CHAPTER III.
SINCE there subsisted so great an affinity among the Leleges and Cilicians with the Trojans, the reason is asked, why these people are not included in Homer's Catalogue. Perhaps it is that, on account of the loss of their leaders and the devastation of the cities, the few Cilicians that were left placed themselves under the command of Hector. For Eetion and his sons are said to have been killed before the Catalogue is mentioned; “ The hero Achilles,” says Andromache, “‘killed my father, and destroyed Thebe, with its lofty gates, the city of the Cilicians.’— ‘I had seven brothers in the palace; all of them went in one day to Hades, for they were all slain by the swift-footed divine Achilles.’Il. vi. 414, 421.” Those also under the command of Mynes had lost their leaders, and their city;
He describes the Leleges as present at the battles; when he says, “‘on the sea-coast are Carians, and Pæonians with curved bows, Leleges, and Caucones.’2” And in another place, “‘he killed Satnius with a spear—the son of Enops, whom a beautiful nymph Neis bore to Enops, when he was tending herds near the banks of Satnioeis,’3” for they had not been so completely annihilated as to prevent their forming a body of people of themselves, since their king still survived,“ He slew Mynes, and Epistrophus,
”
And destroyed the city of the divine Mynes.1Il. ii. 692; xix. 296.
nor was the city entirely razed, for he adds,“ Altes, king of the war-loving Leleges,4
”Il. xxi. 86.
He has passed them over in the Catalogue, not considering the body of people large enough to have a place in it; or he comprised them among the people under the command of Hector, as being allied to one another. For Lycaon, the brother of Hector, says, “‘my mother Laothoë, daughter of the old Altes, brought me into the world to live but a short time; of Altes, king of the war-loving Leleges.’6” Such is the reasoning, from probability, which this subject admits. [2] We reason from probability when we endeavour to determine by the words of the poet the exact bounds of the territory of the Cilicians, Pelasgi, and of the people situated between them, namely, the Ceteii, who were under the command of Eurypylus. We have said of the Cilicians and of the people under the command of Eurypylus what can be said about them, and that they are bounded by the country near the Caïcus. It is agreeable to probability to place the Pelasgi next to these people, according to the words of Homer and other histories. Homer says, “‘Hippothous led the tribes of the Pelasgi, who throw the spear, who inhabited the fertile Larisa; their leaders were Hippothous and Pylæus, a son of Mars, both sons of Lethus the Pelasgian, son of Teutamis.’7” He here represents the numbers of Pelasgi as considerable, for he does not speak of them as a tribe, but ‘tribes,’ and specifies the place of their settlement, Larisa. There are many places of the name of Larisa, but we must understand some one of those near the Troad, and perhaps we might not be wrong in supposing it to be that near Cyme; for of three places of the name of Larisa, that near Hamaxitus is quite in sight of Ilium and very near it, at the distance of about 200 stadia, so that Hippothous could not be said consistently with probability to fall, in the contest about Patroclus,“ who commanded the lofty city Pedasus on the Satnioeis.5
”Il. xxi. 87.
at least from this Larisa, but rather from the Larisa near Cyme, for there are about 1000 stadia between them. The third Larisa is a village in the Ephesian district in the plain of the Caÿster; which, it is said, was formerly a city containing a temple of Apollo Larisæus, and situated nearer to Mount Tmolus than to Ephesus. It is distant from Ephesus 180 stadia, so that it might be placed rather under the government of the Mæonians. The Ephesians, having afterwards acquired more power, deprived the Mæonians, whom we now call Lydians, of a large part of their territory; but not even this, but the other rather, would be the Larisa of the Pelasgi. F o w e have no strong evidence that the Larisa in the plain of Caÿster was in existence at that time, nor even of the existence of Ephesus. But all the Æolian history, relating to a period a little subsequent to the Trojan times, proves the existence of the Larisa near Cyme. [3] It is said that the people who set out from Phricium, a Locrian mountain above Thermopylæ, settled on the spot where Cyme is now situated; and finding the Pelasgi, who had been great sufferers in the Trojan war, yet still in possession of Larisa, distant about 70 stadia from Cyme, erected as a defence against them what is at present called Neon-teichos, (or the New Wall,) 30 stadia from Larisa. They took Larisa,9 founded Cyme, and transferred to it as settlers the surviving Pelasgi. Cyme is called Cyme Phriconis from the Locrian mountain, and Larisa also (Phriconis): it is now deserted. That the Pelasgi were a great nation, history, it is said, furnishes other evidence. For Menecrates of Elæa, in his work on the foundation of cities, says, that the whole of the present Ionian coast, beginning from Mycale and the neighbouring islands, were formerly inhabited by Pelasgi. But the Lesbians say, that they were commanded by Pylæus, who is called by the poet the chief of the Pelasgi, and that it was from him that the mountain in their country had the name of Pylæmem. The Chians also say, that the Pelasgi from Thessaly were their founders. The Pelasgi, however, were a nation disposed to wander, ready to remove from settlement to settlement, and experienced both a great increase and a sudden diminution of strength and numbers, particularly at the time of the Æolian and Ionian migrations to Asia. [4] Something peculiar took place among the Larisæans in the plain of the Cayster, in the Phriconis, and in Thessaly. All of them occupied a country, the soil of which has been accumulated by rivers, by the Caÿster,10 the Hermus,11 and the Peneus.12 At Larisa Phriconis Piasus is said to receive great honours. He was chief of the Pelasgi, and enamoured, it is said, of his daughter Larisa, whom he violated, and was punished for the outrage. She discovered him leaning over a cask of wine, seized him by his legs, lifted him up, and dropped him down into the vessel. These are ancient accounts. [5] To the present Æolian cities we must add Ægæ and Temnus, the birth-place of Hermagoras, who wrote a book on the Art of Rhetoric. These cities are on the mountainous country which is above the district of Cyme, and that of the Phocæans and Smyrnæans, beside which flows the Hermus. Not far from these cities is Magnesia under Sipylus, made a free city by a decree of the Romans. The late earthquakes have injured this place. To the opposite parts, which incline towards the Caïcus to Cyme from Larisa, in passing to which the river Hermus is crossed, are 70 stadia; thence to Myrina 40 stadia; thence to Grynium 40 stadia, and thence to Elæa. But, according to Artemidorus, next to Cyme is Adæ; then, at the distance of 40 stadia, a promontory, which is called Hydra, and forms the Elaïtic Gulf with the opposite promontory Harmatus. The breadth of the entrance is about 80 stadia, including the winding of the bays. Myrina, situated at 60 stadia, is an Æolian city with a harbour, then the harbour of Achæans, where are altars of the twelve gods; next is Grynium, a small city [of the Myrinæans], a temple of Apollo, an ancient oracle, and a costly fane of white marble. To Myrina are 40 stadia; then 70 stadia to Elæa, which has a harbour and a station for vessels of the Attalic kings, founded by Menestheus and the Athenians who accompanied him in the expedition against Ilium. The places about Pitane, and Atarneus, and others in this quarter, which follow Elæa, have been already described. [6] Cyme is the largest and best of the Æolian cities. This and Lesbos may be considered the capitals of the other cities, about 30 in number, of which not a few exist no longer. The inhabitants of Cyme are ridiculed for their stupidity, for, according to some writers, it is said of them that they only began to let the tolls of the harbour three hundred years after the foundation of their city, and that before this time the town had never received any revenue of the kind; hence the report that it was late before they perceived that they inhabited a city lying on the sea. There is another story, that, having borrowed money in the name of the state, they pledged their porticos as security for the payment of it. Afterwards, the money not having been repaid on the appointed day, they were prohibited from walking in them. The creditors, through shame, gave notice by the crier whenever it rained, that the inhabitants might take shelter under the porticos. As the crier called out, ‘Go under the porticos,’ a report prevailed that the Cymæans did not perceive that they were to go under the porticos when it rained unless they had notice from the public crier.13 Ephorus, a man indisputably of high repute, a disciple of Isocrates the orator, was a native of this city. He was an historian, and wrote the book on Inventions. Hesiod the poet, who long preceded Ephorus, was a native of this place, for he himself says, that his father Dius left Cyme in Æolis and migrated to the Bœotians; “‘he dwelt near Helicon in Ascra, a village wretched in winter, in summer oppressive, and not pleasant at any season.’” It is not generally admitted that Homer was from Cyme, for many dispute about him. The name of the city was derived from an Amazon, as that of Myrina was the name of an Amazon, buried under the Batieia in the plain of Troy; “‘men call this Batieia; but the immortals, the tomb of the bounding Myrina.’14” Ephorus is bantered, because, having no achievements of his countrymen to commemorate among the other exploits in his history, and yet being unwilling to pass them over unnoticed, he exclaims, “ at this time the Cymæans were at peace.“ far from Larisa8
”Il. xvii. 301.
” After having described the Trojan and Æolian coasts, we ought next to notice cursorily the interior of the country as far as Mount Taurus, observing the same order.
