Geography (Books 6-14)

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 957 sections

6.1.1.1
After the mouth of the Silaris one comes to Leucania, and to the temple of the Argoan Hera, built by Jason, and near by, within fifty stadia, to Poseidonia. Thence, sailing out past the gulf, one comes to Leucosia, an island, from which it is only a short voyage across to the continent. The island is named after one of the Sirens, who was cast ashore here after the Sirens had flung themselves, as the myth has it, into the depths of the sea. In front of the island lies that promontory which is opposite the Sirenussae and with them forms the Poseidonian Gulf. On doubling this promontory one comes immediately to another gulf, in which there is a city which was called “Hyele” by the Phocaeans who founded it, and by others “Ele,” after a certain spring, but is called by the men of today “Elea.” This is the native city of Parmenides and Zeno, the Pythagorean philosophers. It is my opinion that not only through the influence of these men but also in still earlier times the city was well governed; and it was because of this good government that the people not only held their own against the Leucani and the Poseidoniatae, but even returned victorious, although they were inferior to them both in extent of territory and in population. At any rate, they are compelled, on account of the poverty of their soil, to busy themselves mostly with the sea and to establish factories for the salting of fish, and other such industries. According to Antiochus, after the capture of Phocaea by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, all the Phocaeans who could do so embarked with their entire families on their light boats and, under the leadership of Creontiades, sailed first to Cyrnus and Massalia, but when they were beaten off from those places founded Elea. Some, however, say that the city took its name from the River Elees. It is about two hundred stadia distant from Poseidonia. After Elea comes the promontory of Palinurus. Off the territory of Elea are two islands, the Oenotrides, which have anchoring-places. After Palinurus comes Pyxus—a cape, harbor, and river, for all three have the same name. Pyxus was peopled with new settlers by Micythus, the ruler of the Messene in Sicily, but all the settlers except a few sailed away again. After Pyxus comes another gulf, and also Laüs—a river and city; it is the last of the Leucanian cities, lying only a short distance above the sea, is a colony of the Sybaritae, and the distance thither from Ele is four hundred stadia. The whole voyage along the coast of Leucania is six hundred and fifty stadia. Near Laüs is the hero-temple of Draco, one of the companions of Odysseus, in regard to which the following oracle was given out to the Italiotes: Much people will one day perish about Laïan Draco. And the oracle came true, for, deceived by it, the peoples who made campaigns against Laüs, that is, the Greek inhabitants of Italy, met disaster at the hands of the Leucani.
6.1.2.1
These, then, are the places on the Tyrrhenian seaboard that belong to the Leucani. As for the other sea, they could not reach it at first; in fact, the Greeks who held the Gulf of Tarentum were in control there. Before the Greeks came, however, the Leucani were as yet not even in existence, and the regions were occupied by the Chones and the Oenotri. But after the Samnitae had grown considerably in power, and had ejected the Chones and the Oenotri, and had settled a colony of Leucani in this portion of Italy, while at the same time the Greeks were holding possession of both seaboards as far as the Strait, the Greeks and the barbarians carried on war with one another for a long time. Then the tyrants of Sicily, and afterwards the Carthaginians, at one time at war with the Romans for the possession of Sicily and at another for the possession of Italy itself, maltreated all the peoples in this part of the world, but especially the Greeks. Later on, beginning from the time of the Trojan war, the Greeks had taken away from the earlier inhabitants much of the interior country also, and indeed had increased in power to such an extent that they called this part of Italy, together with Sicily, Magna Graecia. But today all parts of it, except Taras, Rhegium, and Neapolis, have become completely barbarized, and some parts have been taken and are held by the Leucani and the Brettii, and others by the Campani—that is, nominally by the Campani but in truth by the Romans, since the Campani themselves have become Romans. However, the man who busies himself with the description of the earth must needs speak, not only of the facts of the present, but also sometimes of the facts of the past, especially when they are notable. As for the Leucani, I have already spoken of those whose territory borders on the Tyrrhenian Sea, while those who hold the interior are the people who live above the Gulf of Tarentum. But the latter, and the Brettii, and the Samnitae themselves (the progenitors of these peoples) have so utterly deteriorated that it is difficult even to distinguish their several settlements; and the reason is that no common organization longer endures in any one of the separate tribes; and their characteristic differences in language, armor, dress, and the like, have completely disappeared; and, besides, their settlements, severally and in detail, are wholly without repute.
6.1.3.1
Accordingly, without making distinctions between them, I shall only tell in a general way what I have learned about the peoples who live in the interior, I mean the Leucani and such of the Samnitae as are their next neighbors. Petelia, then, is regarded as the metropolis of the Chones, and has been rather populous down to the present day. It was founded by Philoctetes after he, as the result of a political quarrel, had fled from Meliboea. It has so strong a position by nature that the Samnitae once fortified it against the Thurii. And the old Crimissa, which is near the same regions, was also founded by Philoctetes. Apollodorus, in his work On Ships, in mentioning Philoctetes, says that, according to some, when Philoctetes arrived at the territory of Croton, he colonized the promontory Crimissa, and, in the interior above it, the city Chone, from which the Chonians of that district took their name, and that some of his companions whom he had sent forth with Aegestes the Trojan to the region of Eryx in Sicily fortified Aegesta. Moreover, Grumentum and Vertinae are in the interior, and so are Calasarna and some other small settlements, until we arrive at Venusia, a notable city; but I think that this city and those that follow in order after it as one goes towards Campania are Samnite cities. Beyond Thurii lies also the country that is called Tauriana. The Leucani are Samnite in race, but upon mastering the Poseidoniatae and their allies in war they took possession of their cities. At all other times, it is true, their government was democratic, but in times of war they were wont to choose a king from those who held magisterial offices. But now they are Romans.
6.1.4.1
The seaboard that comes next after Leucania, as far as the Sicilian Strait and for a distance of thirteen hundred and fifty stadia, is occupied by the Brettii. According to Antiochus, in his treatise On Italy, this territory (and this is the territory which he says he is describing) was once called Italy, although in earlier times it was called Oenotria. And he designates as its boundaries, first, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, the same boundary that I have assigned to the country of the Brettii—the River Laüs; and secondly, on the Sicilian Sea, Metapontium. But as for the country of the Tarantini, which borders on Metapontium, he names it as outside of Italy, and calls its inhabitants Iapyges. And at a time more remote, according to him, the names “Italians” and “Oenotrians” were applied only to the people who lived this side the isthmus in the country that slopes toward the Sicilian Strait. The isthmus itself, one hundred and sixty stadia in width, lies between two gulfs—the Hipponiate (which Antiochus has called Napetine) and the Scylletic. The coasting-voyage round the country comprised between the isthmus and the Strait is two thousand stadia. But after that, he says, the name of “Italy” and that of the “Oenotrians” was further extended as far as the territory of Metapontium and that of Seiris, for, he adds, the Chones, a well-regulated Oenotrian tribe, had taken up their abode in these regions and had called the land Chone. Now Antiochus had spoken only in a rather simple and antiquated way, without making any distinctions between the Leucani and the Brettii. In the first place, Leucania lies between the Tyrrhenian and Sicilian coastlines, the former coastline from the River Silaris as far as Laüs, and the latter, from Metapontium as far as Thurii; in the second place, on the mainland, from the country of the Samnitae as far as the isthmus which extends from Thurii to Cerilli (a city near Laüs), the isthmus is three hundred stadia in width. But the Brettii are situated beyond the Leucani; they live on a peninsula, but this peninsula includes another peninsula which has the isthmus that extends from Scylletium to the Hipponiate Gulf. The name of the tribe was given to it by the Leucani, for the Leucani call all revolters “brettii.” The Brettii revolted, so it is said (at first they merely tended flocks for the Leucani, and then, by reason of the indulgence of their masters, began to act as free men), at the time when Rio made his expedition against Dionysius and aroused all peoples against all others. So much, then, for my general description of the Leucani and the Brettii.
6.1.5.1
The next city after Laüs belongs to Brettium, and is named Temesa, though the men of today call it Tempsa; it was founded by the Ausones, but later on was settled also by the Aetolians under the leadership of Thoas; but the Aetolians were ejected by the Brettii, and then the Brettii were crushed by Hannibal and by the Romans. Near Temesa, and thickly shaded with wild olive trees, is the hero-temple of Polites, one of the companions of Odysseus, who was treacherously slain by the barbarians, and for that reason became so exceedingly wroth against the country that, in accordance with an oracle, the people of the neighborhood collected tribute for him; and hence, also, the popular saying applied to those who are merciless, that they are “beset by the hero of Temesa.” But when the Epizephyrian Locrians captured the city, Euthymus, the pugilist, so the story goes, entered the lists against Polites, defeated him in the fight and forced him to release the natives from the tribute. People say that Homer has in mind this Temesa, not the Tamassus in Cyprus (the name is spelled both ways), when he says “to Temesa, in quest of copper.” And in fact copper mines are to be seen in the neighborhood, although now they have been abandoned. Near Temesa is Terina, which Hannibal destroyed, because he was unable to guard it, at the time when he had taken refuge in Brettium itself. Then comes Consentia, the metropolis of the Brettii; and a little above this city is Pandosia, a strong fortress, near which Alexander the Molossian was killed. He, too, was deceived by the oracle at Dodona, which bade him be on his guard against Acheron and Pandosia; for places which bore these names were pointed out to him in Thesprotia, but he came to his end here in Brettium. Now the fortress has three summits, and the River Acheron flows past it. And there was another oracle that helped to deceive him: Three-hilled Pandosia, much people shalt thou kill one day; for he thought that the oracle clearly meant the destruction of the enemy, not of his own people. It is said that Pandosia was once the capital of the Oenotrian Kings. After Consentia comes Hipponium, which was founded by the Locrians. Later on, the Brettii were in possession of Hipponium, but the Romans took it away from them and changed its name to Vibo Valentia. And because the country round about Hipponium has luxuriant meadows abounding in flowers, people have believed that Core used to come hither from Sicily to gather flowers; and consequently it has become the custom among the women of Hipponium to gather flowers and to weave them into garlands, so that on festival days it is disgraceful to wear bought garlands. Hipponium has also a naval station, which was built long ago by Agathocles, the tyrant of the Siciliotes, when he made himself master of the city. Thence one sails to the Harbor of Heracles, which is the point where the headlands of Italy near the Strait begin to turn towards the west. And on this voyage one passes Medma, a city of the same Locrians aforementioned, which has the same name as a great fountain there, and possesses a naval station near by, called Emporium. Near it is also the Metaurus River, and a mooring-place bearing the same name. Off this coast lie the islands of the Liparaei, at a distance of two hundred stadia from the Strait. According to some, they are the islands of Aeolus, of whom the Poet makes mention in the Odyssey. They are seven in number and are all within view both from Sicily and from the continent near Medma. But I shall tell about them when I discuss Sicily. After the Metaurus River comes a second Metaurus. Next after this river comes Scyllaeum, a lofty rock which forms a peninsula, its isthmus being low and affording access to ships on both sides. This isthmus Anaxilaüs, the tyrant of the Rhegini, fortified against the Tyrrheni, building a naval station there, and thus deprived the pirates of their passage through the strait. For Caenys, too, is near by, being two hundred and fifty stadia distant from Medma; it is the last cape, and with the cape on the Sicilian side, Pelorias, forms the narrows of the Strait. Cape Pelorias is one of the three capes that make the island triangular, and it bends towards the summer sunrise, just as Caenys bends towards the west, each one thus turning away from the other in the opposite direction. Now the length of the narrow passage of the Strait from Caenys as far as the Poseidonium, or the Columna Rheginorum, is about six stadia, while the shortest passage across is slightly more; and the distance is one hundred stadia from the Columna to Rhegium, where the Strait begins to widen out, as one proceeds towards the east, towards the outer sea, the sea which is called the Sicilian Sea.
6.1.6.1
Rhegium was founded by the Chalcidians who, it is said, in accordance with an oracle, were dedicated, one man out of every ten Chalcidians, to Apollo, because of a dearth of crops, but later on emigrated hither from Delphi, taking with them still others from their home. But according to Antiochus, the Zanclaeans sent for the Chalcidians and appointed Antimnestus their founder-in-chief. To this colony also belonged the refugees of the Peloponnesian Messenians who had been defeated by the men of the opposing faction. These men were unwilling to be punished by the Lacedaemonians for the violation of the maidens which took place at Limnae, though they were themselves guilty of the outrage done to the maidens, who had been sent there for a religious rite and had also killed those who came to their aid. So the refugees, after withdrawing to Macistus, sent a deputation to the oracle of the god to find fault with Apollo and Artemis if such was to be their fate in return for their trying to avenge those gods, and also to enquire how they, now utterly ruined, might be saved. Apollo bade them go forth with the Chalcidians to Rhegium, and to be grateful to his sister; for, he added, they were not ruined, but saved, inasmuch as they were surely not to perish along with their native land, which would be captured a little later by the Spartans. They obeyed; and therefore the rulers of the Rhegini down to Anaxilas were always appointed from the stock of the Messenians. According to Antiochus, the Siceli and Morgetes had in early times inhabited the whole of this region, but later on, being ejected by the Oenotrians, had crossed over into Sicily. According to some, Morgantium also took its name from the Morgetes of Rhegium. The city of Rhegium was once very powerful and had many dependencies in the neighborhood; and it was always a fortified outpost threatening the island, not only in earlier times but also recently, in our own times, when Sextus Pompeius caused Sicily to revolt. It was named Rhegium, either, as Aeschylus says, because of the calamity that had befallen this region, for, as both he and others state, Sicily was once “rent” from the continent by earthquakes, “and so from this fact,” he adds, “it is called Rhegium.” They infer from the occurrences about Aetna and in other parts of Sicily, and in Lipara and in the islands about it, and also in the Pithecussae and the whole of the coast of the adjacent continent, that it is not unreasonable to suppose that the rending actually took place. Now at the present time the earth about the Strait, they say, is but seldom shaken by earthquakes, because the orifices there, through which the fire is blown up and the red-hot masses and the waters are ejected, are open. At that time, however, the fire that was smouldering beneath the earth, together with the wind, produced violent earthquakes, because the passages to the surface were all blocked up, and the regions thus heaved up yielded at last to the force of the blasts of wind, were rent asunder, and then received the sea that was on either side, both here and between the other islands in that region. And, in fact, Prochyte and the Pithecussae are fragments broken off from the continent, as also Capreae, Leucosia, the Sirenes, and the Oenotrides. Again, there are islands which have arisen from the high seas, a thing that even now happens in many places; for it is more plausible that the islands in the high seas were heaved up from the deeps, whereas it is more reasonable to think that those lying off the promontories and separated merely by a strait from the mainland have been rent therefrom. However, the question which of the two explanations is true, whether Rhegium got its name on account of this or on account of its fame (for the Samnitae might have called it by the Latin word for “royal,” because their progenitors had shared in the government with the Romans and used the Latin language to a considerable extent), is open to investigation. Be this as it may, it was a famous city, and not only founded many cities but also produced many notable men, some notable for their excellence as statesmen and others for their learning; nevertheless, Dionysius demolished it, they say, on the charge that when he asked for a girl in marriage they proffered the daughter of the public executioner; but his son restored a part of the old city and called it Phoebia. Now in the time of Pyrrhus the garrison of the Campani broke the treaty and destroyed most of the inhabitants, and shortly before the Marsic war much of the settlement was laid in ruins by earthquakes; but Augustus Caesar, after ejecting Pompeius from Sicily, seeing that the city was in want of population, gave it some men from his expeditionary forces as new settlers, and it is now fairly populous.
6.1.7.1
As one sails from Rhegium towards the east, and at a distance of fifty stadia, one comes to Cape Leucopetra (so called from its color), in which, it is said, the Apennine Mountain terminates. Then comes Heracleium, which is the last cape of Italy and inclines towards the south; for on doubling it one immediately sails with the southwest wind as far as Cape Iapygia, and then veers off, always more and more, towards the northwest in the direction of the Ionian Gulf. After Heracleium comes a cape belonging to Locris, which is called Zephyrium; its harbor is exposed to the winds that blow from the west, and hence the name. Then comes the city Locri Epizephyrii, a colony of the Locri who live on the Crisaean Gulf, which was led out by Evanthes only a little while after the founding of Croton and Syracuse. Ephorus is wrong in calling it a colony of the Locri Opuntii. However, they lived only three or four years at Zephyrium, and then moved the city to its present site, with the cooperation of Syracusans [for at the same time the latter, among whom . . .] And at Zephyrium there is a spring, called Locria, where the Locri first pitched camp. The distance from Rhegium to Locri is six hundred stadia. The city is situated on the brow of a hill called Epopis.
6.1.8.1
The Locri Epizephyrii are believed to have been the first people to use written laws. After they had lived under good laws for a very long time, Dionysius, on being banished from the country of the Syracusans, abused them most lawlessly of all men. For he would sneak into the bed-chambers of the girls after they had been dressed up for their wedding, and lie with them before their marriage; and he would gather together the girls who were ripe for marriage, let loose doves with cropped wings upon them in the midst of the banquets, and then bid the girls waltz around unclad, and also bid some of them, shod with sandals that were not mates (one high and the other low), chase the doves around—all for the sheer indecency of it. However, he paid the penalty after he went back to Sicily again to resume his government; for the Locri broke up his garrison, set themselves free, and thus became masters of his wife and children. These children were his two daughters, and the younger of his two sons (who was already a lad), for the other, Apollocrates, was helping his father to effect his return to Sicily by force of arms. And although Dionysius—both himself and the Tarantini on his behalf—earnestly begged the Locri to release the prisoners on any terms they wished, they would not give them up; instead, they endured a siege and a devastation of their country. But they poured out most of their wrath upon his daughters, for they first made them prostitutes and then strangled them, and then, after burning their bodies, ground up the bones and sank them in the sea. Now Ephorus, in his mention of the written legislation of the Locri which was drawn up by Zaleucus from the Cretan, the Laconian, and the Areopagite usages, says that Zaleucus was among the first to make the following innovation—that whereas before his time it had been left to the judges to determine the penalties for the several crimes, he defined them in the laws, because he held that the opinions of the judges about the same crimes would not be the same, although they ought to be the same. And Ephorus goes on to commend Zaleucus for drawing up the laws on contracts in simpler language. And he says that the Thurii, who later on wished to excel the Locri in precision, became more famous, to be sure, but morally inferior; for, he adds, it is not those who in their laws guard against all the wiles of false accusers that have good laws, but those who abide by laws that are laid down in simple language. And Plato has said as much—that where there are very many laws, there are also very many lawsuits and corrupt practices, just as where there are many physicians, there are also likely to be many diseases.
6.1.9.1
The Halex River, which marks the boundary between the Rhegian and the Locrian territories, passes out through a deep ravine; and a peculiar thing happens there in connection with the grasshoppers, that although those on the Locrian bank sing, the others remain mute. As for the cause of this, it is conjectured that on the latter side the region is so densely shaded that the grasshoppers, being wet with dew, cannot expand their membranes, whereas those on the sunny side have dry and horn-like membranes and therefore can easily produce their song. And people used to show in Locri a statue of Eunomus, the cithara-bard, with a locust seated on the cithara. Timaeus says that Eunomus and Ariston of Rhegium were once contesting with each other at the Pythian games and fell to quarrelling about the casting of the lots; so Ariston begged the Delphians to cooperate with him, for the reason that his ancestors belonged to the god and that the colony had been sent forth from there; and although Eunomus said that the Rhegini had absolutely no right even to participate in the vocal contests, since in their country even the grasshoppers, the sweetest-voiced of all creatures, were mute, Ariston was none the less held in favor and hoped for the victory; and yet Eunomus gained the victory and set up the aforesaid image in his native land, because during the contest, when one of the chords broke, a grasshopper lit on his cithara and supplied the missing sound. The interior above these cities is held by the Brettii; here is the city Mamertium, and also the forest that produces the best pitch, the Brettian. This forest is called Sila, is both well wooded and well watered, and is seven hundred stadia in length.
6.1.10.1
After Locri comes the Sagra, a river which has a feminine name. On its banks are the altars of the Dioscuri, near which ten thousand Locri, with Rhegini, clashed with one hundred and thirty thousand Crotoniates and gained the victory—an occurrence which gave rise, it is said, to the proverb we use with incredulous people, “Truer than the result at Sagra.” And some have gone on to add the fable that the news of the result was reported on the same day to the people at the Olympia when the games were in progress, and that the speed with which the news had come was afterwards verified. This misfortune of the Crotoniates is said to be the reason why their city did not endure much longer, so great was the multitude of men who fell in the battle. After the Sagra comes a city founded by the Achaeans, Caulonia, formerly called Aulonia, because of the glen which lies in front of it. It is deserted, however, for those who held it were driven out by the barbarians to Sicily and founded the Caulonia there. After this city comes Scylletium, a colony of the Athenians who were with Menestheus (and now called Scylacium). Though the Crotoniates held it, Dionysius included it within the boundaries of the Locri. The Scylletic Gulf, which, with the Hipponiate Gulf forms the aforementioned isthmus, is named after the city. Dionysius undertook also to build a wall across the isthmus when he made war upon the Leucani, on the pretext, indeed, that it would afford security to the people inside the isthmus from the barbarians outside, but in truth because he wished to break the alliance which the Greeks had with one another, and thus command with impunity the people inside; but the people outside came in and prevented the undertaking.
6.1.11.1
After Scylletium comes the territory of the Crotoniates, and three capes of the Iapyges; and after these, the Lacinium, a temple of Hera, which at one time was rich and full of dedicated offerings. As for the distances by sea, writers give them without satisfactory clearness, except that, in a general way, Polybius gives the distance from the strait to Lacinium as two thousand three hundred stadia, and the distance thence across to Cape Iapygia as seven hundred. This point is called the mouth of the Tarantine Gulf. As for the gulf itself, the distance around it by sea is of considerable length, two hundred and forty miles, as the Chorographer says, but Artemidorus says three hundred and eighty for a man well-girded, although he falls short of the real breadth of the mouth of the gulf by as much. The gulf faces the winter-sunrise; and it begins at Cape Lacinium, for, on doubling it, one immediately comes to the cities of the Achaeans, which, except that of the Tarantini, no longer exist, and yet, because of the fame of some of them, are worthy of rather extended mention.
6.1.12.1
The first city is Croton, within one hundred and fifty stadia from the Lacinium; and then comes the River Aesarus, and a harbor, and another river, the Neaethus. The Neaethus got its name, it is said, from what occurred there: Certain of the Achaeans who had strayed from the Trojan fleet put in there and disembarked for an inspection of the region, and when the Trojan women who were sailing with them learned that the boats were empty of men, they set fire to the boats, for they were weary of the voyage, so that the men remained there of necessity, although they at the same time noticed that the soil was very fertile. And immediately several other groups, on the strength of their racial kinship, came and imitated them, and thus arose many settlements, most of which took their names from the Trojans; and also a river, the Neaethus, took its appellation from the aforementioned occurrence. According to Antiochus, when the god told the Achaeans to found Croton, Myscellus departed to inspect the place, but when he saw that Sybaris was already founded—having the same name as the river near by—he judged that Sybaris was better; at all events, he questioned the god again when he returned whether it would be better to found this instead of Croton, and the god replied to him (Myscellus was a hunchback as it happened): “Myscellus, short of back, in searching else outside thy track, thou hunt’st for morsels only; ’tis right that what one giveth thee thou do approve;” and Myscellus came back and founded Croton, having as an associate Archias, the founder of Syracuse, who happened to sail up while on his way to found Syracuse. The Iapyges used to live at Croton in earlier times, as Ephorus says. And the city is reputed to have cultivated warfare and athletics; at any rate, in one Olympian festival the seven men who took the lead over all others in the stadium-race were all Crotoniates, and therefore the saying “The last of the Crotoniates was the first among all other Greeks” seems reasonable. And this, it is said, is what gave rise to the other proverb, “more healthful than Croton,” the belief being that the place contains something that tends to health and bodily vigor, to judge by the multitude of its athletes. Accordingly, it had a very large number of Olympic victors, although it did not remain inhabited a long time, on account of the ruinous loss of its citizens who fell in such great numbers at the River Sagra. And its fame was increased by the large number of its Pythagorean philosophers, and by Milo, who was the most illustrious of athletes, and also a companion of Pythagoras, who spent a long time in the city. It is said that once, at the common mess of the philosophers, when a pillar began to give way, Milo slipped in under the burden and saved them all, and then drew himself from under it and escaped. And it is probably because he relied upon this same strength that he brought on himself the end of his life as reported by some writers; at any rate, the story is told that once, when he was travelling through a deep forest, he strayed rather far from the road, and then, on finding a large log cleft with wedges, thrust his hands and feet at the same time into the cleft and strained to split the log completely asunder; but he was only strong enough to make the wedges fall out, whereupon the two parts of the log instantly snapped together; and caught in such a trap as that, he became food for wild beasts.
6.1.13.1
Next in order, at a distance of two hundred stadia, comes Sybaris, founded by the Achaeans; it is between two rivers, the Crathis and the Sybaris. Its founder was Is of Helice. In early times this city was so superior in its good fortune that it ruled over four tribes in the neighborhood, had twenty- five subject cities, made the campaign against the Crotoniates with three hundred thousand men, and its inhabitants on the Crathis alone completely filled up a circuit of fifty stadia. However, by reason of luxury and insolence they were deprived of all their felicity by the Crotoniates within seventy days; for on taking the city these conducted the river over it and submerged it. Later on, the survivors, only a few, came together and were making it their home again, but in time these too were destroyed by Athenians and other Greeks, who, although they came there to live with them, conceived such a contempt for them that they not only slew them but removed the city to another place near by and named it Thurii, after a spring of that name. Now the Sybaris River makes the horses that drink from it timid, and therefore all herds are kept away from it; whereas the Crathis makes the hair of persons who bathe in it yellow or white, and besides it cures many afflictions. Now after the Thurii had prospered for a long time, they were enslaved by the Leucani, and when they were taken away from the Leucani by the Tarantini, they took refuge in Rome, and the Romans sent colonists to supplement them, since their population was reduced, and changed the name of the city to Copiae.
6.1.14.1
After Thurii comes Lagaria, a stronghold, bounded by Epeius and the Phocaeans; thence comes the Lagaritan wine, which is sweet, mild, and extremely well thought of among physicians. That of Thurii, too, is one of the famous wines. Then comes the city Heracleia, a short distance above the sea; and two navigable rivers, the Aciris and the Siris. On the Siris there used to be a Trojan city of the same name, but in time, when Heracleia was colonized thence by the Tarantini, it became the port of the Heracleotes. It is Twenty-four stadia distant from Heracleia and about three hundred and thirty from Thurii. Writers produce as proof of its settlement by the Trojans the wooden image of the Trojan Athene which is set up there—the image that closed its eyes, the fable goes, when the suppliants were dragged away by the Ionians who captured the city; for these Ionians came there as colonists when in flight from the dominion of the Lydians, and by force took the city, which belonged to the Chones, and called it Polieium; and the image even now can be seen closing its eyes. It is a bold thing, to be sure, to tell such a fable and to say that the image not only closed its eyes (just as they say the image in Troy turned away at the time Cassandra was violated) but can also be seen closing its eyes; and yet it is much bolder to represent as brought from Troy all those images which the historians say were brought from there; for not only in the territory of Siris, but also at Rome, at Lavinium, and at Luceria, Athene is called “Trojan Athena,” as though brought from Troy. And further, the daring deed of the Trojan women is current in numerous places, and appears incredible, although it is possible. According to some, however, both Siris and the Sybaris which is on the Teuthras were founded by the Rhodians. According to Antiochus, when the Tarantini were at war with the Thurii and their general Cleandridas, an exile from Lacedaemon, for the possession of the territory of Siris, they made a compromise and peopled Siris jointly, although it was adjudged the colony of the Tarantini; but later on it was called Heracleia, its site as well as its name being changed.
6.1.15.1
Next in order comes Metapontium, which is one hundred and forty stadia from the naval station of Heracleia. It is said to have been founded by the Pylians who sailed from Troy with Nestor; and they so prospered from farming, it is said, that they dedicated a golden harvest at Delphi. And writers produce as a sign of its having been founded by the Pylians the sacrifice to the shades of the sons of Neleus. However, the city was wiped out by the Samnitae. According to Antiochus: Certain of the Achaeans were sent for by the Achaeans in Sybaris and resettled the place, then forsaken, but they were summoned only because of a hatred which the Achaeans who had been banished from Laconia had for the Tarantini, in order that the neighboring Tarantini might not pounce upon the place; there were two cities, but since, of the two, Metapontium was nearer to Taras, the newcomers were persuaded by the Sybarites to take Metapontium and hold it, for, if they held this, they would also hold the territory of Siris, whereas, if they turned to the territory of Siris, they would add Metapontium to the territory of the Tarantini, which latter was on the very flank of Metapontium; and when, later on, the Metapontians were at war with the Tarantini and the Oenotrians of the interior, a reconciliation was effected in regard to a portion of the land—that portion, indeed, which marked the boundary between the Italy of that time and Iapygia. Here, too, the fabulous accounts place Metapontus, and also Melanippe the prisoner and her son Boeotus. In the opinion of Antiochus, the city Metapontium was first called Metabum and later on its name was slightly altered, and further, Melanippe was brought, not to Metabus, but to Dius, as is proved by a hero-temple of Metabus, and also by Asius the poet, when he says that Boeotus was brought forth “in the halls of Dius by shapely Melanippe,” meaning that Melanippe was brought to Dius, not to Metabus. But, as Ephorus says, the colonizer of Metapontium was Daulius, the tyrant of the Crisa which is near Delphi. And there is this further account, that the man who was sent by the Achaeans to help colonize it was Leucippus, and that after procuring the use of the place from the Tarantini for only a day and night he would not give it back, replying by day to those who asked it back that he had asked and taken it for the next night also, and by night that he had taken and asked it also for the next day.
6.1.15.2
Next in order comes Taras and Iapygia; but before discussing them I shall, in accordance with my original purpose, give a general description of the islands that lie in front of Italy; for as from time to time I have named also the islands which neighbor upon the several tribes, so now, since I have traversed Oenotria from beginning to end, which alone the people of earlier times called Italy, it is right that I should preserve the same order in traversing Sicily and the islands round about it.
6.2.1.1
Sicily is triangular in shape; and for this reason it was at first called “Trinacria,” though later the name was changed to the more euphonious “Thrinacis.” Its shape is defined by three capes: Pelorias, which with Caenys and Columna Rheginorum forms the strait, and Pachynus, which lies out towards the east and is washed by the Sicilian Sea, thus facing towards the Peloponnesus and the sea-passage to Crete, and, third, Lilybaeum, the cape that is next to Libya, thus facing at the same time towards Libya and the winter sunset. As for the sides which are marked off by the three capes, two of them are moderately concave, whereas the third, the one that reaches from Lilybaeum to Pelorias, is convex; and this last is the longest, being one thousand seven hundred stadia in length, as Poseidonius states, though he adds twenty stadia more. Of the other two sides, the one from Lilybaeum to Pachynus is longer than the other, and the one next to the strait and Italy, from Pelorias to Pachynus, is shortest, being about one thousand one hundred and thirty stadia long. And the distance round the island by sea, as declared by Poseidonius, is four thousand stadia. But in the Chorography the distances given are longer, marked off in sections and given in miles: from Pelorias to Mylae, twenty-five miles; the same from Mylae to Tyndaris; then to Agathyrnum thirty, and the same to Alaesa, and again the same to Cephaloedium, these being small towns; and eighteen to the River Himera, which flows through the middle of Sicily; then to Panormus thirty-five, and thirty-two to the Emporium of the Aegestes, and the rest of the way, to Lilybaeum, thirty-eight. Thence, on doubling Lilybaeum, to the adjacent side, to the Heracleium seventy-five miles, and to the Emporium of the Acragantini twenty, and another twenty to Camarina; and then to Pachynus fifty. Thence again along the third side: to Syracuse thirty-six, and to Catana sixty; then to Tauromenium thirty-three; and then to Messene thirty. On foot, however, the distance from Pachynus to Pelorias is one hundred and sixty-eight miles, and from Messene to Lilybaeum by the Valerian Way two hundred and thirty-five. But some writers have spoken in a more general way, as, for example, Ephorus: “At any rate, the voyage round the island takes five days and nights.” Further, Poseidonius, in marking off the boundaries of the island by means of the “climata,” puts Pelorias towards the north, Lilybaeum towards the south, and Pachynus towards the east. But since the “climata” are each divided off into parallelograms, necessarily the triangles that are inscribed (particularly those which are scalene and of which no side fits on any one of the sides of the parallelogram) cannot, because of their slant, be fitted to the “climata.” However this may be, one might fairly say, in the case of the “climata” of Sicily, which is situated south of Italy, that Pelorias is the most northerly of the three corners; and therefore the side that joins Pelorias to Pachynus will lie out towards the east, thus facing towards the north, and also will form the side that is on the strait. But this side must take a slight turn toward the winter sunrise, for the shore bends aside in this direction as one proceeds from Catana to Syracuse and Pachynus. Now the distance from Pachynus across to the mouth of the Alpheius is four thousand stadia; but when Artemidorus says that it is four thousand six hundred stadia from Pachynus to Taenarum and one thousand one hundred and thirty from the Alpheius to the Pamisus, he seems to me to afford us reason for suspecting that his statement is not in agreement with that of the man who says that the distance to the Alpheius from Pachynus is four thousand stadia. Again, the side that extends from Pachynus to Lilybaeum, which is considerably farther west than Pelorias, should itself also be made to slant considerably from its southernmost point towards the west, and should face at the same time towards the east and towards the south, one part being washed by the Sicilian Sea and the other by the Libyan Sea that reaches from Carthaginia to the Syrtes. The shortest passage from Lilybaeum across to Libya in neighborhood of Carthage is one thousand five hundred stadia; and on this passage, it is said, some man of sharp vision, from a look-out, used to report to the men in Lilybaeum the number of ships that were putting to sea from Carthage. Again, the side that extends from Lilybaeum to Pelorias necessarily slants towards the east, and faces towards the region that is between the west and the north, having Italy on the north and on the west the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Islands of Aeolus.
6.2.2.1
The cities along the side that forms the Strait are, first, Messene, and then Tauromenium, Catana, and Syracuse; but those that were between Catana and Syracuse have disappeared—Naxus and Megara; and on this coast are the outlets of the Symaethus and all rivers that flow down from Aetna and have good harbors at their mouths; and here too is the promontory of Xiphonia. According to Ephorus these were the earliest Greek cities to be founded in Sicily, that is, in the tenth generation after the Trojan war; for before that time men were so afraid of the bands of Tyrrhenian pirates and the savagery of the barbarians in this region that they would not so much as sail thither for trafficking; but though Theocles, the Athenian, borne out of his course by the winds to Sicily, clearly perceived both the weakness of the peoples and the excellence of the soil, yet, when he went back, he could not persuade the Athenians, and hence took as partners a considerable number of Euboean Chalcidians and some Ionians and also some Dorians (most of whom were Megarians) and made the voyage; so the Chalcidians founded Naxus, whereas the Dorians founded Megara, which in earlier times had been called Hybla. The cities no longer exist, it is true, but the name of Hybla still endures, because of the excellence of the Hyblaean honey.
6.2.3.1
As for the cities that still endure along the aforementioned side: Messene is situated in a gulf of Pelorias, which bends considerably towards the east and forms an armpit, so to speak; but though the distance across to Messene from Rhegium is only sixty stadia, it is much less from Columna. Messene was founded by the Messenians of the Peloponnesus, who named it after themselves, changing its name; for formerly it was called Zancle, on account of the crookedness of the coast (anything crooked was called “zanclion”), having been founded formerly by the Naxians who lived near Catana. But the Mamertini, a tribe of the Campani, joined the colony later on. Now the Romans used it as a base of operations for their Sicilian war against the Carthaginians; and afterwards Pompeius Sextus,when at war with Augustus Caesar, kept his fleet together there, and when ejected from the island also made his escape thence. And in the ship-channel, only a short distance off the city, is to be seem Charybdis, a monstrous deep, into which the ships are easily drawn by the refluent currents of the strait and plunged prow-foremost along with a mighty eddying of the whirlpool; and when the ships are gulped down and broken to pieces, the wreckage is swept along to the Tauromenian shore, which, from this occurrence, is called Copria. The Mamertini prevailed to such an extent among the Messenii that they got control of the city; and the people are by all called mamertini rather than Messenii; and further, since the country is exceedingly productive of wine, the wine is called, not Messenian, but Mamertine, and it rivals the best of the Italian wines. The city is fairly populous, though Catana is still more so, and in fact has received Romans as inhabitants; but Tauromenium is less populous than either. Catana, moreover, was founded by the same Naxians, whereas Tauromenium was founded by the Zanclaeans of Hybla; but Catana lost its original inhabitants when Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, established a different set of colonists there and called it Aetna instead of Catana. And Pindar too calls him the founder of Aetna when he say: “Attend to what I say to thee, O Father, whose name is that of the holy sacrifices, founder of Aetna.” But at the death of Hiero the Catanaeans came back, ejected the inhabitants, and demolished the tomb of the tyrant. And the Aetnaeans, on withdrawing, took up their abode in a hilly district of Aetna called Innesa, and called the place, which is eighty stadia from Catana, Aetna, and declared Hiero its founder. Now the city of Aetna is situated in the interior about over Catana, and shares most in the devastation caused by the action of the craters; in fact the streams of lava rush down very nearly as far as the territory of Catana; and here is the scene of the act of filial piety, so often recounted, of Amphinomus and Anapias, who lifted their parents on their shoulders and saved them from the doom that was rushing upon them. According to Poseidonius, when the mountain is in action, the fields of the Catanaeans are covered with ash-dust to a great depth. Now although the ash is an affliction at the time, it benefits the country in later times, for it renders it fertile and suited to the vine, the rest of the country not being equally productive of good wine; further, the roots produced by the fields that have been covered with ash-dust make the sheep so fat, it is said, that they choke; and this is why blood is drawn from their ears every four or five days—a thing of which I have spoken before as occurring near Erytheia. But when the lava changes to a solid, it turns the surface of the earth into stone to a considerable depth, so that quarrying is necessary on the part of any who wish to uncover the original surface; for when the mass of rock in the craters melts and then is thrown up, the liquid that is poured out over the top is black mud and flows down the mountain, and then, solidifying, becomes millstone, keeping the same color it had when in a liquid state. And ash is also produced when the stones are burnt, as from wood; therefore, just as wood-ashes nourish rue, so the ashes of Aetna, it is reasonable to suppose, have some quality that is peculiarly suited to the vine.
6.2.4.1
Syracuse was founded by Archias, who sailed from Corinth about the same time that Naxus and Megara were colonized. It is said that Archias went to Delphi at the same time as Myscellus, and when they were consulting the oracle, the god asked them whether they chose wealth or health; now Archias chose wealth, and Myscellus health; accordingly, the god granted to the former to found Syracuse, and to the latter Croton. And it actually came to pass that the Crotoniates took up their abode in a city that was exceedingly healthful, as I have related, and that Syracuse fell into such exceptional wealth that the name of the Syracusans was spread abroad in a proverb applied to the excessively extravagant—”the tithe of the Syracusans would not be sufficient for them.” And when Archias, the story continues, was on his voyage to Sicily, he left Chersicrates, of the race of the Heracleidae, with a part of the expedition to help colonize what is now called Corcyra, but was formerly called Scheria; Chersicrates, however, ejected the Liburnians, who held possession of the island, and colonized it with new settlers, whereas Archias landed at Zephyrium, found that some Dorians who had quit the company of the founders of Megara and were on their way back home had arrived there from Sicily, took them up and in common with them founded Syracuse. And the city grew, both on account of the fertility of the soil and on account of the natural excellence of its harbors. Furthermore, the men of Syracuse proved to have the gift of leadership, with the result that when the Syracusans were ruled by tyrants they lorded it over the rest, and when set free themselves they set free those who were oppressed by the barbarians. As for these barbarians, some were native inhabitants, whereas others came over from the mainland. The Greeks would permit none of them to lay hold of the seaboard, but were not strong enough to keep them altogether away from the interior; indeed, to this day the Siceli, the Sicani, the Morgetes, and certain others have continued to live in the island, among whom there used to be Iberians, who, according to Ephorus, were said to be the first barbarian settlers of Sicily. Morgantium, it is reasonable to suppose, was settled by the Morgetes; it used to be a city, but now it does not exist. When the Carthaginians came over they did not cease to abuse both these people and the Greeks, but the Syracusans nevertheless held out. But the Romans later on ejected the Carthaginians and took Syracuse by siege. And in our own time, because Pompeius abused, not only the other cities, but Syracuse in particular, Augustus Caesar sent a colony and restored a considerable part of the old settlement; for in olden times it was a city of five towns, with a wall of one hundred and eighty stadia. Now it was not at all necessary to fill out the whole of this circuit, but it was necessary, he thought, to build up in a better way only the part that was settled—the part adjacent to the Island of Ortygia which had a sufficient circuit to make a notable city. Ortygia is connected with the mainland, near which it lies, by a bridge, and has the fountain of Arethusa, which sends forth a river that empties immediately into the sea.
6.2.4.2
People tell the mythical story that the river Arethusa is the Alpheius, which latter, they say, rises in the Peloponnesus, flows underground through the sea as far as Arethusa, and then empties thence once more into the sea. And the kind of evidence they adduce is as follows: a certain cup, they think, was thrown out into the river at Olympia and was discharged into the fountain; and again, the fountain was discolored as the result of the sacrifices of oxen at Olympia. Pindar follows these reports when he says: “O resting-place august of Alpheius, Ortygia, scion of famous Syracuse.” And in agreement with Pindar Timaeus the historian also declares the same thing. Now if the Alpheius fell into a pit before joining the sea, there would be some plausibility in the view that the stream extends underground from Olympia as far as Sicily, thereby preserving its potable water unmixed with the sea; but since the mouth of the river empties into the sea in full view, and since near this mouth, on the transit, there is no mouth visible that swallows up the stream of the river (though even so the water could not remain fresh; yet it might, the greater part of it at least, if it sank into the underground channel), the thing is absolutely impossible. For the water of Arethusa bears testimony against it, since it is potable; and that the stream of the river should hold together through so long a transit without being diffused with the seawater, that is, until it falls into the fancied underground passage, is utterly mythical. Indeed, we can scarcely believe this in the case of the Rhodanus, although its stream does hold together when it passes through a lake, keeping its course visible; in this case, however, the distance is short and the lake does not rise in waves, whereas in case of the sea in question, where there are prodigious storms and surging waves, the tale is foreign to all plausibility. And the citing of the story of the cup only magnifies the falsehood, for a cup does not of itself readily follow the current of any stream, to say nothing of a stream that flows so great a distance and through such passages.
6.2.4.3
Now there are many rivers in many parts of the world that flow underground, but not for such a distance; and even if this is possible, the stories aforesaid, at least, are impossible, and those concerning the river Inachus are like a myth: “For it flows from the heights of Pindus,” says Sophocles, “and from Lacmus, from the land of the Perrhaebians, into the lands of the Amphilochians and Acarnanians, and mingles with the waters of Acheloüs,” and, a little below, he adds, “whence it cleaves the waves to Argos and comes to the people of Lyrceium.” Marvellous tales of this sort are stretched still further by those who make the Inopus cross over from the Nile to Delos. And Zoïlus the rhetorician says in his Eulogy of the Tenedians that the Alpheius rises in Tenedos—the man who finds fault with Homer as a writer of myths! And Ibycus says that the Asopus in Sicyon rises in Phrygia. But the statement of Hecataeus is better, when he says that the lnachus among the Amphilochians, which flows from Lacmus, as does also the Aeas, is different from the river of Argos, and that it was named by Amphilochus, the man who called the city Argos Amphilochicum. Now Hecataeus says that this river does empty into the Acheloüs, but that the Aeas flows towards the west into Apollonia.
6.2.4.4
On either side of the island of Ortygia is a large harbor; the larger of the two is eighty stadia in circuit. Caesar restored this city and also Catana; and so, in the same way, Centoripa, because it contributed much to the overthrow of Pompeius. Centoripa lies above Catana, bordering on the Aetnaean mountains, and on the Symaethus River, which flows into the territory of Catana.
6.2.5.1
Of the remaining sides of Sicily, that which extends from Pachynus to Lilybaeum has been utterly deserted, although it preserves traces of the old settlements, among which was Camarina, a colony of the Syracusans; Acragas, however, which belongs to the Geloans, and its seaport, and also Lilybaeum still endure. For since this region was most exposed to attack on the part of Carthaginia, most of it was ruined by the long wars that arose one after another. The last and longest side is not populous either, but still it is fairly well peopled; in fact, Alaesa, Tyndaris, the Emporium of the Aegestes, and Cephaloedis are all cities, and Panormus has also a Roman settlement. Aegestaea was founded, it is said, by those who crossed over with Philoctetes to the territory of Croton, as I have stated in my account of Italy; they were sent to Sicily by him along with Aegestes the Trojan.
6.2.6.1
In the interior is Enna, where is the temple of Demeter, with only a few inhabitants; it is situated on a hill, and is wholly surrounded by broad plateaus that are tillable. It suffered most at the hands of Eunus and his runaway slaves, who were besieged there and only with difficulty were dislodged by the Romans. The inhabitants of Catana and Tauromenium and also several other peoples suffered this same fate.
6.2.6.2
Eryx, a lofty hill, is also inhabited. It has a temple of Aphrodite that is held in exceptional honor, and in early times was full of female temple-slaves, who had been dedicated in fulfillment of vows not only by the people of Sicily but also by many people from abroad; but at the present time, just as the settlement itself, so the temple is in want of men, and the multitude of temple-slaves has disappeared. In Rome, also, there is a reproduction of this goddess, I mean the temple before the Colline Gate which is called that of Venus Erycina and is remarkable for its shrine and surrounding colonnade.
6.2.6.3
But the rest of the settlements as well as most of the interior have come into the possession of shepherds; for I do not know of any settled population still living in either Himera, or Gela, or Callipolis or Selinus or Euboea or several other places. Of these cities Himera was founded by the Zanclaeans of Mylae, Callipolis by the Naxians, Selinus by the Megarians of the Sicilian Megara, and Euboea by the Leontines. Many of the barbarian cities, also, have been wiped out; for example Camici, the royal residence of Cocalus, at which Minos is said to have been murdered by treachery. The Romans, therefore, taking notice that the country was deserted, took possession of the mountains and most of the plains and then gave them over to horseherds, cowherds, and shepherds; and by these herdsmen the island was many times put in great danger, because, although at first they only turned to brigandage in a sporadic way, later they both assembled in great numbers and plundered the settlements, as, for example, when Eunus and his men took possession of Enna. And recently, in my own time, a certain Selurus, called the “son of Aetna,” was sent up to Rome because he had put himself at the head of an army and for a long time had overrun the regions round about Aetna with frequent raids; I saw him torn to pieces by wild beasts at an appointed combat of gladiators in the Forum; for he was placed on a lofty scaffold, as though on Aetna, and the scaffold was made suddenly to break up and collapse, and he himself was carried down with it into cages of wildbeasts—fragile cages that had been prepared beneath the scaffold for that purpose.
6.2.7.1
As for the fertility of the country, why should I speak of it, since it is on the lips of all men, who declare that it is no whit inferior to that of Italy? And in the matter of grain, honey, saffron, and certain other products, one might call it even superior. There is, furthermore, its propinquity; for the island is a part of Italy, as it were, and readily and without great labor supplies Rome with everything it has, as though from the fields of Italy. And in fact it is called the storehouse of Rome, for everything it produces is brought hither except a few things that are consumed at home, and not the fruits only, but also cattle, hides, wool, and the like. Poseidonius says that Syracuse and Eryx are each situated like an acropolis by the sea, whereas Enna lies midway between the two above the encircling plains.
6.2.7.2
The whole of the territory of Leontini, also, which likewise belonged to the Naxians of Sicily, has been devastated; for although they always shared with the Syracusans in their misfortunes, it was not always so with their good fortunes.
6.2.8.1
Near Centoripa is the town of Aetna, which was mentioned a little above, whose people entertain and conduct those who ascend the mountain; for the mountain-summit begins here. The upper districts are bare and ash-like and full of snow during the winter, whereas the lower are divided up by forests and plantations of every sort. The topmost parts of the mountain appear to undergo many changes because of the way the fire distributes itself, for at one time the fire concentrates in one crater, but at another time divides, while at one time the mountain sends forth lava, at another, flames and fiery smoke, and at still other times it also emits red-hot masses; and the inevitable result of these disturbances is that not only the underground passages, but also the orifices, sometimes rather numerous, which appear on the surface of the mountain all round, undergo changes at the same time. Be this as it may, those who recently made the ascent gave me the following account: They found at the top a level plain, about twenty stadia in circuit, enclosed by a rim of ashes the height of a house-wall, so that any who wished to proceed into the plain had to leap down from the wall; they saw in the center of the plain a mound of the color of ashes, in this respect being like the surface of the plain as seen from above, and above the mound a perpendicular cloud rising straight up to a height of about two hundred feet, motionless (for it was a windless day) and resembling smoke; and two of the men had the hardihood to proceed into the plain, but because the sand they were walking on got hotter and deeper, they turned back, and so were unable to tell those who were observing from a distance anything more than what was already apparent. But they believed, from such a view as they had, that many of the current stories are mythical, and particularly those which some tell about Empedocles, that he leaped down into the crater and left behind, as a trace of the fate he suffered, one of the brazen sandals which he wore; for it was found, they say, a short distance outside the rim of the crater, as though it had been thrown up by the force of the fire. Indeed, the place is neither to be approached nor to be seen, according to my informants; and further, they surmised that nothing could be thrown down into it either, owing to the contrary blasts of the winds arising from the depths, and also owing to the heat, which, it is reasonable to suppose, meets one long before one comes near the mouth of the crater; but even if something should be thrown down into it, it would be destroyed before it could be thrown up in anything like the shape it had when first received; and although it is not unreasonable to assume that at times the blasts of the fire die down when at times the fuel is deficient, yet surely this would not last long enough to make possible the approach of man against so great a force. Aetna dominates more especially the seaboard in the region of the Strait and the territory of Catana, but also that in the region of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Liparaean Islands. Now although by night a brilliant light shines from the summit, by day it is covered with smoke and haze.
6.2.9.1
Over against Aetna rise the Nebrodes Mountains, which, though lower than Aetna, exceed it considerably in breadth. The whole island is hollow down beneath the ground, and full of streams and of fire, as is the case with the Tyrrhenian Sea, as far as the Cumaean country, as I have said before. At all events, the island has at many places springs of hot waters which spout up, of which those of Selinus and those of Himera are brackish, whereas those of Aegesta are potable. Near Acragas are lakes which, though they have the taste of seawater, are different in nature; for even people who cannot swim do not sink, but float on the surface like wood. The territory of the Palici has craters that spout up water in a dome-like jet and receive it back again into the same recess. The cavern near Mataurus contains an immense gallery through which a river flows invisible for a considerable distance, and then emerges to the surface, as is the case with the Orontes in Syria, which sinks into the chasm (called Charybdis) between Apameia and Antiocheia and rises again forty stadia away. Similar, too, are the cases both of the Tigris in Mesopotamia and of the Nile in Libya, only a short distance from their sources. And the water in the territory of Stymphalus first flows underground for two hundred stadia and then issues forth in Argeia as the Erasinus River; and again, the water near the Arcadian Asea is first forced below the surface and then, much later, emerges as both the Eurotas and the Alpheius; and hence the belief in a certain fabulous utterance, that if two wreaths be dedicated separately to each of the two rivers and thrown into the common stream, each will reappear, in accordance with the dedication, in the appropriate river. And I have already mentioned what is told about the Timavus River.
6.2.10.1
Phenomena akin both to these and to those in Sicily are to be seen about the Liparaean Islands and Lipara itself. The islands are seven in number, but the largest is Lipara (a colony of the Cnidians), which, Thermessa excepted, lies nearest to Sicily. It was formerly called Meligunis; and it not only commanded a fleet, but for a long time resisted the incursions of the Tyrrheni, for it held in obedience all the Liparaean Islands, as they are now called, though by some they are called the Islands of Aeolus. Furthermore, it often adorned the temple of Apollo at Delphi with dedications from the first fruits of victory. It has also a fruitful soil, and a mine of styptic earth that brings in revenues, and hot springs, and fire blasts. Between Lipara and Sicily is Thermessa, which is now called Hiera of Hephaestus; the whole island is rocky, desert, and fiery, and it has three fire blasts, rising from three openings which one might call craters. From the largest the flames carry up also red-hot masses, which have already choked up a considerable part of the Strait. From observation it has been believed that the flames, both here and on Aetna, are stimulated along with the winds and that when the winds cease the flames cease too. And this is not unreasonable, for the winds are begotten by the evaporations of the sea and after they have taken their beginning are fed thereby; and therefore it is not permissible for any who have any sort of insight into such matters to marvel if the fire too is kindled by a cognate fuel or disturbance. According to Polybius, one of the three craters has partially fallen in, whereas the others remain whole; and the largest has a circular rim five stadia in circuit, but it gradually contracts to a diameter of fifty feet; and the altitude of this crater above the level of the sea is a stadium, so that the crater is visible on windless days. But if all this is to be believed, perhaps one should also believe the mythical story about Empedocles. Now if the south wind is about to blow, Polybius continues, a cloud-like mist pours down all round the island, so that not even Sicily is visible in the distance; and when the north wind is about to blow, pure flames rise aloft from the aforesaid crater and louder rumblings are sent forth; but the west wind holds a middle position, so to speak, between the two; but though the two other craters are like the first in kind, they fall short in the violence of their spoutings; accordingly, both the difference in the rumblings, and the place whence the spoutings and the flames and the fiery smoke begin, signify beforehand the wind that is going to blow again three days afterward; at all events, certain of the men in Liparae, when the weather made sailing impossible, predicted, he says, the wind that was to blow, and they were not mistaken; from this fact, then, it is clear that that saying of the Poet which is regarded as most mythical of all was not idly spoken, but that he hinted at the truth when he called Aeolus “steward of the winds.” However, I have already discussed these matters sufficiently. It is the close attention of the Poet to vivid description, one might call it, . . . for both are equally present in rhetorical composition and vivid description; at any rate, pleasure is common to both. But I shall return to the topic which follows that at which I digressed.
6.2.11.1
Of Lipara, then, and Thermessa I have already spoken. As for Strongyle, it is so called from its shape, and it too is fiery; it falls short in the violence of its flame, but excels in the brightness of its light; and this is where Aeolus lived, it is said. The fourth island is Didyme, and it too is named after its shape. Of the remaining islands, Ericussa and Phoenicussa have been so called from their plants, and are given over to pasturage of flocks. The seventh is Euonymus, which is farthest out in the high sea and is desert; it is so named because it is more to the left than the others, to those who sail from Lipara to Sicily. Again, many times flames have been observed running over the surface of the sea round about the islands when some passage had been opened up from the cavities down in the depths of the earth and the fire had forced its way to the outside. Poseidonius says that within his own recollection, one morning at daybreak about the time of the summer solstice, the sea between Hiera and Euonymus was seen raised to an enormous height, and by a sustained blast remained puffed up for a considerable time, and then subsided; and when those who had the hardihood to sail up to it saw dead fish driven by the current, and some of the men were stricken ill because of the heat and stench, they took flight; one of the boats, however, approaching more closely, lost some of its occupants and barely escaped to Lipara with the rest, who would at times become senseless like epileptics, and then afterwards would recur to their proper reasoning faculties; and many days later mud was seen forming on the surface of the sea, and in many places flames, smoke, and murky fire broke forth, but later the scum hardened and became as hard as mill-stone; and the governor of Sicily, Titus Flaminius, reported the event to the Senate, and the Senate sent a deputation to offer propitiatory sacrifices, both in the islet and in Liparae, to the gods both of the underworld and of the Sea. Now, according to the Chorographer, the distance from Ericodes to Phoenicodes is ten miles, and thence to Didyme thirty, and thence to the northern part of Lipara twenty-nine, and thence to Sicily nineteen, but from Strongyle sixteen. Off Pachynus lie Melita, whence come the little dogs called Melitaean, and Gaudos, both eighty-eight miles distant from the Cape. Cossura lies off Lilybaeum, and off Aspis, a Carthaginian city whose Latin name is Clupea; it lies midway between the two, and is the aforesaid distance from either. Aegimurus, also, and other small islands lie off Sicily and Libya. So much for the islands.
6.3.1.1
Now that I have traversed the regions of Old Italy as far as Metapontium, I must speak of those that border on them. And Iapygia borders on them. The Greeks call it Messapia, also, but the natives, dividing it into two parts, call one part (that about the Iapygian Cape) the country of the Salentini, and the other the country of the Calabri. Above these latter, on the north, are the Peucetii and also those people who in the Greek language are called Daunii, but the natives give the name Apulia to the whole country that comes after that of the Calabri, though some of them, particularly the Peucetii, are called Poedicli also. Messapia forms a sort of peninsula, since it is enclosed by the isthmus that extends from Brentesium as far as Taras, three hundred and ten stadia. And the voyage thither around the Iapygian Cape is, all told, about four hundred stadia. The distance from Metapontium is about two hundred and twenty stadia, and the voyage to it is towards the rising sun. But though the whole Tarantine Gulf, generally speaking, is harborless, yet at the city there is a very large and beautiful harbor, which is enclosed by a large bridge and is one hundred stadia in circumference. In that part of the harbor which lies towards the innermost recess, the harbor, with the outer sea, forms an isthmus, and therefore the city is situated on a peninsula; and since the neck of land is low-lying, the ships are easily hauled overland from either side. The ground of the city, too, is low-lying, but still it is slightly elevated where the acropolis is. The old wall has a large circuit, but at the present time the greater part of the city—the part that is near the isthmus—has been forsaken, but the part that is near the mouth of the harbor, where the acropolis is, still endures and makes up a city of noteworthy size. And it has a very beautiful gymnasium, and also a spacious market-place, in which is situated the bronze colossus of Zeus, the largest in the world except the one that belongs to the Rhodians. Between the marketplace and the mouth of the harbor is the acropolis, which has but few remnants of the dedicated objects that in early times adorned it, for most of them were either destroyed by the Carthaginians when they took the city or carried off as booty by the Romans when they took the place by storm. Among this booty is the Heracles in the Capitol, a colossal bronze statue, the work of Lysippus, dedicated by Maximus Fabius, who captured the city.
6.3.2.1
In speaking of the founding of Taras, Antiochus says: After the Messenian war broke out, those of the Lacedaemonians who did not take part in the expedition were adjudged slaves and were named Helots, and all children who were born in the time of the expedition were called Partheniae and judicially deprived of the rights of citizenship, but they would not tolerate this, and since they were numerous formed a plot against the free citizens; and when the latter learned of the plot they sent secretly certain men who, through a pretence of friendship, were to report what manner of plot it was; among these was Phalanthus, who was reputed to be their champion, but he was not pleased, in general, with those who had been named to take part in the council. It was agreed, however, that the attack should be made at the Hyacinthian festival in the Amyclaeum when the games were being celebrated, at the moment when Phalanthus should put on his leather cap (the free citizens were recognizable by their hair ); but when Phalanthus and his men had secretly reported the agreement, and when the games were in progress, the herald came forward and forbade Phalanthus to put on a leather cap; and when the plotters perceived that the plot had been revealed, some of them began to run away and others to beg for mercy; but they were bidden to be of good cheer and were given over to custody; Phalanthus, however, was sent to the temple of the god to consult with reference to founding a colony; and the god responded, “I give to thee Satyrium, both to take up thine abode in the rich land of Taras and to become a bane to the Iapygians.” Accordingly, the Partheniae went thither with Phalanthus, and they were welcomed by both the barbarians and the Cretans who had previously taken possession of the place. These latter, it is said, are the people who sailed with Minos to Sicily, and, after his death, which occurred at the home of Cocalus in Camici, set sail from Sicily; but on the voyage back they were driven out of their course to Taras, although later some of them went afoot around the Adrias as far as Macedonia and were called Bottiaeans. But all the people as far as Daunia, it is said, were called Iapyges, after Iapyx, who is said to have been the son of Daedalus by a Cretan woman and to have been the leader of the Cretans. The city of Taras, however, was named after some hero.
6.3.3.1
But Ephorus describes the founding of the city thus: The Lacedaemonians were at war with the Messenians because the latter had killed their king Teleclus when he went to Messene to offer sacrifice, and they swore that they would not return home again until they either destroyed Messene or were all killed; and when they set out on the expedition, they left behind the youngest and the oldest of the citizens to guard the city; but later on, in the tenth year of the war, the Lacedaemonian women met together and sent certain of their own number to make complaint to their husbands that they were carrying on the war with the Messenians on unequal terms, for the Messenians, staying in their own country, were begetting children, whereas they, having abandoned their wives to widowhood, were on an expedition in the country of the enemy, and they complained that the fatherland was in danger of being in want of men; and the Lacedaemonians, both keeping their oath and at the same time bearing in mind the argument of the women, sent the men who were most vigorous and at the same time youngest, for they knew that these had not taken part in the oaths, because they were still children when they went out to war along with the men who were of military age; and they ordered them to cohabit with the maidens, every man with every maiden, thinking that thus the maidens would bear many more children; and when this was done, the children were named Partheniae. But as for Messene, it was captured after a war of nineteen years, as Tyrtaeus says: “About it they fought for nineteen years, relentlessly, with heart ever steadfast, did the fathers of our fathers, spearmen they; and in the twentieth the people forsook their fertile farms and fled from the great mountains of Ithome.” Now the Lacedaemonians divided up Messenia among themselves, but when they came on back home they would not honor the Partheniae with civic rights like the rest, on the ground that they had been born out of wedlock; and the Partheniae, leaguing with the Helots, formed a plot against the Lacedaemonians and agreed to raise a Laconian cap in the market-place as a signal for the attack. But though some of the Helots had revealed the plot, the Lacedaemonians decided that it would be difficult to make a counter-attack against them, for the Helots were not only numerous but were all of one mind, regarding themselves as virtually brothers of one another, and merely charged those who were about to raise the signal to go away from the marketplace. So the plotters, on learning that the undertaking had been betrayed, held back, and the Lacedaemonians persuaded them, through the influence of their fathers, to go forth and found a colony, and if the place they took possession of sufficed them, to stay there, but if not, to come on back and divide among themselves the fifth part of Messenia. And they, thus sent forth, found the Achaeans at war with the barbarians, took part in their perils, and founded Taras.
6.3.4.1
At one time the Tarantini were exceedingly powerful, that is, when they enjoyed a democratic government; for they not only had acquired the largest fleet of all peoples in that part of the world but were wont to send forth an army of thirty thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, and one thousand commanders of cavalry. Moreover, the Pythagorean philosophy was embraced by them, but especially by Archytas, who presided over the city for a considerable time. But later, because of their prosperity, luxury prevailed to such an extent that the public festivals celebrated among them every year were more in number than the days of the year; and in consequence of this they also were poorly governed. One evidence of their bad policies is the fact that they employed foreign generals; for they sent for Alexander the Molossian to lead them in their war against the Messapians and Leucanians, and, still before that, for Archidamus, the son of Agesilaüs, and, later on, for Cleonymus, and Agathocles, and then for Pyrrhus, at the time when they formed a league with him against the Romans. And yet even to those whom they called in they could not yield a ready obedience, and would set them at enmity. At all events, it was out of enmity that Alexander tried to transfer to Thurian territory the general festival assembly of all Greek peoples in that part of the world—the assembly which was wont to meet at Heracleia in Tarantine territory, and that he began to urge that a place for the meetings be fortified on the Acalandrus River. Furthermore, it is said that the unhappy end which befell him was the result of their ingratitude. Again, about the time of the wars with Hannibal, they were deprived of their freedom, although later they received a colony of Romans, and are now living at peace and better than before. In their war against the Messapians for the possession of Heracleia, they had the co-operation of the king of the Daunians and the king of the Peucetians.
6.3.5.1
That part of the country of the Iapygians which comes next is fine, though in an unexpected way; for although on the surface it appears rough, it is found to be deep-soiled when ploughed, and although it is rather lacking in water, it is manifestly none the less good for pasturage and for trees. The whole of this district was once extremely populous; and it also had thirteen cities; but now, with the exception of Taras and Brentesium, all of them are so worn out by war that they are merely small towns. The Salentini are said to be a colony of the Cretans. The temple of Athene, once so rich, is in their territory, as also the look-out-rock called Cape Iapygia, a huge rock which extends out into the sea towards the winter sunrise, though it bends approximately towards the Lacinium, which rises opposite to it on the west and with it bars the mouth of the Tarantine Gulf. And with it the Ceraunian Mountains, likewise, bar the mouth of the Ionian Gulf; the passage across from it both to the Ceraunian Mountains and to the Lacinium is about seven hundred stadia. But the distance by sea from Taras around to Brentesium is as follows: First, to the small town of Baris, six hundred stadia; Baris is called by the people of today Veretum, is situated at the edge of the Salentine territory, and the trip thither from Taras is for the most part easier to make on foot than by sailing. Thence to Leuca eighty stadia; this, too, is a small town, and in it is to be seen a fountain of malodorous water; the mythical story is told that those of the Giants who survived at the Campanian Phlegra and are called the Leuternian Giants were driven out by Heracles, and on fleeing hither for refuge were shrouded by Mother Earth, and the fountain gets its malodorous stream from the ichor of their bodies; and for this reason, also, the seaboard here is called Leuternia. Again, from Leuca to Hydrus, a small town, one hundred and fifty stadia. Thence to Brentesium four hundred; and it is an equal distance to the island Sason, which is situated about midway of the distance across from Epeirus to Brentesium. And therefore those who cannot accomplish the straight voyage sail to the left of Sason and put in at Hydrus; and then, watching for a favorable wind, they hold their course towards the harbors of the Brentesini, although if they disembark, they go afoot by a shorter route by way of Rodiae, a Greek city, where the poet Ennius was born. So then, the district one sails around in going from Taras to Brentesium resembles a peninsula, and the overland journey from Brentesium to Taras, which is only a one day’s journey for a man well-girt, forms the isthmus of the aforesaid peninsula; and this peninsula most people call by one general name Messapia, or Iapygia, or Calabria, or Salentina, although some divide it up, as I have said before. So much, then, for the towns on the seacoast.
6.3.6.1
In the interior are Rodiae and Lupiae, and, slightly above the sea, Aletia; and at the middle of the isthmus, Uria, in which is still to be seen the palace of one of the chieftains. When Herodotus states that Hyria is in Iapygia and was founded by the Cretans who strayed from the fleet of Minos when on its way to Sicily, we must understand Hyria to be either Uria or Veretum. Brentesium, they say, was further colonized by the Cretans, whether by those who came over with Theseus from Cnossus or by those who set sail from Sicily with Iapyx (the story is told both ways), although they did not stay together there, it is said, but went off to Bottiaea. Later on, however, when ruled by kings, the city lost much of its country to the Lacedaemonians who were under the leadership of Phalanthus; but still, when he was ejected from Taras, he was admitted by the Brentesini, and when he died was counted by them worthy of a splendid burial. Their country is better than that of the Tarantini, for, though the soil is thin, it produces good fruits, and its honey and wool are among those that are strongly commended. Brentesium is also better supplied with harbors; for here many harbors are closed in by one mouth; and they are sheltered from the waves, because bays are formed inside in such a way as to resemble in shape a stag’s horns; and hence the name, for, along with the city, the place very much resembles a stag’s head, and in the Messapian language the head of the stag is called “brentesium.” But the Tarantine harbor, because of its wide expanse, is not wholly sheltered from the waves; and besides there are some shallows in the innermost part of it.
6.3.7.1
In the case of those who sail across from Greece or Asia, the more direct route is to Brentesium, and, in fact, all who propose to go to Rome by land put into port here. There are two roads from here: one, a mule-road through the countries of the Peucetii (who are called Poedicli), the Daunii, and the Samnitae as far as Beneventum; on this road is the city of Egnatia, and then, Celia, Netium, Canusium, and Herdonia. But the road by way of Taras, lying slightly to the left of the other, though as much as one day’s journey out of the way when one has made the circuit, what is called the Appian Way, is better for carriages. On this road are the cities of Uria and Venusia, the former between Taras and Brentesium and the latter on the confines of the Samnitae and the Leucani. Both the roads from Brentesium meet near Beneventum and Campania. And the common road from here on, as far as Rome, is called the Appian Way, and passes through Caudium, Calatia, Capua, and Casilinum to Sinuessa. And the places from there on I have already mentioned. The total length of the road from Rome to Brentesium is three hundred and sixty miles. But there is also a third road, which runs from Rhegium through the countries of the Brettii, the Leucani, and the Samnitae into Campania, where it joins the Appian Way; it passes through the Apennine Mountains and it requires three or four days more than the road from Brentesium.
6.3.8.1
The voyage from Brentesium to the opposite mainland is made either to the Ceraunian Mountains and those parts of the seaboard of Epeirus and of Greece which come next to them, or else to Epidamnus; the latter is longer than the former, for it is one thousand eight hundred stadia. And yet the latter is the usual route, because the city has a good position with reference both to the tribes of the Illyrians and to those of the Macedonians. As one sails from Brentesium along the Adriatic seaboard, one comes to the city of Egnatia, which is the common stopping-place for people who are travelling either by sea or land to Barium; and the voyage is made with the south wind. The country of the Peucetii extends only thus far on the sea, but in the interior as far as Silvium. All of it is rugged and mountainous, since it embraces a large portion of the Apennine Mountains; and it is thought to have admitted Arcadians as colonists. From Brentesium to Barium is about seven hundred stadia, and Taras is about an equal distance from each. The adjacent country is inhabited by the Daunii; and then come the Apuli, whose country extends as far as that of the Frentani. But since the terms “Peucetii” and “Daunii” are not at all used by the native inhabitants, except in early times, and since this country as a whole is now called Apulia, necessarily the boundaries of these tribes cannot be told to a nicety either, and for this reason neither should I myself make positive assertions about them.
6.3.9.1
From Barium to the Aufidus River, on which is the Emporium of the Canusitae is four hundred stadia and the voyage inland to Emporium is ninety. Near by is also Salapia, the seaport of the Argyrippini. For not far above the sea (in the plain, at all events) are situated two cities, Canusium and Argyrippa, which in earlier times were the largest of the Italiote cities, as is clear from the circuits of their walls. Now, however, Argyrippa is smaller; it was called Argos Hippium at first, then Argyrippa, and then by the present name Arpi. Both are said to have been founded by Diomedes. And as signs of the dominion of Diomedes in these regions are to be seen the Plain of Diomedes and many other things, among which are the old votive offerings in the temple of Athene at Luceria—a place which likewise was in ancient times a city of the Daunii, but is now reduced—and, in the sea near by, two islands that are called the Islands of Diomedes, of which one is inhabited, while the other, it is said, is desert; on the latter, according to certain narrators of myths, Diomedes was caused to disappear, and his companions were changed to birds, and to this day, in fact, remain tame and live a sort of human life, not only in their orderly ways but also in their tameness towards honorable men and in their flight from wicked and knavish men. But I have already mentioned the stories constantly told among the Heneti about this hero and the rites which are observed in his honor. It is thought that Sipus also was founded by Diomedes, which is about one hundred and forty stadia distant from Salapia; at any rate it was named “Sepius” in Greek after the “sepia” that are cast ashore by the waves. Between Salapia and Sinus is a navigable river, and also a large lake that opens into the sea; and the merchandise from Sipus, particularly grain, is brought down on both. In Daunia, on a hill by the name of Drium, are to be seen two hero-temples: one, to Calchas, on the very summit, where those who consult the oracle sacrifice to his shade a black ram and sleep in the hide, and the other, to Podaleirius, down near the base of the hill, this temple being about one hundred stadia distant from the sea; and from it flows a stream which is a cure-all for diseases of animals. In front of this gulf is a promontory, Garganum, which extends towards the east for a distance of three hundred stadia into the high sea; doubling the headland, one comes to a small town, Urium, and off the headland are to be seen the Islands of Diomedes. This whole country produces everything in great quantity, and is excellent for horses and sheep; but though the wool is softer than the Tarantine, it is not so glossy. And the country is well sheltered, because the plains lie in hollows. According to some, Diomedes even tried to cut a canal as far as the sea, but left behind both this and the rest of his undertakings only half-finished, because he was summoned home and there ended his life. This is one account of him; but there is also a second, that he stayed here till the end of his life; and a third, the aforesaid mythical account, which tells of his disappearance in the island; and as a fourth one might set down the account of the Heneti, for they too tell a mythical story of how he in some way came to his end in their country, and they call it his apotheosis.
6.3.10.1
Now the above distances are put down in accordance with the data of Artemidorus; but according to the Chorographer, the distances from Brentesium as far as Garganum amount to one hundred and sixty-five miles, whereas according to Artemidorus they amount to more; and thence to Ancona two hundred and fifty-four miles according to the former, whereas according to Artemidorus the distance to the Aesis River, which is near Ancona, is one thousand two hundred and fifty stadia, a much shorter distance. Polybius states that the distance from Iapygia has been marked out by miles, and that the distance to the city of Sena is five hundred and sixty-two miles, and thence to Aquileia one hundred and seventy-eight. And they do not agree with the commonly accepted distance along the Illyrian coastline, from the Ceraunian Mountains to the recess of the Adrias, since they represent this latter coasting voyage as over six thousand stadia, thus making it even longer than the former, although it is much shorter. However, every writer does not agree with every other, particularly about the distances, as I often say. As for myself, where it is possible to reach a decision, I set forth my opinion, but where it is not, I think that I should make known the opinions of others. And when I have no opinion of theirs, there is no occasion for surprise if I too have passed something by, especially when one considers the character of my subject; for I would not pass by anything important, while as for little things, not only do they profit one but slightly if known, but their omission escapes unnoticed, and detracts not at all, or else not much, from the completeness of the work.
6.3.11.1
The intervening space, immediately after Cape Garganum, is taken up by a deep gulf; the people who live around it are called by the special name of Apuli, although they speak the same language as the Daunii and the Peucetii, and do not differ from them in any other respect either, at the present time at least, although it is reasonable to suppose that in early times they differed and that this is the source of the three diverse names for them that are now prevalent. In earlier times this whole country was prosperous, but it was laid waste by Hannibal and the later wars. And here too occurred the battle of Cannae, in which the Romans and their allies suffered a very great loss of life. On the gulf is a lake; and above the lake, in the interior, is Teanum Apulum, which has the same name as Teanum Sidicinum. At this point the breadth of Italy seems to be considerably contracted, since from here to the region of Dicaearcheia an isthmus is left of less than one thousand stadia from sea to sea. After the lake comes the voyage along the coast to the country of the Frentani and to Buca; and the distance from the lake either to Buca or to Cape Garganum is two hundred stadia. As for the places that come next after Buca, I have already mentioned them.
6.4.1.1
Such, indeed, is the size and such the character of Italy. And while I have already mentioned many things which have caused the Romans at the present time to be exalted to so great a height, I shall now indicate the most important things. One is, that, like an island, Italy is securely guarded by the seas on all sides, except in a few regions, and even these are fortified by mountains that are hardly passable. A second is that along most of its coast it is harborless and that the harbors it does have are large and admirable. The former is useful in meeting attacks from the outside, while the latter is helpful in making counter-attacks and in promoting an abundant commerce. A third is that it is characterized by many differences of air and temperature, on which depend the greater variation, whether for better or for worse, in animals, plants, and, in short, everything that is useful for the support of life. Its length extends from north to south, generally speaking, and Sicily counts as an addition to its length, already so great. Now mild temperature and harsh temperature of the air are judged by heat, cold, and their intermediates; and so from this it necessarily follows that what is now Italy, situated as it is between the two extremes and extending to such a length, shares very largely in the temperate zone and in a very large number of ways. And the following is still another advantage which has fallen to the lot of Italy; since the Apennine Mountains extend through the whole of its length and leave on both sides plains and hills which bear fine fruits, there is no part of it which does not enjoy the blessings of both mountain and plain. And add also to this the size and number of its rivers and its lakes, and, besides these, the fountains of water, both hot and cold, which in many places nature has provided as an aid to health, and then again its good supply of mines of all sorts. Neither can one worthily describe Italy’s abundant supply of fuel, and of food both for men and beast, and the excellence of its fruits. Further, since it lies intermediate between the largest races on the one hand, and Greece and the best parts of Libya on the other, it not only is naturally well-suited to hegemony, because it surpasses the countries that surround it both in the valor of its people and in size, but also can easily avail itself of their services, because it is close to them.
6.4.2.1
Now if I must add to my account of Italy a summary account also of the Romans who took possession of it and equipped it as a base of operations for the universal hegemony, let me add as follows: After the founding of Rome, the Romans wisely continued for many generations under the rule of kings. Afterwards, because the last Tarquinius was a bad ruler, they ejected him, framed a government which was a mixture of monarchy and aristocracy, and dealt with the Sabini and Latini as with partners. But since they did not always find either them or the other neighboring peoples well intentioned, they were forced, in a way, to enlarge their own country by the dismemberment of that of the others. And in this way, while they were advancing and increasing little by little, it came to pass, contrary to the expectation of all, that they suddenly lost their city, although they also got it back contrary to expectation. This took place, as Polybius says, in the nineteenth year after the naval battle at Aegospotami, at the time of the Peace of Antalcidas. After having rid themselves of these enemies, the Romans first made all the Latini their subjects; then stopped the Tyrrheni and the Celti who lived about the Padus from their wide and unrestrained licence; then fought down the Samnitae, and, after them, the Tarantini and Pyrrhus; and then at last also the remainder of what is now Italy, except the part that is about the Padus. And while this part was still in a state of war, the Romans crossed over to Sicily, and on taking it away from the Carthaginians came back again to attack the peoples who lived about the Padus; and it was while that war was still in progress that Hannibal invaded Italy. This latter is the second war that occurred against the Carthaginians; and not long afterwards occurred the third, in which Carthage was destroyed; and at the same time the Romans acquired, not only Libya, but also as much of Iberia as they had taken away from the Carthaginians. But the Greeks, the Macedonians, and those peoples in Asia who lived this side the Halys River and the Taurus Mountains joined the Carthaginians in a revolution, and therefore at the same time the Romans were led on to a conquest of these peoples, whose kings were Antiochus, Philip, and Perseus. Further, those of the Illyrians and Thracians who were neighbors to the Greeks and the Macedonians began to carry on war against the Romans and kept on warring until the Romans had subdued all the tribes this side the Ister and this side the Halys. And the Iberians, Celti, and all the remaining peoples which now give ear to the Romans had the same experience. As for Iberia, the Romans did not stop reducing it by force of arms until they had subdued the of it, first, by driving out the Nomantini, and, later on, by destroying Viriathus and Sertorius, and, last of all, the Cantabri, who were subdued by Augustus Caesar. As for Celtica (I mean Celtica as a whole, both the Cisalpine and Transalpine, together with Liguria), the Romans at first brought it over to their side only part by part, from time to time, but later the Deified Caesar, and afterwards Caesar Augustus, acquired it all at once in a general war. But at the present time the Romans are carrying on war against the Germans, setting out from the Celtic regions as the most appropriate base of operations, and have already glorified the fatherland with some triumphs over them. As for Libya, so much of it as did not belong to the Carthaginians was turned over to kings who were subject to the Romans, and, if they ever revolted, they were deposed. But at the present time Juba has been invested with the rule, not only of Maurusia, but also of many parts of the rest of Libya, because of his loyalty and his friendship for the Romans. And the case of Asia was like that of Libya. At the outset it was administered through the agency of kings who were subject to the Romans, but from that time on, when their line failed, as was the case with the Attalic, Syrian, Paphlagonian, Cappadocian, and Egyptian kings, or when they would revolt and afterwards be deposed, as was the case with Mithridates Eupator and the Egyptian Cleopatra, all parts of it this side the Phasis and the Euphrates, except certain parts of Arabia, have been subject to the Romans and the rulers appointed by them. As for the Armenians, and the peoples who are situated above Colchis, both Albanians and Iberians, they require the presence only of men to lead them, and are excellent subjects, but because the Romans are engrossed by other affairs, they make attempts at revolution—as is the case with all the peoples who live beyond the Ister in the neighborhood of the Euxine, except those in the region of the Bosporus and the Nomads, for the people of the Bosporus are in subjection, whereas the Nomads, on account of their lack of intercourse with others, are of no use for anything and only require watching. Also the remaining parts of Asia, generally speaking, belong to the Tent-dwellers and the Nomads, who are very distant peoples. But as for the Parthians, although they have a common border with the Romans and also are very powerful, they have nevertheless yielded so far to the preeminence of the Romans and of the rulers of our time that they have sent to Rome the trophies which they once set up as a memorial of their victory over the Romans, and, what is more, Phraates has entrusted to Augustus Caesar his children and also his children’s children, thus obsequiously making sure of Caesar’s friendship by giving hostages; and the Parthians of today have often gone to Rome in quest of a man to be their king, and are now about ready to put their entire authority into the hands of the Romans. As for Italy itself, though it has often been torn by factions, at least since it has been under the Romans, and as for Rome itself, they have been prevented by the excellence of their form of government and of their rulers from proceeding too far in the ways of error and corruption. But it were a difficult thing to administer so great a dominion otherwise than by turning it over to one man, as to a father; at all events, never have the Romans and their allies thrived in such peace and plenty as that which was afforded them by Augustus Caesar, from the time he assumed the absolute authority, and is now being afforded them by his son and successor, Tiberius, who is making Augustus the model of his administration and decrees, as are his children, Germanicus and Drusus, who are assisting their father.
7.1.1.1
Now that I have described Iberia and the Celtic and Italian tribes, along with the islands near by, it will be next in order to speak of the remaining parts of Europe, dividing them in the approved manner. The remaining parts are: first, those towards the east, being those which are across the Rhenus and extend as far as the Tanaïs and the mouth of Lake Maeotis, and also all those regions lying between the Adrias and the regions on the left of the Pontic Sea that are shut off by the Ister and extend towards the south as far as Greece and the Propontis; for this river divides very nearly the whole of the aforesaid land into two parts. It is the largest of the European rivers, at the outset flowing towards the south and then turning straight from the west towards the east and the Pontus. It rises in the western limits of Germany, as also near the recess of the Adriatic (at a distance from it of about one thousand stadia), and comes to an end at the Pontus not very far from the outlets of the Tyras and the Borysthenes, bending from its easterly course approximately towards the north. Now the parts that are beyond the Rhenus and Celtica are to the north of the Ister; these are the territories of the Galatic and the Germanic tribes, extending as far as the Bastarnians and the Tyregetans and the River Borysthenes. And the territories of all the tribes between this river and the Tanaïs and the mouth of Lake Maeotis extend up into the interior as far as the ocean and are washed by the Pontic Sea. But both the Illyrian and the Thracian tribes, and all tribes of the Celtic or other peoples that are mingled with these, as far as Greece, are to the south of the Ister. But let me first describe the parts outside the Ister, for they are much simpler than those on the other side.
7.1.2.1
Now the parts beyond the Rhenus, immediately after the country of the Celti, slope towards the east and are occupied by the Germans, who, though they vary slightly from the Celtic stock in that they are wilder, taller, and have yellower hair, are in all other respects similar, for in build, habits, and modes of life they are such as I have said the Celti are. And I also think that it was for this reason that the Romans assigned to them the name “Germani,” as though they wished to indicate thereby that they were “genuine” Galatae, for in the language of the Romans “germani” means “genuine.”
7.1.3.1
The first parts of this country are those that are next to the Rhenus, beginning at its source and extending a far as its outlet; and this stretch of river-land taken as a whole is approximately the breadth of the country on its western side. Some of the tribes of this river-land were transferred by the Romans to Celtica, whereas the others anticipated the Romans by migrating deep into the country, for instance, the Marsi; and only a few people, including a part of the Sugambri, are left. After the people who live along the river come the other tribes that live between the Rhenus and the River Albis, and traverses no less territory than the former. Between the two are other navigable rivers also (among them the Amasias, on which Drusus won a naval victory over the Bructeri), which likewise flow from the south towards the north and the ocean; for the country is elevated towards the south and forms a mountain chain that connects with the Alps and extends towards the east as though it were a part of the Alps; and in truth some declare that they actually are a part of the Alps, both because of their aforesaid position and of the fact that they produce the same timber; however, the country in this region does not rise to a sufficient height for that. Here, too, is the Hercynian Forest, and also the tribes of the Suevi, some of which dwell inside the forest, as, for instance, the tribes of the Coldui, in whose territory is Boihaemum, the domain of Marabodus, the place whither he caused to migrate, not only several other peoples, but in particular the Marcomanni, his fellow-tribesmen; for after his return from Rome this man, who before had been only a private citizen, was placed in charge of the affairs of state, for, as a youth he had been at Rome and had enjoyed the favor of Augustus, and on his return he took the rulership and acquired, in addition to the peoples aforementioned, the Lugii (a large tribe), the Zumi, the Butones, the Mugilones, the Sibini, and also the Semnones, a large tribe of the Suevi themselves. However, while some of the tribes of the Suevi dwell inside the forest, as I was saying, others dwell outside of it, and have a common boundary with the Getae. Now as for the tribe of the Suevi, it is the largest, for it extends from the Rhenus to the Albis; and a part of them even dwell on the far side of the Albis, as, for instance, the Hermondori and the Langobardi; and at the present time these latter, at least, have, to the last man, been driven in flight out of their country into the land on the far side of the river. It is a common characteristic of all the peoples in this part of the world that they migrate with ease, because of the meagerness of their livelihood and because they do not till the soil or even store up food, but live in small huts that are merely temporary structures; and they live for the most part off their flocks, as the Nomads do, so that, in imitation of the Nomads, they load their household belongings on their wagons and with their beasts turn whithersoever they think best. But other German tribes are still more indigent. I mean the Cherusci, the Chatti, the Gamabrivii and the Chattuarii, and also, near the ocean, the Sugambri, the Chaubi, the Bructeri, and the Cimbri, and also the Cauci, the Caülci, the Campsiani, and several others. Both the Visurgis and the Lupias Rivers run in the same direction as the Amasias, the Lupias being about six hundred stadia distant from the Rhenus and flowing through the country of the Lesser Bructeri. Germany has also the Salas River; and it was between the Salas and the Rhenus that Drusus Germanicus, while he was successfully carrying on the war, came to his end. He had subjugated, not only most of the tribes, but also the islands along the coast, among which is Burchanis, which he took by siege.
7.1.4.1
These tribes have become known through their wars with the Romans, in which they would either yield and then later revolt again, or else quit their settlements; and they would have been better known if Augustus had allowed his generals to cross the Albis in pursuit of those who emigrated thither. But as a matter of fact he supposed that he could conduct the war in hand more successfully if he should hold off from those outside the Albis, who were living in peace, and should not incite them to make common cause with the others in their enmity against him. It was the Sugambri, who live near the Rhenus, that began the war, Melo being their leader; and from that time on different peoples at different times would cause a breach, first growing powerful and then being put down, and then revolting again, betraying both the hostages they had given and their pledges of good faith. In dealing with these peoples distrust has been a great advantage, whereas those who have been trusted have done the greatest harm, as, for instance, the Cherusci and their subjects, in whose country three Roman legions, with their general Quintilius Varus, were destroyed by ambush in violation of the treaty. But they all paid the penalty, and afforded the younger Germanicus a most brilliant triumph—that triumph in which their most famous men and women were led captive, I mean Segimuntus, son of Segestes and chieftain of the Cherusci,and his sister Thusnelda, the wife of Armenius, the man who at the time of the violation of the treaty against Quintilius Varus was commander-in-chief of the Cheruscan army and even to this day is keeping up the war, and Thusnelda’s three-year-old son Thumelicus; and also Sesithacus, the son of Segimerus and chieftain of the Cherusci, and Rhamis, his wife, and a daughter of Ucromirus chieftain of the Chatti, and Deudorix, a Sugambrian, the son of Baetorix the brother of Melo. But Segestes, the father-in-law of Armenius, who even from the outset had opposed the purpose of Armenius, and, taking advantage of an opportune time, had deserted him, was present as a guest of honor at the triumph over his loved ones. And Libes too, a priest of the Chatti, marched in the procession, as also other captives from the plundered tribes—the Caülci, Campsani, Bructeri, Usipi, Cherusci, Chatti, Chattuarii, Landi, Tubattii. Now the Rhenus is about three thousand stadia distant from the Albis, if one had straight roads to travel on, but as it is one must go by a circuitous route, which winds through a marshy country and forests.
7.1.5.1
The Hercynian Forest is not only rather dense, but also has large trees, and comprises a large circuit within regions that are fortified by nature; in the center of it, however, lies a country (of which I have already spoken) that is capable of affording an excellent livelihood. And near it are the sources of both the Ister and the Rhenus, as also the lake between the two sources, and the marshes into which the Rhenus spreads. The perimeter of the lake is more than three hundred stadia, while the passage across it is nearly two hundred. There is also an island in it which Tiberius used as a base of operations in his naval battle with the Vindelici. This lake is south of the sources of the Ister, as is also the Hercynian Forest, so that necessarily, in going from Celtica to the Hercynian Forest, one first crosses the lake and then the Ister, and from there on advances through more passable regions—plateaus—to the forest. Tiberius had proceeded only a day’s journey from the lake when he saw the sources of the Ister. The country of the Rhaeti adjoins the lake for only a short distance, whereas that of the Helvetii and the Vindelici, and also the desert of the Boii, adjoin the greater part of it. All the peoples as far as the Pannonii, but more especially the Helvetii and the Vindelici, inhabit plateaus. But the countries of the Rhaeti and the Norici extend as far as the passes over the Alps and verge toward Italy, a part thereof bordering on the country of the Insubri and a part on that of the Carni and the legions about Aquileia. And there is also another large forest, Gabreta; it is on this side of the territory of the Suevi, whereas the Hercynian Forest, which is also held by them, is on the far side.
7.2.1.1
As for the Cimbri, some things that are told about them are incorrect and others are extremely improbable. For instance, one could not accept such a reason for their having become a wandering and piratical folk as this—that while they were dwelling on a Peninsula they were driven out of their habitations by a great flood-tide; for in fact they still hold the country which they held in earlier times; and they sent as a present to Augustus the most sacred kettle in their country, with a plea for his friendship and for an amnesty of their earlier offences, and when their petition was granted they set sail for home; and it is ridiculous to suppose that they departed from their homes because they were incensed on account of a phenomenon that is natural and eternal, occurring twice every day. And the assertion that an excessive flood-tide once occurred looks like a fabrication, for when the ocean is affected in this way it is subject to increases and diminutions, but these are regulated and periodical. And the man who said that the Cimbri took up arms against the flood-tides was not right, either; nor yet the statement that the Celti, as a training in the virtue of fearlessness, meekly abide the destruction of their homes by the tides and then rebuild them, and that they suffer a greater loss of life as the result of water than of war, as Ephorus says. Indeed, the regularity of the flood-tides and the fact that the part of the country subject to inundations was known should have precluded such absurdities; for since this phenomenon occurs twice every day, it is of course improbable that the Cimbri did not so much as once perceive that the reflux was natural and harmless, and that it occurred, not in their country alone, but in every country that was on the ocean. Neither is Cleitarchus right; for he says that the horsemen, on seeing the onset of the sea, rode away, and though in full flight came very near being cut off by the water. Now we know, in the first place, that the invasion of the tide does not rush on with such speed as that, but that the sea advances imperceptibly; and, secondly, that what takes place daily and is audible to all who are about to draw near it, even before they behold it, would not have been likely to prompt in them such terror that they would take to flight, as if it had occurred unexpectedly.
7.2.2.1
Poseidonius is right in censuring the historians for these assertions, and his conjecture is not a bad one, that the Cimbri, being a piratical and wandering folk, made an expedition even as far as the region of Lake Maeotis, and that also the “Cimmerian” Bosporus was named after them, being equivalent to “Cimbrian,” the Greeks naming the Cimbri “Cimmerii.” And he goes off to say that in earlier times the Boii dwelt in the Hercynian Forest, and that the Cimbri made a sally against this place, but on being repulsed by the Boii, went down to the Ister and the country of the Scordiscan Galatae, then to the country of the Teuristae and Taurisci (these, too, Galatae), and then to the country of the Helvetii—men rich in gold but peaceable; however, when the Helvetii saw that the wealth which the Cimbri had got from their robberies surpassed that of their own country, they, and particularly their tribes of Tigyreni and of Toygeni, were so excited that they sallied forth with the Cimbri. All, however, were subdued by the Romans, both the Cimbri themselves and those who had joined their expeditions, in part after they had crossed the Alps into Italy and in part while still on the other side of the Alps.
7.2.3.1
Writers report a custom of the Cimbri to this effect: Their wives, who would accompany them on their expeditions, were attended by priestesses who were seers; these were grey-haired, clad in white, with flaxen cloaks fastened on with clasps, girt with girdles of bronze, and bare-footed; now sword in hand these priestesses would meet with the prisoners of war throughout the camp, and having first crowned them with wreaths would lead them to a brazen vessel of about twenty amphorae; and they had a raised platform which the priestess would mount, and then, bending over the kettle, would cut the throat of each prisoner after he had been lifted up; and from the blood that poured forth into the vessel some of the priestesses would draw a prophecy, while still others would split open the body and from an inspection of the entrails would utter a prophecy of victory for their own people; and during the battles they would beat on the hides that were stretched over the wicker-bodies of the wagons and in this way produce an unearthly noise.
7.2.4.1
Of the Germans, as I have said, those towards the north extend along the ocean; and beginning at the outlets of the Rhenus, they are known as far as the Albis; and of these the best known are the Sugambri and the Cimbri; but those parts of the country beyond the Albis that are near the ocean are wholly unknown to us. For of the men of earlier times I know of no one who has made this voyage along the coast to the eastern parts that extend as far as the mouth of the Caspian Sea; and the Romans have not yet advanced into the parts that are beyond the Albis; and likewise no one has made the journey by land either. However, it is clear from the “climata” and the parallel distances that if one travels longitudinally towards the east, one encounters the regions that are about the Borysthenes and that are to the north of the Pontus; but what is beyond Germany and what beyond the countries which are next after Germany—whether one should say the Bastarnae, as most writers suspect, or say that others lie in between, either the Iazyges, or the Roxolani, or certain other of the wagon-dwellers—it is not easy to say; nor yet whether they extend as far as the ocean along its entire length, or whether any part is uninhabitable by reason of the cold or other cause, or whether even a different race of people, succeeding the Germans, is situated between the sea and the eastern Germans. And this same ignorance prevails also in regard to the rest of the peoples that come next in order on the north; for I know neither the Bastarnae, nor the Sauromatae, nor, in a word, any of the peoples who dwell above the Pontus, nor how far distant they are from the Atlantic Sea, nor whether their countries border upon it.
7.3.1.1
As for the southern part of Germany beyond the Albis, the portion which is just contiguous to that river is occupied by the Suevi; then immediately adjoining this is the land of the Getae, which, though narrow at first, stretching as it does along the Ister on its southern side and on the opposite side along the mountain-side of the Hercynian Forest (for the land of the Getae also embraces a part of the mountains), afterwards broadens out towards the north as far as the Tyregetae; but I cannot tell the precise boundaries. It is because of men’s ignorance of these regions that any heed has been given to those who created the mythical “Rhipaean Mountains” and “Hyperboreans,” and also to all those false statements made by Pytheas the Massalian regarding the country along the ocean, wherein he uses as a screen his scientific knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. So then, those men should be disregarded; in fact, if even Sophocles, when in his role as a tragic poet he speaks of Oreithyia, tells how she was snatched up by “Boreas” and carried “over the whole sea to the ends of the earth and to the sources of night and to the unfoldings of heaven and to the ancient garden of Phoebus,” his story can have no bearing on the present inquiry, but should be disregarded, just as it is disregarded by Socrates in the Phaedrus. But let us confine our narrative to what we have learned from history, both ancient and modern.
7.3.2.1
Now the Greeks used to suppose that the Getae were Thracians; and the Getae lived on either side the Ister, as did also the Mysi, these also being Thracians and identical with the people who are now called Moesi; from these Mysi sprang also the Mysi who now live between the Lydians and the Phrygians and Trojans. And the Phrygians themselves are Brigians, a Thracian tribe, as are also the Mygdonians, the Bebricians, the Medobithynians, the Bithynians, and the Thynians, and, I think, also the Mariandynians. These peoples, to be sure, have all utterly quitted Europe, but the Mysi have remained there. And Poseidonius seems to me to be correct in his conjecture that Homer designates the Mysi in Europe (I mean those in Thrace) when he says, “But back he turned his shining eyes, and looked far away towards the land of the horsetending Thracians, and of the Mysi, hand-to-hand fighters” for surely, if one should take Homer to mean the Mysi in Asia, the statement would not hang together. Indeed, when Zeus turns his eyes away from the Trojans towards the land of the Thracians, it would be the act of a man who confuses the continents and does not understand the poet’s phraseology to connect with Thrace the land of the Asiatic Mysi, who are not “far away,” but have a common boundary with the Troad and are situated behind it and on either side of it, and are separated from Thrace by the broad Hellespont; for “back he turned” generally means “to the rear,” and he who transfers his gaze from the Trojans to the people who are either in the rear of the Trojans or on their flanks, does indeed transfer his gaze rather far, but not at all “to the rear.” Again, the appended phrase is testimony to this very view, because the poet connected with the Mysi the “Hippemolgi” and “Galactophagi” and “Abii,” who are indeed the wagon-dwelling Scythians and Sarmatians. For at the present time these tribes, as well as the Bastarnian tribes, are mingled with the Thracians (more indeed with those outside the Ister, but also with those inside). And mingled with them are also the Celtic tribes—the Boii, the Scordisci, and the Taurisci. However, the Scordisci are by some called “Scordistae”; and the Taurisci are called also “Ligurisci” and “Tauristae.”
7.3.3.1
Poseidonius goes on to say of the Mysians that in accordance with their religion they abstain from eating any living thing, and therefore from their flocks as well; and that they use as food honey and milk and cheese, living a peaceable life, and for this reason are called both “god-fearing” and “capnobatae”; and there are some of the Thracians who live apart from woman-kind; these are called “Ctistae,” and because of the honor in which they are held, have been dedicated to the gods and live with freedom from every fear; accordingly, Homer speaks collectively of all these peoples as “proud Hippemolgi, Galactophagi and Abii, men most just,” but he calls them “Abii” more especially for this reason, that they live apart from women, since he thinks that a life which is bereft of woman is only half-complete (just as he thinks the “house of Protesilaüs” is only “half complete,” because it is so bereft); and he speaks of the Mysians as “hand-to-hand fighters” because they were indomitable, as is the case with all brave warriors; and Poseidonius adds that in the Thirteenth Book one should read “Moesi, hand-to-hand fighters” instead of “Mysi, hand-to-hand fighters.”
7.3.4.1
However, it is perhaps superfluous to disturb the reading that has had approval for so many years; for it is much more credible that the people were called Mysi at first and that later their name was changed to what it is now. And as for the term “Abii,” one might interpret it as meaning those who are “without hearth:” and “live on wagons” quite as well as those who are “bereft”; for since, in general, injustices arise only in connection with contracts and a too high regard for property, so it is reasonable that those who, like the Abii, live cheaply, on slight resources, should have been called “most just.” In fact, the philosophers who put justice next to self-restraint strive above all things for frugality and personal independence; and consequently extreme self-restraint diverts some of them to the Cynical mode of life. But as for the statement that they live “bereft of women,” the poet suggests nothing of the sort, and particularly in the country of the Thracians and of those of their number who are Getae. And see the statement of Menander about them, which, as one may reasonably suppose, was not invented by him but taken from history: “All the Thracians, and most of all we Getae (for I too boast that I am of this stock) are not very continent;” and a little below he sets down the proofs of their incontinence in their relations with women: “For every man of us marries ten or eleven women, and some, twelve or more; but if anyone meets death before he has married more than four or five, he is lamented among the people there as a wretch without bride and nuptial song.” Indeed, these facts are confirmed by the other writers as well. Further, it is not reasonable to suppose that the same people regard as wretched a life without many women, and yet at the same time regard as pious and just a life that is wholly bereft of women. And of course to regard as “both god-fearing and capnobatae” those who are without women is very much opposed to the common notions on that subject; for all agree in regarding the women as the chief founders of religion, and it is the women who provoke the men to the more attentive worship of the gods, to festivals, and to supplications, and it is a rare thing for a man who lives by himself to be found addicted to these things. See again what the same poet says when he introduces as speaker the man who is vexed by the money spent by the women in connection with the sacrifices: “The gods are the undoing of us, especially us married men, for we must always be celebrating some festival;” and again when he introduces the Woman-hater, who complains about these very things: “we used to sacrifice five times a day, and seven female attendants would beat the cymbals all round us, while others would cry out to the gods.” So, then, the interpretation that the wifeless men of the Getae are in a special way reverential towards the gods is clearly contrary to reason, whereas the interpretation that zeal for religion is strong in this tribe, and that because of their reverence for the gods the people abstain from eating any living thing, is one which, both from what Poseidonius and from what the histories in general tell us, should not be disbelieved.
7.3.5.1
In fact, it is said that a certain man of the Getae, Zamolxis by name, had been a slave to Pythagoras, and had learned some things about the heavenly bodies from him, as also certain other things from the Egyptians, for in his wanderings he had gone even as far as Egypt; and when he came on back to his home-land he was eagerly courted by the rulers and the people of the tribe, because he could make predictions from the celestial signs; and at last he persuaded the king to take him as a partner in the government, on the ground that he was competent to report the will of the gods; and although at the outset he was only made a priest of the god who was most honored in their country, yet afterwards he was even addressed as god, and having taken possession of a certain cavernous place that was inaccessible to anyone else he spent his life there, only rarely meeting with any people outside except the king and his own attendants; and the king cooperated with him, because he saw that the people paid much more attention to himself than before, in the belief that the decrees which he promulgated were in accordance with the counsel of the gods. This custom persisted even down to our own time, because some man of that character was always to be found, who, though in fact only a counsellor to the king, was called god among the Getae. And the people took up the notion that the mountain was sacred and they so call it, but its name is Cogaeonum, like that of the river which flows past it. So, too, at the time when Byrebistas, against whom already the Deified Caesar had prepared to make an expedition, was reigning over the Getae, the office in question was held by Decaeneus, and somehow or other the Pythagorean doctrine of abstention from eating any living thing still survived as taught by Zamolxis.
7.3.6.1
Now although such difficulties as these might fairly be raised concerning what is found in the text of Homer about the Mysians and the “proud Hippemolgi,” yet what Apollodorus states in the preface to the Second Book of his work On Ships can by no means be asserted; for he approves the declaration of Eratosthenes, that although both Homer and the other early authors knew the Greek places, they were decidedly unacquainted with those that were far away, since they had no experience either in making long journeys by land or in making voyages by sea. And in support of this Apollodorus says that Homer calls Aulis “rocky” (and so it is), and Eteonus “place of many ridges,” and Thisbe “haunt of doves,” and Haliartus “grassy,” but, he says, neither Homer nor the others knew the places that were far away. At any rate, he says, although about forty rivers now into the Pontus, Homer mentions not a single one of those that are the most famous, as, for example, the Ister, the Tanaïs, the Borysthenes, the Hypanis, the Phasis, the Thermodon, the Halys; and, besides, he does not mention the Scythians, but invents certain “proud Hippemolgi” and “Galactophagi” and “Abii”; and as for the Paphlagonians of the interior, he reports what he has learned from those who have approached the regions afoot, but he is ignorant of the seaboard, and naturally so, for at that time this sea was not navigable, and was called Axine because of its wintry storms and the ferocity of the tribes that lived around it, and particularly the Scythians, in that they sacrificed strangers, ate their flesh, and used their skulls as drinking-cups; but later it was called “Euxine,” when the Ionians founded cities on the seaboard. And, likewise, Homer is also ignorant of the facts about Egypt and Libya, as, for example, about the risings of the Nile and the silting up of the sea, things which he nowhere mentions; neither does he mention the isthmus between the Erythraean and the Egyptian Seas, nor the regions of Arabia and Ethiopia and the ocean, unless one should give heed to Zeno the philosopher when he writes, “And I came to the Ethiopians and Sidonians and Arabians.” But this ignorance in Homer’s case is not amazing, for those who have lived later than he have been ignorant of many things and have invented marvellous tales: Hesiod, when he speaks of “men who are half-dog,” of “long-headed men,” and of “Pygmies”; and Alcman, when he speaks of “web footed men”; and Aeschylus, when he speaks of “dog-headed men,” of “men with eyes in their breasts”, and of “one-eyed men” (in his Prometheus it is said); and a host of other tales. From these men he proceeds against the historians who speak of the “Rhipaean Mountains,” and of “Mt. Ogyium,” and of the settlement of the Gorgons and Hesperides, and of the “Land of Meropis” in Theopompus, and the “City of Cimmeris” in Hecataeus, and the “Land of Panchaea” in Euhemerus, and in Aristotle “the river-stones, which are formed of sand but are melted by the rains.” And in Libya, Apollodorus continues, there is a “City of Dionysus” which it is impossible for the same man ever to find twice. He censures also those who speak of the Homeric wanderings of Odysseus as having been in the neighborhood of Sicily; for in that case, says he, one should go on and say that, although the wanderings took place there, the poet, for the sake of mythology, placed them out in Oceanus. And, he adds, the writers in general can be pardoned, but Callimachus cannot be pardoned at all, because he makes a pretence of being a scholar; for he calls Gaudos the “Isle of Calypso” and Corcyra “Scheria.” And others he charges with falsifying about “Gerena,” and “Aeacesium,” and “Demus” in Ithaca, and about “Pelethronium” in Pelion, and about Glaucopium in Athens. To these criticisms Apollodorus adds some petty ones of like sort and then stops, but he borrowed most of them from Eratosthenes, and as I have remarked before they are wrong. For while one must concede to Eratosthenes and Apollodorus that the later writers have shown themselves better acquainted with such matters than the men of early times, yet to proceed beyond all moderation as they do, and particularly in the case of Homer, is a thing for which, as it seems to me, one might justly rebuke them and make the reverse statement: that where they are ignorant themselves, there they reproach the poet with ignorance. However, what remains to be said on this subject meets with appropriate mention in my detailed descriptions of the several countries, as also in my general description.
7.3.7.1
Just now I was discussing the Thracians, and the “Mysians, hand-to-hand fighters, and the proud Hippemolgi, Galactophagi, and Abii, men most just,” because I wished to make a comparison between the statements made by Poseidonius and myself and those made by the two men in question. Take first the fact that the argument which they have attempted is contrary to the proposition which they set out to prove; for although they set out to prove that the men of earlier times were more ignorant of regions remote from Greece than the men of more recent times, they showed the reverse, not only in regard to regions remote, but also in regard to places in Greece itself. However, as I was saying, let me put off everything else and look to what is now before me: they say that the poet through ignorance fails to mention the Scythians, or their savage dealings with strangers, in that they sacrifice them, eat their flesh, and use their skulls as drinking-cups, although it was on account of the Scythians that the Puntus was called “Axine,” but that he invents certain “proud Hippemolgi, Galactophagi, and Abii, men most just”—people that exist nowhere on earth, How, then, could they call the sea “Axine” if they did not know about the ferocity or about the people who were most ferocious? And these, of course, are the Scythians. And were the people who lived beyond the Mysians and Thracians and Getae not also “Hippemolgi,” not also “Galactophagi” and “Abii”? In fact, even now there are Wagon-dwellers and Nomads, so called, who live off their herds, and on milk and cheese, and particularly on cheese made from mare’s milk, and know nothing about storing up food or about peddling merchandise either, except the exchange of wares for wares. How, then, could the poet be ignorant of the Scythians if he called certain people “Hippemolgi and Galactophagi”? For that the people of his time were wont to call the Scythians “Hippemolgi,” Hesiod, too, is witness in the words cited by Eratosthenes: The Ethiopians, the Ligurians, and also the Scythians, Hippemolgi.”Now wherein is it to be wondered at that, because of the widespread injustice connected with contracts in our country, Homer called “most just” and “proud” those who by no means spend their lives on contracts and money-getting but actually possess all things in common except sword and drinking-cup, and above all things have their wives and their children in common, in the Platonic way? Aeschylus, too, is clearly pleading the cause of the poet when he says about the Scythians: “But the Scythians, law-abiding, eaters of cheese made of mare’s milk.” And this assumption even now still persists among the Greeks; for we regard the Scythians the most straightforward of men and the least prone to mischief, as also far more frugal and independent of others than we are. And yet our mode of life has spread its change for the worse to almost all peoples, introducing amongst them luxury and sensual pleasures and, to satisfy these vices, base artifices that lead to innumerable acts of greed. So then, much wickedness of this sort has fallen on the barbarian peoples also, on the Nomads as well as the rest; for as the result of taking up a seafaring life they not only have become morally worse, indulging in the practice of piracy and of slaying strangers, but also, because of their intercourse with many peoples, have partaken of the luxury and the peddling habits of those peoples. But though these things seem to conduce strongly to gentleness of manner, they corrupt morals and introduce cunning instead of the straightforwardness which I just now mentioned.
7.3.8.1
Those, however, who lived before our times, and particularly those who lived near the time of Homer, were—and among the Greeks were assumed to be—some such people as Homer describes. And see what Herodotus says concerning that king of the Scythians against whom Dareius made his expedition, and the message which the king sent back to him. See also what Chrysippus says concerning the kings of the Bosporus, the house of Leuco. And not only the Persian letters are full of references to that straightforwardness of which I am speaking but also the memoirs written by the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Indians. And it was on this account that Anacharsis, Abaris, and other men of the sort were in fair repute among the Greeks, because they displayed a nature characterized by complacency, frugality, and justice. But why should I speak of the men of olden times? For when Alexander, the son of Philip, on his expedition against the Thracians beyond the Haemus, invaded the country of the Triballians and saw that it extended as far as the Ister and the island of Peuce in the Ister, and that the parts on the far side were held by the Getae, he went as far as that, it is said, but could not disembark upon the island because of scarcity of boats (for Syrmus, the king of the Triballi had taken refuge there and resisted his attempts); he did, however, cross over to the country of the Getae, took their city, and returned with all speed to his home-land, after receiving gifts from the tribes in question and from Syrmus. And Ptolemaeus, the son of Lagus, says that on this expedition the Celti who lived about the Adriatic joined Alexander for the sake of establishing friendship and hospitality, and that the king received them kindly and asked them when drinking what it was that they most feared, thinking they would say himself, but that they replied they feared no one, unless it were that Heaven might fall on them, although indeed they added that they put above everything else the friendship of such a man as he. And the following are signs of the straightforwardness of the barbarians: first, the fact that Syrmus refused to consent to the debarkation upon the island and yet sent gifts and made a compact of friendship; and, secondly, that the Celti said that they feared no one, and yet valued above everything else the friendship of great men. Again, Dromichaetes was king of the Getae in the time of the successors of Alexander. Now he, when he captured Lysimachus alive, who had made an expedition against him, first pointed out the poverty both of himself and of his tribe and likewise their independence of others, and then bade him not to carry on war with people of that sort but rather to deal with them as friends; and after saying this he first entertained him as a guest, and made a compact of friendship, and then released him. Moreover, Plato in his Republic thinks that those who would have a well-governed city should flee as far as possible from the sea, as being a thing that teaches wickedness, and should not live near it.
7.3.9.1
Ephorus, in the fourth book of his history, the book entitled Europe (for he made the circuit of Europe as far as the Scythians), says towards the end that the modes of life both of the Sauromatae and of the other Scythians are unlike, for, whereas some are so cruel that they even eat human beings, others abstain from eating any living creature whatever. Now the other writers, he says, tell only about their savagery, because they know that the terrible and the marvellous are startling, but one should tell the opposite facts too and make them patterns of conduct, and he himself, therefore, will tell only about those who follow “most just” habits, for there are some of the Scythian Nomads who feed only on mare’s milk, and excel all men in justice; and they are mentioned by the poets: by Homer, when he says that Zeus espies the land “of the Galactophagi and Abii, men most just,” and by Hesiod, in what is called his Circuit of the Earth, when he says that Phineus is carried by the Storm Winds “to the land of the Galactophagi, who have their dwellings in wagons.” Then Ephorus reasons out the cause as follows: since they are frugal in their ways of living and not money-getters, they not only are orderly towards one another, because they have all things in common, their wives, children, the whole of their kin and everything, but also remain invincible and unconquered by outsiders, because they have nothing to be enslaved for. And he cites Choerilus also, who, in his The Crossing of the Pontoon-Bridge which was constructed by Dareius, says, “the sheep-tending Sacae, of Scythian stock; but they used to live in wheat-producing Asia; however, they were colonists from the Nomads, law-abiding people.” And when he calls Anacharsis “wise,” Ephorus says that he belongs to this race, and that he was considered also one of Seven Wise Men because of his perfect self-control and good sense. And he goes on to tell the inventions of Anacharsis—the bellows, the two-fluked anchor and the potter’s wheel. These things I tell knowing full well that Ephorus himself does not tell the whole truth about everything; and particularly in his account of Anacharsis (for how could the wheel be his invention, if Homer, who lived in earlier times, knew of it? “As when a potter his wheel that fits in his hands,” and so on); but as for those other things, I tell them because I wish to make my point clear that there actually was a common report, which was believed by the men of both early and of later times, that a part of the Nomads, I mean those who had settled the farthest away from the rest of mankind, were “galactophagi,” “abii,” and “most just,” and that they were not an invention of Homer.
7.3.10.1
It is but fair, too, to ask Apollodorus to account for the Mysians that are mentioned in the verses of Homer, whether he thinks that these too are inventions (when the poet says, “and the Mysians, hand-to-hand fighters and the proud Hippenlolgi”), or takes the poet to mean the Mysians in Asia. Now if he takes the poet to mean those in Asia, he will misinterpret him, as I have said before, but if he calls them an invention, meaning that there were no Mysians in Thrace, he will contradict the facts; for at any rate, even in our own times, Aelius Catus transplanted from the country on the far side of the Ister into Thrace fifty thousand persons from among the Getae, a tribe with the same tongue as the Thracians. And they live there in Thrace now and are called “Moesi”—whether it be that their people of earlier times were so called and that in Asia the name was changed to “Mysi,” or (what is more apposite to history and the declaration of the poet) that in earlier times their people in Thrace were called “Mysi.” Enough, however, on this subject. I shall now go back to the next topic in the general description.
7.3.11.1
As for the Getae, then, their early history must be left untold, but that which pertains to our own times is about as follows: Boerebistas a Getan, on setting himself in authority over the tribe, restored the people, who had been reduced to an evil plight by numerous wars, and raised them to such a height through training, sobriety, and obedience to his commands that within only a few years he had established a great empire and subordinated to the Getae most of the neighboring peoples. And he began to be formidable even to the Romans, because he would cross the Ister with impunity and plunder Thrace as far as Macedonia and the Illyrian country; and he not only laid waste the country of the Celti who were intermingled with the Thracians and the Illyrians, but actually caused the complete disappearance of the Boii who were under the rule of Critasirus, and also of the Taurisci. To help him secure the complete obedience of his tribe he had as his coadjutor Decaeneus, a wizard, a man who not only had wandered through Egypt, but also had thoroughly learned certain prognostics through which he would pretend to tell the divine will; and within a short time he was set up as god (as I said when relating the story of Zamolxis). The following is an indication of their complete obedience: they were persuaded to cut down their vines and to live without wine. However, certain men rose up against Boerebistas and he was deposed before the Romans sent an expedition against him; and those who succeeded him divided the empire into several parts. In fact, only recently, when Augustus Caesar sent an expedition against them, the number of parts into which the empire had been divided was five, though at the time of the insurrection it had been four. Such divisions, to be sure, are only temporary and vary with the times.
7.3.12.1
But there is also another division of the country which has endured from early times, for some of the people are called Daci, whereas others are called Getae—Getae, those who incline towards the Pontus and the east, and Daci, those who incline in the opposite direction towards Germany and the sources of the Ister. The Daci, I think, were called Daï in early times; whence the slave names “Geta” and “Daüs” which prevailed among the Attic people; for this is more probable than that “Daüs” is from those Scythians who are called “Daae,” for they live far away in the neighborhood of Hyrcania, and it is not reasonable to suppose that slaves were brought into Attica from there; for the Attic people were wont either to call their slaves by the same names as those of the nations from which they were brought (as “Lydus” or “Syrus ”), or addressed them by names that were prevalent in their countries (as “Manes”or else “Midas” for the Phrygian, or “Tibius” for the Paphlagonian). But though the tribe was raised to such a height by Boerebistas, it has been completely humbled by its own seditions and by the Romans; nevertheless, they are capable, even today, of sending forth an army of forty thousand men.
7.3.13.1
The Marisus River flows through their country into the Danuvius, on which the Romans used to convey their equipment for war; the “Danuvius” I say, for so they used to call the upper part of the river from near its sources on to the cataracts, I mean the part which in the main flows through the country, of the Daci, although they give the name “Ister” to the lower part, from the cataracts on to the Pontus, the part which flows past the country of the Getae. The language of the Daci is the same as that of the Getae. Among the Greeks, however, the Getae are better known because the migrations they make to either side of the Ister are continuous, and because they are intermingled with the Thracians and Mysians. And also the tribe of the Triballi, likewise Thracian, has had this same experience, for it has admitted migrations into this country, because the neighboring peoples force them to emigrate into the country of those who are weaker; that is, the Scythians and Bastarnians and Sauromatians on the far side of the river often prevail to the extent that they actually cross over to attack those whom they have already driven out, and some of them remain there, either in the islands or in Thrace, whereas those on the other side are generally overpowered by the Illyrians. Be that as it may, although the Getae and Daci once attained to very great power, so that they actually could send forth an expedition of two hundred thousand men, they now find themselves reduced to as few as forty thousand, and they have come close to the point of yielding obedience to the Romans, though as yet they are not absolutely submissive, because of the hopes which they base on the Germans, who are enemies to the Romans.
7.3.14.1
In the intervening space, facing that part of the Pontic Sea which extends from the Ister to the Tyras, lies the Desert of the Getae, wholly flat and waterless, in which Dareius the son of Hystaspis was caught on the occasion when he crossed the Ister to attack the Scythians and ran the risk of perishing from thirst, army and all; however, he belatedly realized his error and turned back. And, later on, Lysimachus, in his expedition against the Getae and King Dromichaetes, not only ran the risk but actually was captured alive; but he again came off safely, because he found the barbarian kind-hearted, as I said before.
7.3.15.1
Near the outlets of the Ister River is a great island called Peuce; and when the Bastarnians took possession of it they received the appellation of Peucini. There are still other islands which are much smaller; some of these are farther inland than Peuce, while others are near the sea, for the river has seven mouths. The largest of these mouths is what is called the Sacred Mouth, on which one can sail inland a hundred and twenty stadia to Peuce. It was at the lower part of Peuce that Dareius made his pontoon-bridge, although the bridge could have been constructed at the upper part also. The Sacred Mouth is the first mouth on the left as one sails into the Pontus; the others come in order thereafter as one sails along the coast towards the Tyras; and the distance from it to the seventh mouth is about three hundred stadia. Accordingly, small islands are formed between the mouths. Now the three mouths that come next in order after the Sacred Mouth are small, but the remaining mouths are much smaller than it, but larger than any one of the three. According to Ephorus, however, the Ister has only five months. Thence to the Tyras, a navigable river, the distance is nine hundred stadia. And in the interval are two large lakes one of them opening into the sea, so that it can also be used as a harbor, but the other mouthless.
7.3.16.1
At the mouth of the Tyras is what is called the Tower of Neoptolemus, and also what is called the village of Hermonax. And on sailing inland one hundred and forty stadia one comes to two cities, one on each side, Niconia on the right and Ophiussa on the left. But the people who live near the river speak of a city one hundred and twenty stadia inland. Again, at a distance of five hundred stadia from the mouth is the island called Leuce, which lies in the high sea and is sacred to Achilles.
7.3.17.1
Then comes the Borysthenes River, which is navigable for a distance of six hundred stadia; and, near it, another river, the Hypanis, and off the mouth of the Borysthenes, an island with a harbor. On sailing up the Borysthenes two hundred stadia one comes to a city of the same name as the river, but the same city is also called Olbia; it is a great trading center and was founded by Milesians. Now the whole country that lies above the said seaboard between the Borysthenes and the Ister consists, first, of the Desert of the Getae; then the country of the Tyregetans; and after it the country of the Iazygian Sarmatians and that of the people called the Basileians and that of the Urgi, who in general are nomads, though a few are interested also in farming; these people, it is said, dwell also along the Ister, often on both sides. In the interior dwell, first, those Bastarnians whose country borders on that of the Tyregetans and Germans—they also being, one might say, of Germanic stock; and they are divided up into several tribes, for a part of them are called Atmoni and Sidoni, while those who took possession of Peuce, the island in the Ister, are called “Peucini,” whereas the “Roxolani” (the most northerly of them all) roam the plains between the Tanaïs and the Borysthenes. In fact, the whole country towards the north from Germany as far as the Caspian Sea is, so far as we know it, a plain, but whether any people dwell beyond the Roxolani we do not know. Now the Roxolani, under the leadership of Tasius, carried on war even with the generals of Mithridates Eupator; they came for the purpose of assisting Palacus, the son of Scilurus, as his allies, and they had the reputation of being warlike; yet all barbarian races and light-armed peoples are weak when matched against a well-ordered and well-armed phalanx. At any rate, those people, about fifty thousand strong, could not hold out against the six thousand men arrayed with Diophantus, the general of Mithridates, and most of them were destroyed. They use helmets and corselets made of raw ox-hides, carry wicker shields, and have for weapons spears, bow, and sword; and most of the other barbarians are armed in this way. As for the Nomads, their tents, made of felt, are fastened on the wagons in which they spend their lives; and round about the tents are the herds which afford the milk, cheese, and meat on which they live; and they follow the grazing herds, from time to time moving to other places that have grass, living only in the marsh-meadows about Lake Maeotis in winter, but also in the plains in summer.
7.3.18.1
The whole of the country has severe winters as far as the regions by the sea that are between the Borysthenes and the mouth of Lake Maeotis; but of the regions themselves that are by the sea the most northerly are the mouth of the Maeotis and, still more northerly, the mouth of the Borysthenes, and the recess of the Gulf of Tamyraces, or Carcinites, which is the isthmus of the Great Chersonesus. The coldness of these regions, albeit the people live in plains, is evident, for they do not breed asses, an animal that is very sensitive to cold; and as for their cattle, some are born without horns, while the horns of others are filed off, for this part of the animal is sensitive to cold; and the horses are small, whereas the sheep are large; and bronze water-jars burst and their contents freeze solid. But the severity of the frosts is most clearly evidenced by what takes place in the region of the mouth of Lake Maeotis: the waterway from Panticapaeum across to Phanagoria is traversed by wagons, so that it is both ice and roadway. And fish that become caught in the ice are obtained by digging with an implement called the “gangame,” and particularly the antacaei, which are about the size of dolphins. It is said of Neoptolemus, the general of Mithridates, that in the same strait he overcame the barbarians in a naval engagement in summer and in a cavalry engagement in winter. And it is further said that the vine in the Bosporus region is buried during the winter, the people heaping quantities of earth upon it. And it is said that the heat too becomes severe, perhaps because the bodies of the people are unaccustomed to it, or perhaps because no winds blow on the plains at that time, or else because the air, by reason of its density, becomes superheated (like the effect of the parhelia in the clouds). It appears that Ateas, who waged war with Philip the son of Amyntas, ruled over most of the barbarians in this part of the world.
7.3.19.1
After the island that lies off the Borysthenes, and next towards the rising sun, one sails to the cape of the Race Course of Achilles, which, though a treeless place, is called Alsos and is sacred to Achilles. Then comes the Race Course of Achilles, a peninsula that lies flat on the sea; it is a ribbon-like stretch of land, as much as one thousand stadia in length, extending towards the east; its maximum breadth is only two stadia, and its minimum only four plethra, and it is only sixty stadia distant from the mainland that lies on either side of the neck. It is sandy, and water may be had by digging. The neck of the isthmus is near the center of the peninsula and is about forty stadia wide. It terminates in a cape called Tamyrace, which has a mooring-place that faces the mainland. And after this cape comes the Carcinites Gulf. It is a very large gulf, reaching up towards the north as far as one thousand stadia; some say, however, that the distance to its recess is three times as much. The people there are called Taphrians. The gulf is also called Tamyrace, the same name as that of the cape.
7.4.1.1
Here is the isthmus which separates what is called Lake Sapra from the sea; it is forty stadia in width and forms what is called the Tauric, or Scythian, Chersonese. Some, however, say that the breadth of the isthmus is three hundred and sixty stadia. But though Lake Sapra is said to be as much as four thousand stadia, it is only a part, the western part, of Lake Maeotis, for it is connected with the latter by a wide mouth. It is very marshy and is scarcely navigable for sewn boats, for the winds readily uncover the shallow places and then cover them with water again, and therefore the marshes are impassable for the larger boats. The gulf contains three small islands, and also some shoals and a few reefs along the coast.
7.4.2.1
As one sails out of the gulf, one comes, on the left, to a small city and another harbor belonging to the Chersonesites. For next in order as one sails along the coast is a great cape which projects towards the south and is a part of the Chersonesus as a whole; and on this cape is situated a city of the Heracleotae, a colony of the Heracleotae who live on the Pontus, and this place itself is called Chersonesus, being distant as one sails along the coast four thousand four hundred stadia from the Tyras. In this city is the temple of the Parthenos, a certain deity; and the cape which is in front of the city, at a distance of one hundred stadia, is also named after this deity, for it is called the Parthenium, and it has a shrine and xoanon of her. Between the city and the cape are three harbors. Then comes the Old Chersonesus, which has been razed to the ground; and after it comes a narrow-mouthed harbor, where, generally speaking, the Tauri, a Scythian tribe, used to assemble their bands of pirates in order to attack all who fled thither for refuge. It is called Symbolon Limen. This harbor forms with another harbor called Ctenus Limen an isthmus forty stadia in width; and this is the isthmus that encloses the Little Chersonesus, which, as I was saying, is a part of the Great Chersonesus and has on it the city of Chersonesus, which bears the same name as the peninsula.
7.4.3.1
This city was at first self-governing, but when it was sacked by the barbarians it was forced to choose Mithridates Eupator as protector. He was then leading an army against the barbarians who lived beyond the isthmus as far as the Borysthenes and the Adrias; this, however, was prepratory to a campaign against the Romans. So, then, in accordance with these hopes of his he gladly sent an army to Chersonesus, and at the same time carried on war against the Scythians, not only against Scilurus, but also the sons of Scilurus—Palacus and the rest—who, according to Poseidonius were fifty in number, but according to Apollonides were eighty. At the same time, also, he not only subdued all these by force, but also established himself as lord of the Bosporus, receiving the country as a voluntary gift from Parisades who held sway over it. So from that time on down to the present the city of the Chersonesites has been subject to the potentates of the Bosporus. Again, Ctenus Limen is equidistant from the city of the Chersonesites and Symbolon Limen. And after Symbolon Limen, as far as the city Theodosia, lies the Tauric seaboard, which is about one thousand stadia in length. It is rugged and mountainous, and is subject to furious storms from the north. And in front of it lies a promontory which extends far out towards the high sea and the south in the direction of Paphlagonia and the city Amastris; it is called Criumetopon. And opposite it lies that promontory of the Paphlagonians, Carambis, which, by means of the strait, which is contracted on both sides, divides the Euxine Pontus into two seas. Now the distance from Carambis to the city of the Chersonesites is two thousand five hundred stadia, but the number to Criumetopon is much less; at any rate, many who have sailed across the strait say that they have seen both promontories, on either side, at the same time. In the mountainous district of the Taurians is also the mountain Trapezus, which has the same name as the city in the neighborhood of Tibarania and Colchis. And near the same mountainous district is also another mountain, Cimmerius, so called because the Cimmerians once held sway in the Bosporus; and it is because of this fact that the whole of the strait which extends to the mouth of Lake Maeotis is called the Cimmerian Bosporus.
7.4.4.1
After the aforesaid mountainous district is the city Theodosia. It is situated in a fertile plain and has a harbor that can accommodate as many as a hundred ships; this harbor in earlier times was a boundary between the countries of the Bosporians and the Taurians. And the country that comes next after that of Theodosia is also fertile, as far as Panticapaeum. Panticapaeum is the metropolis of the Bosporians and is situated at the mouth of Lake Maeotis. The distance between Theodosia and Panticapaeum is about five hundred and thirty stadia; the district is everywhere productive of grain, and it contains villages, as well as a city called Nymphaeum, which possesses a good harbor. Panticapaeum is a hill inhabited on all sides in a circuit of twenty stadia. To the east it has a harbor, and docks for about thirty ships; and it also has an acropolis. It is a colony of the Milesians. For a long time it was ruled as a monarchy by the dynasty of Leuco, Satyrus, and Parisades, as were also all the neighboring settlements near the south of Lake Maeotis on both sides, until Parisades gave over the sovereignty to Mithridates. They were called tyrants, although most of them, beginning with Parisades and Leuco, proved to be equitable rulers. And Parisades was actually held in honor as god. The last of these monarchs also bore the name Parisades, but he was unable to hold out against the barbarians, who kept exacting greater tribute than before, and he therefore gave over the sovereignty to Mithridates Eupator. But since the time of Mithridates the kingdom has been subject to the Romans. The greater part of it is situated in Europe, although a part of it is situated in Asia.
7.4.5.1
The mouth of Lake Maeotis is called the Cimmerian Bosporus. It is rather wide at first—about seventy stadia—and it is here that people cross over from the regions of Panticapaeum to Phanagoria, the nearest city of Asia; but it ends in a much narrower channel. This strait separates Asia from Europe; and so does the Tanaïs River, which is directly opposite and flows from the north into the lake and then into the mouth of it. The river has two outlets into the lake which are about sixty stadia distant from one another. There is also a city which has the same name as the river, and next to Panticapaeum is the greatest emporium of the barbarians. On the left, as one sails into the Cimmerian Bosporus, is a little city, Myrmecium, at a distance of twenty stadia from Panticapaeum. And twice this distance from Myrmecium is the village of Parthenium; here the strait is narrowest—about twenty stadia—and on the opposite side, in Asia, is situated a village called Achilleium. Thence, if one sails straight to the Tanaïs and the islands near its outlets, the distance is two thousand two hundred stadia, but if one sails along the coast of Asia, the distance slightly exceeds this; if, however, one sails on the left as far as the Tanaïs, following the coast where the isthmus is situated, the distance is more than three times as much. Now the whole of the seaboard along this coast, I mean on the European side, is desert, but the seaboard on the right is not desert; and, according to report, the total circuit of the lake is nine thousand stadia. The Great Chersonesus is similar to the Peloponnesus both in shape and in size. It is held by the potentates of the Bosporus, though the whole of it has been devastated by continuous wars. But in earlier times only a small part of it—that which is close to the mouth of Lake Maeotis and to Panticapaeum and extends as far as Theodosia—was held by the tyrants of the Bosporians, whereas most of it, as far as the isthmus and the Gulf of Carcinites, was held by the Taurians, a Scythian tribe. And the whole of this country, together with about all the country outside the isthmus as far as the Borysthenes, was called Little Scythia. But on account of the large number of people who left Little Scythia and crossed both the Tyras and the Ister and took up their abode in the land beyond, no small portion of Thrace as well came to be called Little Scythia; the Thracians giving way to them partly as the result of force and partly because of the bad quality of the land, for the greater part of the country is marshy.
7.4.6.1
But the Chersonesus, except for the mountainous district that extends along the sea as far as Theodosia, is everywhere level and fertile, and in the production of grain it is extremely fortunate. At any rate, it yields thirty-fold if furrowed by any sort of a digging-instrument. Further, the people of this region, together with those of the Asiatic districts round about Sindice, used to pay as tribute to Mithridates one hundred and eighty thousand medimni and also two hundred talents of silver. And in still earlier times the Greeks imported their supplies of grain from here, just as they imported their supplies of salt-fish from the lake. Leuco, it is said, once sent from Theodosia to Athens two million one hundred thousand medimni. These same people used to be called Georgi, in the literal sense of the term, because of the fact that the people who were situated beyond them were Nomads and lived not only on meats in general but also on the meat of horses, as also on cheese made from mare’s milk, on mare’s fresh milk, and on mare’s sour milk, which last, when prepared in a particular way, is much relished by them. And this is why the poet calls all the people in that part of the world “Galactophagi.” Now although the Nomads are warriors rather than brigands, yet they go to war only for the sake of the tributes due them; for they turn over their land to any people who wish to till it, and are satisfied if they receive in return for the land the tribute they have assessed, which is a moderate one, assessed with a view, not to an abundance, but only to the daily necessities of life; but if the tenants do not pay, the Nomads go to war with them. And so it is that the poet calls these same men at the same time both “just” and “resourceless”; for if the tributes were paid regularly, they would never resort to war. But men who are confident that they are powerful enough either to ward off attacks easily or to prevent any invasion do not pay regularly; such was the case with Asander, who, according to Hypsicrates, walled off the isthmus of the Chersonesus which is near Lake Maeotis and is three hundred and sixty stadia in width, and set up ten towers for every stadium. But though the Georgi of this region are considered to be at the same time both more gentle and civilized, still, since they are money-getters and have to do with the sea, they do not hold aloof from acts of piracy, nor yet from any other such acts of injustice and greed.
7.4.7.1
In addition to the places in the Chersonesus which I have enumerated, there were also the three forts which were built by Scilurus and his sons—the forts which they used as bases of operations against the generals of Mithridates—I mean Palacium, Chabum, and Neapolis. There was also a Fort Eupatorium, founded by Diophantus when he was leading the army for Mithridates. There is a cape about fifteen stadia distant from the wall of the Chersonesites; it forms a very large gulf which inclines towards the city. And above this gulf is situated a lagoon which has salt-works. And here, too, was the Ctenus Harbor. Now it was in order that they might hold out that the besieged generals of the king fortified the place, established a garrison on the cape aforesaid, and filled up that part of the mouth of the gulf which extends as far as the city, so that there was now an easy journey on foot and, in a way, one city instead of two. Consequently, they could more easily beat off the Scythians. But when the Scythians made their attack, near Ctenus, on the fortified wall that extends across the isthmus, and daily filled up the trench with straw, the generals of the king set fire by night to the part thus bridged by day, and held out until they finally prevailed over them. And today everything is subject to whatever kings of the Bosporians the Romans choose to set up.
7.4.8.1
It is a peculiarity of the whole Scythian and Sarmatian race that they castrate their horses to make them easy to manage; for although the horses are small, they are exceedingly quick and hard to manage. As for game, there are deer and wild boars in the marshes, and wild asses and roe deer in the plains. Another peculiar thing is the fact that the eagle is not found in these regions. And among the quadrupeds there is what is called the “colos”; it is between the deer and ram in size, is white, is swifter than they, and drinks through its nostrils into its head, and then from this storage supplies itself for several days, so that it can easily live in the waterless country. Such, then, is the nature of the whole of the country which is outside the Ister between the Rhenus and the Tanaïs Rivers as far as the Pontic Sea and Lake Maeotis.
7.5.1.1
The remainder of Europe consists of the country which is between the Ister and the encircling sea, beginning at the recess of the Adriatic and extending as far as the Sacred Mouth of the Ister. In this country are Greece and the tribes of the Macedonians and of the Epeirotes, and all those tribes above them whose countries reach to the Ister and to the seas on either side, both the Adriatic and the Pontic—to the Adriatic, the Illyrian tribes, and to the other sea as far as the Propontis and the Hellespont, the Thracian tribes and whatever Scythian or Celtic tribes are intermingled with them. But I must make my beginning at the Ister, speaking of the parts that come next in order after the regions which I have already encompassed in my description. These are the parts that border on Italy, on the Alps, and on the counties of the Germans, Dacians, and Getans. This country also might be divided into two parts, for, in a way, the Illyrian, Paeonian, and Thracian mountains are parallel to the Ister, thus completing what is almost a straight line that reaches from the Adrias as far as the Pontus; and to the north of this line are the parts that are between the Ister and the mountains, whereas to the south are Greece and the barbarian country which borders thereon and extends as far as the mountainous country. Now the mountain called Haemus is near the Pontus; it is the largest and highest of all mountains in that part of the world, and cleaves Thrace almost in the center. Polybius says that both seas are visible from the mountain, but this is untrue, for the distance to the Adrias is great and the things that obscure the view are many. On the other hand, almost the whole of Ardia is near the Adrias. But Paeonia is in the middle, and the whole of it too is high country. Paeonia is bounded on either side, first, towards the Thracian parts, by Rhodope, a mountain next in height to the Haemus, and secondly, on the other side, towards the north, by the Illyrian parts, both the country of the Autariatae and that of the Dardanians. So then, let me speak first of the Illyrian parts, which join the Ister and that part of the Alps which lies between Italy and Germany and begins at the lake which is near the country of the Vindelici, Rhaeti, and Toenii.
7.5.2.1
A part of this country was laid waste by the Dacians when they subdued the Boii and Taurisci, Celtic tribes under the rule of Critasirus. They alleged that the country was theirs, although it was separated from theirs by the River Parisus, which flows from the mountains to the Ister near the country of the Scordisci who are called Galatae, for these too lived intermingled with the Illyrian and the Thracian tribes. But though the Dacians destroyed the Boii and Taurisci, they often used the Scordisci as allies. The remainder of the country in question is held by the Pannonii as far as Segestica and the Ister, on the north and east, although their territory extends still farther in the other directions. The city Segestica, belonging to the Pannonians, is at the confluence of several rivers, all of them navigable, and is naturally fitted to be a base of operations for making war against the Dacians; for it lies beneath that part of the Alps which extends as far as the country of the Iapodes, a tribe which is at the same time both Celtic and Illyrian. And thence, too, flow rivers which bring down into Segestica much merchandise both from other countries and from Italy. For if one passes over Mount Ocra from Aquileia to Nauportus, a settlement of the Taurisci, whither the wagons are brought, the distance is three hundred and fifty stadia, though some say five hundred. Now the Ocra is the lowest part of that portion of the Alps which extends from the country of the Rhaeti to that of the Iapodes. Then the mountains rise again, in the country of the Iapodes, and are called “Albian.” In like manner, also, there is a pass which leads over Ocra from Tergeste, a Carnic village, to a marsh called Lugeum. Near Nauportus there is a river, the Corcoras, which receives the cargoes. Now this river empties into the Saus, and the Saus into the Dravus, and the Dravus into the Noarus near Segestica. Immediately below Nauportus the Noarus is further increased in volume by the Colapis, which flows from the Albian Mountain through the country of the Iapodes and meets the Danuvius near the country of the Scordisci. The voyage on these rivers is, for the most part, towards the north. The road from Tergeste to the Danuvius is about one thousand two hundred stadia. Near Segestica, and on the road to Italy, are situated both Siscia, a fort, and Sirmium.
7.5.3.1
The tribes of the Pannonii are: the Breuci, the Andisetii, the Ditiones, the Peirustae, the Mazaei, and the Daesitiatae, whose leader is Bato, and also other small tribes of less significance which extend as far as Dalmatia and, as one goes south, almost as far as the land of the Ardiaei. The whole of the mountainous country that stretches alongside Pannonia from the recess of the Adriatic as far as the Rhizonic Gulf and the land of the Ardiaei is Illyrian, falling as it does between the sea and the Pannonian tribes. But this is about where I should begin my continuous geographical circuit—though first I shall repeat a little of what I have said before. I was saying in my geographical circuit of Italy that the Istrians were the first people on the Illyrian seaboard; their country being a continuation of Italy and the country of the Carni; and it is for this reason that the present Roman rulers have advanced the boundary of Italy as far as Pola, an Istrian city. Now this boundary is about eight hundred stadia from the recess, and the distance from the promontory in front of Pola to Ancona, if one keeps the Henetic country on the right, is the same. And the entire distance along the coast of Istria is one thousand three hundred stadia.
7.5.4.1
Next in order comes the voyage of one thousand stadia along the coast of the country of the Iapodes; for the Iapodes are situated on the Albian Mountain, which is the last mountain of the Alps, is very lofty, and reaches down to the country of the Pannonians on one side and to the Adrias on the other. They are indeed a war-mad people, but they have been utterly worn out by Augustus. Their cities are Metulum, Arupini, Monetium, and Vendo. Their lands are poor, the people living for the most part on spelt and millet. Their armor is Celtic, and they are tattooed like the rest of the Illyrians and the Miracians. After the voyage along the coast of the country of the Iapodes comes that along the coast of the country of the Liburni, the latter being five hundred stadia longer than the former; on this voyage is a river, which is navigable inland for merchant-vessels as far as the country of the Dalmatians, and also a Liburnian city, Scardo.
7.5.5.1
There are islands along the whole of the aforesaid seaboard: first, the Apsyrtides, where Medeia is said to have killed her brother Apsyrtus who was pursuing her; and then, opposite the country of the Iapodes, Cyrictica, then the Liburnides, about forty in number; then other islands, of which the best known are Issa, Tragurium (founded by the people of Issa), and Pharos (formerly Paros, founded by the Parians), the native land of Demetrius the Pharian. Then comes the seaboard of the Dalmatians, and also their sea-port, Salo. This tribe is one of those which carried on war against the Romans for a long time; it had as many as fifty noteworthy settlements; and some of these were cities—Salo, Priamo, Ninia, and Sinotium (both the Old and the New), all of which were set on fire by Augustus. And there is Andretium, a fortified place; and also Dalmium (whence the name of the tribe), which was once a large city, but because of the greed of the people Nasica reduced it to a small city and made the plain a mere sheep pasture. The Dalmatians have the peculiar custom of making a redistribution of land every seven years; and that they make no use of coined money is peculiar to them as compared with the other peoples in that part of the world, although as compared with many other barbarian peoples it is common. And there is Mount Adrium, which cuts the Dalmatian country through the middle into two parts, one facing the sea and the other in the opposite direction. Then come the River Naro and the people who live about it—the Daorisi, the Ardiaei, and the Pleraei. An island called the Black Corcyra and also a city founded by the Cnidians are close to the Pleraei, while Pharos (formerly called Paros, for it was founded by Parians) is close to the Ardiaei.
7.5.6.1
The Ardiaei were called by the men of later times “Vardiaei.” Because they pestered the sea through their piratical bands, the Romans pushed them back from it into the interior and forced them to till the soil. But the country is rough and poor and not suited to a farming population, and therefore the tribe has been utterly ruined and in fact has almost been obliterated. And this is what befell the rest of the peoples in that part of the world; for those who were most powerful in earlier times were utterly humbled or were obliterated, as, for example, among the Galatae the Boii and the Scordistae, and among the Illyrians the Autariatae, Ardiaei, and Dardanii, and among the Thracians the Triballi; that is, they were reduced in warfare by one another at first and then later by the Macedonians and the Romans.
7.5.7.1
Be this as it may, after the seaboard of the Ardiaei and the Pleraei come the Rhisonic Gulf, and the city Rhizo, and other small towns and also the River Drilo, which is navigable inland towards the east as far as the Dardanian country. This country borders on the Macedonian and the Paeonian tribes on the south, as do also the Autariatae and the Dassaretii—different peoples on different sides being contiguous to one another and to the Autariatae. To the Dardaniatae belong also the Galabrii, among whom is an ancient city, and the Thunatae, whose country joins that of the Medi, a Thracian tribe on the east. The Dardanians are so utterly wild that they dig caves beneath their dung-hills and live there, but still they care for music, always making use of musical instruments, both flutes and stringed instruments. However, these people live in the interior, and I shall mention them again later.
7.5.8.1
After the Rhizonic Gulf comes the city of Lissus, and Acrolissus, and Epidamnus, founded by the Corcyraeans, which is now called Dyrrachium, like the peninsula on which it is situated. Then comes the Apsus River; and then the Aoüs, on which is situated Apollonia, an exceedingly well-governed city, founded by the Corinthians and the Corcyraeans, and ten stadia distant from the river and sixty from the sea. The Aoüs is called “Aeas “ by Hecataeus, who says that both the Inachus and the Aeas flow from the same place, the region of Lacmus, or rather from the same subterranean recess, the former towards the south into Argos and the latter towards the west and towards the Adrias. In the country of the Apolloniates is a place called Nymphaeum; it is a rock that gives forth fire; and beneath it flow springs of warm water and asphalt—probably because the clods of asphalt in the earth are burned by the fire. And near by, on a hill, is a mine of asphalt; and the part that is trenched is filled up again in the course of time, since, as Poseidonius says, the earth that is poured into the trenches changes to asphalt. He also speaks of the asphaltic vine-earth which is mined at the Pierian Seleuceia as a cure for the infested vine; for, he says, if it is smeared on together with olive oil, it kills the insects before they can mount the sprouts of the roots; and, he adds, earth of this sort was also discovered in Rhodes when he was in office there as Prytanis, but it required more olive oil. After Apollonia comes Bylliaca, and Oricum and its seaport Panormus, and the Ceraunian Mountains, where the mouth of the Ionian Gulf and the Adrias begins.
7.5.9.1
Now the mouth is common to both, but the Ionian is different in that it is the name of the first part of this sea, whereas Adrias is the name of the inside part of the sea as far as the recess; at the present time, however, Adrias is also the name of the sea as a whole. According to Theopompus, the first name came from a man, a native of Issa, who once ruled over the region, whereas the Adrias was named after a river. The distance from the country of the Liburnians to the Ceraunian Mountains is slightly more than two thousand stadia Theopompus states that the whole voyage from the recess takes six days, and that on foot the length of the Illyrian country is as much as thirty days, though in my opinion he makes the distance too great. And he also says other things that are incredible: first, that the seas are connected by a subterranean passage, from the fact that both Chian and Thasian pottery are found in the Naro River; secondly, that both seas are visible from a certain mountain; and thirdly, when he puts down a certain one of the Liburnides islands as large enough to have a circuit of five hundred stadia; and fourthly, that the Ister empties by one of its mouths into the Adrias. In Eratosthenes, also, are some false hearsay statements of this kind—“popular notions,” as Polybius calls them when speaking of him and the other historians.
7.5.10.1
Now the whole Illyrian seaboard is exceedingly well supplied with harbors, not only on the continuous coast itself but also in the neighboring islands, although the reverse is the case with that part of the Italian seaboard which lies opposite, since it is harborless. But both seaboards in like manner are sunny and good for fruits, for the olive and the vine flourish there, except, perhaps, in places here or there that are utterly rugged. But although the Illyrian seaboard is such, people in earlier times made but small account of it—perhaps in part owing to their ignorance of its fertility, though mostly because of the wildness of the inhabitants and their piratical habits. But the whole of the country situated above this is mountainous, cold, and subject to snows, especially the northerly part, so that there is a scarcity of the vine, not only on the heights but also on the levels. These latter are the mountain-plains occupied by the Pannonians; on the south they extend as far as the country of the Dalmatians and the Ardiaei, on the north they end at the Ister, while on the east they border on the country of the Scordisci, that is, on the country that extends along the mountains of the Macedonians and the Thracians.
7.5.11.1
Now the Autariatae were once the largest and best tribe of the Illyrians. In earlier times they were continually at war with the Ardiaei over the salt-works on the common frontiers. The salt was made to crystallize out of water which in the spring-time flowed at the foot of a certain mountain-glen, for if they drew off the water and stowed it away for five days the salt would become thoroughly crystallized. They would agree to use the salt-works alternately, but would break the agreements and go to war. At one time when the Autariatae had subdued the Triballi, whose territory extended from that of the Agrianes as far as the Ister, a journey of fifteen days, they held sway also over the rest of the Thracians and the Illyrians; but they were overpowered, at first by the Scordisci, and later on by the Romans, who also subdued the Scordisci themselves, after these had been in power for a long time.
7.5.12.1
The Scordisci lived along the Ister and were divided into two tribes called the Great Scordisci and the Little Scordisci. The former lived between two rivers that empty into the Ister—the Noarus, which flows past Segestica, and the Margus (by some called the Bargus), whereas the Little Scordisci lived on the far side of this river, and their territory bordered on that of the Triballi and the Mysi. The Scordisci also held some of the islands; and they increased to such an extent that they advanced as far as the Illyrian, Paeonian, and Thracian mountains; accordingly, they also took possession of most of the islands in the Ister. And they also had two cities—Heorta and Capedunum. After the country of the Scordisci, along the Ister, comes that of the Triballi and the Mysi (whom I have mentioned before), and also the marshes of that part of what is called Little Scythia which is this side the Ister (these too I have mentioned). These people, as also the Crobyzi and what are called the Troglodytae, live above the region round about Callatis, Tomis, and Ister. Then come the peoples who live in the neighborhood of the Haemus Mountain and those who live at its base and extend as far as the Pontus—I mean the Coralli, the Bessi, and some of the Medi and Dantheletae. Now these tribes are very brigandish themselves, but the Bessi, who inhabit the greater part of the Haemus Mountain, are called brigands even by the brigands. The Bessi live in huts and lead a wretched life; and their country borders on Mount Rhodope, on the country of the Paeonians, and on that of two Illyrian peoples—the Autariatae, and the Dardanians. Between these and the Ardiaei are the Dassaretii, the Hybrianes, and other insignificant tribes, which the Scordisci kept on ravaging until they had depopulated the country and made it full of trackless forests for a distance of several days’ journey.
7.6.1.1
The remainder of the country between the Ister and the mountains on either side of Paeonia consists of that part of the Pontic seaboard which extends from the Sacred Mouth of the Ister as far as the mountainous country in the neighborhood of the Haemus and as far as the mouth at Byzantium. And just as, in traversing the Illyrian seaboard, I proceeded as far as the Ceraunian Mountains, because, although they fall outside the mountainous country of Illyria, they afford an appropriate limit, and just as I determined the positions of the tribes of the interior by these mountains, because I thought that marks of this kind would be more significant as regards both the description at hand and what was to follow, so also in this case the seaboard, even though it falls beyond the mountain-line, will nevertheless end at an appropriate limit—the mouth of the Pontus—as regards both the description at hand and that which comes next in order. So, then, if one begins at the Sacred Mouth of the Ister and keeps the continuous seaboard on the right, one comes, at a distance of five hundred stadia, to a small town, Ister, founded by the Milesians; then, at a distance of two hundred and fifty stadia, to a second small town, Tomis; then, at two hundred and eighty stadia, to a city Callatis, a colony of the Heracleotae; then, at one thousand three hundred stadia, to Apollonia, a colony of the Milesians. The greater part of Apollonia was founded on a certain isle, where there is a temple of Apollo, from which Marcus Lucullus carried off the colossal statue of Apollo, a work of Calamis, which he set up in the Capitolium. In the interval between Callatis and Apollonia come also Bizone, of which a considerable part was engulfed by earthquakes, Cruni, Odessus, a colony of the Milesians, and Naulochus, a small town of the Mesembriani. Then comes the Haemus Mountain, which reaches the sea here; then Mesembria, a colony of the Megarians, formerly called “Menebria” (that is, “city of Menas,” because the name of its founder was Menas, while “bria” is the word for “city” in the Thracian language. In this way, also, the city of Selys is called Selybria and Aenus was once called Poltyobria). Then come Anchiale, a small town belonging to the Apolloniatae, and Apollonia itself. On this coast-line is Cape Tirizis, a stronghold, which Lysimachus once used as a treasury. Again, from Apollonia to the Cyaneae the distance is about one thousand five hundred stadia; and in the interval are Thynias, a territory belonging to the Apolloniatae (Anchiale, which also belongs to the Apolloniatae), and also Phinopolis and Andriaca, which border on Salmydessus. Salmydessus is a desert and stony beach, harborless and wide open to the north winds, and in length extends as far as the Cyaneae, a distance of about seven hundred stadia; and all who are cast ashore on this beach are plundered by the Astae, a Thracian tribe who are situated above it. The Cyaneae are two islets near the mouth of the Pontus, one close to Europe and the other to Asia; they are separated by a channel of about twenty stadia and are twenty stadia distant both from the temple of the Byzantines and from the temple of the Chalcedonians. And this is the narrowest part of the mouth of the Euxine, for when one proceeds only ten stadia farther one comes to a headland which makes the strait only five stadia in width, and then the strait opens to a greater width and begins to form the Propontis.
7.6.2.1
Now the distance from the headland that makes the strait only five stadia wide to the harbor which is called “Under the Fig-tree “ is thirty-five stadia; and thence to the Horn of the Byzantines, five stadia. The Horn, which is close to the wall of the Byzantines, is a gulf that extends approximately towards the west for a distance of sixty stadia; it resembles a stag’s horn, for it is split into numerous gulfs—branches, as it were. The pelamydes rush into these gulfs and are easily caught—because of their numbers, the force of the current that drives them together, and the narrowness of the gulfs; in fact, because of the narrowness of the area, they are even caught by hand. Now these fish are hatched in the marshes of Lake Maeotis, and when they have gained a little strength they rush out through the mouth of the lake in schools and move along the Asian shore as far as Trapezus and Pharnacia. It is here that the catching of the fish first takes place, though the catch is not considerable, for the fish have not yet grown to their normal size. But when they reach Sinope, they are mature enough for catching and salting. Yet when once they touch the Cyaneae and pass by these, the creatures take such fright at a certain white rock which projects from the Chalcedonian shore that they forthwith turn to the opposite shore. There they are caught by the current, and since at the same time the region is so formed by nature as to turn the current of the sea there to Byzantium and the Horn at Byzantium, they naturally are driven together thither and thus afford the Byzantines and the Roman people considerable revenue. But the Chalcedonians, though situated near by, on the opposite shore, have no share in this abundance, because the pelamydes do not approach their harbors; hence the saying that Apollo, when the men who founded Byzantium at a time subsequent to the founding of Chalcedon by the Megarians consulted the oracle, ordered them to “make their settlement opposite the blind,” thus calling the Chalcedonians “blind”, because, although they sailed the regions in question at an earlier time, they failed to take possession of the country on the far side, with all its wealth, and chose the poorer country. I have now carried my description as far as Byzantium, because a famous city, lying as it does very near to the mouth, marked a better-known limit to the coasting-voyage from the Ister. And above Byzantium is situated the tribe of the Astae, in whose territory is a city Calybe, where Philip the son of Amyntas settled the most villainous people of his kingdom.
7.7.1.1
These alone, then, of all the tribes that are marked off by the Ister and by the Illyrian and Thracian mountains, deserve to be mentioned, occupying as they do the whole of the Adriatic seaboard beginning at the recess, and also the sea-board that is called “the left parts of the Pontus,” and extends from the Ister River as far as Byzantium. But there remain to be described the southerly parts of the aforesaid mountainous country and next thereafter the districts that are situated below them, among which are both Greece and the adjacent barbarian country as far as the mountains. Now Hecataeus of Miletus says of the Peloponnesus that before the time of the Greeks it was inhabited by barbarians. Yet one might say that in the ancient times the whole of Greece was a settlement of barbarians, if one reasons from the traditions themselves: Pelops brought over peoples from Phrygia to the Peloponnesus that received its name from him; and Danaüs from Egypt; whereas the Dryopes, the Caucones, the Pelasgi, the Leleges, and other such peoples, apportioned among themselves the parts that are inside the isthmus—and also the parts outside, for Attica was once held by the Thracians who came with Eumolpus, Daulis in Phocis by Tereus, Cadmeia by the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus, and Boeotia itself by the Aones and Temmices and Hyantes. According to Pindar, “there was a time when the Boeotian tribe was called “Syes.” Moreover, the barbarian origin of some is indicated by their names—Cecrops, Godrus, Aïclus, Cothus, Drymas, and Crinacus. And even to the present day the Thracians, Illyrians, and Epeirotes live on the flanks of the Greeks (though this was still more the case formerly than now); indeed most of the country that at the present time is indisputably Greece is held by the barbarians—Macedonia and certain parts of Thessaly by the Thracians, and the parts above Acarnania and Aetolia by the Thesproti, the Cassopaei, the Amphilochi, the Molossi, and the Athamanes—Epeirotic tribes.
7.7.2.1
As for the Pelasgi, I have already discussed them. As for the Leleges, some conjecture that they are the same as the Carians, and others that they were only fellow-inhabitants and fellow-soldiers of these; and this, they say, is why, in the territory of Miletus, certain settlements are called settlements of the Leleges, and why, in many places in Caria, tombs of the Leleges and deserted forts, known as “Lelegian forts,” are so called. However, the whole of what is now called Ionia used to be inhabited by Carians and Leleges; but the Ionians themselves expelled them and took possession of the country, although in still earlier times the captors of Troy had driven the Leleges from the region about Ida that is near Pedasus and the Satnioïs River. So then, the very fact that the Leleges made common cause with the Carians might be considered a sign that they were barbarians. And Aristotle, in his Polities, also clearly indicates that they led a wandering life, not only with the Carians, but also apart from them, and from earliest times; for instance, in the Polity of the Acarnanians he says that the Curetes held a part of the country, whereas the Leleges, and then the Teleboae, held the westerly part; and in the Polity of the Aetolians (and likewise in that of the Opuntii and the Megarians) he calls the Locri of today Leleges and says that they took possession of Boeotia too; again, in the Polity of the Leucadians he names a certain indigenous Lelex, and also Teleboas, the son of a daughter of Lelex, and twenty-two sons of Teleboas, some of whom, he says, dwelt in Leucas. But in particular one might believe Hesiod when he says concerning them: “For verily Locrus was chieftain of the peoples of the Leleges, whom once Zeus the son of Cronus, who knoweth devices imperishable, gave to Deucalion—peoples picked out of earth”; for by his etymology he seems to me to hint that from earliest times they were a collection of mixed peoples and that this was why the tribe disappeared. And the same might be said of the Caucones, since now they are nowhere to be found, although in earlier times they were settled in several places.
7.7.3.1
Now although in earlier times the tribes in question were small, numerous, and obscure, still, because of the density of their population and because they lived each under its own king, it was not at all difficult to determine their boundaries; but now that most of the country has become depopulated and the settlements, particularly the cities, have disappeared from sight, it would do no good, even if one could determine their boundaries with strict accuracy, to do so, because of their obscurity and their disappearance. This process of disappearing began a long time ago, and has not yet entirely ceased in many regions because the people keep revolting; indeed, the Romans, after being set up as masters by the inhabitants, encamp in their very houses. Be this as it may, Polybius says that Paulus, after his subjection of Perseus and the Macedonians, destroyed seventy cities of the Epeirotes (most of which, he adds, belonged to the Molossi), and reduced to slavery one hundred and fifty thousand people. Nevertheless, I shall attempt, in so far as it is appropriate to my description and as my knowledge reaches, to traverse the several different parts, beginning at the seaboard of the Ionian Gulf—that is, where the voyage out of the Adrias ends.
7.7.4.1
Of this seaboard, then, the first parts are those about Epidamnus and Apollonia. From Apollonia to Macedonia one travels the Egnatian Road, towards the east; it has been measured by Roman miles and marked by pillars as far as Cypsela and the Hebrus River—a distance of five hundred and thirty-five miles. Now if one reckons as most people do, eight stadia to the mile, there would be four thousand two hundred and eighty stadia, whereas if one reckons as Polybius does, who adds two plethra, which is a third of a stadium, to the eight stadia, one must add one hundred and seventy-eight stadia—the third of the number of miles. And it so happens that travellers setting out from Apollonia and Epidamnus meet at an equal distance from the two places on the same road. Now although the road as a whole is called the Egnatian Road, the first part of it is called the Road to Candavia (an Illyrian mountain) and passes through Lychnidus, a city, and Pylon, a place on the road which marks the boundary between the Illyrian country and Macedonia. From Pylon the road runs to Barnus through Heracleia and the country of the Lyncestae and that of the Eordi into Edessa and Pella and as far as Thessaloniceia; and the length of this road in miles, according to Polybius, is two hundred and sixty-seven. So then, in travelling this road from the region of Epidamnus and Apollonia, one has on the right the Epeirotic tribes whose coasts are washed by the Sicilian Sea and extend as far as the Ambracian Gulf, and, on the left, the mountains of Illyrla, which I have already described in detail, and those tribes which live along them and extend as far as Macedonia and the country of the Paeonians. Then, beginning at the Ambracian Gulf, all the districts which, one after another, incline towards the east and stretch parallel to the Peloponnesus belong to Greece; they then leave the whole of the Peloponnesus on the right and project into the Aegaean Sea. But the districts which extend from the beginning of the Macedonian and the Paeonian mountains as far as the Strymon River are inhabited by the Macedonians, the Paeonians, and by some of the Thracian mountaineers; whereas the districts beyond the Strymon, extending as far as the mouth of the Pontus and the Haemus, all belong to the Thracians, except the seaboard. This seaboard is inhabited by Greeks, some being situated on the Propontis, others on the Hellespont and the Gulf of Melas, and others on the Aegaean. The Aegaean Sea washes Greece on two sides: first, the side that faces towards the east and stretches from Sunium, towards the north as far as the Thermaean Gulf and Thessaloniceia, a Macedonian city, which at the present time is more populous than any of the rest; and secondly, the side that faces towards the south, I mean the Macedonian country, extending from Thessaloniceia as far as the Strymon. Some, however, also assign to Macedonia the country that extends from the Strymon as far as the Nestus River, since Philip was so specially interested in these districts that he appropriated them to himself, and since he organized very large revenues from the mines and the other natural resources of the country. But from Sunium to the Peloponnesus lie the Myrtoan, the Cretan, and the Libyan Seas, together with their gulfs, as far as the Sicilian Sea; and this last fills out the Ambracian, the Corinthian, and the Crisaean Gulfs.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0099.tlg001.perseus-eng3. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.