[5] Cremna is occupied by a Roman colony. Sagalassus is under the command of the same Roman governor, to whom all the kingdom of Amyntas is subject. It is distant from Apameia a day's journey, having a descent of nearly 30 stadia from the fortress. It has the name also of Selgessus. It was taken by Alexander. Amyntas made himself master of Cremna and passed into the country of the Homonadeis, who were supposed to be the most difficult to reduce of all the tribes. He had already got into his power most of their strong-holds, and had killed the tyrant himself, when he was taken prisoner by an artifice of the wife of the tyrant, whom he had killed, and was put to death by the people. Cyrinius (Quirinus)1 reduced them by famine and took four thousand men prisoners, whom he settled as inhabitants in the neighbouring cities, but he left no person in the country in the prime of life. Among the heights of Taurus, and in the midst of rocks and precipices for the most part inaccessible, is a hollow and fertile plain divided into several valleys. The inhabitants cultivate this plain, but live among the overhanging heights of the mountains, or in caves. They are for the most part armed, and accustomed to make incursions into the country of other tribes, their own being protected by mountains, which serve as a wall.
1 Sulpitius Quirinus. The Cyrenius ‘governor of Syria’ in St. Luke. Tacitus (Ann. B. iii. c. 48) speaks of his expedition against the Ho- monadeis, and Josephus of his arrival in Syria, where he was sent with Coponius by Augustus.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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