Geography

The story about the Teucri, and the mice from whom the name of Smintheus is derived, (for mice are called Sminthii,) must be transferred to this place. Writers defend the derivation of titles from insignificant objects by examples of this kind; as from the parnopes, which the Oetaesans call cornopes, Hercules had a surname, and was worshipped under the title of Hercules Cornopion, because he had delivered them from locusts. So the Erythraeans, who live near the river Melius, worship Hercules Ipoctonus, because he destroyed the ipes, or worms, which are destructive to vines; for this pest is found everywhere except in the country of the Erythraeans. The Rhodians have in the island a temple of Apollo Erythibius, so called from erysibe, (mildew,) and which they call erythibe. Among the Aeolians in Asia one of their months is called Pornopion, for this name the Boeotians give to parnopes, (locusts,) and a sacrifice is performed to Apollo Pornopion.

The country about Adramyttium is Mysia. It was once subject to Lydians, and there are now Pylae Lydiae (or the Lydian Gates) at Adramyttium, the city having been founded, it is said, by Lydians.

Astyra also, the village near Adramyttium, is said to belong to Mysia. It was once a small city, in which was the temple of Artemis Astyrene, situated in a grove. The Antandrians, in whose neighbourhood it is more immediately situated, preside over it with great solemnity. It is distant 20 stadia from the ancient Chrysa, which also has a temple in a grove. There too is the Rampart of Achilles. At the distance of 50 stadia in the interior is Thebe, uninhabited, which the poet says was situated below the woody Placus; but there is neither a place called Placus nor Plax there, nor a wood above it, although it is near Ida.

Thebe is distant from Astyra 70, and from Andeira 60 stadia. All these are names of uninhabited places, or thinly inhabited, or of rivers which are torrents. But they owe their fame to ancient history.

Assus and Adramyttium are considerable cities. Adramyttium was unfortunate in the Mithridatic war, for Diodorus the general, in order to gratify the king, put to death the council of the citizens, although at the same time he pretended to be a philosopher of the Academy, pleaded causes, and professed to teach rhetoric. He accompanied the king on his voyage to Pontus, but upon his overthrow Diodorus was punished for his crimes. Many accusations were simultaneously preferred against him: but, unable to endure disgrace, he basely destroyed himself in my native city by abstaining from food.

Adramyttium produced Xenocles, a distinguished orator, who adopted the Asiatic style of eloquence and was remarkable for the vehemence of his manner; he defended Asia before the senate, at the time when that province was accused of favouring the party of Mithridates.

Near Astyra is a lake called Sapra, full of deep holes, that empties itself by a ravine among ridges of rocks on the coast. Below Andeira is a temple dedicated to the Andeirenian Mother of the gods, and a cave with a subterraneous passage extending to Palaea. Palaea is a settlement distant 130 stadia from Andeira. A goat, which fell into the opening, discovered the subterraneous passage. It was found at Andeira the next day, accidentally, by the shepherd, who had gone there to a sacrifice.

Atarneus is the royal seat of Hermeas the tyrant. Next is Pitane, an Aeolian city, with two harbours, and the river Euenus flowing beside it, which supplies the aqueduct of the Adramyttium with water.

Arcesilaus of the Academy was a native of Pitane, and a fellow-disciple of Zeno of Citium in the school of Polemo.

There is a place in Pitane called Atarneus under Pitane, opposite to the island called Elaeussa.

It is said that at Pitane bricks float upon the water, as was the case with a small island in Tyrrhenia, for the earth, being lighter than an equal bulk of water, swims upon it. Poseidonius says, that he saw in Spain bricks made of an argillaceous earth (with which silver vessels are cleansed) floating upon water.

After Pitane the Caïcus empties itself, at the distance of 30 stadia from it, into the Elaitic bay. Beyond the Caïcus, at the distance of 12 stadia from the river, is Elsaea, an Aeolian city; it is a naval arsenal of Pergamum, and distant from it 120 stadia.

At 100 stadia farther is Cane, the promontory opposite to Lectum, and forming the gulf of Adramyttium, of which the Elaitic Gulf is a part. Canoe is a small city of the Locrians who came from Cynus; it is situated in the Canaean territory, opposite the most southerly extremities of Lesbos. This territory extends to the Arginusae, and the promontory above, which some call Aega, or the goat. The second syllable however must be pronounced long, Aigan, like Actan and Archan, for this was the name of the whole mountain, which at present is called Cane, or Canae. The sea surrounds the mountain on the south and west; towards the east the plain of Caecus lies below, and on the north the Elaïtic district. The mountain itself is very much contracted. It inclines indeed towards the Aegnaean Sea, from which it has the name (Ega), but afterwards the promontory itself was called Aega, the name which Sappho gives it, and then Cane and Canae.

Between Elaea, Pitane, Atarneus, and Pergamum on this side the Caïcus, is Teuthrania, distant from none of these places above 70 stadia. Teuthras is said to have been king of the Cilicians and Mysians. According to Euripides, Auge, with her son Telephus, was enclosed in a chest and thrown into the sea, by command of her father Aleus, who discovered that she had been violated by Hercules. By the care of Minerva the chest crossed the sea, and was cast ashore at the mouth of the Caïcus. Teuthras took up the mother and her son, married the former, and treated the latter as his own child. This is a fable, but another concurrence of circumstances is wanting to explain how the daughter of the Arcadian became the wife of the king of the Mysians, and how her son succeeded to the throne of the Mysians. It is however believed that Teuthras and Telephus governed the country lying about Teuthrania and the Caïcus, but the poet mentions a few particulars only of this history: as when he slew the son of Telephus, the hero Eurypylns, and many of his companions, the Ceaei, were killed around him for the sake of the gifts of women. Homer here rather proposes an enigma than a clear meaning. For we do not know who the Cetaei were, nor what people we are to understand by this name, nor what is meant by the words, for the sake of the gifts of women. Grammarians adduce and compare with this other trifling stories, but they indulge in invetion rather than solve the difficulty.

Let us dismiss this doubtful matter, and turn to what is more certain; for instance, according to Homer, Eurypylus appears to have been king of the places about the Caïcus, so that perhaps a part of the Cilicians were his subjects, and that there were not only two but three dynasties among that people.

This opinion is supported by the circumstance that in the Elaïtis there is a small river, like a winter torrent, of the name of Ceteium. This falls into another like it, then again into another, but all discharge themselves into the Caïcus. The Caïcus does not flow from Ida, as Bacchylides says, nor does Euripides say correctly that Marsyas inhabited the famous Celaenae, at the extremity of Ida, for Celaenae is at a great distance from Ida, and so are the sources of the Caïcus, for they are to be seen in the plain.

There is a mountain, Temnum, which separates this and the plain of Asia; it lies in the interior above the plain of Thebe. A river, Mysius, flows from Temnum and enters the Caïcus below its source. Hence some persons suppose that Aeschylus refers to it in the beginning of the prologue to the play of the Myrmidons, Caïcus, and ye Mysian streams— Near its source is a village called Gergitha, to which Attalus transferred the inhabitants of Gergitha in the Troad, after destroying their own stronghold.

SINCE Lesbos, a very remarkable island, lies along and opposite to the sea-coast, extending from Lectum to Canae, and since it is surrounded by small islands, some of which lie beyond it, others in the space between Lesbos and the continent, it is now proper to describe them, because they are Aeolian places, and Lesbos is, as it were, the capital of the Aeolian cities. We shall begin where we set out to describe the coast opposite to the island.

In sailing from Lectum to Assos the Lesbian district begins opposite to Sigrium, its northern promontory. Somewhere there is Methymna, a city of the Lesbians, 60 stadia from the coast, between Polymedium and Assos. The whole island is 1100 stadia in circumference. The particulars are these.

From Methymna to Malia, the most southern promontory to those who have the island on their right hand, and to which Canae lies directly opposite, are 340 stadia. Thence to Sigrium, which is the length of the island, 560 stadia, thence to Methymna 210 stadia.

Mitylene, the largest city, lies between Methymna and Malia, at the distance from Malia of 70 stadia, and from Canae of 120, and as many from the Arginussae islands, which are three small islands near the continent, and situated near Canae. In the interval between Mitylene and Methymna, at a village called Aegeirus in the Methymnaean territory, is the narrowest part of the island, having a passage of 20 stadia to the Pyrrhaean Euripus. Pyrrha is situated on the western side of Lesbos, at the distance of 100 stadia from Malia.

Mitylene has two harbours; of which the southern is a close harbour and capable of holding 50 triremes. The northern harbour is large, and deep, and protected by a mole. In front of both lies a small island, which contains a part of the city. Mitylene is well provided with everything.

It formerly produced celebrated men, as Pittacus, one of the Seven Wise Men; Alcaeus the poet, and his brother Antimenidas, who, according to Alcaeus, when fighting on the side of the Babylonians, achieved a great exploit, and extricated them from their danger by killing a valiant warrior, the king’s wrestler, who was four cubits in height. Contemporary with these persons flourished Sappho, an extraordinary woman; for at no period within memory has any woman been known at all to be compared to her in poetry.

At this period Mitylene was ruled by many tyrants, in consequence of the dissensions among the citizens. These dissensions are the subject of the poems of Alcaeus called Stasiotica (the Seditions). One of these tyrants was Pittacus: Alcaeus inveighed against him as well as against Myrsilus, Melanchrus the Cleanactidae, and some others; nor was he himself clear from the imputation of favouring these political changes. Pittacus himself employed monarchical power to dissolve the despotism of the many, but, having done this, he restored the independence of the city.

At a late period afterwards appeared Diophanes the rhetorician; in our times Potamo, Lesbocles, Crinagoras, and Theophanes the historian. The latter was versed in political affairs, and became the friend of Pompey the Great, chiefly on account of his accomplishments and assistance he afforded in directing to a successful issue all his enterprises. Hence, partly by means of Pompey, partly by his own exertions, he became an ornament to his country, and rendered himself the most illustrious of all the Grecians. He left a son, Mark (Macer?) Pompey, whom Augustus Caesar appointed prefect of Asia, and who is now reckoned among the number of the chief friends of Tiberius.

The Athenians were in danger of incurring irremediable disgrace by passing a decree that all the Mitylenaeans who had attained the age of puberty should be put to death. They, however, recalled their resolution, and the counter-decree reached their generals only one day before the former order was to be executed.

Pyrrha is in ruins. But the suburb is inhabited, and has a port, whence to Mitylene is a passage of 80 stadia. Next after Pyrrha is Eressus. It is situated upon a hill, and extends to the sea. Thence to Sigrium 28 stadia.

Eressus was the birth-place of Theophrastus, and of Phanias, Peripatetic philosophers, disciples of Aristotle. Theophrastus was called Tyrtamus before his name was changed by Aristotle to Theophrastus, thus getting rid of the cacophony of the former name, and at the same time expressing the beauty of his elocution, for Aristotle made all his disciples eloquent, but Theophrastus the most eloquent of them all.

Antissa is next to Sigrium. It is a city with a harbour. Then follows Methymna, of which place Arion was a native, who, as Herodotus relates the story, after having been thrown into the sea by pirates, escaped safe to Taenarum on the back of a dolphin. He played on the cithara and sang to it. Terpander, who practised the same kind of music, was a native of this island. He was the first person that used the lyre with seven instead of four strings, as is mentioned in the verses attributed to him: we have relinquished the song adapted to four strings, and shall cause new hymns to resound on a seven-stringed cithara.

The historian Hellanicus, and Callias, who has commented on Sappho and Alcaeus, were Lesbians.

Near the strait situated between Asia and Lesbos there are about twenty small islands, or, according to Timosthenes, forty. They are called Hecatonnesoi, a compound name like Peloponnesus, the letter N being repeated by custom in such words as Myonnesus, Proconnesus, Halonnesus, so that Hecatonnesoi is of the same import as Apollonnesoi, since Apollo is called Hecatus; for along the whole of this coast, as far as Tenedos, Apollo is held in the highest veneration, and worshipped under the names of Smintheus, Cillaeus, Gryneus, or other appellations.

Near these islands is Pordoselene, which contains a city of the same name, and in front of this city is another island larger than this, and a city of the same name, uninhabited, in which there is a temple of Apollo.

Some persons, in order to avoid the indecorum couched in these names, say that we ought to read in that place Poroselene, and to call Aspordenum, the rocky and barren mountain near Pergamum, Asporenum, and the temple there of the Mother of the gods, the temple of the Asporene Mother of the gods; what then are we to say to the names Pordalis, Saperdes, Perdiccas, and to this word in the verse of Simonides, with clothes dripping with wet, (ποοͅσάκοισιν for διαβόχοις,) and in the old comedy somewhere, the country is ποοͅδακόν, for λιμνάζον, or ‘ marshy.’

Lesbos is at the same distance, rather less than 500 stadia, from Tenedos, Lemnos, and Chios.

SINCE there subsisted so great an affinity among the Leleges and Cilicians with the Trojans, the reason is asked, why these people are not included in Homer’s Catalogue. Perhaps it is that, on account of the loss of their leaders and the devastation of the cities, the few Cilicians that were left placed themselves under the command of Hector. For Eetion and his sons are said to have been killed before the Catalogue is mentioned; The hero Achilles, says Andromache, killed my father, and destroyed Thebe, with its lofty gates, the city of the Cilicians.— I had seven brothers in the palace; all of them went in one day to Hades, for they were all slain by the swift-footed divine Achilles.

Those also under the command of Mynes had lost their leaders, and their city; He slew Mynes, and Epistrophus, And destroyed the city of the divine Mynes. He describes the Leleges as present at the battles; when he says, on the sea-coast are Carians, and Paeonians with curved bows, Leleges, and Caucones. And in another place, he killed Satnius with a spear—the son of Enops, whom a beautiful nymph Neis bore to Enops, when he was tending herds near the banks of Satnioeis, for they had not been so completely annihilated as to prevent their forming a body of people of themselves, since their king still survived, Altes, king of the war-loving Leleges, nor was the city entirely razed, for he adds, who commanded the lofty city Pedasus on the Satnioeis. He has passed them over in the Catalogue, not considering the body of people large enough to have a place in it; or he comprised them among the people under the command of Hector, as being allied to one another. For Lycaon, the brother of Hector, says, my mother Laothoë, daughter of the old Altes, brought me into the world to live but a short time; of Altes, king of the war-loving Leleges.

Such is the reasoning, from probability, which this subject admits.

We reason from probability when we endeavour to determine by the words of the poet the exact bounds of the territory of the Cilicians, Pelasgi, and of the people situated between them, namely, the Ceteii, who were under the command of Eurypylus.

We have said of the Cilicians and of the people under the command of Eurypylus what can be said about them, and that they are bounded by the country near the Caïcus.

It is agreeable to probability to place the Pelasgi next to these people, according to the words of Homer and other histories. Homer says, Hippothous led the tribes of the Pelasgi, who throw the spear, who inhabited the fertile Larisa; their leaders were Hippothous and Pylaeus, a son of Mars, both sons of Lethus the Pelasgian, son of Teutamis.

He here represents the numbers of Pelasgi as considerable, for he does not speak of them as a tribe, but tribes, and specifies the place of their settlement, Larisa. There are many places of the name of Larisa, but we must understand some one of those near the Troad, and perhaps we might not be wrong in supposing it to be that near Cyme; for of three places of the name of Larisa, that near Hamaxitus is quite in sight of Ilium and very near it, at the distance of about 200 stadia, so that Hippothous could not be said consistently with probability to fall, in the contest about Patroclus, far from Larisa at least from this Larisa, but rather from the Larisa near Cyme, for there are about 1000 stadia between them. The third Larisa is a village in the Ephesian district in the plain of the Caÿster; which, it is said, was formerly a city containing a temple of Apollo Larisaeus, and situated nearer to Mount Tmolus than to Ephesus. It is distant from Ephesus 180 stadia, so that it might be placed rather under the government of the Maeonians. The Ephesians, having afterwards acquired more power, deprived the Maeonians, whom we now call Lydians, of a large part of their territory; but not even this, but the other rather, would be the Larisa of the Pelasgi. F o w e have no strong evidence that the Larisa in the plain of Caÿster was in existence at that time, nor even of the existence of Ephesus. But all the Aeolian history, relating to a period a little subsequent to the Trojan times, proves the existence of the Larisa near Cyme.

It is said that the people who set out from Phricium, a Locrian mountain above Thermopylae, settled on the spot where Cyme is now situated; and finding the Pelasgi, who had been great sufferers in the Trojan war, yet still in possession of Larisa, distant about 70 stadia from Cyme, erected as a defence against them what is at present called Neon-teichos, (or the New Wall,) 30 stadia from Larisa. They took Larisa, founded Cyme, and transferred to it as settlers the surviving Pelasgi. Cyme is called Cyme Phriconis from the Locrian mountain, and Larisa also (Phriconis): it is now deserted.

That the Pelasgi were a great nation, history, it is said, furnishes other evidence. For Menecrates of Elaea, in his work on the foundation of cities, says, that the whole of the present Ionian coast, beginning from Mycale and the neighbouring islands, were formerly inhabited by Pelasgi. But the Lesbians say, that they were commanded by Pylaeus, who is called by the poet the chief of the Pelasgi, and that it was from him that the mountain in their country had the name of Pylaemem.

The Chians also say, that the Pelasgi from Thessaly were their founders. The Pelasgi, however, were a nation disposed to wander, ready to remove from settlement to settlement, and experienced both a great increase and a sudden diminution of strength and numbers, particularly at the time of the Aeolian and Ionian migrations to Asia.

Something peculiar took place among the Larisaeans in the plain of the Cayster, in the Phriconis, and in Thessaly. All of them occupied a country, the soil of which has been accumulated by rivers, by the Caÿster, the Hermus, and the Peneus.

At Larisa Phriconis Piasus is said to receive great honours. He was chief of the Pelasgi, and enamoured, it is said, of his daughter Larisa, whom he violated, and was punished for the outrage. She discovered him leaning over a cask of wine, seized him by his legs, lifted him up, and dropped him down into the vessel. These are ancient accounts.

To the present Aeolian cities we must add Aegae and Temnus, the birth-place of Hermagoras, who wrote a book on the Art of Rhetoric.

These cities are on the mountainous country which is above the district of Cyme, and that of the Phocaeans and Smyrnaeans, beside which flows the Hermus.

Not far from these cities is Magnesia under Sipylus, made a free city by a decree of the Romans. The late earthquakes have injured this place. To the opposite parts, which incline towards the Caïcus to Cyme from Larisa, in passing to which the river Hermus is crossed, are 70 stadia; thence to Myrina 40 stadia; thence to Grynium 40 stadia, and thence to Elaea. But, according to Artemidorus, next to Cyme is Adae; then, at the distance of 40 stadia, a promontory, which is called Hydra, and forms the Elaïtic Gulf with the opposite promontory Harmatus. The breadth of the entrance is about 80 stadia, including the winding of the bays. Myrina, situated at 60 stadia, is an Aeolian city with a harbour, then the harbour of Achaeans, where are altars of the twelve gods; next is Grynium, a small city [of the Myrinaeans], a temple of Apollo, an ancient oracle, and a costly fane of white marble. To Myrina are 40 stadia; then 70 stadia to Elaea, which has a harbour and a station for vessels of the Attalic kings, founded by Menestheus and the Athenians who accompanied him in the expedition against Ilium.

The places about Pitane, and Atarneus, and others in this quarter, which follow Elaea, have been already described.