Strabo, Geography

Of this seaboard, then, the first parts are those about Epidamnus and Apollonia. From Apollonia to Macedonia one travels the Egnatian Road, towards the east; it has been measured by Roman miles and marked by pillars as far as Cypsela¹ and the Hebrus² River—a distance of five hundred and thirty-five miles. Now if one reckons as most people do, eight stadia to the mile, there would be four thousand two hundred and eighty stadia, whereas if one reckons as Polybius does, who adds two plethra, which is a third of a stadium, to the eight stadia, one must add one hundred and seventy-eight stadia—the third of the number of miles. And it so happens that travellers setting out from Apollonia and Epidamnus meet at an equal distance from the two places on the same road.³ Now although the road as a whole is called the Egnatian Road, the first part of it is called the Road to Candavia (an Illyrian mountain) and passes through Lychnidus,⁴ a city, and Pylon, a place on the road which marks the boundary between the Illyrian country and Macedonia. From Pylon the road runs to Barnus⁵ through Heracleia⁶ and the country of the Lyncestae and that of the Eordi into Edessa⁷ and Pella⁸ and as far as Thessaloniceia;⁹ and the length of this road in miles, according to Polybius, is two hundred and sixty-seven. So then, in travelling this road from the region of Epidamnus and Apollonia, one has on the right the Epeirotic tribes whose coasts are washed by the Sicilian Sea and extend as far as the Ambracian Gulf,¹⁰ and, on the left, the mountains of Illyrla, which I have already described in detail, and those tribes which live along them and extend as far as Macedonia and the country of the Paeonians. Then, beginning at the Ambracian Gulf, all the districts which, one after another, incline towards the east and stretch parallel to the Peloponnesus belong to Greece; they then leave the whole of the Peloponnesus on the right and project into the Aegaean Sea. But the districts which extend from the beginning of the Macedonian and the Paeonian mountains as far as the Strymon¹¹ River are inhabited by the Macedonians, the Paeonians, and by some of the Thracian mountaineers; whereas the districts beyond the Strymon, extending as far as the mouth of the Pontus and the Haemus, all belong to the Thracians, except the seaboard. This seaboard is inhabited by Greeks, some being situated on the Propontis,¹² others on the Hellespont and the Gulf of Melas,¹³ and others on the Aegaean. The Aegaean Sea washes Greece on two sides: first, the side that faces towards the east and stretches from Sunium,¹⁴ towards the north as far as the Thermaean Gulf¹⁵ and Thessaloniceia, a Macedonian city, which at the present time is more populous than any of the rest; and secondly, the side that faces towards the south, I mean the Macedonian country, extending from Thessaloniceia as far as the Strymon. Some, however, also assign to Macedonia the country that extends from the Strymon as far as the Nestus River,¹⁶ since Philip was so specially interested in these districts that he appropriated them to himself, and since he organized very large revenues from the mines and the other natural resources of the country. But from Sunium to the Peloponnesus lie the Myrtoan, the Cretan, and the Libyan Seas, together with their gulfs, as far as the Sicilian Sea; and this last fills out the Ambracian, the Corinthian, and the Crisaean¹⁷ Gulfs.