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[3]

Acte1 is washed by two seas; it is narrow at first, and then it widens out into the interior,2 though none the less it takes a crescent-like bend towards Oropus in Boeotia, with the convex side towards the sea; and this is the second, the eastern side of Attica. Then comes the remaining side, which faces the north and extends from the Oropian country towards the west as far as Megaris—I mean the mountainous part of Attica, which has many names and separates Boeotia from Attica; so that, as I have said before,3 Boeotia, since it has a sea on either side, becomes an isthmus of the third peninsula above-mentioned, an isthmus comprising within it the parts that lie towards the Peloponnesus, that is, Megaris and Attica. And it is on this account, they say, that the country which is now, by a slight change of letters, called Attica, was in ancient times called Acte and Actice,4 because the greatest part of it lies below the mountains, stretches flat along the sea, is narrow, and has considerable length, projecting as far as Sunium. I shall therefore describe these sides, resuming again at that point of the seaboard where I left off.

1 That is, Attica; not to be confused with the Acte in Argolis, mentioned in 9. l. 1.

2 i.e., the interior plain of Attica.

3 9. 1. 1, 8. 1. 3.

4 i.e., Shoreland.

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load focus Greek (1877)
load focus English (H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., 1903)
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