[19]
Alongside Samos lies the island Icaria, whence was derived the name of the Icarian Sea. This island is named after Icarus the son of Daedalus, who, it is said, having joined his father in flight, both being furnished with wings, flew away from Crete and fell here, having lost control of their course; for, they add, on rising too close to the sun, his wings slipped off, since the wax1 melted. The whole island is three hundred stadia in perimeter; it has no harbors, but only places of anchorage, the best of which is called Histi.2 It has a promontory which extends towards the west. There is also on the island a temple of Artemis, called Tauropolium; and a small town Oenoe; and another small town Dracanum, bearing the same name as the promontory on which it is situated and having near by a place of anchorage. The promontory is eighty stadia distant from the promontory of the Samians called Cantharius, which is the shortest distance between the two. At the present time, however, it has but few inhabitants left, and is used by Samians mostly for the grazing of cattle.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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