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

1104 But the immortals will send you to the Elysian plain, and the boundaries of the earth, where is auburn-haired Rhadamanthus; there of a truth is the most easy life for men. There is nor snow nor long winter, nor ever a shower, but ever does the ocean send forth the gently blowing breezes of the west wind to refresh men. Odyssey iv. 563.

1105 There then I beheld Minos, the illustrious son of Jove, having a golden sceptre, giving laws to the dead. Odyssey xi. 567. Bohn’s edition.

1106 The Canary Islands.

1107 Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal.

1108 We have preferred, in common with the French translation, and the manuscript cited by Xylander, to read φιάλαις, instead of φάτναις, thinking it probable that Strabo referred in the first instance to the drinking vessels, and afterwards to the wine barrels, as being made of silver.

1109 Herodotus, who wrote about a century after the time of Anacreon, expressly tells us that Arganthonius reigned during eighty years, and lived one hundred and twenty (l. i. c. 163). Cicero, Valerius Maximus, and Pliny report the same, apparently on the testimony of Herodotus. Lucian, Phlegon, and Appian however state the life of Arganthonius at one hundred and fifty years; and what is remarkable, the two former, Lucian and Phlegon, cite as their authority Anacreon and Herodotus. Pliny, citing Anacreon, has taken the reign of one hundred and fifty years, mentioned by the poet, as a life of that duration. The passage of Strabo is evidently changed from its original form.

1110 Of the number are Pomponius Mela and Pliny.

1112 That is, been admitted to all the privileges of Roman citizenship. Pliny tells us that in Bætica alone there were thirty cities enjoying this distinction.

1113 Beja in Alentejo: others, with less show of probability, say Badajoz the capital of Estremadura.

1116 Cape St. Vincent.

1118 Coray reads two hundred and ten stadia, Groskurd and the French translators adopt 200; but the whole passage is so manifestly corrupt, that it scarcely seemed safe to hazard the correction.

1119 The text is here very corrupt, and the explanations of the editors and translators unsatisfactory.

1120 A city of Lusitania, hod. Al-Merim.

1121 Literally towards the sunset at the equinox.

1125 This city is not mentioned elsewhere in Strabo.

1128 μυρίων καὶ τρισχιλίων, in text, but plainly the result of some error.

1129 We have followed the suggestion of Kramer in the rendering of this passage, the Greek text being evidently corrupt.

1133 A city situated near Soria in Old Castile.

1135 Xylander and many of the commentators propose to read Ὀβλιουιῶνα, or Oblivion, in place of Βελιῶνα. The conjecture seems extremely probable.

1136 The Minho of the present day.

1137 The Minho is far surpassed in size, both by the Duero and the Tagus.

1138 The text here is evidently incorrect. In the first place, the καὶ αὐτὸν, which we have rendered this too, evidently sustained some relation, no longer subsisting, to what preceded; and in the second, the sources of the Minho were not in Cantabria, but Gallicia.

1139 Strabo here appears to confound the mouth of the Minho with a small bay about five leagues distant, near to the city of Bayona in Gallicia, and before which there is still the small island of Bayona.

1140 Cape Finisterre.

1143 Or the river of Oblivion, apparently because they forgot to return to their own country.

1144 A few of the MSS. read fifty, which number seems to be countenanced by the statement of Pliny, that forty-six nations inhabited Lusitania: but then the limits he set to the country were more extended than those allowed by Strabo.

1145 The κούφος of the text signifies also a volatile disposition.

1146 Some part of the sentence seems here to be wanting. It probably contained a description of the kind of sword made use of.

1148 This reminds one of the glibs the Irish used to wear down to a recent period.

1149 This passage is not found in any of the odes of Pindar now remaining.

1150 The French translators observe, that we should probably understand this passage as follows, They exercise themselves as light-armed infantry, heavy-armed infantry, cavalry, &c.

1151 Xenophon describes this, or one very similar, as the Persian dance: Τέλος δὲ τὸ Περσικὸν ὠρχεῖτο, κροτῶν τὰς πέλτας· καὶ ὤκλαζε, καὶ ἐξανίστατο. “Last of all he danced the Persian dance, clashing his bucklers, and in dancing fell on his knees, then sprang up again.” Xen. Anab. b. vi. c. 1, 10.

1152 This is said to distinguish them from their neighbours, the inhabitants of Majorca and Minorca, whose peculiar marriage ceremonies are thus described by Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. c. 18: Παράδοξον δέ τι καὶ κατὰ τοὺς γάμους νόμιμον παρ’ αὐτοῖς ἐστιν· ἐν γὰρ ταῖς κατὰ τοὺς γάμους εὐωχίαις, οἰκείων τε καὶ φίλων κατὰ τὴν ἡλικίαν ὁ πρῶτος ἀεὶ καὶ ὁ δεύτερος, καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς, μίσγονται ταῖς νύμφαις ἀνὰ μέρος, ἐσχάτου τοῦ νυμφίου τυγχάνοντος ταύτης τῆς τιμῆς.

1153 The mention of Egyptians here seems surprising, inasmuch as no writer appears to have recorded this as one of their customs. Of the Assyrians it is stated, both by Herodotus, i. 197, and also by Strabo himself, xvi. cap. i. 746. It seems therefore most probable that Assyrians are intended, Egyptians being merely an error of the transcriber.

1154 Inhabitants of Biscay.

1155 People of Navarre.

1156 Who the Pleutauri were, we do not know. The Bardyetæ appear to be the same people whom Strabo afterwards speaks of as Bardyiti, or Bardyali, who occupied a narrow slip of land between the east of Alava and the west of Navarre. The Allotriges Casaubon supposes to be the same as the Autrigones, who occupied the coast from Laredo to the Gulf of Bilboa.

1157 Inhabitants of Biscay.

1159 πλὴν Τουίσοι: these words are manifestly corrupt, but none of the various conjectural readings seem at all probable.

1160 From the Pillars to the Sacred Promontory, or Cape St. Vincent.

1161 The rock of Gibraltar.

1163 Viz. from Carthagena.

1166 Pomponius Mela gives this city the name of Hexi, or Ex, according to another reading; Pliny names it Sexi, with the surname of Firmum Julium; and Ptolemy, Sex. This is merely a difference relative to the aspiration of the word, which was sometimes omitted, at other times expressed by the letters H or S indifferently.

1167 Mentioned by Pliny, Athenæus, Galen, and also by Martial, lib. vii. Epigramm. 78,

Cum Saxetani ponatur cauda lacerti;
Et bene si cœnas, conchis inuncta tibi est;
Sumen, aprum, leporem, boletos, ostrea, mullos,
Mittis: habes nec cor, Papile, nec genium.

1170 Asclepiades of Myrlea, a city of Bithynia, was a grammarian, and disciple of the celebrated grammarian, Apollonius. According to Suidas he taught literature at Rome, under Pompey the Great. And it is probable that it was with Pompey he afterwards passed into Spain.

1171 Teucer, the son of Telamon, king of the island of Salamis, being driven out of the country by his father, founded in Cyprus the city of Salamis. Justin adds, that after the death of his father he returned to the island of Salamis; but being prevented by the son of Ajax, his brother, from debarking, he went into Iberia, and took up his abode on the spot where Carthagena was afterwards built: that subsequently he removed into the country of the Gallicians, and settled amongst them.

1172 The Hellenes derived their name from Hellen the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. This name, which at first designated only a small people of Thessaly, became afterwards the general appellation of the inhabitants of the whole of Greece.

1173 Amphilochus, on his return from Troy, founded with Mopsus the city of Mallos in Cilicia. He afterwards retired to Argos, but not being contented there he rejoined Mopsus, who however would no longer divide with him the government of their common colony. This dispute resulted in a remarkable combat, which cost the life of both. (Compare Strabo. l. xiv. c. 4.) Sophocles and other tragic poets have taken advantage of this tradition. Herodotus likewise speaks of the voyages of Amphilochus into Cilicia, and of the city of Posideium which he founded there, but he tells us nothing of his death. Thucydides merely says that Amphilochus on his return home after the Trojan war, being discontented with his compatriots, founded in the Gulf of Ambracia a city which he named after his fatherland, Argos. None of these traditions mention a voyage to Iberia.

1174 Siebenkees suspects that this name should be read Ocella. The Ocelenses in Lusitania are commended by Pliny.

1175 Some MSS. read Opsicella.

1176 Strabo, or rather Artemidorus, seems to have confused the two kinds of lotus mentioned by the ancients. That whereof they ate the roots and the grain is the lotus of the Nile, and a plant of the species nymphæa. The lotus alluded to in this instance is a shrub, (the rhamnus lotus of Linnæus,) named seedra by the inhabitants of Barbary, with whom the fruit is an article of food. Herodotus mentions both kinds, (lib. ii. c. 92, and iv. c. 177,) and Polybius describes the second, as an eye-witness.

1177 The Island of Zerbi.

1178 The Gulf of Cabes.

1179 A celebrated stoic philosopher and grammarian contemporary with Aristarchus. He was of Mallos, a city of Cilicia, and surnamed the Critic and the Homeric, on account of the corrections, explanations, and remarks which he composed in nine books on the poems of Homer.

1180 Sertorius, on the return of Sylla to Rome, took refuge in Spain, where he put himself at the head of the Romans who had revolted against the republic; he was assassinated by one of his officers.

1184 That is, the ancient name, Sucro.

1186 Denia or Artemus.

1191 A sauce so named from the garus, a small fish, from which originally it was prepared. Afterwards it was made with mackerel and other fish. Vide Pliny l. xxxi. c. 7, 8.

1195 New Carthage, or Carthagena, is intended.

1196 Sent from Rome.

1197 Majorca and Minorca.

1200 The text is here manifestly corrupt. Various other numbers, from 4 to 400, have been conjectured as the true reading. Gosselin and Groskurd are in favour of 200.

1201 Sic text. Siebenkees and Coray propose to read Ῥόδος, and Casaubon also Ῥόδη, now Rosas.

1203 Probably the river Fluvia, the Alba of the ancients.

1204 Iberia, or Spain, was anciently divided into two grand divisions, to which the Romans gave the names of Citerior and Ulterior Iberia. Augustus subdivided this latter into the two provinces of Bætica and Lusitania, giving the name of Tarraco to Citerior Iberia. Nevertheless the ancient names of Citerior and Ulterior continued in use long after this division.

1206 We are not exactly acquainted with this place, it is probably Vidreras; though others suppose it to be Colonia Sagerra.

1210 The cordage of the famous vessel built by Hiero of Syracuse was formed from the spartum of Iberia. Vid. Athenæus, lib. v. p. 206.

1214 Cordova and Cadiz.

1215 Fought against Pompey.

1216 The mountains of Burgos and Cuença, the Sierras of Oca, Lorenzo, and Moncayo.

1219 The Sierra de Toledo.

1222 They occupied the northern half of Catalonia.

1228 ὑπὸ Καίσαρος τοῦ θεοῦ, by the deified Cæsar. We have adopted the Latin divus as the most suitable epithet for the emperor in an English version.

1229 Gosselin here labours to reconcile these distances with the actual topography of those parts, but it is useless to attempt to make all the loose statements furnished by Strabo tally with the exact distances of the places he mentions by supposing the stadia to be so continually varied.

1231 Gosselin is of opinion that this Œaso, is not Ojarço near Fontarabia, but thinks it probable that Ea near Cape Machicaco is the site where it stood.

1232 People of Biscay.

1233 The ancient Anas.

1234 The ruins of Numantia are seen a little to the north of Soria.

1236 Probably the small village of Varea, about half a league from Logroño; D’Anville supposes it to be Logroño itself.

1237 Aliter Bardyali.

1238 Kramer has altered the text into Ἐδητανῶν, all MSS. having διττανῶν. There is little doubt they are the same people mentioned in section 14 as Sidetani.

1242 Sasamo, west of Briviesca.

1243 Allusion is here made to the custom of the Roman generals, who caused to be carried at their triumphs, representations in painting or sculpture, not only of the kings or generals of the enemy, who had been slain, but likewise of the forts, cities, mountains, lakes, rivers, and even seas, conquered from the enemy. This usage explains the words of Cicero, “portari in triumpho Massiliam vidimus.” Appian, on occasion of the triumph of Scipio, says, Πύργοι τε παραφέρονται μιμήματα τῶν εἰλημμένων πόλεων.

1244 Sucro, now Xucar.

1245 The same people as the Edetani, mentioned in section 12.

1248 At the present day the best castor comes from Russia, but the greater part of that found in shops is the produce of Canada. It is denominated a stimulant and antispasmodic. Formerly it was much used in spasmodic diseases, as hysteria and epilepsy. It is now considered almost inert, and is seldom employed. After this description, it is scarcely necessary to warn the reader against the vulgar error of confusing castor with castor oil, which is extracted from the seeds of the Ricinus communis or castor oil plant, a shrub growing in the West Indies.