[19]
They say that the poet calls the Sporades "Calydnian Islands," one of which, they say, is Calymna. But it is reasonable to suppose that, as the islands which are near, and subject to, Nisyros and Casos are called "Islands of the Nisyrians" and "Islands of the Casians," so also those which lie round Calymna were called "Islands of the Calymnians"—Calymna at that time, perhaps, being called Calydna. But some say that there are only two Calydnian islands, Leros and Calymna, the two mentioned by the poet. The Scepsian1 says that the name of the island was used in the plural, "Calymnae," like "Athenae" and "Thebae"; but, he adds, the words of the poet should be interpreted as a case of hyperbaton, for he does not say, "Calydnian Islands," but “those who held the islands Nisyros and Crapathos and Casos and Cos, the city of Eurypylus, and Calydnae.”2 Now all the honey produced in the islands is, for the most part, good, and rivals that of Attica, but the honey produced in the islands in question is exceptionally good, and in particular the Calymnian.
1 Demetrius of Scepsis.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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