Practice Quiz for Principles of Classification No. of Questions= 13 INSTRUCTIONS: To answer a question, click the button in front of your choice. A response will appear in the window below the question to let you know if you are correct. Be sure to read the feedback. It is designed to help you learn the material. You can also learn by reading the feedback for incorrect answers. 1. Humans mostly classify animals with their sense of: a) vision b) smelling c) hearing ## CORRECT --> We sense the world primarily with our eyes. As a result, we generally classify things based mainly on what they look like to us. However, some animal classifications also include secondary characteristics that involve sounds and smells. 2. _______________ are anatomical structures in different species that have the same function but do not necessarily share a common ancestor. a) analogies b) homologies c) homoplasies ## CORRECT --> As long as it is still unknown whether or not the organisms being compared share a common ancestor, the general terms analogy or analogous structures are appropriate. 3. When two species both have analogous structures that were inherited from the same ancestor that also had them, the structures are referred to as being: a) homoplasies b) homologies c) neither of the above ## CORRECT --> This is the definition of homologies or homologous structures. The key is that the common ancestor had the traits and passed them on to both descendent lines. 4. Nonhomologous structures can result: a) only from convergent evolution b) from either convergent or parallel evolution c) neither of the above ## CORRECT --> Nonhomologous structures, such as similarities in body shape and behavior patterns, can result from both convergent and parallel evolution. 5. Nonhomologous structures are: a) analogies b) homoplasies c) neither of the above ## CORRECT --> If two organisms have similar structures but they do not share an ancestor that also possessed them, the structures are homoplasies. 6. In which of the following is the common ancestor the most distant in the past? a) parallel evolution b) convergent evolution ## CORRECT --> Convergent evolution (or convergence) is the term that refers to the evolution of similar traits after divergence from a very distant ancestor. In the case of parallel evolution (or parallelism), the common ancestor is more recent in time. 7. It is more accurate to define new species by: a) observing breeding patterns of living organisms b) comparing the appearance of fossils ## CORRECT --> It is better to either observe breeding patterns or to carry out breeding experiments. Usually only members of the same species can produce fertile offspring. Using fossils as data for establishing species is much more speculative and prone to error. 8. In the Linnaean classification system, the word "genera" refers to: a) the category just above genus b) the category just below genus c) the plural of genus ## CORRECT --> It is also useful to know that all Linnaean classification designations above species have their first letter capitalized. That is the reason the H in Homo is capitalized but not the s in sapiens. 9. The Linnaean system groups organisms together into the same or similar classification categories based on presumed: a) homologies b) homoplasies c) neither of the above ## CORRECT --> Homologies are due to evolutionary closeness. The more homologies there are, the closer two species must be. Very similar species may be members of the same genus, while somewhat less similar ones may be only in the same family. 10. The wings of a bird and the wings of a butterfly are: a) analogous structures b) homologous structures c) genera 11. The three long bones in your arm and in the wing of a bird are: a) homoplastic structures b) homologous structures c) neither of the above ## CORRECT --> Both birds and humans have the same types of bones (humerus, radius, and ulna) in their front appendages because they evolved from a common reptilian ancestor that also had them. Therefore, this is a case of homologies or homologous structures. 12. The evolution of similar behavioral patterns by some Australian marsupials and placental mammals living elsewhere in the world is a result of: a) convergent evolution b) inheritance from a common ancestor c) neither of the above ## CORRECT --> The common ancestor for marsupials and placental mammals lived at least 65 million years ago. It is most likely that the similar behavior patterns of some species evolved independently since then due to similar natural selection factors. 13. When a biologist narrowly defines species based primarily on minor differences, he or she is: a) a lumper b) a splitter c) inevitably correct ## CORRECT --> Splitters tend to define as many species as possible. By doing so, they sometimes make a mistake and put varieties or even males and females into separate species. Lumpers, in contrast, emphasize major similarities and end up defining fewer species.

If we had to make a choice, and leaving aside ancient Rome, a strong sense of Europe can already be found astride Humanism and the Renaissance (above all, between 1400 and 1500). This sense of Europe concerns an ever so evident rapport in the outlines of art and literature, as well as in journeys and knowledge of the Continent. In particular, it expresses the clear presence of a European conscience/awareness and the existence of intellectual instruments necessary to perceive, to define precisely and to spread this awareness far and wide. The connection between Italy and Europe came together again in the works of Erasmus of Rotterdam concerning the Italian peninsula. This corresponds also to the influence (Editor’s note : is this really a physical presence as indicated by the author?) of Machiavelli felt in France and Germany, countries committed to following his ?experiences/experiments in political ?"legation". But overall, we should cite Machiavelli, read and translated throughout Europe, as well as the Frenchman Jean Bodin, also widely known and studied in Italy. All this culture, largely of Renaissance nature, contributes decisively in indicating the first important acquisition in Italy of an awareness of Europe. It grew up around some fundamental moments in political and religious thought that occurred between the Meditteranean part of the Continent and the lands farther North. In Italy, a second important stage in the development of the idea of Europe derives from the spread of the culture of Illuminism. This stage was anticipated by the scientific and philosophical effects of the work of Descartes that spread throughout the Italian peninsula, already fertile from the philosophy of the preceding European thinkers such as Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei. Illuminism, which also has its autonomous cultural roots in Italy, corresponds to a moment of extensive continental communication on subjects such as politics, philosophy and science. In Italy, the reprinting of the Encyclopédie by Diderot and D'Alembert (in several editions), renewed interest in law, literature and - through the new demands for the liberty of thought - in the concept of citizenship. But this intellectual communication, becoming totally continent-wide in its extent, contributed in Italy to the definition of a common thought, both mature and incisive in its value regarding the spirit of Europe. Such an awareness bears witness, as early as the 1700s, to a new and open human society. This view is also supported by the evolution of the Italian language from 1700 onwards, while the influence of French urban culture is vividly reflected in many Italian cities. The point of coherence in the experience of Illuminism is manifested in the culture life developed in Naples and Tuscany around 1700, these centres being veritable testbeds of the continental circulation of ideas. But we should also remember Venice and her Republic, which arose at a crossroads of civilizations between the European and Oriental cultures. In the 19th century, the Neopolitan heritage represents another important impulse towards the construction of an awareness of Europe. A new "codified" form of Law and the modernizing of State administration are two very concrete signs of the powerful innovation that the Bonapartist state model managed to suggest even to its adversaries. In this way, "Young Europe" came to be created in Italy, being a Mazzinian organization bearing the message of a new chapter of progress for the liberation of civil conscience and intellectual life. The subsequent rise of the Italian Risorgimento greatly exalted national ideals that are noticeably comparable to those of Europe. But the tragedy of the First World War halted the process of coming together of countries and peoples throughout the continent. In 1900, political systems that still preserved liberty in Europe were ready to welcome the Italian anti-fascist opposition and afford it protection. From Paris to London, still in the wider European dimension, the Italian opposition, although forced into illegality, was able to open up its horizons and sow the seeds for successive dialogue among free thinkers. The diverse components of anti-fascism thus gave a formidable impulse to the spreading of European awareness. In particular, the groups and forces belonging to the Action Party and to the movement of Justice and Liberty, after years of living abroad, brought back to Italy a rich store of ideas. In this way, the principles of European federalism and continental collaboration were spread, as well as the possibility of constructing a new Italian democratic State on the basis of European models. In a special way, the Italian anti-fascist culture was formed through the European democratic States, while the modern idea of democracy was developed through the tradition of the nation State and the principle of interdependence, at least in Western Europe. This process is also clearly seen in the more traditional culture of Italy's Mezzogiorno. Here, thanks to an advanced movement of intellectual anti-fascism based on political, philosophical and economic writings at the end of the 1800s, the first publications after the fall of Mussolini devote a great deal of space to the prospect of Europeanism within the United States of Europe. Carried forward by these cultural movements, the figure of Altiero Spinelli grew to prominence in Italy, a great supporter of the idea of Europe, a European representative and an untiring worker for the link between social development and the European perspective. He is very important for his contribution regarding the new dimension of Europe, going beyond the traditional concept of the nation State and towards the ?transverse integration of all citizens. Spinelli, together with Ernesto Rossi, is the author of The Manifesto for a United and Free Europe, written while under ?house-arrest in Ventotene in 1941. This important document gives support to and progressively spreads civil awareness of the necessity for a political convergence between democracy and Europeanism during the imminent WWII. Subsequently, asking himself about the first European elections, Altiero Spinelli states that: "two hundred and fifty million citizens belonging to several sovereign States must vote to elect a single European Parliament in which citizens and ?non-States will be represented". Considering the functions of the future Community, Spinelli concludes as follows: "But the Community is right only if it is an instrument able to promote the realization of a higher degree of convergence of economic policies". Thus, we reach the post-WWII era when the Treaty of Rome began the process of constituting a new European international community. This Treaty turns its attention to the realization of a system of exchange and political citizenship, thus consenting to community life within a supranational identity corresponding to the European spirit and civilization as we know it today. Italy was an integral part of this process from the start, and today she sustains it with conviction.

1. Understand the spatial perspectives of the discipline. 2. Understand concepts and vocabulary basic to geography. 3. Apply qualitative and quantitative analyses of geographic phenomena. 4. Develop fundamental awareness of people and places. 5. Understand the processes of political, economic, and cultural diversification within human societies. 6. Understand fundamentals of cartography and geographic information systems. 7. Demonstrate competence in the analysis and reporting of spatial data. 8. Demonstrate understanding of basic physical processes at the earth's surface.

I. Asia is adjacent to Europe, bordering thereon along the Tanaïs1 River. I must therefore describe this country next, first dividing it, for the sake of clearness, by means of certain natural boundaries. That is, I must do for Asia precisely what Eratosthenes did for the inhabited world as a whole.2 The Taurus forms a partition approximately through the middle of this continent, extending from the west towards the east, leaving one portion of it on the north and the other on the south. Of these portions, the Greeks call the one the "Cis-Tauran" Asia and the other "Trans-Tauran." I have said this before,3 but let me repeat it by way of reminder. Now the mountain has in many places as great a breadth as three thousand stadia, and a length as great as that of Asia itself, that is, about forty-five thousand stadia, reckoning from the coast opposite Rhodes to the eastern extremities of India and Scythia. It has been divided into many parts with many names, determined by boundaries that circumscribe areas both large and small. But since certain tribes are comprised within the vast width of the mountain, some rather insignificant, but others extremely well known (as, for instance, the Parthians, the Medes, the Armenians, a part of the Cappadocians, the Cilicians, and the Pisidians), those which lie for the most part in its northerly parts must be assigned there,4 and those in its southern parts to the southern,5 while those which are situated in the middle of the mountains should, because of the likeness of their climate, be assigned to the north, for the climate in the middle is cold, whereas that in the south is hot. Further, almost all the rivers that rise in the Taurus flow in contrary directions, that is, some into the northern region and others into the southern (they do so at first, at least, although later some of them bend towards the east or west), and they therefore are naturally helpful in our use of these mountains as boundaries in the two-fold division of Asia--just as the sea inside the Pillars,6 which for the most part is approximately in a straight line with these mountains, has proved convenient in the forming of two continents, Europe and Libya, it being the noteworthy boundary between the two. As we pass from Europe to Asia in our geography, the northern division is the first of the two divisions to which we come; and therefore we must begin with this. Of this division the first portion is that in the region of the Tanaïs River, which I have taken as the boundary between Europe and Asia. This portion forms, in a way, a peninsula, for it is surrounded on the west by the Tanaïs River and Lake Maeotis as far as the Bosporus7 and that part of the coast of the Euxine Sea which terminates at Colchis; and then on the north by the Ocean as far as the mouth of the Caspian Sea;8 and then on the east by this same sea as far as the boundary between Albania and Armenia, where empty the rivers Cyrus and Araxes, the Araxes flowing through Armenia and the Cyrus through Iberia and Albania; and lastly, on the south by the tract of country which extends from the outlet of the Cyrus River to Colchis, which is about three thousand stadia from sea to sea, across the territory of the Albanians and the Iberians, and therefore is described as an isthmus. But those writers who have reduced the width of the isthmus as much as Cleitarchus9 has, who says that it is subject to inundation from either sea, should not be considered even worthy of mention. Poseidonius states that the isthmus is fifteen hundred stadia across, as wide as the isthmus from Pelusium to the Red Sea.10 "And in my opinion," he says, "the isthmus from Lake Maeotis to the Ocean does not differ much therefrom." But I do not know how anyone can trust him concerning things that are uncertain if he has nothing plausible to say about them, when he reasons so illogically about things that are obvious; and this too, although he was a friend of Pompey, who made an expedition against the Iberians and the Albanians, from sea to sea on either side, both the Caspian and the Colchian11 Seas. At any rate, it is said that Pompey, upon arriving at Rhodes on his expedition against the pirates (immediately thereafter he was to set out against both Mithridates and the tribes which extended as far as the Caspian Sea), happened to attend one of the lectures of Poseidonius, and that when he went out he asked Poseidonius whether he had any orders to give, and that Poseidonius replied:Ever bravest be, and preeminent o'er others. Hom. Il. 6.208Add to this that among other works he wrote also the history of Pompey. So for this reason he should have been more regardful of the truth. The second portion would be that beyond the Hyrcanian Sea, which we call the Caspian Sea, as far as the Scythians near India. The third portion would consist of the part which is adjacent to the isthmus above mentioned and of those parts of the region inside Taurus12 and nearest Europe which come next after this isthmus and the Caspian Gates, I mean Media and Armenia and Cappadocia and the intervening regions. The fourth portion is the land inside13 the Halys River, and all the region in the Taurus itself and outside thereof which falls within the limits of the peninsula which is formed by the isthmus that separates the Pontic and the Cilician Seas. As for the other countries, I mean the Trans-Tauran, I place among them not only India, but also Ariana as far as the tribes that extend to the Persian Sea and the Arabian Gulf and the Nile and the Egyptian and Issic Seas. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 The Don. 2 See 2. 1. 1. 3 i.e., "Asia this side Taurus and Asia outside Taurus." (Cp. 2. 5. 31.) 4 i.e., to the Cis-Tauran Asia. 5 i.e., Trans-Tauran. 6 i.e., the Mediterranean (see 2. 1. 1). 7 The Cimmerian Bosporus. 8 Strabo thought that the Caspian (Hyrcanian) Sea was an inlet of the Northern Sea (2. 5. 14). 9 See Dictionary in Vol. II. 10 Cf. 17. 1. 21. 11 The Euxine. 12 Cis-Tauran. 13 i.e., "west of."

I. Since Euboea lies parallel to the whole of the coast from Sunium to Thessaly, with the exception of the ends on either side,1 it would be appropriate to connect my description of the island with that of the parts already described before passing on to Aetolia and Acarnania, which are the remaining parts of Europe to be described. In its length, then, the island extends parallel to the coast for a distance of about one thousand two hundred stadia from Cenaeum to Geraestus, but its breadth is irregular and generally only about one hundred and fifty stadia. Now Cenaeum lies opposite to Thermopylae and, to a slight extent, to the region outside Thermopylae, whereas Geraestus and Petalia lie towards Sunium. Accordingly, the island lies across the strait and opposite Attica, Boeotia, Locris,and the Malians. Because of its narrowness and of the above-mentioned length, it was named Macris2 by the ancients. It approaches closest to the mainland at Chalcis, where it juts out in a convex curve towards the region of Aulis in Boeotia and forms the Euripus. Concerning the Euripus I have already spoken rather at length,3 as also to a certain extent concerning the places which lie opposite one another across the strait, both on the mainland and on the island, on either side of the Euripus, that is, the regions both inside and outside4 the Euripus. But if anything has been left out, I shall now explain more fully. And first, let me explain that the parts between Aulis and the region of Geraestus are called the Hollows of Euboea; for the coast bends inwards, but when it approaches Chalcis it forms a convex curve again towards the mainland. The island was called, not only Macris, but also Abantis; at any rate, the poet, although he names Euboea, never names its inhabitants "Euboeans," but always "Abantes":And those who held Euboea, the courage-breathing Abantes . . . Hom. Il. 2.536And with him5 followed the Abantes. Hom. Il. 2.542 Aristotle6 says that Thracians, setting out from the Phocian Aba, recolonized the island and renamed those who held it "Abantes." Others derive the name from a hero,7 just as they derive "Euboea" from a heroine.8 But it may be, just as a certain cave on the coast which fronts the Aegaean, where Io is said to have given birth to Epaphus, is called Böos Aule,9 that the island got the name Euboea10 from the same cause. The island was also called Oche; and the largest of its mountains bears the same name. And it was also named Ellopia, after Ellops the son of Ion. Some say that he was the brother of Aïclus and Cothus; and he is also said to have founded Ellopia, a place in Oria, as it is called, in Histiaeotis11 near the mountain Telethrius, and to have added to his dominions Histiaea, Perias, Cerinthus, Aedepsus, and Orobia; in this last place was an oracle most averse to falsehood (it was an oracle of Apollo Selinuntius). The Ellopians migrated to Histiaea and enlarged the city, being forced to do so by Philistides the tyrant, after the battle of Leuctra. Demosthenes says that Philistides was set up by Philip as tyrant of the Oreitae too;12 for thus in later times the Histiaeans were named, and the city was named Oreus instead of Histiaea. But according to some writers, Histiaea was colonized by Athenians from the deme of the Histiaeans, as Eretria was colonized from that of the Eretrians. Theopompus says that when Pericles overpowered Euboea the Histiaeans by agreement migrated to Macedonia, and that two thousand Athenians who formerly composed the deme of the Histiaeans came and took up their abode in Oreus. Oreus is situated at the foot of the mountain Telethrius in the Drymus,13 as it is called, on the River Callas, upon a high rock; and hence, perhaps, it was because the Ellopians who formerly inhabited it were mountaineers that the name Oreus14 was assigned to the city. It is also thought that Orion was so named because he was reared there. Some writers say that the Oreitae had a city of their own, but because the Ellopians were making war on them they migrated and took up their abode with the Histiaeans; and that, although they became one city, they used both names, just as the same city is called both Lacedaemon and Sparta. As I have already said,15 Histiaeotis in Thessaly was also named after the Histiaeans who were carried off from here into the mainland by the Perrhaebians. Since Ellopia induced me to begin my description with Histiaea and Oreus, let me speak of the parts which border on these places. In the territory of this Oreus lies, not only Cenaeum, near Oreus, but also, near Cenaeun, Dium16 and Athenae Diades, the latter founded by the Athenians and lying above that part of the strait where passage is taken across to Cynus; and Canae in Aeolis was colonized from Dium. Now these places are in the neighborhood of Histiaea; and so is Cerinthus, a small city by the sea; and near it is the Budorus River, which bears the same name as the mountain in Salamis which is close to Attica. Carystus is at the foot of the mountain Oche; and near it are Styra and Marmarium, in which latter are the quarry of the Carystian columns17 and a temple of Apollo Marmarinus; and from here there is a passage across the strait to Halae Araphenides. In Carystus is produced also the stone which is combed and woven,18 so that the woven material is made into towels, and, when these are soiled, they are thrown into fire and cleansed, just as linens are cleansed by washing. These places are said to have been settled by colonists from the Marathonian Tetrapolis19 and by Steirians. Styra was destroyed in the Malian war by Phaedrus, the general of the Athenians; but the country is held by the Eretrians. There is also a Carystus in the Laconian country, a place belonging to Aegys, towards Arcadia; whence the Carystian wine of which Alcman speaks. Geraestus is not named in the Catalogue of Ships, but still the poet mentions it elsewhere:and at night they landed at Geraestus. Hom. Od. 3.177And he plainly indicates that the place is conveniently situated for those who are sailing across from Asia to Attica, since it comes near to Sunium. It has a temple of Poseidon, the most notable of those in that part of the world, and also a noteworthy settlement. After Geraestus one comes to Eretria, the greatest city in Euboea except Chalcis; and then to Chalcis, which in a way is the metropolis of the island, being situated on the Euripus itself. Both are said to have been founded by the Athenians before the Trojan War. And after the Trojan War, Aïclus and Cothus, setting out from Athens, settled inhabitants in them, the former in Eretria and the latter in Chalcis. There were also some Aeolians from the army of Penthilus20 who remained in the island, and, in ancient times, some Arabians who had crossed over with Cadmus. Be this as it may, these cities grew exceptionally strong and even sent forth noteworthy colonies into Macedonia; for Eretria colonized the cities situated round Pallene and Athos, and Chalcis colonized the cities that were subject to Olynthus, which later were treated outrageously by Philip. And many places in Italy and Sicily are also Chalcidian. These colonies were sent out, as Aristotle21 states, when the government of the Hippobatae,22 as it is called, was in power; for at the head of it were men chosen according to the value of their property, who ruled in an aristocratic manner. At the time of Alexander's passage across,23 the Chalcidians enlarged the circuit of the walls of their city, taking inside them both Canethus and the Euripus, and fortifying the bridge with towers and gates and a wall.24 Above the city of the Chalcidians is situated the Lelantine Plain. In this plain are fountains of hot water suited to the cure of diseases, which were used by Cornelius Sulla, the Roman commander. And in this plain was also a remarkable mine which contained copper and iron together, a thing which is not reported as occurring elsewhere; now, however, both metals have given out, as in the case of the silver mines at Athens. The whole of Euboea is much subject to earthquakes, but particularly the part near the strait, which is also subject to blasts through subterranean passages, as are Boeotia and other places which I have already described rather at length.25 And it is said that the city which bore the same name as the island was swallowed up by reason of a disturbance of this kind. This city is also mentioned by Aeschylus in his Glaucus Pontius:Euboeïs, about the bending shore of Zeus Cenaeus, near the very tomb of wretched Lichas. Aesch. Fr. 30 (Nauck )In Aetolia, also, there is a place called by the same name Chalcis:and Chalcis near the sea, and rocky Calydon, Hom. Il. 2.640and in the present Eleian country:and they went past Cruni and rocky Chalcis, Hom. Od. 15.295that is, Telemachus and his companions, when they were on their way back from Nestor's to their homeland. As for Eretria, some say that it was colonized from Triphylian Macistus by Eretrieus, but others say from the Eretria at Athens, which now is a marketplace. There is also an Eretria near Pharsalus. In the Eretrian territory there was a city Tamynae, sacred to Apollo; and the temple, which is near the strait, is said to have been founded by Admetus, at whose house the god served as an hireling for a year. In earlier times Eretria was called Melaneïs and Arotria. The village Amarynthus, which is seven stadia distant from the walls, belongs to this city. Now the old city was razed to the ground by the Persians, who "netted" the people, as Herodotus26 says, by means of their great numbers, the barbarians being spread about the walls (the foundations are still to be seen, and the place is called Old Eretria); but the Eretria of today was founded on it.27 As for the power the Eretrians once had, this is evidenced by the pillar which they once set up in the temple of Artemis Amarynthia. It was inscribed thereon that they made their festal procession with three thousand heavy-armed soldiers, six hundred horsemen, and sixty chariots. And they ruled over the peoples of Andros, Teos, Ceos, and other islands. They received new settlers from Elis; hence, since they frequently used the letter r,28 not only at the end of words, but also in the middle, they have been ridiculed by comic writers. There is also a village Oechalia in the Eretrian territory, the remains of the city which was destroyed by Heracles; it bears the same name as the Trachinian Oechalia and that near Tricce, and the Arcadian Oechalia, which the people of later times called Andania, and that in Aetolia in the neighborhood of the Eurytanians. Now at the present time Chalcis by common consent holds the leading position and is called the metropolis of the Euboeans; and Eretria is second. Yet even in earlier times these cities were held in great esteem, not only in war, but also in peace; indeed, they afforded philosophers a pleasant and undisturbed place of abode. This is evidenced by the school of the Eretrian philosophers, Menedemus and his disciples, which was established in Eretria, and also, still earlier, by the sojourn of Aristotle in Chalcis, where he also ended his days.29 Now in general these cities were in accord with one another, and when differences arose concerning the Lelantine Plain they did not so completely break off relations as to wage their wars in all respects according to the will of each, but they came to an agreement as to the conditions under which they were to conduct the fight. This fact, among others, is disclosed by a certain pillar in the Amarynthium, which forbids the use of long distance missiles. 30 In fact among all the customs of warfare and of the use of arms there neither is, nor has been, any single custom; for some use long distance missiles, as, for example, bowmen and slingers and javelin-throwers, whereas others use close-fighting arms, as, for example, those who use sword, or outstretched spear; for the spear is used in two ways, one in hand-to-hand combat and the other for hurling like a javelin; just as the pike serves both purposes, for it can be used both in close combat and as a missile for hurling, which is also true of the sarissa31 and the hyssus.32 The Euboeans excelled in "standing" combat, which is also called "close" and "hand-to-hand" combat; and they used their spears outstretched, as the poet says:spearmen eager with outstretched ashen spears to shatter corselets. Hom. Il. 2.543Perhaps the javelins were of a different kind, such as probably was the "Pelian ashen spear," which, as the poet says,Achilles alone knew how to hurl; Hom. Il. 19.389and he33 who said,And the spear I hurl farther than any other man can shoot an arrow, Hom. Od. 8.229means the javelin-spear. And those who fight in single combat are first introduced as using javelin-spears, and then as resorting to swords. And close fighters are not those who use the sword alone, but also the spear hand-to-hand, as the poet says:he pierced him with bronze-tipped polished spear, and loosed his limbs. Hom. Il. 4.469Now he introduces the Euboeans as using this mode of fighting, but he says the contrary of the Locrians, thatthey cared not for the tolls of close combat, . . . but relying on bows and well-twisted slings of sheep's wool they followed with him to Ilium. Hom. Il. 13.713There is current, also, an oracle which was given out to the people of Aegium,Thessalian horse, Lacedemonian woman, and men who drink the water of sacred Arethusa, meaning that the Chalcidians are best of all, for Arethusa is in their territory. There are now two rivers in Euboea, the Cereus and the Neleus; and the sheep which drink from one of them turn white, and from the other black. A similar thing takes place in connection with the Crathis River, as I have said before.34 When the Euboeans were returning from Troy, some of them, after being driven out of their course to Illyria, set out for home through Macedonia, but remained in the neighborhood of Edessa, after aiding in war those who had received them hospitably; and they founded a city Euboe. There was also a Euboea in Sicily, which was founded by the Chalcidians of Sicily, but they were driven out of it by Gelon; and it became a stronghold of the Syracusans. In Corcyra, also, and in Lemnos, there were places called Euboea; and in the Argive country a hill of that name. Since the Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Athamanians (if these too are to be called Greeks) live to the west of the Thessalians and the Oetaeans, it remains for me to describe these three, in order that I may complete the circuit of Greece; I must also add the islands which lie nearest to Greece and are inhabited by the Greeks, so far as I have not already included them in my description. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 i.e., the promontories of Thermopylae and Sunium, which lie beyond the corresponding extremities of Euboea--Cenaeum and Geraestus. 2 i.e., "Long" Island (see Map VIII, end of Loeb Vol. IV). 3 9. 2. 2, 8. 4 "Inside" means the lower or southeastern region, "outside" the upper or northwestern. 5 Elephenor. 6 Aristotle of Chalcis wrote a work on Euboea, but it is no longer extant. He seems to have flourished in the fourth century B.C. 7 Abas, founder of Aba, who later conquered Euboea and reigned over it (Stephanus Byzantinus, s.v. A)/bai and A)bantÛw ). 8 On the heroine "Euboea," see Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. "Euboea"(4). 9 Cow's Stall. 10 i.e., from the Greek words "eu" (well) and "bous" (cow). 11 Or Hestiaeotis (see 9. 5. 3 and footnote 2). 12 Dem. 9.32 (119 Reiske). 13 "Woodland." 14 i.e., from "oreius" (mountaineer). 15 9. 5. 17. 16 Mentioned in Hom. Il. 2.538. 17 See 9. 5. 16. 18 i.e., asbestos. 19 See 8. 7. 1. 20 Son of Orestes (13. 1. 3). 21 See note on Aristotle, 10. 1. 3. 22 "Knights." 23 Across the Hellespont to Asia, 334 B.C. 24 Cf. 9. 2. 8 and footnotes. 25 1. 3. 16. 26 "Whenever they took one of the islands, the barbarians, as though capturing each severally, would net the people. They net them in this way: the men link hands and form a line extending from the northern sea to the southern, and then advance through the whole island hunting out the people" (6. 31). 27 i.e., on a part of the old site. 28 i.e.,like the Eleians, who regularly rhotacised final s (see Buck, Greek Dialects, section 60). 29 322 B.C. 30 The rest of the paragraph is probably an interpolation, rejected by Meineke, following conj. of Kramer. 31 Used by the Macedonian phalanx. 32 The Roman "pilum." 33 Odysseus. 34 6. 1. 13.

I.[1] Now that I have completed my circuit of the Peloponnesus, which, as I have said,1 was the first and the smallest of the peninsulas of which Greece consists, it will be next in order to traverse those that are continuous with it. The second peninsula is the one that adds Megaris to the Peloponnesus,2 so that Crommyon belongs to the Megarians and not to the Corinthians; the third is the one which, in addition to the second, comprises Attica and Boeotia and a part of Phocis and of the Epicnemidian Locrians. I must therefore describe these two. Eudoxus3 says that if one should imagine a straight line drawn in an easterly direction from the Ceraunian Mountains to Sunium, the promontory of Attica, it would leave on the right, towards the south, the whole of the Peloponnesus, and on the left, towards the north, the continuous coastline from the Ceraunian Mountains to the Crisaean Gulf and Megaris, and the coastline of all Attica. And he believes that the shore which extends from Sunium to the Isthmus would not be so concave as to have a great bend, if to this shore were not added the districts continuous with the Isthmus which form the Hermionic Gulf and Acte; and, in the same way, he believes that the shore which extends from the Ceraunian Mountains to the Corinthian Gulf would not, viewed by itself alone, have so great a bend as to be concave like a gulf if Rhium and Antirrhium did not draw closely together and afford this appearance; and the same is true of the shores4 that surround the recess of the gulf, where the sea in this region5 comes to an end. [2] Since this is the description given by Eudoxus, a mathematician and an expert both in geometrical figures and in "climata,"6 and acquainted with these places, one must conceive of this side of Attica together with Megaris--the side extending from Sunium to the Isthmus--as concave, though only slightly so. Now here, at about the center of the aforesaid line, is the Peiraeus, the seaport of Athens. It is distant from Schoenus, at the Isthmus, about three hundred and fifty stadia, and from Sunium three hundred and thirty. The distance from the Peiraeus to Pagae also is nearly the same as to Schoenus, though the former is said to exceed the latter by ten stadia. After doubling Sunium one's voyage is towards the north, but with an inclination towards the west. [3] Acte7 is washed by two seas; it is narrow at first, and then it widens out into the interior,8 though none the less it takes a crescent-like bend towards Oropus in Boeotia, with the convex side towards the sea; and this is the second, the eastern side of Attica. Then comes the remaining side, which faces the north and extends from the Oropian country towards the west as far as Megaris--I mean the mountainous part of Attica, which has many names and separates Boeotia from Attica; so that, as I have said before,9 Boeotia, since it has a sea on either side, becomes an isthmus of the third peninsula above-mentioned, an isthmus comprising within it the parts that lie towards the Peloponnesus, that is, Megaris and Attica. And it is on this account, they say, that the country which is now, by a slight change of letters, called Attica, was in ancient times called Acte and Actice,10 because the greatest part of it lies below the mountains, stretches flat along the sea, is narrow, and has considerable length, projecting as far as Sunium. I shall therefore describe these sides, resuming again at that point of the seaboard where I left off. [4] After Crommyon, and situated above Attica, are the Sceironian Rocks. They leave no room for a road along the sea, but the road from the Isthmus to Megara and Attica passes above them. However, the road approaches so close to the rocks that in many places it passes along the edge of precipices, because the mountain situated above them is both lofty and impracticable for roads. Here is the setting of the myth about Sceiron and the Pityocamptes,11 the robbers who infested the above-mentioned mountainous country and were killed by Theseus. And the Athenians have given the name Sceiron to the Argestes, the violent wind that blows down on the travellers left12 from the heights of this mountainous country. After the Sceironian Rocks one comes to Cape Minoa, which projects into the sea and forms the harbor at Nisaea. Nisaea is the naval station of the Megarians; it is eighteen stadia distant from the city and is joined to it on both sides by walls. The naval station, too, used to be called Minoa. [5] In early times this country was held by the same Ionians who held Attica. Megara, however, had not yet been founded; and therefore the poet does not specifically mention this region, but when he calls all the people of Attica Athenians he includes these too under the general name, considering them Athenians. Thus, when he says in the Catalogue, "And those who held Athens, well-built city,"13 we must interpret him as meaning the people now called Megarians as well, and assume that these also had a part in the expedition. And the following is proof: In early times Attica was called Ionia and Ias; and when the poet says, "There the Boeotians and the Iaonians,"14 he means the Athenians; and Megaris was a part of this Ionia. [6] Furthermore, since the Peloponnesians and Ionians were having frequent disputes about their boundaries, on which, among other places, Crommyonia was situated, they made an agreement and erected a pillar in the place agreed upon, near the Isthmus itself, with an inscription on the side facing the Peloponnesus reading: "This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia," and on the side facing Megara, "This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia." And though the writers of the histories of The Land of Atthis are at variance on many things, they all agree on this (at least all writers who are worth mentioning), that Pandion had four sons, Aegeus, Lycus, Pallas, and the fourth, Nisus, and that when Attica was divided into four parts, Nisus obtained Megaris as his portion and founded Nisaea. Now, according to Philochorus,15 his rule extended from the Isthmus to the Pythium,16 but according to Andron,17 only as far as Eleusis and the Thriasian Plain. Although different writers have stated the division into four parts in different ways, it suffices to take the following from Sophocles: Aegeus says that his father ordered him to depart to the shorelands, assigning to him as the eldest the best portion of this land; then to Lycus "he assigns Euboea's garden that lies side by side therewith; and for Nisus he selects the neighboring land of Sceiron's shore; and the southerly part of the land fell to this rugged Pallas, breeder of giants."18 These, then, are the proofs which writers use to show that Megaris was a part of Attica. [7] But after the return of the Heracleidae and the partitioning of the country, it came to pass that many of the former inhabitants were driven out of their homelands into Attica by the Heracleidae and the Dorians who came back with them. Among these was Melanthus, the king of Messene. And he reigned also over the Athenians, by their consent, after his victory in single combat over Xanthus, the king of the Boeotians. But since Attica was now populous on account of the exiles, the Heracleidae became frightened, and at the instigation chiefly of the people of Corinth and the people of Messene--of the former because of their proximity and of the latter because Codrus, the son of Melanthus, was at that time king of Attica--they made an expedition against Attica. But being defeated in battle they retired from the whole of the land except the Megarian territory; this they occupied and not only founded the city Megara19 but also made its population Dorians instead of Ionians. And they also destroyed the pillar which was the boundary between the Ionians and the Peloponnesians. [8] The city of the Megarians has experienced many changes, but nevertheless it has endured until the present time. It once even had schools of philosophers who were called the Megarian sect, these being the successors of Eucleides, the Socratic philosopher, a Megarian by birth, just as the Eleian sect, to which Pyrrhon belonged, were the successors of Phaedon the Eleian, who was also a Socratic philosopher, and just as the Eretrian sect were the successors of Menedemus the Eretrian. The country of the Megarians, like Attica, has rather poor soil, and the greater part of it is occupied by the Oneian Mountains, as they are called--a kind of ridge, which extends from the Sceironian Rocks to Boeotia and Cithaeron, and separates the sea at Nisaea from the Alcyonian Sea, as it is called, at Pagae. [9] On the voyage from Nisaea to Attica one comes to five small islands. Then to Salamis, which is about seventy stadia in length, though some say eighty. It contains a city of the same name; the ancient city, now deserted, faces towards Aegina and the south wind (just as Aeschylus has said, "And Aegina here lies towards the blasts of the south wind"20 ), but the city of today is situated on a gulf, on a peninsula-like place which borders on Attica. In early times it was called by different names, for example, "Sciras" and "Cychreia," after certain heroes. It is from one21 of these heroes that Athena is called "Sciras," and that a place in Attica is called "Scira," and that a certain sacred rite is performed in honor of "Scirus,"22 and that one of the months is called "Scirophorion." And it is from the other hero that the serpent "Cychreides" took its name--the serpent which, according to Hesiod, was fostered by Cychreus and driven out by Eurylochus because it was damaging the island, and was welcomed to Eleusis by Demeter and made her attendant. And the island was also called Pityussa, from the tree.23 But the fame of the island is due to the Aiacidae, who ruled over it, and particularly to Aias, the son of Telamon, and also to the fact that near this island Xerxes was defeated by the Greeks in a naval battle and fled to his homeland. And the Aeginetans also shared in the glory of this struggle, since they were neighbors and furnished a considerable fleet. And there is in Salamis a river Bocarus, which is now called Bocalia. [10] At the present time the island is held by the Athenians, although in early times there was strife between them and the Megarians for its possession. Some say that it was Peisistratus, others Solon, who inserted in the Catalogue of Ships immediately after the verse, "and Aias brought twelve ships from Salamis,"24 the verse, "and, bringing them, halted them where the battalions of the Athenians were stationed,"25 and then used the poet as a witness that the island had belonged to the Athenians from the beginning. But the critics do not accept this interpretation, because many of the verses bear witness to the contrary. For why is Aias found in the last place in the ship-camp, not with the Athenians, but with the Thessalians under Protesilaüs? "Here were the ships of Aias and Protesilaüs."26 And in the Visitation of the troops, Agamemnon "found Menestheus the charioteer, son of Peteos, standing still; and about him were the Athenians, masters of the battle-cry. And near by stood Odysseus of many wiles, and about him, at his side, the ranks of the Cephallenians."27 And back again to Aias and the Salaminians, "he came to the Aïantes,"28 and near them, "Idomeneus on the other side,"29 not Menestheus. The Athenians, then, are reputed to have cited alleged testimony of this kind from Homer, and the Megarians to have replied with the following parody: "Aias brought ships from Salamis, from Polichne, from Aegeirussa, from Nisaea, and from Tripodes"; these four are Megarian places, and, of these, Tripodes is called Tripodiscium, near which the present marketplace of the Megarians is situated. [11] Some say that Salamis is foreign to Attica, citing the fact that the priestess of Athena Polias does not touch the fresh cheese made in Attica, but eats only that which is brought from a foreign country, yet uses, among others, that from Salamis. Wrongly, for she eats cheese brought from the other islands that are admittedly attached to Attica, since those who began this custom considered as "foreign" any cheese that was imported by sea. But it seems that in early times the present Salamis was a separate state, and that Megara was a part of Attica. And it is on the seaboard opposite Salamis that the boundaries between the Megarian country and Atthis30 are situated--two mountains which are called Cerata.31 [12] Then one comes to the city Eleusis, in which is the temple of the Eleusinian Demeter, and the mystic chapel which was built by Ictinus, a chapel which is large enough to admit a crowd of spectators. This Ictinus also built the Parthenon on the Acropolis in honor of Athena, Pericles superintending the work. Eleusis is numbered among the demes. [13] Then one comes to the Thriasian Plain, and the shore and deme bearing the same name. Then to Cape Amphiale and the quarry that lies above it, and to the passage to Salamis, about two stadia wide, across which Xerxes attempted to build a mole,32 but was forestalled by the naval battle and the flight of the Persians. Here, too, are the Pharmacussae, two small islands, on the larger of which is to be seen the tomb of Circe. [14] Above this shore is the mountain called Corydallus, and also the deme Corydalleis. Then one comes to the harbor Phoron, and to Psyttalia,33 a small, deserted, rocky island, which some have called the eyesore of the Peiraeus. And near by, too, is Atalanta, which bears the same name as the island near Euboea and the Locrians, and another island similar to Psyttalia. Then one comes to the Peiraeus, which also is classed among the demes, and to Munychia. [15] Munychia is a hill which forms a peninsula; and it is hollowed out and undermined34 in many places, partly by nature and partly by the purpose of man, so that it admits of dwellings; and the entrance to it is by means of a narrow opening35 And beneath the hill lie three harbors. Now in early times Munychia was walled, and covered with habitations in a manner similar to the city of the Rhodians,36 including within the circuit of its walls both the Peiraeus and the harbors, which were full of ship-houses, among which was the arsenal, the work of Philon. And the naval station was sufficient for the four hundred ships, for no fewer than this the Athenians were wont to despatch on expeditions. With this wall were connected the "legs" that stretched down from the city; these were the long walls, forty stadia in length, which connected the city with the Peiraeus. But the numerous wars caused the ruin of the wall and of the fortress of Munychia, and reduced the Peiraeus to a small settlement, round the harbors and the temple of Zeus Soter. The small roofed colonnades of the temple have admirable paintings, the works of famous artists; and its open court has statues. The long walls, also, are torn down, having been destroyed at first by the Lacedaemonians, and later by the Romans, when Sulla took both the Peiraeus and the city by siege.37 [16] The city itself is a rock situated in a plain and surrounded by dwellings. On the rock is the sacred precinct of Athena, comprising both the old temple of Athena Polias,38 in which is the lamp that is never quenched,39 and the Parthenon built by Ictinus, in which is the work in ivory by Pheidias, the Athena. However, if I once began to describe the multitude of things in this city that are lauded and proclaimed far and wide, I fear that I should go too far, and that my work would depart from the purpose I have in view. For the words of Hegesias40 occur to me: "I see the acropolis, and the mark of the huge trident41 there. I see Eleusis, and I have become an initiate into its sacred mysteries; yonder is the Leocorium, here is the Theseium; I am unable to point them all out one by one; for Attica is the possession of the gods, who seized it as a sanctuary for themselves, and of the ancestral heroes." So this writer mentioned only one of the significant things on the acropolis; but Polemon the Periegete42 wrote four books on the dedicatory offerings on the acropolis alone. Hegesias is proportionately brief in referring to the other parts of the city and to the country; and though he mentions Eleusis, one of the one hundred and seventy demes (or one hundred and seventy-four, as the number is given), he names none of the others. [17] Most of the demes, if not all, have numerous stories of a character both mythical and historical connected with them; Aphidna, for example, has the rape of Helen by Theseus, the sacking of the place by the Dioscuri and their recovery of their sister; Marathon has the Persian battle; Rhamnus has the statue of Nemesis, which by some is called the work of Diodotus and by others of Agoracritus the Parian, a work which both in grandeur and in beauty is a great success and rivals the works of Pheidias; and so with Deceleia, the base of operations of the Peloponnesians in the Deceleian War; and Phyle, whence Thrasybulus brought the popular party back to the Peiraeus and then to the city. And so, also, in the case of several other demes there are many historical incidents to tell; and, further, the Leocorium and the Theseium have myths connected with them, and so has the Lyceium, and the Olympicum (the Olympium is the same thing), which the king43 who dedicated it left half finished at his death. And in like manner also the Academia, and the gardens of the philosophers, and the Odeium, and the colonnade called "Poecile,"44 and the temples in the city containing very many marvellous works of different artists. [18] The account would be much longer if one should pass in review the early founders of the settlement, beginning with Cecrops; for all writers do not agree about them, as is shown even by the names. For instance, Actice, they say, was derived from Actaeon; and Atthis and Attica from Atthis, the son of Cranaüs, after whom the inhabitants were also called Cranaï; and Mopsopia from Mopsopus; and Ionia from Ion, the son of Xuthus; and Poseidonia and Athens from the gods after whom they were named. And, as has already been said,45 the race of the Pelasgi clearly sojourned here too, and on account of their wanderings were called "Pelargi."46 [19] The greater men's fondness for learning about things that are famous and the greater the number of men who have talked about them, the greater the censure, if one is not master of the historical facts. For example, in his Collection of the Rivers, Callimachus says that it makes him laugh if anyone makes bold to write that the Athenian virgins "draw pure liquid from the Eridanus,"47 from which even cattle would hold aloof. Its sources are indeed existent now, with pure and potable water, as they say, outside the Gates of Diochares, as they are called, near the Lyceium;48 but in earlier times there was also a fountain near by which was constructed by man, with abundant and excellent water; and even if the water is not so now, why should it be a thing to wonder at, if in early times the water was abundant and pure, and therefore also potable, but in later times underwent a change? However, it is not permitted me to linger over details, since they are so numerous, nor yet, on the other hand, to pass by them all in silence without even mentioning one or another of them in a summary way. [20] It suffices, then, to add thus much: According to Philochorus, when the country was being devastated, both from the sea by the Carians, and from the land by the Boeotians, who were called Aonians, Cecrops first settled the multitude in twelve cities, the names of which were Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Deceleia, Eleusis, Aphidna (also called Aphidnae, in the plural), Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephisia.49 And at a later time Theseus is said to have united the twelve into one city, that of today. Now in earlier times the Athenians were ruled by kings; and then they changed to a democracy; but tyrants assailed them, Peisistratus and his sons; and later an oligarchy arose, not only that of the four hundred, but also that of the thirty tyrants, who were set over them by the Lacedaemonians; of these they easily rid themselves, and preserved the democracy until the Roman conquest. For even though they were molested for a short time by the Macedonian kings, and were even forced to obey them, they at least kept the general type of their government the same. And some say that they were actually best governed at that time, during the ten years when Cassander reigned over the Macedonians. For although this man is reputed to have been rather tyrannical in his dealings with all others, yet he was kindly disposed towards the Athenians, once he had reduced the city to subjection; for he placed over the citizens Demetrius of Phalerum, one of the disciples of Theophrastus the philosopher, who not only did not destroy the democracy but even improved it, as is made clear in the Memoirs which Demetrius wrote concerning this government. But the envy and hatred felt for oligarchy was so strong that, after the death of Cassander, Demetrius was forced to flee to Egypt; and the statues of him, more than three hundred, were pulled down by the insurgents and melted, and some writers go on to say that they were made into chamber pots. Be that as it may, the Romans, seeing that the Athenians had a democratic government when they took them over, preserved their autonomy and liberty. But when the Mithridatic War came on, tyrants were placed over them, whomever the king wished. The most powerful of these, Aristion, who violently oppressed the city, was punished by Sulla the Roman commander when he took this city by siege, though he pardoned the city itself; and to this day it is free and held in honor among the Romans. [21] After the Peiraeus comes the deme Phalereis, on the seaboard next to it; then Halimusii, Aexoneis, Alaeeis, Aexonici, and Anagyrasii. Then Thoreis, Lamptreis, Aegilieis, Anaphlystii, Ateneis. These are the demes as far as the cape of Sunium. Between the aforesaid demes is a long cape, the first cape after Aexoneis, Zoster; then another after Thoreis, I mean Astypalaea; off the former of these lies the island Phabra and off the latter the island Eleussa; and also opposite Aexonieis is Hydrussa. And in the neighborhood of Anaphlystus is also the shrine of Pan, and the temple of Aphrodite Colias, at which place, they say, were cast forth by the waves the last wreckage of the ships after the Persian naval battle near Salamis, the wreckage concerning which Apollo predicted "the women of Colias will cook food with the oars." Off these places, too, is the island Belbina, at no great distance, and also the palisade of Patroclus. But most of these islands are uninhabited. [22] On doubling the cape of Sunium one comes to Sunium, a noteworthy deme; then to Thoricus; then to a deme called Potamus, whose inhabitants are called Potamii; then to Prasia, to Steiria, to Brauron, where is the temple of the Artemis Brauronia, to Halae Araphenides, where is the temple of Artemis Tauropolus, to Myrrinus, to Probalinthus, and to Marathon, where Miltiades utterly destroyed the forces under Datis the Persian, without waiting for the Lacedaemonians, who came too late because they wanted the full moon. Here, too, is the scene of the myth of the Marathonian bull, which was slain by Theseus. After Marathon one comes to Tricorynthus; then to Rhamnus, the sanctuary of Nemesis; then to Psaphis, the land of the Oropians. In the neighborhood of Psaphis is the Amphiaraeium, an oracle once held in honor, where in his flight Amphiaraüs, as Sophocles says, "with four-horse chariot, armour and all, was received by a cleft that was made50 in the Theban dust."51 Oropus has often been disputed territory; for it is situated on the common boundary of Attica and Boeotia. Off this coast are islands: off Thoricus and Sunium lies the island Helene; it is rugged and deserted, and in its length of about sixty stadia extends parallel to the coast. This island, they say, is mentioned by the poet where Alexander52 says to Helen: "Not even when first I snatched thee from lovely Lacedaemon and sailed with thee on the seafaring ships, and in the island Cranaë joined with thee in love and couch";53 for he calls Cranaë54 the island now called Helene from the fact that the intercourse took place there. And after Helene comes Euboea, which lies off the next stretch of coast; it likewise is narrow and long and in length lies parallel to the mainland, like Helene. The voyage from Sunium to the southerly promontory of Euboea, which is called Leuce Acte, is three hundred stadia. However, I shall discuss Euboea later ;55 but as for the demes in the interior of Attica, it would be tedious to recount them because of their great number. [23] Of the mountains, those which are most famous are Hymettus, Brilessus, and Lycabettus; and also Parnes and Corydallus. Near the city are most excellent quarries of marble, the Hymettian and Pentelic. Hymettus also produces the best honey. The silver mines in Attica were originally valuable, but now they have failed. Moreover, those who worked them, when the mining yielded only meager returns, melted again the old refuse, or dross, and were still able to extract from it pure silver, since the workmen of earlier times had been unskillful in heating the ore in furnaces. But though the Attic honey is the best in the world, that in the country of the silver mines is said to be much the best of all, the kind which is called acapniston,56 from the mode of its preparation. [24] The rivers of Attica are the Cephissus, which has its source in the deme Trinemeis; it flows through the plain (hence the allusions to the "bridge" and the "bridge-railleries "57 ) and then through the legs of the walls which extend from the city to the Peiraeus; it empties into the Phaleric Gulf, being a torrential stream most of the time, although in summer it decreases and entirely gives out. And such is still more the case with the Ilissus, which flows from the other part of the city into the same coast, from the region above Agra58 and the Lyceium, and from the fountain which is lauded by Plato in the Phaedrus.59 So much for Attica. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 8. 1. 3. 2 And therefore comprises both. The first peninsula includes the Isthmus, Crommyon being the first place beyond it, in Megaris. 3 Eudoxus of Cnidus (fl. 350 B.C.). 4 Including the shore of the Isthmus. 5 That is, the Corinthian Gulf, which Eudoxus and Strabo consider a part of the sea that extends eastward from the Sicilian Sea (cf. 8. 1. 3). Others, however, understand that Strabo refers to the recess of the Crisaean Gulf in the restricted sense, that is, the Gulf of Salona. 6 For the meaning of "climata" see vol. i, p. 22, footnote 2. 7 That is, Attica; not to be confused with the Acte in Argolis, mentioned in 9. l. 1. 8 i.e., the interior plain of Attica. 9 9. 1. 1, 8. 1. 3. 10 i.e., Shoreland. 11 "Pine-bender." His name was Sinis. For the story, see Paus. 2.1.3. 12 That is, to one travelling from the Isthmus to Megaris and Attica. 13 Hom. Il. 2.546 14 Hom. Il. 13.685 15 Philochorus the Athenian (fl. about 300 B.C.) wrote a work entitled Atthis, in seventeen books. Only fragments remain. 16 To what Pythium Philochorus refers is uncertain, but he seems to mean the temple of Pythian Apollo in the deme of Oenoe, about twelve miles northwest of Eleusis; or possibly the temple of Apollo which was situated between Eleusis and Athens on the site of the present monastery of Daphne. 17 See footnote on 10. 4. 6. 18 Soph. Fr. 872 (Nauck) 19 Cf. 8. 1. 2. 20 Aesch. Fr. 404 21 Scirus. 22 Scirus founded the ancient sanctuary of Athena Sciras at Phalerum. After his death the Eleusinians buried him between Athens and Eleusis at a place which in his honor they called "Scira," or, according to Paus. 1.36.4 and others, "Scirum." 23 "Pitys," "pine-tree." 24 Hom. Il. 2.557 25 Hom. Il. 2.558 26 Hom. Il. 13.681 27 Hom. Il. 4.327 28 Hom. Il. 4.273 29 Hom. Il. 3.230 30 Attica. 31 "Horns." Two horn-shaped peaks of a south-western spur of Cithaeron, and still called Kerata-Pyrgos or Keratopiko (Forbiger, Handbuch der alten Geographie, iii. 631, note 97). 32 So Ctesias Persica 26, but in the account of Hdt. 8.97 it was after the naval battle that "he attempted to build a mole." In either case it is very improbable that he made a serious attempt to do so. See Smith and Laird, Herodotus, Books vii and viii, p.381 (American Book Co.), note on xÇma . 33 Now called Lipsokutáli (see Frazer, note on Paus. 1.36.2). 34 "Probably in part the result of quarrying, for numerous traces of quarries are visible on these hills at the present day" (Tozer, Selections, p. 228). 35 i.e., the entrance by way of the narrow isthmus. 36 "With broad straight streets, the houses of which rose one above another like the seats of a theater. Under the auspices of Pericles, Peiraeus was laid out by the famous architect, Hippodamus of Miletus who afterwards built the city of Rhodes" (Tozer, l.c.). 37 86 B.C. 38 The Erechtheium (see D'Ooge, Acropolis of Athens, Appendix iii). 39 Cp. Paus. l.26.7. 40 Hegesias of Magnesia (fl. about 250 B.C.) wrote a History of Alexander the Great. Only fragments remain. 41 In the rock of the well in the Erechtheium. 42 A "Periegete" was a "Describer" of geographical and topographical details. 43 Antiochus Epiphanes, of the Seleucid Dynasty (reigned 175--164 B.C.). See Frazer, note on Paus. 1.18.6. 44 "Varicolored." The painting was done by Polygnotus, about the middle of the fifth century B.C. 45 5. 2. 4. 46 i.e., "Storks" (see 5. 2. 4). 47 Authorship unknown (see Callimachus Fr. 100e (Schneider) 48 On the different views as to the position and course of the Eridanus at Athens, see Frazer, note on Paus. 1.19.5. 49 Thus only eleven names are given in the most important MSS., though "Phalerus" appears after "Cephisia" in some (see critical note on opposite page). But it seems best to assume that Strabo either actually included Athens in his list or left us to infer that he meant Athens as one of the twelve. 50 By a thunderbolt of Zeus, to save the pious prophet from being slain. 51 Soph. Fr. 873 (Nauck). 52 Paris. 53 Hom. Il. 3.443. 54 "Rough." 55 10. 1. 56 "Unsmoked," i.e., the honey was taken from the hive without the use of smoke. 57 Literally, the "gephyra" ("bridge") and "gephyrismi" ("bridge-isms"). It appears that on this bridge the Initiated, on their procession to Eleusis, engaged in mutual raillery of a wanton character (but see Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. GefurismoÛ ). 58 A suburb in the deme of Agryle. 59 229 A.D.

I. I began my description by going over all the western parts of Europe comprised between the inner and the outer sea;1 and now that I have encompassed in my survey all the barbarian tribes in Europe as far as the Tanaïs and also a small part of Greece, Macedonia,2 I now shall give an account of the remainder of the geography of Greece. This subject was first treated by Homer; and then, after him, by several others, some of whom have written special treatises entitled Harbours, or Coasting Voyages, or General Descriptions of the Earth, or the like; and in these is comprised also the description of Greece. Others have set forth the topography of the continents in separate parts of their general histories, for instance, Ephorus and Polybius. Still others have inserted certain things on this subject in their treatises on physics and mathematics, for instance, Poseidonius and Hipparchus. Now although the statements of the others are easy to pass judgment upon, yet those of Homer require critical inquiry, since he speaks poetically, and not of things as they now are, but of things as they were in antiquity, which for the most part have been obscured by time. Be this as it may, as far as I can I must undertake the inquiry; and I shall begin where I left off. My account ended, on the west and the north, with the tribes of the Epeirotes and of the Illyrians, and, on the east, with those of the Macedonians as far as Byzantium. After the Epeirotes and the Illyrians, then, come the following peoples of the Greeks: the Acarnanians, the Aetolians, and the Ozolian Locrians; and, next, the Phocians and Boeotians; and opposite these, across the arm of the sea, is the Peloponnesus, which with these encloses the Corinthian Gulf, and not only shapes the gulf but also is shaped by it; and after Macedonia, the Thessalians (extending as far as the Malians) and the countries of the rest of the peoples outside the Isthmus, 3 as also of those inside. There have been many tribes in Greece, but those which go back to the earliest times are only as many in number as the Greek dialects which we have learned to distinguish. But though the dialects themselves are four in number,4 we may say that the Ionic is the same as the ancient Attic, for the Attic people of ancient times were called Ionians, and from that stock sprang those Ionians who colonized Asia and used what is now called the Ionic speech; and we may say that the Doric dialect is the same as the Aeolic, for all the Greeks outside the Isthmus, except the Athenians and the Megarians and the Dorians who live about Parnassus, are to this day still called Aeolians. And it is reasonable to suppose that the Dorians too, since they were few in number and lived in a most rugged country, have, because of their lack of intercourse with others, changed their speech and their other customs to the extent that they are no longer a part of the same tribe as before. And this was precisely the case with the Athenians; that is, they lived in a country that was both thin-soiled and rugged, and for this reason, according to Thucydides, 5 their country remained free from devastation, and they were regarded as an indigenous people, who always occupied the same country, since no one drove them out of their country or even desired to possess it. This, therefore, as one may suppose, was precisely the cause of their becoming different both in speech and in customs, albeit they were few in number. And just as the Aeolic element predominated in the parts outside the Isthmus, so too the people inside the Isthmus were in earlier times Aeolians; and then they became mixed with other peoples, since, in the first place, Ionians from Attica seized the Aegialus,6 and, secondly, the Heracleidae brought back the Dorians, who founded both Megara and many of the cities of the Peloponnesus. The Ionians, however, were soon driven out again by the Achaeans, an Aeolic tribe; and so there were left in the Peloponnesus only the two tribes, the Aeolian and the Dorian. Now all the peoples who had less intercourse with the Dorians--as was the case with the Arcadians and with the Eleians, since the former were wholly mountaineers and had no share in the allotments7 of territory, while the latter were regarded as sacred to the Olympian Zeus and hence have long lived to themselves in peace, especially because they belonged to the Aeolic stock and had admitted the army which came back with Oxylus 8 about the time of the return of the Heracleidae--these peoples, I say, spoke the Aeolic dialect, whereas the rest used a sort of mixture of the two, some leaning more to the Aeolic and some less. And, I might almost say, even now the people of each city speaks a different dialect, although, because of the predominance which has been gained by the Dorians, one and all are reputed to speak the Doric. Such, then, are the tribes of the Greeks, and such in general terms is their ethnographical division. Let me now take them separately, following the appropriate order, and tell about them. Ephorus says that, if one begins with the western parts, Acarnania is the beginning of Greece; for, he adds, Acarnania is the first to border on the tribes of the Epeirotes. But just as Ephorus, using the seacoast as his measuring-line, begins with Acarnania (for he decides in favor of the sea as a kind of guide in his description of places, because otherwise he might have represented parts that border on the land of the Macedonians and the Thessalians as the beginning), so it is proper that I too, following the natural character of the regions, should make the sea my counsellor. Now this sea, issuing forth out of the Sicilian Sea, on one side stretches to the Corinthian Gulf, and on the other forms a large peninsula, the Peloponnesus, which is closed by a narrow isthmus. Thus Greece consists of two very large bodies of land, the part inside the Isthmus, and the part outside, which extends through Pylae9 as far as the outlet of the Peneius (this latter is the Thessalian part of Greece);10 but the part inside the Isthmus is both larger and more famous. I might almost say that the Peloponnesus is the acropolis of Greece as a whole;11 for, apart from the splendor and power of the tribes that have lived in it, the very topography of Greece, diversified as it is by gulfs, many capes, and, what are the most significant, large peninsulas that follow one another in succession, suggests such hegemony for it. The first of the peninsulas is the Peloponnesus which is closed by an isthmus forty stadia in width. The second includes the first; and its isthmus extends in width from Pagae in Megaris to Nisaea, the naval station of the Megarians, the distance across being one hundred and twenty stadia from sea to sea. The third likewise includes the second; and its isthmus extends in width from the recess of the Crisaean Gulf as far as Thermopylae--the imaginary straight line, about five hundred and eight stadia in length, enclosing within the peninsula the whole of Boeotia and cutting obliquely Phocis and the country of the Epicnemidians.12 The fourth is the peninsula whose isthmus extends from the Ambracian Gulf through Oeta13 and Trachinia to the Maliac Gulf and Thermopylae--the isthmus being about eight hundred stadia in width. But there is another isthmus, more than one thousand stadia in width, extending from the same Ambracian Gulf through the countries of the Thessalians and the Macedonians to the recess of the Thermaean Gulf. So then, the succession of the peninsulas suggests a kind of order, and not a bad one, for me to follow in my description; and I should begin with the smallest, but most famous, of them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 The Mediterranean and Atlantic. 2 See Book 7, Fr. 9, in Vol. III. 3 i.e., north of the Isthmus. 4 See 14. 5. 26. 5 1. 2 and 2. 36. 6 The Peloponnesus Achaea. 7 Cp. 8. 5. 6. 8 Cp. 8. 3. 33. 9 Thermopylae. 10 That is, from Pylae to the outlet of the Peneius. 11 Groskurd, Kramer and Curtius think that something like the following has fallen out of the MSS.: "and that Greece is the acropolis of the whole world." 12 The Epicnemidian Locrians. 13 Now the Katavothra Mountain. It forms a boundary between the valleys of the Spercheius and Cephissus Rivers.

I. After the mouth of the Silaris one comes to Leucania, and to the temple of the Argoan Hera, built by Jason, and near by, within fifty stadia, to Poseidonia. Thence, sailing out past the gulf, one comes to Leucosia,1 an island, from which it is only a short voyage across to the continent. The island is named after one of the Sirens, who was cast ashore here after the Sirens had flung themselves, as the myth has it, into the depths of the sea. In front of the island lies that promontory2 which is opposite the Sirenussae and with them forms the Poseidonian Gulf. On doubling this promontory one comes immediately to another gulf, in which there is a city which was called "Hyele" by the Phocaeans who founded it, and by others "Ele," after a certain spring, but is called by the men of today "Elea." This is the native city of Parmenides and Zeno, the Pythagorean philosophers. It is my opinion that not only through the influence of these men but also in still earlier times the city was well governed; and it was because of this good government that the people not only held their own against the Leucani and the Poseidoniatae, but even returned victorious, although they were inferior to them both in extent of territory and in population. At any rate, they are compelled, on account of the poverty of their soil, to busy themselves mostly with the sea and to establish factories for the salting of fish, and other such industries. According to Antiochus,3 after the capture of Phocaea by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, all the Phocaeans who could do so embarked with their entire families on their light boats and, under the leadership of Creontiades, sailed first to Cyrnus and Massalia, but when they were beaten off from those places founded Elea. Some, however, say that the city took its name from the River Elees.4 It is about two hundred stadia distant from Poseidonia. After Elea comes the promontory of Palinurus. Off the territory of Elea are two islands, the Oenotrides, which have anchoring-places. After Palinurus comes Pyxus--a cape, harbor, and river, for all three have the same name. Pyxus was peopled with new settlers by Micythus, the ruler of the Messene in Sicily, but all the settlers except a few sailed away again. After Pyxus comes another gulf, and also Laüs--a river and city; it is the last of the Leucanian cities, lying only a short distance above the sea, is a colony of the Sybaritae, and the distance thither from Ele is four hundred stadia. The whole voyage along the coast of Leucania is six hundred and fifty stadia. Near Laüs is the hero-temple of Draco, one of the companions of Odysseus, in regard to which the following oracle was given out to the Italiotes:5 Much people will one day perish about Laïan Draco. 6 And the oracle came true, for, deceived by it, the peoples7 who made campaigns against Laüs, that is, the Greek inhabitants of Italy, met disaster at the hands of the Leucani. These, then, are the places on the Tyrrhenian seaboard that belong to the Leucani. As for the other sea,8 they could not reach it at first; in fact, the Greeks who held the Gulf of Tarentum were in control there. Before the Greeks came, however, the Leucani were as yet not even in existence, and the regions were occupied by the Chones and the Oenotri. But after the Samnitae had grown considerably in power, and had ejected the Chones and the Oenotri, and had settled a colony of Leucani in this portion of Italy, while at the same time the Greeks were holding possession of both seaboards as far as the Strait, the Greeks and the barbarians carried on war with one another for a long time. Then the tyrants of Sicily, and afterwards the Carthaginians, at one time at war with the Romans for the possession of Sicily and at another for the possession of Italy itself, maltreated all the peoples in this part of the world, but especially the Greeks. Later on, beginning from the time of the Trojan war, the Greeks had taken away from the earlier inhabitants much of the interior country also, and indeed had increased in power to such an extent that they called this part of Italy, together with Sicily, Magna Graecia. But today all parts of it, except Taras,9 Rhegium, and Neapolis, have become completely barbarized,10 and some parts have been taken and are held by the Leucani and the Brettii, and others by the Campani--that is, nominally by the Campani but in truth by the Romans, since the Campani themselves have become Romans. However, the man who busies himself with the description of the earth must needs speak, not only of the facts of the present, but also sometimes of the facts of the past, especially when they are notable. As for the Leucani, I have already spoken of those whose territory borders on the Tyrrhenian Sea, while those who hold the interior are the people who live above the Gulf of Tarentum. But the latter, and the Brettii, and the Samnitae themselves (the progenitors of these peoples) have so utterly deteriorated that it is difficult even to distinguish their several settlements; and the reason is that no common organization longer endures in any one of the separate tribes; and their characteristic differences in language, armor, dress, and the like, have completely disappeared; and, besides, their settlements, severally and in detail, are wholly without repute. Accordingly, without making distinctions between them, I shall only tell in a general way what I have learned about the peoples who live in the interior, I mean the Leucani and such of the Samnitae as are their next neighbors. Petelia, then, is regarded as the metropolis of the Chones, and has been rather populous down to the present day. It was founded by Philoctetes after he, as the result of a political quarrel, had fled from Meliboea. It has so strong a position by nature that the Samnitae once fortified it against the Thurii. And the old Crimissa, which is near the same regions, was also founded by Philoctetes. Apollodorus, in his work On Ships,11 in mentioning Philoctetes, says that, according to some, when Philoctetes arrived at the territory of Croton, he colonized the promontory Crimissa, and, in the interior above it, the city Chone, from which the Chonians of that district took their name, and that some of his companions whom he had sent forth with Aegestes the Trojan to the region of Eryx in Sicily fortified Aegesta.12 Moreover, Grumentum and Vertinae are in the interior, and so are Calasarna and some other small settlements, until we arrive at Venusia, a notable city; but I think that this city and those that follow in order after it as one goes towards Campania are Samnite cities. Beyond Thurii lies also the country that is called Tauriana. The Leucani are Samnite in race, but upon mastering the Poseidoniatae and their allies in war they took possession of their cities. At all other times, it is true, their government was democratic, but in times of war they were wont to choose a king from those who held magisterial offices. But now they are Romans. The seaboard that comes next after Leucania, as far as the Sicilian Strait and for a distance of thirteen hundred and fifty stadia, is occupied by the Brettii. According to Antiochus, in his treatise On Italy, this territory (and this is the territory which he says he is describing) was once called Italy, although in earlier times it was called Oenotria. And he designates as its boundaries, first, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, the same boundary that I have assigned to the country of the Brettii--the River Laüs; and secondly, on the Sicilian Sea, Metapontium. But as for the country of the Tarantini, which borders on Metapontium, he names it as outside of Italy, and calls its inhabitants Iapyges. And at a time more remote, according to him, the names "Italians" and "Oenotrians" were applied only to the people who lived this side the isthmus in the country that slopes toward the Sicilian Strait. The isthmus itself, one hundred and sixty stadia in width, lies between two gulfs--the Hipponiate (which Antiochus has called Napetine) and the Scylletic. The coasting-voyage round the country comprised between the isthmus and the Strait is two thousand stadia. But after that, he says, the name of "Italy" and that of the "Oenotrians" was further extended as far as the territory of Metapontium and that of Seiris, for, he adds, the Chones, a well-regulated Oenotrian tribe, had taken up their abode in these regions and had called the land Chone. Now Antiochus had spoken only in a rather simple and antiquated way, without making any distinctions between the Leucani and the Brettii. In the first place, Leucania lies between the Tyrrhenian and Sicilian coastlines,13 the former coastline from the River Silaris as far as Laüs, and the latter, from Metapontium as far as Thurii; in the second place, on the mainland, from the country of the Samnitae as far as the isthmus which extends from Thurii to Cerilli (a city near Laüs), the isthmus is three hundred stadia in width. But the Brettii are situated beyond the Leucani; they live on a peninsula, but this peninsula includes another peninsula which has the isthmus that extends from Scylletium to the Hipponiate Gulf. The name of the tribe was given to it by the Leucani, for the Leucani call all revolters "brettii." The Brettii revolted, so it is said (at first they merely tended flocks for the Leucani, and then, by reason of the indulgence of their masters, began to act as free men), at the time when Rio made his expedition against Dionysius and aroused all peoples against all others. So much, then, for my general description of the Leucani and the Brettii. The next city after Laüs belongs to Brettium, and is named Temesa, though the men of today call it Tempsa; it was founded by the Ausones, but later on was settled also by the Aetolians under the leadership of Thoas; but the Aetolians were ejected by the Brettii, and then the Brettii were crushed by Hannibal and by the Romans. Near Temesa, and thickly shaded with wild olive trees, is the hero-temple of Polites, one of the companions of Odysseus, who was treacherously slain by the barbarians, and for that reason became so exceedingly wroth against the country that, in accordance with an oracle, the people of the neighborhood collected tribute14 for him; and hence, also, the popular saying applied to those who are merciless,15 that they are "beset by the hero of Temesa." But when the Epizephyrian Locrians captured the city, Euthymus, the pugilist, so the story goes, entered the lists against Polites, defeated him in the fight and forced him to release the natives from the tribute. People say that Homer has in mind this Temesa, not the Tamassus in Cyprus (the name is spelled both ways), when he says "to Temesa, in quest of copper."Hom. Od. 1.184 And in fact copper mines are to be seen in the neighborhood, although now they have been abandoned. Near Temesa is Terina, which Hannibal destroyed, because he was unable to guard it, at the time when he had taken refuge in Brettium itself. Then comes Consentia, the metropolis of the Brettii; and a little above this city is Pandosia, a strong fortress, near which Alexander the Molossian16 was killed. He, too, was deceived by the oracle17 at Dodona, which bade him be on his guard against Acheron and Pandosia; for places which bore these names were pointed out to him in Thesprotia, but he came to his end here in Brettium. Now the fortress has three summits, and the River Acheron flows past it. And there was another oracle that helped to deceive him: Three-hilled Pandosia, much people shalt thou kill one day; for he thought that the oracle clearly meant the destruction of the enemy, not of his own people. It is said that Pandosia was once the capital of the Oenotrian Kings. After Consentia comes Hipponium, which was founded by the Locrians. Later on, the Brettii were in possession of Hipponium, but the Romans took it away from them and changed its name to Vibo Valentia. And because the country round about Hipponium has luxuriant meadows abounding in flowers, people have believed that Core18 used to come hither from Sicily to gather flowers; and consequently it has become the custom among the women of Hipponium to gather flowers and to weave them into garlands, so that on festival days it is disgraceful to wear bought garlands. Hipponium has also a naval station, which was built long ago by Agathocles, the tyrant of the Siciliotes,19 when he made himself master of the city. Thence one sails to the Harbor of Heracles,20 which is the point where the headlands of Italy near the Strait begin to turn towards the west. And on this voyage one passes Medma, a city of the same Locrians aforementioned, which has the same name as a great fountain there, and possesses a naval station near by, called Emporium. Near it is also the Metaurus River, and a mooring-place bearing the same name. Off this coast lie the islands of the Liparaei, at a distance of two hundred stadia from the Strait. According to some, they are the islands of Aeolus, of whom the Poet makes mention in the Odyssey.21 They are seven in number and are all within view both from Sicily and from the continent near Medma. But I shall tell about them when I discuss Sicily. After the Metaurus River comes a second Metaurus.22 Next after this river comes Scyllaeum, a lofty rock which forms a peninsula, its isthmus being low and affording access to ships on both sides. This isthmus Anaxilaüs, the tyrant of the Rhegini, fortified against the Tyrrheni, building a naval station there, and thus deprived the pirates of their passage through the strait. For Caenys,23 too, is near by, being two hundred and fifty stadia distant from Medma; it is the last cape, and with the cape on the Sicilian side, Pelorias, forms the narrows of the Strait. Cape Pelorias is one of the three capes that make the island triangular, and it bends towards the summer sunrise,24 just as Caenys bends towards the west, each one thus turning away from the other in the opposite direction. Now the length of the narrow passage of the Strait from Caenys as far as the Poseidonium,25 or the Columna Rheginorum, is about six stadia, while the shortest passage across is slightly more; and the distance is one hundred stadia from the Columna to Rhegium, where the Strait begins to widen out, as one proceeds towards the east, towards the outer sea, the sea which is called the Sicilian Sea. Rhegium was founded by the Chalcidians who, it is said, in accordance with an oracle, were dedicated, one man out of every ten Chalcidians, to Apollo,26 because of a dearth of crops, but later on emigrated hither from Delphi, taking with them still others from their home. But according to Antiochus, the Zanclaeans sent for the Chalcidians and appointed Antimnestus their founder-in-chief.27 To this colony also belonged the refugees of the Peloponnesian Messenians who had been defeated by the men of the opposing faction. These men were unwilling to be punished by the Lacedaemonians for the violation of the maidens28 which took place at Limnae, though they were themselves guilty of the outrage done to the maidens, who had been sent there for a religious rite and had also killed those who came to their aid.29 So the refugees, after withdrawing to Macistus, sent a deputation to the oracle of the god to find fault with Apollo and Artemis if such was to be their fate in return for their trying to avenge those gods, and also to enquire how they, now utterly ruined, might be saved. Apollo bade them go forth with the Chalcidians to Rhegium, and to be grateful to his sister; for, he added, they were not ruined, but saved, inasmuch as they were surely not to perish along with their native land, which would be captured a little later by the Spartans. They obeyed; and therefore the rulers of the Rhegini down to Anaxilas30 were always appointed from the stock of the Messenians. According to Antiochus, the Siceli and Morgetes had in early times inhabited the whole of this region, but later on, being ejected by the Oenotrians, had crossed over into Sicily. According to some, Morgantium also took its name from the Morgetes of Rhegium.31 The city of Rhegium was once very powerful and had many dependencies in the neighborhood; and it was always a fortified outpost threatening the island, not only in earlier times but also recently, in our own times, when Sextus Pompeius caused Sicily to revolt. It was named Rhegium, either, as Aeschylus says, because of the calamity that had befallen this region, for, as both he and others state, Sicily was once "rent"32 from the continent by earthquakes, "and so from this fact," he adds, "it is called Rhegium." They infer from the occurrences about Aetna and in other parts of Sicily, and in Lipara and in the islands about it, and also in the Pithecussae and the whole of the coast of the adjacent continent, that it is not unreasonable to suppose that the rending actually took place. Now at the present time the earth about the Strait, they say, is but seldom shaken by earthquakes, because the orifices there, through which the fire is blown up and the red-hot masses and the waters are ejected, are open. At that time, however, the fire that was smouldering beneath the earth, together with the wind, produced violent earthquakes, because the passages to the surface were all blocked up, and the regions thus heaved up yielded at last to the force of the blasts of wind, were rent asunder, and then received the sea that was on either side, both here33 and between the other islands in that region.34 And, in fact, Prochyte and the Pithecussae are fragments broken off from the continent, as also Capreae, Leucosia, the Sirenes, and the Oenotrides. Again, there are islands which have arisen from the high seas, a thing that even now happens in many places; for it is more plausible that the islands in the high seas were heaved up from the deeps, whereas it is more reasonable to think that those lying off the promontories and separated merely by a strait from the mainland have been rent therefrom. However, the question which of the two explanations is true, whether Rhegium got its name on account of this or on account of its fame (for the Samnitae might have called it by the Latin word for "royal,"35 because their progenitors had shared in the government with the Romans and used the Latin language to a considerable extent), is open to investigation. Be this as it may, it was a famous city, and not only founded many cities but also produced many notable men, some notable for their excellence as statesmen and others for their learning; nevertheless, Dionysius36 demolished it, they say, on the charge that when he asked for a girl in marriage they proffered the daughter of the public executioner;37 but his son restored a part of the old city and called it Phoebia.38 Now in the time of Pyrrhus the garrison of the Campani broke the treaty and destroyed most of the inhabitants, and shortly before the Marsic war much of the settlement was laid in ruins by earthquakes; but Augustus Caesar, after ejecting Pompeius from Sicily, seeing that the city was in want of population, gave it some men from his expeditionary forces as new settlers, and it is now fairly populous. As one sails from Rhegium towards the east, and at a distance of fifty stadia, one comes to Cape Leucopetra39 (so called from its color), in which, it is said, the Apennine Mountain terminates. Then comes Heracleium, which is the last cape of Italy and inclines towards the south; for on doubling it one immediately sails with the southwest wind as far as Cape Iapygia, and then veers off, always more and more, towards the northwest in the direction of the Ionian Gulf.40 After Heracleium comes a cape belonging to Locris, which is called Zephyrium; its harbor is exposed to the winds that blow from the west, and hence the name. Then comes the city Locri Epizephyrii,41 a colony of the Locri who live on the Crisaean Gulf,42 which was led out by Evanthes only a little while after the founding of Croton and Syracuse.43 Ephorus is wrong in calling it a colony of the Locri Opuntii. However, they lived only three or four years at Zephyrium, and then moved the city to its present site, with the cooperation of Syracusans [for at the same time the latter, among whom . . .]44 And at Zephyrium there is a spring, called Locria, where the Locri first pitched camp. The distance from Rhegium to Locri is six hundred stadia. The city is situated on the brow of a hill called Epopis. The Locri Epizephyrii are believed to have been the first people to use written laws. After they had lived under good laws for a very long time, Dionysius, on being banished from the country of the Syracusans,45 abused them most lawlessly of all men. For he would sneak into the bed-chambers of the girls after they had been dressed up for their wedding, and lie with them before their marriage; and he would gather together the girls who were ripe for marriage, let loose doves with cropped wings upon them in the midst of the banquets, and then bid the girls waltz around unclad, and also bid some of them, shod with sandals that were not mates (one high and the other low), chase the doves around--all for the sheer indecency of it. However, he paid the penalty after he went back to Sicily again to resume his government; for the Locri broke up his garrison, set themselves free, and thus became masters of his wife and children. These children were his two daughters, and the younger of his two sons (who was already a lad), for the other, Apollocrates, was helping his father to effect his return to Sicily by force of arms. And although Dionysius--both himself and the Tarantini on his behalf--earnestly begged the Locri to release the prisoners on any terms they wished, they would not give them up; instead, they endured a siege and a devastation of their country. But they poured out most of their wrath upon his daughters, for they first made them prostitutes and then strangled them, and then, after burning their bodies, ground up the bones and sank them in the sea. Now Ephorus, in his mention of the written legislation of the Locri which was drawn up by Zaleucus from the Cretan, the Laconian, and the Areopagite usages, says that Zaleucus was among the first to make the following innovation--that whereas before his time it had been left to the judges to determine the penalties for the several crimes, he defined them in the laws, because he held that the opinions of the judges about the same crimes would not be the same, although they ought to be the same. And Ephorus goes on to commend Zaleucus for drawing up the laws on contracts in simpler language. And he says that the Thurii, who later on wished to excel the Locri in precision, became more famous, to be sure, but morally inferior; for, he adds, it is not those who in their laws guard against all the wiles of false accusers that have good laws, but those who abide by laws that are laid down in simple language. And Plato has said as much--that where there are very many laws, there are also very many lawsuits and corrupt practices, just as where there are many physicians, there are also likely to be many diseases.46 The Halex River, which marks the boundary between the Rhegian and the Locrian territories, passes out through a deep ravine; and a peculiar thing happens there in connection with the grasshoppers, that although those on the Locrian bank sing, the others remain mute. As for the cause of this, it is conjectured that on the latter side the region is so densely shaded that the grasshoppers, being wet with dew, cannot expand their membranes, whereas those on the sunny side have dry and horn-like membranes and therefore can easily produce their song. And people used to show in Locri a statue of Eunomus, the cithara-bard, with a locust seated on the cithara. Timaeus says that Eunomus and Ariston of Rhegium were once contesting with each other at the Pythian games and fell to quarrelling about the casting of the lots;47 so Ariston begged the Delphians to cooperate with him, for the reason that his ancestors belonged48 to the god and that the colony had been sent forth from there;49 and although Eunomus said that the Rhegini had absolutely no right even to participate in the vocal contests, since in their country even the grasshoppers, the sweetest-voiced of all creatures, were mute, Ariston was none the less held in favor and hoped for the victory; and yet Eunomus gained the victory and set up the aforesaid image in his native land, because during the contest, when one of the chords broke, a grasshopper lit on his cithara and supplied the missing sound. The interior above these cities is held by the Brettii; here is the city Mamertium, and also the forest that produces the best pitch, the Brettian. This forest is called Sila, is both well wooded and well watered, and is seven hundred stadia in length. After Locri comes the Sagra, a river which has a feminine name. On its banks are the altars of the Dioscuri, near which ten thousand Locri, with Rhegini,50 clashed with one hundred and thirty thousand Crotoniates and gained the victory--an occurrence which gave rise, it is said, to the proverb we use with incredulous people, "Truer than the result at Sagra." And some have gone on to add the fable that the news of the result was reported on the same day51 to the people at the Olympia when the games were in progress, and that the speed with which the news had come was afterwards verified. This misfortune of the Crotoniates is said to be the reason why their city did not endure much longer, so great was the multitude of men who fell in the battle. After the Sagra comes a city founded by the Achaeans, Caulonia, formerly called Aulonia, because of the glen52 which lies in front of it. It is deserted, however, for those who held it were driven out by the barbarians to Sicily and founded the Caulonia there. After this city comes Scylletium, a colony of the Athenians who were with Menestheus (and now called Scylacium).53 Though the Crotoniates held it, Dionysius included it within the boundaries of the Locri. The Scylletic Gulf, which, with the Hipponiate Gulf forms the aforementioned isthmus,54 is named after the city. Dionysius undertook also to build a wall across the isthmus when he made war upon the Leucani, on the pretext, indeed, that it would afford security to the people inside the isthmus from the barbarians outside, but in truth because he wished to break the alliance which the Greeks had with one another, and thus command with impunity the people inside; but the people outside came in and prevented the undertaking. After Scylletium comes the territory of the Crotoniates, and three capes of the Iapyges; and after these, the Lacinium,55 a temple of Hera, which at one time was rich and full of dedicated offerings. As for the distances by sea, writers give them without satisfactory clearness, except that, in a general way, Polybius gives the distance from the strait to Lacinium as two thousand three hundred stadia,56 and the distance thence across to Cape Iapygia as seven hundred. This point is called the mouth of the Tarantine Gulf. As for the gulf itself, the distance around it by sea is of considerable length, two hundred and forty miles,57 as the Chorographer58 says, but Artemidorus says three hundred and eighty for a man well-girded, although he falls short of the real breadth of the mouth of the gulf by as much.59 The gulf faces the winter-sunrise;60 and it begins at Cape Lacinium, for, on doubling it, one immediately comes to the cities61 of the Achaeans, which, except that of the Tarantini, no longer exist, and yet, because of the fame of some of them, are worthy of rather extended mention. The first city is Croton, within one hundred and fifty stadia from the Lacinium; and then comes the River Aesarus, and a harbor, and another river, the Neaethus. The Neaethus got its name, it is said, from what occurred there: Certain of the Achaeans who had strayed from the Trojan fleet put in there and disembarked for an inspection of the region, and when the Trojan women who were sailing with them learned that the boats were empty of men, they set fire to the boats, for they were weary of the voyage, so that the men remained there of necessity, although they at the same time noticed that the soil was very fertile. And immediately several other groups, on the strength of their racial kinship, came and imitated them, and thus arose many settlements, most of which took their names from the Trojans; and also a river, the Neaethus, took its appellation from the aforementioned occurrence.62 According to Antiochus, when the god told the Achaeans to found Croton, Myscellus departed to inspect the place, but when he saw that Sybaris was already founded--having the same name as the river near by--he judged that Sybaris was better; at all events, he questioned the god again when he returned whether it would be better to found this instead of Croton, and the god replied to him (Myscellus63 was a hunchback as it happened): "Myscellus, short of back, in searching else outside thy track, thou hunt'st for morsels only; 'tis right that what one giveth thee thou do approve;"64 and Myscellus came back and founded Croton, having as an associate Archias, the founder of Syracuse, who happened to sail up while on his way to found Syracuse.65 The Iapyges used to live at Croton in earlier times, as Ephorus says. And the city is reputed to have cultivated warfare and athletics; at any rate, in one Olympian festival the seven men who took the lead over all others in the stadium-race were all Crotoniates, and therefore the saying "The last of the Crotoniates was the first among all other Greeks" seems reasonable. And this, it is said, is what gave rise to the other proverb, "more healthful than Croton," the belief being that the place contains something that tends to health and bodily vigor, to judge by the multitude of its athletes. Accordingly, it had a very large number of Olympic victors, although it did not remain inhabited a long time, on account of the ruinous loss of its citizens who fell in such great numbers66 at the River Sagra. And its fame was increased by the large number of its Pythagorean philosophers, and by Milo, who was the most illustrious of athletes, and also a companion of Pythagoras, who spent a long time in the city. It is said that once, at the common mess of the philosophers, when a pillar began to give way, Milo slipped in under the burden and saved them all, and then drew himself from under it and escaped. And it is probably because he relied upon this same strength that he brought on himself the end of his life as reported by some writers; at any rate, the story is told that once, when he was travelling through a deep forest, he strayed rather far from the road, and then, on finding a large log cleft with wedges, thrust his hands and feet at the same time into the cleft and strained to split the log completely asunder; but he was only strong enough to make the wedges fall out, whereupon the two parts of the log instantly snapped together; and caught in such a trap as that, he became food for wild beasts. Next in order, at a distance of two hundred stadia, comes Sybaris, founded by the Achaeans; it is between two rivers, the Crathis and the Sybaris. Its founder was Is of Helice.67 In early times this city was so superior in its good fortune that it ruled over four tribes in the neighborhood, had twenty- five subject cities, made the campaign against the Crotoniates with three hundred thousand men, and its inhabitants on the Crathis alone completely filled up a circuit of fifty stadia. However, by reason of luxury68 and insolence they were deprived of all their felicity by the Crotoniates within seventy days; for on taking the city these conducted the river over it and submerged it. Later on, the survivors, only a few, came together and were making it their home again, but in time these too were destroyed by Athenians and other Greeks, who, although they came there to live with them, conceived such a contempt for them that they not only slew them but removed the city to another place near by and named it Thurii, after a spring of that name. Now the Sybaris River makes the horses that drink from it timid, and therefore all herds are kept away from it; whereas the Crathis makes the hair of persons who bathe in it yellow or white, and besides it cures many afflictions. Now after the Thurii had prospered for a long time, they were enslaved by the Leucani, and when they were taken away from the Leucani by the Tarantini, they took refuge in Rome, and the Romans sent colonists to supplement them, since their population was reduced, and changed the name of the city to Copiae. After Thurii comes Lagaria, a stronghold, bounded by Epeius and the Phocaeans; thence comes the Lagaritan wine, which is sweet, mild, and extremely well thought of among physicians. That of Thurii, too, is one of the famous wines. Then comes the city Heracleia, a short distance above the sea; and two navigable rivers, the Aciris and the Siris. On the Siris there used to be a Trojan city of the same name, but in time, when Heracleia was colonized thence by the Tarantini, it became the port of the Heracleotes. It is Twenty-four stadia distant from Heracleia and about three hundred and thirty from Thurii. Writers produce as proof of its settlement by the Trojans the wooden image of the Trojan Athene which is set up there--the image that closed its eyes, the fable goes, when the suppliants were dragged away by the Ionians who captured the city; for these Ionians came there as colonists when in flight from the dominion of the Lydians, and by force took the city, which belonged to the Chones,69 and called it Polieium; and the image even now can be seen closing its eyes. It is a bold thing, to be sure, to tell such a fable and to say that the image not only closed its eyes (just as they say the image in Troy turned away at the time Cassandra was violated) but can also be seen closing its eyes; and yet it is much bolder to represent as brought from Troy all those images which the historians say were brought from there; for not only in the territory of Siris, but also at Rome, at Lavinium, and at Luceria, Athene is called "Trojan Athena," as though brought from Troy. And further, the daring deed of the Trojan women is current in numerous places, and appears incredible, although it is possible. According to some, however, both Siris and the Sybaris which is on the Teuthras70 were founded by the Rhodians. According to Antiochus, when the Tarantini were at war with the Thurii and their general Cleandridas, an exile from Lacedaemon, for the possession of the territory of Siris, they made a compromise and peopled Siris jointly, although it was adjudged the colony of the Tarantini; but later on it was called Heracleia, its site as well as its name being changed. Next in order comes Metapontium, which is one hundred and forty stadia from the naval station of Heracleia. It is said to have been founded by the Pylians who sailed from Troy with Nestor; and they so prospered from farming, it is said, that they dedicated a golden harvest71 at Delphi. And writers produce as a sign of its having been founded by the Pylians the sacrifice to the shades of the sons of Neleus.72 However, the city was wiped out by the Samnitae. According to Antiochus: Certain of the Achaeans were sent for by the Achaeans in Sybaris and resettled the place, then forsaken, but they were summoned only because of a hatred which the Achaeans who had been banished from Laconia had for the Tarantini, in order that the neighboring Tarantini might not pounce upon the place; there were two cities, but since, of the two, Metapontium was nearer73 to Taras,74 the newcomers were persuaded by the Sybarites to take Metapontium and hold it, for, if they held this, they would also hold the territory of Siris, whereas, if they turned to the territory of Siris, they would add Metapontium to the territory of the Tarantini, which latter was on the very flank of Metapontium; and when, later on, the Metapontians were at war with the Tarantini and the Oenotrians of the interior, a reconciliation was effected in regard to a portion of the land--that portion, indeed, which marked the boundary between the Italy of that time and Iapygia.75 Here, too, the fabulous accounts place Metapontus,76 and also Melanippe the prisoner and her son Boeotus.77 In the opinion of Antiochus, the city Metapontium was first called Metabum and later on its name was slightly altered, and further, Melanippe was brought, not to Metabus, but to Dius,78 as is proved by a hero-temple of Metabus, and also by Asius the poet, when he says that Boeotus was brought forth "in the halls of Dius by shapely Melanippe," Asius Fr. meaning that Melanippe was brought to Dius, not to Metabus. But, as Ephorus says, the colonizer of Metapontium was Daulius, the tyrant of the Crisa which is near Delphi. And there is this further account, that the man who was sent by the Achaeans to help colonize it was Leucippus, and that after procuring the use of the place from the Tarantini for only a day and night he would not give it back, replying by day to those who asked it back that he had asked and taken it for the next night also, and by night that he had taken and asked it also for the next day. Next in order comes Taras and Iapygia; but before discussing them I shall, in accordance with my original purpose, give a general description of the islands that lie in front of Italy; for as from time to time I have named also the islands which neighbor upon the several tribes, so now, since I have traversed Oenotria from beginning to end, which alone the people of earlier times called Italy, it is right that I should preserve the same order in traversing Sicily and the islands round about it. II. Sicily is triangular in shape; and for this reason it was at first called "Trinacria," though later the name was changed to the more euphonious "Thrinacis." Its shape is defined by three capes: Pelorias, which with Caenys and Columna Rheginorum forms the strait, and Pachynus, which lies out towards the east and is washed by the Sicilian Sea, thus facing towards the Peloponnesus and the sea-passage to Crete, and, third, Lilybaeum, the cape that is next to Libya, thus facing at the same time towards Libya and the winter sunset.79 As for the sides which are marked off by the three capes, two of them are moderately concave, whereas the third, the one that reaches from Lilybaeum to Pelorias, is convex; and this last is the longest, being one thousand seven hundred stadia in length, as Poseidonius states, though he adds twenty stadia more. Of the other two sides, the one from Lilybaeum to Pachynus is longer than the other, and the one next to the strait and Italy, from Pelorias to Pachynus, is shortest, being about one thousand one hundred and thirty stadia long. And the distance round the island by sea, as declared by Poseidonius, is four thousand stadia. But in the Chorography the distances given are longer, marked off in sections and given in miles: from Pelorias to Mylae, twenty-five miles; the same from Mylae to Tyndaris; then to Agathyrnum thirty, and the same to Alaesa, and again the same to Cephaloedium, these being small towns; and eighteen to the River Himera,80 which flows through the middle of Sicily; then to Panormus thirty-five, and thirty-two to the Emporium of the Aegestes,81 and the rest of the way, to Lilybaeum, thirty-eight. Thence, on doubling Lilybaeum, to the adjacent side, to the Heracleium seventy-five miles, and to the Emporium of the Acragantini82 twenty, and another twenty83 to Camarina; and then to Pachynus fifty. Thence again along the third side: to Syracuse thirty-six, and to Catana sixty; then to Tauromenium thirty-three; and then to Messene thirty.84 On foot, however, the distance from Pachynus to Pelorias is one hundred and sixty-eight miles, and from Messene to Lilybaeum by the Valerian Way two hundred and thirty-five. But some writers have spoken in a more general way, as, for example, Ephorus: "At any rate, the voyage round the island takes five days and nights." Further, Poseidonius, in marking off the boundaries of the island by means of the "climata,"85 puts Pelorias towards the north, Lilybaeum towards the south, and Pachynus towards the east. But since the "climata" are each divided off into parallelograms, necessarily the triangles that are inscribed (particularly those which are scalene and of which no side fits on any one of the sides of the parallelogram) cannot, because of their slant, be fitted to the "climata."86 However this may be, one might fairly say, in the case of the "climata" of Sicily, which is situated south of Italy, that Pelorias is the most northerly of the three corners; and therefore the side that joins Pelorias to Pachynus will lie out87 towards the east, thus facing towards the north, and also will form the side that is on the strait. But this side must take a slight turn toward the winter sunrise,88 for the shore bends aside in this direction as one proceeds from Catana to Syracuse and Pachynus. Now the distance from Pachynus across to the mouth of the Alpheius89 is four thousand stadia; but when Artemidorus says that it is four thousand six hundred stadia from Pachynus to Taenarum90 and one thousand one hundred and thirty from the Alpheius to the Pamisus, he seems to me to afford us reason for suspecting that his statement is not in agreement with that of the man who says that the distance to the Alpheius from Pachynus is four thousand stadia. Again, the side that extends from Pachynus to Lilybaeum, which is considerably farther west than Pelorias, should itself also be made to slant considerably from its southernmost point91 towards the west, and should face at the same time towards the east and towards the south,92 one part being washed by the Sicilian Sea and the other by the Libyan Sea that reaches from Carthaginia to the Syrtes. The shortest passage from Lilybaeum across to Libya in neighborhood of Carthage is one thousand five hundred stadia;93 and on this passage, it is said, some man of sharp vision, from a look-out, used to report to the men in Lilybaeum the number of ships that were putting to sea from Carthage.94 Again, the side that extends from Lilybaeum to Pelorias necessarily slants towards the east, and faces towards the region that is between the west and the north,95 having Italy on the north and on the west the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Islands of Aeolus. The cities along the side that forms the Strait are, first, Messene, and then Tauromenium, Catana, and Syracuse; but those that were between Catana and Syracuse have disappeared--Naxus96 and Megara;97 and on this coast are the outlets of the Symaethus and all rivers that flow down from Aetna and have good harbors at their mouths; and here too is the promontory of Xiphonia. According to Ephorus these were the earliest Greek cities to be founded in Sicily, that is, in the tenth generation after the Trojan war; for before that time men were so afraid of the bands of Tyrrhenian pirates and the savagery of the barbarians in this region that they would not so much as sail thither for trafficking; but though Theocles, the Athenian, borne out of his course by the winds to Sicily, clearly perceived both the weakness of the peoples and the excellence of the soil, yet, when he went back, he could not persuade the Athenians, and hence took as partners a considerable number of Euboean Chalcidians and some Ionians and also some Dorians (most of whom were Megarians) and made the voyage; so the Chalcidians founded Naxus, whereas the Dorians founded Megara, which in earlier times had been called Hybla. The cities no longer exist, it is true, but the name of Hybla still endures, because of the excellence of the Hyblaean honey. As for the cities that still endure along the aforementioned side: Messene is situated in a gulf of Pelorias, which bends considerably towards the east and forms an armpit, so to speak; but though the distance across to Messene from Rhegium is only sixty stadia, it is much less from Columna. Messene was founded by the Messenians of the Peloponnesus, who named it after themselves, changing its name; for formerly it was called Zancle, on account of the crookedness of the coast (anything crooked was called "zanclion"),98 having been founded formerly by the Naxians who lived near Catana. But the Mamertini, a tribe of the Campani, joined the colony later on. Now the Romans used it as a base of operations for their Sicilian war against the Carthaginians; and afterwards Pompeius Sextus,when at war with Augustus Caesar, kept his fleet together there, and when ejected from the island also made his escape thence. And in the ship-channel, only a short distance off the city, is to be seem Charybdis,99 a monstrous deep, into which the ships are easily drawn by the refluent currents of the strait and plunged prow-foremost along with a mighty eddying of the whirlpool; and when the ships are gulped down and broken to pieces, the wreckage is swept along to the Tauromenian shore, which, from this occurrence, is called Copria.100 The Mamertini prevailed to such an extent among the Messenii that they got control of the city; and the people are by all called mamertini rather than Messenii; and further, since the country is exceedingly productive of wine, the wine is called, not Messenian, but Mamertine, and it rivals the best of the Italian wines. The city is fairly populous, though Catana is still more so, and in fact has received Romans as inhabitants; but Tauromenium is less populous than either. Catana, moreover, was founded by the same Naxians, whereas Tauromenium was founded by the Zanclaeans of Hybla; but Catana lost its original inhabitants when Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, established a different set of colonists there and called it Aetna instead of Catana.101 And Pindar too calls him the founder of Aetna when he say: "Attend to what I say to thee, O Father, whose name is that of the holy sacrifices,102 founder of Aetna." But at the death of Hiero103 the Catanaeans came back, ejected the inhabitants, and demolished the tomb of the tyrant.104 And the Aetnaeans, on withdrawing, took up their abode in a hilly district of Aetna called Innesa, and called the place, which is eighty stadia from Catana, Aetna, and declared Hiero its founder. Now the city of Aetna is situated in the interior about over Catana, and shares most in the devastation caused by the action of the craters;105 in fact the streams of lava rush down very nearly as far as the territory of Catana; and here is the scene of the act of filial piety, so often recounted, of Amphinomus and Anapias, who lifted their parents on their shoulders and saved them from the doom that was rushing upon them. According to Poseidonius, when the mountain is in action, the fields of the Catanaeans are covered with ash-dust to a great depth. Now although the ash is an affliction at the time, it benefits the country in later times, for it renders it fertile and suited to the vine, the rest of the country not being equally productive of good wine; further, the roots produced by the fields that have been covered with ash-dust make the sheep so fat, it is said, that they choke; and this is why blood is drawn from their ears every four or five days106 --a thing of which I have spoken before107 as occurring near Erytheia. But when the lava changes to a solid, it turns the surface of the earth into stone to a considerable depth, so that quarrying is necessary on the part of any who wish to uncover the original surface; for when the mass of rock in the craters melts and then is thrown up, the liquid that is poured out over the top is black mud and flows down the mountain, and then, solidifying, becomes millstone, keeping the same color it had when in a liquid state. And ash is also produced when the stones are burnt, as from wood; therefore, just as wood-ashes nourish rue, so the ashes of Aetna, it is reasonable to suppose, have some quality that is peculiarly suited to the vine. Syracuse was founded by Archias, who sailed from Corinth about the same time that Naxus and Megara were colonized. It is said that Archias went to Delphi at the same time as Myscellus, and when they were consulting the oracle, the god asked them whether they chose wealth or health; now Archias chose wealth, and Myscellus108 health; accordingly, the god granted to the former to found Syracuse, and to the latter Croton. And it actually came to pass that the Crotoniates took up their abode in a city that was exceedingly healthful, as I have related,109 and that Syracuse fell into such exceptional wealth that the name of the Syracusans was spread abroad in a proverb applied to the excessively extravagant--"the tithe of the Syracusans would not be sufficient for them." And when Archias, the story continues, was on his voyage to Sicily, he left Chersicrates, of the race of the Heracleidae, with a part of the expedition to help colonize what is now called Corcyra, but was formerly called Scheria; Chersicrates, however, ejected the Liburnians, who held possession of the island, and colonized it with new settlers, whereas Archias landed at Zephyrium,110 found that some Dorians who had quit the company of the founders of Megara and were on their way back home had arrived there from Sicily, took them up and in common with them founded Syracuse. And the city grew, both on account of the fertility of the soil and on account of the natural excellence of its harbors. Furthermore, the men of Syracuse proved to have the gift of leadership, with the result that when the Syracusans were ruled by tyrants they lorded it over the rest, and when set free themselves they set free those who were oppressed by the barbarians. As for these barbarians, some were native inhabitants, whereas others came over from the mainland. The Greeks would permit none of them to lay hold of the seaboard, but were not strong enough to keep them altogether away from the interior; indeed, to this day the Siceli, the Sicani, the Morgetes, and certain others have continued to live in the island, among whom there used to be Iberians, who, according to Ephorus, were said to be the first barbarian settlers of Sicily. Morgantium, it is reasonable to suppose, was settled by the Morgetes; it used to be a city, but now it does not exist. When the Carthaginians came over they did not cease to abuse both these people and the Greeks, but the Syracusans nevertheless held out. But the Romans later on ejected the Carthaginians and took Syracuse by siege. And in our own time, because Pompeius abused, not only the other cities, but Syracuse in particular, Augustus Caesar sent a colony and restored a considerable part of the old settlement; for in olden times it was a city of five towns,111 with a wall of one hundred and eighty stadia. Now it was not at all necessary to fill out the whole of this circuit, but it was necessary, he thought, to build up in a better way only the part that was settled--the part adjacent to the Island of Ortygia which had a sufficient circuit to make a notable city. Ortygia is connected with the mainland, near which it lies, by a bridge, and has the fountain of Arethusa, which sends forth a river that empties immediately into the sea. People tell the mythical story that the river Arethusa is the Alpheius, which latter, they say, rises in the Peloponnesus, flows underground through the sea as far as Arethusa, and then empties thence once more into the sea. And the kind of evidence they adduce is as follows: a certain cup, they think, was thrown out into the river at Olympia and was discharged into the fountain; and again, the fountain was discolored as the result of the sacrifices of oxen at Olympia. Pindar follows these reports when he says: "O resting-place112 august of Alpheius, Ortygia,113 scion of famous Syracuse." And in agreement with Pindar Timaeus the historian also declares the same thing. Now if the Alpheius fell into a pit before joining the sea, there would be some plausibility in the view that the stream extends underground from Olympia as far as Sicily, thereby preserving its potable water unmixed with the sea; but since the mouth of the river empties into the sea in full view, and since near this mouth, on the transit, there is no mouth114 visible that swallows up the stream of the river (though even so the water could not remain fresh; yet it might, the greater part of it at least, if it sank into the underground channel),115 the thing is absolutely impossible. For the water of Arethusa bears testimony against it, since it is potable; and that the stream of the river should hold together through so long a transit without being diffused with the seawater, that is, until it falls into the fancied underground passage, is utterly mythical. Indeed, we can scarcely believe this in the case of the Rhodanus, although its stream does hold together when it passes through a lake,116 keeping its course visible; in this case, however, the distance is short and the lake does not rise in waves, whereas in case of the sea in question, where there are prodigious storms and surging waves, the tale is foreign to all plausibility. And the citing of the story of the cup only magnifies the falsehood, for a cup does not of itself readily follow the current of any stream, to say nothing of a stream that flows so great a distance and through such passages. Now there are many rivers in many parts of the world that flow underground, but not for such a distance; and even if this is possible, the stories aforesaid, at least, are impossible, and those concerning the river Inachus are like a myth: "For it flows from the heights of Pindus," says Sophocles, "and from Lacmus,117 from the land of the Perrhaebians, into the lands of the Amphilochians and Acarnanians, and mingles with the waters of Acheloüs," and, a little below, he adds, "whence it cleaves the waves to Argos and comes to the people of Lyrceium." Marvellous tales of this sort are stretched still further by those who make the Inopus cross over from the Nile to Delos. And Zoïlus118 the rhetorician says in his Eulogy of the Tenedians that the Alpheius rises in Tenedos--the man who finds fault with Homer as a writer of myths! And Ibycus says that the Asopus in Sicyon rises in Phrygia. But the statement of Hecataeus is better, when he says that the lnachus among the Amphilochians, which flows from Lacmus, as does also the Aeas, is different from the river of Argos, and that it was named by Amphilochus, the man who called the city Argos Amphilochicum.119 Now Hecataeus says that this river does empty into the Acheloüs, but that the Aeas120 flows towards the west into Apollonia. On either side of the island of Ortygia is a large harbor; the larger of the two is eighty stadia in circuit. Caesar restored this city and also Catana; and so, in the same way, Centoripa, because it contributed much to the overthrow of Pompeius. Centoripa lies above Catana, bordering on the Aetnaean mountains, and on the Symaethus River, which flows into the territory of Catana. Of the remaining sides of Sicily, that which extends from Pachynus to Lilybaeum has been utterly deserted, although it preserves traces of the old settlements, among which was Camarina, a colony of the Syracusans; Acragas, however, which belongs to the Geloans, and its seaport, and also Lilybaeum still endure. For since this region was most exposed to attack on the part of Carthaginia, most of it was ruined by the long wars that arose one after another. The last and longest side is not populous either, but still it is fairly well peopled; in fact, Alaesa, Tyndaris, the Emporium of the Aegestes, and Cephaloedis121 are all cities, and Panormus has also a Roman settlement. Aegestaea was founded, it is said, by those who crossed over with Philoctetes to the territory of Croton, as I have stated in my account of Italy;122 they were sent to Sicily by him along with Aegestes the Trojan. In the interior is Enna, where is the temple of Demeter, with only a few inhabitants; it is situated on a hill, and is wholly surrounded by broad plateaus that are tillable. It suffered most at the hands of Eunus123 and his runaway slaves, who were besieged there and only with difficulty were dislodged by the Romans. The inhabitants of Catana and Tauromenium and also several other peoples suffered this same fate. Eryx, a lofty hill,124 is also inhabited. It has a temple of Aphrodite that is held in exceptional honor, and in early times was full of female temple-slaves, who had been dedicated in fulfillment of vows not only by the people of Sicily but also by many people from abroad; but at the present time, just as the settlement itself,125 so the temple is in want of men, and the multitude of temple-slaves has disappeared. In Rome, also, there is a reproduction of this goddess, I mean the temple before the Colline Gate126 which is called that of Venus Erycina and is remarkable for its shrine and surrounding colonnade. But the rest of the settlements127 as well as most of the interior have come into the possession of shepherds; for I do not know of any settled population still living in either Himera, or Gela, or Callipolis or Selinus or Euboea or several other places. Of these cities Himera was founded by the Zanclaeans of Mylae, Callipolis by the Naxians, Selinus by the Megarians of the Sicilian Megara, and Euboea by the Leontines.128 Many of the barbarian cities, also, have been wiped out; for example Camici,129 the royal residence of Cocalus,130 at which Minos is said to have been murdered by treachery. The Romans, therefore, taking notice that the country was deserted, took possession of the mountains and most of the plains and then gave them over to horseherds, cowherds, and shepherds; and by these herdsmen the island was many times put in great danger, because, although at first they only turned to brigandage in a sporadic way, later they both assembled in great numbers and plundered the settlements, as, for example, when Eunus and his men took possession of Enna. And recently, in my own time, a certain Selurus, called the "son of Aetna," was sent up to Rome because he had put himself at the head of an army and for a long time had overrun the regions round about Aetna with frequent raids; I saw him torn to pieces by wild beasts at an appointed combat of gladiators in the Forum; for he was placed on a lofty scaffold, as though on Aetna, and the scaffold was made suddenly to break up and collapse, and he himself was carried down with it into cages of wildbeasts--fragile cages that had been prepared beneath the scaffold for that purpose. As for the fertility of the country, why should I speak of it, since it is on the lips of all men, who declare that it is no whit inferior to that of Italy? And in the matter of grain, honey, saffron, and certain other products, one might call it even superior. There is, furthermore, its propinquity; for the island is a part of Italy, as it were, and readily and without great labor supplies Rome with everything it has, as though from the fields of Italy. And in fact it is called the storehouse of Rome, for everything it produces is brought hither except a few things that are consumed at home, and not the fruits only, but also cattle, hides, wool, and the like. Poseidonius says that Syracuse and Eryx are each situated like an acropolis by the sea, whereas Enna lies midway between the two above the encircling plains. The whole of the territory of Leontini, also, which likewise belonged to the Naxians of Sicily, has been devastated; for although they always shared with the Syracusans in their misfortunes, it was not always so with their good fortunes.131 Near Centoripa is the town of Aetna, which was mentioned a little above, whose people entertain and conduct those who ascend the mountain; for the mountain-summit begins here. The upper districts are bare and ash-like and full of snow during the winter, whereas the lower are divided up by forests and plantations of every sort. The topmost parts of the mountain appear to undergo many changes because of the way the fire distributes itself, for at one time the fire concentrates in one crater, but at another time divides, while at one time the mountain sends forth lava, at another, flames and fiery smoke, and at still other times it also emits red-hot masses; and the inevitable result of these disturbances is that not only the underground passages, but also the orifices, sometimes rather numerous, which appear on the surface of the mountain all round, undergo changes at the same time. Be this as it may, those who recently made the ascent gave me the following account: They found at the top a level plain, about twenty stadia in circuit, enclosed by a rim of ashes the height of a house-wall, so that any who wished to proceed into the plain had to leap down from the wall; they saw in the center of the plain a mound132 of the color of ashes, in this respect being like the surface of the plain as seen from above, and above the mound a perpendicular cloud rising straight up to a height of about two hundred feet, motionless (for it was a windless day) and resembling smoke; and two of the men had the hardihood to proceed into the plain, but because the sand they were walking on got hotter and deeper, they turned back, and so were unable to tell those who were observing from a distance anything more than what was already apparent. But they believed, from such a view as they had, that many of the current stories are mythical, and particularly those which some tell about Empedocles, that he leaped down into the crater and left behind, as a trace of the fate he suffered, one of the brazen sandals which he wore; for it was found, they say, a short distance outside the rim of the crater, as though it had been thrown up by the force of the fire. Indeed, the place is neither to be approached nor to be seen, according to my informants; and further, they surmised that nothing could be thrown down into it either, owing to the contrary blasts of the winds arising from the depths, and also owing to the heat, which, it is reasonable to suppose, meets one long before one comes near the mouth of the crater; but even if something should be thrown down into it, it would be destroyed before it could be thrown up in anything like the shape it had when first received; and although it is not unreasonable to assume that at times the blasts of the fire die down when at times the fuel is deficient, yet surely this would not last long enough to make possible the approach of man against so great a force. Aetna dominates more especially the seaboard in the region of the Strait and the territory of Catana, but also that in the region of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Liparaean Islands. Now although by night a brilliant light shines from the summit, by day it is covered with smoke and haze. Over against Aetna rise the Nebrodes Mountains,133 which, though lower than Aetna, exceed it considerably in breadth. The whole island is hollow down beneath the ground, and full of streams and of fire, as is the case with the Tyrrhenian Sea, as far as the Cumaean country, as I have said before.134 At all events, the island has at many places springs of hot waters which spout up, of which those of Selinus and those of Himera are brackish, whereas those of Aegesta are potable. Near Acragas are lakes which, though they have the taste of seawater, are different in nature; for even people who cannot swim do not sink, but float on the surface like wood. The territory of the Palici has craters135 that spout up water in a dome-like jet and receive it back again into the same recess. The cavern near Mataurus136 contains an immense gallery through which a river flows invisible for a considerable distance, and then emerges to the surface, as is the case with the Orontes in Syria,137 which sinks into the chasm (called Charybdis) between Apameia and Antiocheia and rises again forty stadia away. Similar, too, are the cases both of the Tigris138 in Mesopotamia and of the Nile in Libya, only a short distance from their sources. And the water in the territory of Stymphalus139 first flows underground for two hundred stadia and then issues forth in Argeia as the Erasinus River; and again, the water near the Arcadian Asea is first forced below the surface and then, much later, emerges as both the Eurotas and the Alpheius; and hence the belief in a certain fabulous utterance, that if two wreaths be dedicated separately to each of the two rivers and thrown into the common stream, each will reappear, in accordance with the dedication, in the appropriate river. And I have already mentioned what is told about the Timavus River.140 Phenomena akin both to these and to those in Sicily are to be seen about the Liparaean Islands and Lipara itself. The islands are seven in number, but the largest is Lipara (a colony of the Cnidians), which, Thermessa excepted, lies nearest to Sicily. It was formerly called Meligunis; and it not only commanded a fleet, but for a long time resisted the incursions of the Tyrrheni, for it held in obedience all the Liparaean Islands, as they are now called, though by some they are called the Islands of Aeolus. Furthermore, it often adorned the temple of Apollo at Delphi with dedications from the first fruits of victory. It has also a fruitful soil, and a mine of styptic earth141 that brings in revenues,142 and hot springs, and fire blasts. Between Lipara and Sicily is Thermessa, which is now called Hiera of Hephaestus;143 the whole island is rocky, desert, and fiery, and it has three fire blasts, rising from three openings which one might call craters. From the largest the flames carry up also red-hot masses, which have already choked up a considerable part of the Strait. From observation it has been believed that the flames, both here and on Aetna, are stimulated along with the winds and that when the winds cease the flames cease too. And this is not unreasonable, for the winds are begotten by the evaporations of the sea and after they have taken their beginning are fed thereby; and therefore it is not permissible for any who have any sort of insight into such matters to marvel if the fire too is kindled by a cognate fuel or disturbance. According to Polybius, one of the three craters has partially fallen in, whereas the others remain whole; and the largest has a circular rim five stadia in circuit, but it gradually contracts to a diameter of fifty feet; and the altitude of this crater above the level of the sea is a stadium, so that the crater is visible on windless days.144 But if all this is to be believed, perhaps one should also believe the mythical story about Empedocles.145 Now if the south wind is about to blow, Polybius continues, a cloud-like mist pours down all round the island, so that not even Sicily is visible in the distance; and when the north wind is about to blow, pure flames rise aloft from the aforesaid crater and louder rumblings are sent forth; but the west wind holds a middle position, so to speak, between the two; but though the two other craters are like the first in kind, they fall short in the violence of their spoutings; accordingly, both the difference in the rumblings, and the place whence the spoutings and the flames and the fiery smoke begin, signify beforehand the wind that is going to blow again three days afterward;146 at all events, certain of the men in Liparae, when the weather made sailing impossible, predicted, he says, the wind that was to blow, and they were not mistaken; from this fact, then, it is clear that that saying of the Poet which is regarded as most mythical of all was not idly spoken, but that he hinted at the truth when he called Aeolus "steward of the winds."147 However, I have already discussed these matters sufficiently.148 It is the close attention of the Poet to vivid description, one might call it, . . . for both149 are equally present in rhetorical composition and vivid description; at any rate, pleasure is common to both. But I shall return to the topic which follows that at which I digressed. Of Lipara, then, and Thermessa I have already spoken. As for Strongyle,150 it is so called from its shape, and it too is fiery; it falls short in the violence of its flame, but excels in the brightness of its light; and this is where Aeolus lived, it is said. The fourth island is Didyme,151 and it too is named after its shape. Of the remaining islands, Ericussa152 and Phoenicussa153 have been so called from their plants, and are given over to pasturage of flocks. The seventh is Euonymus,154 which is farthest out in the high sea and is desert; it is so named because it is more to the left than the others, to those who sail from Lipara to Sicily.155 Again, many times flames have been observed running over the surface of the sea round about the islands when some passage had been opened up from the cavities down in the depths of the earth and the fire had forced its way to the outside. Poseidonius says that within his own recollection,156 one morning at daybreak about the time of the summer solstice, the sea between Hiera and Euonymus was seen raised to an enormous height, and by a sustained blast remained puffed up for a considerable time, and then subsided; and when those who had the hardihood to sail up to it saw dead fish driven by the current, and some of the men were stricken ill because of the heat and stench, they took flight; one of the boats, however, approaching more closely, lost some of its occupants and barely escaped to Lipara with the rest, who would at times become senseless like epileptics, and then afterwards would recur to their proper reasoning faculties; and many days later mud was seen forming on the surface of the sea, and in many places flames, smoke, and murky fire broke forth, but later the scum hardened and became as hard as mill-stone; and the governor of Sicily, Titus Flaminius,157 reported the event to the Senate, and the Senate sent a deputation to offer propitiatory sacrifices, both in the islet158 and in Liparae, to the gods both of the underworld and of the Sea. Now, according to the Chorographer,159 the distance from Ericodes to Phoenicodes160 is ten miles, and thence to Didyme thirty, and thence to the northern part of Lipara twenty-nine, and thence to Sicily nineteen, but from Strongyle sixteen. Off Pachynus lie Melita,161 whence come the little dogs called Melitaean, and Gaudos, both eighty-eight miles distant from the Cape. Cossura162 lies off Lilybaeum, and off Aspis,163 a Carthaginian city whose Latin name is Clupea; it lies midway between the two, and is the aforesaid distance164 from either. Aegimurus,165 also, and other small islands lie off Sicily and Libya. So much for the islands. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Now Licosa. 2 Poseidium, now Punta Della Licosa. 3 Antiochus Syracusanus, the historian. Cp. Hdt. 1.167. 4 The Latin form is "Hales" (now the Alento). 5 The Greek inhabitants of Italy were called "Italiotes." 6 There is a word-play here which cannot be brought out in translation: the word for "people" in Greek is "laos." 7 Literally, "laoi." 8 The Adriatic. 9 The old name of Tarentum. 10 "Barbarized," in the sense of "non-Greek" (cp. 5. 4. 4 and 5. 4. 7). 11 That is, his work entitled "On the (Homeric) Catalogue of Ships" (cp. 1. 2. 24). 12 Also spelled Segesta and Egesta. 13 Between the coastlines on the Tyrrhenian and Sicilian Seas. 14 According to Paus. 6.6.2 the oracle bade the people annually to give the hero to wife the fairest maiden in Temesa. 15 "Merciless" is an emendation. Some read "disagreeable." According to Aelian Var. Hist. 8.18, the popular saying was applied to those who in pursuit of profit overreached themselves (so Plutarch Prov. 31). But Eustathius (note on Iliad 1.185) quotes "the geographer" (i.e., Strabo; see note 1, p. 320) as making the saying apply to "those who are unduly wroth, or very severe when they should not be." 16 Cp. 6. 3. 4 and footnote. 17 The oracle, quoted by Casaubon from some source unknown to subsequent editors was:AÞakÛdh, profælajo moleÝn A)xeroæsion ìdvr PandosÛhn d' ÷yi toi y‹natow peprvm¡now ¤stÛ Source unknown. "Son of Aeacus, beware to go to the Acherusian water and Pandosia, where it is fated you will die." 18 i.e., Persephone. 19 The "Siciliotes" were Sicilian Greeks, as distinguished from native Sicilians. 20 Now Tropea. But in fact the turn towards the west begins immediately after Hipponium. 21 Hom. Od. 10.2ff. 22 Strabo's "Metaurus" and "second Metaurus" are confusing. Kramer, Meineke, and others wish to emend the text so as to make the "second" river refer to Crataeis or some other river. But we should have expected Strabo to mention first the Medma (now the Mesima), which was much closer to Medma than the Metaurus (now the Marro), and to which he does not refer at all. Possibly he thought both rivers were called Metaurus (cp. Müller, Ind. Var. Lectionis, p. 975), in which case "the second Metaurus" is the Metaurus proper. The present translator, however, believes that Strabo, when he says "second Metaurus," alludes to the Umbrian Metaurus (5. 2. 10) as the first, and that the copyist, unaware of this fact, deliberately changed "Medma" to Metaurus" in the two previous instances. 23 Now Cape Cavallo. 24 North-east (cp. 1. 2. 21). 25 Altar or temple of Poseidon. 26 Cp. 6. 1. 9. 27 Zancle was the original name of Messana (now Messina) in Sicily. It was colonized and named Messana by the Peloponnesian Messenians (6. 2. 3). 28 Cp. 6. 3. 3. and 8. 4. 9. 29 Cp. Paus. 4.4.1. 30 Anaxilas (also spelled Anaxilaüs) was ruler of Rhegium from 494 to 476 B.C. (Diod. Sic. 11.48). 31 Cp. 6. 2. 4. The Latin name of this Sicilian city was "Murgantia." Livy 10.17 refers to another Murgantia in Samnium. 32 Cp. 1. 3. 19 and the footnote on "rent." 33 At the Strait. 34 Cp. 1. 3. 10 and the footnote. 35 Regium. 36 Dionysius the Elder (b. about 432 B.C., d. 367 B.C.) 37 Diod. Sic. 14.44 merely says that the Assembly of the Rhegini refused him a wife. 38 Apparently in honor of Phoebus (Apollo); for, according to Plut. De Alexandri Virtute, (338 B.C.) Dionysius the Younger called himself the son of Apollo, "offspring of his mother Doris by Phoebus." 39 Literally, "White Rock." 40 The "Ionian Gulf" was the southern "part of what is now called the Adriatic Sea" (2. 5. 20); see 7. 5. 8-9. 41 Literally, the "western Locrians," both city and inhabitants having the same name. 42 Now the Gulf of Salona in the Gulf of Corinth. 43 Croton and Syracuse were founded, respectively, in 710 and 734 B.C. According to Diod. Sic. 4.24, Heracles had unintentionally killed Croton and had foretold the founding of a famous city on the site, the same to be named after Croton. 44 The Greek text, here translated as it stands, is corrupt. The emendations thus far offered yield (instead of the nine English words of the above rendering) either (1) "for the latter were living" (or "had taken up their abode") "there at the same time" or (2) "together with the Tarantini." There seems to be no definite corroborative evidence for either interpretation; but according to Pausanias, "colonies were sent to Croton, and to Locri at Cape Zephyrium, by the Lacedaemonians" (3.3); and "Tarentum is a Lacedaemonian colony" (10. 10). Cp. the reference to the Tarantini in Strabo's next paragraph. 45 Dionysius the Younger was banished thence in 357 B.C. 46 This appears to be an exact quotation, but the translator has been unable to find the reference in extant works. Plato utters a somewhat similar sentiment, however, in the Plat. Rep. 404e-405a. 47 Apparently as to which should perform first. 48 Cp. 6. 1. 6. 49 From Delphi to Rhegium. 50 The Greek, as the English, leaves one uncertain whether merely the Locrian or the combined army amounted to 10,000 men. Justin 20.3 gives the number of the Locrian army as 15,000, not mentioning the Rhegini; hence one might infer that there were 5,000 Rhegini, and Strabo might have so written, for the Greek symbol for 5,000 (,e ), might have fallen out of the text. 51 Cicero De Natura Deorum 2.2. refers to this tradition. 52 "Aulon." 53 Cp. Vergil Aen. 3.552. 54 6. 1. 4. 55 The Lacinium derived its name from Cape Lacinium (now Cape Nao), on which it was situated. According to Diod. Sic. 4.24, Heracles, when in this region, put to death a cattle-thief named Lacinius. Hence the name of the cape. 56 Strabo probably wrote "two thousand" and not "one thousand" (see Manner, t. 9. 9, p. 202), and so read Gosselin, Groskurd, Forbiger, Müller-Dübner, and Meineke. Compare Strabo's other quotation (5. 1. 3) from Polybius on this subject. There, as here, unfortunately, the figures ascribed to Polybius cannot be compared with his original statement, which is now lost. 57 240 Roman miles=1,920, or 2,000 (see 7. 7. 4), stadia. 58 See 5. 2. 7, and the footnote. 59 This passage ("although . . . much") is merely an attempt to translate the Greek of the manuscripts. The only variant in the manuscripts is that of "ungirded" for "well-girded." If Strabo wrote either, which is extremely doubtful, we must infer that Artemidorus' figure, whatever it was pertained to the number of days it would take a pedestrian, at the rate, say of 160 stadia (20 Roman miles) per day, to make the journey around the gulf by land. Most of the editors (including Meineke) dismiss the passage as hopeless by merely indicating gaps in the text. Groskurd and C. Müller not only emend words of the text but also fill in the supposed gaps with seventeen and nine words, respectively. Groskurd makes Artemidorus say that a well-girded pedestrian can complete the journey around the gulf in twelve days, that the coasting-voyage around it is 2,000 stadia, and that he leaves for the mouth the same number (700) of stadia assigned by Polybius to the breadth of the mouth of the gulf. But C. Müller writes: "Some make it less, saying 1,380 stadia, whereas Artemidorus makes it as many plus 30 (1,410), in speaking of the breadth of the mouth of the gulf." But the present translator, by making very simple emendations (see critical note 2 on page 38), arrives at the following: Artemidorus says eighty stadia longer (i.e., 2,000) although he falls short of the breadth of the mouth of the gulf by as much (i.e., 700 - 80 = 620). It should be noted that Artemidorus, as quoted by Strabo, always gives distances in terms of stadia, not miles (e.g., 3. 2. 11, 8. 2. 1, 14. 2. 29, et passim), and that his figures at times differ considerably from those of the Chorographer (cp. 6. 3. 10). 60 i.e., south-east. 61 As often Strabo refers to sites of perished cities as cities. 62 The Greek "Neas aethein" means "to burn ships." 63 Ovid Met. 15.20 spells the name "Myscelus," and perhaps rightly; that is, "Mouse-leg" (?). 64 For a fuller account, see Diod. Sic. 8. 17. His version of the oracle is: "Myscellus, short of back, in searching other things apart from god, thou searchest only after tears; what gift god giveth thee, do thou approve." 65 The generally accepted dates for the founding of Croton and Syracuse are, respectively, 710 B.C. and 734 B.C. But Strabo's account here seems to mean that Syracuse was founded immediately after Croton (cp. 6. 2. 4). Cp. also Thucydides 6. 3. 2. 66 Cp. 6. 1 10. 67 The reading, "Is of Helice," is doubtful. On Helice, see 1. 3. 18 and 8. 7. 2. 68 Cp. "Sybarite." 69 Cp. 6. 1. 2. 70 The "Teuthras" is otherwise unknown, except that there was a small river of that name, which cannot be identified, near Cumae (see Propertius 1. 11.11 and Silius Italicus 11.288). The river was probably named after Teuthras, king of Teuthrania in Mysia (see 12. 8. 2). But there seems to be no evidence of Sybarites in that region. Meineke and others are probably right in emending to the "Trais" (now the Trionto), on which, according to Diod. Sic. 12.22, certain Sybarites took up their abode in 445 B.C. 71 An ear, or sheaf, of grain made of gold, apparently. 72 Neleus had twelve sons, including Nestor. All but Nestor were slain by Heracles. 73 The other, of course, was Siris. 74 The old name of Tarentum. 75 i.e., the Metapontians gained undisputed control of their city and its territory, which Antiochus speaks of as a "boundary" (cp. 6. 1. 4 and 6. 3. 1). 76 The son of Sisyphus. His "barbarian name," according to Stephanus Byzantinus and Eustathius, was Metabus. 77 One of Euripides' tragedies was entitled Melanippe the Prisoner; only fragments are preserved. She was the mother of Boeotus by Poseidon. 78 A Metapontian. 79 South-west. 80 C. Müller (see Map V at the end of the Loeb volume) assumes that Strabo exchanged the Chorographer's distances between (1) Alaesa and Cephaloedium, and (2) Cephaloedium and the River Himera (see C. Müller, Ind. Var. Lect., p. 977). 81 In Latin, Emporium Segestanorum. 82 In Latin, Emporium Agrigentinorum. 83 This distance is in fact more than sixty miles. C. Müller assumes in the Map (l.c.) that the copyist left out the interval from Emporium to Gela and put down an extra distance of twenty miles therefor. But elsewhere (Ind. Var. Lect., l.c.), he believes (more plausibly) that two intervals were omitted and assigns twenty stadia to each, viz., Emporium to the Harbor of Phintias, and thence to Calvisiana. 84 Note in connection with the next sentence that the text does not give the distance from Messene to Pelorias, which is about nine miles. 85 On the "climata" (belts of latitude), see Strab. 1.1.12 and footnote 2. 86 Though the works of Poseidonius are lost, it is obvious that he properly fixed the position of the three vertices of the triangle according to the method of his time by the "climata," i.e., he fixed their north-and-south positions (cp. "latitude") and their east-and-west position (cp. "longitude"). Strabo rightly, but rather captiously, remarks that Poseidonius cannot by means of the "climata" mark off the boundaries of Sicily, since the triangle is merely inscribed in the parallelogram and no side of it coincides with any side of the parallelogram; in other words, the result of Poseidonius is too indefinite. 87 That is, will point. 88 South-east. 89 In the Peloponnesus; now the Ruphis. 90 Cape Matapan. 91 i.e., of the side; hence from Pachynus. 92 That is, a line at right angles to the side would point south-east. 93 Cp. Strab. 17.3.16. 94 Lilybaeum when held by the Carthaginians (250 B.C.) was besieged by the Romans. Pliny 7.21 says that Varro gave the man's name as Strabo; and quotes Cicero as authority for the tradition that the man was wont, in the Punic War, looking from the Lilybaean promontory, a distance of 135 miles, to tell the number of ships that put out from the harbor of Carthage. But, assuming the possibility of seeing small ships at a distance of 135 miles, the observer would have to be at an altitude of a little more than two miles! 95 That is, a line at right angles to the side point towards the north-west. 96 Founded about 734 B.C. and destroyed by Dionysius in 403 B.C. (see Diod. Sic. 14.14), but it is placed by the commentators and maps between Tauromenium and Catana. 97 Founded about the same time as Naxus and destroyed about 214 B.C. 98 The noun "zanclon" (corresponding to the adjective "zanclion") was a native Sicilian word, according to Thuc. 6.4. 99 Cp. 1. 2. 36. 100 "Dunghill." 101 476 B.C. 102 The Greek here for "sacrifices" is "hieron." 103 467 B.C. 104 461 B.C. 105 Groskurd, Müller-Dübner, Forbiger, Tardieu, and Tozer (Selections, p. 174) supply as subject of "shares" a pronoun referring to Catana, assuming that Aetna, the subject of the sentence, is the mountain, not the city. 106 One of the later manuscripts reads "forty or fifty days." 107 3. 5. 4. (q.v.). 108 See 6. 1. 12. 109 6. 1. 12. 110 Cape Bruzzano. 111 Nesos (the island Ortygia), Achradine, Tyche, Epipolai, and Neapolis. 112 Or more literally, "place to breathe again." 113 Pind. Nem. 1.1-2. Pindar further characterizes Ortygia (line 3) as "the bed of Artemis." 114 That is, whirlpool. 115 The last clause is suspected; see critical note. 116 Lake Lemenna, now the Lake of Geneva (see 4. 1. 11 and 4. 6. 6). 117 More often spelled Lacmon; one of the heights of Pindus. 118 Zoïlus (about 400-320 B.C.), the grammarian and rhetorician, of Amphipolis in Macedonia, is chiefly known for the bitterness of his attacks on Homer, which gained him the surname of "Homeromastix" ("scourge of Homer"). 119 Cp. 7. 7. 7. 120 Cp. 7. 5. 8. 121 Another name of Cephaloedium (6. 2. 1). 122 6. 1. 3. 123 Eunus was a native of Apameia in Syria, but became a slave of a certain Antigenes at Enna, and about 136 B.C. became the leader of the Sicilian slaves in the First Servile War. For a full account of his amazing activities as juggler, diviner, leader, and self-appointed king, as also of his great following see Diod. Sic. 34.2. 5-18. 124 Now Mt. San Giuliano. But Eryx is at the north-western angle of Sicily, near the sea, not in the interior and for this reason some editors consider the passage out of place. 125 Also called Eryx. Hamilcar Barca transferred most of the inhabitants to Drepanum (at the foot of the mountain) in 260 B.C. After that time the city was of no consequence, but the sacred precinct, with its strong walls, remained a strategic position of great importance. 126 The temple of Venus Erycina on the Capitol was dedicated by Q. Fabius Maximus in 215 B.C., whereas the one here referred to, outside the Colline Gate, was dedicated by L. Portius Licinus in 181 B.C. 127 i.e., the rest of the settlements on "the remaining sides" (mentioned at the beginning of section 5), as the subsequent clause shows. 128 A number of the editors transfer to this point the sentence "The whole . . . fortunes," at the end of section 7 below. 129 Camici (or Camicus) is supposed to have been on the site of what is Camastro. 130 The mythical king who harbored Daedalus when he fled from Minos. 131 See footnote on Leontines, section 6. 132 "This is the small cone of eruption, in the center of the wide semicircular crater" (Tozer, Selections, p. 175), which the poem of Aetna (line 182), ascribed to Lucilius Junior, describes as follows: "penitusque exaestuat ultra." 133 Now the Nebrodici. 134 5. 4. 9. 135 Strabo refers to what is now the Lago di Naftia, a small volcanic lake near the Eryces River and Leotini, and not far from the sea. 136 The form "Mataurus" seems to be corrupt. At any rate, it probably should be identified with Mazara (now Mazzara), near which there is now a small river flowing through a rocky district. 137 Cp. 16. 2. 7. 138 So Pliny N.H. 6.31. 139 Strabo refers to the lake of Stymphalus in Arcadia in the Peloponnesus. For a full description see Frazer's note on Paus. 8.22.1. 140 5. 1. 8. 141 Styptic earth (= Latin alumen) is discussed at length by Pliny 35.52.. It was not our alum, but an iron sulphate, or a mixture of an iron and an aluminium sulphate, used in dyeing and in medicine. 142 Diod. Sic. 5.10 says: "This island" (Lipara) "has the far-famed mines of styptic earth, from which the Liparaeans and Romans get great revenues." 143 i.e., "Sacred" Isle of Hephaestus. The isle is now called Vulcanello. It is supposed to be the island that rose from the sea about 183 B. C. (See Nissen, Italische Landeskunde I.251). 144 i.e., from the sea. 145 See 6. 2. 8. 146 So Pliny 3.14. 147 Hom. Od. 10.21. 148 1. 2. 7-18, but especially sections 15-18. Since Polybius, as well as Strabo, discussed this subject at length, the sentence "However, . . . sufficiently" might belong to the long excerpt from Polybius (cp. 1. 2. 15-18). Here follows a sentence which, as it stands in the manuscripts, is incoherent, and seems to be beyond restoration. But for the fact that it is somewhat similar to an accredited passage found elsewhere (1. 2. 17), one would hardly hesitate to regard it as a marginal note and follow Meineke in ejecting it from the text. 149 Perhaps (1) pleasure and (2) the excitement of amazement (see 1. 2. 17), as Groskurd thinks, or (1) the truthful element and (2) the mythical element (see also 1. 2. 19). 150 i.e., "Round," the Stromboli of today. 151 i.e., "Double." It is formed by two volcanic cones; the Salina of today. 152 i.e., "Heather" (cp. the botanical term "Ericaceae"); now called Alicudi. 153 i.e., "Palm" (cp. the botanical term "Phoenicaceae"); or perhaps "Rye-grass" (Lolium perenne), the sense in which Theophrastus Hist. Plant. 2. 6.11 uses the Greek word "phoenix"; now called Felicudi. 154 i.e., "Left"; now called Panaria. 155 This would not be true if one sailed the shortest way to Sicily, but Strabo obviously has in mind the voyage from the city of Lipara to Cape Pelorias. 156 Poseidonius was born about 130 B.C. 157 This Titus Flaminius, who must have lived "within the recollection" of Poseidonius, is otherwise unknown. If the text is correct, he was governor of Sicily about 90 B.C. Cp. Nissen, op. cit. II.251. But Du Theil, Corais and C. Müller emend to Titus "Flamininus," who was governor in 123 B.C., trying to connect this eruption with that which is generally put at 126 B.C. (cp. Pliny 2. 88 [89]). 158 The islet just created. 159 See footnote 3 in Vol. II, p. 358. 160 i.e., Ericussa and Phoenicussa. 161 Now Malta. 162 Now Pantellaria. 163 So called from the resemblance of the hill (see 17. 3. 16), where it is situated, to a shield (aspis, Lat. clupeus). 164 Eighty-eight miles. 165 Now Al Djamur