The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Geography of Strabo Vol. I., translated by H. C. Hamilton.

369 This plain was near the city of Chalcis, which at the present day bears the same name as the island itself.

370 And reached the two fair-flowing springs, where the two springs of the eddying Scamander rise. The one, indeed, flows with tepid water, and a steam arises from it around, as of burning fire; whilst the other flows forth in the summer time, like unto hail, or cold snow, or ice from water. Iliad xxii. 147.

371 Tantalus lived about 1387, B. C.

372 Lydia and Ionia form the modern provinces of Aidin and Sarukan in Anadoli. A part of the Troad still preserves the name of Troiaki.

373 A mountain in Mæonia, close to the city of Magnesia.

374 Ilus, who ascended the throne about 1400 years before the Christian era, founded the city, to which he gave the name of Ilium. The old city of Troy stood on a hill, and was safe from the inundation.

375 These two cities were built on little islets adjoining the continent. Alexander connected them with the mainland by means of jetties. Clazomenæ was situated on the Gulf of Smyrna, near to a place now called Vurla or Burla. The present appellation of Tyre, on the coast of Phœnicia, is Sur.

379 That part of the Mediterranean adjoining Egypt.

381 The Red Sea and Mediterranean.

383 Odyss. xxiv. 376.

384 The island of Ortygia, now St. Marcian.

386 Probably Bulika, according to others Trypia or Niora.

387 Methone is the same town which Pausanias (l. ii. c. 32) names Methona, it was situated in the Argolis between Trœzene and Epidaurus. The above writer tells us that in the reign of Antigonus, son of Demetrius king of Macedonia, there was a breaking out of subterranean fires close to Methona. This event, which it is probable Strabo alludes to, occurred some where between the years 277 and 244, before the Christian era. The town still exists under its ancient name of Methona.

388 An error in all the MSS. The Saronic Gulf is intended.

389 Vide Strabo, b. ix. c. ii. § 34, 35.

391 The Second Iliad, or Catalogue of Ships.

392 And those who inhabited grape-clustered Arne, and those [who inhabited] Mideia. Iliad ii. 507.

393 This Thracian lake or lagoon is now called Burum. It is formed by the mouths of several rivers, and lies to the north of the isle of Thaso.

394 Diaskillo, al. Biga.

395 These are certain little islands at the mouth of the river Achelous, the modern Aspro-potamo, which formed the boundary between Acarnania and Ætolia. Now Curzolari.

396 It is supposed we should here read Herodotus. Conf. Herod. ii. 10.

398 Now there is a certain rocky island in the middle of the sea, between Ithaca and the rugged Samos, Asteris, not large; and in it there are havens fit for ships, with two entrances. Odyssey iv. 844.

399 That is to say, the territory opposite Issa; probably the ruins near to Kalas Limenaias.

400 The present island of Metelino.

401 Ἡ δὲ Ἄντισσα νῆσος ἦν πρότερον, ὡς Μυρσίλος φησί· τῆς [δὲ] Λέσβου καλουμένης πρότερον Ἴσσης, καὶ τὴν νῆσον Ἄντισσαν καλεῖσθαι συνέβη. Our rendering of this passage, though rather free, seemed necessary to the clear explication of the Greek.

404 Miseno, the northern cape of the Gulf of Naples.

407 These two mountains are separated from each other by the river Penæus.

408 Ῥαγάς, a rent or chink. This town was sixty miles from Ecbatana; it was named by the Arabs Raï, and is now in ruins. It is the Rhages in Tobias.

409 Certain mountain defiles, now called Firouz-Koh.

410 A western promontory of Eubœa, called by the modern Greeks Kabo Lithari. The Lichadian Islands, which now bear the name of Litada, are close by.

411 A city of Eubœa; hod. Dipso.

412 In Eubœa, now Orio.

413 Now Echino; belonged to Thessaly and was near the sea.

414 Now Stillida; situated on the Bay of Zeitoun.

415 A little town situated in a plain amongst the mountains. It received its name from a tradition that Hercules abode there during the time that the pyre on Mount Œta was being prepared, into which he cast himself.

416 Lamia in Thessaly.

417 A city of the Epi-Cnemidian Locrians in Achaia; its present name is Bondoniza.

418 A town close to Scarpheia; its ruins are said to be still visible at Palaio Kastro.

419 Now Agriomela or Ellada, a river descending from Mount Œta, and emptying itself into the Bay of Zeitoun.

420 A torrent near Thronium; its present name is Boagrio.

421 Three cities of the Opuntian Locrians; Cynus, the port of Opus, is now called Kyno.

422 One of the principal cities of Phocis, near the river Cephissus; a little village called Leuta stands on the ancient site.

423 Probably the Alpene in Locris mentioned by Herodotus.

424 The modern Talanta.

426 The Western Iberians are the people who inhabited Spain, and were said to have removed into Eastern Iberia, a country situated in the centre of the isthmus which separates the Euxine from the Caspian Sea. The district is now called Carduel, and is a region of Georgia.

429 The mountains which border Colchis or Mingrelia on the south.

430 According to Herodotus, Sesostris was the only Egyptian monarch who ever reigned in Ethiopia. Pliny says he penetrated as far as the promontory of Mosylon.

432 A small people of Thessaly, who latterly dwelt near Mount Œta, which separated them from Ætolia and Phocis.

433 A city and plain in Thessaly, near to Mount Ossa.

434 A people of Macedon, at the time of Strabo dwelling north of the river Peneius.

435 Few nations have wandered so far and wide as the Galatæ. We meet with them in Europe, Asia, and Africa, under the various names of Galatæ, Galatians, Gauls, and Kelts. Galatia, in Asia Minor, was settled by one of these hordes.

436 There were many kings of Phrygia of this name.

437 The text of Kramer follows most MSS. in reading “Kimmerians,” but he points it out as a manifest error; and refers to Herodotus i. 103.

438 By Hyperboreans are meant people who dwelt beyond the point from whence the north wind proceeded: Hypernotii therefore should be those who lived beyond the point of the procession of the south wind. The remark of Herodotus will be found, lib. iv. § 36. It is simply this: Supposing Hyperboreans, there ought likewise to be Hypernotii.

439 Those who exult over the misfortunes of their neighbours.

440 Those who rejoice in others’ prosperity.

441 Gosselin observes, that what Strabo here says, is in accordance with the geographical system of the ancients, who supposed that Africa did not extend as far as the equator. As they distinguished the continent situated in the northern from a continent which they believed to exist in the southern hemisphere, and which they styled the Antichthones, they called the wind, blowing from the neighbourhood of the equator, in the direction of the two poles, a south wind for either hemisphere. For example, if sailors should be brought to the equator by a north wind, and that same wind should continue to waft them on their course after having passed the line, it would no longer be called a north, but a south wind.

442 According to Gosselin, this does not allude to the size of the whole earth, but merely that part of it which, according to the theory of the ancients, was alone habitable.

443 Most probably Gherri in Sennaar.

444 Eratosthenes supposed that Meroe, Alexandria, the Hellespont, and the mouth of the Borysthenes or Dnieper, were all under the same meridian.

445 The Dardanelles.

447 This Island of the Egyptians is the same which Strabo elsewhere calls the Island of the Exiles, because it was inhabited by Egyptians who had revolted from Psammeticus, and established themselves in the island. Its exact situation is unknown.

451 Between the Rhine and Elbe.

452 The latitudes of Marseilles and Constantinople differ by 2° 16′ 21″. Gosselin enters into a lengthened explanation on this subject, i. 158.

454 The eastern mouth of the Ganges.

455 Cape St. Vincent.

456 In the opinion of Strabo and Eratosthenes, the narrowest portion of India was measured by a line running direct from the eastern embouchure of the Ganges to the sources of the Indus, that is, the northern side of India bounded by the great chain of the Taurus.

457 Cape Comorin is the farthest point on the eastern coast. Strabo probably uses the plural to indicate the capes generally, not confining himself to those which project a few leagues farther than the rest.

458 The Euphrates at Thapsacus, the most frequented passage; hod. El-Der.

459 The Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, now Thineh or Farameh.

460 Close by Aboukir.

463 The text has τὸ πλέον, but we have followed the suggestions of the commentators in reading τὸ μὴ πλέον.

464 It is remarkable that this is the same idea which led Columbus to the discovery of America, and gave to the islands off that continent the name of the West Indies.

465 We have followed Kramer in reading δι’ Ἄθηνῶν, instead of the διὰ θινῶν of former editions.

466 The Nile being thought to separate Africa from Asia, and the Tanais, or Don, Europe.

468 The name of the mouth of the lake Sirbonis or Sebaket-Bardoil, which opens into the Mediterranean. A line drawn from this embouchure to the bottom of the Arabian Gulf, would give the boundary between Africa and Asia.

469 Places in Attica.

470 Probably Thyros, a place situated close to the sea, just at the boundary of the two countries.

471 Oropo, on the confines of Attica and Bœotia.

472 Aristotle was the giver of this sage counsel.

473 A people of Asia.

474 The Strait of Messina.

475 The Gulf of Aïas. The town of Aias has replaced Issus, at the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean.

476 The Mediterranean.

477 That is, the Mediterranean on the coast of Syria.

478 Strabo does not here mean the Caucasus or Balkan, but the mountains which stretch from Persia to Cochin China. At a later period the several chains were known to the Greeks by the names of Paropamisus, Emodi Montes, Imaus, &c.

481 The great chain of the Taurus was supposed to occupy the whole breadth of Asia Minor, a space of 3000 stadia. Eratosthenes is here attempting to prove that these mountains occupy a like space in the north of India.

482 Lit. to the equinoctial rising.

483 Another designation of the Caspian.

485 Read 18,100 stadia.

486 i. e. The breadth of India.

487 Literally, “estimate at so much,” referring to the estimate at the conclusion of § 2.

488 Caucasus, in the north of India.

489 By the term ἑῴα θάλαττα, rendered “eastern ocean,” we must understand Strabo to mean the Bay of Bengal.

490 The Alexandrian.

491 Seleucus Nicator and Antiochus Soter.

492 The length of India is its measurement from west to east.

493 Not Allahabad, as supposed by D’Anville, but Patelputer, or Pataliputra, near Patna.

494 There would seem to be some omission here, although none of the MSS. have any blank space left to indicate it. Groskurd has been at considerable pains to supply what he thinks requisite to complete the sense, but in a matter so doubtful we deemed it a surer course to follow the Greek text as it stands.

495 Thrace, now Roumelia.

496 The situation of Illyria was on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Venice.

497 Read 18,100 stadia.

498 The mouth of the Dnieper.

499 Hipparchus stated 3800 stadia, not 3700.

500 Gosselin remarks that these 3700, or rather 3800 stadia, on proceeding from Marseilles, would reach the latitude of Paris, and that of the coasts in the neighbourhood of Tréguier. Eratosthenes and Hipparchus were out but 14′ and some seconds in their calculation of the latitude of Marseilles; but Strabo’s error touching the same amounted to 3° 43′ 28″ he consequently fixed the northern coasts of France at 45° 17′ 18″, which is about the latitude of the mouth of the Garonne.

501 These 8800 stadia, at 700 to a degree, amount to 12° 34′ 17″ of latitude. This would be about the middle of Abyssinia.

503 The island of Ceylon.

504 Viz. between its southern extremity and that of India.

505 Strabo and Eratosthenes supposed the extremity of India farther south than Meroe; Hipparchus fixes it a little north of that city, at a distance of 12,600 stadia from the equator.

506 These 30,000 stadia, added to the 12,600 of the preceding note, would place Bactria under 60° 51′ 26″ north latitude, which is more than 24 degrees too far north.

507 Both Aria and Margiana are in the present Khorasan.

508 This portion of the Taurus is called by the Indians Hindou Kho.

509 This was the principal Greek liquid measure, and was 3-4ths of the medimnus, the chief dry measure. The Attic metretes was half as large again as the Roman Amphora quadrantal, and contained a little less than 7 gallons. Smith.

510 The medimnus contained nearly 12 imperial gallons, or 1½ bushel. This was the Attic medimnus; the Æginetan and Ptolemaic was half as much again, or in the ratio of 3:2 to the Attic. Smith.

511 Matiana was a province of Media on the frontiers of the present Kurdistan; Sacasena, a country of Armenia on the confines of Albania or Schirvan; Araxena, a province traversed by the river Araxes.

512 Mount Argæus still preserves the name of Ardgeh. The part of the Taurus here alluded to is called Ardoxt Dag.

515 The Gihon of the oriental writers.

517 Gosselin says, the Oxus, or Abi-amu, which now discharges itself into Lake Aral, anciently communicated with the Caspian.—The vessels carrying Indian merchandise used to come down the Oxus into the Caspian; they then steered along the southern coasts till they reached the mouth of the Cyrus; up this river they sailed to the sources of the Phasis, (the Fasch,) and so descended into the Black Sea and Mediterranean. About the middle of the 17th century the Russians endeavoured to re-open this ancient route, but this effort was unsuccessful.

518 The north of France.

519 At the time of Strabo France was covered with forests and stagnant water, which rendered its temperature damp and cold. It was not until after considerable drainage about the fourth century that the vine began to attain any perfection.