The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Geography of Strabo Vol. II., translated By H. C. Hamilton.

197 Not strictly correct, as in the time of Pausanias, who lived about 150 years after Strabo, a large portion of the walls surrounding Mycenæ still existed. Even in modern times traces are still to be found.

199 From γαστὴρ, the belly, χεὶρ the hand.

200 Poseidon, or Neptune. This god, after a dispute with Minerva respecting this place, held by order of Jupiter, divided possession of it with her. Hence the ancient coins of Trœzen bear the trident and head of Minerva.

201 Πώγων, pogon or beard. Probably the name is derived from the form of the harbour. Hence the proverb, “Go to Trœzen,” (πλεύσειας εἰς Τροιζῆνα,) addressed to those who had little or no beard.

202 Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes.

204 Methana is the modern name.

205 Thucyd. b. ii. c. 34. Methone is the reading of all manuscripts and editions.

206 Herodotus, b. v. c. 83, and b. viii. c. 93.

207 This colony must have been posterior to that of the Samians, the first founders of Cydonia.

212 Thucyd. ii. 27; iv. 56.

213 A place not known.

214 Probably interpolated.

216 Tricorythus in place of Corinth is the suggestion of Coray.

217 Iph. Taur. 508 et seq.

218 Orest. 98, 101, 1246.

219 Οὐ παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἐς Κόρινθον ἔσθ’ ὁ πλοῦς, which Horace has elegantly Latinized, Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum.

220 ἱστοὺς—distaffs; also, masts and sailors.

221 Strabo here gives the name of Crissæan Gulf to the eastern half of the Gulf of Corinth.

222 Of or belonging to asses.

223 The remains of an ancient place at the distance of about a mile after crossing the Erasinus, (Kephalari,) are probably those of Cenchreæ. Smith.

224 Crommyon was distant 120 stadia from Corinth, (Thuc. iv. 45,) and appears to have therefore occupied the site of the ruins near the chapel of St. Theodorus. The village of Kineta, which many modern travellers suppose to correspond to Crommyon, is much farther from Corinth than 120 stadia. Smith.

225 According to Pausanias, the Teneates derive their origin from the Trojans taken captive at the island of Tenedos. On their arrival in Peloponnesus, Tenea was assigned to them as a habitation by Agamemnon.

227 Aristeides of Thebes, a contemporary of Alexander the Great. At a public sale of the spoils of Corinth, King Attalus offered so large a price for the painting of Bacchus, that Mummius, although ignorant of art, was attracted by the enormity of the price offered, withdrew the picture, in spite of the protestations of Attalus, and sent it to Rome.

228 This story forms the subject of the Trachiniæ of Sophocles.

229 Mummius was so ignorant of the arts, that he threatened those who were intrusted with the care of conveying to Rome the pictures and statues taken at Corinth, to have them replaced by new ones at their expense, in case they should be so unfortunate as to lose them.

230 The plastic art was invented at Sicyon by Dibutades; according to others, at the island of Samos, by Rœcus and Theodorus. From Greece it was carried into Etruria by Demaratus, who was accompanied by Eucheir and Eugrammus, plastic artists, and by the painter Cleophantus of Corinth, B. C. 663. See b. v. c. ii. § 2.

232 The ruins are situated below the monastery Kesra.

234 Ægialus was the most ancient name of Achaia, and was given to it on account of the greater number of cities being situated upon the coast. The Sicyonians, however, asserted that the name was derived from one of their kings named Ægialeus.

235 The story is narrated differently in Pausanias, b. vii. c. 1.

236 About 1044 B. C.

237 The twelve cities were Phocæa, Erythræ, Clazomenæ, Teos, Lebedos, Colophon, Ephesus, Priene, Myus, Miletus, and Samos and Chios in the neighbouring islands. See b. xiv. c. i. § 3. This account of the expulsion of the Ionians from Peloponnesus is taken from Polybius, b. ii. c. 41, and b. iv. c. 1.

238 And Lacedæmonians, adds Polybius, b. ii. c. 39.

239 Patras and Paleocastro.

240 This festival, Panionium, or assembly of all the Ionians, was celebrated at Mycale, or at Priene at the base of Mount Mycale, opposite the island of Samos, in a place sacred to Neptune. The Ionians had a temple also at Miletus and another at Teos, both consecrated to the Heliconian Neptune. Herod. i. 148. Pausanias, b. vii. c. 24.

242 The birth of Homer was later than the establishment of the Ionians in Asia Minor, according to the best authors. Aristotle makes him contemporary with the Ionian migration, 140 years after the Trojan war.

243 Ælian, De Naturâ Anim. b. ii. c. 19, and Pausanias, b. vii. c. 24, 25, give an account of this catastrophe, which was preceded by an earthquake, and was equally destructive to the city Bura. B. C. 373.

244 The Syngathus Hippocampus of Linnæus, from ἵππος, a horse, and κάμπη, a caterpillar. It obtained its name from the supposed resemblance of its head to a horse and of its tail to a caterpillar. From this is derived the fiction of sea-monsters in attendance upon the marine deities. It is, however, but a small animal, abundant in the Mediterranean. The head, especially when dried, is like that of a horse. Pliny, b. xxxii. c. 9—11. Ælian, De Nat. Anim. b. xiv. c. 20.

245 This distinguished man was elected general of the Achæan League, B. C. 245.

246 The expulsion of the Carthaginians from Sicily took place 241 B. C. The war of the Romans against the Cisalpine Gauls commenced 224 B. C., when the Romans passed the Po for the first time.

247 Text abbreviated by the copyist.

251 Il. xiii. 21, 34.

252 Κράθις—κραθῆναι The Acrata. The site of Ægæ is probably the Khan of Acrata. Smith.

253 From the heights on which it was situated, descends a small river, (the Crius,) which discharges itself into the sea near Cape Augo-Campos.

255 Leake places the port of Ægeira at Maura-Litharia, the Black Rocks, on the left of which on the summit of a hill are some vestiges of an ancient city, which must have been Ægeira.

257 See above, § 3.

259 Castel di Morea.

260 Castel di Rumeli.

262 Gossellin suggests that the name Stratos was derived from a spot called the Tomb of Sostratus, held in veneration by the inhabitants of Dyme.

263 The Risso or Mana.

264 From the fountain Dirce, and the rivers Asopus, Inachus, and Simoïs.

266 Now bears the name of Zyria; its height, as determined by the French commission, is 7788 feet above the level of the sea. Smith.

267 The Arcadians called themselves Autochthones, indigenous, and also Proseleni, born before the moon; hence Ovid speaking of them says, “Lunâ gens prior illa fuit.”

272 Called Katavothra by modern Greeks.

276 The following section is corrupt in the original; it is translated according to the corrections proposed by Kramer, Gossellin, &c.

277 The peninsulas described by Strabo, are:

1. The Peloponnesus, properly so called, bounded by the Isthmus of Corinth.

2. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from Pagæ to Nisæa, and including the above.

3. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from the recess of the Crissæan Gulf, properly so called, (the Bay of Salona,) to Thermopylæ, and includes the two first.

4. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from the Ambracic Gulf to Thermopylæ and the Maliac Gulf, and includes the three former.

5. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from the Ambracic Gulf to the recess of the Thermaic Gulf, and contains the former four peninsulas.

278 These words are transposed from after the word Epicnemidii, as suggested by Cramer.

279 The Crissæan Gulf, properly so called, is the modern Bay of Salona. But probably Strabo (or rather Eudoxus, whose testimony he alleges) intended to comprehend, under the denomination of Crissæan, the whole gulf, more commonly called Corinthian by the ancients, that is, the gulf which commenced at the strait between Rhium and Antirrhium, and of which the Crissæan Gulf was only a portion. The text in the above passage is very corrupt.

280 From Sunium to the Isthmus.

282 N. W. by W., 1/4 W.

283 Literally, “by legs on each side.” Nisæa was united to Megara, as the Piræus to Athens, by two long walls.

286 See note to vol. i. page 329.

287 This place is unknown.

288 From a lost tragedy of Sophocles.

289 Probably interpolated.

296 These horns, according to Wheler, are two pointed rocks on the summit of the mountain situated between Eleusis and Megara. On one of these rocks is a tower, called by the modern Greeks Cerata or Kerata-Pyrga.

299 κατεσκεύασεν.

300 ἐποίησε. Ictinus was also the architect of the temple of Apollo Epicurius near Phigalia in Arcadia.

302 Scaramandra; from the height above Ægaleos, Xerxes witnessed the battle of Salamis.

303 Megala Kyra, Micra Kyra.

304 τὸ ἄστυ, the Asty, was the upper town, in opposition to the lower town, of Piræus. See Smith’s Dictionary for a very able and interesting article, Athenæ; also Kiepert’s Atlas von Hellas.

305 Sylla took Athens, after a long and obstinate siege, on the 1st March, B. C. 86. The city was given up to rapine and plunder.

306 Strabo thus accounts for his meagre description of the public buildings at Athens, for which, otherwise, he seems to have had no inclination.

307 Hegesias was an artist of great celebrity, and a contemporary of Pheidias. The statues of Castor and Pollux by Hegesias, are supposed by Winkelman to be the same as those which now stand on the stairs leading to the Capitol, but this is very doubtful. Smith.

308 In the Erechtheium.

309 The Heroum, or temple dedicated to the daughters of Leos, who were offered up by their father as victims to appease the wrath of Minerva in a time of pestilence. The position of the temple is doubtfully placed by Smith below the Areiopagus.

310 The well-known temple of Theseus being the best preserved of all the monuments of Greece.

311 An eminent geographer. He made extensive journeys through Greece to collect materials for his geographical works, and as a collector of inscriptions on votive offerings and columns, he was one of the earlier contributors to the Greek Anthology. Smith.

312 The Odeium was a kind of theatre erected by Pericles in the Ceramic quarter of the city, for the purpose of holding musical meetings. The roof, supported by columns, was constructed out of the wreck of the Persian fleet conquered at Salamis. There was also the Odeium of Regilla, but this was built in the time of the Antonines.

313 The country was called Actica from Actæos. Parian Chronicle.

314 Demetrius Phalereus was driven from Athens, 307 B. C., whence he retired to Thebes. The death of Casander took place 298 B. C.

315 Aratus, the Achæan general, 245 B. C., drove from Attica the Lacedæmonian garrisons, and restored liberty to the Athenians.

324 From C. Colonna to C. Mantelo.

325 Smith gives an alphabetical list of 160 demi.

326 Monte San Giorgio.

327 As Mount Hymettus was always celebrated for producing the best honey, it would appear from this passage that there were silver mines in it. It appears however that the Athenians had failed to discover silver in Hymettus. It is not impossible that Strabo has adopted literally some proverb or saying of the miners, such as, “Ours is the best honey.”

328 In the following description of Greece, Strabo employs the term belts or bands ταινίας for the territory intercepted between the lines forming the peninsulas. See note, chap. i. § 1, of this book.

329 About 67 yards. See also b. x. ch. i. § 8.

330 Leuctra and Mantineia.

331 The Thebans, who were formerly the allies of the Macedonians, were opposed to Philip of Macedon at the battle of Chæroneia. On the accession to the throne of Alexander, the city was destroyed, B. C. 335; 6000 of the inhabitants were killed, and 30,000 sold as slaves. The city was rebuilt, B. C. 316, by Casander. Pausanias, ix. 7. The ravages committed by Sylla in the war against Mithridates, which completed the final ruin of Thebes, must have been fresh in the memory of Strabo.

333 New Eretria stood at Paleocastro, and old Eretria at Vathy.

335 Athenæus, v. 15.

336 Livy states (xlv. 27) that Aulis was distant three miles from Chalcis; by Homer (Il. ii. 303) it is called Αὐλὶς πετρήεσσα. About three miles south of Chalcis, on the Bœotian coast, are two bays, separated from each other by a rocky peninsula: the northern is small and winding, the southern spreads out at the end of a channel into a large circular basin. The latter harbour, as well as a village situated a mile to the southward of it, is called Vathy, a name evidently derived from βαθὺς λιμὴν. We may therefore conclude that Aulis was situated on the rocky peninsula between these two bays. Leake and Smith.