Strabo, Geography
H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., Ed.

Having described the parts of the before-mentioned Chersonesus without the Taurus, I must add these particulars.

Apollodorus, in his work on the catalogue of the ships mentioned in Homer, relates, that all the allies of the Trojans, who came from Asia, inhabited, according to the poet, the peninsula of which at its narrowest part is the isthmus between the innermost recess of the bay at Sinope and Issus. The exterior sides (of this peninsula), which is of a triangular shape, are unequal. Of these, one extends from Cilicia to Chelidoniæ, (islands,) another thence to the mouth of the Euxine, and the third from the mouth of the Euxine to Sinope.

The assertion that the allies were only those who occupied the peninsula may be proved to be erroneous by the same arguments by which we before showed that those who lived within the Halys were not the only allies. For the places about Pharnacia, where we said the Halizoni lived, are situated without the Halys, and also without the isthmus, for they are without the line drawn from Sinope to Issus;¹ and not only without this line, but also without the true line of the isthmus drawn from Amisus to Issus; for Apollodorus incorrectly describes the isthmus and the line of its direction, substituting one line for another (the line drawn from Sinope to Issus for the line drawn from Amisus to Issus).

But the greatest absurdity is this, that after having said that the peninsula was of a triangular shape, he speaks of three exterior sides. For in speaking of exterior sides, he seems to except the line of the isthmus itself, considering it still a side, although not an exterior side, from its not being upon the sea. But if this line were so shortened that the extremities of the (exterior) sides falling upon Issus and Sinope nearly coincided, the peninsula might in that case be said to be of a triangular shape; but as his own line (from Sinope to Issus) is 3000 stadia in length, it would be ignorance, and not a knowledge of chorography, to call such a four-sided figure a triangle. Yet he published a work on Chorography, in the metre of comedy, (Iambic metre,) entitled ‘The Circuit of the Earth.’

He is still liable to the same charge of ignorance, even if we should suppose the isthmus to be contracted to its least dimensions, and follow writers who erroneously estimate the distance at one-half of the sum, namely 1500 stadia, to which it is reduced by Artemidorus; but even this would not by any means reduce the thus contracted space to the figure of a triangle.

Besides, Artemidorus has not correctly described the exterior sides; one side, he says, extends from Issus to the Chelidoniæ islands, although the whole Lycian coast, and the country opposite to Rhodes as far as Physcus, lies in a straight line with, and is a continuation of it; the continent then makes a bend at Physcus, and forms the commencement of the second or western side, extending to the Propontis and Byzantium.