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

2250 This coast of Sicily rises very little as it advances towards the east, and looks almost continually towards the north, with the exception of a very short space near Lilybæum. The Æolian islands lie to the north.

2252 Naxos was not situated between Catana and Syracuse, but was most probably built on the left bank of the Fiume Freddo, the ancient Asines, near Taormina. It is possible that Strabo originally wrote, between Messina and Syracuse. Naxos was founded about 734 B. C., and destroyed by Dionysius the elder about the year 403. Naxos is thought by some to be the modern Schisso.

2253 Megara was founded on the right of the Cantaro, the ancient Alabus. It was destroyed about 214 years B. C.

2255 Thucydides says ζάγκλιον is a Sicilian word.

2257 B. C.264 to 243.

2260 Now called Garafalo.

2263 These wines, although grown in Sicily, were reckoned among the Italian wines. See Athen. Deipnos. lib. i. cap. 21, ed. Schweigh: tom. i. p. 102. And from the time of Julius Cæsar they were classed in the fourth division of the most esteemed wines. See Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xiv. § 8, No. 4 and § 17.

2264 At the same time as Syracuse.

2265 A note in the French translation suggests that we should read Sicilians of Hybla. τῶν ἐν Ὕβλῃ Σικελῶν instead of Ζαγκλαίων.

2266 Hiero in Greek was Hἱέρων. The line of Pindar in Kramer’s edition is,

ξύνες [ὅ] τοι λέγω, ζαθέων ἱερῶν ὁμώνυμε πάτερ,

κτίστορ Αἴτνας.

The words played on are Hἱέρων and hἱερων.

2267 This occurred in the year 468.

2269 Cluvier considers that the monastery of Saint Nicolas de Arenis, about 12 modern miles from Catana, is situated about the place to which Strabo here alludes.

2270 τὴν Καταναίαν. The spelling of this name, like very many in the present work, was by no means uniform in classic authors. Strabo has generally called it Catana (Κατάνη); Ptolemy, Κατάνη κολώνια; Pliny, lib. iii. cap. 8, Colonia Catina; Pomponius Mela, lib. ii. cap. 7, Catina; Cicero, Catina; and on ancient coins we find ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΩΝ.

2271 This feat was recorded by divers works of art set up in different places: it must have taken place in one of the eruptions, 477, 453, or 427, before the Christian era. The place where they lived was called Campus Piorum.

2272 δι' ἡμερῶν τεσσάρων ἢ πέντε in Kramer’s text; in his notes he particularizes the readings of the different manuscripts and editions, some reading forty or fifty. He also records his sorrow at having preferred the reading of fifty days to thirty, in the passage relating to the fat beasts of Erythia, book iii. cap. 5, § 4, (page 255).

2273 Literally, changes into coagulation.

2274 About 758 or 735 B. C.

2275 Book vi. chap. 1, § 12.

2276 According to other authorities he was descended from Bacchus.

2277 At present Corfù.

2279 Cicero’s Oratio Frumentaria supports this character of the country. Silius Italicus, lib. xiv. vers. 23, thus celebrates the richness of the soil,

“Multa solo virtus: jam reddere fœnus aratris,
Jam montes umbrare olea, dare nomina Baccho;
Nectare Cecropias Hyblæo accendere ceras;”

and Florus terms it Terra frugum ferax.

2280 Strabo makes a distinct mention of Siculi and Sicani, as if they were different people. Philologists have been much divided as to whether they were not different appellations of the same nation.

2281 Such as the Elymi, or Helymi, who occupied the districts bordering on the Belici in the western part of the island.

2282 It is probable that Morgantium was situated on the right bank of the Giaretta, below its confluence with the Dattaino, but at some little distance from the sea; at least such is the opinion of Cluverius, in opposition to the views of Sicilian topographers. Sic. Ant. book ii. cap. 7, pp. 325 and 335.

2283 The first settlement of the Carthaginians in Sicily was about 560 B. C.

2284 212 years B. C.

2286 They were called Nesos, [the island Ortygia,] Achradina, Tycha, Neapolis, and Epipolæ. Ausonius applies the epithet fourfold,

“Quis Catinam sileat? quis quadruplices Syracusas?”

Dionysius however fortified Epipolæ with a wall, and joined it to the city.

2287 Twenty-two miles four perches English. Swinburne spent two days in examining the extent of the ruins, and was satisfied as to the accuracy of Strabo’s statement.

2288 A river of Elis.

2289 Virgil thus deals with the subject:

“Sicanio prætenta sinu jacet insula contra
Plemmyrium undosum: nomen dixere priores
Ortygiam. Alpheum fama est huc, Elidis amnem,
Occultas egisse vias subter mare; qui nunc
Ore, Arethusa, tuo Siculis confunditur undis.”
Æn. iii. 692.

2290 The words of Pindar are,

ἄμπνευμα σεμνὸν Ἀλφεοῦ,

κλεινᾶν Συρακοσσᾶν θάλος, Ὀρτυγία.

The French translators have rendered them,

“Terme saint du tourment d’Alphée

Bel ornement, de Syracuse Ortygia!”

And Groskurd,

“Ehrwürdige Ruhstatt Alpheos’.

Ruhmzweig Syrakossai’s, o Du Ortygia.”

Liddell and Scott call ἀνάπνευμα a resting-place, referring to this passage, but I can see no reason for not allowing to it the signification most suitable to the passage. ἀναπνέω is, “to breathe again,” and, according to the supposition of the ancients, the Alpheus might justly be said to breathe again on appearing at Arethusa, after its passage beneath the bed of the sea from Greece. ἀναπνοὴ also, means “a recovering of breath.”

2291 Pindar, Nem. Od. i. vers. 1. See also Bohn’s Classic. Lib. Pindar.

2292 Conf. Antig. Caryst. Hist. Mir. cap. 155.

2293 According to Strabo himself, book viii. chap. 3, § 12, the Alpheus flows through a subterraneous course before it comes to Olympia; the objection therefore which he here takes, rests only on the circumstance of the river pursuing a visible course all the way to the sea, from the point where the chalice had fallen into it.

2294 A river of Elis.

2295 The play from which this is quoted is not extant.

2296 A people of Thessaly.

2297 A people of Argos.

2299 In the Peloponnesus.

2300 The Lao or the Pollina.

2302 The Porto Maggiore of Syracuse is scarcely half so large.

2303 Centorbe, to the south-west of Ætna. Silius, lib. xiv., mentions it as “Centuripe, largoque virens Entella Lyæo.”

2304 The ancient Symæthus.

2305 Now Camarana: it was founded 600 years B. C.

2307 “Apparet Camarina procul, campique Geloi.” Virg. Æn. iii. 701.

2310 S. Maria di Tindaro.

2311 Castel-à-Mare.

2313 Now ruins at Barbara.

2314 Also called Acestes.

2316 Ovid, in the fourth book of his Fasti, thus alludes to the temple,

“Grata domus Cereri, multas ea possidet urbes,

In quibus est culto fertilis Enna solo.”

From this place we have the adjective Enneus, and the Ennea virgo of Sil., lib. xiv., for Proserpine,

“Tum rapta præceps Ennea virgine flexit.”

Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. cap. 3, says that there was a fable about the seizure of the virgin [Proserpine] in the meadows near Enna. The locality is very near the town, embellished with violets and all kinds of beautiful flowers. An ancient coin of the place described by Ezech. Spanheim, page 906, is inscribed with the letters M U N. H E N N A E. Pliny, lib. iii. cap. 8, writes, “Municipes Hennenses.”

2317 About 146 years B. C.

2318 The sentence from “Eryx” to “notice,” placed between daggers, seems to have been transposed from the end of § 5; it should immediately succeed the words Ægestus the Trojan.

2319 Diodorus Siculus, lib. iv. § 83, tom. i. p. 326, gives a different account of the state of this place at this time.

2320 The Carthaginians had destroyed it about 409 years B. C.

2321 Some colonists from Rhodes made a settlement here 45 years after the foundation of Syracuse. It was overthrown about 279 years B. C.

2323 About 649 B. C.

2324 It is supposed that Callipolis anciently occupied the site of Mascalis.

2325 Those who inhabited Hybla Minor. We know that Selinus was in existence 640 B. C., and destroyed 268 B. C.

2326 Now ruins called di Pollece on the river Madiuni in the Terra de’ Pulci.

2327 The Leontini arrived in Sicily 728 B. C., and founded Leontini, now Lentini.

2328 Eubœa was destroyed by the tyrant Gelon, who reigned from 491 to 478 B. C.Eubali, Castellazzio, and a place near the little town of Licodia, not far from the source of the Drillo, have been supposed to be the site of the ancient Eubœa. Siebenkees thinks that the words between daggers at the end of § 7 should follow “Eubœa.”

2329 Lit. barbarians.

2330 About 134 B. C.

2332 Kramer and Siebenkees consider that the sentence between daggers, from “The” to “prosperity,” has been transferred from its proper place. See note (12), page 412.

2333 The French translators infer from this passage that Strabo had never visited Sicily.

2334 Sicilian topographers vary exceedingly in defining the position of these mountains. Groskurd makes them Madonia.

2335 To the south-west.

2336 See Humboldt, Cosmos, i. 242.

2337 Book v. chap. iv. § 9.

2338 I Bagni di Sciacca.

2339 Now ruins at Barbara, in the valley of Mazzara.

2341 A modern traveller is of opinion that these correspond with certain peculiar marshes near Girgenti, in the midst of the Macaluba mountains, supplied by a spring of salt water. The soil here is chalky, and the mountains abound in a grey and ductile clay. See Monsieur le Commandeur de Dolomieu, Voyage aux îles de Lipari, pp. 165 et seqq.; also Fazell. Decad. i. lib. i. cap. 5, p. 45.

2342 The place dedicated to these avengers of perjury is frequently located near Mineo and Palagonia; others, thinking to gain the support of Virgil’s testimony, place it near Paterno, much farther north, between Catana and Centorbi, and not far from the banks of the Giaretta, the ancient Symæthus.

2343 Cluvier supposes this cavern must have been near Mazarum [Mazara]. The river named Mazarus by the ancients, runs through a rocky district, abounding in stone quarries. It is possible that this river, much hemmed in throughout its course, might have anciently flowed beneath some of these massive rocks.

2345 According to Pliny, Hist. Nat. lib. vi. § 31, tom. i. p. 333, the Tigris is ingulfed on reaching a branch of Mount Taurus, at a place called Zoroanda, which M. D’Anville identifies with the modern Hazour.

2346 Λιβύη in Strabo.

2347 Kramer here persists in reading πρὸ, and rejects ἀπὸ: we have endeavoured to translate it with Kramer, but the French translation of 1809 renders it, a little below its sources.

2348 A river of Argolis: see book viii. Casaub. pp. 371 and 389.

2350 This ancient city was found in ruins by Pausanias, who says (Arcadic. or book viii. cap. 44, p. 691) “that at less than 20 stadia distant from the Athenæum are found the ruins of Asea, as well as the hill on which the citadel of the town was built, which was surrounded by walls, the vestiges of which still remain. About 5 stadia from Asea, and not far from the main road, is the source of the Alpheus, and, quite close, even at the edge of the road, that of the Eurotas.... [At a short distance] the two rivers unite and run as one for about 20 stadia; they then both cast themselves into a chasm, and, continuing their under-ground course, they afterwards reappear; one (the Eurotas) in Laconia, the other in the territory of Megalopolis.” Such is what Pausanias relates in one place. But when, in this account, he fixes the source of the Alpheus at about 5 stadia from Asea, we must understand him to allude to a second source of the river; for further on (book viii. cap. 54, p. 709) he says distinctly that the main source of the Alpheus is seen near Phylace in Arcadia; then adds that that river, on coming to the district of Tegea, is absorbed under the ground, to re-issue near Asea.

2351 See § 4 of this chapter, page 408.

2352 The ancient Timavus. See book v. chap. i. § 8, page 319.

2353 The French translation, “en divers endroits de l’Italie.” Some manuscripts read Ἰταλίαν. We have followed Kramer and Groskurd.

2354 Founded about B. C.580.

2355 Thermessa, at present called Vulcano, is doubtless the same mentioned in Pliny’s Nat. Hist. lib. iii. § 14, tom. i. p. 164, as Therasia, by the error of the copyist. Paulus Orosius, lib. iv. cap. 20, says that it rose from the bed of the sea, B. C.571. It is however certain that it was in existence B. C.427, confer. Thucyd. lib. iii. § 88, and was for a considerable time called Hiera.

2356 See Pausan. Phoc. or lib. x. cap. 16, p. 835.

2357 See Pausan. Phoc. or lib. x. cap. 2, p. 824.

2358 M. le Comm. de Dolomieu, in his Voyage aux îles de Lipari, ed. 1783, p. 75 et seqq., supports the character here given of the fertility of this island, and praises the abundance of delicious fruits it produces.

2359 M. le Comm. de Dolomieu considers it probable that the Liparæans obtained this alum by the lixiviation of earths exposed to the acido-sulphurous vapours of their volcanos, pp. 77, 78.

2360 These hot springs are not much frequented, although they still exist.

2361 See Humboldt, Cosm. i. 242.

2362 This is 30 feet in the epitome.

2363 Odyss. lib. x. 21.

2364 Here follow some words which convey no intelligible meaning.—They are written in the margin of some of the manuscripts. Kramer inserts them between asterisks as follows: *ἔστιν ἡ ἐπίστασις τῆς ἐναργείας λέγοιτ’ ἄν,... ἐπίσης τε γὰρ ἄμφω πάρεστι, καὶ διαθέσει καὶ τῇ ἐναργείᾳ· ἥ γε hἡδονὴ κοινὸν ἀμφοτέρων* Groskurd thinks the passage might be translated, “[Great, undoubtedly,] is the impression produced by animated energy, [of which] it may be asserted [that it excites in a marked degree both admiration and pleasure]. For both arise equally from graphic representation and animated description. Pleasure at least is common to both.” The following are Groskurd’s own words: Gross allerdings ist der Eindruck kräftiger Lebendigkeit, [von welcher] man behaupten darf, [dass sie vorzüglich sowohl Bewunderung als Vergnügen gewähre]. Denn Beide erfolgen gleichermassen, sowohl durch Darstellung als durch Lebendigkeit; das Vergnügen wenigstens ist Beiden gemein.

2366 στρογγύλος means “round.” M. Dolomieu, p. 113, says that the island of Stromboli, seen from a distance, appears like a cone; when, however, it is more particularly examined, it looks like a mountain terminated by two peaks of different heights, and the sides appear disturbed and torn by craters opened in various parts, and streams of lava which have flowed down. It might be about 12 miles in circumference.

2367 Most of the ancient authors agree in considering Lipari as the residence of Æolus. See Cluver. Sic. Ant. lib. ii. cap. 14.

2368 δίδυμος, “double.” Cluverius identifies this with the island now called Salini. M. Dolomieu says that Didyma is situated to the west of Lipari; it is nearly circular, and contains three mountains placed so as to form a triangle. Two of the mountains are connected at their bases, the third is separated from them by a valley which runs right across the island, so that while sailing at some distance in the sea on the south side it has the appearance of two islands, from which circumstance it took its ancient name of Didyma: its present name, Salini, is derived from salt works there.

2369 Ericussa, now called Alicudi or Alicurim, is covered with trees, it is inhabited, but little cultivated. The pasturage is pretty good.

2370 Phœnicussa, now Felicudi or Filicurim, abounds in rich pastures; both wheat and the vine are here cultivated.

2371 Cluverius, Sic. Ant. lib. ii. p. 414, identifies this island with Lisca-Bianca, to the east of Lipari, but M. le commandeur Dolomieu, Voyage pittoresque de Naples et de Sicile, tom. iv. part ii. chap. 14, considers that it corresponded with the present Panaria, which is about eight times the circumference of Lisca-Bianca. He says the neighbouring islets are but the detached portions of a vast crater now submerged; the denomination, Formocoli or the Little Ants, is aptly illustrative of their minuteness and numbers. The most important are Datolo, Lisca-Nera, Lisca-Bianca, and Basiluzzo. M. Gossellin very justly remarks that it is quite possible the volcanos, which continually burn in the islands of Æolus, may have formed some new one, and gives some good reasons for identifying Didyma with Panaria.

2372 Rich. Pocock, Descr. de l’ Or., &c. vers. Fr. part iii. chap. 24, tom. vi. p. 327, considers that Strabo meant to say that Euonymus lies most to the left hand as you sail from Sicily to the island of Lipari, and proposes Ustica, the westernmost of the Lipari Islands, as its modern representative.

2373 See Humboldt, Cosmos ii. 557.

2374 A note in the French translation suggests that, notwithstanding the accord of all manuscripts, we should, doubtless, understand Titus Quinctius Flaminius, prætor in A. U. C.628, and B. C.126.

2375 πρὸς ἄρκτον, in Kramer’s text. We have followed the example set by the French translators, and approved by Groskurd, who proposes to read πρὸς ἀρκτ[ικὸν ἄκρ]ον. Kramer however justly remarks, that many other things in this passage are exceedingly confused, and remain incapable of conjectural elucidation.

2376 From Ericodes, now Alicudi, to Phœnicodes, now Felicudi, the distance given by the chorographer is the same as that set down by Ptolemy, and by far too much for that which, according to our charts, separates Felicudi from Salini, but tallies exactly with that to the island Panaria, so that the evidence, both of the chorographer and Ptolemy, seems to point to Panaria, not to Salini, as the ancient Didyma. Further, the 29 miles given in Strabo’s text as the distance from Didyma to Lipari, are reduced to 19 miles in the chart of Ptolemy, and even this last distance would be much too great for the interval which separates Salini from Lipari, but agrees with the distance from Lipari to Panaria, and seems likewise to confirm the identity of Panaria and Didyma. The 19 miles, from Lipari to Sicily, agree with Ptolemy and our charts. Ptolemy gives the equivalent of 44 miles as the distance between Sicily and Strongyle, while our modern maps confirm his computation. M. Gossellin observes that the 16 miles of the existing text of Strabo must be a transcriber’s error; but the construction of the text might very well allow the distance to be from Didyma to Strongyle, which would be nearly correct.