# The Geography of Strabo/Book 7

WS Note: the sections can be linked, ex. …/Book 7#3:10 links to secton 10 of Chapter III.
Chapters: I – II – III – IV – V – VI – VII
SUMMARY.
CHAPTER I.
1. WE have described Spain and the Keltic nations, together with Italy and the islands adjacent, and must now speak of the remaining portions of Europe, dividing it in the best way we can. That which remains is, on the east, all the country beyond the Rhine, as far as the Don and the mouth of the Sea of Azof; and, on the south, that which the Danube bounds, lying between the Adriatic and the left shores of the Euxine, as far as Greece and the Sea of Marmora, for the Danube, which is the largest of the rivers of Europe, divides the whole territory of which we have spoken, into two portions. This river from its commencement flows southwards, then, making a sudden turn, continues its course from west to east, which [terminates] in the Euxine Sea. It takes its rise in the western confines of Germany, not far from the head of the Adriatic, being distant from it about 1000 stadia, and falls into the Euxine near the mouths of the Dniester and the Dnieper, inclining a little towards the north. Thus the countries beyond the Rhine and Keltica are situated to the north of the Danube, and are occupied by the ​Galatic and German tribes, as far as the territory of the Bastarnæ, the Tyregetæ, and the river Dnieper; so also is the country situated between the Dnieper, the Don, and the mouth of the Sea of Azof, which on one side stretches back as far as the [Northern] Ocean, and on another is washed by the Euxine. To the south of the Danube are situated the people of Illyria and Thrace, and mixed with them certain tribes of Kelts and other races, extending as far as Greece.
We will first speak of those nations to the north of the Danube, for their history is less involved than that of the tribes situated on the other side of the river.
2. Next after the Keltic nations come the Germans who inhabit the country to the east beyond the Rhine; and these differ but little from the Keltic race, except in their being more fierce, of a larger stature, and more ruddy in countenance; but in every other respect, their figure, their customs and manners of life, are such as we have related of the Kelts. The Romans therefore, I think, have very appositely applied to them the name “Germani,” as signifying genuine; for in the Latin language Germani signifies genuine.
3. The first division of this country is the land extending along the Rhine from its source to its embouchure. Indeed, the valley of that river extends nearly as far as the whole breadth of Germany on the west. Of the people who occupied this country, some have been transplanted by the Romans into Keltica, the others have retired to the interior, as the Marsi; there are but few remaining, and some portion of them ​are Sicambri; next to the inhabitants of this valley succeeds the tribe dwelling between the Rhine and the river Elbe, which river flows towards the ocean in a direction nearly parallel with the Rhine, and traversing a country of no less extent. There are also between these other navigable rivers, such as the Ems, on which Drusus defeated the Bructeri in a naval engagement; all likewise flowing from south to north, and falling into the ocean; for the whole country rises towards the south, and forms a ridge of mountains near the Alps, which extends eastward as though it were a continuation of the Alps; and some have even so described it, as well on account of its position as because it produces the same system of vegetation; nevertheless, the altitude of this ridge in no part equals that of the Alps. Here is situated the Hercynian Wood, and the tribes of the Suevi, some of whom inhabit the forest, as do likewise some of the Quadi. Among these latter people is situated Bujæmum, the royal city of Marobodus, whither he has assembled many strangers and many of the Marcomanni, a kindred nation with his own. This Marobodus, from a private station, raised himself to the administration of affairs after his return from Rome. For he went to that city while a youth, and was patronized by Augustus. After he came home, he acquired the sovereignty of his country, and added to the people I have enumerated, the Luji, a powerful nation, and the Zumi, and the Gutones ​and Mugilones and Sibini, besides the Semnones, another considerable tribe of the Suevi. As I have previously stated, a portion of the Suevi dwells within the Forest, while another portion occupies the territory beyond, on the frontiers of the Getæ; wherefore the nation of the Suevi is the most considerable, as it extends from the Rhine as far as the Elbe, and even a part of them, as the Hermonduri and the Langobardi, inhabit the country beyond the Elbe; but at the present time these tribes, having been defeated, have retired entirely beyond the Elbe. All these nations easily change their abode, on account of the scantiness of provisions, and because they neither cultivate the lands nor accumulate wealth, but dwell in miserable huts, and satisfy their wants from day to day, the most part of their food being supplied by the herd, as amongst the nomade races, and in imitation of them they transfer their households in waggons, wandering with their cattle to any place which may appear most advantageous. There are many other smaller German tribes, as the Cherusci, Chatti, Gamabrivi, Chattuarii, and next the ocean the Sicambri, Chaubi, Bructeri, Cimbri, Cauci, Caulci, Campsiani, and many others.
In the same direction with the Ems, the Weser and the river Lippe take their course, the latter, distant about 600 stadia from the Rhine, flows through the territory of the Lesser Bructeri. And there is also the river Sala, between which and the Rhine Drusus Germanicus died, whilst in the midst of his victories. He not only subdued the greater part of the German tribes, but also the islands on the coast he passed along, one amongst which is Byrchanis, which he took by siege.
4. All these nations became known through their wars with ​the Romans, at one time submitting, at another revolting and quitting their habitations; and we should have become acquainted with a greater number of their tribes, if Augustus had permitted his generals to pass the Elbe, in pursuit of those who had fled thither; but he considered the war on hand would be more easily brought to a conclusion, if he left the people on the other side of the Elbe unmolested, and not by attacking provoke them to make common cause with his enemies.
The Sicambri inhabiting the country next the Rhine were the first to commence the war, under the conduct of their leader, Melon; other nations afterwards followed their example, at one time being victorious, at another defeated, and again recommencing hostilities, without regard to hostages or the faith of treaties. Against these people mistrust was the surest defence; for those who were trusted effected the most mischief. For example, the Cherusci, and those who were subject to them, amongst whom three Roman legions with their general, Quintilius Varus, perished by ambush, in violation of the truce; nevertheless all have received punishment for this perfidy, which furnished to Germanicus the Younger the opportunity of a most brilliant triumph, he leading publicly as his captives the most illustrious persons, both men and women, amongst whom were Segimuntus, the son of Segestes, the chief of the Cherusci, and his sister, named Thusnelda, the wife of Armenius, who led on the Cherusci when they treacherously attacked Quintilius Varus, and even to this day continues the war; likewise his son Thumelicus, a boy three years old, as also Sesithacus, the son of Segimerus, chief of the Cherusci, and his wife Rhamis, the daughter of Ucromirus, chief of the Chatti, and Deudorix, the son of Bætorix, the brother of Melon, of the nation of the Sicambri; but Segestes, the father-in-law of Armenius, from the commencement opposed the designs of his son-in-law, and taking advantage of a favourable opportunity, went over to the Roman camp and witnessed the triumphal procession over ​those who were dearest to him, he being held in honour by the Romans. There was also led in triumph Libes the priest of the Chatti, and many other prisoners of the various vanquished nations, the Cathylci and the Ampsani, the Bructeri, the Usipi, the Cherusci, the Chatti, the Chattuarii, the Landi, he Tubattii.
The Rhine is distant from the Elbe about 3000 stadia, if one could travel in a direct line; but we are compelled to go a circuitous route, on account of the windings of the marshes and the woods.
5. The Hercynian Forest is extremely dense, and overgrown with very large trees, covering an immense circuit of country, fortified by nature. In the midst of it is situated the region well suited for habitation, of which we have spoken. Near this forest are the sources of the Danube and the Rhine, and the lake situated between these, together with the marshes formed by the Rhine. The circuit of the lake is more than 300 stadia, and the distance across about 200. In this lake is an island which served Tiberius as an arsenal, in the naval war with the Vindelici. This lake is south of the sources of the Danube and the Hercynian Forest, so that in passing from Keltica to the forest, one has first to cross the lake, then the Danube, and afterwards by a more passable country, and over elevated plains, you approach the forest. When Tiberius had proceeded but one day’s journey from the lake, he came in sight of the sources of the Danube.
The territory of the Rhæti borders some portion of this lake, but the greater part of the shores belong to the Helvetii ​and Vindelici, [the Norici come next after the Vindelici in an easterly direction,] and the desert of the Boii. The nations as far as the Pannonians, but more especially the Helvetii and Vindelici, inhabit high table lands. The Rhæti and the Norici, verging towards Italy, extend over the very summits of the Alps; the former confining with the Insubri, the latter the Carni, and the districts about Aquileia. There is likewise another great forest, named Gabreta, on this side the territory of the Suevi, while beyond them lies the Hercynian Wood, which also is in their possession.
CHAPTER II.
1. SOME of the accounts which we receive respecting the Cimbri are not worthy of credit, while others seem likely enough: for instance, no one could accept the reason given for their wandering life and piracy, that, dwelling on a peninsula, they were driven out of their settlements by a very high tide; for they still to this day possess the country which they had in former times, and have sent as a present to ​Augustus the caldron held most sacred by them, supplicating his friendship, and an amnesty for past offences; and having obtained their request, they returned home. Indeed, it would have been ridiculous for them to have departed from their country in a pet, on account of a natural and constant phenomenon, which recurs twice every day. It is likewise evidently a fiction, that there ever occurred an overwhelming flood-tide, for the ocean, in the influences of this kind which it experiences, receives a certain settled and periodical increase and decrease. Neither is it true, as has been related, that the Cimbri take arms against the flood-tides, or that the Kelts, as an exercise of their intrepidity, suffer their houses to be washed away by them, and afterwards rebuild them; and that a greater number of them perish by water than by war, as Ephorus relates. For the regular order the flood-tides observe, and the notoriety of the extent of the country subject to inundation by them, could never have given occasion for such absurd actions. For the tide flowing twice every day, how could any one think for an instant that it was not a natural and harmless phenomenon, and that it occurs not only on their coasts, but on all others bordering on the ocean? Is not this quite incredible? Neither is Clitarchus to be trusted, when he says that their cavalry, on seeing the sea flowing in, rode off at full speed, and yet scarcely escaped by flight from being overtaken by the flood; for we know, by experience, that the tide does not come in with such impetuosity, but that the sea advances stealthily by slow degrees. And we should think, besides, that a phenomenon of daily occurrence, which would naturally strike the ear of such as ​approached it, before even they could see it with their eyes, could not by any means terrify them so as to put them to flight, as if they had been surprised by some unexpected catastrophe.
2. For such fables as these, Posidonius justly blames these writers, and not inaptly conjectures that the Cimbri, on account of their wandering life and habits of piracy, might have made an expedition as far as the countries around the Palus Mæotis, and that from them has been derived the name of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, or what we should more correctly denominate the Cimbrian Bosphorus, for the Greeks call the Cimbri Cimmerii.
He likewise tells us that the Boii formerly inhabited the Hercynian Forest, and that the Cimbri, having made an incursion into those parts, were repulsed by them, and driven towards the Danube, and the country occupied by the Scordisci, a Galatic tribe, and from thence to the Tauristæ, or Taurisci, a people likewise of Galatic origin, and farther to the Helvetii, who were at that time a rich and peaceful people; but, perceiving that the wealth of these freebooters far exceeded their own, the Helvetii, and more especially the Tigureni and the Toygeni, associated themselves with their expeditions. But both the Cimbri and their auxiliaries were vanquished by the Romans, the one part when they crossed the Alps and came down upon Italy, the others on the other side of the Alps.
3. It is reported that the Cimbri had a peculiar custom. They were accompanied in their expeditions by their wives; these were followed by hoary-headed priestesses, clad in white, with cloaks of carbasus fastened on with clasps, girt with brazen girdles, and bare-footed. These individuals, bearing drawn swords, went to meet the captives throughout the camp, and, having crowned them, led them to a brazen vessel containing about 20 amphoræ, and placed on a raised ​platform, which one of the priestesses having ascended, and holding the prisoner above the vessel, cut his throat; then, from the manner in which the blood flowed into the vessel, some drew certain divinations; while others, having opened the corpse, and inspected the entrails, prophesied victory to their army. In battle too they beat skins stretched on the wicker sides of chariots, which produces a stunning noise.
4. As we have before stated, the northernmost of the Germans inhabit a country bordering on the ocean; but we are only acquainted with those situated between the mouths of the Rhine and the Elbe, of which the Sicambri and Cimbri are the most generally known; those dwelling along the coast beyond the Elbe are entirely unknown to us; for none of the ancients with whom I am acquainted have prosecuted this voyage towards the east as far as the mouths of the Caspian Sea, neither have the Romans as yet sailed coastwise beyond the Elbe, nor has any one travelling on foot penetrated farther into this country. But it is evident, by the climates and the parallels of distances, that in following a longitudinal course towards the east we must come to the countries near the Dnieper, and the regions on the north side of the Euxine. But as for any particulars as to Germany beyond the Elbe, or of the countries which lie beyond it in order, whether we should call them the Bastarnæ, as most geographers suppose, or whether other nations intervene, such as the Jazyges, or the Roxolani, or any others of the tribes dwelling in waggons, it is not easy to give any account. Neither can we say whether these nations extend as far as the [Northern] Ocean, along the whole distance, or whether [between them and the Ocean] there are countries rendered unfit for habitation by the cold or by any other cause; or whether men of a different race are situated between the sea and the most eastern of the Germans.
The same uncertainty prevails with regard to the other ​nations of the north, for we know neither the Bastarnæ nor the Sauromatæ; nor, in a word, any of those tribes situate above the Euxine: we are ignorant as to what distance they lie from the Atlantic, or even whether they extend as far as that sea.
CHAPTER III.
1. As to the southern part of Germany beyond the Elbe, the country which adjoins the bank of that river is now occupied by the Suevi. Next lies the country of the Getæ, at first narrow, its southern side extends along the Danube, and the opposite side along the mountains of the Hercynian Forest, even including part of those mountains, it then becomes broader towards the north, and extends as far as the Tyregetæ; however, we are unable to declare its boundaries with accuracy; and it is on account of our ignorance of these places that those who relate fables of the Riphæan mountains and the Hyperboreans have received credit; as also that which Pytheas of Marseilles has forged concerning the countries bordering on the Northern Ocean, making use of his acquaintance with astronomy and mathematics to fabricate his false narration: let us therefore pass over them; as also what Sophocles, speaking of Orithya in one of his tragedies, says, that she, being snatched by the north wind, was carried
This is of no value to our present inquiry, but must be omitted, as Socrates has done in the Phædrus of Plato. We will relate only what we have learnt from ancient accounts, and the reports made in our times.
For if any one should understand them as the Mysians of Asia, the expression of the poet would not be fitting. For this would be, that having turned his eyes from the Trojans towards the land of the Thracians, he beheld at the same time the land of the Mysians, situated not far off from where he was, but conterminous with the Troad, rather behind it and on either side, but separated from Thrace by the breadth of the Hellespont. This would be to confound the continents, and at the same time to disregard the form of the poet’s expression. For “to turn his eyes again,” is more especially to turn them behind him; but he who extends his vision from the Trojans to the people either behind them, or on either side of them, stretches his sight to a greater distance, but not in the least behind him. And this also is introduced as a proof of this very thing, that Homer classes with these the Hippemolgi, the Galactophagi, and the Abii, who are the Scythian Hamaxœci and Sarmatians; for at this day, all these nations, as well as the Bastarnæ, are mixed with the Thracians, more especially with those beyond the Danube, and some even with ​the Thracians on this side the Danube; also amongst these are the Keltic tribes of the Boii, Scordisci, and Taurisci. Some, indeed, call the Scordisci the Scordistæ, and give to the Taurisci the names of Ligurisci and Tauristæ.
These he designates as “without life,” more particularly on account of their living without wives, considering their solitary state as but a half life; in the same way as he likewise designates the house of Protesilaus “imperfect,” on account of the bereavement of his widow; in the same manner he applies to the Mysians the epithet of “close-fighting,” on account of their being invincible, like good warriors. [Finally, Posidonius pretends] that in the thirteenth book of the Iliad we ought to substitute for “the close-fighting Mysians,” [“the close-fighting Mœsi.”]
4. Nevertheless it would perhaps be superfluous to change the text [of Homer], which has stood the test of so many years. For it appears more probable to suppose that the people were anciently called Mysians, but that their name is now altered. Further, any one would suppose that the Abii were no more so named from being unmarried than from their being houseless, or their dwelling in waggons. ​In fact, as injustice is ordinarily committed in matters relative to bonds for money and the acquisition of wealth, it would be natural that the people living so frugally on such small property should be called [by Homer] the justest of mankind: and the more so as the philosophers who place justice next to moderation, aim at independence of others and frugality as amongst the most desirable objects of attainment; from which however some, having passed the bounds of moderation, have wandered into a cynical mode of life. But [the words of the poet] sanction no such assertion of the Thracians, and the Getæ in particular, that they live without wives. But see what Menander says of these people, not out of his own imagination, as it should seem, but deriving it from history. “All the Thracians truly, and especially above all others we Getæ, (for I myself glory in being descended from this race,) are not very chaste.”
And a little after he gives examples of their rage for women. “For there is no one among us who marries fewer than ten or eleven wives, and some have twelve, or even more. If any one loses his life who has only married four or five wives, he is lamented by us as unfortunate, and one deprived of the pleasures of Hymen.”
Such a one would be accounted as unmarried amongst them. These things are likewise confirmed by the evidence of other historians. And it is not likely that the same people should regard as an unhappy life that which is passed without the enjoyment of many women, and at the same time regard as a dignified and holy life that which is passed in celibacy without any women. But that those living without wives should be considered holy, and termed Capnobatæ, is entirely opposed to our received opinions; for all agree in regarding women as the authors of devotion to the gods, and it is they ​who induce the men by their example to a more attentive worship of the gods, and to the observance of feast-days and supplications; for scarcely is there found a man living by himself who pays any regard to such matters. And again attend to the words of the same poet when he speaks in one of his characters, bringing in a man disgusted with the expenses of the sacrifices of the women. “The gods weary us indeed, but especially our married men, who are always obliged to celebrate some feast.”
And his Misogynes, complaining of the same things, exclaims, “We sacrificed five times a day, while seven female slaves ranged in a circle played on the cymbals, and others raised their suppliant cries.”
It would therefore seem absurd to suppose that only those among the Getæ who remained without wives were considered pious, but that the care of worshipping the Supreme Being is great among this nation is not to be doubted, after what Posidonius has related, “and they even abstain from animal food from religious motives,” as likewise on account of the testimony of other historians.
5. For it is said that one of the nation of the Getæ, named Zamolxis, had served Pythagoras, and had acquired with this philosopher some astronomical knowledge, in addition to what he had learned from the Egyptians, amongst whom he had travelled. He returned to his own country, and was highly esteemed both by the chief rulers and the people, on account of his predictions of astronomical phenomena, and eventually persuaded the king to unite him in the government, as an organ of the will of the gods. At first he was chosen a priest of the divinity most revered by the Getæ, but afterwards was esteemed as a god, and having retired into a district of caverns, inaccessible and unfrequented by other ​men, he there passed his life, rarely communicating with anybody except the king and his ministers. The king himself assisted him to play his part, seeing that his subjects obeyed him more readily than formerly, as promulgating his ordinances with the counsel of the gods. This custom even continues to our time; for there is always found some one of this character who assists the king in his counsels, and is styled a god by the Getæ. The mountain likewise [where Zamolxis retired] is held sacred, and is thus distinguished, being named Cogæonus, as well as the river which flows by it; and at the time when Byrebistus, against whom divus Cæsar prepared an expedition, reigned over the Getæ, Decæneus held that honour: likewise the Pythagorean precept to abstain from animal food, which was originally introduced by Zamolxis, is still observed to a great extent.
“I came to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the Arabians.”
Indeed we ought not to be surprised at meeting with this in Homer, for those who have lived at a more recent period than he did, have been ignorant of many things, and have told strange tales. Hesiod has talked of Hemicynes, Megalocephali, and Pygmies; Alcman of Steganopodes; Æschylus of Cynocephali, Sternophthalmi, and Monommati, (they say it is in his Prometheus,) and ten thousand other absurdities. From these he proceeds to censure the writers who talk of ​the Riphæan Mountains and Mount Ogyium, and the dwelling of the Gorgons and the Hesperides, the land of Meropis mentioned by Theopompus, Cimmeris, a city mentioned in Hecatæus, the land of Panchasa mentioned by Euhemerus, and the river-stones formed of sand mentioned by Aristotle, which were dissolved by rain-showers. Further, that there exists in Africa a city of Bacchus which no one can find twice. He likewise reproves those who assert that the wanderings of Ulysses mentioned in Homer were in the neighbourhood of Sicily, for again, if we should say that the wanderings did take place in those parts, we should have to confess that the poet transferred them to the ocean for the sake of making his account the more romantic. Some allowance might be made for others, but no manner of excuse can be put forward for Callimachus, who pretends to the character of a critic, and yet supposes that Gaudus was the island of Calypso, and identifies Scheria with Corcyra. Other writers he blames for misstatements as to Gerena, Acacesium, and ​the Demus in Ithaca, Pelethronium in Pelium, and the Glaucopium at Athens. With these and a few similar trifling observations, most of which he has drawn from Eratosthenes, whose inaccuracy we have before shown, he breaks off. However, we frankly acknowledge, both with respect to him [Apollodorus] and Eratosthenes, that the moderns are better informed on geography than the ancients: but to strain the subject beyond measure, as they do, especially when they inculpate Homer, seems to me as if it gave a fair occasion to any one to find fault, and to say by way of recrimination, that they reproach the poet for the very things of which they themselves are ignorant. As for the rest of their observations, particular mention is made of some of them in the places where they occur, and of others in the General Introduction.
​to compare what we have advanced with the remarks of Posidonius and the other critics. Now, in the first place, they have universally proved the very contrary of the allegations which they had undertaken to maintain; for where they undertook to show that amongst the ancients there was a greater amount of ignorance as to places far from Greece than there was among the moderns, they have proved the very contrary, and that not only with regard to the countries more remote, but even with respect to Greece itself; but, as I have said before, let the other matters remain in abeyance while we consider carefully the subject now before us. Thus they say that it was through ignorance Homer and the ancients omitted to speak of the Scythians, and their cruelty to strangers, whom they sacrificed, devoured their flesh, and afterwards made use of their skulls as drinking-cups, for which barbarities the sea was termed the Axine, or inhospitable; but in place of these they imagined fables as to illustrious Hippemolgi, Galactophagi, and Abii, the most just of mankind, who never existed any where in this world. But how came it that they named the sea the Axenus, if they were so ignorant of the barbarism of that region, or of those savages who were the most barbarous on earth? But these undoubtedly are the Scythians! Or in the early times were not those who dwelt beyond the Mysians, and Thracians, and Getæ, Hippemolgi, (or milkers of mares,) Galactophagi, and Abii; Nay rather, they exist at this very day, being called Hamaxoeci and Nomades, living on the herd, milk and cheese, and especially on cheese made of mare’s milk, and being ignorant how to lay up treasure or deal in merchandise, except the simple barter of one commodity for another. How then can it be said that the poet [Homer] knew nothing of the Scythians, since he doubtless designates some of them by the names of Hippemolgi and Galactophagi? And that the men of that ​time called these people Hippemolgi even Hesiod is a witness in the words which Eratosthenes has quoted:
“He went and saw the Ethiopians, the Ligurians, and the Scythians, milkers of mares.”
And when we consider the amount of fraud connected with trading speculations even amongst ourselves, what ground have we to wonder that Homer should have designated as the justest and most noble those who had but few commercial and monetary transactions, and with the exception of their swords and drinking-cups, possessed all things in common, and especially their wives and children, who were cared for by the whole community according to the system of Plato. Æschylus too seems to plead the poet’s cause, when he says,
“But the Scythians, governed by good laws, and feeding on cheese of mares’ milk.”
And this is still the opinion entertained of them by the Greeks; for we esteem them the most sincere, the least deceitful of any people, and much more frugal and self-relying than ourselves. And yet the manner of life customary among us has spread almost every where, and brought about a change for the worse, effeminacy, luxury, and over-great refinement, inducing extortion in ten thousand different ways; and doubtless much of this corruption has penetrated even into the countries of the nomades, as well as those of the other barbarians; for having once learnt how to navigate the sea, they have become depraved, committing piracy and murdering strangers; and holding intercourse with many different nations, they have imitated both their extravagance and their dishonest traffic, which may indeed appear to promote civility of manners, but do doubtless corrupt the morals and lead to dissimulation, in place of the genuine sincerity we have before noticed.
8. Those however who lived before our time, and more especially those who lived near to the times of Homer, were such as he describes them, and so they were esteemed to be by the Greeks. Take for instance what Herodotus relates concerning the king of the Scythians, against whom Darius waged war, and especially the answer he sent [to the messenger ​of Darius]. Take again what Chrysippus relates of the kings of the Bosphorus, [Satyrus and] Leuco. The letters of the Persians are full of the sincerity I have described; so likewise are the memorials of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Indians. It was on this account that both Anacharsis and Abaris, and certain others of the same class, gained so great a reputation among the Greeks; for we may well believe they displayed their national characteristics of affability of manner, simplicity, and love of justice. But what occasion is there for me to speak of such as belonged to the times of old? for Alexander [the Great], the son of Philip, in his campaign against the Thracians beyond Mount Hæmus, is said to have penetrated as far as this in an incursion into the country of the Triballi, and observed that they occupied the territory as far as the Danube and the island Peuce, which is in it, and that the Getæ possessed the country beyond that river; however, he was unable to pass into the island for want of a sufficient number of ships, and because Syrmus, the king of the Triballi, who had taken refuge in that place, resisted the undertaking: but Alexander crossed over into the country of the Getæ and took their city, after which he returned home in haste, carrying with him presents from those nations, and also from Syrmus. Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, relates that in this campaign the Kelts who dwell on the Adriatic came to Alexander for the purpose of making a treaty of friendship and mutual hospitality, and that the king received them in a friendly way, and asked them, while drinking, what might be the chief object of their dread, supposing that they would say it was he; but that they replied, it was no man, only they felt some alarm lest the heavens should on some occasion or other ​fall on them, but that they valued the friendship of such a man as him above every thing. These examples sufficiently manifest the open sincerity of the barbarians, both of the one who would not suffer Alexander to land on the island, but nevertheless sent presents and concluded a treaty of friendship with him, and also of those who asserted that they feared no man, but that they valued the friendship of great men above every price.
In like manner Dromichætes, who was king of the Getæ in the times of the successors of Alexander, having taken captive Lysimachus, who had come to wage war against him, showed him his poverty and that of his people, and likewise their great frugality, bade him not to make war on such, but rather seek them as friends; after which he received him as a guest, made a treaty of friendship, and suffered him to depart.
[* And Plato, in his Republic, considers that the neighbourhood of the sea ought to be shunned as being productive of vice, and that those who would enjoy a well-governed city, should plant it very far from the sea, and not near it. *]
​for I wish to show by these references, that there was a general impression among both the ancients and moderns with regard to the nomades, that some were very far removed from the rest of mankind, that they subsisted on milk, and were very frugal, and the most just of men, and that all this was not the mere invention of Homer.
11. Let us pass over the early history of the Getæ, and occupy ourselves with their actual condition. Bœrebistas, one of the Getæ, having taken the command of his tribe, reanimated the men who were disheartened by frequent wars, and raised them to such a degree of training, sobriety, and a habit of obedience to orders, that he established a powerful dominion within a few years, and brought most of the neighbouring states into subjection to the Getæ. He at length became formidable even to the Romans, fearlessly crossing the Danube, and laying waste Thrace as far as Macedonia and Illyria; he also subdued the Kelts who live among the Thracians and Illyrians, and thoroughly annihilated the Boii who were subject to Critasirus and the Taurisci. In order to ​maintain the obedience of his subjects, he availed himself of the assistance of Decæneus a sorcerer, who had travelled in Egypt, and who, by predictions he had learnt to draw from certain natural signs, was enabled to assume the character of an oracle, and was almost held in the veneration of a god, as we have related when noticing Zamolxis. As an instance of their implicit obedience, we may relate that they were persuaded to root up their vines and live without wine. However, Bœrebistas was murdered in a sedition before the Romans sent an army against him. Those who succeeded to his government divided it into several states. Lately, when Augustus Cæsar sent an army against them, they were divided into five states, at another time they were four, for such divisions are but temporary in duration, and variable in their extent.
12. There was, from ancient times, another division of these people which still exists; thus, some they call Dacians and others Getæ: the Getæ extend towards the Euxine and the east, but the Dacians are situated on the opposite side towards Germany and the sources of the Danube, whom I consider to have been called Daci from a very early period. Whence also amongst the Attics the names of Getæ and Davi were customary for slaves. This at least is more probable than to consider them as taken from the Scythians who are named Daæ, for they live far beyond Hyrcania, and it is not likely that slaves would be brought all that way into Attica. It was usual with them to call their slaves after the name of the nation from whence they were brought, as Lydus and Syrus, or else by a name much in use in their own country, as, for a Phrygian, Manes or Midas; for a Paphlagonian, Tibius. The nation which was raised to so much power by Bœrebistas has since been completely reduced by ​civil dissensions and contests with the Romans; however, they are still able to set out 40,000 men armed for the wars.
13. The river Maros flows through their country into the Danube, on which the Romans transported their military stores; for thus they termed the upper part of that river from its sources to the cataracts, which flows chiefly through the country of the Dacians, but the part below that point which flows through the country of the Getæ as far as the Black Sea, they call the Ister. The Dacians speak the same language as the Getæ. The Getæ are best known among the Greeks on account of the frequent wandering expeditions they make on both sides of the Danube, and their being mixed among the Thracians and Mysians. The like is the case with regard to the nation of the Triballi, a Thracian people; for they have received many refugees on occasions when their more powerful neighbours have driven out the weaker, for from time to time the Scythians of the opposite side of the river, and the Bastarnæ, and the Sarmatians, become victorious, and those who are driven out cross over and some of them take up their residence either in the islands of the river or in Thrace, while on the other side the inhabitants are distressed by the Illyrians. At one time when the Getæ and the Dacians had increased to the greatest numbers, they were able to set on foot an army of two hundred thousand men, but now they are reduced to about forty thousand men, and are even likely to become subject to the Romans; still they are not yet quite under their sway on account of their trust in the Germans, who are enemies to the Romans.
14. Between [the Getæ and] the Black Sea, from the Danube to the Dniester, lies the desert of the Getæ. It is entirely a plain and destitute of water. It was there that Darius the son of Hystaspes, at the time he crossed the Danube, was in danger of being cut off with his whole army ​for want of water; this he found out before it was too late, and returned. At a subsequent period, when Lysimachus was waging war against the Getæ and their king Dromichætes, he not only incurred the risk, but he fell into the hands of the enemy; but his life was spared by the courtesy of the barbarian, as I have before related.
15. Near the mouths of the Danube is the large island called Peuce. This the Bastarnæ possessed, and were hence called Peucini. There are also other islands much smaller, some above this, and others nearer the sea. The Danube has seven mouths, the largest is called the Sacred Mouth, the passage by which to Peuce is 120 stadia. At the lower part of this island Darius made his bridge. It might likewise have been constructed at the upper part. This is the first mouth on the left-hand side as you sail into the Black Sea; the rest are passed while sailing along towards the Dniester; the seventh mouth is distant from this first mouth about 300 stadia. These mouths form several islands. The first three mouths next after the Sacred Mouth are but small, the remainder are much less than it, but greater than any of the three. Ephorus states that the Danube has five mouths. From hence to the Dniester, which is a navigable river, there are 900 stadia. In the district intervening there are two great lakes; one is open to the sea, and is used as a harbour, the other has no outlet.
16. At the mouth of the Dniester there is a tower called the Tower of Neoptolemus, and a village called Hermonax. As you sail up the river 140 stadia, there are cities on both sides; the one is Niconia, and that on the left Ophiussa. Those who dwell on the spot say that the city is but 120 ​stadia up the river. The island of Leuce is distant from the river’s mouth a course of 500 stadia; it is quite in the sea, and is sacred to Achilles.
17. Next is the Dnieper, a river navigable to the distance of 600 stadia, and near to it another river, the Bog, and an island lying before the mouth of the Dnieper, which possesses a haven. After sailing up the Borysthenes 200 stadia, you come to the city of like name Avith the river, which is likewise called Olbia; it is a great emporium and a foundation of the Milesians. Of the region lying inland from the coast we have described between the Dnieper and the Danube, the first portion is the Desert of the Getæ, then comes the Tyregetæ, after them the Jazyges Sarmatas, and the Basilii, who are also called Urgi. Most of these people are nomades. However, a few of them pay attention to agriculture. These are said to inhabit the banks of the Danube, frequently even on both sides of the river. In the inland the Bastarnæ dwell, and confine with the Tyregetæ and the Germans; indeed, they may almost be said to be of the German stock. They are divided into many tribes, as some are called Atmoni, some Sidones, those who inhabit the island Peuce in the Danube, Peucini, and the most northern, Roxolani. These latter depasture the plains lying between the Don and the Dnieper. ​Indeed the whole of the northern regions with which we are acquainted, from Germany to the Caspian, is an extended plain. Whether any dwell still farther than the Roxolani is unknown to us. However, the Roxolani fought against the generals of Mithridates Eupator. Their leader was Tasius. They came as allies of Palacus, the son of Scilurus, and were considered good soldiers, but against the serried and well-armed phalanx every barbarous and light-armed tribe is ineffective. Thus they, although numbering fifty thousand men, could not withstand the six thousand arrayed by Diophantus, the general of Mithridates, but were almost all cut to pieces. They make use of helmets and breastplates made of untanned ox-hide. They bear wicker shields; and as weapons, lances, the bow, and the sword, such as most of the other barbarians do. The woollen tents of the nomades are fixed upon their chariots, in which they pass their lives. Their herds are scattered round their tents, and they live on the milk, the cheese, and the meat which they supply. They shift their quarters ever in search of pasture, changing the places they have exhausted for others full of grass. In the winter they encamp in the marshes near the Palus Mæotis, and in the summer on the plains.
18. The whole of this country, which reaches to the sea-coast extending from the Dnieper to the Palus Mæotis, is subject to severe winters; so also are the most northern of the districts bordering on the sea, as the mouth of the Palus Mæotis, and farther that of the Dnieper and the head of the Gulf of Tamyraca, or Carcinites, which washes the isthmus of the Magna Chersonesus. The intense cold of the districts inhabited, notwithstanding their being plains, is manifest, for they rear no asses, as that animal is too susceptible of cold; some of their oxen are without horns by nature, of the others they file off the horns, as a part most susceptible of injury from cold. Their horses are diminutive and their sheep large. Their brazen vessels are split with the frosts, and their contents frozen into a solid mass. However, the rigour of the frosts may be best illustrated by the phænomena which are ​common in the neighbourhood of the embouchure of the Palus Mæotis; for the passage from Panticapæum, across to Phanagoria, is at times performed in waggons, thus being both a sea passage and an overland route [as the season may determine]. There are also fish which are taken in the ice by means of a round net called a gangama, and especially a kind of sturgeon called antacæus, nearly the size of a dolphin. It is related that Neoptolemus, the general of Mithridates, defeated the barbarians during summer-time in a naval engagement in this very strait, and during the winter in a cavalry action. They say that about the Bosphorus the vine is hidden away in the earth in winter, great mounds of mould being piled over it [to preserve it from the frost]. They also report that the heats are excessive, [this may be accounted for in several ways,] perhaps men’s bodies not being accustomed to them, feel them the more; perhaps the plains are at that time unrefreshed by winds; or perhaps the thickness of the air is heated to a great degree, similar to the way in which the misty air is affected in times when a parhelion is observed.
It appears that Ateas, who carried on war against Philip, the son of Amyntas, had the rule over most of the barbarians of these parts.
19. After the island situated opposite the mouth of the Dnieper, in sailing towards the east, we arrive at the cape of the Course of Achilles. The district is quite bare, notwithstanding that it is termed a wood. It is sacred to Achilles. Then we arrive at the Course of Achilles, a low peninsula; for it is a certain tongue of land about a thousand stadia in length, running out towards the east, and its width is but two ​stadia in the broadest part, and but four plethra in the narrowest. It is distant from the main-land, which runs out on both sides of the neck, about 60 stadia. It is sandy, but water is obtainable by digging. About the midst of the Course of Achilles is the neck of the isthmus [joining it to the main-land]. It is about 40 stadia in breadth, and terminates in a headland which they call Tamyraca. This possesses an anchorage opposite the main-land. Next comes the Gulf Carcinites, which is of considerable extent, reaching towards the north about 1000 stadia. Some affirm that it is three times that distance to the head of the gulf … are called Taphrii. They likewise call the Gulf Carcinites the Gulf Tamyraca, the same as the headland.
CHAPTER IV.
1. AT the bottom of the bay (Carcinites) commences the isthmus which separates the lake called Sapra, [or the Putrid Lake,] from the sea; it is 40 stadia in width, and forms the ​Tauric or Scythian Chersonese. This, according to some, is 360 stadia across. The Putrid Lake is said to extend 4000 stadia (in circumference), and forms part of the [Palus] Mæotis on its western side, with which it communicates by a large opening. It abounds in marshy tracts, and is scarcely navigable with “sewn” boats. The shallower parts are soon uncovered, and again covered with water, by the force of the wind; but the marsh will not bear boats of a deeper draught. In the bay are three small islands; and in sailing along the coast, some shallows are met with, and rocks which rise above water.
2. On the left in sailing out of the bay [Carcinites] there is a small town and another harbour belonging to the people of the Chersonese; for in coasting along the bay, there projects towards the south a large promontory, which is a part of the great Chersonese. Upon it stands a city of the Heracleotæ, who are a colony from Heraclea in the Euxine; it bears the same name, Chersonesus, as the territory. It is distant from the Dniester, in following the coast, 4400 stadia. In this city is a temple of the Virgin, some goddess, after whom the promontory, which is in front of the city, at the distance of 100 stadia, is called Parthenium. It has a shrine of the goddess and a statue. Between the city and the promontory are three harbours; next is the Old city Chersonesus in ruins; then follows a harbour with a narrow entrance. It was called Symbolon Limen, or Signal Harbour; and here principally was carried on a system of piracy against those who took ​refuge in the ports. This, together with another harbour, called Ctenus, forms an isthmus of 40 stadia in extent. This isthmus locks in the Smaller Chersonesus, which we said was a part of the Great Chersonesus, having on it a city of the same name.
3. It was formerly governed by its own laws, but after it was ravaged by barbarous nations, the inhabitants were obliged to elect as their protector, Mithridates Eupator, who was anxious to direct his forces against the barbarians who lived above the isthmus, and occupied the country as far as the Dnieper and the Adriatic, and thus to prepare himself against war with the Romans. Mithridates, with these views, readily despatched an expedition into the Chersonesus, and carried on war at the same time against the Scythians, Scilurus, and the sons of Scilurus, namely, Palacus and his brothers, whom Posidonius reckons to have been fifty, and Apollonides eighty, in number. By the subjugation of these enemies he became at once master of the Bosporus, which Pairisades, who held the command of it, voluntarily surrendered. From that time to the present the city of the Chersonitæ has been subject to the princes of the Bosporus.
Ctenus is equally distant from the city of the Chersonitæ, and from Symbolon Limen. From Symbolon Limen the Tauric coast extends 1000 stadia to the city Theodosia. The coast is rugged and mountainous, and during the prevalence of the north winds, tempestuous. From this coast a promontory projects far into the sea, and stretches out southwards towards Paphlagonia, and the city Amastris. It is called Criu-metopon, or Ram’s Head. Opposite to it is ​Carambis, the promontory of the Paphlagonians. Criu-metopon and Carambis together form a strait compressed between them, and divide the Euxine into two parts. Carambis is distant from the city of the Chersonesus 2500 stadia, and from Criu-metopon much less; for many persons who have sailed through the strait say, that they saw both promontories at once.
In the mountainous district of the Tauri there is a hill called Trapezus, of the same name as the city, which is near Tibarania and Colchis. There is another hill also, the Kimmerium, in the same mountainous district, for the Kimmerii were once sovereigns of the Bosporus, and hence the whole of the strait at the mouth of the [Palus] Mæotis is called the Kimmerian Bosporus.
4. After leaving the above-mentioned mountainous district, is the city Theodosia, situated on a plain; the soil is fertile, and there is a harbour capable of containing a hundred vessels. This formerly was the boundary of the territory of the Bosporians and of the Tauri. Then follows a fertile country extending to Panticapæum, the capital of the Bosporians, which is situated at the mouth of the Palus Mæotis. Between Theodosia and Panticapæum there is a tract of about 530 stadia in extent. The whole country is corn-producing; there are villages in it, and a city called Nymphæum, with a good harbour.
Panticapæum is a hill inhabited all round for a circuit of 20 stadia. To the east it has a harbour, and docks capable of containing about thirty vessels; there is also an acropolis. It was founded by the Milesians. Both this place and the neighbouring settlements on each side of the mouth of the Palus Mæotis were for a long period under the monarchical dynasty of Leucon, and Satyrus, and Pairisades, till the latter surrendered the sovereignty to Mithridates. They had the ​name of tyrants, although most of them were moderate and just in their government, from the time of Pairisades and Leucon. Pairisades was accounted even a god. The last sovereign, whose name was also Pairisades, being unable to resist the barbarians, by whom great and unusual tributes were exacted, surrendered the kingdom into the hands of Mithridates. After him it became subject to the Romans. The greater portion of it is situated in Europe, but a part of it is also situated in Asia.
5. The mouth of the [Palus] Mæotis is called the Kimmerian Bosporus. The entrance, which at the broadest part is about 70 stadia across, where there is a passage from the neighbourhood of Panticapæum to Phanagoria, the nearest city in Asia. The [Palus] Mæotis closes in an arm of the sea which is much narrower. This arm of the sea and the Don separate Europe from Asia. Then the Don flows from the north opposite into the lake, and into the Kimmerian Bosporus. It discharges itself into the lake by two mouths, which are distant from each other about 60 stadia. There is also a city of the same name as the river; and next to Panticapæum it is the largest mart belonging to the barbarians.
On sailing into the Kimmerian Bosporus, on the left hand is Myrmecium, a small city, 20 stadia from Panticapæum, and 40 stadia from Parthenium; it is a village where is the narrowest entrance into the lake, about 20 stadia in breadth; opposite to it is a village situated in Asia, called Achilleum. Thence to the Don, and to the island at its mouths, is a voyage in a direct line of 2200 stadia. The distance is somewhat greater if the voyage is performed along the coast of Asia, but taking the left-hand side, (in which direction the isthmus of the Chersonese is fallen in with,) the distance is more than tripled. This latter course is along the desert shore of Europe, but the ​Asiatic side is not without inhabitants. The whole circumference of the lake is 9000 stadia.
The Great Chersonesus resembles Peloponnesus both in figure and size. The kings of the Bosporus possess it, but the whole country has been devastated by continual wars. They formerly possessed a small tract only at the mouth of the [Palus] Mæotis near Panticapæum, extending as far as Theodosia. The largest part of the territory, as far as the isthmus and the Gulf Carcinites, was in possession of the Tauri, a Scythian nation. The whole of this country, comprehending also a portion on the other side of the isthmus as far as the Dnieper, was called Little Scythia. In consequence of the number of people who passed from thence across the Dniester and the Danube, and settled there, no small part of that country also bore the name of Little Scythia. The Thracians surrendered a part of it to superior force, and a part was abandoned on account of the bad quality of the ground, a large portion of which is marshy.
6. Except the mountainous tract of the Chersonesus on the sea-coast, extending as far as Theodosia, all the rest consist of plains, the soil of which is rich, and remarkably fertile in corn. It yields thirty-fold, when turned up by the most ordinary implements of husbandry. The tribute paid to Mithridates by the inhabitants, including that from the neighbourhood of Sindace in Asia, amounted to 180,000 medimni of corn, and 200 talents of silver. The Greeks in former times imported from this country corn, and the cured fish of Palus Mæotis. Leucon is said to have sent to the Athenians 2,100,000 medimni of corn from Theodosia.
​The name of Georgi, or husbandmen, was appropriately given to these people, to distinguish them from the nations situated above them, who are nomades and live upon the flesh of horses and other animals, on cheese of mares’ milk, milky and sour milk. The latter, prepared in a peculiar manner, is a delicacy. Hence the poet designates all the nations in that quarter as Galactophagi, milk-eaters.
The nomades are more disposed to war than to robbery. The occasion of their contests was to enforce the payment of tribute. They permit those to have land who are willing to cultivate it. In return for the use of the land, they are satisfied with receiving a settled and moderate tribute, not such as will furnish superfluities, but the daily necessaries of life. If this tribute is not paid, the nomades declare war. Hence the poet calls these people both just, and miserable, (Abii,) for if the tribute is regularly paid, they do not have recourse to war. Payment is not made by those, who have confidence in their ability to repel attacks with ease, and to prevent the incursion of their enemies. This course was pursued, as Hypsicrates relates, by Ansander, who fortified on the isthmus of the Chersonesus, at the Palus Mæotis, a space of 360 stadia, and erected towers at the distance of every 10 stadia.
The Georgi (husbandmen) are considered to be more civilized and mild in their manners than the other tribes in this quarter, but they are addicted to gain. They navigate the sea, and do not abstain from piracy, nor from similar acts of injustice and rapacity.
7. Besides the places in the Chersonesus already enumerated, there are the fortresses Palacium, and Chabum, and Neapolis, which Scilurus and his sons constructed, from which they sallied out against the generals of Mithridates.
There was also a fortress called Eupatorium, built by Diophantus, one of the generals of Mithridates. ​There is a promontory, distant about 15 stadia from the wall of Chersonesus, which forms a large bay, which bends towards the city. Above this bay is a sea-lake, where there are salt pits. Here was the harbour Ctenus. The generals of the king, in order to strengthen their means of resistance in case of siege, stationed a garrison on the above-mentioned promontory, which was further protected by a fortification. The mouth of the Gulf was closed by an embankment which extended to the city, and was easily traversed on foot. The garrison and the city were thus united. The Scythians were afterwards easily repulsed. They attacked that part of the wall built across the isthmus which touches upon Ctenus, and filled the ditch with straw. The kind of bridge thus formed by day, was burnt at night by the king’s generals, who continued their resistance and defeated the enemy. At present the whole country is subject to whomsoever the Romans may appoint as king of the Bosporus.
8. It is a custom peculiar to all the Scythian and Sarmatian tribes, to castrate their horses, in order to make them more tractable, for although they are small, yet they are spirited, and difficult to manage. Stags and wild boars are hunted in the marshes, and wild asses and roes in the plains. It is a peculiarity of this country, that no eagles are to be found in it. Among the quadrupeds there is an animal called Colus, in size between a deer and a ram; it is white, and swifter in speed than either of those animals. It draws up water into the head through the nostrils; from this store it can supply itself for several days, and live without inconvenience in places destitute of water.
Such is the nature of the whole of the country beyond the Danube, lying between the Rhine and the Don, and extending as far as the Pontic Sea and the Palus Mæotis.
CHAPTER V.
1. THERE remains to be described that part of Europe included between the Danube and the sea which surrounds it, ​beginning from the inner recess of the Adriatic, and extending to the Sacred mouth of the Danube.
This part contains Greece, Macedonia, Epirus, and the people who live above them, extending to the Danube and to the two seas (the Adriatic and the Euxine Sea) on each side. On the Adriatic are the Illyrians; on the Euxine Sea, as far as the Propontis and Hellespont, are the Thracians, and the Scythian or Keltic tribes intermixed with them. We must begin from the Danube, and treat of the countries which follow next in order to those already described, that is to say, the parts contiguous to Italy, the Alps, the Germans, the Dacians, and the Getæ.
These may be divided into two parts. For the mountains of Illyria, Pæonia, and Thrace, may be considered as forming, as it were, a single line, parallel to the Danube, and extending from the Adriatic to the Euxine. To the north of this line is the country included between the Danube and the mountains. To the south is Greece and the barbarous tract contiguous to these mountains.
Near the Euxine Sea is Mount Hæmus, the largest and the highest of the mountains in that quarter, and divides Thrace nearly in the middle. According to Polybius, both seas may be seen from this mountain; but he is mistaken, for the distance to the Adriatic is considerable, and many things obstruct the view.
Almost the whole of Ardia lies near the Adriatic, Pæonia is in the middle, and all this country consists of elevated ground. On the side towards Thrace, it is bounded by Rhodope, a mountain next in height to Hæmus; on the other side to the north is Illyria, and the country of the Autariatæ, and Dardania.
I shall first describe Illyria, which approaches close to the Danube, and to the Alps which lie between Italy and Germany, ​taking their commencement from the lake in the territory of the Vindelici, Rhæti, and Helvetii.
2. The Daci depopulated a part of this country in their wars with the Boii and Taurisci, Keltic tribes whose chief was Critasirus. The Daci claimed the country, although it was separated from them by the river Parisus, which flows from the mountains to the Danube, near the Galatæ Scordisci, a people who lived intermixed with the Illyrian and the Thracian tribes. The Illyrians were destroyed by the Daci, while the Scordisci were frequently their allies.
The rest of the country as far as Segestica, and the Danube, towards the north and east, is occupied by Pannonii, but they extend farther in an opposite direction. The city Segestica, belonging to the Pannonii, is situated at the confluence of several rivers, all of which are navigable. It is in a convenient situation for carrying on war against the Daci, for it lies at the foot of the Alps, which extend to the Iapodes, a mixed Keltic and Illyrian tribe. Thence also flow the rivers by which is conveyed to Segestica a great quantity of merchandise, and among the rest, commodities from Italy. The distance from Aquileia to Nauportus, a settlement of the Taurisci, across the mountain Ocra, is 350, or, according to some writers, 500 stadia. Merchandise is transported to Nauportus in waggons. The Ocra is the lowest part of the Alps, which extend from Rhætica to the Iapodes, where the mountains rise again, and are called Albii. From Tergeste, a village of the Carni, there is a pass across and through the Ocra to a marsh called Lugeum. A river, the Corcoras, flows near Nauportus, and conveys the merchandise from that place. It discharges itself into the Save, and this latter river into the ​Drave; the Drave again into the Noarus at Segestica. Here the Noarus, having received the Colapis as it descends in its full stream from the mountain Albius through the Iapodes, enters the Danube among the Scordisci. The navigation on the rivers is in general towards the north. The journey from Tergeste to the Danube is about 1200 stadia. Near Segestica is Siscia, a strong-hold, and Sirmium, both situated on the road to Italy.
3. The Breuci, Andizetii, Ditiones, Peirustæ, Mazæi, Daisitiatæ, whose chief was Baton, and other small obscure communities, which extend to Dalmatia, and almost to the Ardiæi to the south, are Pannonians. The whole mountainous tract from the recess of the Adriatic bay to the Rhizonic gulf, and to the territory of the Ardiæi, intervening between the sea and Pannonia, forms the coast of Illyria.
Here perhaps we ought to begin an uninterrupted account of these places, after a short repetition.
In describing Italy we said, that the Istri were the first nation on the Illyrian coast, contiguous to Italy and to the Carni, and that the present government had advanced the limits of Italy to Pola, a city of Istria. These limits are distant about 800 stadia from the recess of the bay. It is the same distance from the promontory in front of Pola to Ancon, keeping Henetica on the right hand. The whole voyage along the coast of Istria is 1300 stadia.
4. Next is the voyage along the coast of the Iapodes, 1000 stadia in extent. The Iapodes are situated on Mount Albius, which is the termination of the Alps, and is of very great height. They reach in one direction to the Pannonii and the Danube, and in another to the Adriatic. They are a warlike people, but were completely subdued by Augustus. Their cities are Metulum, Arupinum, Monetium, Vendum. The country is poor, and the inhabitants live chiefly upon spelt and millet. Their armour is after the Keltic fashion. Their bodies are punctured, like those of the other Illyrian and Thracian people.
​After the coast of the Iapodes follows that of Liburnia, exceeding the former by 500 stadia. On this coast is Scardon, a Liburnian city, and a river, which is navigable for vessels of burden as far as the Dalmatæ.
5. Islands are scattered along the whole of the above-mentioned coast; among them are the Apsyrtides, where Medea is said to have killed her brother Apsyrtus, who was pursuing her.
Near the Iapodes is Cyrictica, then the Liburnian islands, about forty in number; other islands follow, of which the best known are Issa, Tragurium, founded by Isseans; Pharos, formerly Paros, founded by Parians, the birth-place of Demetrius, the Pharian; then the coast of the Dalmatæ and their naval arsenal, Salon. This nation was for a long time at war with the Romans. They had fifty considerable settlements, some of which were in the rank of cities, as Salon, Priomon, Ninias, and the old and new Sinotium. Augustus burnt them down. There is also Andetrium, a strong fortress, and Dalmatium, a large city, of the same name as the nation. Scipio Nasica greatly reduced its size, and converted the plain into a pasture for sheep, on account of the disposition of the people to rob and pillage.
It is a custom peculiar to the Dalmatæ to make a partition of their lands every eighth year. They do not use money, which is a peculiarity also when compared with the habits of the other inhabitants of this coast; but this is common among many other tribes of barbarians.
The mountain Adrion divides Dalmatia into two parts, one of which is on the sea, the other forms the opposite side of the mountain. Then follow the river Naron, and the people in the neighbourhood, the Daorizi, Ardiæi, and Pleræi. Near the former lies the island Black Corcyra, on which is a city founded by the Cnidians. Near the Ardiæi is Pharos, formerly called Paros, for it was founded by Parians.
6. Later writers call the Ardiæi, Vardæi. The Romans drove them into the interior from the sea-coast, which ​was infested by their piracies, and compelled them to cultivate the ground; but as the country was rugged and barren, and not adapted to husbandry, the nation was entirely ruined and nearly extinguished. The same happened to other neighbouring nations. People formerly very powerful are extinct, or were reduced to the lowest condition, as the Boii and Scordisci among the Galatæ; the Autariatæ, Ardiæi, and Dardanii, among the Illyrians; and the Triballi among the Thracians. They first declined in consequence of disputes amongst themselves, but were finally prostrated by wars with the Macedonians and Romans.
7. After the termination of the coast of the Ardiæi and Pleræi is the bay of the Rhizæi, a city Rhizon, other small towns, and the river Drilon, which may be navigated up its stream towards the east as far as Dardanica. This country is situated close to the Macedonian and Pæonian nations, towards the south, as also the Autariatæ and the Dasaretii are in parts contiguous to one another [and to the Autariatæ]. To the Dardaniatæ belong the Galabrii, in whose territory is an ancient city; and the Thunatæ, who approach on the east close to the Mædi, a Thracian tribe.
The Dardanii are entirely a savage people, so much so that they dig caves beneath dungheaps, in which they dwell; yet they are found of music, and are much occupied in playing upon pipes and on stringed instruments. They inhabit the inland parts of the country, and we shall mention them again in another place.
8. After the bay of Rhizon is Lissus, a city, Acrolissus, and Epidamnus, the present Dyrrhachium, founded by Corcyræans, and bearing the name of the peninsula on which it ​is situated. Then follow the rivers Apsus and the Aous, on the banks of which is situated Apollonia, a city governed by excellent laws. It was founded by Corinthians and Corcyræans, and is distant from the river 10, and from the sea 60, stadia. Hecatæus calls the Aous, Aias, and says that from the same place, or rather from the same sources about Lacmus, the Inachus flows southward, to Argos, and the Aias westward, into the Adriatic.
In the territory of the Apolloniatæ there is what is called a Nymphæum. It is a rock which emits fire. Below it are springs flowing with hot water and asphaltus. The earth containing the asphaltus is probably in a state of combustion. The asphaltus is dug out of a neighbouring hill; the parts excavated are replaced by fresh earth, which after a time are converted into asphaltus. This account is given by Posidonius, who says also, that the ampelitis, an asphaltic earth found in the Pierian Seleucia, is a remedy for the lice which infest the vine. If the vine is smeared with this earth mixed with oil, the insects are killed before they ascend from the root to the branches. This earth, but it required for use a larger quantity of oil, he says was found at Rhodes also, while he held there the office of Prytanes.
Next to Apollonia is Bylliace (Bullis) and Oricum, with its naval arsenal, Panormus, and the Ceraunian mountains, which form the commencement of the entrance of the Ionian and Adriatic Gulfs.
9. The mouth is common to both; but this difference is to be observed, that the name Ionian is applied to the first part of the gulf only, and Adriatic to the interior sea up to the farthest end, but the name Adriatic is now applied to the whole ​sea. According to Theopompus, the name Ionian was derived from a chief (Ionius) of that country, a native of Issa; and the name Adriatic from a river, Adrias.
From the Liburni to the Ceraunian mountains is a distance of a little more than 2000 stadia. But Theopompus says, that it is six days’ sail from the farthest recess of the bay, but a journey of thirty days by land along the length of Illyria. This appears to me an exaggeration, but he makes many incredible statements. Among other instances, he pretends that there is a subterraneous passage between the Adriatic and the Ægean Seas, grounding his opinion on the discovery of Chian and Thasian pottery in the river Naron. The two seas, he says, may be seen from some pretended mountain. He describes the Liburnian islands as occupying a position so extensive as to form a circle of 500 stadia. According to him, the Danube discharges itself by one of its mouths into the Adriatic. Similar mistakes are to be found in Eratosthenes, which Polybius, when speaking of him and other writers, describes as having their origin in vulgar error.
10. On the coast of Illyria, along its whole extent, and in the neighbouring islands, there are numerous excellent harbours, contrary to what occurs on the opposite Italian coast, where there are none. As in Italy, however, the climate is warm, and the soil productive of fruits; olives also and vines grow readily, except in some few excessively rugged places. Although Illyria possesses these advantages, it was formerly neglected, through ignorance, perhaps, of its fertility; but it was principally avoided on account of the savage manners of the inhabitants, and their piratical habits.
The region situated above the sea-coast is mountainous, cold, and at times covered with snow. The northern part is still colder, so that vines are rarely to be met with either in the hills or in the plains lower down. These mountain-plains are in the possession of the Pannonians, and extend towards the south as far as the Dalmatians and Ardiæi. They terminate towards the north at the Ister, and approach towards ​the east close to the Scordisci, who live near the Macedonian and Thracian mountains.
11. The Autariatæ were the most populous and the bravest tribe of the Illyrians. Formerly, there were continual disputes between them and the Ardiæi respecting the salt which was spontaneously formed on the confines of their respective territories, in the spring season, from water which flows through a valley. The salt concreted five days after the water was drawn and deposited in reservoirs. The right of collecting salt was, by agreement, to be exercised alternately by each party, but the compact was broken and war was the consequence. After the Autariatæ had subdued the Triballi, a people whose territory extended a journey of fifteen days, from the Agrianæ to the Danube, they became masters of the Thracians and Illyrians. The Autariatæ were first conquered by the Scordisci, and afterwards by the Romans, who overpowered the Scordisci, for a long time a powerful nation.
12. This people inhabited the country on the banks of the Danube, and were divided into two tribes, the Great and the Little Scordisci. The former occupied the space between two rivers, which empty themselves into the Danube, the Noarus, which runs beside Segestica, and the Margus, or, as some call it, Bargus. The Little Scordisci lived beyond this river close to the Triballi and Mysi. The Scordisci possessed some of the islands also. They increased so much in strength and numbers as to advance even to the Illyrian, Pæonian, and Thracian confines. Most of the islands on the Danube fell into their hands, and they possessed the cities Heorta and Capedunum.
Next to the territory of the Scordisci, lying along the banks of the Danube, is the country of the Triballi and Mysi, whom we have before mentioned; we have also spoken of the ​marshes of the Lesser Scythia on this side the Danube. This nation, and the Crobyzi, and the nation called Troglodytæ, live above the districts in which are situated Callatis, Tomis, and Ister. Next are the people about the Mount Hæmus, and those who live at its foot, extending as far as the Pontus, Coralli, and Bessi, and some tribes of Mædi and of Dantheletæ. All these nations are very much addicted to robbery. The Bessi possess far the greatest part of Mount Hæmus, and are called Robbers from their mode of life as free-booters. Some of them live in huts and lead a life of hardship. They extend close to Rhodope, the Pæones, and to the Illyrian nations; to the Autariatæ also, and the Dardanians. Between these and the Ardiæi are the Dasaretii, Hybrianes, and other obscure nations, whose numbers the Scordisci were continually reducing, until they had made the country a desert, full of impassable forests, which extended several days’ journey.
CHAPTER VI.
1. OF the country situated between the Danube and the mountains on each side of Pæonia, there remains to be described the Pontic coast, which reaches from the Sacred mouth of the Danube to the mountainous district about Hæmus, and to the mouth of the Pontus at Byzantium. As in describing the Illyrian coast we had proceeded as far as the Ceraunian mountains, which, although they stretch beyond the mountainous district of Illyria, yet constitute a sort of proper boundary, we determined by means of these mountains the limits of the nations in the inland parts, considering, that such separating lines would be better marks both for our present and future use; so here also the coast, although it may fall beyond the mountainous line, will still end at a proper kind of limit, the mouth of the Pontus, which will be useful both for our present and our future descriptions.
If we set out from the Sacred mouth of the Danube, having on the right hand the continuous line of coast, we find at the ​distance of 500 stadia, Ister, a small town founded by Milesians; then Tomis, another small town, at the distance of 250 stadia; then Callatis, a city, a colony of the Heracleotæ, at 280 stadia; then, at 1300 stadia, Apollonia, a colony of Milesians, having the greater part of the buildings upon a small island, where is a temple of Apollo, whence Marcus Lucullus took the Colossus of Apollo, the work of Calamides, and dedicated it as a sacred offering in the Capitol. In the intermediate distance between Callatis and Apollonia, is Bizone, a great part of which was swallowed up by an earthquake; Cruni; Odessus, a colony of Milesians; and Naulochus, a small town of the Mesembriani. Next follows the mountain Hæmus, extending to the sea in this quarter; then Mesembria, a colony of the Megarenses, formerly called Menabria, or city of Mena, Menas being the name of the founder, and bria, signifying in the Thracian tongue, city. Thus the city of Selys is called Selybria, and Ænus once had the name of Poltyobria. Then follows Anchiale, a small town of the Apolloniatæ, and Apollonia itself.
On this coast is the promontory Tirizis, a place naturally strong, which Lysimachus formerly used as a treasury. Again, from Apollonia to the Cyaneæ are about 1500 stadia. In this interval are Thynias, a tract belonging to the Apolloniatæ, Phinopolis, and Andriace, which are contiguous to Salmydessus. This coast is without inhabitants and rocky, without harbours, stretching far towards the north, and extending as far as the Cyaneæ, about 700 stadia. Those who are wrecked on this coast are plundered by the Asti, a Thracian tribe who live above it.
The Cyaneæ are two small islands at the mouth of the Pontus, one lying near Europe, the other near Asia, and are separated by a channel of about 20 stadia. This is the measure ​of the distance between the temple of the Byzantines and the temple of the Chalcedonians, where is the narrowest part of the mouth of the Euxine Sea. For proceeding onwards 10 stadia there is a promontory, which reduces the strait to 5 stadia; the strait afterwards opens to a greater width, and begins to form the Propontis.
2. From the promontory, then, that reduces the strait to 5 stadia, to the Port under the Fig-tree, as it is called, are 35 stadia; thence to the Horn of the Byzantines, 5 stadia. This Horn, close to the walls of Byzantium, is a bay, extending westwards 60 stadia, and resembling a stag’s horn, for it is divided into a great many bays, like so many branches. The Pelamides resort to these bays, and are easily taken, on account of their great number, and the force of the current, which drives them together in a body; and also on account of the narrowness of the bays, which is such that they are caught even by the hand. These fish are bred in the marshes of the Mæotis. When they have attained a little size and strength, they rush through the mouth in shoals, and are carried along the Asiatic coast as far as Trapezus and Pharnacia. It is here that the fishery begins, but it is not carried on to any considerable extent, because the fish are not of a proper size at this place. When they get as far as Sinope, they are in better season for the fishery, and for the purpose of salting. But when they have reached and passed the Cyaneæ, a white rock projects from the Chalcedonian shore, which alarms the fish, so that they immediately turn away to the opposite coast. There they are caught by the stream, and the nature of the places being such as to divert the current of the sea in that part towards Byzantium, and the Horn near it, the fish are impelled thither in a body, and afford to the Byzantines, and to the Roman people, a large revenue. The Chalcedonians, however, although situated near, and on the opposite side, have no share of this supply, because the Pelamides do not approach their harbours.
After the foundation of Chalcedon, Apollo is said to have ​enjoined the founders of Byzantium, in answer to their inquiries, to build their city opposite to the Blind, applying this name to the Chalcedonians, who, although they were the first persons to arrive in these parts, had omitted to take possession of the opposite side, which afforded such great resources of wealth, and chose the barren coast.
We have continued our description to Byzantium, because this celebrated city, by its proximity to the mouth of the Euxine Sea, forms a better-known and more remarkable termination of an account of the coast from the Danube than any other.
Above Byzantium is the nation of the Asti, in whose territory is the city Calybe, which Philip the son of Amyntas made a settlement for criminals.
CHAPTER VII.
1. THESE are the nations, bounded by the Danube and by the Illyrian and Thracian mountains, which are worthy of record. They occupy the whole coast of the Adriatic Sea, beginning from the recess of the gulf, and the left side, as it is called, of the Euxine Sea, from the river Danube to Byzantium.
The southern parts of the above-mentioned mountainous tract, and the countries which follow, lying below it, remain to be described. Among these are Greece, and the contiguous barbarous country extending to the mountains.
Hecatæus of Miletus says of the Peloponnesus, that, before the time of the Greeks, it was inhabited by barbarians. Perhaps even the whole of Greece was, anciently, a settlement of barbarians, if we judge from former accounts. For Pelops brought colonists from Phrygia into the Peloponnesus, which ​took his name; Danaus brought colonists from Egypt; Dryopes, Caucones, Pelasgi, Leleges, and other barbarous nations, partitioned among themselves the country on this side of the isthmus. The case was the same on the other side of the isthmus; for Thracians, under their leader Eumolpus, took possession of Attica; Tereus of Daulis in Phocæa; the Phœnicians, with their leader Cadmus, occupied the Cadmeian district; Aones, and Temmices, and Hyantes, Bœotia. Pindar says, “there was a time when the Bœotian people were called Syes.” Some names show their barbarous origin, as Cecrops, Codrus, Œclus, Cothus, Drymas, and Crinacus. Thracians, Illyrians, and Epirotæ are settled even at present on the sides of Greece. Formerly the territory they possessed was more extensive, although even now the barbarians possess a large part of the country, which, without dispute, is Greece. Macedonia is occupied by Thracians, as well as some parts of Thessaly; the country above Acarnania and Ætolia, by Thesproti, Cassopæi, Amphilochi, Molotti, and Athamanes, Epirotic tribes.
2. We have already spoken of the Pelasgi. Some writers conjecture that the Leleges and Carians are the same people; others, that they were only joint settlers, and comrades in war, because there are said to be some settlements called Settlements of the Leleges in the Milesian territory, and in many parts of Caria there are burial-places of the Leleges, and deserted fortresses, called Lelegia.
The whole country called Ionia was formerly inhabited by Carians and Leleges; these were expelled by the Ionians, who themselves took possession of the country. In still ​earlier times, the captors of Troy had driven out the Leleges from the places about Ida near the rivers Pedasus and Satnioeis.
The fact of the association of these people with the Carians may be regarded as a proof of their being barbarians, and Aristotle, in his Politics, shows that they were a wandering nation, sometimes in company with the Carians, sometimes alone, and that from ancient times; for, in speaking of the polity of the Acarnanians, he says that the Curetes occupied a part of the country, and the Leleges (and after them the Teleboæ) the western side. On the subject of the Ætolian polity, he calls the present Locri, Leleges, and observes that they occupy Bœotia. He repeats the same remark on the subject of the polity of the Opuntians and Megareans. In speaking of the polity of the Leucadians, he mentions an aboriginal by name, Leleges, and a grandson by his daughter of the name of Teleboas, and besides two and twenty of his sons of the name of Teleboas, some of whom inhabited Lucas. But we should chiefly rely upon Hesiod, who thus speaks of them:
“For Locrus was the leader of the nation of the Leleges, whom Jupiter, the son of Saturn, in his infinite wisdom, once gave as subjects to Deucalion, a people gathered from among the nations of the earth.”
For it seems to me to be obscurely intimated by the etymology of the name, Leleges, that they were a mixed people anciently collected together, which had become extinct. And this may be said of the Caucones, who exist no where at present, yet were formerly settled in several places.
3. Although Greece was formerly composed of small nations, many in number, and obscure; nevertheless their valour, and their separate government by kings, prevented any difficulty in denning their boundaries. As the greatest part of the country, however, is at present uninhabited, and the settlements, especially the cities, have been destroyed, it would be of no service, even if it were possible, to ascertain the names of cities and regions occupied by obscure and extinct people. This destruction, which began a long time since, still continues in many parts in consequence of rebellion. It has been checked by the Romans, who accepted the supreme authority from the inhabitants and lodged soldiers in their houses.
​Polybius says that Paulus [Emilius], after the defeat of the Macedonians and their king Perseus, destroyed 70 cities of the Epirotæ (most of which belonged to the Molotti) and reduced to slavery 150,000 of the inhabitants. Still, however, I shall endeavour, as far as it is compatible with the design of this work, to describe, as far as I am able, these places in detail, beginning from the sea-coast near the Ionian Gulf, where the navigation out of the Adriatic terminates.
4. The first parts of this coast are those about Epidamnus and Apollonia. From Apollonia to Macedonia is the Egnatian Way; its direction is towards the east, and the distance is measured by pillars at every mile, as far as Cypselus and the river Hebrus. The whole distance is 535 miles. But reckoning, as the generality of persons reckon, a mile at eight stadia, there may be 4280 stadia. And according to Polybius, who adds two plethra, that is, the third of a stadium, to every eight stadia, we must add 178 stadia more, a third part of the number of miles. A traveller from Apollonia, and a traveller from Epidamnus, on the same road, meet midway between the two cities. The whole is called the Egnatian Way. The first part of it is called the road to Candavia, which is an Illyrian mountain. It passes through Lychnidus, a city, and Pylon, a place which separates Illyria from Macedonia. Thence its direction is beside Barnus through Heracleia, the Lyncestæ, and the Eordi, to Edessa and Pella, as far as Thessalonica. Polybius says, that this is a distance of 267 miles. In travelling this road from the neighbourhood of Epidamnus and Apollonia, on the right hand are the Epirotic nations situated on the coast of the Sicilian Sea, and extending as far as the Gulf of Ambracia; on the left are the Illyrian mountains, which we have before described, and the nations that live near them, extending as far as Macedonia and the Pæones.
​From the Gulf of Ambracia the places next in order, inclining to the east, and extending opposite to Peloponnesus, belong to Greece; they terminate at the Ægean Sea, leaving the whole of Peloponnesus on the right hand.
The country, from the commencement of the Macedonian and Pæonian mountains, as far as the river Strymon, is inhabited by Macedonians, and Pæones, and some of the Thracian mountain tribes. But all the country on the other side the Strymon, as far as the mouth of the Euxine Sea, and Mount Hæmus, belong to the Thracians, except the coast, which is occupied by Greeks, some of whom are settled on the Propontis, others on the Hellespont and on the Gulf Melas, and others on the Ægean Sea.
The Ægean Sea waters two sides of Greece; first, the eastern side, extending from the promontory Sunium to the north as far as the Thermæan Gulf, and Thessalonica, a Macedonian city, which has, at present, the largest population in these parts. Then the southern side, which is a part of Macedonia, extending from Thessalonica to the Strymon. Some writers assign the coast from the Strymon as far as Nestus to Macedonia. For Philip showed the greatest solicitude to obtain, and at length appropriated it to himself. He raised a very large revenue from the mines, and from other sources which the richness of the country afforded.
From Sunium to the Peloponnesus are the Myrtoan, the Cretan, and the Libyan Seas, together with the Gulfs, as far as the Sicilian Sea, which consist of the Gulfs of Ambracia, of Corinth, and of Crissa.
5. Theopompus says, that there are fourteen Epirotic nations. Of these, the most celebrated are the Chaones and Molotti, because the whole of Epirus was at one time subject, first to Chaones, afterwards to Molotti. Their power was greatly strengthened by the family of their kings being descended from the Æacidæ, and because the ancient and famous oracle of Dodona was in their country. Chaones, Thesproti, and next after these Cassopæi, (who are ​Thesproti,) occupy the coast, a fertile tract reaching from the Ceraunian mountains to the Ambracian Gulf.
The voyage commencing from the Chaones eastward towards the Gulfs of Ambracia and Corinth, and having the Ausonian Sea on the right, and Epirus on the left, comprises 1300 stadia to the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. In this interval is Panormus, a large port in the middle of the Ceraunian mountains. Next to this is Onchesmus, another harbour, opposite to which are the western extremities of Corcyra, and then again another port, Cassiope, (Cassope?) whence to Brundusium are 1700 stadia. It is the same distance to Tarentum from another promontory more to the south than Cassiope, which is called Phalacrum. Next after Onchesmus are Posidium, and Buthrotum, (which is situated upon the mouth of the lake Pelodes, in a spot of a peninsula form, and has a Roman colony,) and the Sybota. The Sybota are small islands at a little distance from Epirus, lying near Leucimme, the eastern promontory of Corcyra. There are also other small islands, not worthy of notice, which are met with along the coast.
Next is the promontory Chimerium, and a harbour called Glycys-Limen, [or Sweet Harbour,] where the river Acheron, which receives several other rivers, empties itself and renders fresh the water of the gulf. The Thyamus flows near it. Above this gulf is situated Cichyrus, formerly Ephyra, a city of the Thesproti, and above the gulf at Buthrotum, Phœnice. Near Cichyrus is Buchetium, a small city of the Cassopæi, situated at a little distance from the sea; Elatria, Pandosia, and Batiæ are in the inland parts. Their territory extends as far as the gulf. Next after the harbour Glycys-Limen are two others, Comarus, the nearest and smallest, forming an isthmus of 60 stadia, near the Ambracian Gulf and Nicopolis, founded by Augustus Cæsar; the other, the more distant and larger, and better harbour, is near the mouth of the gulf, and distant from Nicopolis about 12 stadia.
6. Then follows the entrance of the Ambracian Gulf, ​which is a little more than four stadia in width. The circuit of the gulf is 400 stadia, and the whole has good harbours. On sailing into it, on the right hand are the Acarnanes, who are Greeks; and here near the entrance of the gulf is a temple of Apollo Actius, situated on an eminence; in the plain below is a sacred grove, and a naval station. Here Augustus Cæsar dedicated as offerings one-tenth of the vessels taken in war, from vessels of one bank to vessels of ten banks of oars. The vessels, and the buildings destined for their reception, were destroyed, it is said, by fire.
On the left hand are Nicopolis, and the Cassopæi, a tribe of the Epirotæ, extending as far as the recess of the gulf at Ambracia. Ambracia is situated a little above the recess of the bay, and was founded by Gorgus, (Torgus, Tolgus,) the son of Cypselus. The river Arathus flows beside it, which may be navigated up the stream to the city, a distance of a few stadia. It rises in Mount Tymphe, and the Paroræa. This city was formerly in a very flourishing condition, and hence the gulf received its name from the city. Pyrrhus, however, embellished it more than any other person, and made it a royal residence. In later times, the Macedonians and Romans harassed this and other cities by continual wars, caused by the refractory disposition of the inhabitants, so that Augustus, at length perceiving that these cities were entirely deserted, collected their remaining inhabitants into one city, which he called Nicopolis, situated upon the gulf. He called it after the victory which he obtained in front of ​the gulf, over Antony, and Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, who was present in the engagement.
Nicopolis is well peopled, and is improving every day. It has a large territory, and is adorned with the spoils of war. In the suburbs is a sacred enclosure; part of it is a grove, containing a gymnasium and a stadium, intended for the celebration of quinquennial games; the other part, on a rising ground overhanging the grove, is sacred to Apollo. The Olympian game, called the Actia, is instituted there in honour of Apollo Actius. It is under the superintendence of the Lacedæmonians. The other surrounding settlements are dependent on Nicopolis. The Actian games were formerly celebrated in honour of the god by the neighbouring people; it was a contest in which the victor was crowned; but Cæsar has conferred on it greater honours.
7. After Ambracia follows the Amphilochian Argos, founded by Alcmæon and his sons. According to Ephorus, Alcmæon, after the expedition of the Epigoni against Thebes, upon the solicitation of Diomed, accompanied him in his invasion of Ætolia, and obtained joint possession of this country and of Acarnania. When Agamemnon invited them to come to the siege of Troy, Diomed went, but Alcmæon remained in Acarnania, founded Argos, and gave it the name Amphilochian, after his brother Amphilochus. On the same authority the river Inachus, which flows through the country and empties itself into the bay, received its name from the river in the Argive territory. Thucydides, however, says that Amphilochus himself, upon his return from Troy, dissatisfied with the state of things at Argos, passed over into Acarnania, and having succeeded to the dynasty of his brother, founded the city which is called after his name.
8. The Amphilochians are Epirotæ, as also are those nations who inhabit a rugged country situated above and close to the Illyrian mountains, the Molotti, Athamanes, Æthices, Tymphæi, Orestæ Paroræi, and Atintanes, some of whom approach nearer to Macedonia, others to the Ionian Gulf. It is said that Orestes possessed the territory Orestias at the time of his flight, after the murder of his mother, and left the country ​bearing his name, where also he had built a city called Orestic Argos. With these people are intermixed Illyrian nations, some of whom are situated on the southern part of the mountainous district, and others above the Ionian Gulf. For above Epidamnus and Apollonia, as far as the Ceraunian mountains, live the Bulliones, Taulantii, Parthini, and Brygi.
Somewhere near are the silver mines of Damastium. Here the Perisadyes had established their sway, and Enchelii, who are also called Sesarethii. Then come the Lyncestæ, the territory Deuriopus, Pelagonia-Tripolitis, the Eordi, Elimia, and Eratyra. Formerly each of these nations was under its own prince. The chiefs of the Enchelii were descendants of Cadmus and Harmonia, and scenes of the fables respecting these persons are shown in the territory. This nation, therefore, was not governed by native princes. The Lyncestæ were under Arrhabæus, who was of the race of the Bacchiadæ. Irra was his daughter, and his grand-daughter was Eurydice, the mother of Philip Amyntas.
The Molotti also were Epirotæ, and were subjects of Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, and of his descendants, who were Thessalians. The rest were governed by native princes. Some tribes were continually endeavouring to obtain the mastery over the others, but all were finally subdued by the Macedonians, except a few situated above the Ionian Gulf. They gave the name of Upper Macedonia to the country about Lyncestis, Pelagonia, Orestias, and Elimia. Later writers called it Macedonia the Free, and some extend the name of Macedonia to all the country as far as Corcyra, at the same time assigning as their reasons, the mode of cutting their hair, their language, the use of the chlamys, and similar things in which they resemble the Macedonians; some of them, however, speak two languages. On the dissolution of the Macedonian empire, they fell under the power of the Romans.
The Egnatian Way, from Epidamnus and Apollonia, passes through the territory of these people. Near the road to Candavia are the lakes about Lychnidus, which furnish large supplies of fish for salting, and rivers, some of which empty ​themselves into the Ionian Gulf. Some flow towards the south, as the Inachus, the Arathus, (Ratoüs,) the Achelous, and the Evenus, formerly called Lycormas. The Ratous discharges its waters into the Ambracian Gulf, the Inachus into the Achelous, the Achelous itself into the sea, as also the Evenus; the former traverses Acarnania, the latter Ætolia. The Erigon, after having received many streams which flow from the Illyrian mountains, and through the territories of Lyncestæ, Brygi, Deuriopes, and Pelagonians, empties itself into the Axius.
9. There were formerly cities among these nations. The district Pelagonia-Tripolitis contained (as the name signifies) three cities, of which Azorus was one. All the cities of the Deuriopes were situated on the banks of the Erigon; among which were Bryanium, Alalcomenæ, and Stymbara. Cydriæ belonged to the Brygi, and Æginium on the confines of Æthicia, and Tricca, to the Tymphæi. Near Macedonia and Thessalia, about the mountains Pœus and Pindus, are the Æthices, and the sources of the Peneus, which are a subject of dispute between the Tymphæi and the Thessalians, who are situated below Pindus.
On the banks of the river Ion is Oxynia, a city distant from Azorus in the Tripolitis 120 stadia. Near Oxynia are Alalcomenæ, Æginium, Europus, and the confluence of the Ion with the Peneus.
At that time then, as I said before, the whole of Epirus and Illyria were well peopled, although the country is rugged and full of mountains, such as Tomarus, and Polyanus, and many others. At present the greater part is uninhabited, and the inhabited parts are left in the state of villages, or in ruins. Even the oracle at Dodona has almost been deserted, like the rest.
With respect to Dodona, Homer clearly intimates that the people who lived about the temple were barbarians, from their mode of life, describing them as persons who do not wash their feet, and who sleep on the ground. Whether we should read Helli, with Pindar, or Selli, as it is conjectured the word existed in Homer, the ambiguity of the writing does not permit us to affirm confidently. Philochorus says, that the country about Dodona was called, like Eubœa, Hellopia; for these are the words of Hesiod, “There is a country Hellopia, rich in corn-fields and pastures; at its extremity is built Dodona.”
[ Demetrius of Skepsis contends that] Ephyra of Thesprotia is not here meant, but Ephyra of Elis. For the river Selleis is in Elis, and there is no river of this name either in Thesprotia or among the Molotti. The fable of the oak and the doves, and other similar things, like the stories connected with Delphi, although they are subjects more adapted to engage the attention of a poet, yet are appropriate to the description of the country with which we are now occupied.
11. Dodona was formerly subject to the Thesproti, as was the mountain Tomarus, or Tmarus, (both names are in use,) below which the temple is situated. The tragic writers and Pindar give the epithet of Thesprotis to Dodona. It was said to be subject, in later times, to the Molotti. Those called by the poet Jove’s interpreters, and described by him as men with unwashen feet, who slept on the ground, were, it is said, called Tomuri from Mount Tomarus, and the passage in the Odyssey containing the advice of Amphihomus to the suitors ​not to attack Telemachus before they had inquired of Jupiter is as follows,
“If the Tomuri of great Jove approve, I myself will kill him, and I will order all to join in the deed; but if the god forbid it, I command to withhold.”
For it is better, it is asserted, to write Tomuri than Themistæ, because in no passage whatever are oracles called by the poet Themistæ, this term being applied to decrees, or statutes and rules of civil government; and the persons are called Tomuri, which is the contracted form of Tomaruri, or guardians of Tomarus.
In Homer, however, we must understand θέμιστες in a more simple sense, and, like βουλαί, by the figure Catachresis, as meaning commands and oracular injunctions as well as laws; for such is the import of this line:
“To listen to the will of Jove, which comes forth from the lofty and verdant oak.”
12. The first prophets were men, and this the poet perhaps indicates, for he calls the persons interpreters, among whom the prophets might be classed. In after-times three old women were appointed to this office, after even Dione had a common temple with Jupiter.
Suidas, in order to court the favour of the Thessalians by fabulous stories, says, that the temple was transported from Scotussa of the Thessalian Pelasgiotis, accompanied by a great multitude, chiefly of women, whose descendants are the present prophetesses, and that hence Jupiter had the epithet Pelasgic. Cineas relates what is still more fabulous * * * * * * * * * *
[With the exception of the following Fragments, the rest of this book is lost.]
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* ↑ Strabo, in a subsequent passage, states that the distance from the Danube to the city Trieste, at the head of the Adriatic, is about 1200 stadia.
* ↑ The Bastarnæ were a people occupying portions of the modern Moldavia, Podolia, and the Ukraine.
* ↑ The Tyregetæ, or the Getæ of the river Tyras, were a people dwelling on the Dniester, to the south of the Bastarnæ.
* ↑ The ancient geographers supposed that the Northern Ocean extended to the 56° of north latitude. Their notions of the existence of the Baltic were vague. They therefore confounded it with the Northern Ocean, thus making the continent of Europe to extend only to the 56° of north latitude.
* ↑ See book iv. chap. iv. § 2, pp. 291, 292.
* ↑ Strabo’s words are, γνήσιοι γὰρ οἱ Γερμανοὶ κατὰ τὴν Ῥωμαίων διάλεκτον. It is possible he may be endeavouring to explain that the γερ in Germani is equivalent to the Latin verus, “true,” the wahr of modern German, and that Germani signifies the true men of the country, the undoubted autochthones of Galatia or Gaul.
* ↑ The Marsi were a people dwelling on the banks of the Ems, near Munster.
* ↑ The Sicambri were located near the Menapii. See above, p. 289.
* ↑ The name of this tribe is written variously by different authors. They are supposed to have occupied the lands between the Rhine, the Ems, and the Lippe, but their boundaries were very uncertain, on account of their continual wars.
* ↑ This refers to the chain of mountains which, running from the north of Switzerland, traverses Wurtemberg, Franconia, Bohemia, Moravia, and joins Mount Krapak.
* ↑ The Hercynian Wood, or Black Forest, was either one or a succession of continuous forests, extending from the banks of the Rhine to the confines of Persia and Bactriana.
* ↑ The Suevi occupied a considerable portion of Germany, to the north and east of Bohemia.
* ↑ Coldui manuscripts. Kramer agrees with Cluverius in this instance, and we have followed Kramer’s text.
* ↑ The Lugii of Tacitus.
* ↑ Zeus thinks these were the Burri of Dio Cassius, lxviii. 8. See Zeus, Die Deutschen, &c., p. 126.
* ↑ Kramer has Γούτωνας, although the MSS. have Βούτωνας. He is led to this emendation by Cluverius and others. Cluv. Germ. Antiq. lib. iii. c. 34, page 625.
* ↑ The Gambrivii of Tacitus, Germ. cap. 2.
* ↑ Cluverius considers these were the Chamavi.
* ↑ We have followed Kramer’s text. MSS. read Bucteri.
* ↑ For Caulci, Campsiani, Cluverius would read Cathulci, Campsani. A little further on Strabo calls the Campsiani Ampsani.
* ↑ Borcum. Pliny calls this island Burchana, and adds, that the Romans gave it the name of Fabaria, on account of the beans (in Latin Faba) which grow there.
* ↑ Segimundus in Tacitus, Annal. lib. i. cap. 57.
* ↑ Ægimerus in Tacitus, Annal. lib. i. cap. 71.
* ↑ Acrumerus, according to the correction of Cluverius. He is Actumerus in Tacitus, Annal. lib. xi. 16, 17.
* ↑ MSS. Batti, which Vossius reckons were the Batavi.
* ↑ Cluverius considers these were the Marsi of Tacitus, Annal. lib. ii. cap. 25.
* ↑ Called Tubantes by the Roman writers.
* ↑ Strabo could hardly have intended 300, since the diameter of the lake is given at 200. Velser conjectures that 500 or 600 would be the proper reading. Its exact circumference is about 550 stadia.
* ↑ Gossellin considers that by Keltica we are to understand Cisalpine Gaul, and the neighbourhood of Milan and Mantua.
* ↑ Gossellin says that the sources of the Danube are about 14 leagues distant from the western extremity of the Lake Constance.
* ↑ The Rhæti possessed the countries of the Grisons and the Tyrol, extending to the eastern shores of the Lake Constance.
* ↑ The Helvetii, or Swiss, possessed the southern borders of the Lake Constance.
* ↑ The Vindelici occupied the country on the northern borders of the lake, with the regions of Swabia and Bavaria south of the Danube, and reaching to the Inn. Gossellin.
* ↑ It is evident that some words have been omitted in this place. The words we have inserted are the conjecture of Cluverius and Groskurd.
* ↑ As far as we can make out from Strabo and Pliny, book iii. cap. 27, the desert of the Boii stretched along the shores of the Danube from the river Inn to the mountains a little west of Vienna, which were the boundary between the Norici and the Pannonians. This strip of land is now called the Wiener-Wald, or Forest of Vienna. Doubtless it took its name of Desert of the Boii on account of its contiguity to the south of the country occupied by those people, and which still bears the name of Bohemia.
* ↑ The Pannonians occupied the districts of Hungary west of the Danube.
* ↑ The Norici inhabited that part of Austria which lies between the Danube and the Alps.
* ↑ The Insubri occupied the Milanese.
* ↑ The Carni have left their name to Carniola.
* ↑ See also book ii. chap. 3, § 6. Festus relates that the Ambrones abandoned their country on account of this tide. The Ambrones were a tribe of the Helvetii, and more than once joined with the Cimbri.
* ↑ The French translation has happily paraphrased, not translated, this passage as follows; “For although it is true that the ocean has tides of more or less height, still they occur periodically, and in an order constantly the same.”
* ↑ Aristotle, Ethics, Eudem. lib. iii. cap. 1, Nicolas of Damascus, and Ælian, Var. Histor. lib. xii. cap. 23, have attributed the like extravagant proceedings to the Kelts or Gauls. Nicolas of Damascus, Reliq. pp. 272, 273, says that the Kelts resist the tides of the ocean with their swords in their hands, till they perish in the waters, in order that they may not seem to fear death by taking the precaution to fly.
* ↑ It is probable that Clitarchus obtained his information from the Gauls. As for the sudden influx of the tide, there are several other examples of the kind, in which the troops surprised were not so successful in getting off.
* ↑ Tacitus, De Morib. Germanor. cap. viii., says that these priestesses were held in great reputation, and mentions one Veleda as “diu apud plerosque numinis loco habitam.”
* ↑ Pliny, lib. xix. cap. 1, describes this carbasus as very fine flax, grown in the neighbourhood of Tarragona in Spain. The Père Hardouin considers that the carbasus or fabric manufactured of this flax was similar to the French batiste.—The flax and the fabric were alike called carbasus.
* ↑ The Sicambri, or Sugambri, dwelt to the south of the Lippe.
* ↑ The Cimbri occupied Jutland, the ancient Cimbrica Chersonesus.
* ↑ Gossellin places the Jazyges in the southern districts of the Ukraine, between the Dniester and the Sea of Azoff.
* ↑ Gossellin considers that the name of Russia is derived from these Roxolani.
* ↑ The Bastarnæ and Tyregetæ, mentioned in chap. i. § 1, of this book, to whom, in book ii. chap. v. § 30, Strabo adds also the Sauromatæ.
* ↑ The Sauromatæ, or Sarmatians, living to the east of the Sea of Azoff and along the banks of the Don.
* ↑ The term Atlantic was applied with much more latitude by Strabo and Eratosthenes than by us.
* ↑ But he himself turned back his shining eyes apart, looking towards the land of the equestrian Thracians and the close-fighting Mysians. Iliad xiii. 3.
* ↑ Milkers of mares.
* ↑ People who live on milk.
* ↑ Devoid of riches.
* ↑ Dwelling in waggons.
* ↑ Perhaps Teurisci.
* ↑ A note in the French translation suggests that Capnobatæ has some connexion with the practice of intoxication by inhaling smoke, and of using the vapour of linseed, burned upon red-hot stones, as a bath. See Herodot. book i. chap. 202; book iv. chap. 75.
* ↑ And the illustrious Hippemolgi, milk-nourished, simple in living and most just men. Iliad xiii. 5.
* ↑ δεκάτῳ, text: but there is no doubt it should be the thirteenth.
* ↑ People without life.
* ↑ The Greek is ἀνεστίους, literally “without hearths.”
* ↑ Strabo does not intend by the word κυνισμὸς, which he here uses, the profession of a Cynic philosopher, which some of the Stoics affected in consequence of their not thoroughly understanding the dogmas of Zeno, the founder of their sect. It was to these ultra-Stoics that the name of Stoaces [Στόακες] was given by way of ridicule. Athenæus, book xiii. chap. 2, remarks that a like propensity to overdo the precept of the teacher led the disciples of Aristippus, who recommended rational pleasures, to become mere libertines.
* ↑ Heraclides of Pontus, page 215, gives them even as many as thirty wives.
* ↑ Kramer reads δαπάναις, which we have rendered by “expenses,” but all manuscripts have ἀπάταις. The French translation gives a note with Koray’s conjecture of δαπάναις, which is supported by a very similar passage respecting Alcibiades, where Isocrates (P. I. page 354, ed. Coray) says, “He was so lavish in the sacrifices and other expenses for the feast.” Both the French and German translations adopt the emendation.
* ↑ Ζάλμοξις is the reading of the Paris manuscript, No. 1393, and we should have preferred it for the text, as more likely to be a Getæan name, but for the circumstance of his being generally written Zamolxis.
* ↑ D’Anville imagines that this is the modern mountain Kaszon, and the little river of the same name on the confines of Transylvania and Moldavia.
* ↑ See Strabo’s former remarks on this identical subject, book i. chap, ii. § 3, page 25.
* ↑ Gossellin observes, that these must have been the Scythians inhabiting the Taurica Chersonesus, now the Crimea. The people on the opposite or southern shore were less savage. The Ionians had made settlements amongst these as early as the sixth century B. C.
* ↑ Od. book iv. line 83. See Strabo’s remarks on this reading of Zeno, book i. chap. ii. § 34, page 66.
* ↑ See the notes on these varios monsters, book i. chap. ii. § 35, p. 68.
* ↑ The Riphæan Mountains were probably the chain of the Ural Mountains, which separate Russia from Siberia.
* ↑ This mountain is unknown.
* ↑ The Gorgons were Stheino, Euryalé, and Medusa, the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. See also book i. chap. ii. § 8, page 29.
* ↑ The Hesperides were the daughters of Night. They dwelt on an island on the western edge of the world. See also Apollodorus, book ii. chap. v. § 11.
* ↑ Ælian, Var. Histor. book iii. chap. 18, says that Theopompus related an interview between Midas, king of Phrygia, and Silenus, in which Silenus reported the existence of an immense continent, larger than Asia, Europe, and Africa taken together, and that amongst others a race of men called Meropes occupied several extensive cities there.
* ↑ Ephorus speaks of the Cimmerii who dwelt round the Lake Avernus. See Strabo, book v. chap. iv. § 5, page 263.
* ↑ See Strabo, book ii. chap. iv. § 2, page 158.
* ↑ A note in the French translation says that this place has not been identified in the works of Aristotle now remaining, and suggests that there may be some error in the text.
* ↑ See what Strabo has said on this subject in book i. chap. ii. § 37, pp. 70, 71.
* ↑ Strabo will speak further on the subject of Gerena in book viii. chap, iii. § 7, and § 29.
* ↑ Reference is here made to the epithet ἀκάκητα, which Homer applies to Mercury, Iliad xvi. 185. The grammarians explain it correctly as “free from evil,” or “who neither does nor suffers wrong.” However, there were some who interpreted it differently. They maintain that Mercury was so called from a cavern in Arcadia, called Acacesium, (see Schol. in Homer, edit. Villois. pag. 382,) which was situated near Cyllene, a mountain of Arcadia, where he was born. See Apollodor. Biblioth. lib. iii. cap. x. § 2. Hesiod, however, applies the same epithet to Prometheus, (Theogon. verse 613,) who, according to the scholiast, was thus designated from Acacesium, a mountain, not a cavern, of Arcadia, where he was greatly revered.
* ↑ Homer, Iliad iii. verse 201, in speaking of Ulysses, says, Ὃς τράφη ἐν δήμῳ Ἰθάκης. Some writers affirmed that the Δῆμος was the name of a place in Ithaca, while others think it a word, and understand the passage “who was bred in the country of Ithaca.” On comparing this passage with others, Iliad xvi. vss. 437, 514, and with a parallel expression of Hesiod, Theogon. verse 971, one is greatly astonished at the ignorance and eccentricity of those who sought to make a place Demus out of this passage of Homer.
* ↑ According to some, Pelethronium was a city of Thessaly; according to others, it was a mountain there, or even a part of Mount Pelion.
* ↑ There is no mention of any Glaucopium throughout the writings of Homer. Eustathius, on the Odyssey, book ii. page 1451, remarks that it was from the epithet γλαυκῶπις, blue-eyed or fierce-eyed, which he so often gives to Minerva, that the citadel at Athens was called the Glaucopium, while Stephen of Byzantium, on ἀλαλκομένιον, asserts that both the epithet γλαυκῶπις and the name of the citadel Glaucopium comes from Glaucopus, the son of Alalcomeneus.
* ↑ And the close-fighting Mysians, and the illustrious Hippemolgi, milk-nourished, simple in living, and most just of men. Iliad xiii. 5. The word which Cowper renders “blest with length of days,” and Buckley “simple in living,” is ἄβιοι. Its signification is very uncertain. Some propose to derive it from α, privative, and βιὸς, a bow, or bowless; while others regard it as a proper name, Abii. In Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, xv. 3, it means, without a living, poor, as derived from α, privative, and βίος, a means of living, livelihood. Cowper’s meaning is made up from α, intensive, and βἱος, life.
* ↑ This word is corrupt in the MSS.
* ↑ He was called Idanthyrsus. See Herodotus, book iv. chap. 127.
* ↑ Satyrus is supplied by Koray. See also chapter iv. of this book, § 4, and book xi. chap. ii. § 7. Groskurd refers also to Diodorus, book xiv. 93, and says that Leuco was the son of Satyrus.
* ↑ The mountains in the north of Thrace still bear the name of Emineh Dag, or Mount Emineh, at their eastern point; but the western portion is called the Balkan.
* ↑ Piczina, at the embouchure of the Danube, between Babadag and Ismail.
* ↑ A note in the French translation says, these were the Carni and the Iapodes, who having followed Sigovesus, in the reign of the elder Tarquin, had taken up their abode in the neighbourhood of the Adriatic; and refers to the Examen Critique des Anciens Historiens d’Alexandre, by M. de Sainte Croix, page 855.
* ↑ Diodorus Siculus, in Excerpt. Peiresc. pag. 257; Memnon apud Photium, cod. 214, cap. 6; and Plutarch, in Demetrio, § 39 and 52, confirm what Strabo says here of the manner in which Dromichætes treated Lysimachus.
* ↑ This is not in Plato’s Republic, but in his fourth book of Laws.
* ↑ This passage, if it is the writing of Strabo, and not the marginal note of some learned reader, should doubtless be transferred back to the end of § 7 of this chapter.
* ↑ Iliad xiii. 5. See note to page 460.
* ↑ Kramer quotes Nækius in proof that we should here read Xerxes instead of Darius; and Groskurd refers to another passage in Strabo, book xiii. chap. i. § 22.
* ↑ Casaubon observes that Diodorus Siculus attributes the invention of the potter’s wheel to Talus, a nephew of Dædalus, and that Theophrastus awards it to one Hyberbius of Corinth.
* ↑ Iliad xviii. 600. Posidonius chose to regard this passage as an interpolation, and would not give the praise of the invention to any other than Anacharsis.
* ↑ ἄνδρα γόητα, one who used a kind of howling incantation while repeating spells.
* ↑ See book vii. chap. iii. § 5, page 456.
* ↑ Gossellin observes that the Dacians did not extend to the sources of the Danube, but to Bohemia, near the middle of the course of the Danube.
* ↑ Gossellin seems to think that these Daæ are identical with the inhabitants of Daghistan. Davus is not found as the name of a slave amongst the Greeks till after the conquests of Alexander the Great.
* ↑ Hyrcania comprehended the Corcan and Daghistan.
* ↑ From Lydia and Syria.
* ↑ ὁ Ἴστρος. Stephen of Byzantium says that the Ister was called Δάνουβις, and that in very ancient times it was called Matoas. According to Ptolemy the lower part of the Danube was called Ister from Axiopolis, now Rassovat; according to Agathemerus, from Vienna.
* ↑ Bessarabia and the southern part of Moldavia.
* ↑ Peter the Great, at the beginning of the last century, incurred the risk of falling into the hands of the Turks almost on the same spot where Darius and Lysimachus had been in distress.
* ↑ Ammianus Marcellinus, book xxii. chap. 8, gives the names of these mouths. He calls the Sacred Mouth by the name of the island Peuce.
* ↑ There has been much geographical change in this locality since Strabo wrote.
* ↑ Gossellin supports this distance.
* ↑ Gossellin could not identify Niconia with any modern town. Groskurd marks it as destroyed.
* ↑ Groskurd identifies this with Palanka.
* ↑ Groskurd calls this Ilan-Adassi, or Schlangeninsel. Gossellin likewise translates Ilan-Adassi as “Isle of Serpents.”
* ↑ Gossellin considers that Strabo wrote 1600 stadia, for at that distance from the sea there are cataracts which stop the ships that come from the sea.
* ↑ Strabo’s word is Ὕπανις. Gossellin observes that we should look for the Ὕπανις to the east of the Dnieper, while the Bog lies to the west of that river.
* ↑ Gossellin identifies this island with the modern Berezan.
* ↑ Olbia, or Olbiopolis, would, according to this measure, be about the junction of the Bog and Dnieper.
* ↑ Mannert has attempted to read Γεωργοί, because Herodotus, book iv. chap. 18, has so termed those Scythians who cultivated their fields. Is it not possible that the Latin Regii was the word Strabo had in his mind?
* ↑ Some MSS. read this name Ῥωξανοί, others Ῥοξανοι, and others Ῥωξοανοί, but whether there is any distinction to be drawn between these and the Ῥωξαλανοί of book ii. chap. v. § 7, is not to be ascertained.
* ↑ The Gulf of Perecop, called also Olou-Degniz. Gossellin.
* ↑ The Isthmus of Perecop, which connects the Peninsula of Crimea, the ancient Taurica Chersonesus.
* ↑ Panticapæum, now Kertsch or Wospor in Europe.
* ↑ Phanagoria was on the Asiatic coast of the Bosphorus.
* ↑ We entirely agree with Kramer in favouring Coray’s emendation of πλοῦν for πηλόν, the reading of MSS.
* ↑ Herodotus, book iv. chap. 53, says this fishing was carried on in the Dnieper. Ælian, de Natur. Animal, book xiv. chap. 26, refers it to the Danube.
* ↑ Strabo has before alluded to this fact, book ii. chap. i. § 16, p. 114.
* ↑ Lucian, in Macrob. § 10, spells his name Anteas, and relates that he was killed in this war when upwards of 90 years of age.
* ↑ Father of Alexander the Great.
* ↑ M. Gossellin identifies this as Cape Czile.
* ↑ 190 toises.
* ↑ 63½ toises.
* ↑ The Dromos Achillis is pretty well laid down in D’Anville’s Orbis Romani Pars Orientalis, 1764, but at present it presents a very different appearance.
* ↑ There is a note by Gossellin in the French translation to the following effect. The western part of this strip of land is known as the Island of Tendra, because it is separated by a cut. The eastern part of the strip is called Djarilgatch. The entire length of the tongue of land is 800 Olympic stadia, the two extremities are a little farther from the mainland than Strabo says, and the isthmus is about 50 Olympic stadia broad. D’Anville has run this isthmus through the tongue of land, and jutting out into the sea, so as to form a cape, which he also calls Tendra, and which would answer to the Tamyraca of Strabo. In the most recent maps there is no trace of this cape, but we see the port of which Strabo speaks. As these tongues of land are composed of a shifting sand, they may experience alterations of form and variations of extent.
* ↑ Gossellin observes that the direction of the Gulf Carcinites, or Gulf of Perecop, is from west to east, with a slight inclination towards the north, on arriving from the south. Its northern shore commences at the isthmus of the Course of Achilles, and would measure about 1000 Olympic stadia if we were to follow all the sinuosities.
* ↑ Perekop. The isthmus is about 5½ miles across, according to M. Huot’s map, which accompanies Prince Demidoff’s Travels in Russia.
* ↑ The Sivash, or Putrid Lake. It communicates at the present day, not by a large opening, but by the narrow strait of Yenitche, or Tonka, with the Sea of Azof, (the Palus Mæotis,) from which it is separated by the Tonka, or Tongue of Arabat.
* ↑ ῥαπτοῖς πλοίοις. Boats probably composed of frame-work covered with hides.
* ↑ Casaubon suggests, and Gossellin adopts, the reading καλὸς λιμὴν, Fair Haven, for ἄλλος λιμὴν, another harbour. Whatever harbour was meant, its situation is uncertain.
* ↑ In speaking of the Virgin as “some goddess,” it may be doubted whether Diana is here meant, or some Scythian or Eastern divinity. Parthenium, a village, is mentioned, c. 4, 5. The scene of the Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides is laid some where on these shores.
* ↑ The New Chersonesus, Cape Cherson, and the three small harbours near Khut.
* ↑ The Heracleotic Chersonese was comprehended in the triangle formed by Ctenus, (Inkerman,) Parthenium, (Cape Cherson,) and Symbolon Limen (Baluklava). The Gulf of Ctenus is now the Gulf of Sebastopol, a name substituted for that of Akhtiar in the time of Catherine II. of Russia. On the first small bay to the west of the town of Sebastopol, was situated the New city Chersonesus, flourishing in the time of Strabo; the Old Chersonesus, described as in ruins, was situated on the small peninsula, the extreme western point of which is Cape Cherson. Both here and in various parts of the Crimea were very interesting remains of antiquity, but Dr. Clarke complains of their wanton destruction. Ctenus is probably derived from κτενώδης, “like a comb,” descriptive of the indented nature of the gulf. Both Gossellin and D’Anville have mistaken the true position of the Heracleotic Chersonese.
* ↑ So named after the wife or sister of Leucon. C. Now Kaffa.
* ↑ The opposite coasts are not visible from the middle passage.
* ↑ The engraving in Pallas shows it to be, as the name implies, a table mountain, now Tchadir-Dagh, or Tent Mountain.
* ↑ The name seems to be preserved in that of one of the districts near the mountains, Eski-Krim. G. In Prince Demidoff’s map it is called Staröi-Krime.
* ↑ i. e. from Kertch to Taman, or from Yenikaleh near Kertch to Taman. Prince Gleb, son of Vladimir, A. D. 1065, measured this latter distance on the ice, and found it to be 30.057 Russian fathoms, or nearly 12 miles. Here the battle was fought on the ice. See chap. iii. § 18.
* ↑ According to modern maps, the Don separates into two branches, and there again into several others, which form the mouths of the river. The extreme branches are at a considerable distance from each other.
* ↑ The amount is enormous, if it refers to the quantity of corn shipped in a single year. Neither manuscripts nor translations afford any various reading. The abbreviator, however, instead of 2,100,000, (μυριάδας μεδίμνων διακοσίας καὶ δέκα,) gives 150,000 (μεδίμνους ΜΥΡΙΑΔΑΣ ΙΕ). But instead of correcting Strabo by his abbreviator, it is more probable that the text of the latter should be changed to 2,100,000, or even to 2,150,000 (ΜΥΡΙΑΔΑΣ ΣΙΕ). Brequigny, by an oversight, or because he thought proper to change the ΜΥΡΙΑΔΑΣ of the text to ΧΙΛΙΑΔΑΣ, translates 210,000 medimni. However it may be, we know from Demosthenes, that this same prince of the Bosporus mentioned by Strabo, sent annually to Athens 400,000 medimni of corn, a quantity far below that mentioned in the text. To reconcile these authors, Mr. Wolf supposes that we ought to understand by 2,100,000 medimni of corn, the shipment made in the year of the great famine, which occurred in the 105th Olympiad, (about 360 B. C.,) and of which Demosthenes speaks in a manner to give us to understand, that the quantity sent that year by Leucon greatly exceeded that of former years. A very probable conjecture. F. T.. The medimnus was about 1½ bushel.
* ↑ I have adopted the reading suggested by the F. T., Πύργους καθ᾿ ἕκαστα στάδια δέκα. The wall of Ansander may still be traced. Pallas.
* ↑ Places to me unknown. G. Pallas erroneously supposes Palacium to be the modern Balaklava.
* ↑ Named after Mithridates Eupator. Koslof, now again Eupatoria.
* ↑ The southern part of Dalmatia bounded by the Narenta, which takes its source in the Herzogovina.
* ↑ Called Monte Argentaro by the Italians, Basilissa by the Greeks, Rulla by the Turks. Baudrand. Despoto Dagh.
* ↑ Occupied the neighbourhood of the river Titius, Kerca, which discharges itself near Siberico.
* ↑ The mountainous country south of Servia.
* ↑ The text presents some difficulty; another reading is Tænii. Gossellin supposes the lake to be the Czirknitz-See near Mount Albius, now Alben or Planina.
* ↑ The Margus? See chap. v. § 12.
* ↑ At the confluence of the Kulpa and the Save, afterwards Siscia, now Sizsek.
* ↑ Occupied the coast of Morlacca from the Gulf of Quarnero to Zara.
* ↑ According to Pliny, the name of this place is derived from the fable of the ship Argo, which was brought up the Danube and the Save, and thence carried on men’s shoulders to the Adriatic. Now Porto Quieto.
* ↑ Now celebrated for the remains of a Roman amphitheatre.
* ↑ I am not acquainted with the sites of these places. G.
* ↑ The modern names of these numerous islands must be matter of conjecture. Issa is Lissa.
* ↑ Inhabitants, probably, of the peninsula Sabioncello.
* ↑ Varalii, MSS.; but manifestly wrong.
* ↑ Kramer suggests the omission of these words, which render the passage obscure.
* ↑ Galabrii. The name of this people is unknown. Probably it should be changed to Taulantii, an Illyrian tribe, or considered as a second name of the Taulantii, or that of a tribe belonging to them. The name Galabrus, or Galaurus, king of the Taulantii, has come down to us, which gives some probability to the second conjecture. C.
* ↑ The Mædi occupied the mountains which separate Macedonia from Thrace, between the river Strymon and Mount Rhodope. G.
* ↑ Polina. Thucydides calls Apollonia a colony of the Corinthians, and not of the Corinthians and Corcyræans. He states it, however, (b. i. c. 24.) to have been the practice for colonies which in their turn founded other colonies, to unite with them, on these occasions, citizens of the mother city.
* ↑ Amphilochian Argos, now Filochia. G.
* ↑ On the boundary of Cilicia and Syria.
* ↑ Appear to have been situated on the Gulf of Valona. G.
* ↑ The name, Ionian Gulf, appears to have extended from the Acroceraunian mountains to the southern part of Dalmatia, near Lissus, now Alessio, to the bottom of the Gulf of Drin. G.
* ↑ The word Αδρίας is translated Adriatic. In the version of the New Testament it is translated Adria. Acts xxvii. 27.—The Tartaro.
* ↑ A common opinion among ancient geographers. See b. i. c. ii. § 39.
* ↑ The Agrianæ occupied the neighbourhood of Mount Pangæus on the confines of Thrace and Macedonia. The Triballi, at the time alluded to by Strabo, possessed nearly the whole of the country included between the Adriatic and the Euxine. The Scordisci, who were at first confined to the territory situated between the Drave and the Save, in their turn took possession of all this country. It is not possible, in consequence of the continual wars which existed amongst these people, to determine with exactness the places which they successively occupied. G.
* ↑ Mangalia, Tomesvar, the place of Ovid’s exile, Kara-Herman.
* ↑ Cape Emineh—in the English charts Emona, but there is no fixed system of spelling for names of places in this part of the world. Emineh is probably a corruption of Hæmus.
* ↑ Or Meneburgh, we should say. The Thracian was a language cognate with that of the Getæ; see Strabo, book vii. chap. iii. § 10; and the Getæ were Gothic. We have the Liber Aureus in the Moeso Gothic language still.
* ↑ In the English charts Kyanees. They do not correspond to the description here given. The well-known poetical name is Symplegades.
* ↑ In Italian, Pelamide, or Palamide, well known in the Mediterranean. It is not to be compared in size to the Thunny, but is much larger than the Mackerel, of a dark blue and streaked. Like the Thunny, it is migratory. Aristotle erroneously conjectures the Pelamide to be the young of the Thunny.
* ↑ The ancient Byzantium, there are grounds for believing, was marked by the present walls of the Seraglio. The enlarged city was founded by the emperor Constantine, A. D. 328, who gave it his name, and made it the rival of Rome itself. It was taken from the Greeks in 1204, by the Venetians under Dandolo; retaken by the Greeks in 1261 under the emperor Michael Palæologus, and conquered by the Turks in 1453. The crescent found on some of the ancient Byzantine coins was adopted as a symbol by the Turks.
* ↑ B. C. 1570. He was king of Argos.
* ↑ The Peloponnesus, which before the arrival of Pelops was called Apia.
* ↑ Eumolpus took possession of Eleusis B. C. 1400. He is said to have there instituted the mysteries of Ceres.
* ↑ Cadmus, son of Agenor, king of Tyre, arrived in Bœotia B. C. 1550. The citadel of Thebes was named after him.
* ↑ Sues, Σύας, swine, in allusion to their ignorance.
* ↑ There were two kings of Athens named Cecrops. The first of this name, first king of Attica and Bœotia, came from Egypt. Cecrops II. was the 7th, and Codrus the 17th and last king of Attica. Strabo informs us, b. x. c. i. § 3, that Œclus and Cothus were brothers of Ellops, who founded Ellopia in Eubœa, and gave the name to the whole island.
* ↑ The capture of Troy by Hercules. See Grote i. 388.
* ↑ B. C. 168.
* ↑ D’Anville (Mesures Itineraires) conjectures the difference between Polybius and Strabo to arise from the Greek foot being less than the Roman foot in the ratio of 24 to 25; or 24 Roman stadia = 25 Greek stadia containing the same number of feet.
* ↑ The ruins of Pella are at a little distance on the east of the lake Tenidscheh.
* ↑ Balkan applies to the whole mountainous range of Hæmus; Emineh to the part bordering on the Black Sea.
* ↑ The Thyamus, or Thyamis, is now called Glycys, and the Acheron, Calamas.
* ↑ The ruins of Nicopolis are to the north of Prevesa.
* ↑ Cæsar Augustus (then Cæsar Octavianus) obtained the celebrated victory of Actium over Marcus Antonius, B. C. 31. The latter, after his defeat, fled into Egypt with Cleopatra. The battle would appear to have taken place at the entrance into the Gulf of Arta, and therefore probably off La Punta, opposite Prevesa, and not off the modern town of Azio.
* ↑ In the Austrian map a ground-plan of the ruins of Nicopolis are given, at about one mile to the north of Prevesa.
* ↑ The Gulf of Ambracia, and the rivers which flow into it, are much distorted in D’Anville. According to more modern maps, the Arathus is the most western of the streams which flow into the gulf, and the ancient city was situated at about 15 miles from the mouth. The Loru (the Arathus); the Mauro Potamo or Glykys (the Acheron); the Zagura (the Selleis?) which falls into it; and the Tercino, which falls into the Kalamas, (the Thyamis or Thyamus,) all rise in the mountain ridge Olytkiza, about 10 miles to the west of Ianina.
* ↑ Descendants of the seven chiefs who fought and perished before Thebes.
* ↑ These nations are mentioned by other authors; they were probably separated by the numerous mountain ridges to the west of Pindus. See below, § 9. But compare D’Anville and the Austrian military map.
* ↑ Styberra, Polyb.; Stubera, Liv.; Stobera, Suid.
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