first to give an account of the parts in the neighbourhood of
these nations, and then proceed to a description of the places next in
order.




CHAPTER V.


1. To the south of the Paphlagonians are the Galatians, of whom there
are three tribes; two of them, the Trocmi and the Tolistobogii, have
their names from their chiefs; the third, the Tectosages, from the tribe
of that name in Celtica. The Galatians took possession of this country
after wandering about for a long period, and overrunning the country
subject to the Attalic and the Bithynian kings, until they received by a
voluntary cession the present Galatia, or Gallo-Græcia, as it is called.
Leonnorius seems to have been the chief leader of these people when they
passed over into Asia. There were three nations that spoke the same
language, and in no respect differed from one another. Each of them was
divided into four portions called tetrarchies, and had its own tetrarch,
its own judge, and one superintendent of the army, all of whom were
under the control of the tetrarch, and two subordinate superintendents
[CAS. 567] of the army. The Council of the twelve Tetrarchs consisted of
three hundred persons, who assembled at a place called the
Drynemetum.[1227] The council determined causes relative to murder, the
others were decided by the tetrarchs and the judges. Such, anciently,
was the political constitution of Galatia; but, in our time, the
government was in the hands of three chiefs, then of two, and at last it
was administered by Deïotarus, who was succeeded by Amyntas. At present,
the Romans possess this as well as all the country which was subject to
Amyntas, and have reduced it into one province.

2. The Trocmi occupy the parts near Pontus and Cappadocia, which are the
best which the Galatians possess. They have three walled fortresses,
Tavium, a mart for the people in that quarter, where there is a colossal
statue of Jupiter in brass, and a grove, which is used as a place of
refuge; Mithridatium, which Pompey gave to Bogodiatarus, (Deïotarus?)
having separated it from the kingdom of Pontus; and thirdly, Danala,
where Pompey, when he was about to leave the country to celebrate his
triumph, met Lucullus and delivered over to him as his successor the
command of the war.

This is the country which the Trocmi possess.

The Tectosages occupy the parts towards the greater Phrygia near
Pessinus,[1228] and the Orcaorci. They had the fortress Ancyra,[1229] of
the same name as the small Phrygian city towards Lydia near
Blaudus.[1230] The Tolistobogii border upon the Bithynians, and Phrygia
Epictetus, as it is called. They possess the fortresses Blucium,
(Luceium,) which was the royal seat of Deïotarus, and Peïum, which was
his treasure-hold.

3. Pessinus is the largest mart of any in that quarter. It contains a
temple of the Mother of the Gods, held in the highest veneration. The
goddess is called Agdistis. The priests anciently were a sort of
sovereigns, and derived a large revenue from their office. At present
their consequence is much diminished, but the mart still subsists. The
sacred enclosure was adorned with fitting magnificence by the Attalic
kings,[1231] with a temple, and porticos of marble. The Romans gave
importance to the temple by sending for the statue of the goddess from
thence according to the oracle of the Sibyl, as they had sent for that
of Asclepius from Epidaurus.

The mountain Dindymus is situated above the city; from Dindymus comes
Dindymene, as from Cybela, Cybele. Near it runs the river Sangarius, and
on its banks are the ancient dwellings of the Phrygians, of Midas, and
of Gordius before his time, and of some others, which do not preserve
the vestiges of cities, but are villages a little larger than the rest.
Such is Gordium,[1232] and Gorbeus (Gordeus), the royal seat of Castor,
son of Saocondarius, (Saocondarus?) in which he was put to death by his
father-in-law, Deïotarus, who there also murdered his own daughter.
Deïotarus razed the fortress, and destroyed the greater part of the
settlement.

4. Next to Galatia towards the south is the lake Tatta,[1233] lying
parallel to that part of the Greater Cappadocia which is near the
Morimeni. It belongs to the Greater Phrygia, as well as the country
continuous with this, and extending as far as the Taurus, and of which
Amyntas possessed the greatest part. Tatta is a natural salt-pan. The
water so readily makes a deposit around everything immersed in it, that
upon letting down wreaths formed of rope, chaplets of salt are drawn up.
If birds touch the surface of the water with their wings, they
immediately fall down in consequence of the concretion of the salt upon
them, and are thus taken.




CHAPTER VI.


1. Such is the description of Tatta. The places around Orcaorci,
Pitnisus and the mountainous plains of Lycaonia, are cold and bare,
affording pasture only for wild asses; there is a great scarcity of
water, but wherever it is found the wells are very deep, as at Soatra,
where it is even sold. Soatra is a village city near Garsabora
(Garsaura?). Although the country is ill supplied with water, it is
surprisingly well adapted for feeding sheep, but the wool is coarse.
Some persons have acquired very great wealth by these flocks alone.
Amyntas had above three hundred flocks of sheep in these [CAS. 568]
parts. In this district there are two lakes, the greater Coralis, the
smaller Trogitis. Somewhere here is Iconium,[1234] a small town, well
built, about which is a more fertile tract of land than the pastures for
the wild asses before mentioned. Polemo possessed this place.

Here the Taurus approaches this country, separating Cappadocia and
Lycaonia from Cilicia Tracheia. It is the boundary of the Lycaonians and
Cappadocians, between Coropassus, a village of the Lycaonians, and
Gareathyra (Garsaura), a small town of the Cappadocians. The distance
between these fortressess is about 120 stadia.

2. To Lycaonia belongs Isaurica, near the Taurus, in which are the
Isaura, two villages of the same name, one of which is surnamed Palæa,
or the Old, the other [the New], the latter is well fortified.[1235]
There were many other villages dependent upon these. They are all of
them, however, the dwellings of robbers. They occasioned much trouble to
the Romans, and to Publius Servilius, surnamed Isauricus, with whom I
was acquainted; he subjected these places to the Romans, and destroyed
also many of the strongholds of the pirates, situated upon the sea.

3. Derbe,[1236] the royal seat of the tyrant Antipater, surnamed
Derbætes, is on the side of the Isaurian territory close upon
Cappadocia. Laranda[1237] also belonged to Antipater. In my time Amyntas
attacked and killed Antipater Derbætes, and got possession of the Isaura
and of Derbe. The Romans gave him the Isaura where he built a palace for
himself, after having destroyed Isauria Palæa (the Old). He began to
build in the same place a new wall, but before its completion he was
killed by the Cilicians in an ambuscade, when invading the country of
the Homonadeis.

4. For being in possession of Antiocheia near Pisidia, and the country
as far as Apollonias,[1238] near Apameia Cibotus,[1239] some parts of
the Paroreia, and Lycaonia, he attempted to exterminate the Cilicians
and Pisidians, who descended from the Taurus and overran this district,
which belonged to the Phrygians and Cilicians (Lycaonians). He razed
also many fortresses, which before this time were considered
impregnable, among which was Cremna, but he did not attempt to take by
storm Sandalium, situated between Cremna and Sagalassus.

5. Cremna is occupied by a Roman colony.

Sagalassus is under the command of the same Roman governor, to whom all
the kingdom of Amyntas is subject. It is distant from Apameia a day’s
journey, having a descent of nearly 30 stadia from the fortress. It has
the name also of Selgessus. It was taken by Alexander.

Amyntas made himself master of Cremna and passed into the country of the
Homonadeis, who were supposed to be the most difficult to reduce of all
the tribes. He had already got into his power most of their
strongholds, and had killed the tyrant himself, when he was taken
prisoner by an artifice of the wife of the tyrant, whom he had killed,
and was put to death by the people. Cyrinius (Quirinus)[1240] reduced
them by famine and took four thousand men prisoners, whom he settled as
inhabitants in the neighbouring cities, but he left no person in the
country in the prime of life.

Among the heights of Taurus, and in the midst of rocks and precipices
for the most part inaccessible, is a hollow and fertile plain divided
into several valleys. The inhabitants cultivate this plain, but live
among the overhanging heights of the mountains, or in caves. They are
for the most part armed, and accustomed to make incursions into the
country of other tribes, their own being protected by mountains, which
serve as a wall.




CHAPTER VII.


1. Contiguous to these, among other tribes of the Pisidians, are the
Selgeis, the most considerable tribe of the nation.

The greater part of the Pisidians occupy the summits of Taurus, but some
tribes situated above Side[1241] and [CAS. 570] Aspendus,[1242] which
are Pamphylian cities, occupy heights, all of which are planted with
olives. The parts above these, a mountainous country, are occupied by
the Catennenses, who border upon the Selgeis and the Homonadeis. The
Sagalasseis occupy the parts within the Taurus towards Milyas.

2. Artemidorus says that Selge, Sagalassus, Petnelissus, Adada,
Tymbrias, Cremna, Pityassus, (Tityassus?) Amblada, Anabura, Sinda,
Aarassus, Tarbassus, Termessus, are cities of the Pisidians. Of these
some are entirely among the mountains, others extend on each side even
as far as the country at the foot of the mountains, and reach to
Pamphylia and Milyas, and border on Phrygians, Lydians, and Carians, all
of whom are disposed to peace, although situated to the north.[1243]

The Pamphylians, who partake much of the character of the Cilician
nation, do not altogether abstain from predatory enterprises, nor permit
the people on the confines to live in peace, although they occupy the
southern parts of the country at the foot of Taurus.

On the confines of Phrygia and Caria, are Tabæ,[1244] Sinda, and
Amblada, whence is procured the Amblada wine, which is used in diet
prescribed for the sick.

3. All the rest of the mountain tribes of the Pisidians whom I have
spoken of are divided into states governed by tyrants, and follow like
the Cilicians a predatory mode of life. It is said that anciently some
of the Leleges, a wandering people, were intermixed with them, and from
the similarity of their habits and manners settled there.

Selge[1245] had the rank of a city from the first when founded by the
Lacedæmonians, but at a still earlier period by Calchas. Latterly it has
maintained its condition and flourished in consequence of its excellent
constitution and government, so that at one time it had a population of
20,000 persons. The place deserves admiration from the advantages which
nature has bestowed upon it. Among the summits of Taurus is a very
fertile tract capable of maintaining many thousand inhabitants. Many
spots produce the olive and excellent vines, and afford abundant pasture
for animals of all kinds. Above and all around are forests containing
trees of various sorts. The styrax is found here in great abundance, a
tree not large but straight in its growth. Javelins, similar to those of
the cornel tree, are made of the wood of this tree. There is bred in the
trunk of the styrax tree, a worm, which eats through the timber to the
surface, and throws out raspings like bran, or saw-dust, a heap of which
is collected at the root. Afterwards a liquid distils which readily
concretes into a mass like gum. A part of this liquid descends upon and
mixes with the raspings at the root of the tree, and with earth; a
portion of it acquires consistence on the surface of the mass, and
remains pure. That portion which flows along the surface of the trunk of
the tree, and concretes, is also pure. A mixture is made of the impure
part, which is a combination of wood-dust and earth; this has more odour
than the pure styrax, but is inferior to it in its other properties.
This is not commonly known. It is used for incense in large quantities
by superstitious worshippers of the gods.

The Selgic iris[1246] also, and the unguent which is made from it, are
in great esteem. There are few approaches about the city, and the
mountainous country of the Selgeis, which abounds with precipices and
ravines, formed among other rivers by the Eurymedon[1247] and the
Cestrus,[1248] which descend from the Selgic mountains, and discharge
themselves into the Pamphylian Sea. There are bridges on the roads. From
the strength and security of their position the Selgeis were never at
any time, nor on any single occasion, subject to any other people, but
enjoyed unmolested the produce of their country, with the exception of
that part situated below them in Pamphylia, and that within the Taurus,
for which they were carrying on a continual warfare with the kings.

Their position with respect to the Romans was that they possessed this
tract on certain conditions. They sent ambassadors to Alexander and
offered to receive his commands in the character of friends, but at
present they are altogether subject to the Romans, and are included in
what was formerly the kingdom of Amyntas.




CHAPTER VIII.[CAS. 571]


1. The people called Mysians, and Phrygians, who live around the
so-called Mysian Olympus, border upon the Bithynians to the south. Each
of these nations is divided into two parts. One is called the Greater
Phrygia, of which Midas was king. A part of it was occupied by the
Galatians. The other is the Lesser, or Phrygia on the Hellespont, or
Phrygia around Olympus, and is also called Epictetus.

Mysia is also divided into two parts; Olympic Mysia, which is continuous
with Bithynia, and with the Epictetus, (which, Artemidorus says, was
inhabited by the Mysians beyond the Danube,) and the part around the
Caïcus,[1249] and the Pergamene[1250] as far as Teuthrania, and the
mouths of the river.

2. This country, however, as we have frequently observed, has undergone
so many changes, that it is uncertain whether the district around
Sipylus,[1251] which the ancients called Phrygia, were a part of the
Greater or the Lesser Phrygia, from whence Tantalus, Pelops, and Niobe
were called Phrygians. Whatever the explanation may be, the change is
certain. For Pergamene and Elaïtis,[1252] through which country the
Caïcus passes, and empties itself into the sea, and Teuthrania, situated
between these two districts, where Teuthras lived, and Telephus was
brought up, lies between the Hellespont, and the country about Sipylus,
and Magnesia, which is at the foot of the mountain, so that, as I have
said, it is difficult

   “To assign the confines of the Mysians and Phryges.”--

3. The Lydians also, and the Mæones, whom Homer calls Meones, are in
some way confounded with these people and with one another; some authors
say that they are the same, others that they are different, nations. Add
to this that some writers regard the Mysians as Thracians, others as
Lydians, according to an ancient tradition, which has been preserved by
Xanthus the Lydian, and by Menecrates of Elæa, who assign as the origin
of the name Mysians, that the Lydians call the beech-tree (Oxya) Mysos,
which grows in great abundance near Olympus, where it is said decimated
persons[1253] were exposed, whose descendants are the later Mysians,
and received their appellation from the Mysos, or beech-tree growing in
that country. The language also is an evidence of this. It is a mixture
of Lydian and Phrygian words, for they lived some time in the
neighbourhood of Olympus. But when the Phrygians passed over from
Thrace, and put to death the chief of Troy and of the country near it,
they settled here, but the Mysians established themselves above the
sources of the Caïcus near Lydia.

4. The confusion which has existed among the nations in this district,
and even the fertility of the country within the Halys, particularly
near the sea, have contributed to the invention of fables of this sort.
The richness of the country provoked attacks, from various quarters, and
at all times, of tribes who came from the opposite coast, or
neighbouring people contended with one another for the possession of it.
Inroads and migrations took place chiefly about the period of the Trojan
war, and subsequently to that time, Barbarians as well as Greeks showing
an eagerness to get possession of the territory of other nations. This
disposition, however, showed itself before the time of the Trojan war;
for there existed then tribes of Pelasgi, Caucones, and Leleges, who are
said to have wandered, anciently, over various parts of Europe. The poet
represents them as assisting the Trojans, but not as coming from the
opposite coast. The accounts respecting the Phrygians and the Mysians
are more ancient than the Trojan times.

Two tribes bearing the name of Lycians, lead us to suppose that they are
the same race; either the Trojan Lycians sent colonies to the Carians,
or the Carian Lycians to the Trojans. Perhaps the same may be the case
with the Cilicians, for they also are divided into two tribes; but we
have not the same evidence that the present Cilicians existed before the
Trojan times. Telephus may be supposed to have come with his mother from
Arcadia; by her marriage with Teuthras, (who had received them as his
guests,) Telephus was admitted into the [CAS. 572] family of Teuthras,
was reputed to be his son, and succeeded to the kingdom of the Mysians.

5. “The Carians, who were formerly islanders, and Leleges,” it is said,
“settled on the continent with the assistance of the Cretans. They built
Miletus, of which the founder was Sarpedon from Miletus in Crete. They
settled the colony of Termilæ in the present Lycia, but, according to
Herodotus,[1254] these people were a colony from Crete under the conduct
of Sarpedon, brother of Minos and Rhadamanthus, who gave the name of
Termilæ to the people formerly called Milyæ, and still more anciently
Solymi; when, however, Lycus the son of Pandion arrived, he called them
Lycii after his own name.” This account shows that the Solymi and
Lycians were the same people, but the poet distinguishes them. He
represents Bellerophon setting out from Lycia, and

   “fighting with the renowned Solymi.”[1255]

He says Peisander (Isander?), his son, Mars

   “slew when fighting with the Solymi,”[1256]

and speaks of Sarpedon as a native of Lycia.[1257]

6. That the common prize, proposed to be obtained by the conquerors, was
the fertile country which I am describing, is confirmed by many
circumstances which happened both before and after the Trojan times.
When even the Amazons ventured to invade it, Priam and Bellerophon are
said to have undertaken an expedition against these women. Anciently
there were cities which bore the names of the Amazons. In the Ilian
plain there is a hill

   “which men call Batieia, but the immortals, the tomb of the
   bounding (πολυσκάρθμοιο) Myrina,”

who, according to historians, was one of the Amazons, and they found
this conjecture on the epithet, for horses are said to be εὐσκάρθμοι on
account of their speed; and she was called πολύσκαρθμος from the
rapidity with which she drove the chariot. Myrina therefore, the place,
was named after the Amazon. In the same manner the neighbouring islands
were invaded on account of their fertility; among which were Rhodes and
Cos. That they were inhabited before the Trojan times clearly appears
from the testimony of Homer.[1258]

7. After the Trojan times, the migrations of Greeks and of Treres, the
inroads of Cimmerians and Lydians, afterwards of Persians and
Macedonians, and lastly of Galatians, threw everything into confusion.
An obscurity arose not from these changes only, but from the
disagreement between authors in their narration of the same events, and
in their description of the same persons; for they called Trojans
Phrygians, like the Tragic poets; and Lycians Carians, and similarly in
other instances. The Trojans who, from a small beginning, increased so
much in power that they became kings of kings, furnished a motive to the
poet and his interpreters, for determining what country ought to be
called Troy. For the poet calls by the common name of Trojans all their
auxiliaries, as he calls their enemies Danai and Achæi. But certainly we
should not give the name of Troy to Paphlagonia, or to Caria, or to
Lycia, which borders upon it. I mean when the poet says,

   “the Trojans advanced with the clashing of armour and shouts,”[1259]

and where he speaks of their enemies,

   “but the Achæi advanced silently, breathing forth warlike
   ardour,”[1260]

and thus frequently in other passages.

We must endeavour, however, to distinguish as far as we are able one
nation from another, notwithstanding this uncertainty. If anything
relative to ancient history escapes my notice, it must be pardoned, for
this is not the province of the geographer; my concern is with the
present state of people and places.

8. There are two mountains situated above the Propontis, the Mysian
Olympus[1261] and Ida.[1262] At the foot of Olympus is Bithynia, and,
contiguous to the mountain, between Ida and the sea, is Troy.

We shall afterwards speak of Troy, and of the places continuous with it
on the south. At present we shall give an account of the places about
Olympus, and of the adjoining country as far as the Taurus, and parallel
to the parts which we have previously described.

The country lying around Olympus is not well inhabited. On its heights
are immense forests and strongholds, well adapted [CAS. 574] for the
protection of robbers, who, being able to maintain themselves there for
any length of time, often set themselves up as tyrants, as Cleon a
captain of a band of robbers did in my recollection.

9. Cleon was a native of the village Gordium, which he afterwards
enlarged, and erected into a city, giving it the name of Juliopolis. His
first retreat and head-quarters was a place called Callydium, one of the
strongest holds. He was of service to Antony in attacking the soldiers
who collected money for Labienus, at the time that the latter occupied
Asia, and thus hindered the preparations which he was making for his
defence. In the Actian war he separated himself from Antony and attached
himself to the generals of Cæsar; he was rewarded above his deserts, for
in addition to what he received from Antony he obtained power from
Cæsar, and exchanged the character of a freebooter for that of a petty
prince. He was priest of Jupiter Abrettenus, the Mysian god, and a
portion of the Morena was subject to him, which, like Abrettena, is
Mysian. He finally obtained the priesthood of Comana in Pontus, and went
to take possession of it, but died within a month after his arrival. He
was carried off by an acute disease, occasioned either by excessive
repletion, or, according to the account of those employed about the
temple, inflicted by the anger of the goddess. The story is this. Within
the circuit of the sacred enclosure is the dwelling of the priest and
priestess. Besides other sacred observances relative to the temple, the
purity of this enclosure is an especial object of vigilance, by
abstinence from eating swine’s flesh. The whole city, indeed, is bound
to abstain from this food, and swine are not permitted to enter it.
Cleon, however, immediately upon his arrival displayed his lawless
disposition and character by violating this custom, as if he had come
there not as a priest, but a polluter of sacred things.

10. The description of Olympus is as follows. Around it, to the north,
live Bithynians, Mygdonians, and Doliones; the rest is occupied by
Mysians and Epicteti. The tribes about Cyzicus[1263] from Æsepus[1264]
as far as Rhyndacus[1265] and the lake Dascylitis,[1266] are called for
the most part Doliones; those next to the Doliones, and extending as far
as the territory of the Myrleani,[1267] are called Mygdones. Above the
Dascylitis are two large lakes, the Apolloniatis,[1268] and the
Miletopolitis.[1269] Near the Dascylitis is the city Dascylium, and on
the Miletopolitis, Miletopolis. Near a third lake is Apollonia on the
Rhyndacus, as it is called. Most of these places belong at present to
the Cyziceni.

11. Cyzicus is an island[1270] in the Propontis, joined to the continent
by two bridges. It is exceedingly fertile. It is about 500 stadia in
circumference. There is a city of the same name near the bridges, with
two close harbours, and more than two hundred docks for vessels. One
part of the city is in a plain, the other near the mountain which is
called Arcton-oros (or Bear-mountain). Above this is another mountain,
the Dindymus, with one peak, having on it a temple founded by the
Argonauts in honour of Dindymene, mother of the gods. This city rivals
in size, beauty, and in the excellent administration of affairs, both in
peace and war, the cities which hold the first rank in Asia. It appears
to be embellished in a manner similar to Rhodes, Massalia,[1271] and
ancient Carthage. I omit many details. There are three architects, to
whom is intrusted the care of the public edifices and engines. The city
has also three store-houses, one for arms, one for engines, and one for
corn. The Chalcidic earth mixed with the corn prevents it from spoiling.
The utility of preserving it in this manner was proved in the
Mithridatic war. The king attacked the city unexpectedly with an army of
150,000 men and a large body of cavalry, and made himself master of the
opposite hill, which is called the hill of Adrasteia, and of the suburb.
He afterwards transferred his camp to the neck of land above the city,
blockaded it by land, and attacked it by sea with four hundred ships.
The Cyziceni resisted all these attempts, and were even nearly capturing
the king in a subterraneous passage, by working a countermine. He was,
however, apprized of it, and escaped by retreating in time out of the
excavation. Lucullus, the Roman general, was able, though late, to send
succours into the city by night. Famine also came to the aid of the
Cyziceni by spreading among this large army. The king did not foresee
this, and after losing great numbers of his men went away. [CAS. 576]
The Romans respected the city, and to this present time it enjoys
freedom. A large territory belongs to it, some part of which it has held
from the earliest times; the rest was a gift of the Romans. Of the Troad
they possess the parts beyond the Æsepus, namely, those about Zeleia and
the plain of Adrasteia; a part of the lake Dascylitis belongs to them,
the other part belongs to the Byzantines. They also possess a large
district near the Dolionis, and the Mygdonis, extending as far as the
lake Miletopolitis, and the Apolloniatis. Through these countries runs
the river Rhyndacus, which has its source in the Azanitis. Having
received from Mysia Abrettene, among other rivers, the Macestus,[1272]
which comes from Ancyra[1273] in the Abaeitis it empties itself into the
Propontis at the island Besbicus.[1274]

In this island of the Cyziceni is the mountain Artace, well wooded, and
in front of it lies a small island of the same name, near it is the
promontory Melas (or Black), as it is called, which is met with in
coasting from Cyzicus to Priapus.[1275]

12. To Phrygian Epictetus belong the Azani, and the cities Nacoleia,
Cotiaeium,[1276] Midiaeium, Dorylæum,[1277] and Cadi.[1278] Some persons
assign Cadi to Mysia.

Mysia extends in the inland parts from Olympene to Pergamene, and to the
plain of Caïcus, as it is called; so that it lies between Ida and the
Catacecaumene, which some place in Mysia, others in Mæonia.

13. Beyond the Epictetus to the south is the Greater Phrygia, leaving on
the left Pessinus, and the parts about Orcaorci, and Lycaonia, and on
the right Mæones, Lydians, and Carians. In the Epictetus are Phrygia
Paroreia, and the country towards Pisidia, and the parts about
Amorium,[1279] Eumeneia,[1280] and Synnada.[1281] Next are Apameia
Cibotus,[1282] and Laodiceia,[1283] the largest cities in Phrygia.
Around them lie the towns [and places], Aphrodisias,[1284]
Colossæ,[1285] Themisonium,[1286] Sanaus, Metropolis,[1287] Apollonias,
and farther off than these, Peltæ, Tabeæ, Eucarpia, and Lysias.

14. The Paroreia[1288] has a mountainous ridge extending from east to
west. Below it on either side stretches a large plain, cities are
situated near the ridge, on the north side, Philomelium,[1289] on the
south Antiocheia, surnamed Near Pisidia.[1290] The former lies entirely
in the plain, the other is on a hill, and occupied by a Roman colony.
This was founded by the Magnetes, who live near the Mæander. The Romans
liberated them from the dominion of the kings, when they delivered up
the rest of Asia within the Taurus to Eumenes. In this place was
established a priesthood of Men Arcæus, having attached to it a
multitude of sacred attendants, and tracts of sacred territory. It was
abolished after the death of Amyntas by those who were sent to settle
the succession to his kingdom.

Synnada is not a large city. In front of it is a plain planted with
olives, about 60 stadia in extent. Beyond is Docimia, a village, and the
quarry of the Synnadic marble. This is the name given to it by the
Romans, but the people of the country call it Docimite and Docimæan. At
first the quarry produced small masses, but at present, through the
extravagance of the Romans, pillars are obtained, consisting of a single
stone and of great size, approaching the alabastrite marble in variety
of colours; although the distant carriage of such heavy loads to the sea
is difficult, yet both pillars and slabs of surprising magnitude and
beauty are conveyed to Rome.

15. Apameia is a large mart of Asia, properly so called, and second in
rank to Ephesus, for it is the common staple for merchandise brought
from Italy and from Greece. It is built upon the mouth of the river
Marsyas, which runs through the middle of it, and has its commencement
above the city; being carried down to the suburb with a strong and
precipitous current, it enters the Mæander,[1291] which receives also
another river, the Orgas, and traverses a level tract with a gentle and
unruffled stream. Here the Mæander becomes a large river, and flows for
some time through Phrygia; it then separates Caria and Lydia at the
plain, as it is called, of the Mæander, running in a direction
excessively tortuous, so that from the course of this river all windings
are called Mæanders. Towards its termination it runs through the part of
Caria occupied by the Ionians; the mouths by which it empties itself are
between Miletus and Priene.[1292] It rises in a hill called Celænæ, on
which was a city of the same name. Antiochus [CAS. 578] Soter
transferred the inhabitants to the present Apameia, and called the city
after his mother Apama, who was the daughter of Artabazus. She was given
in marriage to Seleucus Nicator. Here is laid the scene of the fable of
Olympus and Marsyas, and of the contest between Marsyas and Apollo.
Above is situated a lake[1293] on which grows a reed, which is suited to
the mouth-pieces of pipes. From this lake, it is said, spring the
Marsyas and the Mæander.

16. Laodiceia,[1294] formerly a small town, has increased in our time,
and in that of our ancestors, although it received great injury when it
was besieged by Mithridates Eupator; the fertility however of the soil
and the prosperity of some of its citizens have aggrandized it. First,
Hiero embellished the city with many offerings, and bequeathed to the
people more than 2000 talents; then Zeno the rhetorician, and his son
Polemo, were an ornament and support to it; the latter was thought by
Antony, and afterwards by Augustus Cæsar, worthy even of the rank of
king in consequence of his valiant and upright conduct.

The country around Laodiceia breeds excellent sheep, remarkable not only
for the softness of their wool, in which they surpass the Milesian
flocks, but for their dark or raven colour. The Laodiceans derive a
large revenue from them, as the Colosseni do from their flocks, of a
colour of the same name.

Here the Caprus and the Lycus, a large river, enter the Mæander. From
the Lycus, a considerable river, Laodiceia has the name of Laodiceia on
the Lycus. Above the city is the mountain Cadmus, from which the Lycus
issues, and another river of the same name as the mountain. The greater
part of its course is under-ground; it then emerges, and unites with
other rivers, showing that the country abounds with caverns and is
liable to earthquakes. For of all countries Laodiceia is very subject to
earthquakes, as also the neighbouring district Carura.

17. Carura[1295] is the boundary of Phrygia and Caria. It is a village,
where there are inns for the reception of travellers, and springs of
boiling water, some of which rise in the river Mæander, and others on
its banks. There is a story, that a pimp had lodgings in the inns for a
great company of women, and that during the night he and all the women
were overwhelmed by an earthquake and disappeared. Nearly the whole of
the country about the Mæander, as far as the inland parts, is subject to
earthquakes, and is undermined by fire and water. For all this cavernous
condition of the country, beginning from the plains, extends to the
Charonia; it exists likewise in Hierapolis, and in Acharaca in the
district Nysæis, also in the plain of Magnesia, and in Myus. The soil is
dry and easily reduced to powder, full of salts, and very inflammable.
This perhaps is the reason why the course of the Mæander is winding, for
the stream is diverted in many places from its direction, and brings
down a great quantity of alluvial soil, some part of which it deposits
in various places along the shore, and forcing the rest forwards
occasions it to drift into the open sea. It has made, for example,
Priene, which was formerly upon the sea, an inland city, by the
deposition of banks of alluvial earth along an extent of 40 stadia.

18. Phrygia Catacecaumene, (or the Burnt,) which is occupied by Lydians
and Mysians, obtained this name from something of the following kind. In
Philadelphia,[1296] a city adjoining to it, even the walls of the houses
are not safe, for nearly every day they are shaken, and crevices appear.
The inhabitants are constantly attentive to these accidents to which the
ground is subject, and build with a view to their occurrence.

Apameia among other cities experienced, before the invasion of
Mithridates, frequent earthquakes, and the king, on his arrival, when he
saw the overthrow of the city, gave a hundred talents for its
restoration. It is said that the same thing happened in the time of
Alexander; for this reason it is probable that Neptune is worshipped
there, although they are an inland people, and that it had the name of
Celænæ from Celænus,[1297] the son of Neptune, by Celæno, one of the
Danaïdes, or from the black colour of the stones, or from the blackness
which is the effect of combustion. What is related of Sipylus and its
overthrow is not to be regarded as a fable. For earthquakes overthrew
the present Magnesia, which is situated [CAS. 579] below that mountain,
at the time that Sardis and other celebrated cities in various parts
sustained great injury.[1298] The emperor[1299] gave a sum of money for
their restoration, as formerly his father had assisted the Tralliani on
the occurrence of a similar calamity, when the gymnasium and other parts
of the city were destroyed; in the same manner he had assisted also the
Laodiceans.

19. We must listen, however, to the ancient historians, and to the
account of Xanthus, who composed a history of Lydian affairs; he relates
the changes which had frequently taken place in this country,--I have
mentioned them in a former part of my work.[1300] Here is laid the scene
of the fable of what befell Typhon; here are placed the Arimi, and this
country is said to be the Catacecaumene. Nor do historians hesitate to
suppose, that the places between the Mæander and the Lydians are all of
this nature, as well on account of the number of lakes and rivers, as
the caverns, which are to be found in many parts of the country. The
waters of the lake between Laodiceia and Apameia, although like a sea,
emit a muddy smell, as if they had come through a subterraneous channel.
It is said that actions are brought against the Mæander for transferring
land from one place to another by sweeping away the angles of the
windings, and a fine is levied out of the toll, which is paid at the
ferries.

20. Between Laodiceia and Carura is a temple of Mēn Carus, which is held
in great veneration. In our time there was a large Herophilian[1301]
school of medicine under the direction of Zeuxis,[1302] and afterwards
of Alexander Philalethes, as in the time of our ancestors there was, at
Smyrna, a school of the disciples of Erasistratus under the conduct of
Hicesius. At present there is nothing of this kind.

21. The names of some Phrygian tribes, as the Berecyntes [and Cerbesii],
are mentioned, which no longer exist. And Alcman says,

   “He played the Cerbesian, a Phrygian air.”

They speak also of a Cerbesian pit which sends forth destructive
exhalations; this however exists, but the people have no longer the name
of Cerbesii. Æschylus in his Niobe[1303] confounds them; Niobe says that
she shall remember Tantalus, and his story;

   “those who have an altar of Jupiter, their paternal god, on
   the Idæan hill,”

and again;

   “Sipylus in the Idæan land,”

--and Tantalus says,

   “I sow the furrows of the Berecynthian fields, extending
   twelve days’ journey, where the seat of Adrasteia and Ida
   resound with the lowing of herds and the bleating of sheep;
   all the plain re-echoes with their cries.”




BOOK XIII.

ASIA.

SUMMARY.


   The Thirteenth Book contains the part of Asia south of the
   Propontis (Sea of Marmara), the whole of the sea-coast, and
   the adjacent islands. The author dwells some time on Troy,
   though deserted, on account of its distinction, and the great
   renown it derived from the war.




CHAPTER I.


1. These are the limits of Phrygia. We return again to the Propontis,
and to the sea-coast adjoining the Æsepus,[1304] and shall observe, in
our description of places, the same order as before.

The first country which presents itself on the sea-coast is the
Troad.[1305] Although it is deserted, and covered with ruins, yet it is
so celebrated as to furnish a writer with no ordinary excuse for
expatiating on its history. But we ought not only to be excused, but
encouraged, for the reader should not impute the fault of prolixity to
us, but to those whose curiosity and desire of information respecting
the celebrated places of antiquity is to be gratified. The prolixity is
greater than it would be otherwise, from the great number of nations,
both Greeks and Barbarians, who have occupied the country, and from the
disagreement among writers, who do not relate the same things of the
same persons and places, nor even do they express themselves with
clearness. Among these in particular is Homer, who suggests occasions
for conjecture in the greatest part of his local descriptions. We are
therefore to examine what the poet and other writers advance, premising
a summary description of the nature of the places.

2. The coast of the Propontis extends from Cyzicene and the places about
the Æsepus and Granicus[1306] as far as Abydos, and Sestos.[1307]
Between Abydos and Lectum[1308] is the country about Ilium, and Tenedos
and Alexandreia Troas.[1309] Above all these is the mountain Ida,
extending as far as Lectum. From Lectum to the river Caïcus[1310] and
the Canæ mountains as they are called is the district comprising
Assus,[1311] Adramyttium,[1312] Atarneus,[1313] Pitane,[1314] and the
Elaïtic bay, opposite to all which places lies the island <DW26>s.[1315]
Next follows the country about Cyme[1316] as far as Hermus,[1317] and
Phocæa,[1318] where Ionia begins, and Æolis terminates. Such then is the
nature of the country.

The poet implies that it was the Trojans chiefly who were divided into
eight or even nine bodies of people, each forming a petty princedom, who
had under their sway the places about Æsepus, and those about the
territory of the present Cyzicene, as far as the river Caïcus. The
troops of auxiliaries are reckoned among the allies.

3. The writers subsequent to Homer do not assign the same boundaries,
but introduce other names, and a greater number of territorial
divisions. The Greek colonies were the cause of this; the Ionian
migration produced less change, for it was further distant from the
Troad, but the Æolian colonists occasioned it throughout, for they were
dispersed over the whole of the country from Cyzicene as far as the
Caïcus, and occupied besides the district between the Caïcus and the
river Hermus. It is said that the Æolian preceded the Ionian migration
four generations, but it was attended with delays, and the settlement of
the colonies took up a longer time. Orestes was the leader of the
colonists, and died in Arcadia. He was preceded by his son Penthilus,
who advanced as far as Thrace, sixty years[1319] after the Trojan [CAS.
582] war, about the time of the return of the Heracleidæ to
Peloponnesus. Then Archelaus the son of Penthilus conducted the Æolian
colonies across the sea to the present Cyzicene, near Dascylium. Gras
his youngest son proceeded as far as the river Granicus, and, being
provided with better means, transported the greater part of those who
composed the expedition to <DW26>s, and took possession of it.

On the other side, Cleuas, the son of Dorus, and Malaus, who were
descendants of Agamemnon, assembled a body of men for an expedition
about the same time as Penthilus, but the band of Penthilus passed over
from Thrace into Asia before them; while the rest consumed much time
near Locris, and the mountain Phricius. At last however they crossed the
sea, and founded Cyme, to which they gave the name of Phriconis, from
Phricius, the Locrian mountain.

4. The Æolians then were dispersed over the whole country, which we have
said the poet calls the Trojan country. Later writers give this name to
the whole, and others to a part, of Æolis; and so, with respect to
Troja, some writers understand the whole, others only a part, of that
country, not entirely agreeing with one another in anything.

According to Homer, the commencement of the Troad is at the places on
the Propontis, reckoning it from the Æsepus. According to Eudoxus, it
begins from Priapus, and Artace, situated in the island of the Cyziceni
opposite to Priapus, and thus he contracts the boundaries [of the
Troad]. Damastes contracts them still more by reckoning its commencement
from Parium.[1320] He extends the Troad as far as Lectum. But different
writers assign different limits to this country. Charon of Lampsacus
diminishes its extent by three hundred stadia more, by reckoning its
commencement from Practius, for this is the distance between Parium and
Practius, but protracts it to Adramyttium. It begins, according to
Scylax of Caryanda, at Abydos. There is the same diversity of opinion
respecting the boundaries of Æolis. Ephorus reckons its extent from
Abydos to Cyme, but different writers compute it in different ways.

5. The situation of the country actually called Troja is best marked by
the position of Ida, a lofty mountain, looking to the west, and to the
western sea, but making a slight bend to the north and towards the
northern coast. This latter is the coast of the Propontis, extending
from the straits near Abydos to the Æsepus, and to the territory of
Cyzicene. The western sea is the exterior (part of the) Hellespont, and
the Ægæan Sea.

Ida has many projecting parts like feet, and resembles in figure a
tarantula, and is bounded by the following extreme points, namely, the
promontory[1321] at Zeleia, and that called Lectum; the former
terminates in the inland parts a little above Cyzicene (to the Cyziceni
belongs the present Zeleia), and Lectum projects into the Ægæan Sea, and
is met with in the coasting voyage from Tenedos to <DW26>s.

   “They (namely, Somnus and Juno) came, says Homer, to Ida,
   abounding with springs, the nurse of wild beasts, to Lectum
   where first they left the sea,”[1322]

where the poet describes Lectum in appropriate terms, for he says
correctly that Lectum is a part of Ida, and that this was the first
place of disembarkation for persons intending to ascend Mount Ida.[1323]
[He is exact in the epithet “abounding with springs;” for the mountain,
especially in that part, has a very large supply of water, which appears
from the great number of rivers which issue from it;

   “all the rivers which rise in Ida, and proceed to the sea, the
   Rhesus, and Heptaporus,”[1324]

and others, which he mentions afterwards, and which are now to be seen
by us.]

In speaking of the projections like feet on each side of Ida, as Lectum,
and Zeleia,[1325] he distinguishes in proper terms [CAS. 584] the summit
Gargarum,[1326] calling it the top[1327] (of Ida), for there is now in
existence in the higher parts of Ida a place, from which the present
Gargara, an Æolian city, has its name. Between Zeleia and Lectum,
proceeding from the Propontis, are first the parts extending to the
straits at Abydos. Then the parts below the Propontis, extending as far
as Lectum.

6. On doubling Lectum a large bay opens,[1328] formed by Mount Ida,
which recedes from Lectum, and by Canæ, the promontory opposite to
Lectum on the other side. Some persons call it the Bay of Ida, others
the Bay of Adramyttium. On this bay are situated the cities of the
Æolians, extending, as we have said, to the mouths of the Hermus. I have
mentioned also in a former part of my work, that in sailing from
Byzantium in a straight line towards the south, we first arrive at
Sestos and Abydos through the middle of the Propontis; then at the
sea-coast of Asia as far as Caria. The readers of this work ought to
attend to the following observation; although we mention certain bays on
this coast, they must understand the promontories also which form them,
situated on the same meridian.[1329]

7. Those who have paid particular attention to this subject conjecture,
from the expressions of the poet, that all this coast was subject to the
Trojans, when it was divided into nine dynasties, but that at the time
of the war it was under the sway of Priam, and called Troja. This
appears from the detail. Achilles and his army perceiving, at the
beginning of the war, that the inhabitants of Ilium were defended by
walls, carried on the war beyond them, made a circuit, and took the
places about the country;

   “I sacked with my ships twelve cities, and eleven in the
   fruitful land of Troja.”[1330]

By Troja he means the continent which he had ravaged. Among other
places which had been plundered, was the country opposite <DW26>s,--that
about Thebe, Lyrnessus, and Pedasus belonging to the Leleges, and the
territory also of Eurypylus, the son of Telephus;

   “as when he slew with his sword the hero Eurypylus, the son of
   Telephus;”[1331]

and Neoptolemus,

   “the hero Eurypylus.”

The poet says these places were laid waste, and even <DW26>s;

   “when he took the well-built <DW26>s,”[1332]

and,

   “he sacked Lyrnessus and Pedasus,”[1333]

and,

   “laid waste Lyrnessus, and the walls of Thebe.”[1334]

Briseïs was taken captive at Lyrnessus;

   “whom he carried away from Lyrnessus.”[1335]

In the capture of this place the poet says, Mynes and Epistrophus were
slain, as Briseïs mentions in her lament over Patroclus,

   “Thou didst not permit me, when the swift-footed Achilles slew
   my husband, and destroyed the city of the divine Mynes, to
   make any lamentation;”[1336]

for by calling Lyrnessus “the city of the divine Mynes,” the poet
implies that it was governed by him who was killed fighting in its
defence.

Chryseïs was carried away from Thebe;

   “we came to Thebe, the sacred city of Eetion,”[1337]

and Chryseïs is mentioned among the booty which was carried off from
that place.

   Andromache, daughter of the magnanimous Eetion, Eetion king of
   the Cilicians, who dwelt under the woody Placus at Thebe
   Hypoplacia.[1338]

This is the second Trojan dynasty after that of Mynes, and in agreement
with what has been observed are these words of Andromache;[CAS. 585]

   “Hector, wretch that I am; we were both born under the same
   destiny; thou at Troja in the palace of Priam, but I at
   Thebe.”

The words are not to be understood in their direct sense, but by a
transposition; “both born in Troja, thou in the house of Priam, but I at
Thebe.”

The third dynasty is that of the Leleges, which is also a Trojan
dynasty;

   “of Altes, the king of the war-loving Leleges,”[1339]

by whose daughter Priam had Lycaon and Polydorus. Even the people, who
in the Catalogue are said to be commanded by Hector, are called Trojans;

   “Hector, the mighty, with the nodding crest, commanded the
   Trojans;”[1340]

then those under Æneas,

   “the brave son of Anchises had the command of the Dardanii,”[1341]

and these were Trojans, for the poet says,

   “Thou, Æneas, that counsellest Trojans;”[1342]

then the Lycians under the command of Pandarus he calls Trojans;

   “Aphneian Trojans, who inhabited Zeleia at the farthest
   extremity of Ida, who drink of the dark waters of Æsepus,
   these were led by Pandarus, the illustrious son of
   Lycaon.”[1343]

This is the sixth dynasty.

The people, also, who lived between the Æsepus and Abydos were Trojans,
for the country about Abydos was governed by Asius;

   “those who dwelt about Percote and Practius, at Sestos,
   Abydos, and the noble Arisbe, were led by Asius, the son of
   Hyrtacus.”[1344]

Now it is manifest that a son of Priam, who had the care of his father’s
brood mares, dwelt at Abydos;

   “he wounded the spurious son of Priam, Democoon, who came from
   Abydos from the pastures of the swift mares.”[1345]

At Percote,[1346] the son of Hicetaon was the herdsman of oxen, but not
of those belonging to strangers;

   “first he addressed the brave son of Hicetaon, Melanippus, who
   was lately tending the oxen in their pastures at
   Percote.”[1347]

so that this country also was part of the Troad, and the subsequent
tract as far as Adrasteia, for it was governed by

   “the two sons of Merops of Percote.”[1348]

All therefore were Trojans from Abydos to Adrasteia, divided, however,
into two bodies, one governed by Asius, the other by the Meropidæ, as
the country of the Cilicians is divided into the Thebaic and the
Lyrnessian Cilicia. To this district may have belonged the country under
the sway of Eurypylus, for it follows next to the Lyrnessis, or
territory of Lyrnessus.[1349]

That Priam[1350] was king of all these countries the words with which
Achilles addresses him clearly show;[CAS. 586]

   “we have heard, old man, that your riches formerly consisted in
   what <DW26>s, the city of Macar, contained, and Phrygia above
   it and the vast Hellespont.”[1351]

8. Such was the state of the country at that time. Afterwards changes of
various kinds ensued. Phrygians occupied the country about Cyzicus as
far as Practius; Thracians, the country about Abydos; and Bebryces and
Dryopes, before the time of both these nations. The next tract of
country was occupied by Treres, who were also Thracians; the plain of
Thebe, by Lydians, who were then called Mæonians, and by the survivors
of the Mysians, who were formerly governed by Telephus and Teuthoras.

Since then the poet unites together Æolis and Troja, and since the
Æolians occupied all the country from the Hermus as far as the sea-coast
at Cyzicus, and founded cities, we shall not do wrong in combining in
one description Æolis, properly so called, (extending from the Hermus to
Lectum,) and the tract which follows, as far as the Æsepus;
distinguishing them again in speaking of them separately, and comparing
what is said of them by Homer and by other writers with their present
state.

9. According to Homer, the Troad begins from the city Cyzicus and the
river Æsepus. He speaks of it in this manner:

   “Aphneian Trojans, who inhabited Zeleia at the farthest
   extremity of Ida, who drink the dark waters of Æsepus, these
   were led by Pandarus, the illustrious son of Lycaon.”[1352]

These people he calls also Lycians. They had the name of Aphneii, it is
thought, from the lake Aphnitis, for this is the name of the lake
Dascylitis.

10. Now Zeleia is situated at the farthest extremity of the country
lying at the foot of Ida, and is distant 190 stadia from Cyzicus, and
about 80[1353] from the nearest sea, into which the Æsepus discharges
itself.

The poet then immediately gives in detail the parts of the sea-coast
which follow the Æsepus;

   “those who occupied Adrasteia, and the territory of Apæsus,
   and Pityeia and the lofty mountain Tereia, these were
   commanded by Adrastus, and Amphius with the linen corslet, the
   two sons of Merops of Percote,”[1354]

These places lie below Zeleia, and are occupied by Cyziceni, and
Priapeni as far as the sea-coast. The river Tarsius[1355] runs near
Zeleia; it is crossed twenty times on the same road, like the
Heptaporus, mentioned by the poet, which is crossed seven times. The
river flowing from Nicomedia to Nicæa is crossed four-and-twenty times;
the river which flows from Pholoe to Eleia, several times; [that flowing
from * * * * to Scardon,[1356]] five-and-twenty times; that running from
Coscinii to Alabanda, in many places, and the river flowing from Tyana
through the Taurus to Soli, is crossed seventy-five times.

11. Above the mouth of the Æsepus about * * stadia is a hill on which is
seen the sepulchre of Memnon, the son of Tithonus. Near it is the
village of Memnon. Between the Æsepus and Priapus flows the Granicus,
but for the most part it flows through the plain of Adrasteia, where
Alexander defeated in a great battle the satraps of Dareius, and
obtained possession of all the country within the Taurus and the
Euphrates.

On the banks of the Granicus was the city Sidene, with a large territory
of the same name. It is now in ruins.

Upon the confines of Cyzicene and Priapene is Harpagia, a place from
which, so says the fable, Ganymede was taken away by force. Others say
that it was at the promontory Dardanium, near Dardanus.

12. Priapus is a city on the sea, with a harbour. Some say that it was
built by Milesians, who, about the same time, founded Abydos and
Proconnesus; others, that it was built by Cyziceni. It has its name from
Priapus,[1357] who is worshipped there; either because his worship was
transferred thither from Orneæ near Corinth, or the inhabitants were
disposed to worship him because the god was said to be the son of
Bacchus and a nymph, for their country abounds with vines, as also the
country on their confines, namely, the territory of the Pariani and of
the Lampsaceni. It was for this reason that Xerxes assigned
Lampsacus[1358] to Themistocles to supply him with wine.

It was in later times that Priapus was considered as a god. [CAS. 588]
Hesiod for instance knew nothing of Priapus, and he resembles the
Athenian gods Orthane, Conisalus, Tychon, and others such as these.

13. This district was called Adrasteia, and the plain of Adrasteia,
according to the custom of giving two names to the same place, as Thebe,
and the plain of Thebe; Mygdonia, and the plain of Mygdonia.

Callisthenes says that Adrasteia had its name from King Adrastus, who
first built the temple of Nemesis. The city Adrasteia is situated
between Priapus and Parium, with a plain of the same name below it, in
which there was an oracle of the Actæan Apollo and Artemis near the
sea-shore.[1359] On the demolition of the temple, all the furniture and
the stone-work were transported to Parium, where an altar, the
workmanship of Hermocreon, remarkable for its size and beauty, was
erected, but the oracle, as well as that at Zeleia, was abolished. No
temple either of Adrasteia or Nemesis exists. But there is a temple of
Adrasteia near Cyzicus. Antimachus, however, says,

   “There is a great goddess Nemesis, who has received all these
   things from the immortals. Adrastus first raised an altar to
   her honour on the banks of the river Æsepus, where she is
   worshipped under the name of Adrasteia.”

14. The city of Parium lies upon the sea, with a harbour larger than
that of Priapus, and has been augmented from the latter city; for the
Pariani paid court to the Attalic kings, to whom Priapene was subject,
and, by their permission, appropriated to themselves a large part of
that territory.

It is here the story is related that the Ophiogeneis have some affinity
with the serpent tribe (τοὺς ὄφεις). They say that the males of the
Ophiogeneis have the power of curing persons bitten by serpents by
touching them without intermission, after the manner of the enchanters.
They first transfer to themselves the livid colour occasioned by the
bite, and then cause the inflammation and pain to subside. According
to the fable, the founder of the race of Ophiogeneis, a hero, was
transformed from a serpent into a man. He was perhaps one of the
African Psylli. The power continued in the race for some time.

Parium was founded by Milesians, Erythræans, and Parians.

15. Pitya is situated in Pityus in the Parian district, and having
above it a mountain abounding with pine trees (πιτυῶδες); it is between
Parium and Priapus, near Linum, a place upon the sea, where the
Linusian cockles are taken, which excel all others.

16. In the voyage along the coast from Parium to Priapus are the ancient
and the present Proconnesus,[1360] with a city, and a large quarry of
white marble, which is much esteemed. The most beautiful works in the
cities in these parts, and particularly those in Cyzicus, are
constructed of this stone.

Aristeas, the writer of the poems called Arimaspeian, the greatest of
impostors, was of Proconnesus.

17. With respect to the mountain Tereia, some persons say that it is the
range of mountains in Peirossus, which the Cyziceni occupy, contiguous
to Zeleia, among which was a royal chase for the Lydian, and afterwards
for the Persian, kings. Others say that it was a hill forty stadia from
Lampsacus, on which was a temple sacred to the mother of the gods,
surnamed Tereia.

18. Lampsacus, situated on the sea, is a considerable city with a good
harbour, and, like Abydos, supports its state well. It is distant from
Abydos about 170 stadia. It had formerly, as they say Chios had, the
name of Pityusa. On the opposite territory in Cherronesus is
Callipolis,[1361] a small town. It is situated upon the shore, which
projects so far towards Asia opposite to Lampsacus that the passage
across does not exceed 40 stadia.

19. In the interval between Lampsacus and Parium was Pæsus, a city, and
a river Pæsus.[1362] The city was razed, and the Pæseni, who, as well as
the Lampsaceni, were a colony of Milesians, removed to Lampsacus. The
poet mentions the city with the addition of the first syllable,

   “and the country of Apæsus;”[1363]

and without it,

   “a man of great possessions, who lived at Pæsus;”[1364]

and this is still the name of the river.

Colonæ [CAS. 589] also is a colony of Milesians. It is situated above
Lampsacus, in the interior of the territory Lampsacene. There is another
Colonæ situated upon the exterior Hellespontic Sea, at the distance of
140 stadia from Ilium; the birth-place, it is said, of Cycnus.
Anaximenes mentions a Colonæ in the Erythræan territory, in Phocis, and
in Thessaly. Iliocolone is in the Parian district. In Lampsacene is a
place well planted with vines, called Gergithium, and there was a city
Gergitha, founded by the Gergithi in the Cymæan territory, where
formerly was a city called Gergitheis, (used in the plural number, and
of the feminine gender,) the birth-place of Cephalon[1365] the
Gergithian, and even now there exists a place in the Cymæan territory
called Gergithium, near Larissa.

Neoptolemus,[1366] surnamed the Glossographer, a writer of repute, was
of Parium. Charon,[1367] the Historian, was of Lampsacus.
Adeimantes,[1368] Anaximenes,[1369] the Rhetorician, and Metrodorus, the
friend of Epicurus, even Epicurus himself might be said to be a
Lampsacenian, having lived a long time at Lampsacus, and enjoyed the
friendship of Idomeneus and Leontes, the most distinguished of its
citizens.

It was from Lampsacus that Agrippa transported the Prostrate Lion, the
workmanship of Lysippus, and placed it in the sacred grove between the
lake[1370] and the strait.

20. Next to Lampsacus is Abydos, and the intervening places, of which
the poet speaks in such a manner as to comprehend both Lampsacene and
some parts of Pariane, for, in the Trojan times, the above cities were
not yet in existence:

   “those who inhabited Percote, Practius, Sestos, Abydos, and
   the famed Arisbe, were led by Asius, the son of
   Hyrtacus,”[1371]

who, he says,

   “came from Arisbe, from the river Selleïs in a chariot drawn
   by large and furious coursers;”

implying by these words that Arisbe was the royal seat of Asius, whence,
he says, he came,

   “drawn by coursers from the river Selleïs.”

But these places are so little known, that writers do not agree among
themselves about their situation, except that they are near Abydos,
Lampsacus, and Parium, and that the name of the last place was changed
from Percope to Percote.

21. With respect to the rivers, the poet says that the Selleïs flows
near Arisbe, for Asius came from Arisbe and the river Selleïs. Practius
is a river, but no city of that name, as some have thought, is to be
found. This river runs between Abydos and Lampsacus; the words,
therefore,

   “and dwelt near Practius,”

must be understood of the river, as these expressions of the poet,

   “they dwelt near the sacred waters of Cephisus,”[1372]

and

   “they occupied the fertile land about the river Parthenius.”[1373]

There was also in <DW26>s a city called Arisba, the territory belonging
to which was possessed by the Methymnæans. There is a river Arisbus in
Thrace, as we have said before, near which are situated the Cabrenii
Thracians. There are many names common to Thracians and Trojans, as
Scæi, a Thracian tribe, a river Scæus, a Scæan wall, and in Troy, Scæan
gates. There are Thracians called Xanthii, and a river Xanthus in Troja;
an Arisbus which discharges itself into the Hebrus,[1374] and an Arisbe
in Troja; a river Rhesus in Troja, and Rhesus, a king of the Thracians.
The poet mentions also another Asius, besides the Asius of Arisbe,

   “who was the maternal uncle of the hero Hector, own brother of
   Hecuba, and son of Dymas who lived in Phrygia on the banks of
   the Sangarius.”[1375]

22. Abydos was founded by Milesians by permission of Gyges, king of
Lydia; for those places and the whole of the Troad were under his sway.
There is a promontory near [CAS. 591] Dardanus called Gyges. Abydos is
situated upon the mouth of the Propontis and the Hellespont, and is at
an equal distance from Lampsacus and Ilium, about 170 stadia. At Abydos
is the Hepta Stadium, (or strait of seven stadia,) the shores of which
Xerxes united by a bridge. It separates Europe from Asia. The extremity
of Europe is called Cherronesus, from its figure; it forms the straits
at the Zeugma (or Junction)[1376] which is opposite to Abydos.

Sestos is the finest[1377] city in the Cherronesus, and from its
proximity to Abydos was placed under the command of the same governor,
at a time when the same limits were not assigned to the governments and
to the continents. Sestos and Abydos are distant from each other, from
harbour to harbour, about 30 stadia. The Zeugma is a little beyond the
cities; on the side of the Propontis, beyond Abydos, and on the opposite
side, beyond Sestos. There is a place near Sestos, called Apobathra,
where the raft was fastened. Sestos lies nearer the Propontis, and above
the current which issues from it; whence the passage is more easy from
Sestos by deviating a little towards the tower of Hero, when, letting
the vessel go at liberty, the stream assists in effecting the crossing
to the other side. In crossing from Abydos to the other side persons
must sail out in the contrary direction, to the distance of about eight
stadia towards a tower which is opposite Sestos; they must then take an
oblique course, and the current will not be entirely against them.

After the Trojan war, Abydos was inhabited by Thracians, then by
Milesians. When the cities on the Propontis were burnt by Dareius,
father of Xerxes, Abydos shared in the calamity. Being informed, after
his return from Scythia, that the Nomades were preparing to cross over
to attack him, in revenge for the treatment which they had experienced,
he set fire to these cities, apprehending that they would assist in
transporting the Scythian army across the strait.

In addition to other changes of this kind, those occasioned by time are
a cause of confusion among places.

We spoke before of Sestos, and of the whole of the Cherronesus, when we
described Thrace. Theopompus says that Sestos is a small but
well-fortified place, and is connected with the harbour by a wall of two
plethra in extent, and for this reason, and by its situation above the
current, it commands the passage of the strait.

23. In the Troad, above the territory of Abydos is Astyra, which now
belongs to the Abydeni,--a city in ruins, but it was formerly an
independent place, and had gold-mines, which are now nearly exhausted,
like those in Mount Tmolus near the Pactolus.

From Abydos to the Æsepus are, it is said, about 700 stadia, but not so
much in sailing in a direct line.

24. Beyond Abydos are the parts about Ilium, the sea-coast as far as
Lectum, the places in the Trojan plain, and the country at the foot of
Ida, which was subject to Æneas. The poet names the Dardanii in two
ways, speaking of them as

   “Dardanii governed by the brave son of Anchises,”[1378]

calling them Dardanii, and also Dardani;

   “Troes, and Lycii, and close-fighting Dardani.”[1379]

It is probable that the Dardania,[1380] so called by the poet, was
anciently situated there;

   “Dardanus, the son of cloud-compelling Jupiter, founded
   Dardania:”[1381]

at present there is not a vestige of a city.

25. Plato conjectures that, after the deluges, three kinds of
communities were established; the first on the heights of the mountains,
consisting of a simple and savage race, who had taken refuge there
through dread of the waters, which overflowed the plains; the second, at
the foot of the mountains, who regained courage by degrees, as the
plains began to dry; the third, in the plains. But a fourth, and perhaps
a fifth, or more communities might be supposed to be formed, the last of
which might be on the sea-coast, and in the islands, after all fear of
deluge was dissipated. For as men approached the sea with a greater or
less degree of courage, we should have greater variety in forms of
government, diversity also in manners and habits, according [CAS. 593]
as a simple and savage people assumed the milder character of the second
kind of community. There is, however, a distinction to be observed even
among these, as of rustic, half rustic, and of civilized people. Among
these finally arose a gradual change, and an assumption of names,
applied to polished and high character, the result of an improved moral
condition produced by a change of situation and mode of life. Plato says
that the poet describes these differences, alleging as an example of the
first form of society the mode of life among the Cyclops, who subsisted
on the fruits of the earth growing spontaneously, and who occupied
certain caves in the heights of mountains;

   “all things grow there,” he says, “without sowing seed, and
   without the plough.

   But they have no assemblies for consulting together, nor
   administration of laws, but live on the heights of lofty
   mountains, in deep caves, and each gives laws to his wife and
   children.”[1382]

As an example of the second form of society, he alleges the mode of life
under Dardanus;

   “he founded Dardania; for sacred Ilium was not yet a city in
   the plain with inhabitants, but they still dwelt at the foot
   of Ida abounding with streams.”[1383]

An example of the third state of society is taken from that in the time
of Ilus, when the people inhabited the plains. He is said to have been
the founder of Ilium, from whom the city had its name. It is probable
that for this reason he was buried in the middle of the plain, because
he first ventured to make a settlement in it,

   “they rushed through the middle of the plain by the wild
   fig-tree near the tomb of ancient Ilus, the son of
   Dardanus.”[1384]

He did not, however, place entire confidence in the situation, for he
did not build the city where it stands at present, but nearly thirty
stadia higher to the east, towards Ida, and Dardania, near the present
village of the Ilienses. The present Ilienses are ambitious of having it
supposed that theirs is the ancient city, and have furnished a subject
of discussion to those who form their conjectures from the poetry of
Homer; but it does not seem to be the city meant by the poet. Other
writers also relate, that the city had frequently changed its place,
but at last about the time of Crœsus it became stationary. Such changes,
which then took place, from higher to lower situations, mark the
differences, I conceive, which followed in the forms of government and
modes of life. But we must examine this subject elsewhere.

26. The present city of Ilium was once, it is said, a village,
containing a small and plain temple of Minerva; that Alexander,
after[1385] his victory at the Granicus, came up, and decorated the
temple with offerings, gave it the title of city, and ordered those who
had the management of such things to improve it with new buildings; he
declared it free and exempt from tribute. Afterwards, when he had
destroyed the Persian empire, he sent a letter, expressed in kind terms,
in which he promised the Ilienses to make theirs a great city, to build
a temple of great magnificence, and to institute sacred games.

After the death of Alexander, it was Lysimachus who took the greatest
interest in the welfare of the place; built a temple, and surrounded the
city with a wall of about 40 stadia in extent. He settled here the
inhabitants of the ancient cities around, which were in a dilapidated
state. It was at this time that he directed his attention to
Alexandreia, founded by Antigonus, and surnamed Antigonia, which was
altered (into Alexandreia). For it appeared to be an act of pious duty
in the successors of Alexander first to found cities which should bear
his name, and afterwards those which should be called after their own.
Alexandreia continued to exist, and became a large place; at present it
has received a Roman colony, and is reckoned among celebrated cities.

27. The present Ilium was a kind of village-city, when the Romans first
came into Asia and expelled Antiochus the Great from the country within
the Taurus. Demetrius of Scepsis says that, when a youth, he came, in
the course of his travels, to this city, about that time, and saw the
houses so neglected that even the roofs were without tiles.
Hegesianax[1386] also relates, that the Galatians, who crossed over from
Europe, being in want of some stronghold, went up to the city, but
immediately left it, when they saw that it was not fortified with a
wall; afterwards it underwent great reparation and [CAS. 595]
improvement. It was again injured by the Romans under the command of
Fimbrias. They took it by siege in the Mithridatic war. Fimbrias was
sent as quæstor, with the consul Valerius Flaccus, who was appointed to
carry on the war against Mithridates. But having excited a sedition, and
put the consul to death in Bithynia, he placed himself at the head of
the army and advanced towards Ilium, where the inhabitants refused to
admit him into the city, as they regarded him as a robber. He had
recourse to force, and took the city on the eleventh day. When he was
boasting that he had taken a city on the eleventh day, which Agamemnon
had reduced with difficulty in the tenth year of the siege with a fleet
of a thousand vessels, and with the aid of the whole of Greece, one of
the Ilienses replied, “We had no Hector to defend the city.”

Sylla afterwards came, defeated Fimbrias, and dismissed Mithridates,
according to treaty, into his own territory. Sylla conciliated the
Ilienses by extensive repairs of their city. In our time divus Cæsar
showed them still more favour, in imitation of Alexander. He was
inclined to favour them, for the purpose of renewing his family
connexion with the Ilienses, and as an admirer of Homer.

There exists a corrected copy of the poems of Homer, called “the
casket-copy.” Alexander perused it in company with Callisthenes and
Anaxarchus, and having made some marks and observations deposited it in
a casket[1387] of costly workmanship which he found among the Persian
treasures. On account then of his admiration of the poet and his descent
from the Æacidæ, (who were kings of the Molossi, whose queen they say
was Andromache, afterwards the wife of Hector,) Alexander treated the
Ilienses with kindness.

But Cæsar, who admired the character of Alexander, and had strong proofs
of his affinity to the Ilienses, had the greatest possible desire to be
their benefactor. The proofs of his affinity to the Ilienses were
strong, first as being a Roman,--for the Romans consider Æneas to be the
founder of their race,--next he had the name of Julius, from Iulus, one
of his ancestors, a descendant of Æneas. He therefore assigned to them
a district, and guaranteed their liberty with exemption from imposts,
and they continue at present to enjoy these advantages. They maintain by
this evidence that the ancient Ilium, even by Homer’s account, was not
situated there. I must however first describe the places which commence
from the sea-coast, where I made the digression.

28. Next to Abydos is the promontory Dardanis,[1388] which we mentioned
a little before, and the city Dardanus, distant 70 stadia from Abydos.
Between them the river Rhodius discharges itself, opposite to which on
the Cherronesus is the Cyno-sema,[1389] which is said to be the
sepulchre of Hecuba. According to others, the Rhodius empties itself
into the Æsepus. It is one of the rivers mentioned by the poet,

   “Rhesus, and Heptaporus, Caresus, and Rhodius.”[1390]

Dardanus is an ancient settlement, but so slightly thought of, that some
kings transferred its inhabitants to Abydos, others re-settled them in
the ancient dwelling-place. Here Cornelius Sylla, the Roman general, and
Mithridates, surnamed Eupator, conferred together, and terminated the
war by a treaty.

29. Near Dardanus is Ophrynium, on which is the grove dedicated to
Hector in a conspicuous situation, and next is Pteleos, a lake.

30. Then follows Rhœteium, a city on a hill, and continuous to it is a
shore on a level with the sea, on which is situated a monument and
temple of Ajax, and a statue. Antony took away the latter and carried it
to Ægypt, but Augustus Cæsar restored it to the inhabitants of Rhœteium,
as he restored other [CAS. 595] statues to other cities. Antony took
away the most beautiful offerings from the most celebrated temples to
gratify the Ægyptian queen, but Augustus Cæsar restored them to the
gods.

31. After Rhœteium is Sigeium,[1391] a city in ruins, and the naval
station, the harbour of the Achæans, the Achæan camp, the Stomalimne, as
it is called, and the mouths of the Scamander. The Scamander and the
Simoeis, uniting in the plain,[1392] bring down a great quantity of mud,
bank up the sea-coast, and form a blind mouth, salt-water lakes, and
marshes.

Opposite the Sigeian promontory on the Cherronesus is the
Protesilaeium,[1393] and Eleussa, of which I have spoken in the
description of Thrace.

32. The extent of this sea-coast as we sail in a direct line from
Rhœteium to Sigeium, and the monument of Achilles, is 60 stadia. The
whole of the coast lies below the present Ilium; the part near the port
of the Achæans,[1394] distant from the present Ilium about 12 stadia,
and thirty stadia more from the ancient Ilium,[1395] which is higher up
in the part towards Ida.

Near the Sigeium is a temple and monument of Achilles, and monuments
also of Patroclus and Antilochus.[1396] The Ilienses perform sacred
ceremonies in honour of them all, and even of Ajax. But they do not
worship Hercules, alleging as a reason that he ravaged their country.
Yet some one might say that he laid it waste in such a manner that he
left it to future spoilers in an injured condition indeed, but still in
the condition of a city; wherefore the poet expresses himself in this
manner,

   “He ravaged the city of Ilium, and made its streets desolate,”[1397]

for desolation implies a deficiency of inhabitants, but not a complete
destruction of the place; but those persons destroyed it entirely, whom
they think worthy of sacred rites, and worship as gods; unless, perhaps,
they should plead that these persons engaged in a just, and Hercules in
an unjust, war, on account of the horses of Laomedon. To this is opposed
a fabulous tale, that it was not on account of the horses but of the
reward for the delivery of Hesione from the sea-monster. [CAS. 596] Let
us, however, dismiss this subject, for the discussion leads to the
refutation of fables only, and probably there may be reasons unknown to
us which induced the Ilienses to worship some of these persons, and not
others. The poet seems, in speaking of Hercules, to represent the city
as small, since he ravaged the city

   “with six ships only, and a small band of men.”[1398]

From these words it appears that Priam from a small became a great
person, and a king of kings, as we have already said.

A short way from this coast is the Achæïum, situated on the continent
opposite Tenedos.

33. Such, then, is the nature of the places on the sea-coast. Above them
lies the plain of Troy, extending as far as Ida to the east, a distance
of many stadia.[1399] The part at the foot of the mountain is narrow,
extending to the south as far as the places near Scepsis, and towards
the north as far as the Lycians about Zeleia. This country Homer places
under the command of Æneas and the Antenoridæ, and calls it Dardania.
Below it is Cebrenia, which for the most part consists of plains, and
lies nearly parallel to Dardania. There was also formerly a city
Cybrene. Demetrius (of Scepsis) supposes that the tract about Ilium,
subject to Hector, extended to this place, from the Naustathmus (or
station for vessels) to Cebrenia, for he says that the sepulchre of
Alexander Paris exists there, and of Œnone, who, according to
historians, was the wife of Alexander, before the rape of Helen; the
poet says,

   “Cebriones, the spurious son of the far-famed Priam,”[1400]

who, perhaps, received his name from the district, (Cebrenia,) or, more
probably, from the city (Cebrene[1401]). Cebrenia extends as far as the
Scepsian district. The boundary is the Scamander, which runs through the
middle of Cebrenia and Scepsia. There was continual enmity and war
between the Scepsians and Cebrenians, till Antigonus settled them both
together in the city, then called Antigonia, but at present Alexandria.
The Cebrenians remained there with the other inhabitants, but the
Scepsians, by the permission of Lysimachus, returned to their own
country.

34. From the mountainous tract of Ida near these places, two arms, he
says, extend to the sea, one in the direction of Rhœteium, the other of
Sigeium, forming a semicircle, and terminate in the plain at the same
distance from the sea as the present Ilium, which is situated between
the extremities of the above-mentioned arms, whereas the ancient Ilium
was situated at their commencement. This space comprises the Simoïsian
plain through which the Simoeis runs, and the Scamandrian plain, watered
by the Scamander. This latter plain is properly the plain of Troy, and
Homer makes it the scene of the greatest part of his battles, for it is
the widest of the two; and there we see the places named by him, the
Erineos, the tomb of Æsyetes,[1402] Batieia, and the tomb of Ilus. With
respect to the Scamander and the Simoeis, the former, after approaching
Sigeium, and the latter Rhœteium, unite their streams a little in front
of the present Ilium,[1403] and then empty themselves near Sigeium, and
form as it is called the Stomalimne. Each of the above-mentioned plains
is separated from the other by a long ridge[1404] which is in a straight
line with the above-mentioned arms;[1405] the ridge begins at the
present [CAS. 597] Ilium and is united to it; it extends as far as
Cebrenia, and completes with the arms on each side the letter θ.

35. A little above this ridge of land is the village of the Ilienses,
supposed to be the site of the ancient Ilium, at the distance of 30
stadia from the present city. Ten stadia above the village of the
Ilienses is Callicolone, a hill beside which, at the distance of five
stadia, runs the Simoeis.

The description of the poet is probable. First what he says of Mars,

   “but on the other side Mars arose, like a black tempest, one
   while with a shrill voice calling upon the Trojans from the
   summit of the citadel, at another time running along
   Callicolone beside the Simoeis;”[1406]

for since the battle was fought on the Scamandrian plain, Mars might,
according to probability, encourage the men, one while from the citadel,
at another time from the neighbouring places, the Simoeis and the
Callicolone, to which the battle might extend. But since Callicolone is
distant from the present Ilium 40 stadia, where was the utility of
changing places at so great a distance, where the array of the troops
did not extend? and the words

   “The Lycii obtained by lot the station near Thymbra,”[1407]

which agree better with the ancient city, for the plain Thymbra,[1408]
is near, and the river Thymbrius, which runs through it, discharges
itself into the Scamander, near the temple of Apollo Thymbræus, but is
distant 50 stadia from the present Ilium. The Erineos,[1409] a rugged
spot abounding with wild fig-trees, lies below the ancient city, so that
Andromache might say in conformity with such a situation,

   “but place your bands near Erineos, where the city is most
   accessible to the enemy, and where they can mount the
   wall,”[1410]

but it is very far distant from the present city. The beech-tree was a
little lower than the Erineos; of the former Achilles says,

   “When I fought with the Achæans Hector was not disposed to
   urge the fight away from the wall, but advanced only as far as
   the Scæan gates, and the beech-tree.”[1411]

36. Besides, the Naustathmus, which retains its name at present, is so
near the present city that any person may justly be surprised at the
imprudence of the Greeks, and the want of spirit in the
Trojans;--imprudence on the part of the Greeks, that they should have
left the place for so long a time unfortified with a wall, in the
neighbourhood of so large a city, and so great a body of men, both
inhabitants and auxiliaries; for the wall, Homer says, was constructed
at a late period; or perhaps no wall was built and the erection and
destruction of it, as Aristotle says, are due to the invention of the
poet;--a want of spirit on the part of the Trojans, who, after the wall
was built, attacked that, and the Naustathmus, and the vessels
themselves, but had not the courage before there was a wall to approach
and besiege this station, although the distance was not great, for the
Naustathmus is near Sigeium. The Scamander discharges itelf near this
place at the distance of 20 stadia from Ilium.[1412] If any one shall
say that the Naustathmus is the present harbour of the Achæans, he must
mean a place still nearer, distant about twelve stadia from the sea,
[CAS. 599] which is the extent of the plain in front of the city to the
sea; but he will be in error if he include (in the ancient) the present
plain, which is all alluvial soil brought down by the rivers,[1413] so
that if the interval is 12 stadia at present, it must have been at that
period less in extent by one half. The story framed by Ulysses, which he
tells Eumæus, implies a great distance from the Naustathmus to the city;

   “when we lay in ambush below Troy,”[1414]

and he adds afterwards,

   “for we had advanced too far from the ships.”[1415]

Scouts are despatched to learn whether the Trojans will remain near the
ships when drawn away far from their own walls, or whether

   “they will return back to the city.”[1416]

Polydamas also says,

   “Consider well, my friends, what is to be done, for my advice
   is to return now to the city, for we are far from the
   walls.”[1417]

Demetrius (of Scepsis) adds the testimony of Hestiæa[1418] of
Alexandreia, who composed a work on the Iliad of Homer, and discusses
the question whether the scene of the war was about the present city,
and what was the Trojan plain which the poet mentions as situated
between the city and the sea, for the plain seen in front of the present
city is an accumulation of earth brought down by the rivers, and formed
at a later period.

37. Polites also,

   “who was the scout of the Trojans, trusting to his swiftness
   of foot, and who was on the summit of the tomb of the old
   Æsyetes,”[1419]

was acting absurdly. For although he was seated

   “on the summit of the tomb,”

yet he might have observed from the much greater height of the citadel,
situated nearly at the same distance, nor would his swiftness of foot
have been required for the purpose of security, for the tomb of Æsyetes,
which exists at present on the road to Alexandreia, is distant five
stadia from the citadel.

Nor is the course of Hector round the city at all a probable
circumstance, for the present city will not admit of a circuit round it
on account of the continuous ridge of hill, but the ancient city did
allow such a course round it.[1420]

38. No trace of the ancient city remains. This might be expected, for
the cities around were devastated, but not entirely destroyed, whereas
when Troy was overthrown from its foundation all the stones were removed
for the reparation of the other cities. Archæanax of Mitylene is said to
have fortified Sigeium with the stones brought from Troy. Sigeium was
taken possession of by the Athenians, who sent Phryno, the victor in the
Olympic games, at the time the Lesbians advanced a claim to nearly the
whole Troad. They had indeed [CAS. 600] founded most of the
settlements, some of which exist at present, and others have
disappeared. Pittacus of Mitylene, one of the seven wise men, sailed to
the Troad against Phryno, the Athenian general, and was defeated in a
pitched battle. (It was at this time that the poet Alcæus, as he himself
says, when in danger in some battle, threw away his arms and fled. He
charged a messenger with injunctions to inform those at home that Alcæus
was safe, but that he did not bring away his arms. These were dedicated
by the Athenians as an offering in the temple of Minerva
Glaucopis.)[1421] Upon Phryno’s proposal to meet in single combat,
Pittacus advanced with his fishing gear,[1422] enclosed his adversary in
a net, pierced him with his three-pronged spear, and despatched him with
a short sword. The war however still continuing, Periander was chosen
arbitrator by both parties, and put an end to it.

39. Demetrius accuses Timæus of falsehood, for saying that Periander
built a wall round the Achilleium out of the stones brought from Ilium
as a protection against the attacks of the Athenians, and with a view to
assist Pittacus; whereas this place was fortified by the Mitylenæans
against Sigeium, but not with stones from Ilium, nor by Periander. For
how should they choose an enemy in arms to be arbitrator?

The Achilleium is a place which contains the monument of Achilles, and
is a small settlement. It was destroyed, as also Sigeium, by the
Ilienses on account of the refractory disposition of its inhabitants.
For all the sea-coast as far as Dardanus was afterwards, and is at
present, subject to them.

Anciently the greatest part of these places were subject to the Æolians,
and hence Ephorus does not hesitate to call all the country from Abydos
to Cume by the name of Æolis. But Thucydides[1423] says that the
Mitylenæans were deprived of the Troad in the Peloponnesian war by the
Athenians under the command of Paches.

40. The present Ilienses affirm that the city was not entirely
demolished when it was taken by the Achæans, nor at any time deserted.
The Locrian virgins began to be sent there, as was the custom every
year, a short time afterwards. This however is not told by Homer. Nor
was Homer acquainted with the violation of Cassandra,[1424] but says
that she was a virgin about that time:

   “He slew Othryoneus, who had lately come to the war from
   Cabesus, induced by the glory of the contest, and who sought
   in marriage the most beautiful of the daughters of Priam,
   Cassandra, without a dower.”[1425]

He does not mention any force having been used, nor does he attribute
the death of Ajax by shipwreck to the wrath of Minerva, nor to any
similar cause, but says, in general terms, that he was an object of
hatred to Minerva, (for she was incensed against all who had profaned
her temple,) and that Ajax died by the agency of Neptune for his
boasting speeches.

The Locrian virgins were sent there when the Persians were masters of
the country.

41. Such is the account of the Ilienses. But Homer speaks expressly of
the demolition of the city:

   “The day will come when at length sacred Ilium shall perish,[1426]

   After we have destroyed the lofty city of Priam,[1427]

   By counsel, by wisdom, and by artifice,
   The city of Priam was destroyed in the tenth year.”[1428]

Of this they produce evidence of the following kind; the statue of
Minerva, which Homer represents as in a sitting posture, is seen at
present to be a standing figure, for he orders them

   “to place the robe on the knees of Athene,”[1429]

in the same sense as this verse,

   “no son of mine should sit upon her knees,”[1430]

and it is better to understand it thus, than as some explain it, “by
placing the robe at the knees,” and adduce this line,

   “she sat upon the hearth in the light of the fire,”[1431]

[CAS. 601] for “near the hearth.” For what would the laying the robe at
the knees mean? And they who alter the accent, and for γούνασιν read
γουνασιν, like θυιάσιν, or in whatever way they understand it,[1432]
come to no conclusion. Many of the ancient statues of Minerva are found
in a sitting posture, as those at Phocæa, Massalia, Rome, Chios, and
many other cities. But modern writers, among whom is Lycurgus the
rhetorician, agree that the city was destroyed, for in mentioning the
city of the Ilienses he says, “who has not heard, when it was once razed
by the Greeks, that it was uninhabited?”[1433]

42. It is conjectured that those who afterwards proposed to rebuild it
avoided the spot as inauspicious, either on account of its calamities,
of which it had been the scene, or whether Agamemnon, according to an
ancient custom, had devoted it to destruction with a curse, as Crœsus,
when he destroyed Sidene, in which the tyrant Glaucias had taken refuge,
uttered a curse against those who should rebuild its walls. They
therefore abandoned that spot and built a city elsewhere.

The Astypalæans, who were in possession of Rhœteium, were the first
persons that founded Polium near the Simoïs, now called Polisma, but not
in a secure spot, and hence it was soon in ruins.

The present settlement, and the temple, were built in the time of the
Lydian kings; but it was not then a city; a long time afterwards,
however, and by degrees, it became, as we have said, a considerable
place.

Hellanicus, in order to gratify the Ilienses, as is his custom,
maintains that the present and the ancient city are the same. But the
district on the extinction of the city was divided by the possessors of
Rhœteium and Sigeium, and the other neighbouring people among
themselves. Upon the rebuilding of the city, however, they restored it.

43. Ida is thought to be appropriately described by Homer, as abounding
with springs on account of the multitude of rivers which issue from it,
particularly where Dardania as far as Scepsis lies at its foot, and the
places about Ilium.

Demetrius, who was acquainted with these places, (for he was a native,)
thus speaks of them: “There is a height of Ida called Cotylus; it is
situated about 120 stadia above Scepsis, and from it flow the Scamander,
the Granicus, and the Æsepus;[1434] the two last, being the
contributions of many smaller sources, fall into the Propontis, but the
Scamander, which has but a single source, flows towards the west. All
these sources are in the neighbourhood of each other, and are comprised
within a circuit of 20 stadia. The termination of the Æsepus is farthest
distant from its commencement, namely, about 500 stadia.”

We may, however, ask why the poet says,

   “They came to the fair fountains, whence burst forth two
   streams of the eddying Scamander, one flowing with water
   warm,”[1435]

that is, hot; he proceeds, however,

   “around issues vapour as though caused by fire--the other
   gushes out in the summer, cold like hail, or frozen as snow,”

for no warm springs are now found in that spot, nor is the source of the
Scamander there, but in the mountain, and there is one source instead of
two.[1436] It is probable that the [CAS. 602] warm spring has failed,
but the cold spring flowing from the Scamander along a subterraneous
channel emerges at this place; or, because the water was near the
Scamander, it was called the source of that river, for there are several
springs, which are said to be its sources.

44. The Andirus empties itself into the Scamander; a river which comes
from the district of Caresene, a mountainous country, in which are many
villages. It is well cultivated by the husbandmen. It adjoins Dardania,
and extends as far as the places about Zeleia and Pityeia. The country,
it is said, had its name from the river Caresus, mentioned by the poet,

   “the Rhesus, Heptaporus, Caresus, and Rhodius,”[1437]

but the city of the same name as the river is in ruins.

Demetrius again says, the river Rhesus is now called Rhoeites, unless it
is the Rhesus which empties itself into the Granicus.

The Heptaporus, which is called also Polyporus, is crossed seven times
in travelling from the places about Cale Peuce (or the beautiful pitch
tree) to the village Melænæ and to the Asclepieium, founded by
Lysimachus.

Attalus, the first king, gives this account of the beautiful pitch tree;
its circumference, he says, was 24 feet; the height of the trunk from
the root was 67 feet; it then formed three branches, equally distant
from each other; it then contracts into one head, and here it completes
the whole height of two plethra, and 15 cubits. It is distant from
Adramyttium 180 stadia towards the north.

The Caresus flows from Malus, a place situated between Palæscepsis and
Achæïum, in front of the isle of Tenedos, and empties itself into the
Æsepus.

The Rhodius flows from Cleandria and Gordus, which are distant 60 stadia
from Cale Peuce, and empties itself into the Ænius (Æsepus?).

45. In the valley about the Æsepus, on the left of its course, the first
place we meet with is Polichna, a walled stronghold; then Palæscepsis,
next Alizonium, a place invented for the supposed existence of the
Halizoni whom we have mentioned before.[1438] Then Caresus, a deserted
city, and Caresene, and a river of the same name, (Caresus,) which also
forms a considerable valley, but less than that about the Æsepus. Next
follow the plains of Zeleia, and the mountain plains, which are well
cultivated. On the right of the Æsepus, between Polichna and Palæscepsis
is Nea-Come,[1439] and Argyria, [CAS. 603] (the silver mines,)[1440]
which are another fiction framed to support the same hypothesis, in
order that the words of Homer may be defended,

   “where silver is produced.”[1441]

Where then is Alybe, or Alope, or in whatever way they please to play
upon the name? For they ought to have had the impudence to invent this
place also, and not to leave their system imperfect and exposed to
detection, when they had once ventured so far. This is the contradiction
which may be given to Demetrius.

As to the rest, we ought at least in the greatest number of instances to
attend to a man of experience, and a native of the country, who also had
bestowed so much thought and time on this subject as to write thirty
books to interpret little more than 60 lines of the catalogue of the
Trojan forces.

Palæscepsis, according to Demetrius, is distant from Ænea 50, and from
the river Æsepus 30, stadia, and the name of Palæscepsis is applied to
many other places.[1442]

We return to the sea-coast, from which we have digressed.

46. After the Sigeian promontory, and the Achilleium, is the coast
opposite to Tenedos, the Achæïum, and Tenedos itself, distant not more
than 40 stadia from the continent. It is about 80 stadia in
circumference. It contains an Æolian city, and has two harbours, and a
temple of Apollo Smintheus, as the poet testifies;

   “Smintheus, thou that reignest over Tenedos.”[1443]

There are several small islands around it, and two in particular, called
Calydnæ,[1444] situated in the course of the voyage to Lectum. There are
some writers who call Tenedos Calydna, and others Leucophrys.[1445]
There are other small islands around it besides these. They lay near the
scene of the fable about Tennes, from whom the island has its name, and
of the story of Cycnus, a Thracian by descent, and father, according to
some writers, of Tennes, and king of Colonæ.

47. Continuous with the Achæium are Larisa and Colonæ, formerly
belonging to the people of Tenedos, who occupied the opposite coast; and
the present Chrysa, situated upon a rocky height above the sea, and
Hamaxitus lying below, and close to Lectum. But at present Alexandreia
is continuous with the Achæium; the inhabitants of those small towns,
and of many other strongholds, were embodied in Alexandreia. Among the
latter were Cebrene and Neandria. The territory is in the possession of
the Alexandrini, and the spot in which Alexandreia is now situated was
called Sigia.

48. The temple of Apollo Smintheus is in this Chrysa, and the symbol, a
mouse, which shows the etymology of the epithet Smintheus, lying under
the foot of the statue.[1446] They are the workmanship of Scopas of
Paros. They reconcile the history, and the fable about the mice, in this
following manner.

The Teucri, who came from Crete, (of whom Callinus, the elegiac poet,
gave the first history, and he was followed by many others,) were
directed by an oracle to settle wherever the earth-born inhabitants
should attack them, which, it is said, occurred to them near Hamaxitus,
for in the night-time great multitudes of field-mice came out and
devoured all arms or utensils which were made of leather; the colony
therefore settled there. These people also called the mountain Ida,
after the name of the mountain in Crete.

But [CAS. 604] Heracleides of Pontus says, that the mice, which swarmed
near the temple, were considered as sacred, and the statue is
represented as standing upon a mouse.

Others say, that a certain Teucer came from Attica, who belonged to the
Demus of Troes, which is now called Xypeteon, but that no Teucri came
from Crete. They adduce as a proof of the intermixture of Trojans with
Athenians, that an Ericthonius was a founder of both people.

This is the account of modern writers. But the traces which now exist in
the plain of Thebe, and at Chrysa situated there, coincide better with
the description of Homer; and of these we shall speak immediately.[1447]

The name of Smintheus is to be found in many places, for near Hamaxitus
itself, besides the Sminthian Apollo at the temple, there are two places
called Sminthia, and others in the neighbouring district of Larissa. In
the district also of Pariane is a place called Sminthia; others in
Rhodes,[1448] Lindus, and in many places besides. The temple is now
called Sminthium.

Separate from the other is the Halesian plain near Lectum, which is not
extensive, and the Tragasæan salt-pan near Hamaxitus,[1449] where the
salt spontaneously concretes on the blowing of the Etesian winds. On
Lectum stands an altar dedicated to the Twelve Gods, erected, it is
said, by Agamemnon.

These places are in sight of Ilium, at the distance of a little more
than 200 stadia. On the other side the parts about Abydos are visible,
although Abydos is somewhat nearer.

49. After doubling Lectum, there follow the most considerable cities of
the Æolians, the bay of Adramyttium, on which Homer seems to have placed
the greater part of the Leleges, and the Cilicians, divided into two
tribes. There also is the coast of the Mitylenæans with some villages of
the Mitylenæans on the continent. The bay has the name of the Idæan bay,
for the ridge extending from Lectum to Ida overhangs the commencement
of the bay, where, according to the poet,[1450] the Leleges were first
settled.

50. I have spoken before of the Leleges, and I shall now add that the
poet speaks of a Pedasus, a city of theirs which was subject to Altes;

   “Altes, king of the war-loving Leleges, governs
   The lofty Pedasus on the river Satnioeis:”[1451]

the spot exists but there is no city. Some read, but incorrectly, “below
Satnioeis,” as if the city lay at the foot of a mountain called
Satnioeis; yet there is no mountain there called Satnioeis, but a river,
on which the city is placed. The city is at present deserted. The poet
mentions the river;

   “Ajax pierced with his spear Satnius, the son of Œnops, whom
   the beautiful nymph Naïs bore to Œnops, when he tended herds
   on the banks of the Satnioeis.”[1452]

And in another place;

   “Œnops dwelt on the banks of the smooth-flowing Satnioeis
   In lofty Pedasus.”[1453]

Later writers called it Satioeis, and some writers Saphnioeis. It is a
great winter torrent, which the poet, by mentioning it, made remarkable.
These places are continuous with the districts Dardania and Scepsia, and
are as it were another Dardania, but lower than the former.

51. The country comprised in the districts of Antandria, Cebrene,
Neandria, and the Hamaxitus, as far as the sea opposite to <DW26>s, now
belongs to the people of Assus and Gargara.[1454]

The Neandrians are situated above Hamaxitus on this side Lectum, but
more towards the interior, and nearer to Ilium, from which they are
distant 130 stadia. Above these people are the Cebrenii, and above the
Cebrenii the Dardanii, extending as far as Palæscepsis, and even to
Scepsis.

The poet Alcæus calls Antandrus a city of the Leleges:

   “First is Antandrus, a city of the Leleges.”

Demetrius of Scepsis places it among the adjacent cities, so that it
might be in the country of the Cilicians, for these people are rather to
be regarded as bordering upon the Leleges, [CAS. 606] having as their
boundary the southern side of Mount Ida. These however are situated low
down, and approach nearer the sea-coast at Adramyttium. After Lectum, at
the distance of 40 stadia is Polymedium,[1455] a stronghold; then at the
distance of 80 stadia Assus, situated a little above the sea; next at
140 stadia Gargara, which is situated on a promontory, which forms the
gulf, properly called the gulf of Adramyttium. For the whole of the
sea-coast from Lectum to Canæ, and the Elaïtic bay, is comprised under
the same name, the gulf of Adramyttium. This, however, is properly
called the Adramyttene gulf, which is enclosed within the promontory on
which Gargara stands, and that called the promontory Pyrrha,[1456] on
which is a temple of Venus. The breadth of the entrance forms a passage
across from promontory to promontory of 120 stadia. Within it is
Antandrus,[1457] with a mountain above it, which is called Alexandreia,
where it is said the contest between the goddesses was decided by Paris;
and Aspaneus, the depository of the timber cut from the forests of Ida;
it is here that wood is brought down and disposed of to those who want
it.

Next is Astyra, a village and grove sacred to Artemis Astyrene. Close to
it is Adramyttium, a city founded by a colony of Athenians, with a
harbour, and a station for vessels. Beyond the gulf and the promontory
Pyrrha is Cisthene, a deserted city with a harbour. Above it in the
interior is a copper mine, Perperena, Trarium, and other similar
settlements.

On this coast after Cisthene are the villages of the Mitylenæans,
Coryphantis and Heracleia; next to these is Attea; then Atarneus,[1458]
Pitane,[1459] and the mouths of the Caïcus. These, however, belong to
the Elaïtic gulf. On the opposite side of the Caïcus are Elæa,[1460] and
the remainder of the gulf as far as Canæ.

We shall resume our description of each place, lest we should have
omitted any one that is remarkable. And first with regard to Scepsis.

52. Palæscepsis is situated above Cebrene towards the most elevated part
of Ida near Polichna. It had the name of Scepsis[1461] either for some
other reason or because it was within view of the places around, if we
may be allowed to derive words then in use among Barbarians from the
Greek language. Afterwards the inhabitants were transferred to the
present Scepsis, 60 stadia lower down, by Scamandrius, the son of
Hector, and by Ascanius, the son of Æneas; these two families reigned,
it is said, a long time at Scepsis. They changed the form of government
to an oligarchy; afterwards the Milesians united with the Scepsians, and
formed a democracy.[1462] The descendants of these families had
nevertheless the name of kings, and held certain dignities. Antigonus
incorporated the Scepsians with the inhabitants of Alexandreia (Troas);
Lysimachus dissolved this union, and they returned to their own country.

53. The Scepsian (Demetrius) supposes that Scepsis was the palace of
Æneas, situated between the dominion of Æneas and Lyrnessus, where, it
is said, he took refuge when pursued by Achilles.

   “Remember you not,” says Achilles, “how I chased you when
   alone and apart from the herds, with swift steps, from the
   heights of Ida, thence indeed you escaped to Lyrnessus; but I
   took and destroyed it.”[1463]

Present traditions respecting Æneas do not agree with the story
respecting the first founders of Scepsis. For it is said that he was
spared on account of his hatred to Priam:

   “he ever bore hatred to Priam, for never had Priam bestowed
   any honour upon him for his valour.”[1464]

His companion chiefs, the Antenoridæ, and Antenor, and myself, escaped
on account of the hospitality which the latter had shown to Menelaus.

Sophocles, in his play, The Capture of Troy, says, that a panther’s skin
was placed before Antenor’s door as a signal that his house should be
spared from plunder. Antenor and [CAS. 600] [CAS. 608] his four sons,
together with the surviving Heneti, are said to have escaped into
Thrace, and thence into Henetica on the Adriatic;[1465] but Æneas, with
his father Anchises and his son Ascanius, are said to have collected a
large body of people, and to have set sail. Some writers say that he
settled about the Macedonian Olympus; according to others he founded
Capuæ,[1466] near Mantineia in Arcadia, and that he took the name of the
city from Capys. There is another account, that he disembarked at
Ægesta[1467] in Sicily, with Elymus, a Trojan, and took possession of
Eryx[1468] and Lilybæus,[1469] and called the rivers about Ægesta
Scamander and Simoïs; that from Sicily he went to Latium, and settled
there in obedience to an oracle enjoining him to remain wherever he
should eat his table. This happened in Latium, near Lavinium, when a
large cake of bread which was set down instead of, and for want of, a
table, was eaten together with the meat that was laid upon it.

Homer does not agree either with these writers or with what is said
respecting the founders of Scepsis. For he represents Æneas as remaining
at Troy, succeeding to the kingdom, and delivering the succession to his
children’s children after the extinction of the race of Priam:

   “the son of Saturn hated the family of Priam: henceforward
   Æneas shall reign over the Trojans, and his children’s
   children to late generations.”[1470]

In this manner not even the succession of Scamandrius could be
maintained. He disagrees still more with those writers who speak of his
wanderings as far as Italy, and make him end his days in that country.
Some write the verse thus:

   “The race of Æneas and his children’s children,” meaning the Romans,
   “shall rule over all nations.”

54. The Socratic philosophers, Erastus, Coriscus, and Neleus, the son of
Coriscus, a disciple of Aristotle, and Theophrastus, were natives of
Scepsis. Neleus succeeded to the possession of the library of
Theophrastus, which included that of Aristotle; for Aristotle gave his
library, and left his school, to Theophrastus. Aristotle[1471] was the
first person with whom we are acquainted who made a collection of books,
and suggested to the kings of Ægypt the formation of a library.
Theophrastus left his library to Neleus, who carried it to Scepsis, and
bequeathed it to some ignorant persons who kept the books locked up,
lying in disorder. When the Scepsians understood that the Attalic kings,
on whom the city was dependent, were in eager search for books, with
which they intended to furnish the library at Pergamus, they hid theirs
in an excavation under-ground; at length, but not before they had been
injured by damp and worms, the descendants of Neleus sold the books of
Aristotle and Theophrastus for a large sum of money to Apellicon of
Teos. Apellicon[1472] was rather a lover of books than a philosopher;
when therefore he attempted to restore the parts which had been eaten
and corroded by worms, he made alterations in the original text and
introduced them into new copies; he moreover supplied the defective
parts unskilfully, and published the books full of errors. It was the
misfortune of the ancient Peripatetics, those after Theophrastus, that
being wholly unprovided with the books of Aristotle, with the exception
of a few only, and those chiefly of the exoteric[1473] kind, they were
unable to philosophize according [CAS. 609] to the principles of the
system, and merely occupied themselves in elaborate discussions on
common places. Their successors however, from the time that these books
were published, philosophized, and propounded the doctrine of Aristotle
more successfully than their predecessors, but were under the necessity
of advancing a great deal as probable only, on account of the multitude
of errors contained in the copies.

Even Rome contributed to this increase of errors; for immediately on the
death of Apellicon, Sylla, who captured Athens, seized the library of
Apellicon. When it was brought to Rome, Tyrannion,[1474] the grammarian,
who was an admirer of Aristotle, courted the superintendent of the
library and obtained the use of it. Some vendors of books, also,
employed bad scribes and neglected to compare the copies with the
original. This happens in the case of other books which are copied for
sale both here and at Alexandreia.

This may suffice on this subject.

55. Demetrius the grammarian, whom we have frequently mentioned, was a
native of Scepsis. He composed a comment on the catalogue of the Trojan
forces. He was contemporary with Crates and Aristarchus. He was
succeeded by Metrodorus,[1475] who changed from being a philosopher to
engage in public affairs. His writings are for the most part in the
style of the rhetoricians. He employed a new and striking kind of
phraseology. Although he was poor, yet, in consequence of the reputation
which he had acquired, he married a rich wife at Chalcedon, and acquired
the surname of the Chalcedonian. He paid great court to Mithridates
Eupator, whom he accompanied with his wife on a voyage to Pontus, and
received from him distinguished honours. He was appointed to preside
over a tribunal where the party condemned by the judge had no power of
appeal to the king. His prosperity however was not lasting, for he
incurred the enmity of some very unjust persons, and deserted from the
king at the very time that he was despatched on an embassy to Tigranes
the Armenian. Tigranes sent him back much against his inclination to
Eupator, who was then flying from his hereditary kingdom. Metrodorus
died on the road, either in consequence of orders from the king, or by
natural disease, for both causes of his death are stated.

So much then respecting Scepsis.

56. Next to Scepsis are Andeira, Pioniæ, and Gargaris. There is found at
Andeira a stone, which when burnt becomes iron. It is then put into a
furnace together with some kind of earth, when it distils a mock silver,
(Pseudargyrum,) or with the addition of copper it becomes the compound
called oreichalcum. There is found a mock silver near Tmolus also. These
places and those about Assus were occupied by the Leleges.

57. Assus is a strong place, and well fortified with walls. There is a
long and perpendicular ascent from the sea and the harbour, so that the
verse of Stratonicus the citharist seems to be applicable to it; [CAS.
610]

   “Go to Assus, if you mean to reach quickly the confines of death.”

The harbour is formed of a large mole.

Cleanthes, the Stoic philosopher, was a native of this place. He
succeeded to the school of Zeno of Citium, and left it to Chrysippus of
Soli. Here also Aristotle resided for some time, on account of his
relationship to Hermeas the tyrant. Hermeas was an eunuch, servant of a
money-changer. When he was at Athens he was the hearer both of Plato and
of Aristotle. On his return he became the associate in the tyranny of
his master, who attacked the places near Atarneus and Assus. He
afterwards succeeded his master, sent for both Aristotle and Xenocrates,
and treated them with kindness. He even gave his niece in marriage to
Aristotle. But Memnon of Rhodes, who was at that time general in the
service of the Persians, invited to his house Hermeas, under the mask of
friendship, and on pretence of business. He seized Hermeas, and sent him
to the king, who ordered him to be hanged. The philosophers, avoiding
places in possession of the Persians, escaped by flight.

58. Myrsilus says that Assus was founded by Methymnæans; but according
to Hellanicus it was an Æolian city, like Gargara and Lamponia of the
Æolians. Gargara[1476] was founded from Assus; it was not well peopled,
for the kings introduced settlers from Miletopolis,[1477] which they
cleared of its inhabitants, so that Demetrius the Scepsian says that,
instead of being Æolians, the people became semi-barbarians. In the time
of Homer all these places belonged to Leleges, whom some writers
represent as Carians, but Homer distinguishes them,

   “Near the sea are Carians, and Pæonians with curved bows,
   Leleges, and Caucones.”[1478]

The Leleges were therefore a different people from the Carians, and
lived between the people subject to Æneas and the Cilicians, as they are
called by the poet. After being plundered by Achilles, they removed to
Caria, and occupied the country about the present Halicarnassus.

59. Pedasus, the city which they abandoned, is no longer in existence.
But in the interior of the country belonging to the people of
Halicarnassus there was a city called by them Pedasa, and the territory
has even now the name of Pedasis. It is said that this district
contained eight cities, occupied by the Leleges, who were formerly so
populous a nation as to possess Caria as far as Myndus, Bargylia, and a
great part of Pisidia. In later times, when they united with the Carians
in their expeditions, they were dispersed throughout the whole of
Greece, and the race became extinct.

Mausolus, according to Callisthenes, assembled in Halicarnassus[1479]
alone the inhabitants of six out of the eight cities, but allowed
Suangela and Myndus to remain untouched. Herodotus[1480] relates that
whenever anything unfortunate was about to befall the inhabitants of
Pedasus[1481] and the neighbourhood a beard appeared on the face of the
priestess of Minerva, and that this happened three times.

There is now existing in the territory of the Stratoniceis[1482] a small
town called Pedasum. There are to be seen throughout the whole of Caria
and at Miletus sepulchres, and fortifications, and vestiges of
settlements of the Leleges.

60. The tract of sea-coast following next after the Leleges was
occupied, according to Homer, by Cilicians, but at present it is
occupied by Adramytteni, Atarneitæ, and Pitanæi as far as the mouth of
the Caïcus. The Cilicians were divided into [CAS. 611] two dynasties,
as we have before said,[1483] the head of one was Eetion, the other
Mynes.

61. Homer says that Thebe was the city of Eetion;

   “We went to Thebe, the sacred city of Eetion.”[1484]

To him also belonged Chrysa, which contained the temple of Apollo
Smintheus, for Chryseïs was taken from Thebe;

   “We went,”

he says,

   “to Thebe, ravaged it, and carried everything away; the sons
   of the Achæans divided the booty among themselves, but
   selected for Atrides the beautiful Chryseïs.”

Lyrnessus he calls the city of Mynes, for

   “having plundered Lyrnessus, and destroyed the walls of
   Thebe,”[1485]

Achilles slew Mynes and Epistrophus, so that when Bryseïs says,

   “you suffered me not to weep when the swift Achilles slew my
   husband, and laid waste the city of the divine Mynes,”[1486]

the poet cannot mean Thebe, for that belonged to Eetion, but Lyrnessus,
for both cities lay in what was afterwards called the plain of Thebe,
which, on account of its fertility, was a subject of contest among the
Mysians and Lydians formerly, and latterly among the Greeks who had
migrated from Æolis and <DW26>s. At present Adramytteni possess the
greater part of it; there are Thebe and Lyrnessus, a strong place, but
both are deserted. One is situated at the distance of 60 stadia from
Adramyttium on one side, and the other 88 stadia on the other side.

62. In the Adramyttene district are Chrysa and Cilla. There is at
present near Thebe a place called Cilla, in which is a temple of Apollo
Cillæus. Beside it runs a river, which comes from Mount Ida. These
places are near Antandria. The Cillæum in <DW26>s has its name from this
Cilla. There is also a mountain Cillæum between Gargara and Antandrus.
Daes of Colonæ says that the temple of Apollo Cillæus was founded at
Colonæ by the Æolians, who came by sea from Greece. At Chrysa also it is
said that there is a Cillæan Apollo, but it is uncertain whether it is
the same as Apollo Smintheus, or a different statue.

63. Chrysa is a small town on the sea-coast with a harbour. Near and
above it is Thebe. Here was the temple of Apollo Smintheus, and here
Chryseïs lived. The place at present is entirely abandoned. To the
present Chrysa, near Hamaxitus, was transferred the temple of the
Cilicians, one party of whom went to Pamphylia, the other to Hamaxitus.
Those who are not well acquainted with ancient histories say that
Chryses and Chryseïs lived there, and that Homer mentions the place. But
there is no harbour at this place, yet Homer says,

   “but when they entered the deep harbour,”[1487]--

nor is the temple on the sea-coast, but Homer places it there;

   “Chryseïs left the ship; then the sage Ulysses, leading her to
   the altar, placed her in the hands of her beloved
   father.”[1488]

Nor is it near Thebe, but it is near it, according to Homer, for he
says, that Chryseïs was taken away from thence.

Nor is there any place of the name of Cilla in the district of the
Alexandreia, (Troas,) nor a temple of Apollo Cillæus, whereas the poet
joins them together:

   “who art the guardian of Chrysa, and the divine Cilla.”[1489]

But it is in the plain of Thebe that they are seen near together. The
voyage from the Cilician Chrysa to the Naustathmus (or naval station) is
about 700 stadia, and occupies a day, which is as much as Ulysses seems
to have completed; for immediately upon leaving the vessel he offers
sacrifice to the god, and being overtaken by the evening, remains there.
In the morning he sets sail. It is scarcely a third of the
above-mentioned distance from Hamaxitus, so that Ulysses could have
performed his sacrifice and have returned to the Naustathmus the same
day. There is also a monument of Cillus, a large mound, near the temple
of Apollo Cillæus. He is said to have been the charioteer of Pelops, and
to have had the chief command in these parts. Perhaps the country
Cilicia had its name from him, or he had his from the country.

64. The story about the Teucri, and the mice from whom the name of
Smintheus is derived, (for mice are called Sminthii,) must be
transferred to this place.

They [CAS. 613] excuse the derivation of titles from insignificant
objects by examples of this kind; as from the parnopes, which the Œtæans
call cornopes, Hercules had a surname, and was worshipped under the
title of Hercules Cornopion, because he had delivered them from locusts.
So the Erythræans, who live near the river Melius, worship Hercules
Ipoctonus, because he destroyed the ipes, or worms, which are
destructive to vines; for this pest is found everywhere except in the
country of the Erythræans. The Rhodians have in the island a temple of
Apollo Erythibius, so called from erysibe, (mildew,) and which they call
erythibe. Among the Æolians in Asia one of their months is called
Pornopion, for this name the Bœotians give to parnopes, (locusts,) and a
sacrifice is performed to Apollo Pornopion.

65. The country about Adramyttium is Mysia. It was once subject to
Lydians, and there are now Pylæ Lydiæ (or the Lydian Gates) at
Adramyttium, the city having been founded, it is said, by Lydians.

Astyra also, the village near Adramyttium, is said to belong to Mysia.
It was once a small city, in which was the temple of Artemis Astyrene,
situated in a grove. The Antandrians, in whose neighbourhood it is more
immediately situated, preside over it with great solemnity. It is
distant 20 stadia from the ancient Chrysa, which also has a temple in a
grove. There too is the Rampart of Achilles. At the distance of 50
stadia in the interior is Thebe, uninhabited, which the poet says was
situated below the woody Placus. But there is neither Placus nor Plax
there, nor a wood above it, although near Ida.

Thebe is distant from Astyra 70, and from Andeira 60 stadia. All these
are names of uninhabited places, or thinly inhabited, or of rivers which
are torrents. But they owe their fame to ancient history.

66. Assus and Adramyttium are considerable cities. Adramyttium was
unfortunate in the Mithridatic war, for Diodorus the general, in order
to gratify the king, put to death the council of the citizens, although
at the same time he pretended to be a philosopher of the Academy,
pleaded causes, and professed to teach rhetoric. He accompanied the king
on his voyage to Pontus, but upon his overthrow Diodorus was punished
for his crimes. Many accusations were simultaneously preferred against
him: but, unable to endure the disgrace, he basely destroyed himself in
my native city by abstaining from food.

Adramyttium produced Xenocles, a distinguished orator, who adopted the
Asiatic style of eloquence and was remarkable for the vehemence of his
manner; he defended Asia before the senate, at the time when that
province was accused of favouring the party of Mithridates.

67. Near Astyra is a lake called Sapra, full of deep holes, that empties
itself by a ravine among ridges of rocks on the coast. Below Andeira is
a temple dedicated to the Andeirenian mother of the gods, and a cave
with a subterraneous passage extending to Palæa. Palæa is a settlement
distant 130 stadia from Andeira. A goat, which fell into the opening,
discovered the subterraneous passage. It was found at Andeira the next
day, accidentally, by the shepherd, who had gone there to a sacrifice.

Atarneus[1490] is the royal seat of Hermeas the tyrant. Next is Pitane,
an Æolian city, with two harbours, and the river Euenus flowing beside
it, which supplies the aqueduct of the Adramyttium with water.

Arcesilaus of the Academy was a native of Pitane, and a fellow-disciple
of Zeno of Citium in the school of Polemo.

There is a place in Pitane called “Atarneus under Pitane,” opposite to
the island called Elæussa.

It is said that at Pitane bricks float upon the water, as was the case
with a small island[1491] in Tyrrhenia, for the earth, being lighter
than an equal bulk of water, swims upon it. Poseidonius says, that he
saw in Spain bricks made of an argillaceous earth (with which silver
vessels are cleansed) floating upon water.

After Pitane the Caïcus[1492] empties itself, at the distance of 30
stadia from it, into the Elaïtic bay. Beyond the Caïcus, at the distance
of 12 stadia from the river, is Elæa, an Æolian city; it is the arsenal
of Pergamum, and distant from it 120 stadia.

68. [CAS. 615] At 100 stadia farther is Cane, the promontory opposite
to Lectum, and forming the gulf of Adramyttium, of which the Elaïtic
Gulf is a part. Canæ is a small city of the Locrians who came from
Cynus; it is situated in the Canæan territory, opposite the most
southerly extremities of <DW26>s. This territory extends to the Arginusæ,
and the promontory above, which some call Aiga, or the goat. The second
syllable however must be pronounced long, Aigan, like Actan and Archan,
for this was the name of the whole mountain, which at present is called
Cane, or Canæ.[1493] The sea surrounds the mountain on the south and
west; towards the east the plain of Caïcus lies below, and on the north
the Elaïtic district. The mountain itself is very much contracted. It
inclines indeed towards the Ægæan Sea, from which it has the name (Æga),
but afterwards the promontory itself was called Æga, the name which
Sappho gives it, and then Cane and Canæ.

69. Between Elæa, Pitane, Atarneus, and Pergamum on this side the
Caïcus, is Teuthrania, distant from none of these places above 70
stadia. Teuthras is said to have been king of the Cilicians and Mysians.
According to Euripides, Auge, with her son Telephus, was enclosed in a
chest and thrown into the sea, by command of her father Aleus, who
discovered that she had been violated by Hercules. By the care of
Minerva the chest crossed the sea, and was cast ashore at the mouth of
the Caïcus. Teuthras took up the mother and her son, married the former,
and treated the latter as his own child. This is a fable, but another
concurrence of circumstances is wanting to explain how the daughter of
the Arcadian became the wife of the king of the Mysians, and how her son
succeeded to the throne of the Mysians. It is however believed that
Teuthras and Telephus governed the country lying about Teuthrania and
the Caïcus, but the poet mentions a few particulars only of this
history:

   “as when he slew the son of Telephus, the hero Eurypylus, and
   many of his companions, the Cetæi, were killed around him for
   the sake of the gifts of women.”[1494]

Homer here rather proposes an enigma than a clear meaning. For we do not
know who the Cetæi were, nor what people we are to understand by this
name, nor what is meant by the words, “for the sake of the gifts of
women.”[1495] Grammarians adduce and compare with this other stories,
but they indulge in invention rather than solve the difficulty.

70. Let us dismiss this doubtful matter, and turn to what is more
certain; for instance, according to Homer, Eurypylus appears to have
been king of the places about the Caïcus, so that perhaps a part of the
Cilicians were his subjects, and that there were not only two but three
dynasties among that people.

This opinion is supported by the circumstance that in the Elaïtis there
is a small river, like a winter torrent, of the name of Ceteium. This
falls into another like it, then again [CAS. 616] into another, but all
discharge themselves into the Caïcus. The Caïcus does not flow from Ida,
as Bacchylides says, nor does Euripides say correctly that Marsyas

   “inhabited the famous Celænæ, at the extremity of Ida,”

for Celænæ is at a great distance from Ida, and so are the sources of
the Caïcus, for they are to be seen in the plain.

There is a mountain, Temnum, which separates this and the plain of Asia;
it lies in the interior above the plain of Thebe. A river, Mysius, flows
from Temnum and enters the Caïcus below its source. Hence some persons
suppose that Æschylus refers to it in the beginning of the prologue to
the play of the Myrmidons,

   “Caïcus, and ye Mysian streams”--

Near its source is a village called Gergitha, to which Attalus
transferred the inhabitants of Gergitha in the Troad, after destroying
their own town.




CHAPTER II.


1. Since <DW26>s, a very remarkable island, lies along and opposite to
the sea-coast, extending from Lectum to Canæ, and since it is surrounded
by small islands, some of which lie beyond it, others in the space
between <DW26>s and the continent, it is now proper to describe them,
because they are Æolian places, and <DW26>s is, as it were, the capital
of the Æolian cities. We shall begin where we set out to describe the
coast opposite to the island.

2. In sailing from Lectum to Assus the Lesbian district begins opposite
to Sigrium,[1496] its northern promontory. Somewhere there is
Methymna,[1497] a city of the Lesbians, 60 stadia from the coast,
between Polymedium and Assus. The whole island is 1100 stadia in
circumference. The particulars are these.

From Methymna to Malia,[1498] the most southern promontory to those who
have the island on their right hand, and to which Canæ[1499] lies
directly opposite, are 340 stadia. Thence to Sigrium, which is the
length of the island, 560 stadia, thence to Methymna 210 stadia.[1500]

Mitylene, the largest city, lies between Methymna and Malia, at the
distance from Malia of 70 stadia, and from Canæ of 120, and as many from
the Arginussæ islands,[1501] which are three small islands near the
continent, and situated near Canæ. In the interval between Mitylene and
Methymna, at a village called Ægeirus in the Methymnæan territory, is
the narrowest part of the island, having a passage of 20 stadia to the
Pyrrhæan Euripus.[1502] Pyrrha[1503] is situated on the western side of
<DW26>s, at the distance of 100 stadia from Malia.

Mitylene has two harbours; of which the southern is a closed harbour for
triremes, and capable of holding 50 vessels. The northern harbour is
large, and deep, and protected by a mole. In front of both lies a small
island, which contains a part of the city. Mitylene is well provided
with everything.

3. It formerly produced celebrated men, as Pittacus, one of the Seven
Wise Men; Alcæus the poet, and his brother Antimenidas, who, according
to Alcæus, when fighting on the side of the Babylonians, achieved a
great exploit, and extricated them from their danger by killing

   “a valiant warrior, the king’s wrestler, who was four cubits
   in height.”

Contemporary with these persons flourished Sappho, an extraordinary
woman; for at no period within memory has any woman been known at all to
be compared to her in poetry.

At this period Mitylene was ruled by many tyrants, in consequence of the
dissensions among the citizens. These dissensions are the subject of the
poems of Alcæus called Stasiotica (the Seditions). One of these tyrants
was Pittacus: Alcæus inveighed against him as well as against Myrsilus,
Megalagyrus[1504] the Cleanactidæ, and some others; nor was he [CAS.
617] himself clear from the imputation of favouring these political
changes. Pittacus himself employed monarchical power to dissolve the
despotism of the many, but, having done this, he restored the
independence of the city.

At a late period afterwards appeared Diophanes the rhetorician; in our
times Potamo, Lesbocles, Crinagoras, and Theophanes the historian.[1505]
The latter was versed in political affairs, and became the friend of
Pompey the Great, chiefly on account of his accomplishments and
assistance he afforded in directing to a successful issue all his
enterprises. Hence, partly by means of Pompey, partly by his own
exertions, he became an ornament to his country, and rendered himself
the most illustrious of all the Grecians. He left a son, Mark Pompey,
whom Augustus Cæsar appointed prefect of Asia, and who is now reckoned
among the number of the chief friends of Tiberius.

The Athenians were in danger of incurring irremediable disgrace by
passing a decree that all the Mitylenæans who had attained the age of
puberty should be put to death. They, however, recalled their
resolution, and the counter-decree reached their generals only one day
before the former order was to be executed.

4. Pyrrha is in ruins. But the suburb is inhabited, and has a port,
whence to Mitylene is a passage of 80 stadia. Next after Pyrrha is
Eressus.[1506] It is situated upon a hill, and extends to the sea.
Thence to Sigrium 28 stadia.

Eressus was the birth-place of Theophrastus, and of Phanias, Peripatetic
philosophers, disciples of Aristotle. Theophrastus was called Tyrtamus
before his name was changed by Aristotle to Theophrastus, thus getting
rid of the cacophony of the former name, and at the same time expressing
the beauty of his elocution, for Aristotle made all his disciples
eloquent, but Theophrastus the most eloquent of them all.

Antissa[1507] is next to Sigrium. It is a city with a harbour. Then
follows Methymna, of which place Arion was a native, who, as Herodotus
relates the story, after having been thrown into the sea by pirates,
escaped safe to Tænarus on the back of a dolphin. He played on the
cithara and sang to it. Terpander, who practised the same kind of music,
was a native of this island. He was the first person that used the lyre
with seven instead of four strings, as is mentioned in the verses
attributed to him:

   “we have relinquished the song adapted to four strings, and
   shall cause new hymns to resound on a seven-stringed cithara.”

The historian Hellanicus, and Callias, who has commented on Sappho and
Alcæus, were Lesbians.

5. Near the strait situated between Asia and <DW26>s there are about
twenty small islands, or, according to Timosthenes, forty. They are
called Hecatonnesoi,[1508] a compound name like Peloponnesus, the letter
N being repeated by custom in such words as Myonnesus, Proconnesus,
Halonnesus, so that Hecatonnesoi is of the same import as Apollonnesoi,
since Apollo is called Hecatus;[1509] for along the whole of this coast,
as far as Tenedos, Apollo is held in the highest veneration, and
worshipped under the names of Smintheus, Cillæus, Gryneus, or other
appellations.

Near these islands is Pordoselene, which contains a city of the same
name, and in front of this city is another island[1510] larger than
this, and a city of the same name, uninhabited, in which there is a
temple of Apollo.

6. Some persons, in order to avoid the indecorum couched in these
names,[1511] say that we ought to read in that place Poroselene, and to
call Aspordenum, the rocky and barren mountain near Pergamum, Asporenum,
and the temple there of the mother of the gods the temple of the
Asporene mother of the gods; what then are we to say to the names
Pordalis, Saperdes, [CAS. 619] Perdiccas, and to this word in the verse
of Simonides, “with clothes dripping with wet,” (πορδάκοισιν for
διαβρόχοις,) and in the old comedy somewhere, “the country is πορδακόν,
for λιμνάζον, or ‘marshy.’”

<DW26>s is at the same distance, rather less than 500 stadia, from
Tenedos, Lemnos, and Chios.




CHAPTER III.


1. Since there subsisted so great an affinity among the Leleges and
Cilicians with the Trojans, the reason is asked, why these people are
not included in Homer’s Catalogue. Perhaps it is that, on account of the
loss of their leaders and the devastation of the cities, the few
Cilicians that were left placed themselves under the command of Hector.
For Eetion and his sons are said to have been killed before the
Catalogue is mentioned;

   “The hero Achilles,”

says Andromache,

   “killed my father, and destroyed Thebe, with its lofty gates,
   the city of the Cilicians.”--

   “I had seven brothers in the palace; all of them went in one
   day to Hades, for they were all slain by the swift-footed
   divine Achilles.”[1512]

Those also under the command of Mynes had lost their leaders, and their
city;

   “He slew Mynes, and Epistrophus,
   And destroyed the city of the divine Mynes.”[1513]

He describes the Leleges as present at the battles;

   “on the sea-coast are Carians, and Pæonians with curved bows,
   Leleges, and Caucones.”[1514]

And in another place,

   “he killed Satnius with a spear--the son of Enops, whom a
   beautiful nymph Neis bore to Enops, when he was tending herds
   near the banks of Satnioeis,”[1515]

for they had not been so completely annihilated as to prevent their
forming a body of people of themselves, since their king still survived,

   “Altes, king of the war-loving Leleges,”[1516]

nor was the city entirely razed, for he adds,

   “who commanded the lofty city Pedasus.”[1517]

He has passed them over in the Catalogue, not considering the body of
people large enough to have a place in it; or he comprised them among
the people under the command of Hector, as being allied to one another.
For Lycaon, the brother of Hector, says,

   “my mother Laothoë, daughter of the old Altes, brought me into
   the world to live but a short time; of Altes, king of the
   war-loving Leleges.”[1518]

Such is the reasoning, from probability, which this subject admits.

2. We reason from probability when we endeavour to determine by the
words of the poet the exact bounds of the territory of the Cilicians,
Pelasgi, and of the people situated between them, namely, the Ceteii,
who were under the command of Eurypylus.

We have said of the Cilicians and of the people under the command of
Eurypylus what can be said about them, and that they are bounded by the
country near the Caïcus.

It is agreeable to probability to place the Pelasgi next to these
people, according to the words of Homer and other histories. Homer says,

   “Hippothous led the tribes of the Pelasgi, who throw the
   spear, who inhabited the fertile Larisa; their leaders were
   Hippothous and Pylæus, a son of Mars, both sons of Lethus the
   Pelasgian, son of Teutamis.”[1519]

He here represents the numbers of Pelasgi as considerable, for he does
not speak of them as a tribe, but “tribes,” and specifies the place of
their settlement, Larisa. There are many places of the name of Larisa,
but we must understand some one of those near the Troad, and perhaps we
might not be wrong in supposing it to be that near Cyme; for of three
places of the name of Larisa, that near Hamaxitus is quite in sight of
Ilium and very near it, at the distance of about 200 stadia, so that
Hippothous could not be said consistently with probability to fall, in
the contest about Patroclus,[CAS. 620]

   “far from Larisa,”[1520]

at least from this Larisa, but rather from the Larisa near Cyme, for
there are about 1000 stadia between them. The third Larisa is a village
in the Ephesian district in the plain of the Caÿster; which, it is said,
was formerly a city containing a temple of Apollo Larisæus, and situated
nearer to Mount Tmolus than to Ephesus. It is distant from Ephesus 180
stadia, so that it might be placed rather under the government of the
Mæonians. The Ephesians, having afterwards acquired more power, deprived
the Mæonians, whom we now call Lydians, of a large part of their
territory; but not even this, but the other rather, would be the Larisa
of the Pelasgi. For we have no strong evidence that the Larisa in the
plain of Caÿster was in existence at that time, nor even of the
existence of Ephesus. But all the Æolian history, relating to a period a
little subsequent to the Trojan times, proves the existence of the
Larisa near Cyme.

3. It is said that the people who set out from Phricium, a Locrian
mountain above Thermopylæ, settled on the spot where Cyme is now
situated; and finding the Pelasgi, who had been great sufferers in the
Trojan war, yet still in possession of Larisa, distant about 70 stadia
from Cyme, erected as a defence against them what is at present called
Neon-teichos, (or the New Wall,) 30 stadia from Larisa. They took
Larisa,[1521] founded Cyme, and transferred to it as settlers the
surviving Pelasgi. Cyme is called Cyme Phriconis from the Locrian
mountain, and Larisa also (Phriconis): it is now deserted.

That the Pelasgi were a great nation history, it is said, furnishes
other evidence. For Menecrates of Elæa, in his work on the foundation of
cities, says, that the whole of the present Ionian coast, beginning from
Mycale and the neighbouring islands, were formerly inhabited by Pelasgi.
But the Lesbians say, that they were commanded by Pylæus, who is called
by the poet the chief of the Pelasgi, and that it was from him that the
mountain in their country had the name of Pylæum.

The Chians also say, that the Pelasgi from Thessaly were their
founders. The Pelasgi, however, were a nation disposed to wander, ready
to remove from settlement to settlement, and experienced both a great
increase and a sudden diminution of strength and numbers, particularly
at the time of the Æolian and Ionian migrations to Asia.

4. Something peculiar took place among the Larisæans in the plain of
Caÿster, in the Phriconis, and in Thessaly. All of them occupied a
country, the soil of which has been accumulated by rivers, by the
Caÿster,[1522] the Hermus,[1523] and the Peneus.[1524]

At Larisa Phriconis Piasus is said to receive great honours. He was
chief of the Pelasgi, and enamoured, it is said, of his daughter Larisa,
whom he violated, and was punished for the outrage. She discovered him
leaning over a cask of wine, seized him by his legs, lifted him up, and
dropped him down into the vessel. These are ancient accounts.

5. To the present Æolian cities we must add Ægæ and Temnus, the
birth-place of Hermagoras, who wrote a book on the Art of Rhetoric.

These cities are on the mountainous country which is above the district
of Cyme, and that of the Phocæans and Smyrnæans, beside which flows the
Hermus.

Not far from these cities is Magnesia under Sipylus, made a free city by
a decree of the Romans. The late earthquakes have injured this place. To
the opposite parts, which incline towards the Caïcus to Cyme from
Larisa, in passing to which the river Hermus is crossed, are 70 stadia;
thence to Myrina 40 stadia; thence to Grynium 40 stadia, and thence to
Elæa. But, according to Artemidorus, next to Cyme is Adæ; then, at the
distance of 40 stadia, a promontory, which they call Hydra, that forms
the Elaïtic Gulf with the opposite promontory Harmatus. The breadth of
the entrance is about 80 stadia, including the winding of the bays.
Myrina, situated at 60 stadia, is an Æolian city with a harbour, then
the harbour of Achæans, where are altars of the twelve gods; next is
Grynium, a small city [of the Myrinæans], a temple of Apollo, an ancient
oracle, and a costly fane of white marble. To Myrina are 40 stadia; then
70 stadia to Elæa, which has a harbour and a station for vessels of the
Attalic kings, founded [CAS. 622] by Menestheus and the Athenians who
accompanied him in the expedition against Ilium.

The places about Pitane, and Atarneus, and others in this quarter, which
follow Elæa, have been already described.

6. Cyme is the largest and best of the Æolian cities. This and <DW26>s
may be considered the capitals of the other cities, about 30 in number,
of which not a few exist no longer. The inhabitants of Cyme are
ridiculed for their stupidity, for, according to some writers, it is
said of them that they only began to let the tolls of the harbour three
hundred years after the foundation of their city, and that before this
time the town had never received any revenue of the kind; hence the
report that it was late before they perceived that they inhabited a city
lying on the sea.

There is another story, that, having borrowed money in the name of the
state, they pledged their porticos as security for the payment of it.
Afterwards, the money not having been repaid on the appointed day, they
were prohibited from walking in them. The creditors, through shame, gave
notice by the crier whenever it rained, that the inhabitants might take
shelter under the porticos. As the crier called out, “Go under the
porticos,” a report prevailed that the Cymæans did not perceive that
they were to go under the porticos when it rained unless they had notice
from the public crier.[1525]

Ephorus, a man indisputably of high repute, a disciple of Isocrates the
orator, was a native of this city. He was an historian, and wrote the
book on Inventions.

Hesiod the poet, who long preceded Ephorus, was a native of this place,
for he himself says, that his father Dius left Cyme in Æolis and
migrated to the Bœotians;

   “he dwelt near Helicon in Ascra, a village wretched in winter,
   in summer oppressive, and not pleasant at any season.”

It is not generally admitted that Homer was from Cyme, for many dispute
about him.

The name of the city was derived from an Amazon, as that of Myrina was
the name of an Amazon, buried under the Batieia in the plain of Troy;

   “men call this Batieia; but the immortals, the tomb of the
   bounding Myrina.”[1526]

Ephorus is bantered, because, having no achievements of his countrymen
to commemorate among the other exploits in his history, and yet being
unwilling to pass them over unnoticed, he exclaims,

   “at this time the Cymæans were at peace.”

After having described the Trojan and Æolian coasts, we ought next to
notice cursorily the interior of the country as far as Mount Taurus,
observing the same order.




CHAPTER IV.


1. Pergamum[1527] has a kind of supremacy among these places. It is a
city of note, and flourished during a long period under the Attalic
kings; and here we shall begin our description, premising a short
account of her kings, their origin, and the end of their career.

Pergamum was the treasure-hold of Lysimachus, the son of Agathocles, and
one of the successors of Alexander. It is situated on the very summit of
the mountain which terminates in a sharp peak like a pine-cone.
Philetærus of Tyana was intrusted with the custody of this stronghold,
and of the treasure, which amounted to nine thousand talents. He became
an eunuch in childhood by compression, for it happened that a great body
of people being assembled to see a funeral, the nurse who was carrying
Philetærus, then an infant, in her arms, was entangled in the crowd, and
pressed upon to such a degree that the child was mutilated.

He was therefore an eunuch, but having been well educated he was thought
worthy of this trust. He continued for [CAS. 623] some time well
affected to Lysimachus, but upon a disagreement with Arsinoë, the wife
of Lysimachus, who had falsely accused him, he caused the place to
revolt, and suited his political conduct to the times, perceiving them
to be favourable to change. Lysimachus, overwhelmed with domestic
troubles, was compelled to put to death Agathocles his son. Seleucus
Nicator invaded his country and destroyed his power, but was himself
treacherously slain by Ptolemy Ceraunus.

During these disorders the eunuch remained in the fortress, continually
employing the policy of promises and other courtesies with those who
were the strongest and the nearest to himself. He thus continued master
of the stronghold for twenty years.

2. He had two brothers, the elder of whom was Eumenes, the younger
Attalus. Eumenes had a son of the same name, who succeeded to the
possession of Pergamum, and was then sovereign of the places around, so
that he overcame in a battle near Sardes[1528] Antiochus, the son of
Seleucus, and died after a reign of two-and-twenty years.

Attalus, the son of Attalus and Antiochis, daughter of Achæus, succeeded
to the kingdom. He was the first person who was proclaimed king after a
victory, which he obtained in a great battle with the Galatians. He
became an ally of the Romans, and, in conjunction with the Rhodian
fleet, assisted them in the war against Philip. He died in old age,
having reigned forty-three years. He left four sons by Apollonis, a
woman of Cyzicus,--Eumenes, Attalus, Philetærus, and Athenæus. The
younger sons continued in a private station, but Eumenes, the elder, was
king. He was an ally of the Romans in the war with Antiochus the Great,
and with Perseus; he received from the Romans all the country within the
Taurus which had belonged to Antiochus. Before this time there were not
under the power of Pergamum many places which reached the sea at the
Elaïtic and the Adramyttene Gulfs. Eumenes embellished the city, he
ornamented the Nicephorium[1529] with a grove, enriched it with votive
offerings and a library, and by his care raised the city of Pergamum to
its present magnificence. After he had reigned forty-nine years he left
the kingdom to Attalus, his son by Stratonice, daughter of Ariarathus,
king of Cappadocia.

He appointed as guardian of his son, who was very young,[1530] and as
regent of the kingdom, his brother Attalus, who died an old man after a
reign of twenty years, having performed many glorious actions. He
assisted Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, in the war against Alexander,
the son of Antiochus, and was the ally of the Romans in the war against
the Pseudo-Philip. In an expedition into Thrace he defeated and took
prisoner Diegylis, king of the Cæni.[1531] He destroyed Prusias by
exciting his son Nicomedes to rebel against his father. He left the
kingdom to Attalus his ward. His cognomen was Philometor. He reigned
five years, and died a natural death. He left the Romans his
heirs.[1532] They made the country a province, and called it Asia by the
name of the continent.

The Caïcus flows past Pergamum through the plain of Caïcus, as it is
called, and traverses a very fertile country, indeed almost the best
soil in Mysia.

3. The celebrated men in our times, natives of Pergamum, were
Mithridates, the son of Menodotus and the daughter of Adobogion; he was
of the family of the Tetrarchs of Galatia. Adobogion, it is said, had
been the concubine of Mithridates the king; the relatives therefore gave
to the child the name of Mithridates, pretending that he was the king’s
son.

This prince became so great a friend of divus Cæsar, that he was
promoted to the honour of Tetrarch (of Galatia); out of regard also to
his mother’s family, he was appointed king of Bosporus and of other
places. He was overthrown by Asander, who put to death Pharnaces the
king and obtained [CAS. 625] possession of the Bosporus. He had a great
reputation as well as Apollodorus the rhetorician, who composed a work
on the Art of Rhetoric, and was the head of the Apollodorian sect of
philosophers, whatever that may be; for many opinions have prevailed,
the merits of which are beyond our power to decide upon, among which are
those of the sects of Apollodorus and Theodorus.

But the friendship of Augustus Cæsar, whom he instructed in oratory, was
the principal cause of the elevation of Apollodorus. He had a celebrated
scholar Dionysius, surnamed Atticus, his fellow-citizen, who was an able
teacher of philosophy, an historian, and composer of orations.

4. Proceeding from the plain and the city towards the east, we meet with
Apollonia, a city on an elevated site. To the south is a mountainous
ridge, which having crossed on the road to Sardes, we find on the left
hand the city Thyateira, a colony of the Macedonians, which some authors
say is the last city belonging to the Mysians. On the right hand is
Apollonis, 300 stadia from Pergamum, and the same distance from Sardes.
It has its name from Apollonis of Cyzicus (wife of Attalus). Next are
the plains of Hermus and Sardes. The country to the north of Pergamum is
principally occupied by Mysians; it lies on the right hand of the people
called Abaïtæ, on whose borders is the Epictetus, extending to Bithynia.

5. Sardes is a large city, of later date than the Trojan times, yet
ancient, with a strong citadel. It was the royal seat of the Lydians,
whom the poet calls Meones, and later writers Mæones, some asserting
that they are the same, others that they are a different people, but the
former is the preferable opinion.

Above Sardes is the Tmolus, a fertile mountain having on its summit a
seat[1533] of white marble, a work of the Persians. There is a view from
it of the plains around, particularly of that of the Caÿster. There
dwell about it Lydians, Mysians, and Macedonians.[1534]

The Pactolus flows from the Tmolus.[1535] It anciently brought down a
large quantity of gold-dust, whence, it is said, the proverbial wealth
of Crœsus and his ancestors obtained renown. No gold-dust is found at
present. The Pactolus descends into the Hermus, into which also the
Hyllus, now called Phrygius, discharges itself. These three and other
less considerable rivers unite in one stream, and, according to
Herodotus, empty themselves into the sea at Phocæa.

The Hermus takes its rise in Mysia, descending from the sacred mountain
of Dindymene, after traversing the Catacecaumene, it enters the Sardian
territory, and passes through the contiguous plains to the sea, as we
have mentioned above. Below the city lie the plains of Sardes, of the
Cyrus, of the Hermus, and of the Caÿster, which are contiguous to one
another and the most fertile anywhere to be found.

At the distance of 40 stadia from the city is the lake Gygæa, as it is
called by the poet.[1536] Its name was afterwards altered to Coloë. Here
was a temple of Artemis Coloëne, held in the highest veneration. It is
said that at the feasts celebrated here the baskets dance.[1537] I know
not why the circulation of such strange and absurd stories should be
preferred to truth.

6. The verses in Homer are to this effect,

   “Mesthles and Antiphus, sons of Talæmenes, born of the lake
   Gygæa, were the leaders of the Meones, who live below
   Tmolus.”[1538]

Some persons add a fourth verse to these,

   “below snowy Tmolus, in the rich district of Hyda.”

But no Hyda[1539] is to be found among the Lydians. Others make this the
birth-place of Tychius, mentioned by the poet,

   “he was the best leather-cutter in Hyda.”[1540]

They add that the place is woody, and frequently struck with lightning,
and that here also were the dwellings of the Arimi; for to this verse,

   “Among the Arimi, where they say is the bed of Typhoëus,”[1541]

they add the following,[CAS. 626]

   “in a woody country, in the rich district of Hyda.”

Some lay the scene of the last fable in Cilicia, others in Syria, others
among the Pithecussæ (islands),[1542] who say that the Pitheci (or
monkeys) are called by the Tyrrhenians Arimi. Some call Sardes Hyda;
others give this name to its Acropolis.

The Scepsian (Demetrius) says that the opinion of those authors is most
to be depended upon who place the Arimi in the Catacecaumene in Mysia.
But Pindar associates the Pithecussæ which lie in front of the Cymæan
territory and Sicily with Cilicia, for the poet says that Typhon lay
beneath Ætna;

   “Once he dwelt in far-famed Cilician caverns, but now Sicily,
   and the sea-girt isle, o’ershadowing Cyme, press upon his
   shaggy breast.”[1543]

And again,

   “O’er him lies Ætna, and in her vast prison holds him.”

And again,

   “’Twas the great Jove alone of gods that o’erpowered, with
   resistless force, the fifty-headed monster Typhon, of yore
   among the Arimi.”

Others understand Syrians by the Arimi, who are now called Aramæi, and
maintain that the Cilicians in the Troad migrated and settled in Syria,
and deprived the Syrians of the country which is now called Cilicia.

Callisthenes says, that the Arimi from whom the mountains in the
neighbourhood have the name of Arima, are situated near the
Calycadnus,[1544] and the promontory Sarpedon close to the Corycian
cave.

7. The monuments of the kings lie around the lake Coloë. At Sardes is
the great mound of Alyattes upon a lofty base, the work, according to
Herodotus,[1545] of the people of the city, the greatest part of it
being executed by young women. He says that they all prostituted
themselves; according to some writers the sepulchre is the monument of a
courtesan.

Some historians say, that Coloë is an artificial lake, designed to
receive the superabundant waters of the rivers when they are full and
overflow.

Hypæpa[1546] is a city situated on the descent from Tmolus to the plain
of the Caÿster.

8. Callisthenes says that Sardes was taken first by Cimmerians, then by
Treres and Lycians, which Callinus also, the elegiac poet, testifies,
and that it was last captured in the time of Cyrus and Crœsus. When
Callinus says that the incursion of the Cimmerians when they took Sardes
was directed against the Esioneis, the Scepsian (Demetrius) supposes the
Asioneis to be called by him Esioneis, according to the Ionian dialect;
for perhaps Meonia, he says, was called Asia, as Homer describes the
country, “in the Asian meadows about the streams of Caÿstrius.”[1547]
The city, on account of the fertility of the country, was afterwards
restored, so as to be a considerable place, and was inferior to none of
its neighbours; lately it has lost a great part of its buildings by
earthquakes. But Sardes, and many other cities which participated in
this calamity about the same time, have been repaired by the provident
care and beneficence of Tiberius the present emperor.

9. The distinguished natives of Sardes were two orators of the same name
and family, the Diodori; the elder of whom was called Zonas, who had
pleaded the cause of Asia in many suits. But at the time of the invasion
of Mithridates the king, he was accused of occasioning the revolt of the
cities from him, but in his defence he cleared himself of the charge.

The younger Diodorus was my friend; there exist of his [CAS. 628]
historical writings, odes, and poems of other kinds, which very much
resemble the style of the ancients.

Xanthus, the ancient historian, is said to be a Lydian, but whether of
Sardes I do not know.

10. After the Lydians are the Mysians, and a city Philadelphia, subject
to constant earthquakes. The walls of the houses are incessantly
opening, and sometimes one, sometimes another, part of the city is
experiencing some damage. The majority of people (for few persons live
in the city) pass their lives in the country, employing themselves in
agriculture and cultivating a good soil. Yet it is surprising that there
should be even a few persons so much attached to a place where their
dwellings are insecure; but one may marvel more at those who founded the
city.

11. Next is the tract of country called the Catacecaumene, extending 500
stadia in length, and in breadth 400. It is uncertain whether it should
be called Mysia or Meonia, for it has both names. The whole country is
devoid of trees, excepting vines, from which is obtained the
Catacecaumenite wine; it is not inferior in quality to any of the kinds
in repute. The surface of the plains is covered with ashes, but the
hilly and rocky part is black, as if it were the effect of combustion.
This, as some persons imagine, was the effect of thunderbolts and of
fiery tempests, nor do they hesitate to make it the scene of the fable
of Typhon. Xanthus even says that a certain Arimus was king of these
parts. But it is unreasonable to suppose that so large a tract of
country was all at once consumed by lightning and fiery meteors; it is
more natural to suppose that the effect was produced by fire generated
in the soil, the sources of which are now exhausted. There are to be
seen three pits, which are called Physæ, or breathing holes, situated at
the distance of 40 stadia from each other. Above are rugged hills, which
probably consist of masses of matter thrown up by blasts of air (from
the pits).

That ground of this kind should be well adapted to vines, may be
conceived from the nature of the country Catana,[1548] which was a mass
of cinders, but which now produces excellent wine, and in large
quantities.

Some persons, in allusion to such countries as these, wittily observe
that Bacchus is properly called Pyrigenes, or fire-born.

12. The places situated next to these towards the south, and extending
to Mount Taurus, are so intermixed, that parts of Phrygia, Lydia, Caria,
and Mysia running into one another are difficult to be distinguished.
The Romans have contributed not a little to produce this confusion, by
not dividing the people according to tribes, but following another
principle have arranged them according to jurisdictions, in which they
have appointed days for holding courts and administering justice.

The Tmolus is a well compacted mass of mountain,[1549] of moderate
circumference, and its boundaries are within Lydia itself. The Mesogis
begins, according to Theopompus, from Celænæ,[1550] and extends on the
opposite side as far as Mycale,[1551] so that Phrygians occupy one part,
towards Celænæ and Apameia; Mysians and Lydians another; Carians and
Ionians a third part.

So also the rivers, and particularly the Mæander, are the actual
boundaries of some nations, but take their course through the middle of
others, rendering accurate distinction between them difficult.

The same may be said of plains, which are found on each side of a
mountainous range and on each side of a river. Our attention however is
not required to obtain the same degree of accuracy as a surveyor, but
only to give such descriptions as have been transmitted to us by our
predecessors.

13. Contiguous on the east to the plain of Caÿster, which lies between
the Mesogis and Tmolus, is the plain Cilbianum. It is extensive, well
inhabited, and fertile. Then follows the Hyrcanian plain, a name given
by the Persians, who brought colonists from Hyrcania (the plain of
Cyrus, in like manner, had its name from the Persians). Next is the
Peltine plain, belonging to the Phrygians, and the Cillanian and the
Tabenian plains, the latter of which contains small towns, inhabited by
a mixed population of Phrygians, with a portion of Pisidians. The plains
have their names from the towns.

14. After crossing the Mesogis, situated between the Carians[1552] and
[CAS. 629] the district of Nysa,[1553] which is a tract of country
beyond the Mæander, extending as far as the Cibyratis and Cabalis, we
meet with cities. Near the Mesogis, opposite Laodicea,[1554] is
Hierapolis,[1555] where are hot springs, and the Plutonium, both of
which have some singular properties. The water of the springs is so
easily consolidated and becomes stone, that if it is conducted through
water-courses dams are formed consisting of a single piece of stone.

The Plutonium, situated below a small brow of the overhanging mountain,
is an opening of sufficient size to admit a man, but there is a descent
to a great depth. In front is a quadrilateral railing, about half a
plethrum in circumference. This space is filled with a cloudy and dark
vapour, so dense that the bottom can scarcely be discerned. To those who
approach round the railing the air is innoxious, for in calm weather it
is free from the cloud which then continues within the enclosure. But
animals which enter within the railing die instantly. Even bulls, when
brought within it, fall down and are taken out dead. We have ourselves
thrown in sparrows, which immediately fell down lifeless. The
Galli,[1556] who are eunuchs, enter the enclosure with impunity,
approach even the opening or mouth, bend down over it, and descend into
it to a certain depth, restraining their breath during the time, for we
perceived by their countenance signs of some suffocating feeling. This
exemption may be common to all eunuchs, or it may be confined to the
eunuchs employed about the temple, or it may be the effect of divine
care, as is probable in the case of persons inspired by the deity, or it
may perhaps be procured by those who are in possession of certain
antidotes.

The conversion of water into stone is said to be the property of certain
rivers in Laodiceia, although the water is fit for the purpose of
drinking. The water at Hierapolis is peculiarly adapted for the dyeing
of wool. Substances dyed with “the roots,”[1557] rival in colour those
dyed with the coccus, or the marine purple. There is such an abundance
of water, that there are natural baths in every part of the city.

15. After Hierapolis are the parts beyond the Mæander. Those about
Laodiceia and Aphrodisias,[1558] and those extending to Carura, have
been already described. The places which succeed are Antiocheia[1559] on
the Mæander, now belonging to Caria, on the west; on the south are
Cibyra the Great,[1560] Sinda,[1561] and Cabalis, as far as Mount Taurus
and Lycia.

Antiocheia is a city of moderate size situated on the banks of the
Mæander, at the side towards Phrygia. There is a bridge over the river.
A large tract of country, all of which is fertile, on each side of the
river, belongs to the city. It produces in the greatest abundance the
fig of Antioch, as it is called, which is dried. It is also called
Triphyllus. This place also is subject to shocks of earthquakes.

A native of this city was Diotrephes, a celebrated sophist; his disciple
was Hybreas, the greatest orator of our times.

16. The Cabaleis, it is said, were Solymi. The hill situated above the
Termessian fortress is called Solymus, and the Termessians themselves
Solymi. Near these places is the rampart of Bellerophon and the
sepulchre of Peisandrus his son, who fell in the battle against the
Solymi. This account agrees with the words of the poet. Of Bellerophon
he speaks thus,

   “he fought a second time with the brave Solymi;”[1562]

and of his son,

   “Mars, unsated with war, killed Peisandrus his son fighting
   with the Solymi.”[1563]

Termessus is a Pisidian city situated very near and immediately above
Cibyra.

17. The Cibyratæ are said to be descendants of the Lydians who occupied
the territory Cabalis. The city was afterwards in the possession of the
Pisidians, a bordering nation, who occupied it, and transferred it to
another place, very strongly fortified, the circuit of which was about
100 stadia. It flourished in consequence of the excellence of its laws.
The villages belonging to it extended from Pisidia, and the bordering
territory Milyas, as far as Lycia and the country opposite to Rhodes.
Upon the [CAS. 631] union of the three bordering cities, Bubon,[1564]
Balbura,[1565] and Œnoanda,[1566] the confederation was called
Tetrapolis; each city had one vote, except Cibyra, which had two, for it
could equip 30,000 foot soldiers and 2000 horse. It was always governed
by tyrants, but they ruled with moderation. The tyrannical government
terminated in the time of Moagetes. It was overthrown by Murena, who
annexed Balbura and Bubon to the Lycians. Nevertheless the Cibyratic
district is reckoned among the largest jurisdictions in Asia.

The Cibyratæ used four languages, the Pisidic, that of Solymi, the
Greek, and the Lydian, but of the latter no traces are now to be found
in Lydia.

At Cibyra there is practised the peculiar art of carving with ease
ornamental work in iron.

Milya is the mountain-range extending from the defiles near Termessus,
and the passage through them to the parts within the Taurus towards
Isinda, as far as Sagalassus and the country of Apameia.


END OF VOL. II.


FOOTNOTES:


[1] The ancient Tanais.

[2] These words are interpolated. _Casaubon._

[3] λιμένες, περίπλοι, περίοδοι γῆς.

[4] The territory of the Acarnanes is still called Carnia, south of the
Gulf of Arta. The rest of the countries mentioned by Strabo no longer
retain the ancient divisions, Bœotia is the modern Livadhia. _G._

[5] The Gulf of Lepanto.

[6] Makedunea.

[7] The ancient Thessaly is the modern Vlakea.

[8] The neighbourhood of the Gulf of Zeitun--the ancient Maliac Gulf.

[9] In Asia Minor, and founded the cities Miletus, Smyrna, Phocæa, &c.

[10] The word Ægialus (Αἰγιαλὸς) signifies sea-shore. The name was given
to this part of the Peloponnesus (afterwards called Achaia) from the
towns being situated generally along the coast. Others, however, give a
different explanation to the word.

[11] 1113 before the Christian era. _G._

[12] Taking the reverse order in which these peninsulas are described,
the fifth and last contains all the rest, the fourth all but the
difference between the fourth and fifth, and so on in order until we
come to the Peloponnesus, properly so called, which is thus the least of
the peninsulas. Strabo himself seems to admit the term peninsula to be
improperly applied to these subdivisions, by first describing Greece to
be divided into two great bodies, viz. that within and that without the
Isthmus of Corinth.

[13] For the same reason, at a subsequent period, it obtained the name
of Morea, in Greek (Μορέα) which signifies mulberry, a species or
variety of which tree bears leaves divided into five lobes--equal in
number to the five principal capes of the Peloponnesus. See book ii. ch.
i. 30.

[14] Cape Papa.

[15] Zante.

[16] Cephalonia.

[17] Theaki.

[18] Cape Matapan.

[19] Basilico.

[20] Gulf of Coron.

[21] Gulf of Colochina.

[22] Gulf of Napoli.

[23] Gulf of Castri.

[24] Gulf of Egina.

[25] Fidari.

[26] Aspro-potamo.

[27] Drepano.

[28] Castle of Roumelia.

[29] Patras.

[30] Vostitza.

[31] The words in brackets are inserted according to the suggestion of
Groskurd. The Gulf of Corinth is, in other passages, called by Strabo
the Crissæan Gulf.

[32] Od. xv. 298.

[33] Il. v. 545.

[34] Od. iii. 4.

[35] Igliaco.

[36] Chiarenza, in ruins.

[37] Cape Tornese.

[38] Il. ii. 650.

[39] Il. xv. 531.

[40] Od. i. 261.

[41] Od. ii. 328.

[42] Il. xi. 738.

[43] I read οἱ καὶ, as Meineke suggests, but the whole passage from
“there is” to “Ephyra,” is, as he also remarks, probably an
interpolation. Strabo has already enumerated four cities of the name of
Ephyra, viz. the Eliac, the Thesprotic, the Corinthian, and the
Thessalian; yet here two others are presented to our notice, the
Sicyonian and the Ætolian, of which Strabo makes no mention in his
account of Ætolia and Sicyonia.

[44] Il. xxiv. 78.

[45] Il. ii. 730.

[46] Il. ii. 591.

[47] This is supposed to be the modern Navarino. The Coryphasium is
Mount St. Nicholas. _G._

[48] Κοίλη Ἦλις, or Cœle-Elis.

[49] Il. ii. 615.

[50] Il. xxiii. 630.

[51] Od. i. 344.

[52] Od. ii. 496.

[53] Il. ix. 529.

[54] Il. ii. 625.

[55] Il. ii. 756.

[56] This passage in brackets is an interpolation to explain the
subsequent inquiry who the Caucones were. _Kramer._

[57] Il. iii. 636.

[58] Book vii. ch. vii. 2.

[59] Il. vii. 135.

[60] This passage is transposed from the following section, as proposed
by Groskurd.

[61] θρύον, the meaning of this word is uncertain; Meyer in his
“Botanische erklarung” of Strabo does not attempt to explain it.

[62] Od. iii. 4.

[63] Book xii. c. 3, 4. Little, however, can be obtained of their
history, which is buried in the same obscurity as the Pelasgi and
Leleges.

[64] This passage is an interpolation by the same hand probably as that
in s. 11. _Cramer._

[65] Dardanus was the son of Jupiter and Electra, one of the seven
daughters of Atlas, surnamed Atlantides.

[66] Il. ii. 591.

[67] Il. ii. 721.

[68] Hercules, after killing the Hydra, dipped the arrows which he
afterwards made use of against the Centaurs, in gall of this monster.
Pausanias, however, speaks of one Centaur only, Chiron, or, according to
others, Polenor, who washed his wounds in the Anigrus.

[69] The daughters of Prœtus. According to Apollodorus, Melampus cured
them of madness, probably the effect of a disease of the skin.

[70] Alphi, Lepra alphoides. Leuce, white tetter or common leprosy.
Leichen, a cutaneous disease tending to leprosy.

[71] The position of Pylus of Messenia is uncertain. D’Anville places it
at New Navarino. Barbié de Bocage at Old Navarino. See also Ernst
Curtius, Peloponnesus.

[72] Il. vii. 133.

[73] Il. ix. 153.

[74] Some MSS. have 120 stadia.

[75] Il. ii. 591.

[76] Il. xi. 710.

[77] A marsh.

[78] The sea-shore.

[79] Il. xi. 710.

[80] Il. ii. 697.

[81] Il. ii. 584.

[82] In the discussion which follows, Strabo endeavours to prove, that
the Pylus of Nestor is the Pylus of Triphylia, and not the Pylus of
Messenia.

[83] Od. xv. 295.

[84] Od. iv. 671; xv. 298.

[85] Il. xi. 677.

[86] Il. xi. 681.

[87] Il. xi. 756.

[88] Il. xi. 697.

[89] Il. i. 528.

[90] Il. viii. 199.

[91] Probably an interpolation.

[92] The establishment of the Olympic games is connected with many
legends, and is involved in much obscurity. See Smith, Greek and Roman
Antiq.

[93] 776 B. C.

[94] Il. xi. 677.

[95] An interpolation. _K._

[96] Od. ii. 238.

[97] An interpolation. _Meineke._

[98] An interpolation. _Groskurd._

[99] The text of Homer gives the name of Pharis.

[100] Il. ix. 150.

[101] Il. ii. 582.

[102] Thucydides, b. iv. ch. 2. The expedition was under the command of
Eurymedon and Sophocles. Stratocles being at the time archon at Athens.

[103] Thucydides, b. iv. ch. 38. The number was 292.

[104] Strivali.

[105] According to Pausanias, Mothone, or Methone, was the Pedasus of
Homer. It is the modern Modon.

[106] Cape Gallo. The Gulf of Messenia is now the Gulf of Coron.

[107] The name Thyrides, the little gates, is probably derived from the
fable which placed the entrance of the infernal regions at Tænarum, Cape
Matapan.

[108] For Cinæthium I read Cænepolis, as suggested by Falconer, and
approved by Coray.

[109] Vitulo.

[110] Scardamula.

[111] As Strabo remarks, in b. x., that the temple was built by Nestor
on his return from Troy, Falconer suggests that it might have derived
its name from the river Nedon, near Gerenia, the birth-place of Nestor.

[112] In the island of Cos.

[113] According to Pausanias, Gerenia is the Enope of Homer.

[114] Hira in the time of Pausanias was called Abia (Palæochora?). Some
interpreters of Homer were misled by the name of a mountain, Ira, near
Megalopolis, and placed there a city of the same name, but Hira was on
the sea-coast.

[115] Æpys, αἰπύς, lofty.

[116] The Pirnatza.

[117] So called from its fertility.

[118] In the text 250, σν, an error probably arising from the repetition
of the preceding final letter.

[119] The Pamisus above mentioned was never called the Amathus. There
were three rivers of this name, one near the Triphyliac Pylus, which was
also called Amathus; a second at Leuctrum of Laconia; and a third near
Messene.

[120] The ruins of Messene are now near the place called Mauromathia.

[121] Mount Vulkano.

[122] The first war dates from the year B. C. 743, and continued 20
years. The second, beginning from 682 B. C., lasted 14 years; the third
concluded in the year 456 B. C., with the capture of Ithome, which was
the citadel or fort of Messene. _Diod. Sic._ lib. xv. c. 66.

[123] The Messenians, driven from Ithome at the end of the third war,
settled at Naupactus, which was given to them as a place of refuge by
the Athenians, after the expulsion of the Locri-Ozolæ. It is probable
that Strabo considers as a fourth war that which took place in the 94th
Olympiad, when the Messenians were driven from Naupactus by the
Lacedæmonians and compelled to abandon Greece entirely.

[124] Leake supposes Amyclæ to have been situated between Iklavokhori
and Sparta, on the hill of Agia Kyriaki, half a mile from the Eurotas.
At this place he discovered on an imperfect inscription the letters ΑΜΥ
following a proper name, and leaving little doubt that the incomplete
word was ΑΜΥΚΛΑΙΟΥ. See _Smith_.

[125] Cape Matapan.

[126] The Ass’s Jaw. It is detached from the continent, and is now the
island of Servi.

[127] Cerigo.

[128] 750 stadia. _Groskurd._

[129] By others written in the singular number, Malea, now C. St.
Angelo.

[130] The site of Gythium is identified as between Marathonisi and
Trinissa.

[131] The Iri, or Vasili Potamo.

[132] Il. ii. 584.

[133] Rupina, or Castel Rampano. The plain of Leuce is traversed by the
river Mario-revina.

[134] The site of Asopus appears, according to the ruins indicated in
the Austrian map, to have been situated a little to the north of Rupina.

[135] κρῖ, δῶ, μάψ, for κριθή, δῶμα, μαψίδιον.

[136] Il. xix. 392.

[137] Probably an interpolation.

[138] The text here is very corrupt.

[139] 1090 B. C.

[140] Od. iii. 249, 251.

[141] His character is discreditably spoken of by Josephus, Antiq. b.
xvi. c. 10. and Bell. Jud. b. i. c. 26.

[142] The cities of the Eleuthero-Lacones were at first 24 in number; in
the time of Pausanias 18 only. They were kindly treated by Augustus, but
subsequently they were excluded from the coast to prevent communication
with strangers. Pausanias, b. iii. c. 21.

[143] From hence to the end of the section the text is corrupt. See
Groskurd for an attempt to amend the text of the last sentence, which is
here not translated.

[144] This quotation, as also the one which follows, are from a tragedy
of Euripides, now lost.

[145] The Pirnatza.

[146] Κῆτος. Some are of opinion that the epithet was applied to
Lacedæmon, because fish of the cetaceous tribe frequented the coast of
Laconia.

[147] Il. i. 268.

[148] This may have taken place a little before the third Messenian war,
B. C. 464, when an earthquake destroyed all the houses in Sparta, with
the exception of five. Diod. Sic. b. xv. c. 66; Pliny, b. ii. c. 79.

[149] Pliny, b. xxxvi. c. 18, speaks of the black marble of Tænarus.

[150] Od. xxi. 13.

[151] Eustathius informs us that, according to some writers, Sparta and
Lacedæmon were the names of the two principal quarters of the city; and
adds that the comic poet, Cratinus, gave the name of Sparta to the whole
of Laconia.

[152] Od. iii. 488.

[153] Cheramidi.

[154] Od. iii. 487.

[155] Od. ii. 359.

[156] The text to the end of the section is very corrupt. The following
is a translation of the text as proposed to be amended by Groskurd. The
epithet of Lacedæmon, hollow, cannot properly be applied to the country,
for this peculiarity of the city does not with any propriety agree with
the epithets given to the country; unless we suppose the epithet to be a
poetical licence. For, as has been before remarked, it must be concluded
from the words of the poet himself, that Messene was then a part of
Laconia, and subject to Menelaus. It would then be a contradiction (in
Homer) not to join Messene, which took part in the expedition, with
Laconia or the Pylus under Nestor, nor to place by itself in the
Catalogue, as though it had no part in the expedition.

[157] Skylli.

[158] The islands about Delos.

[159] The form thus given to the Gulf of Hermione bears no resemblance
to modern maps.

[160] Pausanias calls it Epidelium, now S. Angelo.

[161] The ruins are a little to the north of Monembasia, Malvasia, or
Nauplia de Malvasia.

[162] Cerigo.

[163] The ruins are on the bay of Rheontas.

[164] Toniki, or Agenitzi.

[165] Napoli di Romagna. Nauplius, to avenge the death of his son
Palamedes, was the cause of many Greeks perishing on their return from
Troy at Cape Caphareus in Eubœa, famous for its dangerous rocks. The
modern Greeks give to this promontory the name of Ξυλοφάγος,
(Xylophagos,) or devourer of vessels. Italian navigators call it Capo
d’Oro, which in spite of its apparent signification, Golden Cape, is
probably a transformation of the Greek word Caphareus.

[166] Strabo confounds Nauplius, son of Clytoreus, and father of
Palamedes, with Nauplius, son of Neptune and Amymone, and one of the
ancestors of Palamedes.

[167] Fornos.

[168] Castri.

[169] Damala.

[170] I. Poros.

[171] A place near the ruins of Epidaurus preserves the name Pedauro.
_G._

[172] Scheno.

[173] Il. iv. 52.

[174] Il. ii. 559.

[175] Il. i. 30.

[176] Il. ii. 681.

[177] Il. ix. 141.

[178] Od. iii. 251.

[179] Od. xviii. 245.

[180] Book i. 3.

[181] Il. ii. 684.

[182] Od. i. 344.

[183] Od. xv. 80.

[184] Il. iv. 171.

[185] Sophocles, El. 10.

[186] Il. ii. 193.

[187] Od. ii. 376.

[188] Il. i. 3.

[189] Probably an interpolation. _Meineke._

[190] The Planitza.

[191] Il. vi. 623.

[192] Il. vi. 152.

[193] Od. i. 344.

[194] Il. ii. 108.

[195] About 1283, B. C.

[196] About 1190, B. C.

[197] Not strictly correct, as in the time of Pausanias, who lived about
150 years after Strabo, a large portion of the walls surrounding Mycenæ
still existed. Even in modern times traces are still to be found.

[198] Il. ii. 559.

[199] From γαστὴρ, the belly, χεὶρ the hand.

[200] Poseidon, or Neptune. This god, after a dispute with Minerva
respecting this place, held by order of Jupiter, divided possession of
it with her. Hence the ancient coins of Trœzen bear the trident and head
of Minerva.

[201] Πώγων, pogon or beard. Probably the name is derived from the form
of the harbour. Hence the proverb, “Go to Trœzen,” (πλεύσειας εἰς
Τροιζῆνα,) addressed to those who had little or no beard.

[202] Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes.

[203] Pidauro.

[204] Methana is the modern name.

[205] Thucyd. b. ii. c. 34. Methone is the reading of all manuscripts
and editions.

[206] Herodotus, b. v. c. 83, and b. viii. c. 93.

[207] This colony must have been posterior to that of the Samians, the
first founders of Cydonia.

[208] Il. ii. 496.

[209] Il. ii. 559.

[210] Il. ii. 497.

[211] Il. ii. 632.

[212] Thucyd. ii. 27; iv. 56.

[213] A place not known.

[214] Probably interpolated.

[215] Il. ii. 569.

[216] Tricorythus in place of Corinth is the suggestion of _Coray_.

[217] Iph. Taur. 508 _et seq._

[218] Orest. 98, 101, 1246.

[219] Οὐ παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἐς Κόρινθον ἔσθ’ ὁ πλοῦς, which Horace has
elegantly Latinized, Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum.

[220] ἱστοὺς--distaffs; also, masts and sailors.

[221] Strabo here gives the name of Crissæan Gulf to the eastern half of
the Gulf of Corinth.

[222] Of or belonging to asses.

[223] The remains of an ancient place at the distance of about a mile
after crossing the Erasinus, (Kephalari,) are probably those of
Cenchreæ. _Smith._

[224] Crommyon was distant 120 stadia from Corinth, (Thuc. iv. 45,) and
appears to have therefore occupied the site of the ruins near the chapel
of St. Theodorus. The village of Kineta, which many modern travellers
suppose to correspond to Crommyon, is much farther from Corinth than 120
stadia. _Smith._

[225] According to Pausanias, the Teneates derive their origin from the
Trojans taken captive at the island of Tenedos. On their arrival in
Peloponnesus, Tenea was assigned to them as a habitation by Agamemnon.

[226] B. C. 146.

[227] Aristeides of Thebes, a contemporary of Alexander the Great. At a
public sale of the spoils of Corinth, King Attalus offered so large a
price for the painting of Bacchus, that Mummius, although ignorant of
art, was attracted by the enormity of the price offered, withdrew the
picture, in spite of the protestations of Attalus, and sent it to Rome.

[228] This story forms the subject of the Trachiniæ of Sophocles.

[229] Mummius was so ignorant of the arts, that he threatened those who
were intrusted with the care of conveying to Rome the pictures and
statues taken at Corinth, to have them replaced by new ones at their
expense, in case they should be so unfortunate as to lose them.

[230] The plastic art was invented at Sicyon by Dibutades; according to
others, at the island of Samos, by Rœcus and Theodorus. From Greece it
was carried into Etruria by Demaratus, who was accompanied by Eucheir
and Eugrammus, plastic artists, and by the painter Cleophantus of
Corinth, B. C. 663. See b. v. c. ii. § 2.

[231] Il. ii. 571.

[232] The ruins are situated below the monastery Kesra.

[233] Vasilika.

[234] Ægialus was the most ancient name of Achaia, and was given to it
on account of the greater number of cities being situated upon the
coast. The Sicyonians, however, asserted that the name was derived from
one of their kings named Ægialeus.

[235] The story is narrated differently in Pausanias, b. vii. c. 1.

[236] About 1044 B. C.

[237] The twelve cities were Phocæa, Erythræ, Clazomenæ, Teos, Lebedos,
Colophon, Ephesus, Priene, Myus, Miletus, and Samos and Chios in the
neighbouring islands. See b. xiv. c. i. § 3. This account of the
expulsion of the Ionians from Peloponnesus is taken from Polybius, b.
ii. c. 41, and b. iv. c. 1.

[238] And Lacedæmonians, adds Polybius, b. ii. c. 39.

[239] Patras and Paleocastro.

[240] This festival, Panionium, or assembly of all the Ionians, was
celebrated at Mycale, or at Priene at the base of Mount Mycale, opposite
the island of Samos, in a place sacred to Neptune. The Ionians had a
temple also at Miletus and another at Teos, both consecrated to the
Heliconian Neptune. Herod. i. 148. Pausanias, b. vii. c. 24.

[241] Il. xx. 403.

[242] The birth of Homer was later than the establishment of the Ionians
in Asia Minor, according to the best authors. Aristotle makes him
contemporary with the Ionian migration, 140 years after the Trojan war.

[243] Ælian, De Naturâ Anim. b. ii. c. 19, and Pausanias, b. vii. c. 24,
25, give an account of this catastrophe, which was preceded by an
earthquake, and was equally destructive to the city Bura. B. C. 373.

[244] The Syngathus Hippocampus of Linnæus, from ἵππος, a horse, and
κάμπη, a caterpillar. It obtained its name from the supposed resemblance
of its head to a horse and of its tail to a caterpillar. From this is
derived the fiction of sea-monsters in attendance upon the marine
deities. It is, however, but a small animal, abundant in the
Mediterranean. The head, especially when dried, is like that of a horse.
Pliny, b. xxxii. c. 9--11. Ælian, De Nat. Anim. b. xiv. c. 20.

[245] This distinguished man was elected general of the Achæan League,
B. C. 245.

[246] The expulsion of the Carthaginians from Sicily took place 241 B.
C. The war of the Romans against the Cisalpine Gauls commenced 224 B.
C., when the Romans passed the Po for the first time.

[247] Text abbreviated by the copyist.

[248] Il. ii. 576.

[249] Il. ii. 639.

[250] Il. viii. 203.

[251] Il. xiii. 21, 34.

[252] Κράθις--κραθῆναι The Acrata. The site of Ægæ is probably the Khan
of Acrata. _Smith._

[253] From the heights on which it was situated, descends a small river,
(the Crius,) which discharges itself into the sea near Cape Augo-Campos.

[254] Vostitza.

[255] Leake places the port of Ægeira at Maura-Litharia, the Black
Rocks, on the left of which on the summit of a hill are some vestiges of
an ancient city, which must have been Ægeira.

[256] Phœn. 163.

[257] See above, § 3.

[258] Anab. v. 3. 8.

[259] Castel di Morea.

[260] Castel di Rumeli.

[261] Sunset.

[262] Gossellin suggests that the name Stratos was derived from a spot
called the Tomb of Sostratus, held in veneration by the inhabitants of
Dyme.

[263] The Risso or Mana.

[264] From the fountain Dirce, and the rivers Asopus, Inachus, and
Simoïs.

[265] Cape Papa.

[266] Now bears the name of Zyria; its height, as determined by the
French commission, is 7788 feet above the level of the sea. _Smith._

[267] The Arcadians called themselves Autochthones, indigenous, and also
Proseleni, born before the moon; hence Ovid speaking of them says, “Lunâ
gens prior illa fuit.”

[268] B. C. 371.

[269] Mauro vuni.

[270] Mintha.

[271] Partheni.

[272] Called Katavothra by modern Greeks.

[273] The Landona.

[274] The Carbonaro.

[275] The Kephalari.

[276] The following section is corrupt in the original; it is translated
according to the corrections proposed by _Kramer_, _Gossellin_, &c.

[277] The peninsulas described by Strabo, are:

1. The Peloponnesus, properly so called, bounded by the Isthmus of
Corinth.

2. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from Pagæ to Nisæa, and
including the above.

3. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from the recess of the Crissæan
Gulf, properly so called, (the Bay of Salona,) to Thermopylæ, and
includes the two first.

4. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from the Ambracic Gulf to
Thermopylæ and the Maliac Gulf, and includes the three former.

5. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from the Ambracic Gulf to the
recess of the Thermaic Gulf, and contains the former four peninsulas.

[278] These words are transposed from after the word Epicnemidii, as
suggested by Cramer.

[279] The Crissæan Gulf, properly so called, is the modern Bay of
Salona. But probably Strabo (or rather Eudoxus, whose testimony he
alleges) intended to comprehend, under the denomination of Crissæan, the
whole gulf, more commonly called Corinthian by the ancients, that is,
the gulf which commenced at the strait between Rhium and Antirrhium, and
of which the Crissæan Gulf was only a portion. The text in the above
passage is very corrupt.

[280] From Sunium to the Isthmus.

[281] Libadostani.

[282] N. W. by W., 1/4 W.

[283] Literally, “by legs on each side.” Nisæa was united to Megara, as
the Piræus to Athens, by two long walls.

[284] Il. ii. 546.

[285] Il. xiii. 685.

[286] See note to vol. i. page 329.

[287] This place is unknown.

[288] From a lost tragedy of Sophocles.

[289] Probably interpolated.

[290] Il. ii. 557.

[291] Il. xiii. 681.

[292] Il. iv. 327.

[293] Il. iv. 273.

[294] Il. iii. 230.

[295] Il. ii. 557.

[296] These horns, according to Wheler, are two pointed rocks on the
summit of the mountain situated between Eleusis and Megara. On one of
these rocks is a tower, called by the modern Greeks Cerata or
Kerata-Pyrga.

[297] Lepsina.

[298] Σηκὸς.

[299] κατεσκεύασεν.

[300] ἐποίησε. Ictinus was also the architect of the temple of Apollo
Epicurius near Phigalia in Arcadia.

[301] Thria.

[302] Scaramandra; from the height above Ægaleos, Xerxes witnessed the
battle of Salamis.

[303] Megala Kyra, Micra Kyra.

[304] τὸ ἄστυ, the Asty, was the upper town, in opposition to the lower
town, of Piræus. See Smith’s Dictionary for a very able and interesting
article, _Athenæ_; also Kiepert’s _Atlas von Hellas_.

[305] Sylla took Athens, after a long and obstinate siege, on the 1st
March, B. C. 86. The city was given up to rapine and plunder.

[306] Strabo thus accounts for his meagre description of the public
buildings at Athens, for which, otherwise, he seems to have had no
inclination.

[307] Hegesias was an artist of great celebrity, and a contemporary of
Pheidias. The statues of Castor and Pollux by Hegesias, are supposed by
Winkelman to be the same as those which now stand on the stairs leading
to the Capitol, but this is very doubtful. _Smith._

[308] In the Erechtheium.

[309] The Heroum, or temple dedicated to the daughters of Leos, who were
offered up by their father as victims to appease the wrath of Minerva in
a time of pestilence. The position of the temple is doubtfully placed by
Smith below the Areiopagus.

[310] The well-known temple of Theseus being the best preserved of all
the monuments of Greece.

[311] An eminent geographer. He made extensive journeys through Greece
to collect materials for his geographical works, and as a collector of
inscriptions on votive offerings and columns, he was one of the earlier
contributors to the Greek Anthology. _Smith._

[312] The Odeium was a kind of theatre erected by Pericles in the
Ceramic quarter of the city, for the purpose of holding musical
meetings. The roof, supported by columns, was constructed out of the
wreck of the Persian fleet conquered at Salamis. There was also the
Odeium of Regilla, but this was built in the time of the Antonines.

[313] The country was called Actica from Actæos. _Parian Chronicle._

[314] Demetrius Phalereus was driven from Athens, 307 B. C., whence he
retired to Thebes. The death of Casander took place 298 B. C.

[315] Aratus, the Achæan general, 245 B. C., drove from Attica the
Lacedæmonian garrisons, and restored liberty to the Athenians.

[316] B. C. 87.

[317] C. Halikes.

[318] Falkadi.

[319] Elisa.

[320] Raphti.

[321] Il. iii. 443.

[322] Macronisi.

[323] Negropont.

[324] From C. Colonna to C. Mantelo.

[325] Smith gives an alphabetical list of 160 demi.

[326] Monte San Giorgio.

[327] As Mount Hymettus was always celebrated for producing the best
honey, it would appear from this passage that there were silver mines in
it. It appears however that the Athenians had failed to discover silver
in Hymettus. It is not impossible that Strabo has adopted literally some
proverb or saying of the miners, such as, “Ours is the best honey.”

[328] In the following description of Greece, Strabo employs the term
belts or bands ταινίας for the territory intercepted between the lines
forming the peninsulas. See note, chap. i. § 1, of this book.

[329] About 67 yards. See also b. x. ch. i. § 8.

[330] Leuctra and Mantineia.

[331] The Thebans, who were formerly the allies of the Macedonians, were
opposed to Philip of Macedon at the battle of Chæroneia. On the
accession to the throne of Alexander, the city was destroyed, B. C. 335;
6000 of the inhabitants were killed, and 30,000 sold as slaves. The city
was rebuilt, B. C. 316, by Casander. Pausanias, ix. 7. The ravages
committed by Sylla in the war against Mithridates, which completed the
final ruin of Thebes, must have been fresh in the memory of Strabo.

[332] Hieros Limen.

[333] New Eretria stood at Paleocastro, and old Eretria at Vathy.

[334] Dramesi.

[335] Athenæus, v. 15.

[336] Livy states (xlv. 27) that Aulis was distant three miles from
Chalcis; by Homer (Il. ii. 303) it is called Αὐλὶς πετρήεσσα. About
three miles south of Chalcis, on the Bœotian coast, are two bays,
separated from each other by a rocky peninsula: the northern is small
and winding, the southern spreads out at the end of a channel into a
large circular basin. The latter harbour, as well as a village situated
a mile to the southward of it, is called _Vathy_, a name evidently
derived from βαθὺς λιμὴν. We may therefore conclude that Aulis was
situated on the rocky peninsula between these two bays. _Leake_ and
_Smith_.

[337] See above, c. ii. § 2.

[338] διῳκοδόμηται δ’ εἰς αὐτοὺς σῦριγξ The passage does not give a
clear explanation of the fact. Livy, b. xxviii. c. 6.

[339] Thucydides, b. ii. ch. 23, says that Graia is on the road leading
from Oropus to Athens.

[340] In modern maps a modern town, Skoimandri, is laid down near the
ruins of Tanagra. Pausanias, b. ix. ch. 20, informs us why Tanagra was
called both Poimandria and Graia. Tanagra was the daughter of Æolus and
wife of Poimandrus; she arrived at such an extreme old age, as to
receive the title of Graia, the Old.

[341] Argyrokastro.

[342] The exact site of Harma is uncertain. Leake supposes it to have
occupied the important pass on the road from Thebes to Chalcis, leading
to the maritime plain. Pausanias, b. ix. ch. 19, says that it obtained
its name from the chariot of Amphiaraus having disappeared there.

[343] We should perhaps read Harma, says _Kramer_; but in that case
Tanagra of Bœotia would be upon the right hand. The reading Argos is a
manifest error, and the whole passage is corrupt.

[344] Il. ii. 508.

[345] Leake supposes Ægæ to have stood near Limni. Strabo, below, ch.
vii. § 4, says that probably the Ægæan Sea had its name from this place.

[346] Of this place, although mentioned by Thucydides, b. iii. ch. 89,
very little is known, in consequence no doubt of its having almost
entirely disappeared by an earthquake, which took place about 426 or 425
years B. C.

[347] Ktypa-vuna.

[348] Near Anthedon was a place called the Leap of Glaucus, where he
threw himself into the sea. Pausanias, ix. 22. The ruins of Anthedon are
situated 1-1/2 mile from _Lukisi_. _Smith._

[349] This passage is very corrupt.

[350] The sites of these places are unknown.

[351] Mauro-potamos.

[352] Lake of Livadhia.

[353] Κώπη, an oar.

[354] That is, by natural or artificial subterraneous channels.

[355] Mauroneri.

[356] Pliny, b. xvi. c. 36.

[357] Il. ii. 503.

[358] There were several rivers of this name. See below, c. iii. § 16.

[359] Il. ii. 523.

[360] See below, ch. iii. § 15. Elateia is represented by the modern
village of Elefta.

[361] See ch. ii. § 26.

[362] It is impossible to make any exact statement respecting its
extent, since it varied so much at different times of the year and in
different seasons. On the northern and eastern sides its extent is
limited by a range of heights, but on the opposite quarter there is no
such natural boundary to its size. _Smith_, v. _Bœotia_, which contains
also a useful map from Forschamer’s _Hellenica_ of the Basin of the
Copais.

[363] There appears to be no modern lake in the position assigned to
Trephea by _Kiepert_. Kramer suggests the omission here of the word
Trephea.

[364] Il. v. 708.

[365] Makaris.

[366] Il. xx. 385.

[367] Thiva.

[368] Il. ii. 500.

[369] Il. vii. 221.

[370] The text is in a very imperfect state. The section is translated
as proposed to be emended by _Kramer_.

[371] Morikios.

[372] Kalyvi.

[373] Mount Elatea.

[374] There is some doubt respecting the modern name of Thespiæ; the
Austrian map places the ruins near Erimokastro.

[375] Placing Ascra at Pyrgaki, there is little doubt that Aganippe,
whence the Muses were called Aganippides, is the fountain which issues
from the left bank of the torrent flowing midway between Paleopanaghea
and Pyrgaki. Around this fountain Leake observed numerous square blocks,
and in the neighbouring fields stones and remains of habitations. The
position of the Grove of the Muses is fixed at St. Nicholas, by an
inscription which Leake discovered there relating to the Museia, or the
games of the Muses, which were celebrated there under the presidency of
the Thespians. Paus. b. ix. c. 31. In the time of Pausanias the Grove of
the Muses contained a larger number of statues than any other place in
Bœotia, and this writer has given an account of many of them. The
statues of the Muses were removed by Constantine from this place to his
new capital, where they were destroyed by fire, in A. D. 404. _Smith._

[376] Works and Days, 639.

[377] This is a mistake, since the loftiest summit of Helicon is barely
5000 feet high, whilst that of Parnassus is upwards of 8000 feet.
_Smith._ Helicon is a range of mountains with several summits, of which
the loftiest is a round mountain now called Paleovuni. _Smith._ The
Austrian map gives the modern name Zagora to Helicon.

[378] Twenty stadia from the Grove of the Muses was the fountain
Hippocrene, which was said to have been produced by the horse Pegasus
striking the ground with his foot. Paus. b. ix. ch. 31. Hippocrene was
probably at Makariotissa, which is noted for a fine spring of water.
_Smith._ The Austrian map places it at Kukuva. Leibethrum, or
Leibethreium, is described by Pausanias as distant 40 stadia from
Coroneia, and is therefore probably the mount Zagora. _Smith._

[379] Il. ii. 499.

[380] The remains of Haliartus are situated upon a hill about a mile
from the village of Mazi, on the road from Thebes to Lebadeia, and at
the distance of about 15 miles from either place. Although the walls of
the town are scarcely anywhere traceable, its extent is marked on the
east and west by two small rivers, of which that to the west issues from
the foot of the hill of Mazi, the eastern, called the Kafalari, has its
origin in Mount Helicon. The stream on the western side of the city is
the one called Hoplites by Plutarch, where Lysander fell in battle with
the Thebans, B. C. 395, and is apparently the same as the Lophis of
Pausanias. The stream on the eastern side, the Kafalari, is formed by
the union of two rivulets, which appear to be the Permessus and Olmeius,
which are described by Strabo as flowing from Helicon, and after their
union entering the Lake Copais, near Haliartus. _Smith._

[381] It was celebrated for the worship of Athena, who is hence called
Alalcomeneis in Homer. The temple of the goddess stood at a little
distance from the town, on the Triton, a small stream flowing into the
Lake Copais. The modern village Sulinari is the site of Alalcomenæ.
_Smith._

[382] Phœnicium, or Sphingium, now called Faga, the mountain between the
Lakes Copais and Hylica, connecting Mount Ptoum with the range of
Helicon. Forchamer supposes that Phœnicium and Sphingium are the names
of two different mountains, separated from one another by the small
plain of the stream _Daulos_; but the name of Pœnicium rests only on the
authority of Strabo, and it is probably a corruption of Phicium. Φίξ is
the Æolic form of Σφίγξ, (Hes. Theog. 326,) and therefore there can be
no doubt that Phicium and Sphingium are two different forms of the same
name. _Smith._

[383] Il. ii. 502.

[384] It was still in existence in the time of Pausanias; the modern
village Topolia occupies the site.

[385] Leake conjectures that there is an error in the text, and that
for Θεσπιῶν we ought to read Θισβῶν, since there is only one spot in
the ten miles between Platæa and Thespiæ where any town is likely to
have stood, and that was occupied by Leuctra. See _Smith_.

[386] It was here that the Athenians under Tolmides were defeated by the
Bœotians in B. C. 447; in consequence of which defeat the Athenians lost
the sovereignty which they had for some years exercised over Bœotia. The
plain of Coroneia was also the scene of the victory gained by Agesilaus
over the Thebans and their allies in B. C. 394.

[387] Pausanias, b. ix. 33, mentions the Heroum of Lysander in
Haliartus, and some ruined temples, which had been burnt by the
Persians, and had been purposely left in that state. _Smith._

[388] Leake identifies Glisas with the ruins on the bank of the torrent
Platanaki, above which rises the mountain Siamata, the ancient Hypatus.

[389] The following is the original of this corrupt passage. Kramer
suggests that the words γ. δ. have been introduced from the margin into
the text.

   γεώλοφα καλεῖται δρί[* * * ᾧ ὑποπ]ίπται τὸ
   Ἀόνιον καλούμενον πεδίον ὃ διατείνει * *
   * * * * ἀπὸ τοῦ Ὑπάτου ὄρους.

Pausanias, b. ix. ch. 19, makes mention of a tumulus covered with trees,
near the ruins of Glisas or Glissas, which was the burial-place of
Ægialus and his companions, and also of other tumuli. These were
probably the γεώλοφα δρία, woody hillocks. The obscurity, however, still
remains.

[390] Il. ii. 505.

[391] The three summits of Ptoum bear the names of Palea, Stranitza, and
Skroponeri.

[392] The ruins are situated at a short distance south of Kardhitza. The
site of Cierium, the modern village Mataranga, was first discovered by
Leake, who identifies it with Arne, and supposes, with much probability,
that the name Arne may have been disused by the Thessalian conquerors,
because it was of Bœotian origin, and that the new appellation may have
been taken from the neighbouring river Curalius or Cuarius.

[393] Il. ii. 507.

[394] Il. v. 43.

[395] Sulinari.

[396] Il. iv. 8.

[397] Petra.

[398] Kapurna.

[399] Scripu.

[400] On the 7th of August, B. C. 338. Of the details of this battle we
have no account. The site of the monument is marked by a tumulus about a
mile or a little more from the Khan of Kapurna, on the right side of the
road towards Orchomenus. A few years ago (according to Mure) the mound
of earth was excavated and a colossal lion discovered, deeply imbedded
in its interior. See _Smith_.

[401] Livadhia.

[402] Lefka.

[403] See below, ch. v. § 15.

[404] Il. ix. 381.

[405] Euripides, Phœn. 422.

[406] Probably an interpolation.

[407] Leake places it at Tzamali, but Forchammer with more probability
at Avro-Kastro.

[408] Εὐδείελος.

[409] Scripu.

[410] Bogdana.

[411] Aspra-Spitia.

[412] Kastri.

[413] Daulia.

[414] It is a continuation of the ridge of Œta.

[415] La Punta.

[416] Od. viii. 75.

[417] Aspra Spitia.

[418] At the mouth of the Spercheius.

[419] The ruins are near Chryso.

[420] Apparently an interpolation. _Groskurd._

[421] ἀφήτωρ.

[422] Il. ix. 404.

[423] A conjecture by Kramer.

[424] Pausanias, b. x. c. 5, speaks of a temple of Apollo at Delphi,
which was supposed to have been constructed by bees, with their combs
and wings.

[425] Of which Spintharus the Corinthian was the architect. Pausanias,
b. x. c. 5.

[426] Κιθαρῳδοὶ, played on the cithara, accompanying it with words.

[427] Κιθαρισταὶ, played on the cithara alone.

[428] μέλος.

[429] νόμος.

[430] σύριγξ.

[431] Groskurd and Meineke propose emendations of the text of this
passage. The translation is rather a paraphrase.

[432] Probably, says _Palmer_, the expression is derived from ἵε παίε, O
strike, or ἵε παῖ, O youth.

[433] Aspra-Spitia.

[434] ὄπισθεν, “behind it,” but Marathus is on the opposite side of the
bay. The ruins are indicated in modern maps.

[435] The bay of Metochi d’Hagia.

[436] Zagora.

[437] This place is represented in the Austrian map by ruins near
Exarcho. But how does Strabo place “not far from” the Crisæan Gulf, Abæ,
which was certainly near Hyampolis, on the borders of the Locri
Epicnemidii? It is on the authority of this passage only that
geographers have placed a second Abæ behind Ambrysus, at the foot of
Parnassus.

[438] Distomo?

[439] Daulia.

[440] Il. ii. 519.

[441] Od. vii. 324.

[442] ἄνεμος, the wind.

[443] The Look-out.

[444] 457, B. C.

[445] This place was destroyed in the Persian war; no remains existed in
the time of Pausanias.

[446] The ruins are situated on the east of Turkochorio, made a free
state by the Romans. Pausanias, b. x. ch. 34.

[447] Demos. pro Coronâ, B. C. 338.

[448] Il. ii. 523.

[449] The quotation is from a lost poem.

[450] Conjectures of Groskurd, and approved by Kramer.

[451] Meineke supposes these words to be an interpolation, because no
mention is made by other writers, nor by Strabo himself, in his
enumeration of the rivers in Argolis, of the existence of a river called
Cephissus at Argos.

[452] Polina.

[453] Dyrrachium, now Durazzo.

[454] The site appears to have been to the south-east of the modern town
Neochorio.

[455] From hence to the close of the paragraph the text is very corrupt;
the restorations are due to the conjectures of Du Theil, Groskurd, and
Kramer.

[456] Schedius, according to Homer, Il. ii. 517, and Il. xvii. 306, was
one of the chiefs of the Phocians.

[457] The ruins of Opus are indicated as existing between Talanti and
the sea.

[458] A portion of the ridge of Œta, on the north-west of Talanti, now
Chlomos.

[459] A monument, or cenotaph, common to many persons.

[460] The site is marked by a tower called Paleopyrgo, near the modern
Lebanitis.

[461] Mentioned by Athenæus, b. iii. Hot springs were generally sacred
to Hercules.

[462] Diodorus Siculus asserts that it was separated from the continent
by an earthquake; but statements of this kind were commonly and hastily
made, where the natural appearances were favourable to them.

[463] Il. xxiii. 85.

[464] Il. xviii. 326.

[465] The ruins have been discovered by Gell on an insulated hill, near
the sea-shore.

[466] Paleocastro, in Marmara, near Romani.

[467] A conjecture by Groskurd.

[468] βῆσσαι and νάπη, wooded hollows.

[469] In the island of <DW26>s.

[470] Il. ii. 535.

[471] Salona, or Lampeni.

[472] Lepanto.

[473] Castel de Roumeli.

[474] Il. ii. 640.

[475] From ὀζεῖν, to smell.

[476] Maurolimne.

[477] The site is unknown.

[478] Near Dervend-Elapha.

[479] The Hellada.

[480] B. vii. c. 198, and c. 200.

[481] Translated according to Kramer’s proposed emendation. Demetrias,
according to Leake, occupies the southern or maritime face of a height
called Goritza, which projects from the coast of Magnesia between 2 and
3 miles to the southward of the middle of Volo. Pausanias, b. vii. c. 7,
says that Philip called Chalcis, Corinth, and Magnesia in Thessaly, the
“Keys of Greece.” Livy, b. xxxii. c. 37.

[482] C. Lithada.

[483] The Salambria.

[484] This paragraph is translated as proposed by Meineke, who has
followed the suggestions of _Du Theil_, _Groskurd_, and _Kramer_, in
correcting the text.

[485] G. of Zeitun.

[486] The ten states or dynasties mentioned by Homer were those of, 1.
Achilles. 2. Protesilaüs. 3. Eumelus. 4. Philoctetes. 5. Podalirius and
Machaon. 6. Eurypylus. 7. Polypœtes. 8. Guneus. 9. Prothoüs. These are
named in the Catalogue in the 2nd Book of the Iliad; the 10th, Dolopia,
of which Phœnix was chief, in Il. xvi. 196.

[487] Il. ii. 681.

[488] Il. ix. 480.

[489] Il. ix. 443.

[490] Il. ii. 683.

[491] Il. ix. 498.

[492] Il. ix. 395.

[493] The Vlacho.

[494] Part of the range of Mount Gura.

[495] Satalda. The plain of Pharsalia is to the north.

[496] The Gura.

[497] Il. ii. 683.

[498] Il. xiii. 685.

[499] Il. xiii. 693, 699.

[500] Il. ii. 682.

[501] ὁ Ἅλος, or ἡ Ἅλος.

[502] Armyrus.

[503] Hence Virgil, Geor. 3, calls Apollo, Pastor ab Amphryso.

[504] Isdin or Zeitun.

[505] Il. ix. 484.

[506] Il. ii. 744.

[507] Above S. Theodoro.

[508] Il. ii. 695.

[509] πήγνυμι, to fasten.

[510] ἀφετήριον, a starting-place.

[511] Karlas.

[512] Velestina.

[513] Trikeri.

[514] Sciathos.

[515] Scopelo?

[516] Selidromi?

[517] Scyros.

[518] Il. ii. 729.

[519] Tricala.

[520] The ruins are pointed out to the south of Stagus Kalabak.

[521] Il. ii. 734.

[522] Il. ix. 447.

[523] Il. x. 226.

[524] Il. ix. 424.

[525] τίτανος, chalk.

[526] Tcheritchiano.

[527] Il. ii. 738.

[528] Meineke suggests the reading μεταξύ, between, instead of μέχρι, as
far as.

[529] The words after Perrhæbi, εἰς τὴν ἐν τῇ μεσογαίᾳ ποταμίαν, into
the country in the interior lying along the river, are omitted, as
suggested by Meineke.

[530] Il. ii. 744.

[531] Groskurd suggests the insertion here of Messembria or Odessus.
Kramer is inclined to adopt the latter.

[532] Il. ii. 748.

[533] Or Pelasgiotis. _Groskurd._

[534] Il. ii. 754.

[535] Il. ii. 756.

[536] Il. xiii. 301.

[537] In the middle ages Eubœa was called Egripo, a corruption of
Euripus, the name of the town built upon the ruins of Chalcis. The
Venetians, who obtained possession of the island upon the dismemberment
of the Byzantine empire by the Latins, called it Negropont, probably a
corruption of _Egripo_ and _Ponte_, a bridge. _Smith._

[538] This expression is obscure; probably it may mean that Eubœa is not
equal in length to the coast comprehended between Sunium and the
southern limits of Thessaly.

[539] C. Lithada. The mountain Lithada above the cape, rises to the
height of 2837 feet above the sea.

[540] C. Mantelo.

[541] The real length of the island from N. to S. is about 90 miles, its
extreme breadth is 30 miles, but in one part it is not more than 4 miles
across. See _Smith_ art. Eubœa.

[542] Cape Mantelo.

[543] Strabo is the only ancient author who describes a place of this
name as existing in Eubœa. Kiepert and the Austrian map agree in giving
the name Petaliæ, which may here be meant, to the Spili islands.

[544] ἀντίπορθμος.

[545] Eubœa has various names. Formerly (says Pliny, b. iv. c. 12) it
was called Chalcedontis or Macris, according to Dionysius and Ephorus;
Macra, according to Aristides; Chalcis, from brass being there first
discovered, according to Callidemus; Abantias, according to Menæchmus;
and Asopis by the poets in general.

[546] The narrow channel between the island and the mainland.

[547] Il. ii. 536, 542.

[548] From Abas, great grandson of Erectheus.

[549] From Eubœa, daughter of the river Asopus and mistress of Neptune.

[550] From εὖ, well, and βοῦς, a cow. The ancient coins of the island
bear the head of an ox.

[551] Mount St. Elias, 4748 feet above the level of the sea. Bochart
derives the name from an eastern word signifying “narrow.”

[552] At the base of Ploko Vuno.

[553] Mount Galzades, celebrated for producing medicinal plants.
Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. b. ix. c. 15 and 20.

[554] Dipso, according to Kiepert.

[555] Philipp. iii.

[556] Not the town named Histiæa-Oreus, which was on the sea-coast.

[557] Livy, b. xxxi. c. 46.

[558] διὰ τὸ ὀρείους εἶναι.

[559] Kiepert accordingly places Dium near the modern Jaitra, but the
Austrian map places it to the N. E. of Ploko Vuno.

[560] Castel Rosso. The landing-place of the Persian expedition under
Datis and Artaphernes, B. C. 490. Herod. b. vi. c. 99.

[561] Sturæ.

[562] The ruins are indicated as existing opposite the Spili islands.

[563] λίθος φύεται.

[564] τῇ τῶν λίνων πλύσει.

[565] C. Mantelo.

[566] Od. iii. 177.

[567] As this statement is unsupported by any other authority, Meineke
suggests that the word Arabians (Ἄραβες οἱ) is an error for Aradii
(Ἀράδιοι).

[568] Repub. b. iv. c. 3.

[569] According to the Scholiast in Apollon. Rhod. Argon, b. i. v. 77,
Canethus was a mountain on the Bœotian side of the Euripus.

[570] B. i. c. iii. § 16.

[571] B. ix. c. ii. § 13.

[572] Il. ii. 640.

[573] Od. xv. 295.

[574] ἐνιαυτόν for αὐτόν. _Meineke._

[575] Near Palæo-castro.

[576] Herod. b. iii. c. 149, and b. vi. c. 101.

[577] A common practice of the Dorians.

[578] B. viii. c. iii. § 6.

[579] In Thessaly.

[580] Negropont. It was one of the three cities which Philip of Macedon
called the chains of Greece. Brass (χαλκὸς) was said to have been first
found there.

[581] He retired there B. C. 322.

[582] δόρυ.

[583] κοντὸς.

[584] ἡ σάρισσα καὶ ὁ ὑσσὸς Probably an interpolation. _Groskurd._

[585] μάχην τὴν σταδίαν.

[586] συστάδην.

[587] ἐκ χειρός.

[588] Il. ii. 543.

[589] Il. xix. 389.

[590] Od. viii. 229.

[591] Il. iv. 469.

[592] Il. xiii. 713, 716.

[593] B. vi. c. i. § 13.

[594] B. viii. c. vii. § 1.

[595] The Aspro-potamo.

[596] G. of Arta.

[597] B. viii. c. iii. § 11.

[598] B. ix. c. v. § 10.

[599] B. viii. c. ii. § 3.

[600] The promontory bears the name C. Madonna, and the ruins of
Anactorium are pointed out as existing at the bottom of the small bay of
Prevesa. The modern town, Azio, which is not the ancient Actium, is near
these ruins.

[601] Near Lepenu.

[602] Correction by Groskurd. Trigardon is given in the Austrian map as
the ancient site of Œniadæ, but this position does not agree with the
text.

[603] Porto-fico according to D’Anville.

[604] Kandili, opposite the island Kalamo.

[605] Santa Maura.

[606] Neochori.

[607] Arta, but the Austrian map gives Rogus as the site.

[608] This is an error either of the author or in the text. Groskurd
proposes to read Antirrhium (Castel Rumeli) in place of Anactorium.
Kramer proposes to follow Tzschucke, and to exchange the positions of
the words Stratus and Alyzia in the text.

[609] There has been some dispute respecting the site of Calydon. Leake
supposes the ruins which he discovered at Kurtaga, or Kortaga, to the
west of the Evenus, (Fidari,) to be those of Calydon.

[610] Lepanto.

[611] Leake supposes it to have stood in the plain of Marathia, opposite
the island Trissonia.

[612] M. Coraca.

[613] M. Zigos.

[614] Xerolimne.

[615] Kaki-scala.

[616] Varassova.

[617] Santa Maura.

[618] Theaki.

[619] Cephalonia.

[620] Od. xxiv. 376.

[621] Il. ii. 633.

[622] I follow the proposed reading, ἅλμα for ἀλλὰ.

[623] Du Theil says, Strabo should have said “a daughter of Pterelas who
was in love with Cephalus.” See below, § 14.

[624] Il. ii. 631.

[625] Il. ii. 625.

[626] Il. ii. 615.

[627] Il. ii. 536.

[628] Il. viii. 173.

[629] Il. ii. 633.

[630] Od. xiv. 100.

[631] Od. iv. 671.

[632] Od. i. 246.

[633] Od. xvi. 249.

[634] Od. xv. 366.

[635] Il. ii. 632.

[636] Od. ix. 21.

[637] Od. iii. 81.

[638] Probably interpolated. _Kramer._

[639] Od. ix. 25.

[640] Od. xiv. 1.

[641] εὐδείελος is the reading of the text, but the reading in Homer is
ἱππήλατος, adapted for horses, and thus translated by Horace, Epist.
lib. I. vii. 41, Non est aptus equis Ithacæ locus.

[642] Od. iv. 607.

[643] Od. ix. 26.

[644] Il. xii. 239.

[645] Od. x. 190.

[646] For the explanation of _climate_, see book ii. ch. i. § 20, but in
this passage the word has a different sense, and implies the division of
the heavens into north, south, east, and west. The idea of Strabo seems
to be that of a straight line drawn from east to west, dividing the
celestial horizon into two parts, the one northern, (or arctic,) the
other southern. The sun in its course from east to west continues always
as regards us in the southern portion. _Gossellin._

[647] οὐδ’ ὅπου ἀρχή.

[648] So in the text, but there is manifestly an error.

[649] Od. i. 181.

[650] I. Meganisi.

[651] Il. xv. 519.

[652] Il. ii. 631.

[653] Od. i. 246.

[654] C. Tornese.

[655] Monte Nero.

[656] We may hence conjecture that Cephallenia in the time of Homer was
divided into two parts, Dulichium and Samé. It may explain at least the
uncertainty of the ancients respecting the position of Dulichium.
Pausanias, b. vi. c. 15, speaking of the Paleis says, that formerly they
were called Dulichii; and Hesychius, that Dulichium is a city of
Cephallenia.

[657] Situated near the modern capital Argostoli.

[658] Probably the site of the ruins in the harbour of Viscardo.

[659] I. Dascaglio.

[660] Od. iv. 846.

[661] Il. xiii. 12.

[662] Il. xxiv. 753.

[663] Il. xxiv. 78.

[664] In the Valle d’Alessandro, in Cephalonia, there is still a place
called Samo.

[665] Il. xxiv. 752.

[666] Σάμοι.

[667] Il. xiii. 13.

[668] Zante.

[669] 3600 stadia? see b. xvii. c. iii. § 20.

[670] Curzolari, Oxia, Petala, &c.

[671] Od. xv. 298.

[672] C. Papa.

[673] Sophocles, Trachiniæ, v. 9.

[674] Il. ii. 628.

[675] Not identified.

[676] Gossellin remarks the double error committed by Winkelman, who, on
the authority of this passage, states that the Hercules (not the Labours
of Hercules) of Lysippus was transferred to Rome in the time of Nero,
long after this Book was written.

[677] Dragomestre.

[678] The lake Xerolimne.

[679] Kramer proposes the transposition of the sentence within brackets
to the beginning of the paragraph.

[680] Il. ii. 639.

[681] M. Zigos.

[682] Angelo Castron.

[683] Near Mauro Mati.

[684] See c. ii. § 3, Epictetus.

[685] Od. ii. 52.

[686] Od. xv. 16.

[687] Il. xiv. 116.

[688] Il. ix. 525.

[689] B. ix. c. iii. § 11.

[690] As distinguished from geography. See b. i. c. i. § 16, note⁵⁷.

[691] The author of a work in several books on Eubœa. Athenæus, b. vi.
c. 18.

[692] The unshorn.

[693] From Acarnan, son of Alcmæon. Thucyd. b. ii. c. 102. But the hero
from whom the Curetes obtained their name is not mentioned.

[694] The position of this mountain is not determined.

[695] Œneus and his children were themselves Porthaonidæ. Œneus had
possession only of Calydon, his brother Agrius and his children had a
part of Pleuronia. Thestius, cousin-german of Œneus and of Agrius,
received as his portion the remainder of Pleuronia and transmitted it to
his children, (the Thestiadæ,) who probably succeeded in gaining
possession of the whole country. The Porthaonidæ of the branch of
Agrius, were Thersites, Onchestus, Prothous, Celeulor, Lycopeüs, and
Melanippus. _Apollodorus_, b. i. c. 7, 8.

[696] Il. xiv. 117.

[697] Il. ix. 544.

[698] Il. ix. 525.

[699] “Cette digression est curieuse, sans doute * * * * Plusieurs
critiques ont fait de ce morceau l’objet de leur étude; néanmoins il
demeure hérissé de difficultés, et dernièrement M. Heyne (quel juge!) a
prononcé que tout y restait à éclaircir.” _Du Theil._

The myths relating to the Curetes abound with different statements and
confusion. The following are the only points to be borne in mind. The
Curetes belong to the most ancient times of Greece, and probably are to
be counted among the first inhabitants of Phrygia. They were the authors
and expositors of certain religious rites, which they celebrated with
dances. According to mythology they played a part at the birth of
Jupiter. They were sometimes called Idæan Dactyli. Hence their name was
given to the ministers of the worship of the Great Mother among the
Phrygians, which was celebrated with a kind of religious frenzy. The
Curetes were also called Corybantes. Hence also arose the confusion
between the religious rites observed in Crete, Phrygia, and Samothrace.
Again, on the other hand, the Curetes have been mistaken for an Ætolian
people, bearing the same name. Heyne, Not. ad Virgil. Æn. iii. 130.
Religion. et Sacror. cum furore peract. Orig. Comm. Soc. R. Scient.
Gotting. vol. viii. Dupuis, origin de tous les cultes, tom. 2. Sainte
Croix Mém. pour servir à la religion Secrète, &c., Job. Guberleth. Diss.
philol. de Myster. deorum Cabir. 1703. Frèret. Recher. pour servir à
l’histoire des Cyclopes, &c. Acad. des Inscript. &c., vol. xxiii. His.
pag. 27. 1749.

[700] τοσαύτη ποικιλία, will bear also to be translated, id tantum
varietatis, “this difference only,” as Groskurd observes.

[701] M. de Saint Croix (Recherches sur les Mystères, &c. sect. 2, page
25) is mistaken in asserting that “Strabo clearly refutes the statements
of those who believed that the Cabeiri, Dactyli, Curetes, Corybantes,
and Telchines, were not only the same kind of persons, but even separate
members of the same family.” It appears to me, on the contrary, that
this was the opinion adopted by our author. _Du Theil._

[702] προσθεὶς τὸν οἰκεῖον τῇ ἱστορίᾳ φυσικὸν λόγον. rationem naturalem,
utpote congruentum huc, historiæ adjiciens. _Xylander._ Or paraphrased,
“The history of this people will receive additional and a fitting
illustration by a reference to physical facts,” such as the manner of
wearing their hair, tonsure, &c.

[703] ἑλκεχίτωνας. The words καὶ κρώβυλον καὶ τέττιγα ἐμπλεχθῆναι
appear, according to Berkel. ad Steph. p. 74, to be here wanting, “and
to bind the hair in the form of the Crobulus and ornamented with a
grasshopper.” The hair over the forehead of the Apollo Belvidere is an
example of the crobulus.

[704] Herod. vii. 208.

[705] κουρὰν τριχός.

[706] κόραις καὶ κόροις.

[707] Strabo therefore considered the 193, 194, 195 verses of Il. xix.
as authentic. Heyne was inclined to consider them as an interpolation,
in which he is supported by other critics.

[708] Il. xix. 248. The text is probably mutilated, and Strabo may have
quoted the verses in Homer in which Merion is represented as dancing in
armour. Il. xvi. 617.

[709] Kramer suspects this passage to be an interpolation.

[710] The reading in the text is τὸν δ’ ὄντως νοῦν. The translation
adopts Meineke’s reading, νοοῦντα.

[711] Quam præclare philosophatus sit Strabo, me non monente,
unusquisque assequitur; præclarius, utique, quam illi, qui ex nostro
ritu religioso omnem hilaritatem exulare voluere. _Heyne_, Virg. iii.
130.

[712] The original, as Du Theil observes, is singularly obscure, ἀλλ’ ἡ
φύσις, ἡ τῶν παιδευμάτων, ἐξεταζέσθω, τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐνθένδε ἔχουσα.

[713] Following the reading suggested by Groskurd.

[714] This word appears here misplaced.

[715] The chain of mountains extending from the sources of the Sagaris
(the Zagari) to the Propontis was called Dindymene.

[716] Sipuli Dagh.

[717] Possene.

[718] This name is not derived from any place.

[719] διὰ τὸ ὅμορον, for διά τε Ὅμηρον. _Meineke._

[720] The literal translation has been preserved in the text for the
sake of the argument. The following is Potter’s translation, in which,
however, great liberty is taken with the original.

   “To whom the mysteries of the gods are known,
       By these his life he sanctifies,
   And, deep imbibed their chaste and cleaning lore,
   Hallows his soul for converse with the skies.
   Enraptur’d ranging the wild mountains o’er,
     The mighty mother’s orgies leading,
     He his head with ivy shading,
     His light spear wreath’d with ivy twine,
     To Bacchus holds the rites divine.
       Haste then, ye Bacchæ, haste,
   Attend your god, the son of heaven’s high king.
       From Phrygia’s mountains wild and waste
   To beauteous-structur’d Greece your Bacchus bring
     *       *       *       *       *
     O ye Curetes, friendly band,
     You, the blest natives of Crete’s sacred land,
   Who tread those groves, which, dark’ning round,
     O’er infant Jove their shelt’ring branches spread,
   The Corybantes in their caves profound,
     The triple crest high waving on their head,
     This timbrel framed, whilst clear and high
     Swelled the Bacchic symphony.
     The Phrygian pipe attemp’ring sweet,
     Their voices to respondence meet,
     And placed in Rhea’s hands.
   The frantic satyrs to the rites advance,
     The Bacchæ join the festive bands,
   And raptur’d lead the Trieteric dance.”

[721] There were several mountains bearing the name of Olympus. 1. In
Thessaly. 2. In Peloponnesus. 3. Of Ida. 4. In Mysia. 5. In Crete.

[722] San Dimitri.

[723] Od. iii. 144.

[724] Adopting Kramer’s suggestion of παραδοὺς τὰ for παραδόντα.

[725] Bendis, Diana of the Thracians; among the Athenians there was a
festival called Bendideia.

[726] Athenæus, b. xi. c. 8. Æschylus in the Edoni (a fragment) calls
cymbals cotylæ.

[727] Probably from a passage in the Erectheus, a lost play of
Euripides.

[728] Nablas and Sambyce are Syriac words. Athenæus, b. iv. c. 24.

[729] The invention of Anacreon, according to Neanthus Cyzicenus.

[730] Athenæus, b. xiv. c. 8, 9.

[731] See above, ch. iii. § 1, 6, 8.

[732] κουροτροφήσαντες.

[733] κουρῆτες.

[734] Who were the Prasians of Rhodes I confess I cannot say. _Palmer._

[735] From whence Strabo does not inform us.

[736] The Scholiast of Apollonius remarks that it was formerly called
Leucosia, afterwards Samos from a certain Saiis, and Samothrace when it
came into possession of the Thracians. It had also the name of Dardania.

[737] The true origin of the word, according to Casaubon, is to be found
in the Hebrew word Cabir, signifying powerful. Tobias Gutberlethus, De
mysteriis deorum Cabirotum.

[738] M. Sitia.

[739] Places unknown.

[740] In the plain of Troy.

[741] According to the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhod., Arg. 5, 917
persons were initiated into the mysteries of the Cabeiri in Samothrace.
The Cabeiri were four in number; Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos, and
Casmilos. Axieros corresponded to Demeter or Ceres, Axiokersa to
Persephone or Proserpine, Axiokersos to Hades or Pluto, and Casmilos to
Hermes or Mercury. See Ueber die Gottheiten von Samothrace, T. W. I.
Schelling, 1815; and the Classical Journal, vol. xiv. p. 59.

[742] Herod. iii. 37.

[743] Probably a temple of Apollo Smintheus.

[744] Corybissa, Eureïs, and Æthaloeïs are unknown.

[745] They were called Curetes because they were boys, and κουρῆτες μὲν
ἀπὸ τοῦ κόρους εἶναι καλούμενοι. Groskurd suspects these or similar
words to have followed “Corybantes.”

[746] Od. viii. 250.

[747] i. e. toes.

[748] In a lost play, The Deaf Satyrs.

[749] In hoc quoque dissentio, sapientes fuisse, qui ferri metalla et
æris invenerunt, cum incendio silvarum adusta tellus, in summo venas
jacentes liquefacta fudisset. Seneca, Epist. 90.

[750] Diodorus Siculus, b. v., says that they obtained the name from
being equal in number to the ten fingers or toes (Dactyli).

[751] Groskurd proposes Corybantes for these latter Idæan Dactyli.

[752] The common European name Candia is unknown in the island; the
Saracenic “Kandax,” Megalo Kastron, became with the Venetian writers
Candia; the word for a long time denoted only the principal city of the
island, which retained its ancient name in the chroniclers and in Dante,
Inferno xiv. 94. It is described by Strabo as lying between Cyrenaica
and that part of Hellas which extends from Sunium to Laconia, and
parallel in its length from W. to E. of these two points. The words
μέχρι Λακωνικῆς may be understood either of Malea or Tænarum; it is
probable that this geographer extended Crete as far as Tænarum, as from
other passages in his work (ii. c. v. § 20; viii. c. v. § 1) it would
appear that he considered it and the W. points of Crete as under the
same meridian. It is still more difficult to understand the position
assigned to Crete with regard to Cyrenaica (xvii. c. iii. § 22). Strabo
is far nearer the truth, though contradicting his former statements,
where he makes Cimarus, the N.W. promontory of Crete, 700 stadia from
Malea, and Cape Sammonium 1000 stadia from Rhodes, (ii. c. iv. § 3,)
which was one of the best ascertained points of ancient geography.
_Smith_, v. Crete.

[753] τῆς Ἑλλάδος τῆς ἀπὸ Σουνίου μέχρι Λακωνικῆς.

[754] Gossellin observes that the false position assigned to these
countries, and the contradiction perceptible in the measures in stadia,
given by Strabo, and above all the impossibility of reconciling them
upon one given plan, is a proof that the author consulted different
histories, and different maps, in which the distances were laid down in
stadia differing in length.

[755] The ruins are indicated as existing a little to the north of
Hagios Kurghianis, in the Austrian map.

[756] Cimarus is given in Kiepert, as the island Grabusa Agria, at the
extremity of Cape Buso, and also in the Austrian map. Kramer remarks
that the promontory Cimarus is mentioned by no other author. Corycus on
the other hand is placed by Strabo below, § 5, in these parts, although
the reading is suspicious, and in b. viii. c. v. § 1, and in b. xvii. c.
iii. § 22; but the reading again in this last reference is doubtful.
Cape Cimarus is now C. Buso or Grabusa.

[757] In b. ii. c. iv. § 3, it is written Salmonium, (c. Salamoni,) in
which passage Kramer has retained the spelling of the name, on the
ground that this form is to be found in Apollonius, Arg. 4, 1693, and
Dionys. Perieg. 110. Salmone in the Acts, xxvii. 7.

[758] C. Colonna.

[759] Not in the text of Kramer. Casaubon’s conjecture.

[760] The words of the text are, πλάτει δὲ ὑπὸ τὸ μέγεθος, which Meineke
translates, “Its width is not in proportion to its length.” Kramer says
that the preposition ὑπὸ suggests the omission of the words τετρακοσίων
or τριακοσίων που, and that the words τ. μ. are probably introduced from
the margin, and are otherwise inadmissible.

[761] It is impossible to say what words should fill up the hiatus in
the text, but probably something to this effect, ἀπὸ τῶν ἑσπερίων μερῶν
ἀρξαμένοις ἡ νῆσος πλατεῖά ἐστι. _Kramer._ Groskurd proposes ἡ νῆσος
αἰφνιδίως στενοχωρεῖ, the island suddenly narrows.

[762] On the bay of Armiro.

[763] Castel Franco. Acts of Apostles, xxvii. 12.

[764] Porto Trano. At the bottom of the bay of Mirabel.

[765] Near Lytto.

[766] Girapetra.

[767] By the islands of the Rhodians are meant Caso, Nisari, Scarpanto,
&c.

[768] Aspra-vuna, or Sfakia.

[769] Mt. Penta-Dactylon in the Morea.

[770] Psiloriti.

[771] From what point in the Cyrenaïca is not said. From b. viii. c.
iii. § 1, it would appear to be Phycus, (Ras al Sem,) but from b. xvii.
c. iii. § 20, it would seem to be Apollonias, (Marsa-susa,) the maritime
arsenal of the Cyrenæans, situated at about 170 stadia to the east of
Phycus, and 80 stadia to the west of Cyrene.

[772] C. Crio.

[773] Of 700 stadia to a degree. _Gossellin._

[774] Cerigo.

[775] The distance from Samonium (Cape Salamone) to Alexandria, in a
straight line, is about 5500 stadia of 1111-1/9 to the degree.
_Gossellin._

[776] Gossellin’s conjecture, for the number is wanting in the text.

[777] τριχάϊκες.

[778] Od. xix. 175.

[779] So also Diod. Sic. b. v.

[780] τριχάϊκας.

[781] τριλοφίας.

[782] τριχίνους.

[783] The ruins are situated at Makro Teikhos, to the south-east of
Candia, the modern capital.

[784] Il. ii. 646; Od. xix. 178. Hagius Dheka. Pashley.

[785] Near Jerami, in the Austrian map. Pashley places it at Khania.

[786] Lytto.

[787] Il. ii. 647.

[788] Cartero, a maritime town on the river of the same name.

[789] At the mouth of the Aposelemi.

[790] Now the Cartero.

[791] Pausanias, b. ix. c. 11, says that the ships of Minos were
unprovided with sails, which were the subsequent invention of Dædalus.

[792] Groskurd proposes to supply the hiatus in the text thus: Cnossus
[towards the north, inclining to the Ægæan sea, Phæstus turned towards
the south and the African sea, Cydonia in the western part of the
island] opposite.

[793] Od. xix. 178.

[794] Il. xiii. 450.

[795] The Cretan war was conducted by Q. Metellus, proconsul, who from
thence obtained the cognomen of Creticus.

[796] Il. ii. 646.

[797] Letima or Matala, Cape Theodosia.

[798] The Maloniti or Messara.

[799] On C. Lionda.

[800] Strabo must have confounded two totally distinct cities, (Priansus
and Prasus,) when he spoke of them under a common name, and assigned
them a single situation, both close to Mount Dikte, and at the same time
continuous with the Lebenians, whose city was three days’ journey from
the mountain. Pashley, Travels in Crete, vol. i. p. 290. Kramer does not
agree with Pashley, and, until further information shall be obtained,
rests upon the authority of Boeckh, C. I. No. 2556, who affirms that
there is some doubt about the name Priansus, which is only found on
coins and inscriptions; both Hoeck (v. Kreta I. p. 413) and Boeckh (C.
I. ii. p. 405) consider Priansus and Prasus as the same place.

[801] M. Sitia.

[802] Phæn. 33.

[803] Callim. Hymn to Diana, 195.

[804] Tityrus is the ridge of mountains which terminates in Cape Spada.

[805] Kisamos.

[806] See Pashley, Travels in Crete, vol. i. c. 4, who places Aptera at
Palæocastron, on the south of the bay of Siedh and Polyrrhenia, at the
Palæocastron, to the south of the Gulf of Kisamos.

[807] Hodyitra.

[808] Il. ii. 648.

[809] Episcopiano.

[810] Od. iii. 191.

[811] Sordid avarice and covetousness have taken such hold upon them,
that among the Cretans alone, of all nations, nothing in the form of
gain is considered dishonourable. Polybius, b. vi.

[812] His father, Temenus, was the founder of Argos. See b. viii.

[813] There is, however, diversity of opinions on the subject.

[814] Aristotle, Politics, b. ii. c. 10, where he compares the Cretan
with the Lacedæmonian constitution.

[815] τῶν γερόντων.

[816] ἱππέων.

[817] According to Plutarch, with the poems of Homer.

[818] Herod. i. 65.

[819] Anciently Calliste, Herod., now Santorino, a corruption of Santa
Irene, to whom it was dedicated.

[820] Nanphio, or Anafi.

[821] Standia.

[822] Therasia, on the west of Santorino.

[823] Nio.

[824] According to Herodotus, in the Life of Homer.

[825] Sikino, anciently Œnoë. Pliny iv. 12.

[826] Cardiodissa, or Cardiana.

[827] Policandro.

[828] Argentiere. Cretæ plura genera. Ex iis Cimoliæ duo ad medicos
pertinentia, candidum et ad purpurissimum inclinans. Pliny, b. v. c. 17.
Cretosaque rura Cimoli. Ovid. Met. vii. 464. But from Aristophanes, the
Frogs, it would appear to have been a kind of fullers’ earth.

[829] Siphanto, anciently also Meropia and Acis. There were once gold
and silver mines in it, which were destroyed by inundation. There is
also another proverb, which alluded to its poverty, “a Siphnian pledge,”
Σίφνιος ἀῤῥαβὼν. Herodotus speaks of its being once the most wealthy of
the islands, iii. 57.

[830] Milo.

[831] Cape Skylli.

[832] Thucyd. b. v. c. 115, 116.

[833] Dhiles.

[834] Thermia. Hence Apollo Cynthius.

[835] Mentioned in b. vi. c. ii. § 4, as connected with the Nile.
Bryant, Mytho. v. i. p. 206, derives the name from Ain Opus, The
fountain of the Serpent, i. e. Python.

[836] Boeckh, Fragm. Pind. 58. ii. 2, p. 587.

[837] Thucyd. iii. 104.

[838] Isola Longa, or Macronisi.

[839] It was situated in the bay of Mandri.

[840] C. Colonna.

[841] Zia.

[842] Serpho.

[843] Polino.

[844] Antiparos.

[845] Bara.

[846] Naxia.

[847] Syra.

[848] Myconi.

[849] Tino.

[850] Andro.

[851] Jura. Pliny, viii. 29, says the inhabitants were driven from the
island by mice.

[852] B. C. 31.

[853] The title (which has been much questioned by critics) of this lost
work of Aratus appears to have been, from this passage, Τὰ κατὰ λεπτόν,
which Latin translators have rendered, Minuta, or Details. Casaubon is
of opinion that it is the same as referred to by Callimachus, under the
title Ῥήσεις λέπται, Clever Sayings. Ernest. ad Callim. Ep. 29. T. l. p.
333. The translation of the lines quoted follows the corrections of
Coray.

[854] In the middle of the Cyclades, and by far the most remarkable, is
Delos, celebrated for the temple of Apollo, and for its commerce. Pliny
iv. 12.

[855] Under L. Mummius, B. C. 146.

[856] Thucyd. i. 36.

[857] Καὶ ὅτε συνεστήκει ἡ Κόρινθος.

[858] Archelaüs and Metrophanes.

[859] Aristion, B. C. 87.

[860] Pausanias, viii. 33, § 2, (writing in the time of Hadrian,) says
of Delos, that with the exception of the persons who came from Athens,
for the purpose of protecting the temple and to perform the Delian
ceremonies, it was deserted.

[861] Rhena, called also Dhiles; but it is the largest of the two
islands now bearing that name. Pliny says it was anciently called also
Celadussa, from the noise of the waves, κελαδεῖν.

[862] Virg. Æn. iii. 124, Linquimus Ortygiæ portus pelagoque volamus.

[863] Zia.
                         Pinguia Cææ,
   Ter centum nivei tondent dumeta jurenci.

   Virg. Geor. i. 14, 15.

[864] Of Olbia or Olbiopolis, on the Borysthenes or Bog.

[865] ὁ μὴ δυνάμενος ζῆν καλῶς οὐ ζῇ κακῶς.

[866] Naxia.

[867] Andro.

[868] Taschos.

[869] Kemars.

[870] The marble was taken from Mt. Marpessus. Pliny xxxvi. 5; Virg. Æn.
6, Marpesia cautes.

[871] Od. xv. 402.

[872] Myconi.

[873] Myconi calva omnis juventus. Terence, Hecy. a. 3, s. 4; Pliny, b.
xi. c. 37.

[874] It was an erroneous opinion entertained by the ancients, that
frogs did not croak in this island (Sirpho); hence the proverb, a
Seriphian frog, βάτραχος Σερίφιος.

[875] Tine. Anciently it had also the names Hydrussa and Ophiussa.

[876] Amorgo.

[877] Levita.

[878] Lero.

[879] Patmo.

[880] The Furni; called in b. xiv. c. i. § 13, Corsiæ.

[881] Nicaria.

[882] According to the enumeration here made by Strabo, of the islands
comprehended in the Icarian sea, it appears that in his opinion none of
the islands situated to the north of Cos belonged to the Carpathian sea;
for according to his own statement, which immediately follows, the
Carpathian sea to the north was bounded by the Icarian sea.

[883] All the manuscripts and all editions give Λέρος. Is the island
spoken of in this passage the same as the one mentioned just above by
the name of Leria? Pliny, Hist. Nat. b. iv. 23, appears to have been
acquainted with two islands bearing the name of Leros. One, from the
position he assigns to it, appears to be the one Strabo above speaks of
under the name of Leria; but the second Leros of Pliny, b. v. § 36, must
be placed on the coast of Caria. Strabo appears to have entertained
nearly the same ideas, for we shall hereafter (b. xiv. c. i. § 6) see
him give the name of Leros to an island situated in the neighbourhood of
Icaria; and below (§ 19) he cites also a Leros, which would seem to have
been in the neighbourhood of the southern extremity of Caria.

[884] Probably interpolated.

[885] Istanpolia, or Stanpalia.

[886] Tino.

[887] Carchi.

[888] Il. ii. 676.

[889] Calimno.

[890] Fæcundaque melle Calydna (v. l. Calumne). Ovid. Met. b. viii. ver.
222.

[891] B. ii. c. v. § 31.

[892] The following are the measurements of our author:

                                                           Stadia.
   From Rhodes to Issus                                     5,000
   From Issus to the Caspian Gates                         10,000
   From the Caspian Gates to the sources of the Indus      14,000
   From the Indus to the mouth of the Ganges               13,500
   From thence to Thinæ                                     2,500
                                                           ------
                                                           45,000


[893] Strabo calls the Parthians, Parthyæi; and Parthia, Parthyæa.

[894] The Sea of Azoff.

[895] The Straits of Kertch or Zabache.

[896] The Kur or Kour.

[897] Eraskh or Aras.

[898] Georgia.

[899] Shirvan.

[900] See b. ii. c. v. § 31.

[901] To understand how this part of Asia formed a peninsula, according
to the ideas of our author, we must bear in mind, that (1) he supposed
the source of the Don to have been situated in the neighbourhood of the
Northern Ocean; (2) he imagined the Caspian Sea to communicate with the
same Ocean. Thus all the territory comprehended between the Don and the
Caspian formed a sort of peninsula, united to the continent by an
isthmus which separated the Euxine from the Caspian, and on which was
situated Colchis, Iberia, and Albania. The 3000 stadia assigned to the
breadth of this isthmus appears to be measured by stadia of 1111-1/9 to
a degree. _Gossellin._

[902] The Euxine.

[903] Pompey appears to have visited this philosopher twice on this
occasion, B. C. 62, and B. C. 67, on the termination of his eastern
campaigns.

[904] Il. vi. 208. _Pope._

[905] In many authors these names are used indifferently, the one for
the other; they are however distinguished by Pliny, (iv. 13,) who states
that this sea begins to be called the Caspian after you have passed the
river Cyrus, (Kur,) and that the Caspii live near it; and in vi. 16,
that it is called the Hyrcanian Sea, from the Hyrcani who live along its
shores. The western side should therefore in strictness be called the
Caspian; the eastern, the Hyrcanian. _Smith_, art. Caspium Mare.

[906] A narrow pass leading from North Western Asia into the N. E.
provinces of Persia. Their exact position was at the division of Parthia
from Media, about a day’s journey from the Median town of Rhagæ.
(Arrian. iii. 19.) According to Isodorus Charax, they were immediately
below Mt. Caspius. As in the case of the people called Caspii, there
seem to have been _two_ mountains _Caspius_, one near the Armenian
frontier, the other near the Parthian. It was through the pass of the
Caspiæ Pylæ that Alexander the Great pursued Darius. (Arrian. _Anab._
iii. 19; Curt. vi. 14; Amm. Marc, xxiii. 6.) It was one of the most
important places in ancient geography, and from it many of the meridians
were measured. The exact place corresponding with the Caspiæ Pylæ is
probably a spot between _Hark-a-Koh_, and _Siah-Koh_, about 6 parasangs
from _Rey_, the name of the entrance of which is called Dereh. _Smith_,
art. Caspiæ Pylæ.

[907] Du Theil justly remarks on the obscurity of this passage. His
translation or paraphrase is as follows; “La troisième contiendra ce qui
touche à l’isthme dont nous avons parlé; et, par suite, ceux des pays
qui, au sud de cet isthme et des Pyles Caspiennes, mais toujours en
deçà, ou, au moins, dans le sein même du Taurus, se succédant de l’est à
l’ouest, se rapprochent le plus de l’Europe.” In B. ii. c. v. § 31,
Strabo assigns Colchis to the third portion, but in this book to the
first.

[908] The Kizil Irmak.

[909] B. i. c. iii. § 2.

[910] A district of wide extent in Central Asia, comprehending nearly
the whole of ancient Persia; and bounded on the N. by the provinces of
Bactriana, Margiana, and Hyrcania; on the E. by the Indus; on the S. by
the Indian Ocean and the eastern portion of the Persian Gulf; and on the
W. by Media and the mountains S. of the Caspian Sea. Its exact limits
are laid down with little accuracy in ancient authors, and it seems to
have been often confounded (as in Pliny, b. vi. c. 23, 25) with the
small province of Aria. It comprehended the provinces of Gedrosia,
Drangiana, Arachosia, Paropamisus mountains, Aria, Parthia, and
Carmania. _Smith_, art. Ariana. See b. xv. c. ii. § 7, 8.

[911] The Aorsi and Siraci occupied the country between the Sea of
Azoff, the Don, the Volga, the Caspian Sea, and the Terek. May not the
Aorsi, says Gossellin, be the same as the Thyrsagetæ, Agathursi,
Utidorsi, Adorsi, Alanorsi of other writers, but whose real name is
Thyrsi? The Siraci do not appear to differ from the Soraci or Seraci of
Tacitus, (Ann. xii. 15, &c.,) and may be the same as Iyrces, Ἰύρκες,
afterwards called Turcæ.

[912] The country to the N. and N. E. of Anapa. By Bosporus we are to
understand the territory on each side of the Straits of Kertch.

[913] B. ii. c. v. § 31.

[914] Cn. Pompeius Theophanes was one of the more intimate friends of
Pompey, by whom he was presented with the Roman franchise in the
presence of his army. This occurred in all probability about B. C. 62.
_Smith_, art. Theophanes.

[915] About B. C. 16. _Smith_, art. Polemon I.

[916] If there ever did exist such a city as Tanaïs I should expect to
find it at the extremity of that northern embouchure of the Don, which I
have before mentioned as bearing the very name the Greeks gave to the
city, with the slightest variation of orthography, in the appellation
Tdanaets or Danaetz. _Clarke’s Travels in Russia_, chap. 14.

[917] Strabo makes the distance too great between the two rivers
Rhombites.

[918] Kertch.

[919] According to La Motraye, Achilleum corresponds to Adasbournout,
but Du Theil quotes also the following passage from Peyssonel. According
to Strabo, Achilleum must have been situated opposite Casau-dip, the
ancient Parthenium on the point Tchochekha-Bournou (the pig’s head). But
perhaps the ancients placed Achilleum near the entrance of the Euxine
into the Palus Mæotis. Is not the fort of Achou, which is 8 leagues more
to the east on the Palus Mæotis, the true Achilleum, the name being
corrupted and abridged by the Tartars?

[920] The point Rubanova.

[921] Ada.

[922] Taman.

[923] C. Takli.

[924] Ak Tengis.

[925] Another branch of the Kuban.

[926] The Kuban, anciently also the Vardanus.

[927] The Bog.

[928] The Dnieper.

[929] It is probable that the Kuban Lake is here confounded with, or
considered a portion of, the Lake Ak Tengis. Considering the intricacy
of all this coast, the changes that have taken place, and the absence of
accurate knowledge, both in ancient and modern times, of these
unfrequented parts, much must be left to conjecture. The positions
therefore assigned to ancient cities are doubtful. The names indeed are
inserted in Kiepert’s maps, but without the assistance of recent
travellers it would be hazardous to pretend to fix upon their _exact_
sites.

[930] ἔστι δὲ καὶ Γοργιπία Some word or words appear to be wanting here.
Kiepert assigns a place to this name, but it seems doubtful whether a
place or a district is to be understood. Below, § 14, the Sindic harbour
and city are mentioned, which may have been situated at Sound-jouk-kale.
D’Anville places them here or at Anapa, but the contour of the coast in
his map does not resemble that of any modern maps.

[931] The modern town Phanagoria does not seem to occupy the site of the
ancient city.

[932] ἐξ ἀπάτης.

[933] ἡνίοχοι.

[934] Pschate.

[935] Keremp.

[936] C. Aia.

[937] The Tschilder mountains, of which Scydeces and Paryandres are a
continuation.

[938] Thermeh.

[939] On the mouth of the river Anthemus to the N. of Colchis. It was
situated 100 M. P., or 790 stadia to the N. P. of the Phasis, and 2260
stadia from Trapezus (Trebizond). (Pliny, vi. 5; Arrian, Perip. pp. 10,
18.) Upon or near the spot to which the twin sons of Leda gave their
name, (Mela, i. 19, § 5; comp. Am. Marc. xxii. 8, § 24,) the Romans
built Sebastopolis, (Steph. B.; Procop. B. G. iv. 4,) which was deserted
in the time of Pliny, but was afterwards garrisoned by Justinian. The
Soteriopolis of later times has been identified with it. The position of
this place must be looked for near the roadstead of _Iskuria_. _Smith_,
art. Dioscurias.

[940] οἷς οὐδὲν τῶν ὄντων μέλει, or careless of the truth. Kramer
observes that these words are inconveniently placed in the Greek text.

[941] The Rion.

[942] The Tschorocsu.

[943] The Ilori.

[944] Choropani.

[945] The point of embarkation on the Cyrus (the Kur) is supposed to
have been Surham, the ancient Sura.

[946] Gossellin, Groskurd, and Kramer, all agree that there is here an
error. Kramer is of opinion that the conjecture of Gossellin may be
adopted, viz. “eight or nine,” instead of “three or two,” the letters Γ
and Β being a corruption of Η and Θ.

[947] Coray’s proposed reading is adopted, κατὰ for καὶ.

[948] According to Heyne, this was an Assyrian goddess worshipped under
various titles.

[949] In consequence of the intrigues of his stepmother Ino he was to be
sacrificed to Zeus, but his mother Nephele removed him and his sister
Helle, and the two then rode away on the ram with the golden fleece, the
gift of Hermes, through the air. Helle fell into the sea, which was
afterwards called, after her, the Hellespont. _Smith_, art. Phrixus.

[950] The son of Menodotus by a daughter of Adobogion, a descendant of
the tetrarchs of Galatia. He was the personal friend of Cæsar, who at
the commencement of the Alexandrian war (B. C. 48) sent him into Syria
and Cilicia to raise auxiliary forces. _Smith_, art. Mithridates, and
see B. xiii. c. iv. § 3.

[951] Eurip. Troad. 26.

[952] σκηπτουχίας.

[953] Casaubon would read Corax.--The Sukum.

[954] Adopting Kramer’s proposed reading, ἔνιοι in place of εἰ μὴ.

[955] The Arak.

[956] In the English map, reduced from the Russian military map, there
are two rivers Alasan, flowing in contrary directions from M. Bebala.
The modern names of the other rivers here mentioned are not well
ascertained.

[957] Tchorocsu.

[958] Ilori.

[959] Probably the Alasan flowing from M. Bebala.

[960] Akalziche.

[961] The Aras.

[962] Strabo mentions the Gelæ again, c. vii. § 1, but in a manner which
does not agree with what he here says of their position. We must perhaps
suppose that this people, in part at least, have changed their place of
residence, and that now the greater part of their descendants are to be
found in Ghilan, under the name of Gelé, or Gelaki. The name of Leges,
or Legæ, who have continued to occupy these regions, is recognised in
that of Legi, Leski. _Gossellin._

[963] The Mermadalis seems to be the same river called below by Strabo
Mermodas. Critics and modern travellers differ respecting its present
name. One asserts that it is the Marubias, or Marabias, of Ptolemy,
another takes it to be the Manitsch, called in Austrian maps Calaus.
Others believe it to be the small stream Mermedik, which flows into the
Terek. Others again recognise the Mermadalis in the Egorlik.
_Gossellin._

[964] Unknown. Pallas thought that he had discovered their name in that
of the Tscherkess, who occupied the country where Strabo places the
Gargarenses, and might be their descendants.

[965] The same river probably before called the Mermadalis.

[966] This sentence has been supposed by some critics to be an
interpolation. Strabo above, c. ii. § 1, has already spoken of the
Siraci, who would seem to have been the inhabitants of Siracena, and may
sometimes have been called Siraceni. In c. ii. § 11, he speaks of the
Sittaceni, and assigns them a position which would indicate them as a
different people from the Seraci, or Siraceni. _Gossellin._

[967] Groskurd reads ἀπορία, want, instead of εὐπορία, plenty.

[968] Χαμαικοῖται People who lie on the ground.

[969] Panxani, Paxani, Penzani.

[970] The text is here corrupt.

[971] The country occupied by the Cadusii of whom Eratosthenes speaks
appears to have been the Ghilan, a name probably derived from the Gelæ,
who are constantly associated with the Cadusii.

[972] The Gihon.

[973] The Sihon.

[974] i. e. the Hyperboreans above the Adriatic, the Sauromatæ above the
Danube, and the Arimaspi above the Euxine.

[975] The name Sacæ is to be traced in Sakita, a district on the
confines of those of Vash and Gil, situated on the north of the Gihon or
Oxus, consequently in ancient Sogdiana. _D’Anville._

[976] C. viii. § 2.

[977] At ubi cœpit in latitudinem pandi lunatis obliquatur cornibus.
_Pliny_, N. H.

[978] See b. ii. c. i. § 14.

[979] These names have here probably undergone some change. Talabroce
may be the Tambrace or Tembrax of Polybius; Samariane, the Soconax of
Ptolemy; Carta, Zadra-Carta; and Tape, the Syrinx of Polybius.

[980] The text is here corrupt.

[981] About 7 gallons.

[982] About 12 gallons.

[983] B. ii. c. i. § 14.

[984] πεύκη.

[985] ἐλάτη.

[986] πίτυς.

[987] The country here spoken of appears to be that celebrated from the
earliest times for its breed of horses to which the epithet Nesæan was
applied by ancient writers. See c. xiii. § 7.

[988] The modern name is uncertain.

[989] The same statement was made to Pompey, when in these regions in
pursuit of Mithridates.

[990] αὐτοῦ in this passage, as Kramer remarks, is singular.

[991] From what point our author does not say.

[992] There is some confusion in the text, which Groskurd attempts to
amend as follows: “But among the barbarians the heights of Ariana, and
the northern mountains of India, are separately called Emoda, &c.

[993] B. xv. c. i. § 11. The name is derived from the Sanscrit
_himavat_, which is preserved in the Latin hiems, winter, and in the
modern name Himalaya. See _Smith_, art. Imaus.

[994] On advancing from the S. E. of the Hyrcanian Sea towards the E.

[995] The Syr-Daria.

[996] Aparni, Xanthii, and Pissuri, in this passage, seem to be the same
as Parni, Xandii, and Parii, in c. ix. § 3, if we may understand in the
present passage these people to be referred to only by name, but not as
living in the country here described.

[997] These gods, otherwise unknown, are mentioned again in b. xv. c.
iii. § 15.

[998] The Northern Ocean.

[999] διαδήματα.

[1000] τοῖς ὅλοις ἐδάφεσιν.

[1001] There is great doubt where it was situated; the distances
recorded by ancient writers not corresponding accurately with known
ruins. It has been supposed that _Damgham_ corresponds best with this
place; but Damgham is too near the Pylæ Caspiæ: on the whole it is
probable that any remains of Hecatompylos ought to be sought in the
neighbourhood of a place now called _Jah Jirm_. _Smith_, art.
Hecatompylos.

[1002] Now Herat, the capital of Khorassan. See _Smith_, art. Aria
Civitas.

[1003] Zarang.

[1004] Sigistan.

[1005] Ulan Robât, but see _Smith_, art. Arachotus.

[1006] Balkh. See _Smith_.

[1007] The sum total is 15,210 stadia, and not 15,300 stadia. This
latter sum total is to be found again in b. xv. c. ii. § 8, but the
passage there referred to has served to correct a still greater error in
the reading of this chapter, viz. 15,500. Corrections of the text have
been proposed, but their value is doubtful.

[1008] Its present name is said to be Comis.

[1009] The Rents.

[1010] Adopting Tyrwhitt’s conjecture, πρὸς ἄλλοις.

[1011] The Parapomisus. Kramer’s proposed correction is adopted.

[1012] For Isamus in the text, Imaus is adopted by Groskurd, and Kramer
considers this reading highly probable. Isamus is not found in any other
passage, but Mannert, (Geogr. v. p. 295,) finding in Pliny (N. H. vi.
21, § 17) the river Iomanes, proposes to read in this passage Ἰομάνου,
in which he recognises the Jumna.

[1013] Tatta or Sindi.

[1014] Adraspa. B. xv. c. ii. § 10.

[1015] Mentioned nowhere else. Kramer seems to approve of Du Theil’s
proposed correction, Tapuria.

[1016] ἐνταφιαστὰς.

[1017] B. x. c. v. § 6.

[1018] The text is corrupt.

[1019] παρωνόμασαν.

[1020] i. e. on the same parallel.

[1021] That is, from the Caspian Gates to Thinæ. _Gossellin._

[1022] Strabo does not here determine either the parallel from which we
are to measure, nor the meridian we are to follow to discover this
greatest breadth, which according to him is “less than 10,000 stadia.”
This passage therefore seems to present great difficulties. The
difficulties respecting the parallel can only be perceived by an
examination and comparison of the numerous passages where our author
indicates the direction of the chain of mountains which form the Taurus.

[1023] I do not see where this statement is to be found, except
implicitly. Strabo seems to refer us in general to various passages
where he endeavours to determine the greatest length of the habitable
world, in b. ii. _Du Theil._

[1024] I am unable to fix upon the author’s train of thought. For
immediately after having assigned to this portion of the Habitable Earth
(whose dimensions he wishes to determine) 30,000 stadia as its “greatest
length,” and 10,000 stadia as its “greatest breadth,” Strabo proceeds to
prove what he had just advanced respecting its greatest length. Then he
should, it seems, have endeavoured to furnish us, in the same manner,
with a proof that its greatest breadth is not more, as he says, than
10,000. But in what follows there is nothing advanced on this point; all
that he says is to develope another proposition, viz. that the extent of
the Hyrcanian--Caspian Sea is at the utmost 6000 stadia.

The arguments contained in this paragraph on the whole appear to me
strange; they rest on a basis which it is difficult to comprehend; they
establish explicitly a proposition which disagrees with what the author
has said elsewhere, and lastly they present an enormous geographical
error.

It will therefore be useful to the reader to explain, as far as I
understand it, the argument of our author.

1. The exact form of the chlamys is unknown to us, but it was such, that
its greatest _breadth_ was to be found, if not exactly in, at least
near, the middle of its _length_. The Habitable Earth being of the form
of a Chlamys, its greatest _breadth_ would be found about the middle of
its greatest _length_.

2. The greatest _length_ of the Habitable World being 70,000 stadia, its
greatest _breadth_ ought to be found at the distance of 35,000 stadia
from its eastern or western extremity, but this greatest _breadth_ is
only 30,000 stadia, and it does not extend, on the north, beyond the
parallel of the mouth of the Hyrcanian Sea. B. ii.

3. The meridian which passes at the distance of 35,000 stadia from the
eastern or western extremities of the Habitable Earth, is that which,
drawn from the mouth of the Hyrcanian Sea to the Northern Ocean, and
prolonged in another direction through the mouth of the Persian Gulf to
the sea called Erythræan, would pass through the city Artemita.
Consequently it is on the meridian of Artemita that we must look for the
greatest breadth of the Habitable Earth.

4. On this same meridian, we must reckon from the parallel of the last
habitable country in the south to the mouth of the Persian Gulf, about
8000 stadia; then from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Artemita, 8000
stadia; and from Artemita to the bottom of the Hyrcanian Sea, 8000
stadia: total 24,000 stadia.

5. It being established that the breadth of the Habitable Earth is
30,000 stadia, and not to extend it northwards beyond the parallel of
the mouth of the Hyrcanian Sea, where it communicates with the Northern
Ocean, the distance to this point from the bottom of this same sea must
be calculated at 6000 stadia. _Du Theil._

[1025] The modern Shirban is supposed to occupy its site.

[1026] Namely 6000. B. ii. c. i. § 17.

[1027] Introduced from the margin according to Groskurd’s opinion,
supported also by Kramer.

[1028] i. e. To northern or southern Asia. B. ii. c. I. § 20.

[1029] There are five islands off the Hiera Acta, which is now Cape
Khelidonia. The Greeks still call them Cheledoniæ, of which the Italians
make Celidoni; and the Turks have adopted the Italian name, and call
them Shelidan. _Smith_, art. Chelidoniæ Insulæ.

[1030] Amanus descends from the mass of Taurus, and surrounds the Gulf
of Issus.

[1031] Dudschik Dagh.

[1032] It is generally supposed that the modern town Al Bostan on the
Sikoon, Seihun, or Sarus, is or is near the site of Comana of
Cappadocia. _Smith_, art. Comana.

[1033] Malatia.

[1034] Dzophok.

[1035] Azerbaijan.

[1036] The range overhanging Cerasus, now Kerasun.

[1037] Camasch. The country situated N. W. of the Euphrates in about 38°
lat.

[1038] The range of Kurdistan on the E. of the Tigris.

[1039] The range lying between the Euphrates and the Tigris, between 37°
and 38° lat.

[1040] Nisibin or Netzid.

[1041] Meja-Farkin, by “above” these cities, would appear to mean
overhanging them both, as it is situated between them.

[1042] Nepat-Learn.

[1043] B. ii. c. i. § 22.

[1044] Hamadan.

[1045] An interpolation; probably introduced from Matiane below.
_Falconer. Kramer._

[1046] Its ancient name according to Kramer was Kapotan. Kaputan-Dzow,
The Blue Lake, now the Lake Urmiah.

[1047] καπυρωθεῖσιν Kramer observes that the meaning of the word in this
passage is not clear. It may possibly mean some colour to which the name
of the lake was given.

[1048] It is uncertain whether this is a place, or a district.

[1049] Adopting Groskurd’s emendation χειμάδιον.

[1050] In the text χειμάδιον. Kramer suggests the reading βασίλειον.

[1051] Lucerne?

[1052] Groskurd proposes “length.”

[1053] πῖλος.

[1054] Heroic monuments of Jason.

[1055] Kharput.

[1056] An almost uniform tradition has pointed out an isolated peak of
this range as the Ararat of Scripture. It is still called Ararat or
Agri-Dagh, and by the Persians Kuh-il-Nuh, mountain of Noah. _Smith._

[1057] Formerly the mass of ruins called Takt-Tiridate, (Throne of
Tiridates,) near the junction of the Aras and the Zengue, were supposed
to represent the ancient Artaxata. Col. Monteith fixes the site at a
remarkable bend of the river somewhat lower down than this. See _Smith_,
art. Artaxata.

[1058] Kars is the capital of this country.

[1059] σκώληκας and θρῖπας, species of worms. See _Smith_, art.
Chorzene.

[1060] Melitene. _Groskurd._

[1061] It corresponds, Kramer observes, with Táron, a province of
Armenia, which is called by Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 24, Taraunitium (not
Taranitium) regio.

[1062] We should read probably Matiane. The meaning of the word proposed
by Strabo may easily be proved to be incorrect, by reference to the
Armenian language, in which no such word is to be found bearing this
sense. As _Kapoit_ in the Armenian tongue signifies “blue,” this
explanation of Strabo’s appears to refer to the lake Spauta or Kapauta,
above, c. xiii. § 2. _Kramer._

[1063] The lake Arsissa, Thospitis or Van.

[1064] This is an error; one of the branches of the Tigris rises among
the mountains on the S. W. of the lake Van, and which form part of the
range of Nepat-Learn or Niphates.

[1065] The Kurds.

[1066] Groskurd proposes Syspiritis.

[1067] ἀπήγχθη _Meineke._

[1068] It is doubtful whether this colour was red, blue, or purple.

[1069] Herod. i. 202.

[1070] Arbil.

[1071] That this is an error is manifest. Falconer proposes Armenia;
Groskurd, Assyria; but what name is to be supplied is altogether
uncertain. The name of the city is also wanting, according to Kramer,
who proposes Nisibis.

[1072] The beginning is wanting, according to the opinion of critics,
Xylander, Casaubon, and others.

[1073] The range of mountains to the S. of Caramania.

[1074] Kizil-Irmak.

[1075] Itsch-Ili.

[1076] Archelaus received from Augustus (B. C. 20) some parts of Cilicia
on the coast and the Lesser Armenia. In A. D. 15 Tiberius treacherously
invited him to Rome, and kept him there. He died, probably about A. D.
17, and his kingdom was made a Roman province.

[1077] Herod. i. 6, 28.

[1078] Eregli near the lake Al-gol.

[1079] That is, surrounded by mountains, as below.

[1080] The range on the west of the river Sarus, Seichun, now bearing
various names.

[1081] Supposed to be Al-Bostan.

[1082] The Crimea.

[1083] Dschehan-Tschai.

[1084] The text is here corrupt.

[1085] The reading is doubtful.

[1086] The passage is corrupt. Groskurd proposes Asbamean in place of
Dacian, mention being made of a temple of Asbamean Jove in Amm. Marcell.
xxiii. 6. Kramer also suggests the transposition of this sentence to the
end of § 6.

[1087] Probably the Kermel-su, a branch of the Pyramus.

[1088] There is some confusion in this statement.

[1089] Kara-Hissar.

[1090] Between the mountains Bulghar-Dagh and Allah-Dagh.

[1091] Kaisarieh.

[1092] Edsehise-Dagh, the highest peak, has been estimated at 13,000
feet above the sea.

[1093] The Karasu, the black river, a branch of the Kizil-Irmak. The
modern name appears common to many rivers.

[1094] χρημάτων, the reading proposed by Kramer.

[1095] i. e. the kingdom of Pontus.

[1096] Kara-Hissar.

[1097] Du Theil quotes Justin, 38, c. 2, where it is stated that
Ariobarzanes was appointed king by the Romans. Probably the election was
confirmed by the Senate.

[1098] Kizil-Irmak.

[1099] Who lived on the west of the river Sidenus (Siddin).

[1100] Amassera.

[1101] Erekli, or Benderegli.

[1102] Erekli.

[1103] The Bithynians, or rather Thyni, occupied the sea-coast from the
Bosphorus to the river Sagaris (Sakaria). The Mariandyni extended to
Heracleia (Erekli); and the Caucones to the east as far as the river
Parthenius (Tschati-su).

[1104] Sizeboli, south of the Gulf of Burgas.

[1105] Midjeh.

[1106] B. vii. c. iii. § 2.

[1107] Kramer is of opinion that Strabo is mistaken in this account of
the origin of Heracleia.

[1108] Athenæus, b. vi. c. 85, vol. i. p. 414, Bohn’s Class. Library.

[1109] Tilijos.

[1110] B. viii. c. iii. § 17.

[1111] Il. ii. 855.

[1112] Kidros.

[1113] On the bay of the modern Sebastopol, b. vii. c. iv. § 2.

[1114] Mangalia.

[1115] Some of the smaller mountain streams which descend from the range
of hills extending from Scutari to the Sangaria. According to Gossellin
the Psillis may be the river near Tschileh, and the Calpas the river
near Kerpeh.

[1116] Il. xvi. 719.

[1117] The virgin river, from its flowers and tranquil course.

[1118] Il. ii. 851.

[1119] B. v. c. i. § 4.

[1120] Herod. i. 6.

[1121] About the Thermodon, now Termeh.

[1122] The country about Samsoun.

[1123] Il. ii. 853.

[1124] Kara-Aghatsch.

[1125] Il. i. 855.

[1126] Between C. Tchakras and Delike-Tschili.

[1127] B. vii. c. iv. § 3.

[1128] Kinoli.

[1129] Ineboli, near the mouth of the Daurikan-Irmak.

[1130] Ak-Liman.

[1131] B. vii. c. vi. § 2.

[1132] The eunuch Bacchides, or Bacchus, according to others, whom
Mithridates, after despairing of success, commissioned with the order
for his women to die. _Plutarch, Life of Lucullus._

[1133] Probably a celestial globe constructed by Billarus, or on the
principles of Billarus, a person otherwise unknown. Strabo mentions, b.
ii. c. v. § 10, the Sphere of Crates, Cicero the Sphere of Archimedes
and of Posidonius. History speaks of several of these spheres, among
others of that of Ptolemy and Aratus. Leontinus, a mechanician of the
sixth century, explains the manner in which this last was constructed.

[1134] Lucullus, upon his entry into Sinope, put to death 8000 Cilicians
whom he found there. The rest of the inhabitants, after having set fire
to the town, carried with them the statue of Autolycus, the founder of
Sinope, the work of Sthenis; but not having time to put it on board
ship, it was left on the sea-shore. Autolycus was one of the companions
of Hercules in his expedition against the Amazons. Sthenis, as well as
his brother Lysistratus, was a celebrated statuary; he was a native of
Olynthus and a contemporary of Alexander the Great.

[1135] The temple of Jupiter Urius near Chalcedon.

[1136] He was also the author of a History of the Tyrants of Ephesus.
_Athenæus_, b. vi. c. 59, p. 395, Bohn’s Class. Library.

[1137] ἀπὸ τῶν ἁλῶν.

[1138] B. iv. c. iv. § 3.

[1139] ζόρκες.

[1140] Wesir Kopti.

[1141] The district between the Halys (Kizil-Irmak) and the Iris
(Jeschil Irmak).

[1142] Some words of the text are lost.

[1143] The tract of country between the Iris and the Thermodon.

[1144] The territory on the east of the Thermodon (Termeh).

[1145] Jeschil Irmak.

[1146] Tasch Owa.

[1147] Gumenek.

[1148] Kas Owa.

[1149] Turchal.

[1150] Tschoterlek Irmak.

[1151] Amasija.

[1152] Germeili Tschai.

[1153] At the mouth of the river Puleman.

[1154] Fatsa?

[1155] Samsun.

[1156] According to Arrian, Pharnacia in his time was the name of
Cerasus (Kerasun).

[1157] Trebisond.

[1158] The temple of Jupiter near Chalcedon.

[1159] To the west of the mouth of the Termeh.

[1160] Jasun.

[1161] C. Vona.

[1162] Ordu.

[1163] Platana.

[1164] B. xi. c. ii. § 12.

[1165] Probably the same as the Macropogones and Macrocephali.

[1166] Aggi-dagh.

[1167] The mountains above Erzeroum.

[1168] The inhabitants of the Seven Villages.

[1169] Iildiz-dagh.

[1170] Dwellers in towers.

[1171] Il. ii. 856.

[1172] Sarakoi.

[1173] Il. ii. 863.

[1174] Od. xviii. 5.

[1175] Od. xxi. 6.

[1176] In Kiepert’s map it is without a name. Leake calls it Boklu. It
falls into the sea to the west of Cyzicus.

[1177] B. vii. c. iii. § 6. B. i. c. ii. § 23.

[1178] Il. iii. 189.

[1179] B. xiii. c. iv. § 5, it joins the Hyllus, called Phrygius in the
time of Strabo. The Phrygius takes its rise in the mountains north of
Thyatira, (Ak Hissar,) and falls into the Hermus (Gedis Tschai).

[1180] Bos Dagh.

[1181] Manisa.

[1182] Bojuk Meinder.

[1183] Il. xii. 20.

[1184] B. vii. c. iii. § 6.

[1185] Gumenek.

[1186] Zileh.

[1187] This district is at the foot of the mountains which separated the
Roman from the Persian Armenia. Carana (now _Erzum_, Erzerum, or
_Garen_) was the capital of this district. It was afterwards called
Theodosiopolis, which name was given to it in honour of the Emperor
Theodosius the Younger by Anatolius his general in the East, A. D. 416.
It was for a long time subject to the Byzantine emperors, who considered
it the most important fortress of Armenia. About the middle of the 11th
century it received the name of Arze-el-Rum, contracted into Arzrum or
Erzrum. It owed its name to the circumstance, that when Arzek was taken
by the Seljuk Turks, A. D. 1049, the inhabitants of that place, which
from its long subjection to the Romans had received the epithet of Rúm,
retired to Theodosiopolis, and gave it the name of their former abode.
_Smith._

[1188] On the S. W. of the ridge of Tauschan Dagh.

[1189] Mersivan. The text is corrupt. Groskurd’s emendation is followed
in the translation.

[1190] Ladik-Gol.

[1191] Kawsa.

[1192] Ijan (Tauschan) Kalessi.

[1193] Tusanlu-su, a branch of the Ieschil Irmak.

[1194] West of Koseh Dagh.

[1195] Situated between the Kizil-Irmak and the river Delidsche Irmak, a
tributary of the former.

[1196] Alkas-Dagh.

[1197] Gok-Irmak, or Kostambul Tschai, flowing between the mountain
ridges. Jeralagoz-Dagh and Sarikawak-Dagh.

[1198] B. C. 88.

[1199] Tasch-Kopri.

[1200] Pliny, xxxiv. c. 18.

[1201] Great-grandson of Deïotarus I.

[1202] According to Alexander Polyhistor, the town was built by a
goatherd, who had found one of his goats straying there, but this is
probably a mere philological speculation, _gangra_ signifying “a goat”
in the Paphlagonian language. In ecclesiastical writers it is often
mentioned as the metropolitan see of Paphlagonia. The orchards of this
town were celebrated for their apples. Athen. iii.--_Smith._

[1203] Book iv. c. i. § 6. Athen. b. viii.

[1204] Isnik Gol.

[1205] Sakaria.

[1206] B. vii. c. vi. § 2.

[1207] G. of Ismid.

[1208] Ismid or Iskimid.

[1209] B. of Gemlik.

[1210] Brusa.

[1211] Mudania.

[1212] Livy, xxxviii. 39.

[1213] The kings of Pergamus.

[1214] The Acquired.

[1215] The ridge of Katerlu Dagh and Samanlu Dagh.

[1216] In the text, Prusias. The translation follows the suggestion of
Kramer.

[1217] Il. ii. 862.

[1218] Il. xiii. 792.

[1219] Sarakoi.

[1220] Il. ii. 824.

[1221] Karabogha.

[1222] Keschisch-Dagh.

[1223] Claudiopolis, now Boli.

[1224] Tilijos.

[1225] Isnik. The Turkish name is a contraction of εἰς Νίκαιαν, as
Ismir, Smyrna, is a contraction of εἰς Σμύρνην, Istambol,
Constantinople, of εἰς τὴν πόλιν, Stanco, Cos, of εἰς τὴν Κῶ.

[1226] Xenocrates, one of the most distinguished disciples of Plato, was
of Chalcedon. Dionysius the dialectician is probably the same as
Dionysius of Heracleia, who abandoned the Stoics to join the sect of
Epicurus. Hipparchus, the first and greatest of Greek astronomers, (B.
C. 160-145,) was of Nicæa. So also was Diophanes, quoted by Varro and
Columella, as the abbreviator of the twenty books on Agriculture by
Mago, in the Punic language. Suidas speaks of Theodosius, a
distinguished mathematician, who, according to Vossius, may be here
meant. A treatise of his “on Spherics” still exists, and was printed in
Paris in 1558. Of Cleophanes of Myrleia little is known. Strabo mentions
also a grammarian, Asclepiades of Myrleia, in b. iii. c. iv. § 19. To
these great names may be added as of Bithynian origin, but subsequent to
the time of Strabo, Dion Chrysostom, one of the most eminent among Greek
rhetoricians and sophists; he was born at Nicomedia, and died about A.
D. 117. Arrian, the author of “India,” and the “Anabasis” (the Asiatic
expedition) “of Alexander,” was also born at Nicomedia towards the end
of A. D. 100.

[1227] Probably a grove.

[1228] Bala Hissar, to the south of Siwri-Hissar; between these two
places is Mt. Dindymus, Gunescth-Dagh.

[1229] On the west of the lake Simau.

[1230] Suleimanli.

[1231] The kings of Pergamus.

[1232] Juliopolis.

[1233] Tuz-Tscholli.

[1234] Konia.

[1235] Meineke’s correction.

[1236] Its position is uncertain, probably Divle, to the S. of the Lake
Ak-Gol. See _Smith_, art. _Derbe_.

[1237] Caraman.

[1238] Tschol-Abad.

[1239] Aphiom Kara Hissar.

[1240] Sulpitius Quirinus. The Cyrenius “governor of Syria” in St. Luke.
Tacitus (Ann. B. iii. c. 48) speaks of his expedition against the
Homonadeis, and Josephus of his arrival in Syria, where he was sent with
Coponius by Augustus.

[1241] Eske-Adatia.

[1242] Balkesi.

[1243] To the north of the chain of Taurus which commenced at the
promontory Trogilium opposite Samos.

[1244] Tabas.

[1245] Surk.

[1246] Pliny, b. xv. c. 7, and b. xii. c. 4.

[1247] Kopru-Su.

[1248] Ak-Su.

[1249] Bakyr-Tschai.

[1250] The district around Bergama.

[1251] Sipuli-Dagh.

[1252] The district between Bergama and the sea.

[1253] Protheüs, who had led the Magnetes to Troy, upon his return from
that expedition, and in compliance with a vow which he had made to
Apollo, selected every tenth man and sent them to the temple at Delphi.
These Magnetes, for some reason, abandoned the temple and embarked for
Crete; from thence they passed into Asia, accompanied by some Cretans,
and founded Magnesia near the Mæander. B. xiv. c. i. § 11.

[1254] Herod. i. 173; vii. 92.

[1255] Il. vi. 184.

[1256] Il. vi. 204.

[1257] Il. vi. 199.

[1258] Il. ii. 655, 677.

[1259] Il. iii. 2.

[1260] Il. iii. 8.

[1261] Keschisch Dagh.

[1262] Kas-Dagh.

[1263] Artaki.

[1264] Satal-dere?

[1265] Mualitsch-Tschai.

[1266] Iaskili.

[1267] Mudania.

[1268] Loubadi.

[1269] Manijas.

[1270] According to Pliny, b. v. c. 32, it was united to the mainland by
Alexander.

[1271] Marseilles.

[1272] Simau-Su.

[1273] Simau-Gol.

[1274] Imrali, or Kalo-limno.

[1275] Karabogher.

[1276] Kiutahia.

[1277] Eski-Schehr.

[1278] Gedis.

[1279] Hergan Kaleh.

[1280] Ischekli.

[1281] Afium-Karahissar.

[1282] Dinear.

[1283] Iorghan-Ladik.

[1284] Geira.

[1285] Destroyed by an earthquake in the time of Nero, afterwards Konos.

[1286] Teseni.

[1287] Ballyk.

[1288] Sultan Dagh.

[1289] Ak Schehr.

[1290] Ialobatsch.

[1291] Mender Tschai.

[1292] Samsun.

[1293] The lake above Celænæ bore the name of Aulocrene or Pipe
Fountain, probably from the reeds which grew there. Pliny, b. v. c. 29.

[1294] Urumluk.

[1295] The place is identified by the hot springs about 12 miles from
Denizli or Jenidscheh.

[1296] Ala Schehr.

[1297] The Black.

[1298] The number of cities destroyed were twelve, and the catastrophe
took place in the night. An inscription relating to this event is still
preserved at Naples. Tacit. Ann. B. ii. c. 47. Sueton. in V. Tiberii.

[1299] Tiberius, the adopted son of Augustus.

[1300] B. i. c. iii. § 4.

[1301] Herophilus, a celebrated physician, and contemporary of
Erasistratus. He was one of the first founders of the medical school in
Alexandria, and whose fame afterwards surpassed that of all others. He
lived in the 4th and 3rd centuries B. C.

[1302] Zeuxis was the author of a commentary on Hippocrates: it is now
lost; even in the time of Galen, about A. D. 150, it was rare. Alexander
Philalethes, who succeeded Zeuxis, had as his pupil and probably
successor Demosthenes Philalethes, who was the author of a treatise on
the eyes, which was still in existence in the 14th century.

[1303] The Niobe, a lost tragedy of Sophocles, is often quoted; this is
probably here meant.

[1304] Satal-dere.

[1305] The Troad is called Biga by the Turks, from the name of a town
which now commands that district. Biga is the ancient Sidene.

[1306] Kodscha-Tschai. Oustvola. _Gossellin._

[1307] The ruins of Abydos are on the eastern side of the Hellespont,
near a point called Nagara. Sestos, of which the ruins also exist,
called Zemenic, are on the opposite coast.

[1308] Baba Kalessi.

[1309] Eski Stamboul, or Old Constantinople.

[1310] Bakir-Tschai, or Germasti.

[1311] Beiram-koi, or Asso, or Adschane.

[1312] Edremid or Adramytti.

[1313] Dikeli-koi.

[1314] Tschandarlik.

[1315] Mytilene.

[1316] Lamurt-koi.

[1317] Gedis-Tschai.

[1318] Karadscha-Fokia.

[1319] The return of the Heracleidæ having taken place, according to
Thucydides and other writers, eighty years after the capture of Troy,
some critics have imagined that the text of Strabo in this passage
should be changed from ἑξήκοντα ἔτεσι, sixty years, to ὀγδοήκοντα ἔτεσι,
eighty years. Thucydides, in the same chapter, and in the space of a few
lines, speaks of the return of the Bœotians to their own country, as
having taken place sixty years after the capture of Troy; and of the
return of the Heracleidæ to the Peloponnesus, as having taken place
eighty years after the same event; it is probable that Strabo, who
followed Thucydides, substituted, through inattention, one number for
another.

[1320] Kamaraes, or Kemer. (Kamar, _Arab._ the Moon.)

[1321] Near Mussatsch-Koi.

[1322] Il. xiv. 283.

[1323] The passage in brackets Meineke suspects to be an interpolation,
as Rhesus and Heptaporus cannot be placed in this part of Ida, nor do
any of the streams mentioned by Homer in the same passage flow into the
Ægean Sea.

[1324] Il. xii. 19.

[1325] Il. ii. 824.

[1326] The whole range of Ida now bears various names: the highest
summit is called Kas-dagh. Gossellin says that the range is called
Kara-dagh, but this name (black mountain) like Karasu (Black river) and
Kara-Koi (Black village) are so commonly applied that they amount to no
distinction; in more modern maps this name does not appear. It may be
here observed that the confusion of names of those parts in the Turkish
empire which were formerly under the Greeks, arises from the use of
names in both languages.

[1327] Il. xiv. 292.

[1328] The Gulf of Edremid or Jalea, the ancient Elæa.

[1329] The meridian, according to our author’s system, passing through
Constantinople, Rhodes, Alexandria, Syene, and Meröe.

[1330] Il. ix. 328.

[1331] Od. xviii. 518.

[1332] Il. ix. 129.

[1333] Il. xx. 92.

[1334] Il. ii. 691.

[1335] Il. ii. 690.

[1336] Il. xix. 295.

[1337] Il. i. 366.

[1338] Il. vi. 395.

[1339] Il. xxi. 86.

[1340] Il. iii. 816.

[1341] Il. ii. 819.

[1342] Il. xx. 83.

[1343] Il. ii. 824.

[1344] Il. ii. 835.

[1345] Il. iv. 499.

[1346] Bergas.

[1347] Il. xv. 546.

[1348] Il. ii. 831.

[1349] So that Cilicia was divided into three principalities, as Strabo
observes below, c. i. § 70. But perhaps this division was only invented
for the purpose of completing the number of the nine principalities, for
Strabo above, c. i. § 2, speaks in a manner to let us suppose that other
authors reckoned eight only. However this may be, the following is the
number of the dynasties or principalities established by our author. 1.
That of Mynes; 2. that of Eetion, both in Cilicia; 3. that of Altes; 4.
that of Hector; 5. that of Æneas; 6. that of Pandarus; 7. that of Asius;
8. that of the son of Merops; 9. that of Eurypylus, also in Cilicia.
_Coraÿ._

[1350] Granting to Priam the sovereignty of the districts just mentioned
by Strabo, his dominion extended over a country about twenty maritime
leagues in length and the same in breadth. It would be impossible to
determine the exact limits of these different districts, but it is seen
that The Trojans, properly so called, occupied the basin of the
Scamander (Menderes-Tschai).

The Cilicians, commanded by Eetion, occupied the territory which
surrounds the present Gulf of Adramytti.

The Cilicians of Mynes were to the south of the above.

The Leleges extended along a part of the northern coast of the Gulf of
Adramytti, from Cape Baba.

The Dardanians were above the Trojans, and the chain of Ida. On the
north, extending on both sides of the Hellespont, were the people of
Arisbe, Sestos, and Abydos.

The people of Adrasteia occupied the Propontis, as far as the Granicus.

The Lycians, the country beyond, as far as the Æsepus and Zeleia.

Strabo mentioned a ninth (c. i. § 2) principality subject to Priam; he
does not mention it by name, or rather it is wanting in the text. M. de
Choiseul-Gouffier, (Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce, vol. ii.,) with much
probability, thinks that this principality was that of the island of
<DW26>s. _Gossellin._

[1351] Il. xxiv. 543.

[1352] Il. ii. 824.

[1353] M. Falconer prétend qu’au lieu de 80 stades il faut lire
180.--Nos cartes modernes confirment la conjecture de M. Falconer.
_Gossellin._

[1354] Il. ii. 828.

[1355] Karadere.

[1356] For Σκάρθων in the text--read ὁ δ’ ἐκ ... εἰς Σκάρδωνα. Meineke,
who however suspects the whole passage to be an interpolation.

[1357] Peor Apis, or Baal Peor?

[1358] Lapsaki or Lampsaki.

[1359] The reading is very doubtful.

[1360] Marmara, from the marble, μάρμαρον, found there.

[1361] Gallipoli.

[1362] Beiram-dere.

[1363] Il. ii. 328.

[1364] Il. v. 612.

[1365] The same person probably as Cephalion, author of a History of the
Trojan War.

[1366] Neoptolemus composed a glossary, or dictionary, divided into
several books.

[1367] Charon was the author of a History of the Persian War, and of the
Annals of Lampsacus.

[1368] Adeimantes was probably one of the courtiers of Demetrius
Poliorcetes.

[1369] Anaximenes was the author of a History of Early Times, and of a
work entitled, The Death of Kings. The “Rhetoric addressed to
Alexander,” now known as The Rhetoric of Aristotle, has been ascribed to
him. For the above see Athenæus.

[1370] Called “Stagnum Agrippæ” in Tacit. Ann. b. xv. c. 37.

[1371] Il. ii. 835.

[1372] Il. iv. 522.

[1373] Il. ii. 254.

[1374] The Maritza in Roumelia.

[1375] Il. xvi. 717.

[1376] A bridge of boats which could be unfixed at pleasure for the
passage of vessels.

[1377] Meineke reads κρατίστη, the strongest fortified, instead of
ἀρίστη.

[1378] Il. ii. 819.

[1379] Il. xv. 425.

[1380] The ancient Dardania in the interior; a second Dardania was
afterwards built on the sea-coast.

[1381] Il. xx. 215.

[1382] Od. ix. 109, 112.

[1383] Il. xx. 216.

[1384] Il. xi. 166.

[1385] According to Arrian and Plutarch, it was before his victory.

[1386] A native of Alexandreia-Troas and a grammarian; he was the author
of Commentaries on various authors and of a History of the Trojan
War.--_Athenæus._

[1387] According to Pliny, b. vii. 29, this casket contained the
perfumes of Darius, unguentorum scrinium. According to Plutarch, (Life
of Alexander) the poem of Homer was the Iliad revised and corrected by
Aristotle. From what Strabo here says of Callisthenes and Anaxarchus, we
may probably understand a second revision made by them under the
inspection of Alexander.

[1388] Called above, § 22, Cape Dardanium (Cape Barber). Pliny gives the
name Dardanium to the town which Herodotus and Strabo call Dardanus, and
places it at an equal distance from Rhœteium and Abydos. The modern name
Dardanelles is derived from it.

[1389] The name was given, it is said, in consequence of the
imprecations of Hecuba on her captors. Others say that Hecuba was
transformed into a bitch. The tomb occupied the site of the present
castle in Europe called by the Turks Kilid-bahr.

[1390] Pliny states that in his time there were no traces of the
Rhodius, nor of the other rivers mentioned by Strabo in following Homer.
According to others, the Rhodius is the torrent which passes by the
castle of the Dardanelles in Asia, called by the Turks Sultan-kalessi,
and therefore cannot unite with the Æsepus.

[1391] Ienischer.

[1392] The Scamander no longer unites with the Simoïs, and for a
considerable length of time has discharged itself into the Archipelago.
The ancient mouth of these rivers preserve, however, the name Menderé,
which is an evident alteration of Scamander, and the name Menderé has
also become that of the ancient Simoïs. It is to be observed that
Demetrius of Scepsis, whose opinions on what regards these rivers and
the position of Troy are quoted by Strabo, constantly takes the Simoïs
or Menderé for the Scamander of Homer. The researches of M. de
Choiseul-Gouffier on the Troad appear to me clearly to demonstrate that
Demetrius of Scepsis is mistaken.--_Gossellin._

[1393] The temple or tomb of Protesilaus, one of the Greek princes who
went to the siege of Troy, and the first who was killed on disembarking.
Artayctes, one of the generals of Xerxes, pillaged the temple and
profaned it by his debauchery. According to Herodotus, (b. ix. 115,) who
narrates the circumstance, the temple and the tomb of Protesilaus must
have been in Eleussa (Paleo-Castro) itself, or at least very near this
city. Chandler thought he had discovered this tomb near the village
which surrounds the castle of Europe.

[1394] The port of the Achæans, the spot, that is, where the Greeks
disembarked on the coast of the Troad, at the entrance of the
Hellespont, appears to have been comprehended between the hillock called
the Tomb of Achilles and the southern base of the heights, on which is
situated another tomb, which goes by the name of the Tomb of Ajax. This
space of about 1500 toises in length, now sand and lagunes, where the
village Koum Kale and the fortress called the New Castle of Asia stand,
and which spreads across the mouth of the Menderé, once formed a creek,
the bottom of which, from examination on the spot, extended 1200 or 1500
toises from the present shore. It is from the bottom of this marshy
creek the 12 stadia must be measured which Strabo reckons from the Port
of the Achæans to New Ilium. These 12 stadia, estimated at 700 to a
degree, (like the generality of other measures adopted by Strabo in this
district,) are equal to 977 toises, and conduct in a straight line to
the western point of the mountain Tchiblak, where there are remains of
buildings which may be the vestiges of New Ilium.

The other 30 stadia, which, according to Strabo, or rather according to
Demetrius of Scepsis, was the distance from New Ilium to the town of the
Ilienses, are equal to 2440 toises, and terminate at the most eastern
edge of the table-land of Tchiblak, in a spot where ruins of a temple
and other edifices are seen. Thus there is nothing to prevent our taking
this place for the site of the town of the Ilienses, and this is the
opinion of many modern travellers. But did this town occupy the same
ground as the ancient Ilium, as Demetrius of Scepsis believed? Strabo
thinks not, and we shall hereafter see the objections he has to offer
against the opinion of Demetrius.--_Gossellin._

[1395] Consequently ancient Ilium, according to Strabo, was forty-two
stadia from the coast. Scylax places it at twenty-five stadia; but
probably the copyists of this latter writer have confounded the
numerical Greek letters κε (25) with με (45).

[1396] According to Homer, (Od. xxiv. 75,) Patrocles must have the same
tomb with Achilles, as their ashes were united in the same urn; those of
Antilochus were contained in a separate urn.

[1397] Il. v. 642.

[1398] Il. v. 641.

[1399] This plain, according to Demetrius, was to the east of the
present Menderé, and was enclosed by this river and the mountain
Tchiblak.

[1400] Il. xvi. 738.

[1401] If the name Cebrene or Cebrenia were derived from Cebriones, it
would have been, according to analogy, Cebrionia; but it would have been
better to have supposed the name to have been derived from Cebren, the
more so as this river was supposed to be the father of Œnone the wife of
Alexander (Paris). Whatever may be the origin of the name, the city
Cebrene was, according to Ephorus, a colony of Cyme in Æolia.

[1402] The position of the tomb of Æsyetes is said to be near a village
called by the Turks Udjek, who also give the name Udjek-tepe to the tomb
itself. The tomb of Ilus, it is presumed, must be in the neighbourhood
of the ancient bed of Scamander, and Batieia below the village
Bounar-bachi.

[1403] This and the following paragraph more especially are at variance
with the conjecture of those who place New Ilium at the village
Tchiblak, situated beyond and to the north of the Simoïs.

[1404] As there are no mountains on the left bank of the Menderé, at the
distance at which Demetrius places the town of the Ilienses, the long
ridge or height of which Strabo speaks can only be referred to the hill
of Tchiblak. In that case the Simoïs of Demetrius must be the stream
Tchiblak, which modern maps represent as very small, but which Major
Rennell, on authority as yet uncertain, extends considerably, giving it
the name Shimar, which according to him recalls that of
Simoïs.--_Gossellin._

[1405] Kramer proposes the insertion of ὤν before τῶν εἰρημένων ἀγκώνων
ἐπ’ εὐθείας, by which we are to understand that the extremities of the
arms and of the ridge are in the same straight line.

Groskurd reads μεταξὺ before τ. ε. α., changes the construction of the
sentence, and reads the letter ψ instead of ε. His translation is as
follows: “Both-mentioned plains are separated from each other by a long
neck of land between the above-mentioned arms, which takes its
commencement from the present Ilium and unites with it, extending itself
in a straight line as far as Cebrenia, and forms with the arms on each
side the letter ψ.”

The topography of the plain of Troy and its neighbourhood is not yet
sufficiently known to be able to distinguish all the details given by
Demetrius. It appears only that he took the Tchiblak for the Simoïs, and
placed the plain of Troy to the right of the present Menderé, which he
called the Scamander. This opinion, lately renewed by Major Rennell,
presents great and even insurmountable difficulties when we endeavour to
explain on this basis the principal circumstances of the Iliad. It must
be remembered that in the time of Demetrius the remembrance of the
position of ancient Troy was entirely lost, and that this author
constantly reasoned on the hypothesis, much contested in his time, that
the town of the Ilienses corresponded with that of ancient Ilium.
_Observations on the Topography of the plain of Troy by James
Rennell._--_Gossellin._

[1406] Il. xx. 51.

[1407] Il. x. 430.

[1408] Tumbrek.

[1409] Erineos, a wild fig-tree. Homer, it is to be observed, speaks of
a single wild fig-tree, whereas Strabo describes a spot planted with
them. This place, or a place near the ancient Ilium, is called by the
Turks, according to M. Choiseul-Gouffier, Indgirdagh--i.e. the mountain
of fig-trees, although none were to be found there whether cultivated or
wild.

[1410] Il. vi. 433.

[1411] Il. ix. 352.

[1412] 1628 toises. The alluvial deposit has now extended the mouth of
the Menderé 3400 toises from the ruins where the measurement indicated
the position of New Ilium.--_Gossellin._

[1413] The passage is corrupt, and the translation is rather a
paraphrase, assisted by the conjectures of Kramer.

[1414] Od. xiv. 469.

[1415] Od. xiv. 496.

[1416] Il. xx. 209.

[1417] Il. xviii. 254.

[1418] Hestiæa was distinguished for her commentary on Homer somewhat in
the same manner as Madame Dacier in modern times.

[1419] Il. ii. 792.

[1420] M. Lechevalier, who extends Ilium and its citadel Pergamus to the
highest summit of the mountain Bounar-bachi, acknowledges that the
nature of the ground would prevent the course of Hector and Achilles
taking place round this position, in consequence of the rivers and the
precipices which surround it on the S. E. To meet the objection which
these facts would give rise to, M. Lechevalier interprets the
expressions of Homer in a manner never thought of by the ancient
grammarians, although they contorted the text in every possible manner,
to bend it to their peculiar opinions. Would it not be more easy to
believe that at the time of the siege of Troy this city was no longer on
the summit of the mountain, nor so near its ancient acropolis as it was
at first; and that the inhabitants moved under the reign of Ilus, as
Plato says, and as Homer leads us to conclude, to the entrance of the
plain and to the lower rising grounds of Ida? The level ground on the
top mountain which rises above Bounar-bachi, and on which it has been
attempted to trace the contour of the walls of ancient Ilium and of its
citadel, is more than 3200 toises in circumference.

But it is difficult to conceive how, at so distant a period and among a
people half savage, a space of ground so large and without water could
be entirely occupied by a town, whose power scarcely extended beyond 25
leagues. On the other hand, as the exterior circuit of this mountain is
more than 5500 toises, it is not to be conceived how Homer, so exact in
his description of places, should have represented Achilles and Hector,
already fatigued by a long-continued battle, as making an uninterrupted
course of about seven leagues round this mountain, before commencing in
single combat. It appears to me therefore that the Troy of Homer must
have covered a much less space of ground than is generally supposed, and
according to all appearances this space was bounded by a hillock, on
which is now the village of Bounar-bachi. This hillock is about 700 or
800 toises in circumference; it is isolated from the rest of the
mountain; and warriors in pursuing one another could easily make the
circuit. This would not prevent Pergamus from being the citadel of
Ilium, but it was separated from it by an esplanade, which served as a
means of communication between the town and the fortress.--_Gossellin._

[1421] This paragraph, according to Kramer, is probably an
interpolation.

[1422] Herod. viii. c. 85.

[1423] Thucyd., b. iii. c. 50, does not use the word Troad, but says
“all the towns possessed by the Mitylenæans.”

[1424] Poets and mythologists subsequent to Homer supposed Cassandra,
the daughter of Priam, to have been violated by Ajax, the Locrian; that
as a punishment for his crime this hero perished by shipwreck on his
return from Troy, and that three years afterwards Locris was visited by
a famine, which occasioned great destruction to the inhabitants. The
oracle consulted on the occasion of this calamity advised the Locrians
to send annually to Minerva of Ilium two young women chosen by lot. They
obeyed and continued to send them for 1000 years, until the time of the
sacred war.

[1425] Il. xiii. 363.

[1426] Il. vi. 448.

[1427] Od. iii. 130.

[1428] Il. xii. 15.

[1429] Il. vi. 92 and 273.

[1430] Il. ix. 455.

[1431] Il. vi. 305.

[1432] The corrupt passage replaced by asterisks is εἶθ’ ἱκετεύοντες τε
φρένας, which is unintelligible.

[1433] The following is a translation of the passage, as found in the
speech of Lycurgus, still preserved to us:

   “Who has not heard of Troy, the greatest
   City of those times, and sovereign of all
   Asia, that when once destroyed by
   The Greeks it remained for ever uninhabited?”

[1434] Modern maps place the Cotylus, and consequently the sources of
the river which Demetrius calls Scamander, at more than 30,000 toises,
or nearly eleven leagues, to the S. E. of the entrance of the
Hellespont, when the source of the Scamander should be near Troy; and
Troy itself, according to the measurement adopted by Demetrius, ought
not to be more than 3400 toises, or a league and a quarter, from the
sea. There is therefore a manifest contradiction, and it appears, as I
have already remarked, that the river called Scamander by Demetrius, is
not the river so called by Homer, but the Simoïs of the
poet.--_Gossellin._

Modern travellers accuse Demetrius with having confounded the Scamander
with the Simoïs. The Simoïs they say rises in Cotylus, (Kas-dagh,) as
also the Granicus, (Oustrola,) and the Æsepus, (Satal-dere,) but the
sources of the Scamander are below, and to the W. of Ida, near the
village called by the Turks Bounar-bachi, which signifies the head of
the source. If it is an error, Demetrius is not alone responsible for
it, as Hellenicus (Schol. in Iliad xxi. 242) also says that the
Scamander had its source in Mount Ida itself. Both probably rested on
the authority of Homer, who places the source of the Scamander in Ida.
They did not, however, observe that Homer employs the expression ἀπ’
Ἰδαίων ὀρέων in a more extensive sense.--_Du Theil._

[1435] Il. xxii. 147.

[1436] We owe to the researches of M. de Choiseul Gouffier, published
without his knowledge in 1793, an acquaintance with these two springs,
which present nearly the same phenomena as described by Homer. These
springs have since been seen by many travellers; they are situated at
the foot of a small hill on which is Bounar-bachi, and about 6500 toises
in a straight line from the mouth of the Menderé. The stream which flows
from them never fails, and after having run for some time parallel to
the Menderé, it turns suddenly to throw itself into the Archipelago,
near the middle of the interval which separates the ruins of
Alesandria-Troas from the cape Koum-kale, but still leaving traces of a
bed through which it formerly flowed to join the Menderé. We are now
convinced that this little river is the Scamander of Homer, that the
present Menderé is the Simoïs of that poet, and that the ancient Ilium,
which was near the sources of the Scamander, must have been situated on
the heights of Bounar-bachi.

In the time of Homer these two rivers united together and discharged
themselves into the sea by the same mouth: but the course of the
Scamander has been changed for a long time, since, according to Pliny,
(v. c. 33,) a part of its waters spread themselves over a marsh, and the
remainder flowed unto the Ægæan Sea, between Alexandria-Troas and
Sigeum. This ancient author therefore gave to the little river (which he
called Palœscamander, the old Scamander) exactly the same course which
the stream Bounar-bachi still follows. This change of direction in the
course of the river appears to me to have been anterior to the time of
Demetrius of Scepsis, for this alone can explain his error. For, no
longer finding a stream which runs on the left of the present Menderé,
and which might represent the Scamander, he thought proper to transfer
this latter name to the Simoïs, and to look for the site of the Ilium of
Homer, as also of the plain which was the scene of the combats described
by the poet, on the right of this river. Thence he is persuaded that the
town of the Ilienses occupied the same site as the ancient Ilium, and
that the stream of the Tschiblak was the Simoïs.

I must remark that the Menderé is a torrent, the waters of which fail
during a great part of the year, whilst the stream of the Bounar-bachi
always continues to flow. This advantage is probably the reason why it
preserved the name of Scamander to the sea, although it ran into the bed
of the Simoïs and was far inferior to this torrent in the length of its
course. Hence it may be perceived how the name of Scamander, now changed
into that of Menderé, has remained attached to this ancient mouth, how
ultimately it was given to the whole course of the Simoïs, and how
Demetrius of Scepsis was led into error by the change in the course of
the true Scamander, and by the transfer of its name to the
Simoïs.--Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce par _M. de Choiseul Gouffier_.
Le Voyage dans la Troad, par _M. Lechevalier_. The Topography of Troy,
_W. Gell_.--_Gossellin._

[1437] Il. xii. 20.

[1438] B. xii. c. iii. § 21.

[1439] Below Strabo calls this same place Ænea, and in b. xii. c. iii. §
23, Enea-Come. Pliny calls it Nea; it is said to be the same place
called by the Turks Ene.

[1440] Ἀργύρια, in the neuter gender, with the accent on the
antipenultima, means “silver mines.” But Ἀργυρία, with the accent on
the penultima, becomes the name of a town.

[1441] Il. ii. 856.

[1442] What other places? I do not think that Strabo or Demetrius have
mentioned any other place bearing the name of Palæscepsis.--_Du Theil._

[1443] Il. i. 38.

[1444] There are no islands to the south of Tenedos,--that is, between
Tenedos and Cape Lectum (Baba). The state of the text might induce us to
suppose that, instead of Lectum, Strabo wrote Sigeum. Then the Calydnæ
islands would answer to the Mauro islands or to the isles des
Lapins.--_Gossellin._

[1445] Called also Lyrnessa and Phœnice. The first of these names is the
same as that of one of the 12 towns on the continent sacked by Achilles.
The name Phœnice was given to it probably by a Phœnician colony.
Leucophrys, (white brows,) from the colour of the coast.

[1446] From σμίνθος, a rat, in the Æolic dialect. The worship of Apollo
Smintheus was not confined to the town of Chrysa alone; it was common to
all the continent of the Troad and to the adjacent islands; it extended
along the whole coast to the island of Rhodes, as Strabo afterwards
informs us. He has already told us that there was a temple of Apollo
Smintheus in the island of Tenedos. Coins of this island exist, bearing
the effigy of the god with a rat under the chin. The town of Hamaxitus,
on the continent, had also its temple of Apollo Smintheus, where was not
only to be seen the picture of a rat near the tripod of the god, but
also tame rats, maintained at the public expense.

[1447] Sect. 63.

[1448] In the island of Rhodes more especially many Sminthia must have
existed, as Andreas, a native of Lindus, one of the three cities of the
island, made these temples the subject of a treatise entitled “On the
Sminthia of Rhodes.”

[1449] The Turks call the place Fousla, “the salt-pans.”

[1450] Il. x. 429.

[1451] Il. xxi. 86.

[1452] Il. xiv. 443.

[1453] Il. vi. 34.

[1454] At the foot of the mountain on which is now the village Ine.

[1455] Palamedium? Pliny, b. v. c. 30.

[1456] Karatepe-bournou, or Cape San Nicolo.

[1457] Antandro.

[1458] Dikeli-koi.

[1459] Tschandarlyk.

[1460] Ialea.

[1461] From σκέπτομαι, (sceptomai,) _I see to a distance_, from which
the compound περισκέπτομαι, (perisceptomai,) _I see to a distance
around_. Strabo perceived the absurdity of such an etymology. Others
derived the name of this place from σκήπτομαι, _I pretend_, whence
σκῆψις, (skepsis,) _a pretext_, because it was on this part of the chain
of Ida that Rhea, on the birth of Jupiter, substituted for him a stone
clothed as an infant, and presented it to be devoured by Saturn in place
of her child. This etymology is conformable to analogy, although founded
on a ridiculous fable.

[1462] B. xiii. c. i. § 6.

[1463] Il. xx. 188.

[1464] Il. xiii. 460

[1465] See note³¹⁰, vol. i. p. 76.

[1466] Some assert that Capys, the father of Anchises, was the founder
of Capua or Capya in Italy. The town in Arcadia was afterwards called
Caphya or Caphyæ.

[1467] Segesta.

[1468] Trapani.

[1469] Cape Boë.

[1470] Il. xx. 306.

[1471] This statement is not in contradiction with those (Athen. b. i.
c. 3) who assert that Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, and Polycrates,
tyrant of Samos, were the first who formed libraries. The libraries of
these two princes, who lived six centuries before our time, were
probably confined to half a dozen poets, and it may be supposed that the
care Pisistratus took to collect the poems of Homer did not extend to
poets posterior to his time. But in the time of Aristotle there existed
many poems, a great number of oratorical discourses, historical works,
and various treatises of philosophy.

[1472] Apellicon proclaimed himself a philosopher of the school of
Aristotle. From what Athenæus, b. v., says of him, he appears to have
used his great wealth for the purposes of ostentation rather than of
employing it for the benefit of others. He was sent by Aristion, (or
Athenion, as Athenæus calls him,) tyrant of Athens, to Delos, at the
head of ten thousand soldiers, to remove the treasures of the temple. He
was defeated by the Romans, and having lost his whole army, escaped with
difficulty.

[1473] This name was given to books intended to be seen and read by
every one, but which did not contain the fundamental dogmas which
Aristotle only communicated to those of his own school. The books which
contained these doctrines were called, by way of distinction,
_esoteric_. Such at least is the opinion of those who admit of the
existence of a secret doctrine, and a public doctrine, in the philosophy
of Aristotle. This passage of Strabo however seems to favour those who
maintained a different opinion, namely, that this celebrated distinction
of _exoteric_ and _esoteric_ doctrines, which is peculiar to the works
of Aristotle, is not founded on any essential difference of doctrine,
but rather on a difference of method, so that the word _exoteric_ was
applied to works where the opinions of the philosopher were set forth in
a manner to be understood by all intelligent readers, whether of his own
school or strangers; and _esoteric_ to those works where his opinions
were thoroughly discussed, and in a scientific manner, and which, not
being intelligible to every one, required to be explained by the master
himself.

[1474] Tyrannion was a native of Amisus, whose lectures he attended (b.
xii. c. iii. § 16). He is often quoted among the commentators of Homer.
It was he also who gave copies of the works of Aristotle to Andronicus
of Rhodes, for whom he made a catalogue of them.

[1475] Metrodorus was not only a fellow-countryman of Demetrius, who was
one of the richest and most distinguished citizens of Scepsis, but also
his contemporary and protegé. A small treatise of Metrodorus is cited,
entitled περὶ ἀλειπτικῆς, which may mean “on anointing with oil,” or
“on oil used in the public exercises.” It seems however very probable
that the treatise on the Troad, (Τρωïκὰ,) which Athenæus attributes to
another Metrodorus of Chios, was the work of this Metrodorus of Scepsis.
The place of his birth, which was in the Troad, might have suggested, as
it did to his patron, the idea of treating a subject liable to
discussion, and to endeavour to throw light upon it by the words of
Homer. Add to this that Strabo quotes also Metrodorus on the subject of
the Amazons, whose history appears so closely connected with the Trojan
war that all who have touched on the one, have also treated of the
other. Pliny quotes also a Metrodorus on the subject of the serpents of
the river Rhyndacus, near the Troad. It is also a question whether
Metrodorus was one of those who occupied themselves with mnemonics, or
the art of increasing and strengthening the memory. According to
Plutarch, Metrodorus was the victim of Mithridates. Tigranes, who had
placed the philosopher in his power, more from inadvertence than
intentionally, so much regretted his death that he celebrated
magnificent obsequies to his memory.

[1476] Gargara is the same town called above by Strabo Gargaris, unless
he meant by the latter name the territory of Gargara, a distinction we
find made below between Pedasa and Pedasis. The author of the
Etymologicum Magnum calls the place Gargarus, and informs us that the
inhabitants abandoned it on account of the cold, it being situated on
Mount Ida; that they founded a new town in the plain, and that the town
abandoned afterwards received the name of Old Gargara.

The town called Lamponia by Strabo is called Lamponium by Hellanicus and
Herodotus.

[1477] By “the kings,” we must probably understand the kings of Bithynia
rather than the kings of Persia, as understood by Rambach (De Mileto
ejusque coloniæ); for if we suppose that colonists are here meant who
came to Gargara from Miletus after the destruction of this latter town
by the Persians, how could Demetrius of Scepsis say of the Gargareans
that, “Æolians as they were, or instead of Æolians they became
semi-barbarians?” He ought at least to have said, “that they became
Ionians,” for Miletus, a Greek city of Ionia, at the time of its
destruction by the Persians, was far from being barbarous. But
Miletopolis, although from its name and position in the territory of
Cyzicus was probably, like Cyzicus, a colony of Miletus, yet might have
been peopled with barbarians at the time Gargara received colonists.
Mualitsh is the modern name of Miletopolis.

[1478] Il. x. 428.

[1479] Budrun, the birth-place of Herodotus.

[1480] Herod. i. 175; viii. 104.

[1481] Paitschin?

[1482] Eski-Hissar.

[1483] C. vii. § 49.

[1484] Il. i. 366.

[1485] Il. ii. 691.

[1486] Il. ii. 295.

[1487] Il. i. 432.

[1488] Il. i. 439.

[1489] Il. i. 37.

[1490] Dikeli-koi.

[1491] For νησὶς Meineke reads γῆ τις, “a certain earth.” Pliny, b. ii.
c. 95, speaks of islands “which are always floating;” something of the
kind occurs in volcanic lakes.

[1492] Ak-su or Bakir.

[1493] It is difficult to clear up this passage ἣν ΑΙΓΑ τινὲς
ὀνομαζουσιν ὁμωνύμως τῷ ξώῳ· δεῖ δὲ μακρῶς τὴν δευτέραν συλλαβὴν
ἐκφέρειν ἈΙΓΑΝ ὡς ἈΚΤΑΝ καὶ ἈΡΧΑΝ. There is no doubt that the first of
these words in capitals, to be homonymous with _goat_, should be αἶγα,
as is read in the old editions, and in many manuscripts, and not αἰγᾶ,
αἰγὰ, or αἰγὰν, as in others. Αἶγα is the accusative of Αἲξ, (Æx,) _a
goat_, which name Artemidorus actually gives to this promontory. But as
our language has no termination of cases, the passage requires some
explanation. If the Greeks desired to express in the nominative case the
position of the promontory with respect to the island of <DW26>s, they
would say, according to Artemidorus, _The cape Æx_ (Αἲξ) _is in front of
Lesbos_; according to Strabo, _The cape Æga_ (Αἰγᾶ) _is in front of
Lesbos_. The first, Æx, signifies _a goat_, as Artemidorus intended; the
second, Æga, in the Doric dialect (for Æge, Αἰγῆ) means a goat’s skin.
If they desired to employ the word in the accusative, they said,
according to Artemidorus, _We have doubled Cape Æga_ (Αἶγα); according
to Strabo, _We have doubled Cape Ægan_ (Αἰγᾶν). The matter is clear thus
far, but what follows, δεῖ δὲ μακρῶς * * * ὡς ἀκτᾶν καὶ ἀρχᾶν, is
difficult to explain. The two last words are Doric genitive plurals, the
first for ἀκτῶν, _shores_, the second for ἀρχῶν, _beginnings_; and yet
one would expect to find examples of accusatives in the singular number,
as ἀκτὰν and ἀρχὰν; the difference of accent is here of no importance,
for the last syllables of these accusatives are long, as Strabo wishes
to make the last syllable long of Ægan (Αἰγᾶν). If he had required
examples agreeing with this last word in quantity, accent, and case, he
might have cited sycan, (συκᾶν, a fig-tree,) or some other word of this
form. It might be supposed that Ακτᾶν was here taken in the acceptation
[ἀκτέην, ἀκτῆν, and, in the Doric dialect, ἀκτᾶν]; but there still
remains ἀρχᾶν, unless we change the word to ἀρχτᾶν, _a bear’s
skin_.--_Coraÿ._

[1494] Od. xi. 521.

[1495] Eurypylus, son of Telephus, being invited by Priam to come to his
assistance, answered that he could not do so without the permission of
his mother, Astyoche. Priam by rich presents obtained from her this
permission. There are other explanations equally uncertain. Bryant
asserts that the Cetæi were pirates, and exacted young women as tribute
from the people whom they attacked.

[1496] Sigri.

[1497] Molyvo.

[1498] Cape Sta. Maria.

[1499] Adshane.

[1500] This is the number given in Agathermus, and there is no
difference in manuscripts in this part of the text. Falconer thinks we
ought to read χιλίων ἑκατὸν καὶ δέκα (1110) for χιλίων ἑκατὸν (1100), to
make the sum-total given agree with the sum-total of the particular
distances. I am more inclined to deduct 10 stadia from the 210, which is
the distance given between Sigrium and Methymne.--_Coraÿ._

[1501] Arginusi Islands; according to others, Musconisia.

[1502] The entrance to the Gulf of Caloni.

[1503] Pira.

[1504] We should probably read here Melanchus, tyrant of <DW26>s, who,
assisted by the brothers of Alcæus, overthrew Pittacus.

[1505] Diophanes was the friend of Tiberius Gracchus, and was the victim
of his friendship. Potamo was professor of rhetoric at Rome, and was the
author of the Perfect Orator, the Life of Alexander the Great, the
Praise of Cæsar, the Praise of Brutus, and the Annals of Samos. Pliny
mentions a sculptor of the name of Lesbocles, whose name seems to
indicate his origin from <DW26>s. Athenæus also names a sculptor from
Mitylene called Lesbothemis. Strabo is probably the only person who
makes mention of Crinagoras. Theophanes is known as an historian, and
especially as the friend of Pompey, whom however he advised to retire to
Egypt. The philosopher Lesbonax, father of Potamo, was a native of
Mitylene.

[1506] Eresso.

[1507] To the N. E. of Sigri.

[1508] In which are comprehended the Arginusi mentioned above.

[1509] According to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, Hecatonnesoi means
the “hundred islands,” the word being composed not of Hecatus but of
Hecaton, ἑκατὸν, “a hundred,” and νῆσοι, “islands.”

[1510] The name appears to be wanting.

[1511] Derived from πορδὴ and πέρδω.

[1512] Il. vi. 414, 421.

[1513] Il. ii. 692; xix. 296.

[1514] Il. x. 428.

[1515] Il. xiv. 443.

[1516] Il. xxi. 86.

[1517] Il. xxi. 87.

[1518] Il. xxi. 84.

[1519] Il. ii. 840.

[1520] Il. xvii. 301.

[1521] Kramer adopts Coraÿ’s correction of ἑλόντας for ἐλθόντας,
although he at the same time remarks, that we have no other information
of Larisa being then taken.

[1522] Karasu, or Kutschuk-Meinder.

[1523] Sarabat.

[1524] Salambria.

[1525] In spite of the improbability of these anecdotes, there must have
been something real in the dulness of the Cymæans; for Cymæan was
employed by the Greeks as a word synonymous with stupid. Cæsar, among
the Romans, (Plutarch, Cæsar,) adopted this name in the same sense. This
stupidity gave occasion to a proverb, ὄνος εἰς κυμαίους, an ass among
the Cymæans, which was founded on the following story. The first time an
ass appeared among the Cymæans, the inhabitants, who were unacquainted
with the beast, deserted the town with such precipitation that one would
have said they were escaping from an earthquake.

[1526] Il. ii. 814.

[1527] Bergamo.

[1528] Sart.

[1529] A building raised in commemoration of a victory. It was destroyed
by Philip of Macedon, Polyb. xvi. 1. It appears, however, that he
restored it to its ancient splendour, as forty-fire years afterwards it
was devastated a second time by Prusias, king of Bithynia, which Strabo
notices hereafter.

[1530] The circumstances are differently narrated by Plutarch “On
brotherly love,” and by Livy, xlii. c. 15 and 16.

[1531] Diegylis, king of the Cæni, a Thracian people, was the
father-in-law of Prusias.

[1532] Aristonicus, brother of Attalus, and a natural son of Eumenes,
for some time contended with the Romans for the possession of this
inheritance; but finally he was vanquished and made prisoner by the
consul Perperna, carried to Rome, and there died in prison. B. xiv. c.
i. § 38.

[1533] ἐξέδρα The exhedra was that part of the building added to the
portico, and, according to Vitruvius, when spacious it consisted of
three parts, and was provided with seats. It probably here means a place
for sitting and resting, protected by a covering supported by columns,
so as to afford a view all round.

[1534] Pliny also places Macedonians, surnamed Cadueni, near Tmolus. B.
v. c. 29.

[1535] Bouz-dagh.

[1536] Il. ii. 865.

[1537] Some pretended miracle relating probably to the baskets carried
by the virgins on their heads at festivals.

[1538] Il. ii. 864.

[1539] B. ix.

[1540] Il. vii. 221.

[1541] Il. ii. 783.

[1542] Pliny does not approve of the word Pithecussæ being derived from
πίθηκος, a monkey; but from πίθος, a cask. This latter derivation is not
natural, whilst the former is at least conformable to analogy. Hesychius
confirms the Tyrrhenian meaning of the word Arimi, calling Ἄριμος,
πίθηκος. The expression in Homer, εἰν Ἀρίμοις, “among the Arimi,” (which
in Roman letters would be _ein Arimis_, and which is translated into
Latin by _in Arimis_,) signifies “in the Pithecussæ Islands,” according
to the opinion of those who placed Typhoëus in Italy. But it is
remarkable that from the two words _ein Arimis_ of Homer the name
_Inarimis_ has been invented; and quoted as Homer’s by Pliny (iii. 6):
Ænasia ipsa, a statione navium Æneæ, Homero Inarime dicta, Græcis
Pithecussa, non a simiarum multitudine, ut aliqui existimavere sed a
figlinis doliorum. It is not Homer, however, that he ought to have
quoted, but Virgil, who was the first to coin one word out of the two
Greek words.

    Inarime Jovis imperiis imposta Typhoëo.
      Æn. ix. 716.

  The modern name is Ischia.

[1543] Pyth. i. 31.

[1544] Kelikdni.

[1545] Herod. i. 93.

[1546] Pyrgela.

[1547] Il. ii. 461.

[1548] Catania.

[1549] The range of mountains on the south of the Caÿster, bearing
various names.

[1550] Celænæ was the citadel of Apameia Cibotus, Afuim-Kara hissar.

[1551] Cape Sta. Maria.

[1552] Coraÿ proposes to read for Καρῶν Καρούρων, translate, “between
Carura and Nysa.”

[1553] Sultan-hissar.

[1554] Eski-hissar.

[1555] Pambuk-kalessi.

[1556] They were the priests of Cybele, and so called from a river of
Phrygia.

[1557] Madder-root.

[1558] Geira.

[1559] Jenedscheh.

[1560] Chorsum.

[1561] Dekoï.

[1562] Il. vi. 184.

[1563] Il. vi. 203.

[1564] Ebedschek-Dirmil.

[1565] Giaur-Kalessi.

[1566] Urludscha.


JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Geography of Strabo, Volume II (of
3), by Strabo

*** 