Strabo, Geography

Let this, then, mark the boundary of Phrygia.¹ I shall now return again to the Propontis and the coast that comes next after the Aesepus River, and follow the same order of description as before. The first country on this seaboard is the Troad, the fame of which, although it is left in ruins and in desolation, nevertheless prompts in writers no ordinary prolixity. With this fact in view, I should ask the pardon of my readers and appeal to them not to fasten the blame for the length of my discussion upon me rather than upon those who strongly yearn for knowledge of the things that are famous and ancient. And my discussion is further prolonged by the number of the peoples who have colonized the country, both Greeks and barbarians, and by the historians, who do not write the same things on the same subjects, nor always clearly either; among the first of these is Homer, who leaves us to guess about most things. And it is necessary for me to arbitrate between his statements and those of the others, after I shall first have described in a summary way the nature of the region in question. [2]

The seaboard of the Propontis, then, extends from Cyzicene and the region of the Aesepus and Granicus Rivers as far as Abydus and Sestus, whereas the parts round Ilium and Tenedos and the Trojan Alexandreia extend from Abydus to Lectum. Accordingly, Mt. Ida, which extends down to Lectum, lies above all these places. From Lectum to the Caïcus River, and to Canae,² as it is called, are the parts round Assus and Adramyttium and Atarneus and Pitane and the Elaïtic Gulf; and the island of the Lesbians extends alongside, and opposite, all these places. Then come next the parts round Cyme, extending to the Hermus and Phocaea, which latter constitutes the beginning of Ionia and the end of Aeolis. Such being the position of the places, the poet indicates in a general way that the Trojans held sway from the region of the Aesepus River and that of the present Cyzicene to the Caïcus River,³ their country being divided by dynasties into eight, or nine, portions, whereas the mass of their auxiliary forces are enumerated among the allies. [3]

But the later authors do not give the same boundaries, and they use their terms differently, thus allowing us several choices. The main cause of this difference has been the colonizations of the Greeks; less so, indeed, the Ionian colonization, for it was farther distant from the Troad; but most of all that of the Aeolians, for their colonies were scattered throughout the whole of the country from Cyzicene to the Caïcus River, and they went on still farther to occupy the country between the Caïcus and Hermus Rivers. In fact, the Aeolian colonization, they say, preceded the Ionian colonization by four generations, but suffered delays and took a longer time; for Orestes, they say, was the first leader of the expedition, but he died in Arcadia, and his son Penthilus succeeded him and advanced as far as Thrace sixty years after the Trojan War, about the time of the return of the Heracleidae to the Peloponnesus; and then Archelaüs⁴ the son of Penthilus led the Aeolian expedition across to the present Cyzicene near Dascylium; and Gras, the youngest son of Archelaüs, advanced to the Granicus River, and, being better equipped, led the greater part of his army across to Lesbos and occupied it. And they add that Cleues, son of Dorus, and Malaüs, also descendants of Agamemnon, had collected their army at about the same time as Penthilus, but that, whereas the fleet of Penthilus had already crossed over from Thrace to Asia, Cleues and Malaüs tarried a long time round Locris and Mt. Phricius, and only later crossed over and founded the Phryconian Cyme, so named after the Locrian mountain. [4]

The Aeolians, then, were scattered throughout the whole of that country which, as I have said, the poet called Trojan. As for later authorities, some apply the name to all Aeolis, but others to only a part of it; and some to the whole of Troy, but others to only a part of it, not wholly agreeing with one another about anything. For instance, in reference to the places on the Propontis, Homer makes the Troad begin at the Aesepus River,⁵ whereas Eudoxus makes it begin at Priapus and Artace, the place on the island of the Cyziceni that lies opposite Priapus,⁶ and thus contracts the limits; but Damastes contracts the country still more, making it begin at Parium; and, in fact, Damastes prolongs the Troad to Lectum, whereas other writers prolong it differently. Charon of Lampsacus diminishes its extent by three hundred stadia more, making it begin at Practius,⁷ for that is the distance from Parium to Practius; however, he prolongs it to Adramyttium. Scylax of Caryanda makes it begin at Abydus; and similarly Ephorus says that Aeolis extends from Abydus to Cyme, while others define its extent differently.⁸ [5]

But the topography of Troy, in the proper sense of the term, is best marked by the position of Mt. Ida, a lofty mountain which faces the west and the western sea but makes a slight bend also towards the north and the northern seaboard. ⁹ This latter is the seaboard of the Propontis, extending from the strait in the neighborhood of Abydus to the Aesepus River and Cyzicene, whereas the western sea consists of the outer Hellespont¹⁰ and the Aegaean Sea. Mt. Ida has many foothills, is like the scolopendra¹¹ in shape, and is defined by its two extreme limits: by the promontory in the neighborhood of Zeleia and by the promontory called Lectum the former terminating in the interior slightly above Cyzicene (in fact, Zeleia now belongs to the Cyziceni), whereas Lectum extends to the Aegaean Sea, being situated on the coasting voyage between Tenedos and Lesbos. When the poet says that Hypnos and Hera“came to many-fountained Ida, mother of wild beasts, to Lectum, where first the two left the sea,
”¹²he describes Lectum in accordance with the facts; for he rightly states that Lectum is a part of Mt. Ida, and that Lectum is the first place of disembarkation from the sea for those who would go up to Mt. Ida, and also that the mountain is "many-fountained," for there in particular the mountain is abundantly watered, as is shown by the large number of rivers there,“all the rivers that flow forth from the Idaean mountains to the sea, Rhesus and Heptaporus
”¹³and the following,¹⁴ all of which are named by the poet and are now to be seen by us. Now while Homer thus describes Lectum¹⁵ and Zeleia¹⁶ as the outermost foothills of Mt. Ida in either direction, he also appropriately distinguishes Gargarus from them as a summit, calling it "topmost."¹⁷ And indeed at the present time people point out in the upper parts of Ida a place called Gargarum, after which the present Gargara, an Aeolian city, is named. Now between Zeleia and Lectum, beginning from the Propontis, are situated first the parts extending to the straits at Abydus, and then, outside the Propontis, the parts extending to Lectum. [6]

On doubling Lectum one encounters a large wide-open gulf, which is formed by Mt. Ida as it recedes from Lectum to the mainland, and by Canae, the promontory opposite Lectum on the other side. Some call it the Idaean Gulf, others the Adramyttene. On this gulf¹⁸ are the cities of the Aeolians, extending to the outlets of the Hermus River, as I have already said.¹⁹ I have stated in the earlier parts of my work²⁰ that, as one sails from Byzantium towards the south, the route lies in a straight line, first to Sestus and Abydus through the middle of the Propontis, and then along the coast of Asia as far as Caria. It behooves one, then, to keep this supposition in mind as one listens to the following; and, if I speak of certain gulfs on the coast, one must think of the promontories which form them as lying in the same line, a meridian line, as it were. [7]

Now as for Homer's statements, those who have studied the subject more carefully²¹ conjecture from them that the whole of this coast became subject to the Trojans, and, though divided into nine dynasties, was under the sway of Priam at the time of the Trojan War and was called Troy. And this is clear from his detailed statements. For instance, Achilles and his army, seeing at the outset that the inhabitants of Ilium were enclosed by walls, tried to carry on the war outside and, by making raids all round, to take away from them all the surrounding places:“Twelve cities of men I have laid waste with my ships, and eleven, I declare, by land throughout the fertile land of Troy.
”²²For by "Troy" he means the part of the mainland that was sacked by him; and, along with other places, Achilles also sacked the country opposite Lesbos in the neighborhood of Thebe and Lyrnessus and Pedasus,²³ which last belonged to the Leleges, and also the country of Eurypylus the son of Telephus.“But what a man was that son of Telephus who was slain by him with the bronze,
”²⁴that is, the hero Eurypylus, slain by Neoptolemus. Now the poet says that these places were sacked, including Lesbos itself:“when he himself took well-built Lesbos;
”²⁵and“he sacked Lyrnessus and Pedasus;
”²⁶and“when he laid waste Lyrnessus and the walls of Thebe.
”²⁷It was at Lyrnessus that Briseïs was taken captive,“whom he carried away from Lyrnessus;
”²⁸and it was at her capture, according to the poet, that Mynes and Epistrophus fell, as is shown by the lament of Briseïs over Patroclus:“thou wouldst not even, not even, let me weep when swift Achilles slew my husband and sacked the city of divine Mynes;
”²⁹for in calling Lyrnessus "the city of divine Mynes" the poet indicates that Mynes was dynast over it and that he fell in battle there. But it was at Thebe that Chryseïs was taken captive:“We went into Thebe, the sacred city of Eëtion;
”³⁰and the poet says that Chryseïs was part of the spoil brought from that place.³¹ Thence, too, came Andromache:“Andromache, daughter of great hearted Eëtion; Eëtion who dwelt 'neath wooded Placus in Thebe Hypoplacia,³² and was lord over the men of Cilicia.
”³³This is the second Trojan dynasty after that of Mynes. And consistently with these facts writers think that the following statement of Andromache,“Hector, woe is me! surely to one doom we were born, both of us—thou in Troy in the house of Priam, but I at Thebae,
”³⁴should not be interpreted strictly, I mean the words "thou in Troy, but I at Thebae" (or Thebe), but as a case of hyperbaton, meaning "both of us in Troy—thou in the house of Priam, but I at Thebae." The third dynasty was that of the Leleges, which was also Trojan:“Of Altes, who is lord over the war-loving Leleges,
”³⁵by whose daughter Priam begot Lycaon and Polydorus. And indeed those who are placed under Hector in the Catalogue are called Trojans:“The Trojans were led by great Hector of the flashing helmet.
”³⁶And then come those under Aeneias:“The Dardanians in turn were commanded by the valiant son of Anchises
”³⁷and these, too, were Trojans; at any rate, the poet says,“Aeneias, counsellor of the Trojans.
”³⁸And then come the Lycians under Pandarus, and these also he calls Trojans:“And those who dwelt in Zeleia beneath the nethermost foot of Ida, Aphneiï,³⁹ who drink the dark water of the Aesepus, Trojans; these in turn were commanded by Pandarus, the glorious son of Lycaon.
”⁴⁰And this was the sixth dynasty. And indeed those who lived between the Aesepus River and Abydus were Trojans; for not only were the parts round Abydus subject to Asius,“and they who dwelt about Percote and Practius⁴¹ and held Sestus and Abydus and goodly Arisbe⁴²—these in turn were commanded by Asius the son of Hyrtacus,
”⁴³but a son of Priam lived at Abydus, pasturing mares, clearly his father's:“But he smote Democoön, the bastard son of Priam, who had come at Priam's bidding from his swift mares;
”⁴⁴while in Percote a son of Hicetaon was pasturing kine, he likewise pasturing kine that belonged to no other:⁴⁵“And first he rebuked mighty Melanippus the son of Hicetaon, who until this time had been wont to feed the kine of shambling gait in Percote;
”⁴⁶so that this country would be a part of the Troad, as also the next country after it as far as Adrasteia, for the leaders of the latter were“the two sons of Merops of Percote.
”⁴⁷Accordingly, the people from Abydus to Adrasteia were all Trojans, although they were divided into two groups, one under Asius and the other under the sons of Merops, just as Cilicia⁴⁸ also was divided into two parts, the Theban Cilicia and the Lyrnessian;⁴⁹ but one might include in the Lyrnessian Cilicia the territory subject to Eurypylus, which lay next to the Lyrnessian Cilicia.⁵⁰ But that Priam was ruler of these countries, one and all, is clearly indicated by Achilles' words to Priam:“And of thee, old sire, we hear that formerly thou wast blest; how of all that is enclosed by Lesbos, out at sea, city of Macar, and by Phrygia in the upland, and by the boundless Hellespont.
”⁵¹ [8]

Now such were the conditions at the time of the Trojan War, but all kinds of changes followed later; for the parts round Cyzicus as far as the Practius were colonized by Phrygians, and those round Abydus by Thracians; and still before these two by Bebryces and Dryopes.⁵² And the country that lies next was colonized by the Treres, themselves also Thracians; and the Plain of Thebe by Lydians, then called Maeonians, and by the survivors of the Mysians who had formerly been subject to Telephus and Teuthras. So then, since the poet combines Aeolis and Troy, and since the Aeolians held possession of all the country from the Hermus River⁵³ to the seaboard at Cyzicus, and founded their cities there, I too might not be guilty of describing them wrongly if I combined Aeolis, now properly so called, extending from the Hermus River to Lectum, and the country next after it, extending to the Aesepus River; for in my detailed treatment of the two, I shall distinguish them again, setting forth, along with the facts as they now are, the statements of Homer and others. [9]

According to Homer, then, the Troad begins after the city of the Cyziceni and the Aesepus River. And he so speaks of it:“And those who dwelt in Zeleia beneath the nethermost foot of Ida, Aphneii,⁵⁴ who drink the dark water of the Aesepus, Trojans; these in turn were commanded by Pandarus the glorious son of Lycaon.
”⁵⁵These he also calls Lycians.⁵⁶ And they are thought to have been called "Aphneii" after Lake "Aphnitis," for Lake Dascylitis is also called by that name. [10]

Now Zeleia⁵⁷ is situated on the farthermost foothill of Mt. Ida, being one hundred and ninety stadia distant from Cyzicus and about eighty stadia from the nearest part of the sea, where the Aesepus empties. And the poet mentions severally, in continuous order, the places that lie along the coast after the Aesepus River:“And they who held Adrasteia and the land of Apaesus, and held Pityeia and the steep mountain of Tereia—these were led by Adrastus and Amphius of the linen corslet, the two sons of Merops of Percote.
”⁵⁸These places lie below Zeleia,⁵⁹ but they are occupied by Cyziceni and Priapeni even as far as the coast. Now near Zeleia is the Tarsius River,⁶⁰ which is crossed twenty times by the same road, like the Heptaporus River,⁶¹.which is mentioned by the poet.⁶² And the river that flows from Nicomedeia into Nicaea is crossed twenty-four times, and the river that flows from Pholoe into the Eleian country⁶³ is crossed many times . . . Scarthon twenty-five times,⁶⁴ and the river that flows from the country of the Coscinii into Alabanda is crossed many times, and the river that flows from Tyana into Soli through the Taurus is crossed seventy-five times. [11]

About . . .⁶⁵ stadia above the outlet of the Aesepus River is a hill, where is shown the tomb of Memnon, son of Tithonus; and near by is the village of Memnon. The Granicus River flows between the Aesepus River and Priapus, mostly through the plain of Adrasteia,⁶⁶ where Alexander utterly defeated the satraps of Dareius in battle, and gained the whole of the country inside the Taurus and the Euphrates River. And on the Granicus was situated the city Sidene, with a large territory of the same name; but it is now in ruins. On the boundary between the territory of Cyzicus and that of Priapus is a place called Harpagia,⁶⁷ from which, according to some writers of myths, Ganymede was snatched, though others say that he was snatched in the neighborhood of the Dardanian Promontory, near Dardanus. [12]

Priapus⁶⁸ is a city on the sea, and also a harbor. Some say that it was founded by Milesians, who at the same time also colonized Abydus and Proconnesus, whereas others say that it was founded by Cyziceni. It was named after Priapus, who was worshipped there; then his worship was transferred thither from Orneae near Corinth, or else the inhabitants felt an impulse to worship the god because he was called the son of Dionysus and a nymph; for their country is abundantly supplied with the vine, both theirs and the countries which border next upon it, I mean those of the Pariani and the Lampsaceni. At any rate, Xerxes gave Lampsacus to Themistocles to supply him with wine. But it was by people of later times that Priapus was declared a god, for even Hesiod does not know of him; and he resembles the Attic deities Orthane, Conisalus, Tychon, and others like them. [13]

This country was called "Adrasteia"⁶⁹ and "Plain of Adrasteia," in accordance with a custom whereby people gave two names to the same place, as "Thebe" and "Plain of Thebe," and "Mygdonia" and "Plain of Mygdonia." According to Callisthenes, among others, Adrasteia was named after King Adrastus, who was the first to found a temple of Nemesis. Now the city is situated between Priapus and Parium; and it has below it a plain that is named after it, in which there was an oracle of Apollo Actaeus and Artemis. . . .⁷⁰ But when the temple was torn down, the whole of its furnishings and stonework were transported to Parium, where was built an altar,⁷¹ the work of Hermocreon, very remarkable for its size and beauty; but the oracle was abolished like that at Zeleia. Here, however, there is no temple of Adrasteia, nor yet of Nemesis, to be seen, although there is a temple of Adrasteia near Cyzicus. Antimachus says as follows:“There is a great goddess Nemesis, who has obtained as her portion all these things from the Blessed.⁷² Adrestus⁷³ was the first to build an altar to her beside the stream of the Aesepus River, where she is worshipped under the name of Adresteia.
” [14]

The city Parium is situated on the sea; it has a larger harbor than Priapus, and its territory has been increased at the expense of Priapus; for the Parians curried favor with the Attalic kings, to whom the territory of Priapus was subject, and by their permission cut off for themselves a large part of that territory. Here is told the mythical story that the Ophiogeneis⁷⁴ are akin to the serpent tribe:⁷⁵ and they say that the males of the Ophiogeneis cure snake-bitten people by continuous stroking, after the manner of enchanters, first transferring the livid color to their own bodies and then stopping both the inflammation and the pain. According to the myth, the original founder of the tribe, a certain hero, changed from a serpent into a man. Perhaps he was one of the Libyan Psylli,⁷⁶ whose power persisted in his tribe for a certain time.⁷⁷ Parium was founded by Milesians and Erythraeans and Parians. [15]

Pitya⁷⁸ is in Pityus in the territory of Parium, lying below a pine covered mountain;⁷⁹ and it lies between Parium and Priapus in the direction of Linum, a place on the seashore, where are caught the Linusian snails, the best in the world. [16]

On the coasting voyage from Parium to Priapus lie both the old Proconnesus and the present Proconnesus, the latter having a city and also a great quarry of white marble that is very highly commended; at any rate, the most beautiful works of art⁸⁰ in the cities of that part of the world, and especially those in Cyzicus, are made of this marble. Aristeas was a Proconnesian—the author of the Arimaspian Epic, as it is called—a charlatan if ever there was one.⁸¹ [17]

As for "the mountain of Tereia,"⁸² some say that it is the range of mountains in Peirossus which are occupied by the Cyziceni and are adjacent to Zeleia, where a royal hunting ground was arranged by the Lydians, and later by the Persians;⁸³ but others point out a hill forty stadia from Lampsacus, on which there is a temple sacred to the mother of the gods, entitled "Tereia's" temple. [18]

Lampsacus,⁸⁴ a!so, is a city on the sea, a notable city with a good harbor, and still flourishing, like Abydus. It is about one hundred and seventy stadia distant from Abydus; and it was formerly called Pityussa, as also, it is said, was Chios. On the opposite shore of the Chersonesus is Callipolis, a small town. It is on the headland and runs far out towards Asia in the direction of the city of the Lampsaceni, so that the passage across to Asia from it is no more than forty stadia. [19]

In the interval between Lampsacus and Parium lay a city and river called Paesus; but the city is in ruins. The Paeseni changed their abode to Lampsacus, they too being colonists from the Milesians, like the Lampsaceni. But the poet refers to the place in two ways, at one time adding the first syllable,“and the land of Apaesus,
”⁸⁵and at another omitting it,“a man of many possessions, who dwelt in Paesus.
”⁸⁶And the river is now spelled in the latter way. Colonae,⁸⁷ which lies above Lampsacus in the interior of Lampsacene, is also a colony of the Milesians; and there is another Colonae on the outer Hellespontine sea, which is one hundred and forty stadia distant from Ilium and is said to be the birthplace of Cycnus.⁸⁸ Anaximenes says that there are also places in the Erythraean territory and in Phocis and in Thessaly that are called Colonae. And there is an Iliocolone in the territory of Parium. In the territory of Lampsacus is a place called Gergithium⁸⁹ which is rich in vines; and there was also a city called Gergitha from Gergithes in the territory of Cyme, for here too there was a city called Gergithes, in the feminine plural, the birthplace of Cephalon the Gergithian. And still today a place called Gergithium is pointed out in the territory of Cyme near Larissa. Now Neoptolemus,⁹⁰ called the Glossographer, a notable man, was from Parium; and Charon the historian⁹¹ and Adeimantus⁹² and Anaximenes the rhetorician⁹³ and Metrodorus the comrade of Epicurus were from Lampsacus; and Epicurus himself was in a sense a Lampsacenian, having lived in Lampsacus and having been on intimate terms with the ablest men of that city, Idomeneus and Leonteus and their followers. It was from here that Agrippa transported the Fallen Lion, a work of Lysippus; and he dedicated it in the sacred precinct between the Lake and the Euripus.⁹⁴ [20]

After Lampsacus come Abydus and the intervening places of which the poet, who comprises with them the territory of Lampsacus and part of the territory of Parium (for these two cities were not yet in existence in the Trojan times), speaks as follows:“And those who dwelt about Percote and Practius, and held Sestus and Abydus and goodly Arisbe—these in turn were led by Asius, the son of Hyrtacus, . . . who was brought by his sorrel horses from Arisbe, from the River Sellëeis.
”⁹⁵In speaking thus, the poet seems to set forth Arisbe, whence he says Asius came, as the royal residence of Asius:“who was brought by his horses from Arisbe, from the River Sellëeis.
”But these places⁹⁶ are so obscure that even investigators do not agree about them, except that they are in the neighborhood of Abydus and Lampsacus and Parium, and that the old Percote,⁹⁷ the site, underwent a change of name. [21]

Of the rivers, the Sellëeis flows near Arisbe, as the poet says, if it be true that Asius came both from Arisbe and from the Sellëeis River. The River Practius is indeed in existence, but no city of that name is to be found, as some have wrongly thought. This river also⁹⁸ flows between Abydus and Lampsacus. Accordingly, the words,“and dwelt about Practius,
”should be interpreted as applying to a river, as should also those other words,“and those who dwelt beside the goodly Cephisus River,
”⁹⁹and“those who had their famed estates about the Parthenius River.
”¹⁰⁰There was also a city Arisba in Lesbos, whose territory is occupied by the Methymnaeans. And there is an Arisbus River in Thrace, as I have said before,¹⁰¹ near which are situated the Thracian Cebrenians. There are many names common to the Thracians and the Trojans; for example, there are Thracians called Scaeans, and a river Scaeus, and a Scaean Wall, and at Troy the Scaean Gates. And there are Thracian Xanthians, and in Troy-land a river Xanthus. And in Troy-land there is a river Arisbus which empties into the Hebrus, as also a city Arisbe. And there was a river Rhesus in Troy-land; and there was a Rhesus who was the king of the Thracians. And there is also, of the same name as this Asius, another Asius in Homer,“who was maternal uncle to horse-taming Hector, and own brother to Hecabe, but son of Dymas, who dwelt in Phrygia by the streams of the Sangarius.
”¹⁰² [22]

Abydus was founded by Milesians, being founded by permission of Gyges, king of the Lydians; for this district and the whole of the Troad were under his sway; and there is a promontory named Gygas near Dardanus. Abydus lies at the mouth of the Propontis and the Hellespont; and it is equidistant from Lampsacus and Ilium, about one hundred and seventy stadia.¹⁰³ Here, separating Europe and Asia, is the Heptastadium,¹⁰⁴ which was bridged by Xerxes. The European promontory that forms the narrows at the place of the bridge is called the Chersonesus¹⁰⁵ because of its shape. And the place of the bridge lies opposite Abydus. Sestus¹⁰⁶ is the best of the cities in the Chersonesus; and, on account of its proximity to Abydus, it was assigned to the same governor as Abydus in the times when governorships had not yet been delimited by continents. Now although Abydus and Sestus are about thirty stadia distant from one another from harbor to harbor, yet the line of the bridge across the strait is short, being drawn at an angle to that between the two cities, that is, from a point nearer than Abydus to the Propontis on the Abydus side to a point farther away from the Propontis on the Sestus side. Near Sestus is a place named Apobathra,¹⁰⁷ where the pontoon-bridge was attached to the shore. Sestus lies farther in towards the Propontis, farther up the stream that flows out of the Propontis. It is therefore easier to cross over from Sestus, first coasting a short distance to the Tower of Hero and then letting the ships make the passage across by the help of the current. But those who cross over from Abydus must first follow the coast in the opposite direction about eight stadia to a tower opposite Sestus, and then sail across obliquely and thus not have to meet the full force of the current. After the Trojan War Abydus was the home of Thracians, and then of Milesians. But when the cities were burned by Dareius, father of Xerxes, I mean the cities on the Propontis, Abydus shared in the same misfortune. He burned them because he had learned after his return from his attack upon the Scythians that the nomads were making preparations to cross the strait and attack him to avenge their sufferings, and was afraid that the cities would provide means for the passage of their army. And this too, in addition to the other changes and to the lapse of time, is a cause of the confusion into which the topography of the country has fallen. As for Sestus and the Chersonesus in general, I have already spoken of them in my description of the region of Thrace.¹⁰⁸ Theopompus says that Sestus is small but well fortified, and that it is connected with its harbor by a double wall of two plethra,¹⁰⁹ and that for this reason, as also on account of the current, it is mistress of the passage. [23]

Above the territory of the Abydeni, in the Troad, lies Astyra. This city, which is in ruins, now belongs to the Abydeni, but in earlier times it was independent and had gold mines. These mines are now scant, being used up, like those on Mt. Tmolus in the neighborhood of the Pactolus River. From Abydus to the Aesepus the distance is said to be about seven hundred stadia, but less by straight sailing.¹¹⁰ [24]

Outside Abydus lies the territory of Ilium—the parts on the shore extending to Lectum, and the places in the Trojan Plain, and the parts on the side of Mt. Ida that were subject to Aeneias. The poet names these last parts in two ways, at one time saying as follows:“The Dardanii in turn were led by the valiant son of Anchises,
”¹¹¹calling the inhabitants "Dardanii"; and at another time, "Dardani":“The Trojans and Lycians and Dardani that fight in close combat.
”¹¹²And it is reasonable to suppose that this was in ancient times.the site of the Dardania mentioned by the poet when he says,“At first Dardanus was begotten by Zeus the cloud-gatherer, and he founded Dardania;
”¹¹³for at the present time there is not so much as a trace of a city preserved in that territory.¹¹⁴ [25]

Plato¹¹⁵ conjectures, however, that after the time of the floods three kinds of civilization were formed: the first, that on the mountain tops, which was simple and wild, when men were in fear of the waters which still deeply covered the plains; the second, that on the foothills, when men were now gradually taking courage because the plains were beginning to be relieved of the waters; and the third, that in the plains. One might speak equally of a fourth and fifth, or even more, but last of all that on the seacoast and in the islands, when men had been finally released from all such fear; for the greater or less courage they took in approaching the sea would indicate several different stages of civilization and manners, first as in the case of the qualities of goodness and wildness, which in some way further served as a foundation for the milder qualities in the second stage. But in the second stage also there is a difference to be noted, I mean between the rustic and semi-rustic and civilized qualities; and, beginning with these last qualities, the gradual assumption of new names ended in the polite and highest culture, in accordance with the change of manners for the better along with the changes in places of abode and in modes of life. Now these differences, according to Plato,¹¹⁶ are suggested by the poet, who sets forth as an example of the first stage of civilization the life of the Cyclopes, who lived on uncultivated fruits and occupied the mountain tops, living in caves: “but all these things,” he says, “grow unsown and unploughed” for them. . . . “And they have no assemblies for council, nor appointed laws, but they dwell on the tops of high mountains in hollow caves, and each is lawgiver to his children and his wives.
”¹¹⁷ And as an example of the second stage, the life in the time of Dardanus, who“founded Dardania; for not yet had sacred Ilios been builded to be a city of mortal men, but they were living on the foothills of many-fountained Ida.
”¹¹⁸ And of the third stage, the life in the plains in the time of Ilus;¹¹⁹ for he is the traditional founder of Ilium, and it was from him that the city took its name. And it is reasonable to suppose, also, that he was buried in the middle of the plain for this reason—that he was the first to take up his abode in the plains:“And they sped past the tomb of ancient Ilus, son of Dardanus, through the middle of the plain past the wild fig tree.
”¹²⁰Yet even Ilus did not have full courage, for he did not found the city at the place where it now is, but about thirty stadia higher up towards the east, and towards Mt. Ida and Dardania, at the place now called "Village of the Ilians."¹²¹ But the people of the present Ilium, being fond of glory and wishing to show that their Ilium was the ancient city, have offered a troublesome argument to those who base their evidence on the poetry of Homer, for their Ilium does not appear to have been the Homeric city. Other inquirers also find that the city changed its site several times, but at last settled permanently where it now is at about the time of Croesus.¹²² I take for granted, then, that such removals into the parts lower down, which took place in those times, indicate different stages in modes of life and civilization; but this must be further investigated at another time. [26]

It is said that the city of the present Ilians was for a time a mere village, having its temple of Athena, a small and cheap temple, but that when Alexander went up there after his victory at the Granicus¹²³ River he adorned the temple with votive offerings, gave the village the title of city, and ordered those in charge to improve it with buildings, and that he adjudged it free and exempt from tribute; and that later, after the overthrow of the Persians, he sent down a kindly letter to the place, promising to make a great city of it, and to build a magnificent sanctuary, and to proclaim sacred games.¹²⁴ But after his death Lysimachus¹²⁵ devoted special attention to the city, and built a temple there and surrounded the city with a wall about forty stadia in circuit, and also incorporated into it the surrounding cities, which were now old and in bad plight. At that time he had already devoted attention to Alexandreia, which had indeed already been founded by Antigonus and called Antigonia, but had changed its name, for it was thought to be a pious thing for the successors of Alexander to found cities bearing his name before they founded cities bearing their own. And indeed the city endured and grew, and at present it not only has received a colony of Romans but is one of the notable cities of the world. [27]

Also the Ilium of today was a kind of village-city when the Romans first set foot on Asia and expelled Antiochus the Great from the country this side of Taurus. At any rate, Demetrius of Scepsis says that, when as a lad he visited the city about that time, he found the settlement so neglected that the buildings did not so much as have tiled roofs. And Hegesianax says that when the Galatae crossed over from Europe they needed a stronghold and went up into the city for that reason, but left it at once because of its lack of walls. But later it was greatly improved. And then it was ruined again by the Romans under Fimbria, who took it by siege in the course of the Mithridatic war. Fimbria had been sent as quaestor with Valerius Flaccus the consul when the latter was appointed¹²⁶ to the command against Mithridates; but Fimbria raised a mutiny and slew the consul in the neighborhood of Bithynia, and was himself set up as lord of the army; and when he advanced to Ilium, the llians would not admit him, as being a brigand, and therefore he applied force and captured the place on the eleventh day. And when he boasted that he himself had overpowered on the eleventh day the city which Agamemnon had only with difficulty captured in the tenth year, although the latter had with him on his expedition the fleet of a thousand vessels and the whole of Greece, one of the Ilians said: "Yes, for the city's champion was no Hector." Now Sulla came over and overthrew Fimbria, and on terms of agreement sent Mithridates away to his homeland, but he also consoled the Ilians by numerous improvements. In my time, however, the deified Caesar¹²⁷ was far more thoughtful of them, at the same time also emulating the example of Alexander; for Alexander set out to provide for them on the basis of a renewal of ancient kinship, and also because at the same time he was fond of Homer; at any rate, we are told of a recension of the poetry of Homer, the Recension of the Casket, as it is called, which Alexander, along with Callisthenes and Anaxarchus, perused and to a certain extent annotated, and then deposited in a richly wrought casket which he had found amongst the Persian treasures.¹²⁸ Accordingly, it was due both to his zeal for the poet and to his descent from the Aeacidae who reigned as kings of the Molossians—where, as we are also told, Andromache, who had been the wife of Hector, reigned as queen—that Alexander was kindly disposed towards the Ilians. But Caesar, not only being fond of Alexander, but also having better known evidences of kinship with the llians, felt encouraged to bestow kindness upon them with all the zest of youth: better known evidences, first, because he was a Roman, and because the Romans believe Aeneias to have been their original founder; and secondly, because the name Iulius was derived from that of a certain Iulus who was one of his ancestors,¹²⁹ and this Iulus got his appellation from the Iulus who was one of the descendants of Aeneas. Caesar therefore allotted territory to them end also helped them to preserve their freedom and their immunity from taxation; and to this day they remain in possession of these favors. But that this is not the site of the ancient Ilium, if one considers the matter in accordance with Homer's account, is inferred from the following considerations. But first I must give a general description of the region in question, beginning at that point on the coast where I left off. [28]

After Abydus, then, comes the Dardanian Promontory, which I mentioned a little while ago,¹³⁰ and also the city Dardanus, which is seventy stadia distant from Abydus. Between the two places empties the Rhodius River, opposite which, in the Chersonesus, is Cynos-Sema,¹³¹ which is said to be the tomb of Hecabe. But some say that the Rhodius empties into the Aesepus. This too is one of the rivers mentioned by the poet:“Rhesus, Heptaporus, Caresus, and Rhodius.
”¹³²Dardanus was an ancient settlement, but it was held in such contempt that it was oftentimes transplanted by some of the kings to Abydus and then resettled again by others on the ancient site. It was here that Cornelius Sulla, the Roman commander, and Mithridates surnamed Eupator met and arranged the terms for the conclusion of the war. [29]

Near by is Ophrynium, near which, in a conspicuous place, is the sacred precinct of Hector.¹³³ And next comes the Lake¹³⁴ of Pteleos. [30]

Then come Rhoeteium, a city situated on a hill, and, adjacent to Rhoeteium, a low-lying shore, on which are a tomb and temple of Aias, and also a statue of him, which was taken up by Antony and carried of to Aegypt; but Augustus Caesar gave it back again to the Rhoeteians, just as he gave back other statues to their owners. For Antony took away the finest dedications from the most famous temples, to gratify the Egyptian woman,¹³⁵ but Augustus gave them back to the gods. [31]

After Rhoeteium come Sigeium, a destroyed city, and the Naval Station and the Harbor of the Achaeans and the Achaean Camp and Stomalimne,¹³⁶ as it is called, and the outlets of the Scamander; for after the Simoeis and the Scamander meet in the plain, they carry down great quantities of alluvium, silt up the coat, and form a blind mouth, lagoons, and marshes. Opposite the Sigeian Promontory on the Chersonesus are Eleussa¹³⁷ and the temple of Protesilaüs, both of which I have mentioned in my description of Thrace.¹³⁸ [32]

The length of this coast, I mean on a straight voyage from Rhoeteium to Sigeium, and the monument of Achilles, is sixty stadia; and the whole of it lies below Ilium, not only the present Ilium, from which, at the Harbor of the Achaeans, it is about twelve stadia distant, but also the earlier Ilium, which lies thirty stadia farther inland in the direction of Mt. Ida. Now there are a temple and a monument of Achilles near Sigeium, as also monuments of Patroclus and Antilochus; and the Ilians offer sacrifices to all four heroes, both to these and to Aias. But they do not honor Heracles, giving as their reason his sacking of the city. But one might say that, although Heracles did sack it, yet he sacked it in such a way as still to leave it a city, even though damaged, for those who were later to sack it utterly; and for this reason the poet states it thus:“He sacked the city of Ilios and widowed her streets;
”¹³⁹for "widowed" means a loss of the male population, not a complete annihilation. But the others, whom they think fit to worship with sacrifices and to honor as gods, completely annihilated the city. Perhaps they might give as their reason for this that these waged a just war, whereas Heracles waged an unjust one "on account of the horses of Laomedon."¹⁴⁰ But writers set over against this reason the myth that it was not on account of the horses but of the reward offered for Hesione and the sea-monster.¹⁴¹ But let us disregard these reasons, for they end merely in controversies about myths. And perhaps we fail to notice certain more credible reasons why it occurred to the Ilians to honor some and not others. And it appears that the poet, in what he says about Heracles, represents the city as small, if it be true that“with only six ships and fewer men he sacked the city of Ilium.
”¹⁴²And it is clearly shown by this statement that Priam became great and king of kings from a small beginning, as I have said before.¹⁴³ Advancing a little farther along this shore, one comes to the Achaeïum, where begins the part of the mainland that belongs to Tenedos. [33]

Such, are the places on the sea. Above these lies the Trojan Plain, which extends inland for many stadia in the direction of the east as far as Mt. Ida. The part of this plain alongside the mountain is narrow, extending on one side towards the south as far as the region of Scepsis, and on the other towards the north as far as the Lycians of Zeleia. This is the country which the poet makes subject to Aeneias and the sons of Antenor, calling it Dardania; and below this is Cebrenia, which is level for the most part and lies approximately parallel to Dardania; and in it there was once a city called Cebrene.¹⁴⁴ Demetrius suspects that the territory of Ilium subject to Hector extended inland from the naval station as far a Cebrenia, for he says that the tomb of Alexander¹⁴⁵ is pointed out there, as also that of Oenone, who, according to historians, had been the wife of Alexander before he carried off Helen. And, he continues, the poet mentions“Cebriones, bastard son of glorious Priam,
”¹⁴⁶after whom, as one may suppose, the country was named—or the city too, which is more plausible; and Cebrenia extends as far as the territory of Scepsis; and the Scamander, which flows between, is the boundary; and the Cebreni and Scepsians were always hostile to one another and at war until Antigonus settled both peoples together in Antigonia, as it was then called, or Alexandreia, as it is now called; now the Cebreni, he adds, remained with the rest in Alexandreia, but the Scepsians, by permission of Lysimachus, went back to their homeland. [34]

From the mountain range of Ida in this region, according to Demetrius, two spurs extend to the sea, one straight to Rhoeteium and the other straight to Sigeium, forming together a semicircular line, and they end in the plain at the same distance from the sea as the present Ilium; this Ilium, accordingly, lies between the ends of the two spurs mentioned, whereas the old settlement lies between their beginnings; and, he adds, the spurs include both the Simoeisian Plain, through which the Simoeis runs, and the Scamandrian Plain, through which the Scamander flows. This is called the Trojan Plain in the special sense of the term; and here it is that the poet represents most of the fights as taking place, for it is wider; and here it is that we see pointed out the places named by the poet Erineus,¹⁴⁷ the tomb of Aesyetes,¹⁴⁸ Batieia,¹⁴⁹ and the monument of Ilus.¹⁵⁰ The Scamander and Simoeis Rivers, after running near to Sigeium and Rhoeteium respectively, meet a little in front of the present Ilium, and then issue towards Sigeium and form Stomalimne,¹⁵¹ as it is called. The two plains above mentioned are separated from each other by a great neck of land which runs in a straight line between the aforesaid spurs, starting from the present Ilium, with which it is connected, and stretches as far as Cebrenia and, along with the spur's on either side,¹⁵² forms a complete letter .¹⁵³ [35]

A little above this¹⁵⁴ is the Village of the Ilians, where the ancient Ilium is thought to have been situated in earlier times, at a distance of thirty stadia from the present city. And ten stadia above the Village of the Ilians is Callicolone, a hill, past which, at a distance of five stadia, flows the Simoeis. It therefore becomes easy to understand, first, the reference to Ares:“And over against her leaped Ares, like unto a dreadful whirlwind, in shrill tones cheering the Trojans from the topmost part of the city, and now again as he sped alongside Simoeis o'er Callicolone;
”¹⁵⁵for if the battle was fought on the Scamandrian Plain, it is plausible that Ares should at one time shout his cheers from the acropolis and at another from the region near the Simoeis and Callicolone, up to which, in all probability, the battle would have extended. But since Callicolone is forty stadia distant from the present llium, for what useful purpose would the poet have taken in places so far away that the line of battle could not have reached them? Again, the words,“And towards Thymbra fell the lot of the Lycians,
”¹⁵⁶are more suitable to the ancient settlement, for the plain of Thymbra is near it, as also the Thymbrius River, which flows through the plain and empties into the Scamander at the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo, but Thymbra is actually fifty stadia distant from the present Ilium, And again, Erineus,¹⁵⁷ a place that is rugged and full of wild fig trees, lies at the foot of the ancient site, so that Andromache might appropriately say, “Stay thy host beside Erineus, where best the city can be approached and the wall scaled,
”¹⁵⁸but Erineus stands at a considerable distance from the present Ilium. Further, a little below Erineus is Phegus,¹⁵⁹ in reference to which Achilles says,“But so long as I was carrying on war amid the Achaeans, Hector was unwilling to rouse battle away from the wall, but would come only as far as the Scaean Gates and Phegus.
”¹⁶⁰ [36]

However, the Naval Station, still now so called, is so near the present Ilium that one might reasonably wonder at the witlessness of the Greeks and the faintheartedness of the Trojans; witlessness, if the Greeks kept the Naval Station unwalled for so long a time, when they were near to the city and to so great a multitude, both that in the city and that of the allies; for Homer says that the wall had only recently been built (or else it was not built at all, but fabricated and then abolished by the poet, as Aristotle says); and faintheartedness, if the Trojans, when the wall was built, could besiege it and break into the Naval Station itself and attack the ships, yet did not have the courage to march up and besiege the station when it was still unwalled and only a slight distance away; for it is near Sigeium, and the Scamander empties near it, at a distance of only twenty stadia from Ilium. But if one shall say that the Harbor of Achaeans, as it is now called, is the Naval Station, he will be speaking of a place that is still closer, only about twelve stadia distant from the city, even if one includes the plain by the sea, because the whole of this plain is a deposit of the rivers—I mean the plain by the sea in front of the city; so that, if the distance between the sea and the city is now twelve stadia, it must have been no more than half as great at that time. Further, the feigned story told by Odysseus to Eumaeus clearly indicates that the distance from the Naval Station to the city is great, for after saying,“as when we led our ambush beneath the walls of Troy,
”¹⁶¹ he adds a little below,“for we went very far from the ships.
”¹⁶²And spies are sent forth to find whether the Trojans will stay by the ships "far away," far separated from their own walls,“or will withdraw again to the city.
”¹⁶³And Polydamas says,“on both sides, friends, bethink ye well, for I, on my own part, bid you now to go to the city; afar from the walls are we.
”¹⁶⁴Demetrius cites also Hestiaea of Alexandreia as a witness, a woman who wrote a work on Homer's Iliad and inquired whether the war took place round the present Ilium and the Trojan Plain, which latter the poet places between the city and the sea; for, she says, the plain now to be seen in front of the present Ilium is a later deposit of the rivers. [37]

Again, Polites,“who was wont to sit as a sentinel of the Trojans, trusting in his fleetness of foot, on the topmost part of the barrow of aged Aesyetes,
”¹⁶⁵was doing a foolish thing, for even though he sat on the topmost part of it, still he might have kept watch from the much greater height of the acropolis, at approximately the same distance, with no need of fleetness of foot for safety; for the barrow of Aesyetes now pointed out is five stadia distant on the road to Alexandreia. Neither is the "clear running space"¹⁶⁶ of Hector round the city easy to understand, for the present Ilium has no "clear running space," on account of the ridge that joins it. The ancient city, however, has a "clear running space" round it. [38]

But no trace of the ancient city survives; and naturally so, for while the cities all round it were sacked, but not completely destroyed, yet that city was so utterly demolished that all the stones were taken from it to rebuild the others. At any rate, Archaeanax of Mitylene is said to have built a wall round Sigeium with stones taken from there. Sigeium was seized by Athenians under Phrynon the Olympian victor, although the Lesbians laid claim to almost the whole of the Troad. Most of the settlements in the Troad belong, in fact, to the Lesbians, and some endure to this day, while others have disappeared. Pittacus of Mitylene, one of the Seven Wise Men, as they are called, sailed against Phrynon the general¹⁶⁷ and for a time carried on the war, but with poor management and ill consequences. It was at this time that the poet Alcaeus says that he himself, being sorely pressed in a certain battle, threw away his arms. He addresses his account of it to a certain herald, whom he had bidden to report to the people at home that "Alcaeus is safe, but his arms have been hung up as an offering to Ares by the Attic army in the temple of Athena Glaucopis."¹⁶⁸ But later, on being challenged to single combat by Phrynon, he took up his fishing-tackle, ran to meet him, entangled him in his fishing net, and stabbed and slew him with trident and dagger. But since the war still went on, Periander was chosen by both sides as arbiter and ended it. [39]

Demetrius says that Timaeus falsifies when he informs us that Periander fortified Achilleium against the Athenians with stones from Ilium, to help the army of Pittacus; for this place, he says, was indeed fortified by the Mitylenaeans against Sigeium, though not with such stones as those, nor yet by Periander. For how could the opponent of the Athenians have been chosen as arbiter? Achilleium is the place where stands the monument of Achilles and is only a small settlement. Sigeium, also, has been razed to the ground by the Ilians, because of its disobedience; for the whole of the coast as far as Dardanus was later subject to the Ilians and is now subject to them. In ancient times the most of it was subject to the Aeolians, so that Ephorus does not hesitate to apply the name Aeolis to the whole of the coast from Abydus to Cyme.¹⁶⁹ Thucydides says that Troy was taken away from the Mitylenaeans by the Athenians in the Pachetian part¹⁷⁰ of the Peloponnesian War. [40]

The present Ilians further tell us that the city was, in fact, not completely wiped out at its capture by the Achaeans and that it was never even deserted. At any rate the Locrian maidens, beginning a little later, were sent every year.¹⁷¹ But this too is non-Homeric, for Homer knows not of the violation of Cassandra, but he says that she was a maiden at about that time,“for he¹⁷² slew Othryoneus, a sojourner in Troy from Cabesus, who had but recently come, following after the rumor of war,¹⁷³ and he was asking Cassandra in marriage, the comeliest of the daughters of Priam, without gifts of wooing,
”¹⁷⁴ and yet he does not so much as mention any violation of her or say that the destruction of Aias in the shipwreck took place because of the wrath of Athena or any such cause; instead, he speaks of Aias as "hated by Athena,"¹⁷⁵ in accordance with her general hatred (for since they one and all committed sacrilege against her temple, she was angry at them all), but says that he was destroyed by Poseidon because of his boastful speech.¹⁷⁶ But the fact is that the Locrian maidens were first sent when the Persians were already in power. [41]

So the Ilians tell us, but Homer expressly states that the city was wiped out:“The day shall come when sacred Ilios shall perish;
”¹⁷⁷and“surely we have utterly destroyed the steep city of Priam,
”¹⁷⁸“by means of counsels and persuasiveness;
”¹⁷⁹“and in the tenth year the city of Priam was destroyed.
”¹⁸⁰And other such evidences of the same thing are set forth; for example, that the wooden image of Athena now to be seen stands upright, whereas Homer clearly indicates that it was sitting, for orders are given to "put" the robe“upon Athena's knees
”¹⁸¹Hom. Il. 6.273(compare“that never should there sit upon his knees a dear child).
”¹⁸²For it is better to interpret it¹⁸³ in this way than, as some do, to interpret it as meaning "to put the robe 'beside' her knees," comparing the words“and she sits upon the hearth in the light of the fire,
”¹⁸⁴which they take to mean "beside" the hearth. For how could one conceive of the dedication of a robe "beside" the knees? Moreover, others, changing the accent on γούνασιν¹⁸⁵ accenting it γουνάσιν,¹⁸⁶ like θυιάσιν¹⁸⁷ (in whichever of two ways they interpret it), talk on endlessly. . . There are to be seen many of the ancient wooden images of Athena in a sitting posture, as, for example, in Phocaea, Massalia, Rome, Chios, and several other places. Also the more recent writers agree that the city was wiped out, among whom is the orator Lycurgus, who, in mentioning the city of the Ilians, says:“Who has not heard that once for all it was razed to the ground by the Greeks, and is uninhabited?”¹⁸⁸ [42]

It is surmised that those who later thought of refounding the city regarded that site as ill-omened, either on account of its misfortune or also because, in accordance with an ancient custom, a curse had been laid upon it by Agamemnon, just as Croesus, after he destroyed Sidene, whither the tyrant Glaucias had fled for refuge, put a curse on any persons who should re-fortify the site; and that they therefore avoided that place and fortified another. Now the Astypalaeans who held possession of Rhoeteium were the first to settle Polium, now called Polisma, on the Simoeis River, but not on a well protected site; and therefore it was soon demolished. It was in the time of the Lydians that the present settlement¹⁸⁹ was founded, as also the temple. It was not a city, however, and it was only after many ages, and gradually, as I have said,¹⁹⁰ that it increased. But Hellanicus, to gratify the Ilians, "such is the spirit of that man,"¹⁹¹ agrees with them that the present Ilium is the same as the ancient. When the city was wiped out, its territory was divided up between the inhabitants of Sigeium and Rhoeteium and several other neighboring peoples, but the territory was given back when the place was refounded. [43]

The epithet "many fountained"¹⁹² is thought to be especially applied to Mt. Ida because of the great number of rivers that flow from it, particularly in those parts below it where lie the territory of Dardanus—even as far as Scepsis—and the region of Ilium. Demetrius, who as a native was acquainted with the topography of the country, says in one place as follows: There is a hill of Ida called Cotylus; and this hill lies about one hundred and twenty stadia above Scepsis; and from it flow the Scamander, the Granicus, and the Aesepus, the two latter flowing towards the north and the Propontis and constituting a collection of streams from several sources, while the Scamander flows towards the west from only one source; and all the sources lie close together, being comprised within a distance of twenty stadia; but the end of the Aesepus stands farthest away from its beginning, approximately five hundred stadia. But it is a matter of argument what the poet means when he says:“And they came to the two fair-flowing streams, where well up the two springs of eddying Scamander; for the one flows with soft water
”¹⁹³(that is, with "hot water"), and the poet adds,“and round about a smoke arises from it as if from a blazing fire, whereas the other even in summer flows forth cold as hail or chill snow.
”¹⁹⁴But, in the first place, no hot waters are now to be found at the site,¹⁹⁵ and, secondly, the source of the Scamander is not to be found there, but in the mountain; and it has only one source, not two. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the hot spring has given out, and that the cold one is evacuated from the Scamander through an underground passage and rises to the surface here, or else that because of the nearness of the Scamander this water is called a source of the Scamander; for people are wont to ascribe several sources to one and the same river in this way. [44]

The Scamander is joined by the Andirus, which flows from Caresene, a mountainous country settled with many villages and beautifully cultivated; it extends alongside Dardania as far as the regions of Zeleia and Pityeia. It is said that the country was named after the Caresus River, which is named by the poet,“Rhesus, Heptaporus, Caresus, and Rhodius,
”¹⁹⁶and that the city of the same name as the river was torn down. Again, Demetrius says as follows: "The Rhesus River is now called Rhoeites, unless it be that the river which empties into the Granicus is the Rhesus. The Heptaporus, also called Polyporus, is crossed seven times by one travelling from the region of the Beautiful Pine to the village called Melaenae and the Asclepieium that was founded by Lysimachus. Concerning the Beautiful Pine, King Attalus the First writes as follows: "Its circumference is twenty-four feet; and its trunk rises to a height of sixty-seven feet from the root and then splits into three forks equidistant from one another, and then contracts again into one head, thus completing a total height of two plethra and fifteen cubits."¹⁹⁷ It is one hundred and eighty stadia distant from Adramyttium, to the north of it. The Caresus flows from Malus, a place situated between Palaescepsis and the Achaeïum, the part of the mainland that belongs to the Tenedians;¹⁹⁸ and it empties into the Aesepus. The Rhodius flows from Cleandria and Gordus, which are sixty stadia distant from the Beautiful Pine; and it empties into the Aenius.¹⁹⁹ [45]

In the dale of the Aesepus, on the left of the stream, one comes first to Polichna, a place enclosed by walls; and then to Palaescepsis; and then to Alizonium (this last name having been fabricated²⁰⁰ to support the hypothesis about the Halizones, whom I have already discussed);²⁰¹ and then to Caresus, which is deserted, and Caresene, and the river of the same name,²⁰² which also forms a notable dale, though smaller than that of the Aesepus; and next follow the plains and plateaux of Zeleia, which are beautifully cultivated. On the right of the Aesepus, between Polichna and Palaescepsis, one comes to Nea²⁰³ Come and Argyria,²⁰⁴ and this again is a name fabricated to support the same hypothesis, in order to save the words,“where is the birthplace of silver.
”²⁰⁵Now where is Alybe, or Alope, or however they wish to alter the spelling of the name?²⁰⁶ For having once made their bold venture, they should have rubbed their faces²⁰⁷ and fabricated this name too, instead of leaving it lame and readily subject to detection. Now these things are open to objections of this kind, but, in the case of the others, or at least most of them, I take it for granted that we must give heed to him²⁰⁸ as a man who was acquainted with the region and a native of it, who gave enough thought to this subject to write thirty books of commentary on a little more than sixty lines of Homer, that is, on the Catalogue of the Trojans.²⁰⁹ He says, at any rate, that Palaescepsis is fifty stadia distant from Aenea and thirty from the Aesepus River, and that from this Palaescepsis²¹⁰ the same name was extended to several other sites. But I shall return to the coast at the point where I left off. [46]

After the Sigeian Promontory and the Achilleium one comes to the Achaeïum, the part of the mainland that belongs to the Tenedians;²¹¹ and to Tenedos itself, which is not more than forty stadia distant from the mainland. It is about eighty stadia in circumference, and has an Aeolian city and two harbors and a temple of Sminthian Apollo, as the poet testifies:“And dost rule mightily over Tenedos, O Sminthian.
”²¹²Round it lie several small islands, in particular two, which are called the Calydnae and are situated on the voyage to Lectum. And some give the name Calydna to Tenedos itself, while others call it Leucophrys. In it is laid the scene of the myth of Tennes,²¹³ after whom the island was named, as also that of Cycnus, a Thracian by birth and, according to some, father of Tennes and king of Colonae.²¹⁴ [47]

Both Larisa and Colonae used to be adjacent to the Achaeïum, formerly being on the part of the mainland that belonged to the Tenedians; and then one comes to the present Chrysa, which was founded on a rocky height above the sea, and to Hamaxitus, which lies below Lectum and adjacent to it. At the present time Alexandreia is adjacent to the Achaeïum; and those other towns, like several others of the strongholds, have been incorporated with Alexandreia, among them Cebrene and Neandria; and Alexandreia holds their territory. But the site on which Alexandreia now lies used to be called Sigia. [48]

In this Chrysa is also the temple of Sminthian Apollo; and the symbol which preserves the etymology of the name,²¹⁵ I mean the mouse, lies beneath the foot of his image. These are the works of Scopas of Paros; and also the history, or myth, about the mice is associated with this place: When the Teucrians arrived from Crete (Callinus the elegiac poet was the first to hand down an account of these people, and many have followed him), they had an oracle which bade them to "stay on the spot where the earth-born should attack them"; and, he says the attack took place round Hamaxitus, for by night a great multitude of field-mice swarmed out of the ground and ate up all the leather in their arms and equipment; and the Teucrians remained there; and it was they who gave its name to Mt. Ida, naming it after the mountain in Crete. Heracleides of Pontus says that the mice which swarmed round the temple were regarded as sacred, and that for this reason the image was designed with its foot upon the mouse. Others say that a certain Teucer came from the deme of Troes, now called Xypeteones, in Attica, but that no Teucrians came from Crete. As a further sign of the close relationship of the Trojans with the people of Attica they record the fact the Erichthonius was one of the original founders on both tribes. Now this is the account of the more recent writer; but more in agreement with Homer are the traces to be seen in the plane of Thebe and in the Chrysa which was once founded there, which I shall soon discuss. The name of Smintheus is used in many places, for in the neighborhood of Hamaxitus itself, apart from the Sminthium at the temple, there are two places called Sminthia; and there are others in the neighboring territory of Larisa. And also in the territory of Parium there is a place called Sminthia, as also in Rhodes and in Lindus and in many other places. And they now call the temple Sminthium. Apart, at any rate,²¹⁶ lie both the Halesian Plain, of no great size, and inland from Lectum, and the Tragasaean salt-pan near Hamaxitus, where salt is naturally caused to congeal by the Etesian winds. On Lectum is to be seen an altar of the twelve gods, said to have been founded by Agamemnon. These places are all in sight of Ilium, at a distance of about two hundred stadia or a little more; and the same is the case with the places round Abydus on the other side, although Abydus is a little closer. [49]

On doubling Lectum one comes next to the most notable cities of the Aeolians, and to the Gulf of Adramyttium, on which the poet obviously places the majority of the Leleges, as also the Cilicians, who were twofold.²¹⁷ Here too is the shore-land of the Mitylenaeans, with certain villages²¹⁸ belonging to the Mitylenaeans who live on the mainland. The same gulf is also called the Idaean Gulf, for the ridge which extends from Lectum to Mt. Ida lies above the first part of the gulf, where the poet represents the Leleges as first settled.²¹⁹ [50]

But I have already discussed these matters.²²⁰ I must now add that Homer speaks of a Pedasus, a city of the Leleges, as subject to lord Altes:“Of Altes, who is lord over the war-loving Leleges, who hold steep Pedasus on the Satnioeis.
”²²¹And the site of the place, now deserted, is still to be seen. Some write, though wrongly, "at the foot of Satnioeis,"²²² as though the city lay at the foot of a mountain called Satnioeis; but there is no mountain here called Satinoeis, but only a river of that name, on which the city is situated; but the city is now deserted. The poet names the river, for, according to him, “he wounded Satnius with a thrust of his spear, even the son of Oenops, whom a peerless Naiad nymph bore unto Oenops, as he tended his herds by the banks of the Satnioeis;
”²²³and again:“And he dwelt by the banks of the fair-flowing Satnioeis in steep Pedasus.
”²²⁴And in later times it was called Satnioeis, though some called it Saphnioeis. It is only a large winter torrent, but the naming of it by the poet has made it worthy of mention. These places are continuous with Dardania and Scepsia, and are, as it were, a second Dardania, but it is lower-lying. [51]

To the Assians and the Gargarians now belong all the parts as far as the sea off Lesbos that are surrounded by the territory of Antandrus and that of the Cebrenians and Neandrians and Hamaxitans; for the Antandrians are situated above Hamaxitus, like it being situated inside Lectum, though farther inland and nearer to Ilium, for they are one hundred and thirty stadia distant from Ilium. Higher up than these are the Cebrenians, and still higher up than the latter are the Dardanians, who extend as far as Palaescepsis and Scepsis itself. Antandrus is called by Alcaeus "city of the Leleges":“First, Antandrus, city of the Leleges
”²²⁵ but it is placed by the Scepsian among the cities adjacent to their territory,²²⁶ so that it would fall within the territory of the Cilicians; for the territory of the Cilicians is continuous with that of the Leleges, the former, rather than the latter, marking off the southern flank of Mt. Ida. But still the territory of the Cilicians also lies low and, rather than that of the Leleges, joins the part of the coast that is near Adramyttium.²²⁷ For after Lectum one comes to a place called Polymedium, at a distance of forty stadia; then, at a distance of eighty,²²⁸ to Assus, slightly above the sea; and then, at a distance of one hundred and twenty,²²⁹ to Gargara, which lies on a promontory²³⁰ that forms the Adramyttene Gulf, in the special sense of that term; for the whole of the coast from Lectum to Canae is also called by this same name, in which is also included the Elaïtic Gulf. In the special sense of the term, however, only that part of it is called Adramyttene which is enclosed by that promontory on which Gargara lies and the promontory called Pyrrha, on which the Aphrodisium²³¹ is situated. The breadth of the mouth across from promontory to promontory is a distance of one hundred and twenty stadia. Inside is Antandrus, above which lies a mountain called Alexandreia, where the Judgment of Paris is said to have taken place, as also Aspaneus, the market for the timber from Mt. Ida; for here people bring it down and sell it to those who want it. And then comes Astyra, a village with a precinct sacred to the Astyrene Artemis. And quite near Astyra is Adramyttium, a city colonized by the Athenians, which has both a harbor and a naval station. Outside the gulf and the promontory called Pyrrha lies Cisthene, a deserted city with a harbor. Above it, in the interior, lie the copper mine and Perperene and Trarium and other settlements like these two. On the next stretch of coast one comes to the villages of the Mitylenaeans, I mean Coryphantis and Heracleia; and after these places to Attea, and then to Atarneus and Pitane and the outlets of the Caïcus River; and here we have already reached the Elaïtic Gulf. On the far side of the river lie Elaea and the rest of the gulf as far as Canae. But let me go back and discuss in detail the several places, if anything worthy of mention has been passed over; and first of all, Scepsis. [52]

Palaescepsis lies above Cebren near the highest part of Mt. Ida, near Polichna; and it was then called Scepsis (whether for another reason or from the fact that the place is visible all round, if it is right to derive from Greek words names then used by barbarians),²³² but later the inhabitants were removed sixty stadia²³³ lower down to the present Scepsis by Scamandrius the son of Hector and Ascanius the son of Aeneias; and their two families are said to have held the kingship over Scepsis for a long time. After this they changed to an oligarchy, and then Milesians settled with them as fellow-citizens;²³⁴ and they began to live under a democracy. But the heirs of the royal family none the less continued to be called kings and retained certain prerogatives. Then the Scepsians were incorporated into Alexandreia by Antigonus; and then they were released by Lysimachus and went back to their home-land. [53]

Demetrius thinks that Scepsis was also the royal residence of Aeneias, since it lies midway between the territory subject to Aeneias and Lyrnessus, to which latter he fled, according to Homer's statement, when he was being pursued by Achilles. At any rate, Achilles says:“Dost thou not remember how from the kine, when thou wast all alone, I made thee run down the Idaean mountains with swift feet? And thence thou didst escape to Lyrnessus, but I rushed in pursuit of thee and sacked it.
”²³⁵However, the oft-repeated stories of Aeneias are not in agreement with the account which I have just given of the founders of Scepsis. For according to these stories he survived the war because of his enmity to Priam:“For always he was wroth against goodly Priam, because, although he was brave amid warriors, Priam would not honor him at all;
”²³⁶and his fellow-rulers, the sons of Antenor and Antenor himself, survived because of the hospitality shown Menelaüs at Antenor's house. At any rate, Sophocles²³⁷ says that at the capture of Troy a leopard's skin was put before the doors of Antenor as a sign that his house was to be left unpillaged; and Antenor and his children safely escaped to Thrace with the survivors of the Heneti, and from there got across to the Adriatic Henetice,²³⁸ as it is called, whereas Aeneias collected a host of followers and set sail with his father Anchises and his son Ascanius; and some say that he took up his abode near the Macedonian Olympus, others that he founded Capyae near Mantineia in Arcadia, deriving the name he gave the settlement from Capys, and others say that he landed at Aegesta in Sicily with Elymus the Trojan and took possession of Eryx and Lilybaeum, and gave the names Scamander and Simoeis to rivers near Aegesta, and that thence he went into the Latin country and made it his abode, in accordance with an oracle which bade him abide where he should eat up his table, and that this took place in the Latin country in the neighborhood of Lavinium, where a large loaf of bread was put down for a table, for want of a better table, and eaten up along with the meats upon it. Homer, however, appears not to be in agreement with either of the two stories, nor yet with the above account of the founders of Scepsis; for he clearly indicates that Aeneias remained in Troy and succeeded to the empire and bequeathed the succession thereto to his sons' sons, the family of the Priamidae having been wiped out:“For already the race of Priam was hated, by the son of Cronus; and now verily the mighty Aeneias will rule over the Trojans, and his sons' sons that are hereafter to be born.
”²³⁹And in this case one cannot even save from rejection the succession of Scamandrius.²⁴⁰ And Homer is in far greater disagreement with those who speak of Aeneias as having wandered even as far as Italy and make him die there. Some write,“the family of Aeneias will rule over all,²⁴¹ and his sons' sons,
”meaning the Romans. [54]

From Scepsis came the Socratic philosophers Erastus and Coriscus and Neleus the son of Coriscus, this last a man who not only was a pupil of Aristotle and Theophrastus, but also inherited the library of Theophrastus, which included that of Aristotle. At any rate, Aristotle bequeathed his own library to Theophrastus, to whom he also left his school; and he is the first man, so far as I know, to have collected books and to have taught the kings in Egypt how to arrange a library. Theophrastus bequeathed it to Neleus; and Neleus took it to Scepsis and bequeathed it to his heirs, ordinary people, who kept the books locked up and not even carefully stored. But when they heard bow zealously the Attalic kings²⁴² to whom the city was subject were searching for books to build up the library in Pergamum, they hid their books underground in a kind of trench. But much later, when the books had been damaged by moisture and moths, their descendants sold them to Apellicon²⁴³ of Teos for a large sum of money, both the books of Aristotle and those of Theophrastus. But Apellicon was a bibliophile rather than a philosopher; and therefore, seeking a restoration of the parts that had been eaten through, he made new copies of the text, filling up the gaps incorrectly, and published the books full of errors. The result was that the earlier school of Peripatetics who came after Theophrastus had no books at all, with the exception of only a few, mostly exoteric works, and were therefore able to philosophize about nothing in a practical way, but only to talk bombast about commonplace propositions, whereas the later school, from the time the books in question appeared, though better able to philosophise and Aristotelise, were forced to call most of their statements probabilities, because of the large number of errors.²⁴⁴ Rome also contributed much to this; for, immediately after the death of Apellicon, Sulla, who had captured Athens, carried off Apellicon's library to Rome, where Tyrannion the grammarian, who was fond of Aristotle, got it in his hands by paying court to the librarian, as did also certain booksellers who used bad copyists and would not collate the texts—a thing that also takes place in the case of the other books that are copied for selling, both here²⁴⁵ and at Alexandria. However, this is enough about these men. [55]

From Scepsis came also Demetrius, whom I often mention, the grammarian who wrote a commentary on The Marshalling of the Trojan Forces, and was born at about the same time as Crates and Aristarchus; and later, Metrodorus, a man who changed from his pursuit of philosophy to political life, and taught rhetoric, for the most part, in his written works; and he used a brand-new style and dazzled many. On account of his reputation he succeeded, though a poor man, in marrying brilliantly in Chalcedon; and he passed for a Chalcedonian. And having paid court to Mithridates Eupator, he with his wife sailed away with him to Pontus; and he was treated with exceptional honor, being appointed to the judgeship from which there was no appeal to the king. However, his good fortune did not continue, but he incurred the enmity of men less just than himself and revolted from the king when he was on the embassy to Tigranes the Armenian.²⁴⁶ And Tigranes sent him back against his will to Eupator, who was already in flight from his ancestral realm; but Metrodorus died on the way, whether by order of the king²⁴⁷ or from disease; for both accounts are given of his death. So much for the Scepsians. [56]

After Scepsis come Andeira and Pioniae and the territory of Gargara. There is a stone in the neighborhood of Andeira which, when burned, becomes iron, and then, when heated in a furnace with a certain earth, distils mock-silver;²⁴⁸ and this, with the addition of copper, makes the "mixture," as it is called, which by some is called "mountaincopper."²⁴⁹ These are the places which the Leleges occupied; and the same is true of the places in the neighborhood of Assus. [57]

Assus is by nature strong and well-fortified; and the ascent to it from the sea and the harbor is very steep and long, so that the statement of Stratonicus the citharist in regard to it seems appropriate:“Go to Assus, in order that thou mayest more quickly come to the doom of death.
”²⁵⁰ The harbor is formed by a great mole. From Assus came Cleanthes, the Stoic philosopher who succeeded Zeno of Citium as head of the school and left it to Chrysippus of Soli. Here too Aristotle tarried, because of his relationship by marriage with the tyrant Hermeias. Hermeias was a eunuch, the slave of a certain banker;²⁵¹ and on his arrival at Athens he became a pupil of both Plato and Aristotle. On his return he shared the tyranny with his master, who had already laid hold of the districts of Atarneus and Assus; and then Hermeias succeeded him and sent for both Aristotle and Xenocrates and took care of them; and he also married his brother's daughter to Aristotle. Memnon of Rhodes, who was at that time serving the Persians as general, made a pretence of friendship for Hermeias, and then invited him to come for a visit, both in the name of hospitality and at the same time for pretended business reasons; but he arrested him and sent him up to the king, where he was put to death by hanging. But the philosophers safely escaped by flight from the districts above-mentioned, which were seized by the Persians. [58]

Myrsilus²⁵² says that Assus was founded by the Methymnaeans; and Hellanicus too calls it an Aeolian city, just as also Gargara and Lamponia belonged to the Aeolians. For Gargara was founded by the Assians; but it was not well peopled, for the kings brought into it colonists from Miletopolis when they devastated that city, so that instead of Aeolians, according to Demetrius of Scepsis, the inhabitants of Gargara became semi-barbarians. According to Homer, however, all these places belonged to the Leleges, who by some are represented to be Carians, although by Homer they are mentioned apart:“Towards the sea are the Carians and the Paeonians of the curved bow and the Leleges and the Cauconians.
”²⁵³They were therefore a different people from the Carians; and they lived between the people subject to Aeneias and the people whom the poet called Cilicians, but when they were pillaged by Achilles they migrated to Caria and took possession of the district round the present Halicarnassus.²⁵⁴ [59]

However, the city Pedasus, now abandoned by them, is no longer in existence; but in the inland territory of the Halicarnassians there used to be a city Pedasa, so named by them; and the present territory is called Pedasis. It is said that as many as eight cities were settled in this territory by the Leleges, who in earlier times were so numerous that they not only took possession of that part of Caria which extends to Myndus and Bargylia, but also cut off for themselves a large portion of Pisidia. But later, when they went out on expeditions with the Carians, they became distributed throughout the whole of Greece, and the tribe disappeared. Of the eight cities, Mausolus²⁵⁵ united six into one city, Halicarnassus, as Callisthenes tells us, but kept Syangela and Myndus as they were. These are the Pedasians of whom Herodotus²⁵⁶ says that when any misfortune was about to come upon them and their neighbors, the priestess of Athena would grow a beard; and that this happened to them three times. And there is also a small town called Pedasum in the present territory of Stratoniceia. And throughout the whole of Caria and in Miletus are to be seen tombs, fortifications, and traces of settlements of the Leleges. [60]

After the Leleges, on the next stretch of coast, lived the Cilicians, according to Homer; I mean the stretch of coast now held by the Adramytteni and Atarneitae and Pitanaei, as far as the outlet of the Caïcus. The Cilicians, as I have said,²⁵⁷ were divided into two dynasties,²⁵⁸ one subject to Eëtion and one to Mynes. [61]

Now Homer calls Thebe the city of Eëtion:“We went into Thebe, the sacred city of Eëtion;
”²⁵⁹and he clearly indicates that also Chrysa, which had the temple of Sminthian Apollo, belonged to Eëtion, if it be true that Chryseïs was taken captive at Thebe, for he says,“We went into Thebe, and laid it waste and brought hither all the spoil. And this they divided aright among themselves, but they chose out Chryseïs for the son of Atreus;
”²⁶⁰and that Lyrnessus belonged to Mynes, since Achilles“laid waste Lyrnessus and the walls of Thebe
”²⁶¹and slew both Mynes and Epistrophus; so that when Briseïs says,“thou wouldst not even let me,²⁶² when swift Achilles slew my husband and sacked the city of divine Mynes,
”²⁶³Homer cannot mean Thebe (for this belonged to Eëtion), but Lyrnessus. Both were situated in what was afterwards called the Plain of Thebe, which, on account of its fertility, is said to have been an object of contention between the Mysians and Lydians in earlier times, and later between the Greeks who colonized it from Aeolis and Lesbos. But the greater part of it is now held by the Adramytteni, for here lie both Thebe and Lyrnessus, the latter a natural stronghold; but both places are deserted. From Adramyttium the former is distant sixty stadia and the latter eighty-eight, in opposite directions.²⁶⁴ [62]

In the territory of Adramyttium lie also Chrysa and Cilla. At any rate there is still today a place near Thebe called Cilla, where is a temple of the Cillaean Apollo; and the Cillaeus River, which runs from Mt. Ida, flows past it. These places lie near the territory of Antandrus. The Cillaeum in Lesbos is named after this Cilla; and there is also a Mt. Cillaeum between Gargara and Antandrus. Daës of Colonae says that the temple of the Cillaean Apollo was first founded in Colonae by the Aeolians who sailed from Greece; it is also said that a temple of Cillaean Apollo was established at Chrysa, though it is not clear whether he is the same as the Sminthian Apollo or distinct from him. [63]

Chrysa was a small town on the sea, with a harbor; and near by, above it, lies Thebe. Here too was the temple of the Sminthian Apollo; and here lived Chryseïs. But the place is now utterly deserted; and the temple was transferred to the present Chrysa near Hamaxitus when the Cilicians were driven out, partly to Pamphylia²⁶⁵ and partly to Hamaxitus. Those who are less acquainted with ancient history say that it was at this Chrysa that Chryses and Chryseïs lived, and that Homer mentions this place; but, in the first place, there is no harbor here, and yet Homer says,“And when they had now arrived inside the deep harbor;
”²⁶⁶and, secondly, the temple is not on the sea, though Homer makes it on the sea;“and out from the seafaring ship stepped Chryseïs. Here then did Odysseus of many wiles lead to the altar, and place in the arms of her dear father;
”²⁶⁷neither is it near Thebe, though Homer makes it near; at any rate, he speaks of Chryseïs as having been taken captive there. Again, neither is there any place called Cilla to be seen in the territory of the Alexandreians, nor any temple of Cillaean Apollo; but the poet couples the two,“who dost stand over Chrysa and sacred Cilla.
”²⁶⁸But it is to be seen near by in the Plain of Thebe. And the voyage from the Cilician Chrysa to the Naval Station is about seven hundred stadia, approximately a day's voyage, such a distance, obviously, as that sailed by Odysseus;²⁶⁹ for immediately upon disembarking he offered the sacrifice to the god, and since evening overtook him he remained on the spot and sailed away the next morning. But the distance from Hamaxitus is scarcely a third of that above mentioned, so that Odysseus could have completed the sacrifice and sailed back to the Naval Station on the same day. There is also a tomb of Cillus in the neighborhood of the temple of the Cillaean Apollo, a great barrow. He is said to have been the charioteer of Pelops and to have ruled over this region; and perhaps it was after him that Cilicia was named, or vice versa. [64]

Now the story of the Teucrians and the mice—whence the epithet "Sminthian,"²⁷⁰ since "sminthi" means "mice"—must be transferred to this place. And writers excuse this giving of epithets from small creatures by such examples as the following: It is from locusts,²⁷¹ they say, which the Oetaeans call "cornopes," that Heracles is worshipped among the Oetaeans as "Cornopion," for ridding them of locusts; and he is worshipped among the Erythraeans who live in Mimas as "Ipoctonus,"²⁷² because he is the destroyer of the vine-eating ips;²⁷³ and in fact, they add, these are the only Erythraeans in whose country this creature is not to be found. And the Rhodians, who call erysibe²⁷⁴ "erythibe," have a temple of Apollo "Erythibius" in their country; and among the Aeolians in Asia a certain month is called Pornopion, since the Boeotians so call the locusts, and a sacrifice is offered to Apollo Pornopion. [65]

Now the territory round Adramyttium is Mysian, though it was once subject to the Lydians; and today there is a gate in Adramyttium which is called the Lydian Gate because, as they say, the city was founded by Lydians. And they say that the neighboring village Astyra belongs to Mysia. It was once a small town, where, in a sacred precinct, was the temple of the Astyrene Artemis, which was superintended, along with holy rites, by the Antandrians, who were its nearer neighbors. It is twenty stadia distant from the ancient Chrysa, which also had its temple in a sacred precinct. Here too was the Palisade of Achilles. And in the interior, fifty stadia away, is Thebe, now deserted, which the poet speaks of as "beneath wooded Placus";²⁷⁵ but, in the first place, the name "Placus" or "Plax" is not found there at all, and, secondly, no wooded place lies above it, though it is near Mt. Ida. Thebe is as much as seventy stadia distant from Astyra and sixty from Andeira. But all these are names of deserted or scantily peopled places, or of winter torrents; and they are often mentioned only because of their ancient history. [66]

Both Assus and Adramyttium are notable cities. But misfortune befell Adramyttium in the Mithridatic War, for the members of the city council were slaughtered, to please the king, by Diodorus²⁷⁶ the general, who pretended at the same time to be a philosopher of the Academy, a dispenser of justice, and a teacher of rhetoric. And indeed he also joined the king on his journey to Pontus; but when the king was overthrown he paid the penalty for his misdeeds; for many charges were brought against him, all at the same time, and, being unable to bear the ignominy, he shamefully starved himself to death, in my own city. Another inhabitant of Adramyttium was the famous orator Xenocles,²⁷⁷ who belonged to the Asiatic school and was as able a debater a ever lived, having even made a speech on behalf of Asia before the Senate,²⁷⁸ at the time when Asia was accused of Mithridatism. [67]

Near Astyra is an abysmal lake called Sapra, which has an outbreak into a reefy seashore. Below Andeira is a temple sacred to the Andeirene Mother of the gods, and also a cave that runs underground as far as Palaea. Palaea is a settlement so named,²⁷⁹ at a distance of one hundred and thirty stadia from Andeira. The underground passage became known through the fact that a goat fell into the mouth of it and was found on the following day near Andeira by a shepherd who happened to have come to make sacrifice. Atarneus is the abode of the tyrant Hermeias; and then one comes to Pitane, an Aeolic city, which has two harbors, and the Evenus River, which flows past it, whence the aqueduct has been built by the Adramytteni. From Pitane came Arcesilaüs, of the Academy, a fellow-student with Zeno of Citium under Polemon. In Pitane there is also a place on the sea called "Atameus below Pitane," opposite the island called Eleussa. It is said that in Pitane bricks float on water, as is also the case with a certain earth²⁸⁰ in Tyrrhenia, for the earth is lighter than an equal bulk of water, so that it floats. And Poseidonius says that in Iberia he saw bricks moulded from a clay-like earth, with which silver is cleaned, and that they floated on water. After Pitane one comes to the Caïcus River, which empties at a distance of thirty stadia into the Elaïtic Gulf, as it is called. On the far side of the Caïcus, twelve stadia distant from the river, is Elaea, an Aeolic city, which also is a seaport of the Pergamenians, being one hundred and twenty stadia distant from Pergamum. [68]

Then, at a distance of a hundred stadia, one comes to Cane, the promontory which rises opposite Lectum and forms the Adramyttene Gulf, of which the Elaïtic gulf is a part. Canae is a small town of Locrians from Cynus, and lies in the Canaean territory opposite the southernmost ends of Lesbos. This territory extends as far as the Arginussae Islands and the promontory above them, which some call Aega, making it the same as the word for the animal;²⁸¹ but the second syllable should be pronounced long, that is, "Aega," like Acta and Archa, for Aega used to be the name of the whole of the mountain which is now called Cane or Canae. The mountain is surrounded on the south and west by the sea, and on the east by the plain of the Caïcus, which lies below it, and on the north by the territory of Elaea. This mountain forms a fairly compact mass off to itself, though it slopes towards the Aegaean Sea, whence it got its name.²⁸² Later the promontory itself was called Aega, as in Sappho,²⁸³ but the rest was called Cane or Canae. [69]

Between Elaea, Pitane, Atarneus, and Pergamum lies Teuthrania, which is at no greater distance than seventy stadia from any of them and is this side the Caïcus River; and the story told is that Teuthras was king of the Cilicians and Mysians. Euripides²⁸⁴ says that Auge, with her child Telephus, was put by Aleus, her father, into a chest and submerged in the sea when he had detected her ruin by Heracles, but that by the providence of Athena the chest was carried across the sea and cast ashore at the mouth of the Caïcus, and that Teuthras rescued the prisoners, and treated the mother as his wife and the child as his own son.²⁸⁵ Now this is the myth, but there must have been some other issue of fortune through which the daughter of the Arcadian consorted with the king of the Mysians and her son succeeded to his kingdom. It is believed, at any rate, that both Teuthras and Telephus reigned as kings over the country round Teuthrania and the Caïcus, though Homer goes only so far as to mention the story thus:“But what a man was the son of Telephus, the hero Eurypylus, whom he slew with the bronze; and round him were slain many comrades, Ceteians, on account of a woman's gifts.
”²⁸⁶The poet thus sets before us a puzzle instead of making a clear statement; for we neither know whom we should understand the poet to mean by the "Ceteians" nor what he means by "on account of the gifts of a woman";²⁸⁷ but the grammarians too throw in petty myths, more to show their inventiveness than to solve questions. [70]

However, let us dismiss these; and let us, taking that which is more obvious, say that, according to Homer, Eurypylus clearly reigned in the region of the Caïcus, so that perhaps a part of the Cilicians were subject to him, in which case there were three dynasties among them and not merely two.²⁸⁸ This statement is supported by the fact that there is to be seen in the territory of Elaea a torrential stream called the Ceteius; this empties into another like it, and this again into another, and they all end in the Caïcus. But the Caïcus does not flow from Ida, as Bacchylides²⁸⁹ states; neither is Euripides correct in saying that Marsyas“dwells in widely famed Celaenae, in the farthermost region of Ida;
”²⁹⁰ for Celaenae is very far from Ida, and the sources of the Caïcus are also very far, for they are to be seen in a plain. Temnus is a mountain which forms the boundary between this plain and the Plain of Apia, as it is called, which lies in the interior above the Plain of Thebe. From Temnus flows a river called Mysius, which empties into the Caïcus below its sources; and it was from this fact, as some interpret the passage, that Aeschylus said at the opening of the prologue to the Myrmidons,“Oh! thou Caïcus and ye Mysian in-flows.
”²⁹¹Near the sources is a village called Gergitha, to which Attalus transferred the Gergithians of the Troad when he had destroyed their place. 2.

Since Lesbos, an island worthy of a full account, lies alongside and opposite the coast which extends from Lectum to Canae, and also has small islands lying round it, some outside it and some between it and the mainland, it is now time to describe these; for these are Aeolian, and I might almost say that Lesbos is the metropolis of the Aeolian cities. But I must begin at the point whence I began to traverse the coast that lies opposite the island. [2]

Now as one sails from Lectum to Assus, the Lesbian country begins at Sigrium, its promontory on the north.²⁹² In this general neighborhood is also Methymna, a city of the Lesbians, sixty stadia distant from the coast that stretches from Polymedium to Assus. But while the perimeter which is filled out by the island as a whole is eleven hundred stadia, the several distances are as follows: From Methymna to Malia, the southernmost²⁹³ promontory to one keeping the island on the right, I mean at the point where Canae lies most directly opposite the island and precisely corresponds with it, the distance is three hundred and forty stadia; thence to Sigrium, which is the length of the island, five hundred and sixty; and then to Methymna, two hundred and ten.²⁹⁴ Mitylene, the largest city, lies between Methymna and Malia, being seventy stadia distant from Malia, one hundred and twenty from Canae, and the same distance from the Arginussae, which are three small islands lying near the mainland alongside Canae. In the interval between Mitylene and Methymna, in the neighborhood of a village called Aegeirus in the Methymnaean territory, the island is narrowest, with a passage of only twenty stadia over to the Euripus of the Pyrrhaeans. Pyrrha is situated on the western side of Lesbos at a distance of one hundred stadia from Malia. Mitylene has two harbors, of which the southern can be closed and holds only fifty triremes, but the northern is large and deep, and is sheltered by a mole. Off both lies a small island, which contains a part of the city that is settled there. And the city is well equipped with everything. [3]

Mitylene has produced famous men: in early times, Pittacus, one of the Seven Wise Men; and the poet Alcaeus, and his brother Antimenidas, who, according to Alcaeus, won a great struggle when fighting on the side of the Babylonians, and rescued them from their toils by killing “a warrior, the royal wrestler
”(as he says),“who was but one short of five cubits in height.
”²⁹⁵And along with these flourished also Sappho, a marvellous woman; for in all the time of which we have record I do not know of the appearance of any woman who could rival Sappho, even in a slight degree, in the matter of poetry. The city was in those times ruled over by several tyrants because of the dissensions among the inhabitants; and these dissensions are the subject of the Stasiotic²⁹⁶ poems, as they are called, of Alcaeus. And also Pittacus²⁹⁷ was one of the tyrants. Now Alcaeus would rail alike at both Pittacus and the rest, Myrsilus and Melanchrus and the Cleanactidae and certain others, though even he himself was not innocent of revolutionary attempts; but even Pittacus himself used monarchy for the overthrow of the oligarchs, and then, after overthrowing them, restored to the city its independence. Diophanes the rhetorician was born much later; but Potamon, Lesbocles, Crinagoras, and Theophanes the historian in my time. Theophanes was also a statesman; and he became a friend to Pompey the Great, mostly through his very ability, and helped him to succeed in all his achievements; whence he not only adorned his native land, partly through Pompey and partly through himself, but also rendered himself the most illustrious of all the Greeks. He left a son, Marcus Pompey, whom Augustus Caesar once set up as Procurator of Asia, and who is now counted among the first of the friends of Tiberius. The Athenians were in danger of suffering an irreparable disgrace when they voted that all Mitylenaeans from youth upwards should be slain, but they changed their minds and their counter-decree reached the generals only one day before the order was to be executed. [4]

Pyrrha has been razed to the ground, but its suburb is inhabited and has a harbor, whence there is a passage of eighty stadia over hills to Mitylene. Then, after Pyrrha, one comes to Eressus; it is situated on a hill and extends down to the sea. Then to Sigrium, twenty-eight stadia from Eressus. Both Theophrastus and Phanias, the peripatetic philosophers, disciples of Aristotle, were from Eressus. Theophrastus was at first called Tyrtamus, but Aristotle changed his name to Theophrastus, at the same time avoiding the cacophony of his name and signifying the fervor of his speech; for Aristotle made all his pupils eloquent, but Theophrastus most eloquent of all. Antissa, a city with a harbor, comes next in order after Sigrium. And then Methymna, whence came Arion, who, according to a myth told by Herodotus and his followers, safely escaped on a dolphin to Taenarum after being thrown into the sea by the pirates. Now Arion played, and sang to, the cithara; and Terpander, also, is said to have been an artist in the same music and to have been born in the same island, having been the first person to use the seven-stringed instead of the four-stringed lyre, as we are told in the verses attributed to him:“For thee I, having dismissed four-toned song, shall sing new hymns to the tune of a seven-stringed cithara.
”²⁹⁸Also Hellanicus the historian, and Cailias, who interpreted Sappho and Alcaeus, were Lesbians. [5]

In the strait between Asia and Lesbos there are about twenty small islands, but according to Timosthenes, forty. They are called Hecatonnesi, a compound name like Peloponnesus, the second letter n being customarily redundant in such compounds, as in the names Myonnesus, Proconnesus, and Halonnesus; and consequently we have Hecatonnesi, which means Apollonnesi, for Apollo is called Hecatus; for along the whole of this coast, as far as Tenedos, Apollo is highly honored, being called Sminthian or Cillaean or Grynian or by some other appellation. Near these islands is Pordoselene, which contains a city of the same name, and also, in front of this city, another island, larger and of the same name, which is uninhabited and has a temple sacred to Apollo. [6]

Some writers, to avoid the indecency of the names, say that in this place we should read "Poroselene," and that we should call Aspordenum, the rocky and barren mountain round Pergamum, "Asporenum," and the temple of the Mother of the gods there the temple of the "Asporene" mother.²⁹⁹ What, then, shall we say of Pordalis and Saperdes and Perdiccas, and of the phrase of Simonides,“banished, 'pordacian' clothes and all,
”instead of "wet" clothes, and, somewhere in the early comedy,“the place is 'pordacian,'
”that is, the place that is "marshy"? Lesbos is equidistant from Tenedos and Lemnos and Chios, one might say rather less than five hundred stadia. 3.

Since the Leleges and the Cilicians were so closely related to the Trojans, people inquire for the reason why they are not included with the Trojans in the Catalogue. But it is reasonable to suppose that because of the loss of their leaders and the sacking of their cities the few Cilicians that were left were placed under the command of Hector, for both Eëtion and his sons are said to have been slain before the Catalogue:³⁰⁰“Verily my father was slain by the goodly Achilles, who utterly sacked the well-peopled city of Cilicians, Thebe of the lofty gates. And the seven brothers of mine in our halls, all these on the same day³⁰¹ went inside the home of Hades, for all were slain by swift-footed, goodly Achilles.
”³⁰²And so, in the same way, those subject to Mynes lost both their leaders and their city:“And he laid low Mynes and Epistrophus, and sacked the city of godlike Mynes.
”³⁰³Hom. Il. 19.296But he makes the Leleges present at the battles when he says as follows:“Towards the sea are situated the Carians and the Paeonians, with curved bows, and the Leleges and Caucones.
”³⁰⁴And again,“he pierced with a sharp spear Satnius, son of Oenops, whom a noble Naiad nymph bore to Oenops, as he tended his herds beside the banks of the Satnioeis;
”³⁰⁵for they had not so completely disappeared that they did not have a separate organization of their own, since their king still survived,“of Altes, who is lord over the war-loving Leleges,
”³⁰⁶and since their city had not been utterly wiped out, for the poet adds,“who holds steep Pedasus on the Satnioeis.
”³⁰⁷However, the poet has omitted them in the Catalogue, not considering their organization sufficient to have a place in it, or else including them under the command of Hector because they were so closely related; for Lycaon, who was a brother of Hector, says,“to a short span of life my mother, daughter of the old man Altes, bore me—Altes who is lord over the war-loving Leleges.
”³⁰⁸Such, then, are the probabilities in this matter. [2]

And it is also a matter of reasoning from probabilities if one inquires as to the exact bounds to which the poet means that the Cilicians extended, and the Pelasgians, and also the Ceteians, as they are called, under the command of Eurypylus, who lived between those two peoples. Now as for the Cilicians and the peoples under the command of Eurypylus, all has been said about them that can be said, and that their country is in a general way bounded by the region of the Caïcus River. As for the Pelasgians, it is reasonable, both from the words of Homer and from history in general, to place them next in order after these peoples; for Homer says as follows:“And Hippothoüs led the tribes of the Pelasgians that rage with the spear, them that dwelt in fertile Larisa; these were ruled by Hippothoüs and Pylaeus, scion of Ares, the two sons of Pelasgian Lethus, son of Teutamus.
”³⁰⁹By these words he clearly indicates that the number of Pelasgians was considerable, for he says "tribes," not "tribe;" and he also specifies their abode as "in Larisa." Now there are many Larisas, but we must interpret him as meaning one of those that were near; and best of all one might rightly assume the one in the neighborhood of Cyme; for of the three Larisas the one near Hamaxitus was in plain sight of Ilium and very near it, within a distance of two hundred stadia, and therefore it could not be said with plausibility that Hippothoüs fell in the fight over Patroclus "far away from" this "Larisa," but rather from the Larisa near Cyme, for the distance between the two is about a thousand stadia. The third Larisa is a village in the territory of Ephesus in the Caÿster Plain; it is said to have been a city in earlier times, containing a temple of Larisaean Apollo and being situated closer to Mt. Tmolus than to Ephesus. It is one hundred and eighty stadia distant from Ephesus, and might therefore be placed under the Maeonians. But the Ephesians, having grown in power, later cut off for themselves much of the territory of the Maeonians, whom we now call Lydians, so that this could not be the Larisa of the Pelasgians either, but rather the one near Cyme. In fact we have no strong evidence that the Larisa in the Caÿster Plain was already in existence at that time, for we have no such evidence as to Ephesus either; but all Aeolian history, which arose but shortly after the Trojan times, bears testimony to the existence of the Larisa near Cyme. [3]

For it is said that the people who set out from Phricium, the Locrian mountain above Thermopylae, put in at the place where Cyme now is, and finding the Pelasgians in bad plight because of the Trojan War, though still in possession of Larisa, which was about seventy stadia distant from Cyme, built on their frontier what is still today called Neon Teichos,³¹⁰ thirty stadia from Larisa, and that, having captured Larisa, they founded Cyme and settled there the survivors. And Cyme is called Cyme Phriconis after the Locrian mountain; and likewise Larisa is called Larisa Phriconis; but Larisa is now deserted. That the Pelasgians were a great tribe is said also to be the testimony of history in general: Menecrates of Elaea, at any rate, in his work On the Founding of Cities, says that the whole of what is now the Ionian coast, beginning at Mycale, as also the neighboring islands, were in earlier times inhabited by Pelasgians. But the Lesbians say that their people were placed under the command of Pylaeus, the man whom the poet calls the ruler of the Pelasgians,³¹¹ and that it is from him that the mountain in their country is still called Pylaeus. The Chians, also, say that the Pelasgians from Thessaly were their founders. But the Pelasgian race, ever wandering and quick to migrate, greatly increased and then rapidly disappeared, particularly at the time of the migration of the Aeolians and Ionians to Asia. [4]

A peculiar thing happened in the case of the Larisaeans, I mean the Caÿstrian and the Phryconian Larisaeans and, third, those in Thessaly: they all held land that was deposited by rivers, by the Caÿster and by the Hermus and by the Peneius. It is at the Phryconian Larisa that Piasus is said to have been honored, who, they say, was ruler of the Pelasgians and fell in love with his daughter Larisa, and, having violated her, paid the penalty for the outrage; for, observing him leaning over a cask of wine, they say, she seized him by the legs, raised him, and plunged him into the cask. Such are the ancient accounts. [5]

To the present Aeolian cities we must add Aegae, and also Temnus, the birthplace of Hermagoras, who wrote The Art of Rhetoric. These cities are situated in the mountainous country that lies above the territory of Cyme and that of the Phocians and that of the Smyrnaeans, along which flows the Hermus. Neither is Magnesia, which was under the command of Sipylus and has been adjudged a free city by the Romans, far from these cities. This city too has been damaged by the recent earthquakes. To the opposite parts, which incline towards the Caïcus, from Larisa across the Hermus to Cyme, the distance is seventy stadia; thence to Myrina, forty stadia; thence to Grynium, the same; and from there to Elaea. But, according to Artemidorus, one goes from Cyme to Adae, and then, forty stadia distant, to a promontory called Hydra, which with the opposite promontory Harmatus forms the Elaïtic Gulf. Now the width of the mouth of this gulf is about eighty stadia, but, including the sinuosities of the gulf, Myrina, an Aeolian city with a harbor, is at a distance of sixty stadia; and then one comes to the Harbor of the Achaeans, where are the altars of the twelve gods; and then to a town Grynium and an altar of Apollo and an ancient oracle and a costly shrine of white marble, to which the distance is forty stadia; and then seventy stadia to Elaea, with harbor and naval station belonging to the Attalic Kings, which was founded by Menestheus and the Athenians who took the expedition with him to Ilium. I have already spoken of the places that come next, those about Pitane and Atarneus and the others in that region. [6]

The largest and best of the Aeolian cities is Cyme; and this with Lesbos might be called the metropolis of the rest of the cities, about thirty in number, of which not a few have disappeared. Cyme is ridiculed for its stupidity, owing to the repute, as some say, that not until three hundred years after the founding of the city did they sell the tolls of the harbor, and that before this time the people did not reap this revenue. They got the reputation, therefore, of being a people who learned late that they were living in a city by the sea. There is also another report of them, that, having borrowed money in the name of the state, they pledged their porticos as security, and then, failing to pay the money on the appointed day, were prohibited from walking in them; when it rained, however, their creditors, through a kind of shame, would bid them through a herald to go under the porticos; so the herald would cry out the words, "Go under the porticos," but the report went abroad that the Cymaeans did not understand that they were to go under the porticos when it rained unless they were given notice by the herald. Ephorus, a man indisputably noteworthy, a disciple of Isocrates the orator, and the author of the Historyand of the work on Inventions, was from this city; and so was Hesiod the poet, still earlier than Ephorus, for Hesiod himself states that his father Dius left Aeolian Cyme and migrated to Boeotia:“And he settled near Helicon in a wretched village, Ascre, which is bad in winter, oppressive in summer, and pleasant at no time.
”³¹² But it is not agreed that Homer was from Cyme, for many peoples lay claim to him. It is agreed, however, that the name of the city was derived from an Amazon, as was Myrina from the Amazon who lies in the Trojan plain below Batieia,“which verily men call Batieia, but the immortals the tomb of much-bounding Myrina.
”³¹³³¹⁴ Ephorus, too, is ridiculed because, though unable to tell of deeds of his native land in his enumeration of the other achievements in history, and yet unwilling that it should be unmentioned, he exclaims as follows:“At about the same time the Cymaeans were at peace.”

Since I have traversed at the same time the Trojan and Aeolian coasts, it would be next in order to treat cursorily the interior as far as the Taurus, observing the same order of approach. 4.

A kind of hegemony is held over these places by Pergamum, which is a famous city and for a long time prospered along with the Attalic kings; indeed I must begin my next description here, and first I must show briefly the origin of the kings and the end to which they came. Now Pergamum was a treasure-hold of Lysimachus, the son of Agathocles, who was one of the successors of Alexander, and its people are settled on the very summit of the mountain; the mountain is cone-like and ends in a sharp peak. The custody of this stronghold and the treasure, which amounted to nine thousand talents, was entrusted to Philetaerus of Tieium, who was a eunuch from boyhood; for it came to pass at a certain burial, when a spectacle was being given at which many people were present, that the nurse who was carrying Philetaerus, still an infant, was caught in the crowd and pressed so hard that the child was incapacitated. He was a eunuch, therefore, but he was well trained and proved worthy of this trust. Now for a time he continued loyal to Lysimachus, but he had differences with Arsinoe, the wife of Lysimachus, who slandered him, and so he caused Pergamum to revolt, and governed it to suit the occasion, since he saw that it was ripe for a change; for Lysimachus, beset with domestic troubles, was forced to slay his son Agathocles, and Seleucus Nicator invaded his country and overthrew him, and then he himself was overthrown and treacherously murdered by Ptolemy Ceraunus. During these disorders the eunuch continued to be in charge of the fortress and to manage things through promises and courtesies in general, always catering to any man who was powerful or near at hand. At any rate, he continued lord of the stronghold and the treasure for twenty years. [2]

He had two brothers, the elder of whom was Eumenes, the younger Attalus. Eumenes had a son of the same name, who succeeded to the rule of Pergamum, and was by this time sovereign of the places round about, so that he even joined battle with Antiochus the son of Seleucus near Sardeis and conquered him. He died after a reign of twenty-two years.³¹⁵ Attalus, the son of Attalus and Antiochis, daughter of Achaeus, succeeded to the throne and was the first to be proclaimed king, after conquering the Galatians in a great battle. Attalus not only became a friend of the Romans but also fought on their side against Philip along with the fleet of the Rhodians. He died in old age, having reigned as king forty-three years;³¹⁶ and he left four sons by Apollonis, a woman from Cyzicus, Eumenes, Attalus, Philetaerus, and Athenaeus. Now the two younger sons remained private citizens, but Eumenes, the elder of the other two, reigned as king. Eumenes fought on the side of the Romans against Antiochus the Great and against Perseus, and he received from the Romans all the country this side the Taurus that had been subject to Antiochus. But before that time the territory of Pergamum did not include many places that extended as far as the sea at the Elaïtic and Adramyttene Gulfs. He built up the city and planted Nicephorium with a grove, and the other elder brother,³¹⁷ from love of splendor, added sacred buildings and libraries and raised the settlement of Pergamum to what it now is. After a reign of forty-nine years³¹⁸ Eumenes left his empire to Attallus, his son by Stratonice, the daughter of Ariathres, king of the Cappadocians. He appointed his brother Attalus³¹⁹ as guardian both of his son, who was extremely young, and of the empire. After a reign of twenty-one years,³²⁰ his brother died an old man, having won success in many undertakings; for example, he helped Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, to defeat in war Alexander, the son of Antiochus, and he fought on the side of the Romans against the Pseudo-Philip, and in an expedition against Thrace he defeated Diegylis the king of the Caeni, and he slew Prusias, having incited his son Nicomedes against him, and he left his empire, under a guardian, to Attalus. Attalus, surnamed Philometor, reigned five years,³²¹ died of disease, and left the Romans his heirs. The Romans proclaimed the country a province, calling it Asia, by the same name as the continent. The Caïcus flows past Pergamum, through the Caïcus Plain, as it is called, traversing land that is very fertile and about the best in Mysia. [3]

Pergamenians have become famous in my time: Mithridates the son of Menodotus and of Adobogion. Menodotus was of the family of the tetrarch of the Galatians, and Adobogion, it is said, was also the concubine of King Mithridates,³²² and for this reason her relatives gave to the child the name of Mithridates, pretending that he was the son of the king. At any rate, he became a friend to the deified Caesar and reached so great preferment with him that he was appointed tetrarch from his mothers family and king both of the Bosporus and other territories. He was overthrown by Asander, who not only slew King Pharnaces but also took possession of the Bosporus. Mithridates, then, has been thought worthy of a great name, as has also Apollodorus the rhetorician, who wrote the work on Rhetoric and was the leader of the Apollodoreian sect, whatever in the world it is; for numerous philosophies were prevalent, but to pass judgment upon them is beyond my power, and among these are the sects of Apollodorus and Theodorus. But the friendship of Caesar Augustus has most of all exalted Apollodorus, who was his teacher in the art of speech. And Apollodorus had a notable pupil in Dionysius, surnamed Atticus, his fellow-citizen, for he was an able sophist and historian and speech-writer. [4]

As one proceeds from the plain and the city towards the east, one comes to a city called Apollonia, which lies on an elevated site, and also, towards the south, to a mountain range, on crossing which, on the road to Sardeis, one comes to Thyateira, on the left-hand side, a settlement of the Macedonians, which by some is called the farthermost city of the Mysians. On the right is Apollonis, which is three hundred stadia distant from Pergamum, and the same distance from Sardeis, and it is named after the Cyzicene Apollonis. Next one comes to the plain of Hermus and to Sardeis. The country to the north of Pergamum is held for the most part by the Mysians, I mean the country on the right of the Abaeïtae, as they are called, on the borders of which is the Epictetus³²³ as far as Bithynia. [5]

Sardeis is a great city, and, though of later date than the Trojan times, is nevertheless old, and has a strong citadel. It was the royal city of the Lydians, whom the poet calls Meïonians; and later writers call them Maeonians, some identifying them with the Lydians and others representing them as different, but it is better to call them the same people. Above Sardeis is situated Mt. Tmolus, a blest mountain, with a look-out on its summit, an arcade of white marble, a work of the Persians, whence there is a view of the plains below all round, particularly the Caÿster Plain. And round it dwell Lydians and Mysians and Macedonians. The Pactolus River flows from Mt. Tmolus; in early times a large quantity of gold-dust was brought down in it, whence, it is said, arose the fame of the riches of Croesus and his descendants. But the gold-dust has given out. The Pactolus runs down into the Hermus, into which also the Hyllus, now called the Phrygius, empties. These three, and other less significant rivers with them, meet and empty into the sea near Phocaea, as Herodotus says.³²⁴ The Hermus rises in Mysia, in the sacred mountain Dindymene, and flows through the Catacecaumene country into the territory of Sardeis and the contiguous plains, as I have already said,³²⁵ to the sea. Below the city lie the plain of Sardeis and that of the Cyrus and that of the Hermus and that of the Caÿster, which are contiguous to one another and are the best of all plains. Within forty stadia from the city one comes to Gygaea,³²⁶ which is mentioned by the poet, the name of which was later changed to Coloe, where is the temple of Coloënian Artemis, which is characterized by great holiness. They say that at the festivals here the baskets dance,³²⁷ though I do not know why in the world they talk marvels rather than tell the truth. [6]

The verses of Homer are about as follows:“Mnesthles and Antiphus, the two sons of Talaemenes, whose mother was Lake Gygaea, who led also the Meïonians, who were born at the foot of Tmolus;
”³²⁸but some add the following fourth verse:“At the foot of snowy Tmolus, in the fertile land of Hyde.
”But there is no Hyde to be found in the country of the Lydians. Some also put Tychius there, of whom the poet says,“far the best of workers in hide, who lived in Hyde.
”³²⁹And they add that the place is woody and subject to strokes of lightning, and that the Arimi live there, for after Homer's verse,“in the land of the Arimi where men say is the couch of Typhon,
”³³⁰they insert the words,“in a wooded place, in the fertile land of Hyde.
”But others lay the scene of this myth in Cilicia, and some lay it in Syria, and still others in the Pithecussae Islands, who say that among the Tyrrhenians "pitheci"³³¹ are called "arimi." Some call Sardeis Hyde, while others call its acropolis Hyde. But the Scepsian³³² thinks that those writers are most plausible who place the Arimi in the Catacecaumene country in Mysia. But Pindar associates the Pithecussae which lie off the Cymaean territory, as also the territory in Sicily, with the territory in Cilicia, for he says that Typhon lies beneath Aetna:“Once he dwelt in a far-famed Cilician cavern; now, however, his shaggy breast is o'er-pressed by the sea-girt shores above Cymae and by Sicily.
”³³³And again,“round about him lies Aetna with her haughty fetters,
”and again,“but it was father Zeus that once amongst the Arimi, by necessity, alone of the gods, smote monstrous Typhon of the fifty heads.
”³³⁴But some understand that the Syrians are Arimi, who are now called the Arimaeans, and that the Cilicians in Troy, forced to migrate, settled again in Syria and cut off for themselves what is now called Cilicia. Callisthenes says that the Arimi, after whom the neighboring mountains are called Arima, are situated near Mt. Calycadnus and the promontory of Sarpedon near the Corycian cave itself. [7]

Near Lake Coloe are the monuments of the kings. At Sardeis is the great mound, on a lofty base, of Alyattes, built, as Herodotus³³⁵ says, by the common people of the city, most of the work on which was done by prostitutes; and he says that all women of that country prostituted themselves; and some call the tomb of Alyattes a monument of prostitution. Some report that Lake Coloe is an artificial lake, made to receive the overflows which take place when the rivers are full. Hypaepa is a city which one comes to on the descent from Mt. Tmolus to the Caÿster Plain. [8]

Callisthenes says that Sardeis was captured first by the Cimmerians, and then by the Treres and the Lycians, as is set forth by Callinus the elegiac poet, and lastly in the time of Cyrus and Croesus. But when Callinus says that the incursion of the Cimmerians was against the Esioneis, at the time of which Sardeis was captured, the Scepsian³³⁶ and his followers surmise that the Asioneis were by Callinus called the Esioneis, in the Ionic dialect; for perhaps Meïonia, he says, was called Asia, and accordingly Homer likewise says,“on the Asian mead about the streams of the Caÿster.
”³³⁷The city was later restored in a notable way because of the fertility of its territory, and was inferior to none of its neighbors, though recently it has lost many of its buildings through earthquakes. However, the forethought of Tiberius, our present ruler, has, by his beneficence, restored not only this city but many others—I mean all the cities that shared in the same misfortune at about the same time. [9]

Notable men of the same family were born at Sardeis: the two Diodoruses, the orators, of whom the elder was called Zonas, a man who many times pleaded the cause of Asia; and at the time of the attack of King Mithridates, he was accused of trying to cause the cities to revolt from him, but in his defence he acquitted himself of the slander. The younger Diodorus, who was a friend of mine, is the author, not only of many historical treatises, but also of melic and other poems, which display full well the ancient style of writing. Xanthus, the ancient historian, is indeed called a Lydian, but whether or not he was from Sardeis I do not know. [10]

After the Lydians come the Mysians; and the city Philadelphia, ever subject to earthquakes. Incessantly the walls of the houses are cracked, different parts of the city being thus affected at different times. For this reason but few people live in the city, and most of them spend their lives as farmers in the country, since they have a fertile soil. Yet one may be surprised at the few, that they are so fond of the place when their dwellings are so insecure; and one might marvel still more at those who founded the city. [11]

After this region one comes to the Catacecaumene country,³³⁸ as it is called, which has a length of five hundred stadia and a breadth of four hundred, whether it should be called Mysia or Meïonia (for both names are used); the whole of it is without trees except the vine that produces the Catacecaumenite wine, which in quality is inferior to none of the notable wines. The surface of the plain is covered with ashes, and the mountainous and rocky country is black, as though from conflagration. Now some conjecture that this resulted from thunderbolts and from fiery subterranean outbursts, and they do not hesitate to lay there the scene of the mythical story of Typhon; and Xanthus adds that a certain Arimus was king of this region; but it is not reasonable to suppose that all that country was burnt all at once by reason of such disturbances, but rather by reason of an earth-born fire, the sources of which have now been exhausted. Three pits are to be seen there, which are called "bellows," and they are forty stadia distant from each other. Above them lie rugged hills, which are reasonably supposed to have been heaped up by the hot masses blown forth from the earth. That such soil should be well adapted to the vine one might assume from the land of Catana, which was heaped with ashes and now produces excellent wine in great plenty. Some writers, judging from places like this, wittily remark that there is good reason for calling Dionysus "Pyrigenes."³³⁹ [12]

The parts situated next to this region towards the south as far as the Taurus are so inwoven with one another that the Phrygian and the Carian and the Lydian parts, as also those of the Mysians, since they merge into one another, are hard to distinguish. To this confusion no little has been contributed by the fact that the Romans did not divide them according to tribes, but in another way organized their jurisdictions, within which they hold their popular assemblies and their courts. Mt. Tmolus is a quite contracted mass of mountain and has only a moderate circumference, its limits lying within the territory of the Lydians themselves; but the Mesogis extends in the opposite direction as far as Mycale, beginning at Celaenae, according to Theopompus. And therefore some parts of it are occupied by the Phrygians, I mean the parts near Celaenae and Apameia, and other parts by Mysians and Lydians, and other parts by Carians and Ionians. So, also, the rivers, particularly the Maeander, form the boundary between some of the tribes, but in cases where they flow through the middle of countries they make accurate distinction difficult. And the same is to be said of the plains that are situated on either side of the mountainous territory and of the river-land. Neither should I, perhaps, attend to such matters as closely as a surveyor must, but sketch them only so far as they have been transmitted by my predecessors. [13]

Contiguous on the east to the Caÿster Plain, which lies between the Mesogis and the Tmolus, is the Cilbian Plain. It is extensive and well settled and has a fertile soil. Then comes the Hyrcanian Plain, a name given it by the Persians, who brought Hyrcanian colonists there (the Plain of Cyrus, like-wise, was given its name by the Persians). Then come the Peltine Plain (we are now in Phrygian territory) and the Cillanian and the Tabene Plains, which have towns with a mixed population of Phrygians, these towns also containing a Pisidian element; and it is after these that the plains themselves were named. [14]

When one crosses over the Mesogis, between the Carians and the territory of Nysa, which latter is a country on the far side of the Maeander extending to Cibyratis and Cabalis, one comes to certain cities. First, near the Mesogis, opposite Laodiceia, to Hierapolis, where are the hot springs and the Plutonium, both of which have something marvellous about them; for the water of the springs so easily congeals and changes into stone that people conduct streams of it through ditches and thus make stone fences³⁴⁰ consisting of single stones, while the Plutonium, below a small brow of the mountainous country that lies above it, is an opening of only moderate size, large enough to admit a man, but it reaches a considerable depth, and it is enclosed by a quadrilateral handrail, about half a plethrum in circumference, and this space is full of a vapour so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground. Now to those who approach the handrail anywhere round the enclosure the air is harmless, since the outside is free from that vapor in calm weather, for the vapor then stays inside the enclosure, but any animal that passes inside meets instant death. At any rate, bulls that are led into it fall and are dragged out dead; and I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and fell. But the Galli,³⁴¹ who are eunuchs, pass inside with such impunity that they even approach the opening, bend over it, and descend into it to a certain depth, though they hold their breath as much as they can (for I could see in their countenances an indication of a kind of suffocating attack, as it were),—whether this immunity belongs to all who are maimed in this way or only to those round the temple, or whether it is because of divine providence, as would be likely in the case of divine obsessions, or whether it is, the result of certain physical powers that are antidotes against the vapor. The changing of water into stone is said also to be the case with the rivers in Laodiceia, although their water is potable. The water at Hierapolis is remarkably adapted also to the dyeing of wool, so that wool dyed with the roots³⁴² rival those dyed with the coccus³⁴³ or with the marine purple.³⁴⁴ And the supply of water is so abundant that the city is full of natural baths. [15]

After Hierapolis one comes to the parts on the far side of the Maeander; I have already described³⁴⁵ those round Laodiceia and Aphrodisias and those extending as far as Carura. The next thereafter are the parts towards the west, I mean the city of the Antiocheians on the Maeander, where one finds himself already in Caria, and also the parts towards the south, I mean Greater Cibyra and Sinda and Cabalis, extending as far as the Taurus and Lycia. Now Antiocheia is a city of moderate size, and is situated on the Maeander itself in the region that lies near Phrygia, and there is a bridge over the river. Antiocheia has considerable territory on each side of the river, which is everywhere fertile, and it produces in greatest quantities the "Antiocheian" dried fig, as it is called, though they also name the same fig "three-leaved." This region, too, is much subject to earthquakes. Among these people arose a famous sophist, Diotrephes, whose complete course was taken by Hybreas, who became the greatest orator of my time. [16]

The Cabaleis are said to be the Solymi; at any rate, the hill that lies above the fortress of the Termessians is called Solymus, and the Termessians themselves are called Solymi. Near by is the Palisade of Bellerophon, and also the tomb of his son Peisander, who fell in the battle against the Solymi. This account agrees also with the words of the poet, for he says of Bellerophon,“next he fought with the glorious Solymi,
”³⁴⁶and of his son,“and Peisander³⁴⁷ his son was slain by Ares, insatiate of war, when he was fighting with the Solymi.
”³⁴⁸Termessus is a Pisidian city, which lies directly above Cibyra and very near it. [17]

It is said that the Cibyratae are descendants of the Lydians who took possession of Cabalis, and later of the neighboring Pisidians, who settled there and transferred the city to another site, a site very strongly fortified and about one hundred stadia in circuit. It grew strong through its good laws; and its villages extended alongside it from Pisidia and the neighboring Milyas as far as Lycia and the Peraea³⁴⁹ of the Rhodians. Three bordering cities were added to it, Bubon, Balbura, and 0enoandon, and the union was called Tetrapolis, each of the three having one vote, but Cibyra two; for Cibyra could send forth thirty thousand footsoldiers and two thousand horse. It was always ruled by tyrants; but still they ruled it with moderation. However, the tyranny ended in the time of Moagetes, when Murena overthrew it and included Balbura and Bubon within the territory of the Lycians. But none the less the jurisdiction of Cibyra is rated among the greatest in Asia. The Cibyratae used four languages, the Pisidian, that of the Solymi, Greek, and that of the Lydians;³⁵⁰ but there is not even a trace of the language of the Lydians in Lydia. The easy embossing of iron is a peculiar thing at Cibyra. Milya is the mountainrange extending from the narrows at Termessus and from the pass that leads over through them to the region inside the Taurus towards Isinda, as far as Sagalassus and the country of the Apameians.