11 1113 before the Christian era. G.
12 Taking the reverse order in which these peninsulas are described, the fifth and last contains all the rest, the fourth all but the difference between the fourth and fifth, and so on in order until we come to the Peloponnesus, properly so called, which is thus the least of the peninsulas. Strabo himself seems to admit the term peninsula to be improperly applied to these subdivisions, by first describing Greece to be divided into two great bodies, viz. that within and that without the Isthmus of Corinth.
13 For the same reason, at a subsequent period, it obtained the name of Morea, in Greek (Μορέα) which signifies mulberry, a species or variety of which tree bears leaves divided into five lobes—equal in number to the five principal capes of the Peloponnesus. See book ii. ch. i. 30.
14 Cape Papa.
15 Zante.
16 Cephalonia.
17 Theaki.
18 Cape Matapan.
19 Basilico.
20 Gulf of Coron.
21 Gulf of Colochina.
22 Gulf of Napoli.
23 Gulf of Castri.
24 Gulf of Egina.
25 Fidari.
26 Aspro-potamo.
27 Drepano.
28 Castle of Roumelia.
29 Patras.
30 Vostitza.
31 The words in brackets are inserted according to the suggestion of Groskurd. The Gulf of Corinth is, in other passages, called by Strabo the Crissæan Gulf.
32 Od. xv. 298.
33 Il. v. 545.
34 Od. iii. 4.
35 Igliaco.
36 Chiarenza, in ruins.
37 Cape Tornese.
38 Il. ii. 650.
39 Il. xv. 531.
40 Od. i. 261.
41 Od. ii. 328.
42 Il. xi. 738.
43 I read οἱ καὶ, as Meineke suggests, but the whole passage from “there is” to “Ephyra,” is, as he also remarks, probably an interpolation. Strabo has already enumerated four cities of the name of Ephyra, viz. the Eliac, the Thesprotic, the Corinthian, and the Thessalian; yet here two others are presented to our notice, the Sicyonian and the Ætolian, of which Strabo makes no mention in his account of Ætolia and Sicyonia.
44 Il. xxiv. 78.
45 Il. ii. 730.
46 Il. ii. 591.
47 This is supposed to be the modern Navarino. The Coryphasium is Mount St. Nicholas. G.
48 Κοίλη Ἦλις, or Cœle-Elis.
49 Il. ii. 615.
50 Il. xxiii. 630.
51 Od. i. 344.
52 Od. ii. 496.
53 Il. ix. 529.
54 Il. ii. 625.
55 Il. ii. 756.
56 This passage in brackets is an interpolation to explain the subsequent inquiry who the Caucones were. Kramer.
57 Il. iii. 636.
58 Book vii. ch. vii. 2.
59 Il. vii. 135.
60 This passage is transposed from the following section, as proposed by Groskurd.
61 θρύον, the meaning of this word is uncertain; Meyer in his “Botanische erklarung” of Strabo does not attempt to explain it.
62 Od. iii. 4.
63 Book xii. c. 3, 4. Little, however, can be obtained of their history, which is buried in the same obscurity as the Pelasgi and Leleges.
64 This passage is an interpolation by the same hand probably as that in s. 11. Cramer.
65 Dardanus was the son of Jupiter and Electra, one of the seven daughters of Atlas, surnamed Atlantides.
66 Il. ii. 591.
67 Il. ii. 721.
68 Hercules, after killing the Hydra, dipped the arrows which he afterwards made use of against the Centaurs, in gall of this monster. Pausanias, however, speaks of one Centaur only, Chiron, or, according to others, Polenor, who washed his wounds in the Anigrus.
69 The daughters of Prœtus. According to Apollodorus, Melampus cured them of madness, probably the effect of a disease of the skin.
70 Alphi, Lepra alphoides. Leuce, white tetter or common leprosy. Leichen, a cutaneous disease tending to leprosy.
71 The position of Pylus of Messenia is uncertain. D’Anville places it at New Navarino. Barbié de Bocage at Old Navarino. See also Ernst Curtius, Peloponnesus.
72 Il. vii. 133.
73 Il. ix. 153.
74 Some MSS. have 120 stadia.
75 Il. ii. 591.
76 Il. xi. 710
77 A marsh.
78 The sea-shore.
79 Il. xi. 710.
80 Il. ii. 697.
81 Il. ii. 584.
82 In the discussion which follows, Strabo endeavours to prove, that the Pylus of Nestor is the Pylus of Triphylia, and not the Pylus of Messenia.
83 Od. xv. 295
84 Od. iv. 671; xv. 298.
85 Il. xi. 677.
86 Il. xi. 681.
87 Il. xi. 756.
88 Il. xi. 697.
89 Il. i. 528.
90 Il. viii. 199.
91 Probably an interpolation.
92 The establishment of the Olympic games is connected with many legends, and is involved in much obscurity. See Smith, Greek and Roman Antiq.
93 776 B. C.
94 Il. xi. 677.
95 An interpolation. K.
96 Od. ii. 238.
97 An interpolation. Meineke.
98 An interpolation. Groskurd.
99 The text of Homer gives the name of Pharis.
100 Il. ix. 150.
101 Il. ii. 582.
102 Thucydides, b. iv. ch. 2. The expedition was under the command of Eurymedon and Sophocles. Stratocles being at the time archon at Athens.
103 Thucydides, b. iv. ch. 38. The number was 292.
104 Strivali.
105 According to Pausanias, Mothone, or Methone, was the Pedasus of Homer. It is the modern Modon.
106 Cape Gallo. The Gulf of Messenia is now the Gulf of Coron.
107 The name Thyrides, the little gates, is probably derived from the fable which placed the entrance of the infernal regions at Tænarum, Cape Matapan.
108 For Cinæthium I read Cænepolis, as suggested by Falconer, and approved by Coray.
109 Vitulo.
110 Scardamula.
111 As Strabo remarks, in b. x., that the temple was built by Nestor on his return from Troy, Falconer suggests that it might have derived its name from the river Nedon, near Gerenia, the birth-place of Nestor.
112 In the island of Cos.
113 According to Pausanias, Gerenia is the Enope of Homer.
114 Hira in the time of Pausanias was called Abia (Palæochora?). Some interpreters of Homer were misled by the name of a mountain, Ira, near Megalopolis, and placed there a city of the same name, but Hira was on the sea-coast.
115 Æpys, αἰπύς, lofty.
116 The Pirnatza.
117 So called from its fertility.
118 In the text 250, σν, an error probably arising from the repetition of the preceding final letter.
119 The Pamisus above mentioned was never called the Amathus. There were three rivers of this name, one near the Triphyliac Pylus, which was also called Amathus; a second at Leuctrum of Laconia; and a third near Messene.
120 The ruins of Messene are now near the place called Mauromathia.
121 Mount Vulkano.
122 The first war dates from the year B. C. 743, and continued 20 years. The second, beginning from 682 B. C., lasted 14 years; the third concluded in the year 456 B. C., with the capture of Ithome, which was the citadel or fort of Messene. Diod. Sic. lib. xv. c. 66.
123 The Messenians, driven from Ithome at the end of the third war, settled at Naupactus, which was given to them as a place of refuge by the Athenians, after the expulsion of the Locri-Ozolæ. It is probable that Strabo considers as a fourth war that which took place in the 94th Olympiad, when the Messenians were driven from Naupactus by the Lacedæmonians and compelled to abandon Greece entirely.
124 Leake supposes Amyclæ to have been situated between Iklavokhori and Sparta, on the hill of Agia Kyriaki, half a mile from the Eurotas. At this place he discovered on an imperfect inscription the letters ΑΜΥ following a proper name, and leaving little doubt that the incomplete word was ΑΜΥΚΛΑΙΟΥ. See Smith.
125 Cape Matapan.
126 The Ass’s Jaw. It is detached from the continent, and is now the island of Servi.
127 Cerigo.
128 750 stadia. Groskurd.
129 By others written in the singular number, Malea, now C. St. Angelo.
130 The site of Gythium is identified as between Marathonisi and Trinissa.
131 The Iri, or Vasili Potamo.
132 Il. ii. 584.
133 Rupina, or Castel Rampano. The plain of Leuce is traversed by the river Mario-revina.
134 The site of Asopus appears, according to the ruins indicated in the Austrian map, to have been situated a little to the north of Rupina.
135 κρῖ, δῶ, μάψ, for κριθή, δῶμα, μαψίδιον.
136 Il. xix. 392.
137 Probably an interpolation.
138 The text here is very corrupt.
139 1090 B. C.
140 Od. iii. 249, 251.
141 His character is discreditably spoken of by Josephus, Antiq. b. xvi. c. 10. and Bell. Jud. b. i. c. 26.
142 The cities of the Eleuthero-Lacones were at first 24 in number; in the time of Pausanias 18 only. They were kindly treated by Augustus, but subsequently they were excluded from the coast to prevent communication with strangers. Pausanias, b. iii. c. 21.
143 From hence to the end of the section the text is corrupt. See Groskurd for an attempt to amend the text of the last sentence, which is here not translated.
144 This quotation, as also the one which follows, are from a tragedy of Euripides, now lost.
145 The Pirnatza.
146 Κῆτος. Some are of opinion that the epithet was applied to Lacedæmon, because fish of the cetaceous tribe frequented the coast of Laconia.
147 Il. i. 268.
148 This may have taken place a little before the third Messenian war, b. c. 464, when an earthquake destroyed all the houses in Sparta, with the exception of five. Diod. Sic. b. xv. c. 66; Pliny, b. ii. c. 79.
149 Pliny, b. xxxvi. c. 18, speaks of the black marble of Tænarus.
150 Od. xxi. 13.
151 Eustathius informs us that, according to some writers, Sparta and Lacedæmon were the names of the two principal quarters of the city; and adds that the comic poet, Cratinus, gave the name of Sparta to the whole of Laconia.
152 Od. iii. 488.
153 Cheramidi.
154 Od. iii. 487.
155 Od. ii. 359.
156 The text to the end of the section is very corrupt. The following is a translation of the text as proposed to be amended by Groskurd. The epithet of Lacedæmon, hollow, cannot properly be applied to the country, for this peculiarity of the city does not with any propriety agree with the epithets given to the country; unless we suppose the epithet to be a poetical licence. For, as has been before remarked, it must be concluded from the words of the poet himself, that Messene was then a part of Laconia, and subject to Menelaus. It would then be a contradiction (in Homer) not to join Messene, which took part in the expedition, with Laconia or the Pylus under Nestor, nor to place by itself in the Catalogue, as though it had no part in the expedition.
157 Skylli.
158 The islands about Delos.
159 The form thus given to the Gulf of Hermione bears no resemblance to modern maps.
160 Pausanias calls it Epidelium, now S. Angelo.
161 The ruins are a little to the north of Monembasia, Malvasia, or Nauplia de Malvasia.
162 Cerigo.
163 The ruins are on the bay of Rheontas.
164 Toniki, or Agenitzi.
165 Napoli di Romagna. Nauplius, to avenge the death of his son Palamedes, was the cause of many Greeks perishing on their return from Troy at Cape Caphareus in Eubœa, famous for its dangerous rocks. The modern Greeks give to this promontory the name of Ξυλοφάγος, (Xylophagos,) or devourer of vessels. Italian navigators call it Capo d’Oro, which in spite of its apparent signification, Golden Cape, is probably a transformation of the Greek word Caphareus.
166 Strabo confounds Nauplius, son of Clytoreus, and father of Palamedes, with Nauplius, son of Neptune and Amymone, and one of the ancestors of Palamedes.
167 Fornos.
168 Castri.
169 Damala.
170 I. Poros.
171 A place near the ruins of Epidaurus preserves the name Pedauro. G.
172 Scheno.
173 Il. iv. 52.
174 Il. ii. 559.
175 Il. i. 30.
176 Il. ii. 681.
177 Il. ix. 141.
178 Od. iii. 251.
179 Od. xviii. 245.