Strabo Geography Book 10

Strab. 10.1.1 Since Euboea lies parallel to the whole of the coast from Sunium to Thessaly, with the exception of the ends on either side,¹ it would be appropriate to connect my description of the island with that of the parts already described before passing on to Aetolia and Acarnania, which are the remaining parts of Europe to be described.

Strabo 10.1.[2] In its length, then, the island extends parallel to the coast for a distance of about one thousand two hundred stadia from Cenaeum to Geraestus, but its breadth is irregular and generally only about one hundred and fifty stadia. Now Cenaeum lies opposite to Thermopylae and, to a slight extent, to the region outside Thermopylae, whereas Geraestus and Petalia lie towards Sunium. Accordingly, the island lies across the strait and opposite Attica, Boeotia, Locris,and the Malians. Because of its narrowness and of the above-mentioned length, it was named Macris² by the ancients. It approaches closest to the mainland at Chalcis, where it juts out in a convex curve towards the region of Aulis in Boeotia and forms the Euripus. Concerning the Euripus I have already spoken rather at length,³ as also to a certain extent concerning the places which lie opposite one another across the strait, both on the mainland and on the island, on either side of the Euripus, that is, the regions both inside and outside⁴ the Euripus. But if anything has been left out, I shall now explain more fully. And first, let me explain that the parts between Aulis and the region of Geraestus are called the Hollows of Euboea; for the coast bends inwards, but when it approaches Chalcis it forms a convex curve again towards the mainland.

Strabo 10.1.[3] The island was called, not only Macris, but also Abantis; at any rate, the poet, although he names Euboea, never names its inhabitants "Euboeans," but always "Abantes":“And those who held Euboea, the courage-breathing Abantes . . .
”⁵“And with him⁶ followed the Abantes.
”⁷ Aristotle⁸ says that Thracians, setting out from the Phocian Aba, recolonized the island and renamed those who held it "Abantes." Others derive the name from a hero,⁹ just as they derive "Euboea" from a heroine.¹⁰ But it may be, just as a certain cave on the coast which fronts the Aegaean, where Io is said to have given birth to Epaphus, is called Böos Aule,¹¹ that the island got the name Euboea¹² from the same cause. The island was also called Oche; and the largest of its mountains bears the same name. And it was also named Ellopia, after Ellops the son of Ion. Some say that he was the brother of Aïclus and Cothus; and he is also said to have founded Ellopia, a place in Oria, as it is called, in Histiaeotis¹³ near the mountain Telethrius, and to have added to his dominions Histiaea, Perias, Cerinthus, Aedepsus, and Orobia; in this last place was an oracle most averse to falsehood (it was an oracle of Apollo Selinuntius). The Ellopians migrated to Histiaea and enlarged the city, being forced to do so by Philistides the tyrant, after the battle of Leuctra. Demosthenes says that Philistides was set up by Philip as tyrant of the Oreitae too;¹⁴ for thus in later times the Histiaeans were named, and the city was named Oreus instead of Histiaea. But according to some writers, Histiaea was colonized by Athenians from the deme of the Histiaeans, as Eretria was colonized from that of the Eretrians. Theopompus says that when Pericles overpowered Euboea the Histiaeans by agreement migrated to Macedonia, and that two thousand Athenians who formerly composed the deme of the Histiaeans came and took up their abode in Oreus.

Strabo 10.1.[4] Oreus is situated at the foot of the mountain Telethrius in the Drymus,¹⁵ as it is called, on the River Callas, upon a high rock; and hence, perhaps, it was because the Ellopians who formerly inhabited it were mountaineers that the name Oreus¹⁶ was assigned to the city. It is also thought that Orion was so named because he was reared there. Some writers say that the Oreitae had a city of their own, but because the Ellopians were making war on them they migrated and took up their abode with the Histiaeans; and that, although they became one city, they used both names, just as the same city is called both Lacedaemon and Sparta. As I have already said,¹⁷ Histiaeotis in Thessaly was also named after the Histiaeans who were carried off from here into the mainland by the Perrhaebians.

Strabo 10.1.[5] Since Ellopia induced me to begin my description with Histiaea and Oreus, let me speak of the parts which border on these places. In the territory of this Oreus lies, not only Cenaeum, near Oreus, but also, near Cenaeun, Dium¹⁸ and Athenae Diades, the latter founded by the Athenians and lying above that part of the strait where passage is taken across to Cynus; and Canae in Aeolis was colonized from Dium. Now these places are in the neighborhood of Histiaea; and so is Cerinthus, a small city by the sea; and near it is the Budorus River, which bears the same name as the mountain in Salamis which is close to Attica.

Strabo 10.1.[6] Carystus is at the foot of the mountain Oche; and near it are Styra and Marmarium, in which latter are the quarry of the Carystian columns¹⁹ and a temple of Apollo Marmarinus; and from here there is a passage across the strait to Halae Araphenides. In Carystus is produced also the stone which is combed and woven,²⁰ so that the woven material is made into towels, and, when these are soiled, they are thrown into fire and cleansed, just as linens are cleansed by washing. These places are said to have been settled by colonists from the Marathonian Tetrapolis²¹ and by Steirians. Styra was destroyed in the Malian war by Phaedrus, the general of the Athenians; but the country is held by the Eretrians. There is also a Carystus in the Laconian country, a place belonging to Aegys, towards Arcadia; whence the Carystian wine of which Alcman speaks.

Strabo 10.1.[7] Geraestus is not named in the Catalogue of Ships, but still the poet mentions it elsewhere:“and at night they landed at Geraestus.
”²²And he plainly indicates that the place is conveniently situated for those who are sailing across from Asia to Attica, since it comes near to Sunium. It has a temple of Poseidon, the most notable of those in that part of the world, and also a noteworthy settlement.

Strabo 10.1.[8] After Geraestus one comes to Eretria, the greatest city in Euboea except Chalcis; and then to Chalcis, which in a way is the metropolis of the island, being situated on the Euripus itself. Both are said to have been founded by the Athenians before the Trojan War. And after the Trojan War, Aïclus and Cothus, setting out from Athens, settled inhabitants in them, the former in Eretria and the latter in Chalcis. There were also some Aeolians from the army of Penthilus²³ who remained in the island, and, in ancient times, some Arabians who had crossed over with Cadmus. Be this as it may, these cities grew exceptionally strong and even sent forth noteworthy colonies into Macedonia; for Eretria colonized the cities situated round Pallene and Athos, and Chalcis colonized the cities that were subject to Olynthus, which later were treated outrageously by Philip. And many places in Italy and Sicily are also Chalcidian. These colonies were sent out, as Aristotle²⁴ states, when the government of the Hippobatae,²⁵ as it is called, was in power; for at the head of it were men chosen according to the value of their property, who ruled in an aristocratic manner. At the time of Alexander's passage across,²⁶ the Chalcidians enlarged the circuit of the walls of their city, taking inside them both Canethus and the Euripus, and fortifying the bridge with towers and gates and a wall.²⁷

Strabo 10.1.[9] Above the city of the Chalcidians is situated the Lelantine Plain. In this plain are fountains of hot water suited to the cure of diseases, which were used by Cornelius Sulla, the Roman commander. And in this plain was also a remarkable mine which contained copper and iron together, a thing which is not reported as occurring elsewhere; now, however, both metals have given out, as in the case of the silver mines at Athens. The whole of Euboea is much subject to earthquakes, but particularly the part near the strait, which is also subject to blasts through subterranean passages, as are Boeotia and other places which I have already described rather at length.²⁸ And it is said that the city which bore the same name as the island was swallowed up by reason of a disturbance of this kind. This city is also mentioned by Aeschylus in his Glaucus Pontius:“Euboeïs, about the bending shore of Zeus Cenaeus, near the very tomb of wretched Lichas.
”²⁹In Aetolia, also, there is a place called by the same name Chalcis:“and Chalcis near the sea, and rocky Calydon,
”³⁰and in the present Eleian country:“and they went past Cruni and rocky Chalcis,
”³¹that is, Telemachus and his companions, when they were on their way back from Nestor's to their homeland.

Strabo 10.1.[10] As for Eretria, some say that it was colonized from Triphylian Macistus by Eretrieus, but others say from the Eretria at Athens, which now is a marketplace. There is also an Eretria near Pharsalus. In the Eretrian territory there was a city Tamynae, sacred to Apollo; and the temple, which is near the strait, is said to have been founded by Admetus, at whose house the god served as an hireling for a year. In earlier times Eretria was called Melaneïs and Arotria. The village Amarynthus, which is seven stadia distant from the walls, belongs to this city. Now the old city was razed to the ground by the Persians, who "netted" the people, as Herodotus³² says, by means of their great numbers, the barbarians being spread about the walls (the foundations are still to be seen, and the place is called Old Eretria); but the Eretria of today was founded on it.³³ As for the power the Eretrians once had, this is evidenced by the pillar which they once set up in the temple of Artemis Amarynthia. It was inscribed thereon that they made their festal procession with three thousand heavy-armed soldiers, six hundred horsemen, and sixty chariots. And they ruled over the peoples of Andros, Teos, Ceos, and other islands. They received new settlers from Elis; hence, since they frequently used the letter r,³⁴ not only at the end of words, but also in the middle, they have been ridiculed by comic writers. There is also a village Oechalia in the Eretrian territory, the remains of the city which was destroyed by Heracles; it bears the same name as the Trachinian Oechalia and that near Tricce, and the Arcadian Oechalia, which the people of later times called Andania, and that in Aetolia in the neighborhood of the Eurytanians.

Strabo 10.1.[11] Now at the present time Chalcis by common consent holds the leading position and is called the metropolis of the Euboeans; and Eretria is second. Yet even in earlier times these cities were held in great esteem, not only in war, but also in peace; indeed, they afforded philosophers a pleasant and undisturbed place of abode. This is evidenced by the school of the Eretrian philosophers, Menedemus and his disciples, which was established in Eretria, and also, still earlier, by the sojourn of Aristotle in Chalcis, where he also ended his days.³⁵

Strabo 10.1.[12] Now in general these cities were in accord with one another, and when differences arose concerning the Lelantine Plain they did not so completely break off relations as to wage their wars in all respects according to the will of each, but they came to an agreement as to the conditions under which they were to conduct the fight. This fact, among others, is disclosed by a certain pillar in the Amarynthium, which forbids the use of long distance missiles. ³⁶ In fact among all the customs of warfare and of the use of arms there neither is, nor has been, any single custom; for some use long distance missiles, as, for example, bowmen and slingers and javelin-throwers, whereas others use close-fighting arms, as, for example, those who use sword, or outstretched spear; for the spear is used in two ways, one in hand-to-hand combat and the other for hurling like a javelin; just as the pike serves both purposes, for it can be used both in close combat and as a missile for hurling, which is also true of the sarissa³⁷ and the hyssus.³⁸

Strabo 10.1.[13] The Euboeans excelled in "standing" combat, which is also called "close" and "hand-to-hand" combat; and they used their spears outstretched, as the poet says:“spearmen eager with outstretched ashen spears to shatter corselets.
”³⁹Perhaps the javelins were of a different kind, such as probably was the "Pelian ashen spear," which, as the poet says,“Achilles alone knew how to hurl;
”⁴⁰and he⁴¹ who said,“And the spear I hurl farther than any other man can shoot an arrow,
”⁴²means the javelin-spear. And those who fight in single combat are first introduced as using javelin-spears, and then as resorting to swords. And close fighters are not those who use the sword alone, but also the spear hand-to-hand, as the poet says:“he pierced him with bronze-tipped polished spear, and loosed his limbs.
”⁴³Now he introduces the Euboeans as using this mode of fighting, but he says the contrary of the Locrians, that“they cared not for the tolls of close combat, . . . but relying on bows and well-twisted slings of sheep's wool they followed with him to Ilium.
”⁴⁴There is current, also, an oracle which was given out to the people of Aegium,“Thessalian horse, Lacedemonian woman, and men who drink the water of sacred Arethusa,
”meaning that the Chalcidians are best of all, for Arethusa is in their territory.

Strabo 10.1.[14] There are now two rivers in Euboea, the Cereus and the Neleus; and the sheep which drink from one of them turn white, and from the other black. A similar thing takes place in connection with the Crathis River, as I have said before.⁴⁵

Strabo 10.1.[15] When the Euboeans were returning from Troy, some of them, after being driven out of their course to Illyria, set out for home through Macedonia, but remained in the neighborhood of Edessa, after aiding in war those who had received them hospitably; and they founded a city Euboe. There was also a Euboea in Sicily, which was founded by the Chalcidians of Sicily, but they were driven out of it by Gelon; and it became a stronghold of the Syracusans. In Corcyra, also, and in Lemnos, there were places called Euboea; and in the Argive country a hill of that name.

Strabo 10.1.[16] Since the Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Athamanians (if these too are to be called Greeks) live to the west of the Thessalians and the Oetaeans, it remains for me to describe these three, in order that I may complete the circuit of Greece; I must also add the islands which lie nearest to Greece and are inhabited by the Greeks, so far as I have not already included them in my description. 2.

Strab. 10.2.1 Now the Aetolians and the Acarnanians border on one another, having between them the Acheloüs River, which flows from the north and from Pindus on the south through the country of the Agraeans, an Aetolian tribe, and through that of the Amphilochians, the Acarnanians holding the western side of the river as far as that part of the Ambracian Gulf which is near Amphilochi and the temple of the Actian Apollo, but the Aetolians the eastern side as far as the Ozalian Locrians and Parnassus and the Oetaeans. Above the Acarnanians, in the interior and the parts towards the north, are situated the Amphilochians, and above these the Dolopians and Pindus, and above the Aetolians are the Perrhaebians and Athamanians and a part of the Aenianians who hold Oeta. The southern side, of Acarnania and Aetolia alike, is washed by the sea which forms the Corinthian Gulf, into which empties the Acheloüs River, which forms the boundary between the coast of the Aetolians and that of Acarnania. In earlier times the Acheloüs was called Thoas. The river which flows past Dyme bears the same name as this, as I have already said,⁴⁶ and also the river near Lamia.⁴⁷ I have already stated, also, that the Corinthian Gulf is said to begin at the mouth of this river.⁴⁸

Strabo 10.2.[2] As for cities, those of the Acarnanians are Anactorium, which is situated on a peninsula near Actium and is a trading center of the Nicopolis of today, which was founded in our times;⁴⁹ Stratus, where one may sail up the Acheloüs River more than two hundred stadia; and Oeneiadae, which is also on the river—the old city, which is equidistant from the sea and from Stratus, being uninhabited, whereas that of today lies at a distance of about seventy stadia above the outlet of the river. There are also other cities, Palaerus, Alyzia, Leucas,⁵⁰ Argos Amphilochicum, and Ambracia, most of which, or rather all, have become dependencies of Nicopolis. Stratus is situated about midway of the road between Alyzia and Anactorium.⁵¹

Strabo 10.2.[3]The cities of the Aetolians are Calydon and Pleuron, which are now indeed reduced, though in early times these settlements were an ornament to Greece. Further, Aetolia has come to be divided into two parts, one part being called Old Aetolia and the other Aetolia Epictetus.⁵² The Old Aetolia was the seacoast extending from the Acheloüs to Calydon, reaching for a considerable distance into the interior, which is fertile and level; here in the interior lie Stratus and Trichonium, the latter having excellent soil. Aetolia Epictetus is the part which borders on the country of the Locrians in the direction of Naupactus and Eupalium, being a rather rugged and sterile country, and extends to the Oetaean country and to that of the Athamanians and to the mountains and tribes which are situated next beyond these towards the north.

Strabo 10.2.[4] Aetolia also has a very large mountain, Corax, which borders on Oeta; and it has among the rest of its mountains, and more in the middle of the country than Corax, Aracynthus, near which New Pleuron was founded by the inhabitants of the Old, who abandoned their city, which had been situated near Calydon in a district both fertile and level, at the time when Demetrius, surnamed Aetolicus,⁵³ laid waste the country; above Molycreia are Taphiassus and Chalcis, rather high mountains, on which were situated the small cities Macynia and Chalcis, the latter bearing the same name as the mountain, though it is also called Hypochalcis. Near Old Pleuron is the mountain Curium, after which, as some have supposed, the Pleuronian Curetes were named.

Strabo 10.2.[5] The Evenus River begins in the territory of those Bomians who live in the country of the Ophians, the Ophians being an Aetolian tribe (like the Eurytanians and Agraeans and Curetes and others), and flows at first, not through the Curetan country, which is the same as the Pleuronian, but through the more easterly country, past Chalcis and Calydon; and then, bending back towards the plains of Old Pleuron and changing its course to the west, it turns towards its outlets and the south. In earlier times it was called Lycormas. And there Nessus, it is said, who had been appointed ferryman, was killed by Heracles because he tried to violate Deïaneira when he was ferrying her across the river.

Strabo 10.2.[6] The poet also names Olenus and Pylene as Aetolian cities.⁵⁴ Of these, the former, which bears the same name as the Achaean city, was razed to the ground by the Aeolians; it was near New Pleuron, but the Acarnanians claimed possession of the territory. The other, Pylene, the Aeolians moved to higher ground, and also changed its name, calling it Proschium. Hellanicus does not know the history of these cities either, but mentions them as though they too were still in their early status; and among the early cities he names Macynia and Molycreia, which were founded even later than the return of the Heracleidae, almost everywhere in his writings displaying a most convenient carelessness.

Strabo 10.2.[7] Upon the whole, then, this is what I have to say concerning the country of the Acarnanians and the Aetolians, but the following is also to be added concerning the seacoast and the islands which lie off it: Beginning at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf the first place which belongs to the Acarnanians is Actium. The temple of the Actian Apollo bears the same name, as also the cape which forms the mouth of the Gulf and has a harbor on the outer side. Anactorium, which is situated on the gulf, is forty stadia distant from the temple, whereas Leucas is two hundred and forty.

Strabo 10.2.[8] In early times Leucas was a peninsula of Acarnania, but the poet calls it "shore of the mainland,"⁵⁵ using the term "mainland" for the country which is situated across from Ithaca and Cephallenia; and this country is Acarnania. And therefore, when he says, "shore of the mainland," one should take it to mean "shore of Acarnania." And to Leucas also belonged, not only Nericus, which Laertes says he took “(verily I took Nericus, well-built citadel, shore of the mainland, when I was lord over the Cephallenians),
”⁵⁶but also the cities which Homer names in the Catalogue“(and dwell in Crocyleia and rugged Aegilips).
”⁵⁷But the Corinthians sent by Cypselus⁵⁸ and Gorgus took possession of this shore and also advanced as far as the Ambracian Gulf; and both Ambracia and Anactorium were colonized at this time; and the Corinthians dug a canal through the isthmus of the peninsula and made Leucas an island; and they transferred Nericus to the place which, though once an isthmus, is now a strait spanned by a bridge, and they changed its name to Leucas, which was named, as I think, after Leucatas; for Leucatas is a rock of white ⁵⁹ color jutting out from Leucas into the sea and towards Cephallenia and therefore it took its name from its color.

Strabo 10.2.[9] It contains the temple of Apollo Leucatas, and also the "Leap," which was believed to put an end to the longings of love.“Where Sappho is said to have been the first,
”as Menander says,“when through frantic longing she was chasing the haughty Phaon, to fling herself with a leap from the far-seen rock, calling upon thee in prayer, O lord and master.
”Now although Menander says that Sappho was the first to take the leap, yet those who are better versed than he in antiquities say that it was Cephalus, who was in love with Pterelas the son of Deïoneus. It was an ancestral custom among the Leucadians, every year at the sacrifice performed in honor of Apollo, for some criminal to be flung from this rocky look-out for the sake of averting evil, wings and birds of all kinds being fastened to him, since by their fluttering they could lighten the leap, and also for a number of men, stationed all round below the rock in small fishing-boats, to take the victim in, and, when he had been taken on board,⁶⁰ to do all in their power to get him safely outside their borders. The author of the Alcmaeonis⁶¹ says that Icarius, the father of Penelope, had two sons, Alyzeus and Leucadius, and that these two reigned over Acarnania with their father; accordingly, Ephorus thinks that the cities were named after these.

Strabo 10.2.[10] But though at the present time only the people of the island Cephallenia are called Cephallenians, Homer so calls all who were subject to Odysseus, among whom are also the Acarnanians. For after saying,“but Odysseus led the Cephallenians, who held Ithaca and Neritum with quivering foliage
”⁶²(Neritum being the famous mountain on this island, as also when he says,“and those from Dulichium and the sacred Echinades,
”⁶³Dulichium itself being one of the Echinades; and“those who dwelt in Buprasium and Elis,
”⁶⁴Buprasium being in Elis; and“those who held Euboea and Chalcis and Eiretria,
”⁶⁵meaning that these cities were in Euboea; and“Trojans and Lycians and Dardanians,
”⁶⁶meaning that the Lycians and Dardanians were Trojans)—however, after mentioning "Neritum, he says,“and dwelt in Crocyleia and rugged Aegilips, and those who held Zacynthos and those who dwelt about Samos, and those who held the mainland and dwelt in the parts over against the islands.
”⁶⁷By "mainland,"⁶⁸ therefore, he means the parts over against the islands, wishing to include, along with Leucas, the rest of Acarnania as well,⁶⁹ concerning which he also speaks in this way,“twelve herd on the mainland, and as many flocks of sheep,
”⁷⁰perhaps because Epeirotis extended thus far in early times and was called by the general name "mainland." But by "Samos" he means the Cephallenia of today, as, when he says,“in the strait between Ithaca and rugged Samos;
”⁷¹for by the epithet he differentiates between the objects bearing the same name, thus making the name apply, not to the city, but to the island. For the island was a Tetrapolis,⁷² and one of its four cities was the city called indifferently either Samos or Same, bearing the same name as the island. And when the poet says,“for all the nobles who hold sway over the islands, Dulichium and Same and woody Zacynthos,
”⁷³he is evidently making an enumeration of the islands and calling "Same" that island which he had formerly⁷⁴ called Samos. But Apollodorus,⁷⁵ when he says in one passage that ambiguity is removed by the epithet when the poet says“and rugged Samos,
”⁷⁶showing that he meant the island, and then, in another passage, says that one should copy the reading,“Dulichium and Samos,
”⁷⁷instead of "Same," plainly takes the position that the city was called "Same" or "Samos" indiscriminately, but the island "Samos" only; for that the city was called Same is clear, according to Apollodorus, from the fact that, in enumerating the wooers from the several cities, the poet⁷⁸ said,“from Same came four and twenty men,
”⁷⁹and also from the statement concerning Ktimene,“they then sent her to Same to wed.
”⁸⁰But this is open to argument, for the poet does not express himself distinctly concerning either Cephallenia or Ithaca and the other places near by; and consequently both the commentators and the historians are at variance with one another.

Strabo 10.2.[11] For instance, when Homer says in regard to Ithaca,“those who held Ithaca and Neritum with quivering foliage,
”⁸¹he clearly indicates by the epithet that he means the mountain Neritum; and in other passages he expressly calls it a mountain;“but I dwell in sunny Ithaca, wherein is a mountain, Neritum, with quivering leaves and conspicuous from afar.
”⁸²But whether by Ithaca he means the city or the island, is not clear, at least in the following verse,“those who held Ithaca and Neritum;
”⁸³for if one takes the word in its proper sense, one would interpret it as meaning the city, just as though one should say "Athens and Lycabettus," or "Rhodes and Atabyris," or "Lacedaemon and Taÿgetus"; but if he takes it in a poetical sense the opposite is true. However, in the words,“but I dwell in sunny Ithaca, wherein is a mountain, Neritum,
”⁸⁴his meaning is clear, for the mountain is in the island, not in the city. But when he says as follows,“we have come from Ithaca below Neïum,
”⁸⁵it is not clear whether he means that Neïum is the same as Neritum or different, or whether it is a mountain or place. However, the critic who writes Nericum⁸⁶ instead of Neritum, or the reverse, is utterly mistaken; for the poet refers to the latter as "quivering with foliage,"⁸⁷ but to the former as "well-built citadel,"⁸⁸ and to the latter as "in Ithaca,"⁸⁹ but to the former as "shore of the mainland."⁹⁰

Strabo 10.2.[12] The following verse also is thought to disclose a sort of contradiction:“Now Ithaca itself lies chthamale, panypertate on the sea;
”⁹¹ for chthamale means "low," or "on the ground," whereas panypertate means "high up," as Homer indicates in several places when he calls Ithaca "rugged."⁹² And so when he refers to the road that leads from the harbor as“rugged path up through the wooded place,
”⁹³and when he says“for not one of the islands which lean upon the sea is eudeielos⁹⁴ or rich in meadows, and Ithaca surpasses them all.
”⁹⁵ Now although Homer's phraseology presents incongruities of this kind, yet they are not poorly explained; for, in the first place, writers do not interpret chthamale as meaning "low-lying" here, but "lying near the mainland," since it is very close to it, and, secondly, they do not interpret panypertate as meaning "highest," but "highest towards the darkness," that is, farthest removed towards the north beyond all the others; for this is what he means by "towards the darkness," but the opposite by "towards the south," as in“but the other islands lie aneuthe towards the dawn and the sun,
”⁹⁶for the word aneuthe is "at a distance," or "apart," implying that the other islands lie towards the south and farther away from the mainland, whereas Ithaca lies near the mainland and towards the north. That Homer refers in this way to the southerly region is clear also from these words,“whether they go to the right, towards the dawn and the sun, or yet to the left towards the misty darkness,
”⁹⁷and still more clear from these words,“my friends, lo, now we know not where is the place of darkness, nor of dawn, nor where the sun, that gives light to men, goes beneath the earth; nor where he rises.
”⁹⁸For it is indeed possible to interpret this as meaning the four "climata,"⁹⁹ if we interpret "the dawn" as meaning the southerly region (and this has some plausibility), but it is better to conceive of the region which is along the path of the sun as set opposite to the northerly region, for the poetic words are intended to signify a considerable change in the celestial phenomena,¹⁰⁰ not merely a temporary concealment of the "climata," for necessarily concealment ensues every time the sky is clouded, whether by day or by night; but the celestial phenomena change to a greater extent as we travel farther and farther towards the south or in the opposite direction. Yet this travel causes a hiding, not of the western or eastern sky, but only of the southern or northern, and in fact this hiding takes place when the sky is clear; for the pole is the most northerly point of the sky, but since the pole moves and is sometimes at our zenith and sometimes below the earth, the arctic circles also change with it and in the course of such travels sometimes vanish with it,¹⁰¹ so that you cannot know where the northern "clima" is, or even where it begins.¹⁰² And if this is true, neither can you know the opposite "clima." The circuit of Ithaca is about eighty stadia.¹⁰³ So much for Ithaca.

Strabo 10.2.[13] As for Cephallenia, which is a Tetrapolis, the poet mentions by its present name neither it nor any of its cities except one, Same or Samos, which now no longer exists, though traces of it are to be seen midway of the passage to Ithaca; and its people are called Samaeans. The other three, however, survive even to this day in the little cities Paleis, Pronesus, and Cranii. And in our time Gaius Antonius, the uncle of Marcus Antonius, founded still another city, when, after his consulship, which he held with Cicero the orator, he went into exile,¹⁰⁴ sojourned in Cephallenia, and held the whole island in subjection as though it were his private estate. However, before he could complete the settlement he obtained permission to return home,¹⁰⁵ and ended his days amid other affairs of greater importance.

Strabo 10.2.[14] Some, however, have not hesitated to identify Cephallenia with Dulichium, and others with Taphos, calling the Cephallenians Taphians, and likewise Teleboans, and to say that Amphitryon made an expedition thither with Cephalus, the son of Deïoneus, whom, an exile from Athens, he had taken along with him, and that when Amphitryon seized the island he gave it over to Cephalus, and that the island was named after Cephalus and the cities after his children. But this is not in accordance with Homer; for the Cephallenians were subject to Odysseus and Laertes, whereas Taphos was subject to Mentes:“I declare that I am Mentes the son of wise Anchialus, and I am lord over the oar loving Taphians.
”¹⁰⁶Taphos is now called Taphius. Neither is Hellanicus¹⁰⁷ in accord with Homer when he identifies Cephallenia with Dulichium, for Homer¹⁰⁸ makes Dulichium and the remainder of the Echinades subject to Meges; and their inhabitants were Epeians, who had come there from Elis; and it is on this account that he calls Otus the Cyllenian“comrade of Phyleides¹⁰⁹ and ruler of the high-hearted Epeians;
”¹¹⁰“but Odysseus led the high-hearted Cephallenians.
”¹¹¹According to Homer, therefore, neither is Cephallenia Dulichium nor is Dulichium a part of Cephallenia, as Andron¹¹² says; for the Epeians held possession of Dulichium, whereas the Cephallenians held possession of the whole of Cephallenia and were subject to Odysseus, whereas the Epeians were subject to Meges. Neither is Paleis called Dulichium by the poet, as Pherecydes writes. But that writer is most in opposition to Homer who identifies Cephallenia with Dulichium, if it be true that "fifty-two" of the suitors were "from Dulichium" and "twenty-four from Same";¹¹³ for in that case would not Homer say that fifty-two came from the island as a whole and a half of that number less two from a single one of its four cities? However, if one grants this, I shall ask what Homer can mean by "Same" in the passage,“Dulichium and Same and woody Zacynthos.
”¹¹⁴

Strabo 10.2.[15] Cephallenia lies opposite Acarnania, at a distance of about fifty stadia from Leucatas (some say forty), and about one hundred and eighty from Chelonatas. It has a perimeter of about three hundred¹¹⁵ stadia, is long, extending towards Eurus, ¹¹⁶ and is mountainous. The largest mountain upon it is Aenus, whereon is the temple of Zeus Aenesius; and where the island is narrowest it forms an isthmus so low-lying that it is often submerged from sea to sea. Both Paleis and Crannii are on the gulf near the narrows.

Strabo 10.2.[16] Between Ithaca and Cephallenia is the small island Asteria (the poet calls it Asteris), which the Scepsian¹¹⁷ says no longer remains such as the poet describes it,“but in it are harbors safe for anchorage with entrances on either side;
”¹¹⁸Apollodorus, however, says that it still remains so to this day, and mentions a town Alalcomenae upon it, situated on the isthmus itself.

Strabo 10.2.[17] The poet also uses the name "Samos" for that Thrace which we now call Samothrace. And it is reasonable to suppose that he knows the Ionian Samos, for he also appears to know of the Ionian migration; otherwise he would not have differentiated between the places of the same name when referring to Samothrace, which he designates at one time by the epithet,“high on the topmost summit of woody Samos, the Thracian,
”¹¹⁹and at another time by connecting it with the islands near it,“unto Samos and Imbros and inhospitable¹²⁰ Lemnos.
”¹²¹And again,“between Samos and rugged Imbros.
”¹²²He therefore knew the Ionian island, although he did not name it; in fact it was not called by the same name in earlier times, but Melampylus, then Anthemis, then Parthenia, from the River Parthenius, the name of which was changed to Imbrasus. Since, then, both Cephallenia and Samothrace were called Samos at the time of the Trojan War (for otherwise Hecabe would not be introduced as saying that he¹²³ was for selling her children whom he might take captive "unto Samos and unto Imbros"), ¹²⁴ and since the Ionian Samos had not yet been colonized, it plainly got its name from one of the islands which earlier bore the same name. Whence that other fact is also clear, that those writers contradict ancient history who say that colonists came from Samos after the Ionian migration and the arrival of Tembrion¹²⁵ and named Samothrace Samos, since this story was fabricated by the Samians to enhance the glory of their island. Those writers are more plausible who say that the island came upon this name from the fact that lofty places are called "samoi,"¹²⁶“for thence all Ida was plain to see, and plain to see were the city of Priam and the ships of the Achaeans
”¹²⁷ But some say that the island was called Samos after the Saïi, the Thracians who inhabited it in earlier times, who also held the adjacent mainland, whether these Saïi were the same people as the Sapaeï or Sinti (the poet calls them Sinties) or a different tribe. The Saïi are mentioned by Archilochus:“One of the Saïi robbed me of my shield, which, a blameless weapon, I left behind me beside a bush, against my will.
”¹²⁸

Strabo 10.2.[18] Of the islands classified as subject to Odysseus, Zacynthos remains to be described. It leans slightly more to the west of the Peloponnesus than Cephallenia and lies closer to the latter. The circuit of Zacynthos is one hundred and sixty stadia.¹²⁹ It is about sixty stadia distant from Cephallenia. It is indeed a woody island, but it is fertile; and its city, which bears the same name, is worthy of note. The distance thence to the Libyan Hesperides is three thousand three hundred stadia.

Strabo 10.2.[19] To the east of Zacynthos and Cephallenia are situated the Echinades Islands, among which is Dulichium, now called Dolicha, and also what are called the Oxeiae, which the poet called Thoae.¹³⁰ Dolicha lies opposite Oeneiadae and the outlet of the Acheloüs, at a distance of one hundred stadia from Araxus, the promontory of the Eleians; the rest of the Echinades (they are several in number, all poor soiled and rugged) lie off the outlet of the Acheloüs, the farthermost being fifteen stadia distant and the nearest five. In earlier times they lay out in the high sea, but the silt brought down by the Acheloüs has already joined some of them to the mainland and will do the same to others. It was this silt which in early times caused the country called Paracheloïtis,¹³¹ which the river overflows, to be a subject of dispute, since it was always confusing the designated boundaries between the Acarnanians and the Aetolians; for they would decide the dispute by arms, since they had no arbitrators, and the more powerful of the two would win the victory; and this is the cause of the fabrication of a certain myth, telling how Heracles defeated Acheloüs and, as the prize of his victory, won the hand of Deïaneira, the daughter of Oeneus, whom Sophocles represents as speaking as follows:“For my suitor was a river-god, I mean Acheloüs, who would demand me of my father in three shapes, coming now as a bull in bodily form, now as a gleaming serpent in coils, now with trunk of man and front of ox.
”¹³²¹³³ Some writers add to the myth, saying that this was the horn of Amaltheia,¹³⁴ which Heracles broke off from Acheloüs and gave to Oeneus as a wedding gift. Others, conjecturing the truth from the myths, say that the Acheloüs, like the other rivers, was called "like a bull" from the roaring of its waters, and also from the the bendings of its streams, which were called Horns, and "like a serpent" because of its length and windings, and "with front of ox"¹³⁵ for the same reason that he was called "bull-faced"; and that Heracles, who in general was inclined to deeds of kindness, but especially for Oeneus, since he was to ally himself with him by marriage, regulated the irregular flow of the river by means of embankments and channels, and thus rendered a considerable part of Paracheloïtis dry, all to please Oeneus; and that this was the horn of Amaltheia.¹³⁶ Now, as for the Echinades, or the Oxeiae, Homer says that they were ruled over in the time of the Trojan War by Meges,“who was begotten by the knightly Phyleus, dear to Zeus, who once changed his abode to Dulichium because he was wroth with his father.
”¹³⁷His father was Augeas, the ruler of the Eleian country and the Epeians; and therefore the Epeians who set out for Dulichium with Phyleus held these islands.

Strabo 10.2.[20] The islands of the Taphians, or, in earlier times, of the Teleboans, among which was Taphos,. now called Taphius, were distinct from the Echinades; not in the matter of distances (for they lie near them), but in that they are classified as under different commanders, Taphians and Teleboans.¹³⁸ Now in earlier times Amphitryon made an expedition against them with Cephalus the son of Deïoneus, an exile from Athens, and gave over their government to him, but the poet says that they were marshalled under Mentes,¹³⁹ calling them pirates,¹⁴⁰ as indeed all the Teleboans are said to be pirates. So much, then, for the islands lying off Acarnania.

Strabo 10.2.[21] Between Leucas and the Ambracian Gulf is a salt lake, called Myrtuntium. Next after Leucas one comes to Palaerus and Alyzia, cities of Acarnania; of these, Alyzia is fifteen stadia distant from the sea, where is a harbor sacred to Heracles and a sacred precinct. It is from this precinct that one of the commanders carried to Rome the "Labours of Heracles," works of Lysippus, which were lying out of place where they were, because it was a deserted region. Then one comes to Cape Crithote, and the Echinades, and the city Astacus, which bears the same name as the city near Nicomedeia and Gulf Astacenus,¹⁴¹ the name being used in the feminine gender. Crithote also bears the same name as one of the little cities in the Thracian Chersonesus.¹⁴² All parts of the coast between these places have good harbors. Then one comes to Oeniadae and the Acheloüs; then to a lake of the Oeniadae, called Melite, which is thirty stadia in length and twenty in breadth; and to another lake, Cynia, which is twice the size of Melite, both in length and in breadth; and to a third, Uria, which is much smaller than those. Now Cynia empties into the sea, but the others lie about half a stadium above it. Then one comes to the Evenus, to which the distance from Actium is six hundred and seventy stadia. After the Evenus one comes to the mountain Chalcis, which Artemidorus has called Chalcia; then to Pleuron; then to the village Halicyrna, above which thirty stadia in the interior, lies Calydon; and near Calydon is the temple of the Laphrian Apollo. Then one comes to the mountain Taphiassus; then to the city Macynia; then to Molycreia and, near by, to Antirrhium, the boundary between Aetolia and Locris, to which the distance from the Evenus is about one hundred and twenty stadia. Artemidorus, indeed, does not give this account of the mountain, whether we call it Chalcis or Chalcia, since he places it between the Acheloüs and Pleuron, but Apollodorus, as I have said before,¹⁴³ places both Chalcis and Taphiassus above Molycreia, and he also says that Calydon is situated between Pleuron and Chalcis. Perhaps, however, we should postulate two mountains, one near Pleuron called Chalcis, and the other near Molycreia called Chalcis. Near Calydon, also, is a lake, which is large and well supplied with fish; it is held by the Romans who live in Patrae.

Strabo 10.2.[22] Apollodorus says that in the interior of Acarnania there is a people called Erysichaeans, who are mentioned by Alcman:“nor yet an Erysichaean nor shepherd, but from the heights of Sardeis.
”¹⁴⁴ But Olenus, which Homer mentions in the Aetolian catalogue, was in Aetolia, though only traces of it are left, near Pleuron at the foot of Aracynthus. Near it, also, was Lysimachia; this, too, has disappeared; it was situated by the lake now called Lysimachia, in earlier times Hydra, between Pleuron and the city Arsinoe. In earlier times Arsinoe was only a village, and was called Conopa, but it was first founded as a city by Arsinoe, who was both wife and sister of Ptolemy the Second;¹⁴⁵ it was rather happily situated at the ford across the Acheloüs. Pylene¹⁴⁶ has also suffered a fate similar to that of Olenus. When the poet calls Calydon both "steep"¹⁴⁷ and "rocky,"¹⁴⁸ one should interpret him as referring to the country; for, as I have said,¹⁴⁹ they divided the country into two parts and assigned the mountainous part, or Epictetus,¹⁵⁰ to Calydon and the level country to Pleuron.

Strabo 10.2.[23] At the present time both the Acarnanians and the Aetolians, like many of the other tribes, have been exhausted and reduced to impotence by their continual wars. However, for a very long time the Aetolians, together with the Acarnanians, stood firm, not only against the Macedonians and the other Greeks, but also finally against the Romans, when fighting for autonomy. But since they are often mentioned by Homer, as also both by the other poets and by historians, sometimes in words that are easy to interpret and about which there is no disagreement, and sometimes in words that are less intelligible (this has been shown in what I have already said about them), I should also add some of those older accounts which afford us a basis of fact to begin with, or are matters of doubt.

Strabo 10.2.[24] For instance, in the case of Acarnania, Laertes and the Cephallenians acquired possession of it, as I have said;¹⁵¹ but as to what people held it before that time, many writers have indeed given an opinion, but since they do not agree in their statements, which have, however, a wide currency, there is left for me a word of arbitration concerning them. They say that the people who were called both Taphians and Teleboans lived in Acarnania in earlier times, and that their leader Cephalus, who had been set up by Amphitryon as master over the islands about Taphos, gained the mastery over this country too. And from this fact they go on to add the myth that Cephalus was the first to take the leap from Leucatas which became the custom, as I have said before.¹⁵² But the poet does not say that the Taphians were ruling the Acarnanians before the Cephallenians and Laertes came over, but only that they were friends to the Ithacans, and therefore, according to the poet, they either had not ruled over the region at all, or had yielded Acarnania to the Ithacans voluntarily, or had become joint occupants with them. It appears that also a colony from Lacedaemon settled in Acarnania, I mean Icarius, father of Penelope, and his followers; for in the Odyssey the poet represents both Icarius and the brothers of Penelope as living:“who¹⁵³ shrink from going to the house of her father, Icarius, that he himself may exact the bride-gifts for his daughter,
”¹⁵⁴and, concerning her brothers,“for already her father and her brothers bid her marry Eurymachus;
”¹⁵⁵for, in the first place, it is improbable that they were living in Lacedaemon, since in that case Telemachus would not have lodged at the home of Menelaüs when he went to Lacedaemon, and, secondly, we have no tradition of their having lived elsewhere. But they say that Tyndareus and his brother Icarius, after being banished by Hippocoön from their homeland, went to Thestius, the ruler of the Pleuronians, and helped him to acquire possession of much of the country on the far side of the Acheloüs on condition that they should receive a share of it; that Tyndareus, however, went back home, having married Leda, the daughter of Thestius, whereas Icarius stayed on, keeping a portion of Acarnania, and by Polycaste, the daughter of Lygaeus, begot both Penelope and her brothers. Now I have already set forth that the Acarnanians were enumerated in the Catalogue of Ships,¹⁵⁶ that they took part in the expedition to Ilium, and that among these were named "those who lived on the 'shore,'"¹⁵⁷ and also“those who held the mainland and dwelt in parts opposite.
”¹⁵⁸ But as yet neither had the mainland been named "Acarnania" nor the shore "Leucas."

Strabo 10.2.[25] Ephorus denies that they joined the Trojan expedition, for he says that Alcmaeon, the son of Amphiaraüs, made an expedition with Diomedes and the other Epigoni, and had brought to a successful issue the war against the Thebans, and then joined Diomedes and with him took vengeance upon the enemies of Oeneus, after which he himself, first giving over Aetolia to them,¹⁵⁹ passed into Acarnania and subdued it; and meanwhile Agamemnon attacked the Argives and easily prevailed over them, since the most of them had accompanied the army of Diomedes; but a little later, when the expedition against Troy confronted him, he conceived the fear that, when he was absent on the expedition, Diomedes and his army might come back home (and in fact it was reported that a great army had gathered round him) and seize the empire to which they had the best right, for one¹⁶⁰ was the heir of Adrastus and the other¹⁶¹ of his father;¹⁶² and accordingly, after thinking this all over, Agamemnon invited them both to resume possession of Argos and to take part in the war; and although Diomedes was persuaded to take part in the expedition, Alcmaeon was vexed and refused to heed the invitation; and for this reason the Acarnanians alone refused to share in the expedition with the Greeks. And it was probably by following this account that the Acarnanians tricked the Romans, as they are said to have done, and obtained from them their autonomy, urging that they alone had had no part in the expedition against the ancestors of the Romans, for they were named neither in the Aetolian catalogue¹⁶³ nor separately, and in fact their name was not mentioned in the Epic poems at all.

Strabo 10.2.[26] Ephorus, then, makes Acarnania subject to Alcmaeon even before the Trojan War; and he not only declares that the Amphilochian Argos was founded by him, but also says that Acarnania was named after Alcmaeon's son Acarnan, and the Amphilochians after Alcmaeon's brother Amphilochus; therefore his account is to be cast out amongst those contrary to Homeric history. But Thucydides¹⁶⁴ and others say that Amphilochus, on his return from the Trojan expedition, was displeased with the state of affairs at Argos, and took up his abode in this country, some saying that he came by right of succession to the domain of his brother, others giving a different account. So much may be said of the Acarnanians specifically; I shall now speak of their history in a general way, in so far as their history is interwoven with that of the Aetolians, in so far as I have thought best to add to my previous narrative. 3.

Strab. 10.3.1 As for the Curetes, some assign them to the Acarnanians, others to the Aetolians; and some assert that they originated in Crete, but others in Euboea; but since Homer mentions them, I should first investigate his account. It is thought that he means that they were Aetolians rather than Acarnanians, if indeed the sons of Porthaon were“Agrius and Melas, and, the third, Oeneus the knight;
and they lived in Pleuron and steep Calydon.
”¹⁶⁵These are both Aetolian cities, and are referred to in the Aetolian catalogue; and therefore, since, even according to the poet, the Curetes obviously lived in Pleuron, they would be Aetolians. Those writers who oppose this view are misled by Homer's mode of expression when he says,“the Curetes were fighting, and the Aetolians steadfast in battle, about the city of Calydon;
”¹⁶⁶for, they add, neither would he have spoken appropriately if he had said, "the Boeotians and the Thebans were fighting against one another"; or "the Argives and the Peloponnesians." But, as I have shown heretofore,¹⁶⁷ this habit of expression not only is Homeric, but is much used by the other poets also. This interpretation, then, is easy to defend; but let those writers explain how the poet could catalogue the Pleuronians among the Aetolians if they were not Aetolians or at least of the same race.

Strab. 10.3.2 Ephorus,¹⁶⁸ after saying that the Aetolians were a race which had never become subject to any other people, but throughout all time of which there is any record had remained undevastated, both because of the ruggedness of their country and because of their training in warfare, says at the outset that the Curetes held possession of the whole country, but when Aetolus,¹⁶⁹ the son of Endymion, arrived from Elis and overpowered them in war, the Curetes withdrew to what is now called Acarnania, whereas the Aetolians came back with Epeians and founded the earliest of the cities of Aetolia, and in the tenth generation after that Elis was settled by Oxylus¹⁷⁰ the son of Haemon, who had crossed over from Aetolia. And he cites as evidence of all this two inscriptions, the one at Therma in Aetolia (where it is their ancestral custom to hold their elections of magistrates), engraved on the base of the statue of Aetolus:“Founder of the country, once reared beside the eddies of the Alpheius, neighbor of the race-courses of Olympia, son of Endymion, this Aetolus has been set up by the Aetolians as a memorial of his valor to behold;
” and the other inscription in the marketplace of the Eleians on the statue of Oxylus:“Aetolus once left this autochthonous people, and through many a toil with the spear took possession of the land of Curetis; but the tenth scion of the same stock, Oxylus, the son of Haemon, founded this city in early times.”

Strab. 10.3.3 Now through these inscriptions Ephorus correctly signifies the kinship of the Eleians and Aetolians with one another, since both inscriptions agree, not merely as to the kinship of the two peoples, but also that each people was the founder of the other, through which he successfully convicts of falsehood those who assert that, while the Eleians were indeed colonists of the Aetolians, the Aetolians were not colonists of the Eleians. But here, too, Ephorus manifestly displays the same inconsistency in his writing and his pronouncements as in the case of the oracle at Delphi, which I have already set forth;¹⁷¹ for, after saying that Aetolia has been undevastated throughout all times of which there is any record, and after saying also that in the beginning the Curetes held possession of this country, he should have added as a corollary to what he had already said that the Curetes continued to hold possession of the Aetolian land down to his own time, for only thus could it have been rightly said that the land had been undevastated and that it had never come under the power of others; and yet, utterly forgetting his promise,¹⁷² he does not add this, but the contrary, that when Aetolus arrived from Elis and overpowered the Curetes in war, they withdrew into Acarnania. What else, pray, is specifically characteristic of a devastation than being overpowered in war and abandoning the country? And this is evidenced also by the inscription among the Eleians, for Aetolus, it says,“through many a toil with the spear took possession of the land of Curetis.”

Strab. 10.3.4 Perhaps, however, one might say that Ephorus means that Aetolia was undevastated from the time when it got this name, that is, after Aetolus arrived there; but Ephorus has deprived himself of the argument in support of this idea by saying in his next words that this, meaning the tribe of the Epeians, constituted the greatest part of the people who stayed on among the Aetolians, but that later, when Aeolians, who at the same time with Boeotians had been compelled to migrate from Thessaly, were intermingled with them, they in common with these held possession of the country. Is it credible, pray, that without war they invaded the country of a different people and divided it up with its possessors, when the latter had no need of such a partnership? Or, since this is not credible, is it credible that those who were overpowered by arms came out on an equality with the victors? What else, pray, is devastation than being overpowered by arms? Apollodorus, also, says that, according to history, the Hyantes left Boeotia and settled among the Aetolians. But Ephorus, as though he had achieved success in his argument, adds: "It is my wont to examine such matters as these with precision, whenever any matter is either altogether doubtful or falsely interpreted."

Strab. 10.3.5 But though Ephorus is such, still he is better than others. And Polybius¹⁷³ himself, who praises him so earnestly, and says concerning the Greek histories that Eudoxus¹⁷⁴ indeed gave a good account, but Ephorus gave the best account of the foundings of cities, kinships, migrations, and original founders, "but I," he says, “shall show the facts as they now are, as regards both the position of places and the distances between them; for this is the most appropriate function of Chorography.”¹⁷⁵But assuredly you, Polybius, who introduce "popular notions"¹⁷⁶ concerning distances, not only in dealing with places outside of Greece, but also when treating Greece itself, must also submit to an accounting, not only to Poseidonius,¹⁷⁷ and to Apollodorus, but to several others as well. One should therefore pardon me as well, and not be vexed, if I make any mistakes when I borrow from such writers most of my historical material, but should rather be content if in the majority of cases I improve upon the accounts given by others, or if I add such facts as have elsewhere, owing to lack of knowledge, been left untold.

Strab. 10.3.6 Concerning the Curetes still further accounts, to the following effect, are given, some of them being more closely related to the history of the Aetolians and the Acarnanians, others more remotely. More closely related are such accounts as I have given before—that the Curetes were living in the country which is now called Aetolia, and that the Aetolians came with Aetolus and drove them into Acarnania; and also accounts of this kind, that, when Pleuronia was inhabited by the Curetes and was called Curetis, Aeolians made an invasion and took it away from them, and drove out its occupants. Archemachus the Euboean¹⁷⁸ says that the Curetes settled at Chalcis, but since they were continually at war for the Lelantine Plain and the enemy would catch them by the front hair and drag them down, he says, they let their hair grow long behind but cut short the part in front, and because of this they were called "Curetes," from the cut of their hair,¹⁷⁹ and they then migrated to Aetolia, and, after taking possession of the region round Pleuron, called the people who lived on the far side of the Acheloüs "Acarnanians," because they kept their heads "unshorn."¹⁸⁰ But some say that each of the two tribes got its name from a hero; others, that the Curetes were named after the mountain Curium, which is situated about Pleuron, and also that this is an Aetolian tribe, like the Ophians and the Agraeans and the Eurytanians and several others. But, as I have already stated,¹⁸¹ when Aetolia was divided into two parts, the region round Calydon, they say, was in the possession of Oeneus, whereas a certain part of Pleuronia was in the possession of the sons of Porthaon, that is, Agrius and his followers, if it be true that“they lived in Pleuron and steep Calydon;
”¹⁸²the mastery over Pleuronia, however, was held by Thestius (the father-in-law of Oeneus and father of Althaea), who was leader of the Curetes; but when war broke out between the sons of Thestius, on the one hand, and Oeneus and Meleager, on the other (“about the hog's head and skin,
”¹⁸³as the poet says, following the mythical story of the boar,¹⁸⁴ but in all probability about the possession of a part of the territory), according to the words of the poet,“the Curetes were fighting, as also the Aetolians steadfast in battle.
”¹⁸⁵So much for the accounts which are more closely related.

Strab. 10.3.7 The accounts which are more remotely related, however, to the present subject, but are wrongly, on account of the identity of the names, brought into the same connection by the historians—I mean those accounts which, although they are called "Curetan History" and "History of the Curetes," just as if they were the history of those Curetes who lived in Aetolia and Acarnania, not only are different from that history, but are more like the accounts of the Satyri, Sileni, Bacchae, and Tityri; for the Curetes, like these,
        are called genii or ministers of gods by those who have handed down to us
        the Cretan and the Phrygian traditions,
        which are interwoven with certain sacred rites,
        some mystical, the others connected in part with the rearing of the child Zeus¹⁸⁶
        in Crete and in part with the orgies in honor of the mother of the gods
        which are celebrated in Phrygia and in the region of the Trojan Ida.
But the variation in these accounts is so small that, whereas some represent the Corybantes, the Cabeiri, the Idaean Dactyli, and the Telchines as identical with the Curetes, others represent them as all kinsmen of one another and differentiate only certain small matters in which they differ in respect to one another;
        but, roughly speaking and in general, they represent them, one and all,
       as a kind of inspired people and as subject to Bacchic frenzy,
        and, in the guise of ministers, as inspiring terror at the celebration of the sacred rites
        by means of war-dances, accompanied by uproar and noise and cymbals and drums and arms,
        and also by flute and outcry;
            and consequently these rites are in a way regarded as having a common relationship, I mean these and those of the Samothracians and those in Lemnos and in several other places, because the divine ministers are called the same. However, every investigation of this kind pertains to theology, and is not foreign to the speculation of the philosopher.

Strab. 10.3.8  But since also the historians, because of the identity of name of the Curetes,
        have classed together things that are unlike,
        neither should I myself shrink from discussing them at greater length, by way of digression,
        adding such account of their physical habits as is appropriate to history.
And yet some historians even wish to assimilate their physical habits with those others, and perhaps there is something plausible in their undertaking.

For instance, they say that the Curetes of Aetolia got this name because, like "girls,"¹⁸⁷ they wore women's clothes, for, they add, there was a fashion of this kind among the Greeks, and the Ionians were called "tunic-trailing,"¹⁸⁸ and the soldiers of Leonidas were "dressing their hair"¹⁸⁹ when they were to go forth to battle,
        so that the Persians, it is said, conceived a contempt for them,
        though in the battle they marvelled at them.

Speaking generally, the art of caring for the hair consists both in its nurture and in the way it is cut, and both are given special attention by "girls" and "youths";¹⁹⁰ so that there are several ways in which it is easy to derive an etymology of the word "Curetes." It is reasonable to suppose, also, that the war-dance was first introduced by persons who were trained in this particular way in the matter of hair and dress, these being called Curetes, and that this dance afforded a pretext to those also who were more warlike than the rest and spent their life under arms, so that they too came to be called by the same name, "Curetes "—I mean the Curetes in Euboea, Aetolia, and Acarnania. And indeed Homer applied this name to young soldiers,“choose thou the noblest young men¹⁹¹ from all the Achaeans, and bring the gifts from the swift ship, all that we promised yesterday to Achilles";
”¹⁹²and again,“the young men of the Achaeans brought the gifts.
”¹⁹³ So much for the etymology of the word "Curetes." The war-dance was a soldiers' dance; and this is plainly indicated both by the "Pyrrhic dance,"¹⁹⁴ and by "Pyrrichus," who is said to be the founder of this kind of training for young men, as also by the treatises on military affairs.¹⁹⁵

Strabo 10.3.[9] But I must now investigate how it comes about that so many names have been used of one and the same thing, and the theological element contained in their history.
        Now this is common both to the Greeks and to the barbarians,
        to perform their sacred rites in connection with the relaxation of a festival,
        these rites being performed
            sometimes with religious frenzy, sometimes without it;
            sometimes with music, sometimes not;
            and sometimes in secret, sometimes openly.
And it is in accordance with the dictates of nature that this should be so, for, in the first place, the relaxation draws the mind away from human occupations and turns the real mind towards that which is divine; and, secondly, the religious frenzy seems to afford a kind of divine inspiration and to be very like that of the soothsayer; and, thirdly, the secrecy with which the sacred rites are concealed induces reverence for the divine, since it imitates the nature of the divine, which is to avoid being perceived by our human senses;
            and, fourthly, music, which includes dancing as well as rhythm and melody, at the same time,
            by the delight it affords and by its artistic beauty,
            brings us in touch with the divine, and this for the following reason;
                    for although it has been well said that human beings then act most like the gods    
                    when they are doing good to others,
                            yet one might better say, when they are happy;
                        and such happiness consists of rejoicing, celebrating festivals, pursuing philosophy,
                       and engaging in music;
for, if music is perverted when musicians turn their art to sensual delights at symposiums and in orchestric and scenic performances and the like, we should not lay the blame upon music itself, but should rather examine the nature of our system of education, since this is based on music.

Strabo 10.3.[10] And on this account Plato, and even before his time the Pythagoreians, called philosophy music;¹⁹⁶ and they say that the universe is constituted in accordance with harmony,¹⁹⁷
        assuming that every form of music is the work of the gods.
        And in this sense, also, the Muses are goddesses,
        and Apollo is leader of the Muses,
        and poetry as a whole is laudatory of the gods.
And by the same course of reasoning they also attribute to music the upbuilding of morals, believing that everything which tends to correct the mind is close to the gods. Now most of the Greeks assigned to Dionysus, Apollo, Hecate, the Muses, and above all to Demeter, everything of an orgiastic or Bacchic or choral nature, as well as the mystic element in initiations; and they give the name "Iacchus" not only to Dionysus but also to the leader-in-chief of the mysteries, who is the genius of Demeter.

And branch-bearing, choral dancing, and initiations are common elements in the worship of these gods.
        As for the Muses and Apollo,
        the Muses preside over the choruses,
        whereas Apollo presides both over these and the rites of divination.
But all educated men, and especially the musicians, are ministers of the Muses;
        and both these and those who have to do with divination are ministers of Apollon;
        and the initiated and torch-bearers and hierophants, of Demeter; and the Sileni and Satyri and Bacchae,
        and also the Lenae and Thyiae and Mimallones and Naïdes and Nymphae and the beings called Tityri, of Dionysus.

Strabo 10.3.[11] In Crete, not only these rites, but in particular those sacred to Zeus,
        were performed along with orgiastic worship and with the kind of ministers
        who were in the service of Dionysus, I mean the Satyri.
These ministers they called "Curetes," young men who executed movements in armour, accompanied by dancing, as they set forth the mythical story of the birth of Zeus; in this they introduced Cronus as accustomed to swallow his children immediately after their birth, and Rhea as trying to keep her travail secret and, when the child was born, to get it out of the way and save its life by every means in her power; and to accomplish this it is said that she took as helpers the Curetes,
        who, by surrounding the goddess with tambourines and similar noisy instruments
        and with war-dance and uproar, were supposed to strike terror into Cronus and without his knowledge
      to steal his child away; and that, according to tradition, Zeus was actually reared by them with the same diligence; consequently the Curetes, either because, being young, that is "youths,"¹⁹⁸ they performed this service, or because they "reared" Zeus "in his youth"¹⁹⁹ (for both explanations are given), were accorded this appellation, as if they were Satyrs, so to speak, in the service of Zeus. Such, then, were the Greeks in the matter of orgiastic worship.

Strabo 10.3.[12] But as for the Berecyntes,²⁰⁰ a tribe of Phrygians, and the Phrygians in general, and those of the Trojans who live round Ida, they too hold Rhea in honor and worship her with orgies, calling her Mother of the gods

1Tim. 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
1Tim. 2:6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
1Tim. 2:7 Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.
1Tim. 2:8 I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
1Tim. 2:9 ¶ In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
1Tim. 2:10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.
1Tim. 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
1Tim. 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
1Tim. 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
1Tim. 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

and Agdistis and Phrygia the Great Goddess, and also, from the places where she is worshipped, Idaea and Dindymene and Sipylene and Pessinuntis and Cybele and Cybebe.²⁰¹
        The Greeks use the same name "Curetes" for the ministers of the goddess,
        not taking the name, however, from the same mythical story,²⁰²
        but regarding them as a different set of "Curetes," helpers as it were,
        analogous to the Satyri; and the same they also call Corybantes.

CatullusMu.html
The especial worship of Cybele was conducted by emasculated priests called Galli (or, as in vv. 12 and 34, with reference to their physical condition, Gallæ).
heir name was derived by the ancients from that of the river Gallus, a tributary of the Sangarius,
        by drinking from which men became inspired with frenzy (cf. Ov. Fast. 4.361ff.).

The worship was orgiastic in the extreme, and was accompanied by the sound of such frenzy-producing instruments as the tympana, cymbala, tibiæ, and cornu, and culminated in scourging, self-mutilation, syncope from excitement. and even death from hemorrhage or heart-failure

-Cymbalum ,'I.gen. plur. cymbalum, Cat. 63, 21), = kumbalon, a cymbal.I. Prop., an instrument consisting of two hollow plates of brass, which emit a ringing sound when struck together. They were used in the festivals of Cybele and Bacchus, and on other festive occasions; also to hinder the flight of bees, etc. (usu. in plur.), Lucr. 2, 619; Cat. 63, 21; 63, 29; Ov. F. 4, 213; Verg. G. 4, 64; Liv. 39, 8; Cic. Pis. 9, 20 sq.; Plin. 5, 1, 1, § 7; Quint. 11, 3, 59; Plin. Ep. 2, 14, 13.—

tympănum

A. Esp., as beaten by the priests of Cybele, Lucr. 2, 618; Cat. 63, 8 sq.; Verg. A. 9, 619; Ov. M. 3, 537; 4, 29; 4, 391; id. F. 4, 213; Plaut. Poen. 5, 5, 38; Caes. B. C. 3, 105; Curt. 8, 11, 20; 8, 14, 10; Tac. H. 5, 5, —Also by the Bacchantine females, Ov. M. 11, 17.—Beaten by the Parthians as a signal in battle in place of the tuba, Just. 41, 2, 8.—

B. Trop., a timbrel, etc., as a figure of something effeminate, enervating: “tympana eloquentiae,” Quint. 5, 12, 21: “in manu tympanum est,” Sen. Vit. Beat. 13, 3.—

Gallus , i, m., = Gallos Strab.,

A. Galli , ōrum, m., the priests of Cybele, so called because of their raving, Ov. F. 4, 361 sq.; Plin. 5, 32, 42, § 146; 11, 49, 109, § 261; 35, 12, 46, § 165; Paul. ex Fest. p. 95 Müll.; Hor. S. 1, 2, 121.—In sing.: Gallus , i, m., a priest of Cybele, Mart. 3, 81; 11, 74; cf. Quint. 7, 9, 2: “resupinati cessantia tympana Galli,” Juv. 8, 176.—And satirically (on account of their emasculated condition), in the fem.: Gallae , ārum, Cat. 63, 12, and 34.—

2. (Acc. to II. A., of or belonging to the priests of Cybele; hence, transf.) Of or belonging to the priests of Isis, Gallic: “turma,” the troop of the priests of Isis, Ov. Am. 2, 13, 18.

singular GALLUS, priests, often temple attendants or wandering mendicants, of the ancient Asiatic deity, the Great Mother of the Gods, known as Cybele, or Agdistis, in Greek and Latin literature. The galli were eunuchs attired in female garb, with long hair fragrant with ointment.

Together with priestesses, they celebrated the Great MOTHER'S rites with wild music and dancing until their frenzied excitement found its culmination in self-scourging, self-laceration, or exhaustion. Self-emasculation by candidates for the priesthood sometimes accompanied this delirium of worship.

The name galli may be Phrygian, from the two streams called Gallus, both tributaries of the Sangarius (now Sakarya) River, the waters of which were said to inspire religious frenzy.

Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 1 Co.11:14

but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. 1 Cor 11:15

"Hebrew music... was used in the luxurious times of the later monarchy the effeminate gallants of israel, reeking with perfumes, and stretched upon their couches of ivory, were wont at their banquets to accompany the song with the tinkling of the psaltery or guitar (Am. v1. 4-6), and amused themselves with devising musical instruments while their nation was perishing... music was the legitimate expression of mirth and gladness, and the indication of peace and prosperity." (Smith's, Music, p. 590).

"That chant to the voice of the lyre, accompanying the voice of the lyre with the human voice, giving vocal expression and utterance to what the instrumental music spoke without words. The word, which Amos alone uses in this one place, describing probably 'a hurried flow of unmeaning, unconsidered words, in which the rhythm of words and music was everything, the sense, nothing; much like most glees. The E.M. 'quaver' has also some foundation in the root, but does not suit the idiom so well, which expresses that the act was something done to the voice of the lyre, accompanying the music, not altering the music itself." (Barnes, Albert, Amos, p. 303).

"And every improper sight and sound, to speak in a word, and every shameful sensation of licentiousness--which, in truth, is privation of sensation--must by all means be excluded; and we must be on our guard against whatever pleasure titillates eye and ear, and effeminates. For the various spells of the broken strains and plaintive numbers of the Carian muse corrupt men's morals, drawing to pertubation of mind, by the licentious and mischievous art of music." (Clement of Alexandria, Instructor, Eerdmans, p. 248)

The early connection of Attis with the Mother of the Gods seems to point to the association of an original male element with an original female element as the parents of all things.

But in the age of tradition Attis appears as a servant instead of an equal,
and the subordination of the male to the female element is further emphasized by the representation of Attis,
        like the Galli of historic times, as an emasculated priest.

Strabo 10.3.[13] The poets bear witness to such views as I have suggested.
        For instance, when Pindar, in the dithyramb which begins with these words,
        “In earlier times there marched²⁰³ the lay of the dithyrambs long drawn out,
        ”mentions the hymns sung in honor of Dionysus,
            both the ancient and the later ones,
            and then, passing on from these, says,“
                To perform the prelude in thy honor, great MOTHER, the whirling of cymbals is at hand,
                and among them, also, the clanging of castanets, and the torch that blazeth beneath the tawny pine-trees,

”he bears witness to the common relationship between the rites exhibited
        in the worship of Dionysus among the Greeks
       and those in the worship of the MOTHER of the gods among the Phrygians,
       for he makes these rites closely akin to one another.
                And Euripides does likewise, in his Bacchae,
                citing the Lydian usages at the same time with those of Phrygia, because of their similarity:“
               "But ye who left Mt. Tmolus, fortress of Lydia, revel-band of mine,
               women whom I brought from the land of barbarians as my assistants and travelling companions,
               uplift the tambourines native to Phrygian cities, inventions of mine and MOTHER Rhea.
”²⁰⁴And again,“happy he who, blest man, initiated in the mystic rites, is pure in his life, . . .
        who, preserving the righteous orgies of the great MOTHER Cybele, and brandishing the thyrsus on high,
        and wreathed with ivy, doth worship Dionysus.
            Come, ye Bacchae, come, ye Bacchae, bringing down²⁰⁵ Bromius,²⁰⁶
           god the child of god, out of the Phrygian mountains into the broad highways of Greece.

”²⁰⁷And again, in the following verses he connects the Cretan usages also with the Phrygian:“O thou hiding-bower²⁰⁸ of the Curetes, and sacred haunts of Crete that gave birth to Zeus,
        where for me²⁰⁹ the triple-crested²¹⁰ Corybantes²¹¹ in their caverns
        invented this hide-stretched circlet,²¹²
        and blent its Bacchic revelry with the high-pitched, sweet-sounding breath of Phrygian flutes,
        and in Rhea's hands placed its resounding noise,
            to accompany the shouts of the Bacchae,²¹³
            and from MOTHER Rhea frenzied Satyrs obtained it
            and joined it to the choral dances of the Trieterides,²¹⁴ in whom Dionysus takes delight.

”²¹⁵ And in the Palamedes the Chorus says,²¹⁶“Thysa, daughter of Dionysus, who on Ida rejoices with his dear MOTHER in the Iacchic revels of tambourines.

Strabo 10.3.[14] And when they bring Seilenus and Marsyas and Olympus into one and the same connection, and make them the historical inventors of flutes, they again, a second time, connect the Dionysiac and the Phrygian rites; and they often in a confused manner drum on²¹⁷ Ida and Olympus as the same mountain. Now there are four peaks of Ida called Olympus, near Antandria; and there is also the Mysian Olympus, which indeed borders on Ida, but is not the same. At any rate, Sophocles, in his Polyxena, representing Menelaus as in haste to set sail from Troy, but Agamemnon as wishing to remain behind for a short time for the sake of propitiating Athena, introduces Menelaüs as saying,“But do thou, here remaining, somewhere in the Idaean land collect flocks of Olympus and offer them in sacrifice.
”²¹⁸

Strabo 10.3.[15] They invented names appropriate to the flute, and to the noises made by castanets, cymbals, and drums, and to their acclamations and shouts of "ev-ah," and stampings of the feet;²¹⁹ and they also invented some of the names by which to designate the ministers, choral dancers, and attendants upon the sacred rites,
        I mean "Cabeiri" and "Corybantes" and "Pans" and "Satyri" and "Tityri,"
        and they called the god "Bacchus," and Rhea "Cybele" or "Cybebe" or "Dindymene"
        according to the places where she was worshipped.    
        Sabazius also belongs to the Phrygian group and in a way is the child of the MOTHER
        since he too transmitted the rites of Dionysus.²²⁰

Strabo 10.3.[16] Also resembling these rites are the Cotytian and the Bendideian rites practiced among the Thracians, among whom the Orphic rites had their beginning. Now the Cotys who is worshipped among the Edonians, and also the instruments used in her rites, are mentioned by Aeschylus; for he says,“O adorable Cotys among the Edonians, and ye who hold mountain-ranging²²¹ instruments;

 ”and he mentions immediately afterwards the attendants of Dionysus:“one, holding in his hands the bombyces,²²² toilsome work of the turner's chisel, fills full the fingered melody, the call that brings on frenzy, while another causes to resound the bronze-bound cotylae²²³

”and again,“stringed instruments raise their shrill cry, and frightful mimickers from some place unseen bellow like bulls, and the semblance²²⁴ of drums, as of subterranean thunder, rolls along, a terrifying sound;

”for these rites resemble the Phrygian rites, and it is at least not unlikely that, just as the Phrygians themselves were colonists from Thrace, so also their sacred rites were borrowed from there. Also when they identify Dionysus and the Edonian Lycurgus, they hint at the homogeneity of their sacred rites.

Strabo 10.3.[17] From its melody and rhythm and instruments, all Thracian music has been considered to be Asiatic. And this is clear, first, from the places where the Muses have been worshipped, for Pieria and Olympus and Pimpla and Leibethrum were in ancient times Thracian places and mountains, though they are now held by the Macedonians; and again, Helicon was consecrated to the Muses by the Thracians who settled in Boeotia, the same who consecrated the cave of the nymphs called Leibethrides. And again, those who devoted their attention to the music of early times are called Thracians, I mean Orpheus, Musaeus, and Thamyris; and Eumolpus,²²⁵ too, got his name from there. And those writers who have consecrated the whole of Asia, as far as India, to Dionysus, derive the greater part of music from there. And one writer says, "striking the Asiatic cithara"; another calls flutes "Berecyntian" and "Phrygian"; and some of the instruments have been called by barbarian names, "nablas," "sambyce," "barbitos," "magadis," and several others.

Strabo 10.3.[18] Just as in all other respects the Athenians continue to be hospitable to things foreign, so also in their worship of the gods; for they welcomed so many of the foreign rites that they were ridiculed therefore by comic writers; and among these were the Thracian and Phrygian rites. For instance, the Bendideian rites are mentioned by Plato,²²⁶ and the Phrygian by Demosthenes,²²⁷ when he casts the reproach upon Aeschines' MOTHER and Aeschines himself that he was with her when she conducted initiations, that he joined her in leading the Dionysiac march, and that many a time he cried out "evoe saboe," and "hyes attes, attes hyes"; for these words are in the ritual of Sabazius and the MOTHER.

Strab. 10.3.19 Further, one might also find, in addition to these facts concerning these genii and their various names, that they were called, not only ministers of gods, but also gods themselves. For instance, Hesiod says that five daughters were born to Hecaterus and the daughter of Phoroneus,“from whom sprang the mountain-ranging nymphs, goddesses,
        and the breed of Satyrs, creatures worthless and unfit for work,
        and also the Curetes, sportive gods, dancers.

phi^lo-paigmōn , on, gen. onos, (paizō)

A. fond of play, sportive, “orkhēthmos” Od.23.134; “orkhēstēres” Hes.Fr.198, cf. Ar.Ra.333 (lyr.), Them.Or.24.301c, Lib.Decl.30.68: of the lion, “pros ta suntropha kai sunēthē sphodra ph.” Arist.HA629b11: epith. of Pan, BCH50.240 (Thasos, iii/ii B. C.). The more Att. form philopaismōn occurs in Pl.R.452e, Cra.406c; cf. Poll.5.161. Adv. -monōs ibid.

Hom. Od. 23.129 Then Odysseus of many wiles answered him and said: [130] “Then will I tell thee what seems to me to be the best way. First bathe yourselves, and put on your tunics, and bid the handmaids in the halls to take their raiment. But let the divine minstrel with his clear-toned lyre in hand be our leader in the gladsome dance,
        [135] that any man who hears the sound from without,
        whether a passer-by or one of those who dwell around,
        may say that it is a wedding feast; and so the rumor
        of the slaying of the wooers shall not be spread abroad throughout the city
        before we go forth to our well-wooded farm

Aristoph. Frogs 323 Chorus
Iacchus, here abiding in temples most reverend,
Iacchus, O Iacchus,
come to dance in this meadow;
to your holy mystic bands
Shake the leafy crown
around your head, brimming
with myrtle,
Boldly stomp your feet in time
to the wild fun-loving rite,
with full share of the Graces, the holy dance, sacred
to your mystics.

Plat. Crat. 406c of the name of these deities. You will have to ask others for the serious one; but there is nothing to hinder my giving you the facetious account, for the gods also have a sense of humor. Dionysus, the giver (didous) of wine (oinos), might be called in jest Didoinysus, and wine, because it makes most drinkers think (oiesthai) they have wit (nous) when they have not, might very justly be called Oeonus (oionous). As for Aphrodite, we need not oppose Hesiod; we can accept his derivation of the name

”²²⁸And the author of Phoronis²²⁹ speaks of the Curetes as "flute-players" and "Phrygians"; and others as "earth-born" and "wearing brazen shields." Some call the Corybantes, and not the Curetes, "Phrygians," but the Curetes "Cretes,"²³⁰ and say that the Cretes were the first people to don brazen armour in Euboea, and that on this account they were also called "Chalcidians";²³¹ still others say that the Corybantes, who came from Bactriana (some say from among the Colchians), were given as armed ministers to Rhea by the Titans. But in the Cretan accounts the Curetes are called "rearers of Zeus," and "protectors of Zeus," having been summoned from Phrygia to Crete by Rhea. Some say that, of the nine Telchines²³² who lived in Rhodes, those who accompanied Rhea to Crete and "reared" Zeus "in his youth"²³³ were named "Curetes"; and that Cyrbas, a comrade of these, who was the founder of Hierapytna, afforded a pretext to the Prasians²³⁴ for saying among the Rhodians that the Corybantes were certain genii, sons of Athena and Helius. Further, some call the Corybantes sons of Cronus, but others say that the Corybantes were sons of Zeus and Calliope and were identical with the Cabeiri, and that these went off to Samothrace, which in earlier times was called Melite, and that their rites were mystical.

Strabo 10.3.[20] But though the Scepsian,²³⁵ who compiled these myths, does not accept the last statement, on the ground that no mystic story of the Cabeiri is told in Samothrace, still he cites also the opinion of Stesimbrotus the Thasian ²³⁶ that the sacred rites in Samothrace were performed in honor of the Cabeiri: and the Scepsian says that they were called Cabeiri after the mountain Cabeirus in Berecyntia. Some, however, believe that the Curetes were the same as the Corybantes and were ministers of Hecate. But the Scepsian again states, in opposition to the words of Euripides,²³⁷ that the rites of Rhea were not sanctioned or in vogue in Crete, but only in Phrygia and the Troad, and that those who say otherwise are dealing in myths rather than in history, though perhaps the identity of the place-names contributed to their making this mistake. For instance, Ida is not only a Trojan, but also a Cretan, mountain; and Dicte is a place in Scepsia²³⁸ and also a mountain in Crete; and Pytna, after which the city Hierapytna²³⁹ was named, is a peak of Ida. And there is a Hippocorona in the territory of Adramyttium and a Hippocoronium in Crete. And Samonium is the eastern promontory of the island and a plain in the territory of Neandria and in that of the Alexandreians.²⁴⁰

Strabo 10.3.[21] Acusilaüs,²⁴¹ the Argive, calls Cadmilus the son of Cabeiro and Hephaestus, and Cadmilus the father of three Cabeiri, and these the fathers of the nymphs called Cabeirides. Pherecydes²⁴² says that nine Cyrbantes were sprung from Apollo and Rhetia, and that they took up their abode in Samothrace; and that three Cabeiri and three nymphs called Cabeirides were the children of Cabeiro, the daughter of Proteus, and Hephaestus, and that sacred rites were instituted in honor of each triad. Now it has so happened that the Cabeiri are most honored in Imbros and Lemnos, but they are also honored in separate cities of the Troad; their names, however, are kept secret. Herodotus²⁴³ says that there were temples of the Cabeiri in Memphis, as also of Hephaestus, but that Cambyses destroyed them. The places where these deities were worshipped are uninhabited, both the Corybanteium in Hamaxitia in the territory now belonging to the Alexandreians near Sminthium,²⁴⁴ and Corybissa in Scepsia in the neighborhood of the river Eurëeis and of the village which bears the same name and also of the winter torrent Aethalöeis. The Scepsian says that it is probable that the Curetes and the Corybantes were the same, being those who had been accepted as young men, or "youths," for the war-dance in connection with the holy rites of the MOTHER of the gods, and also as "corybantes" from the fact that they "walked with a butting of their heads" in a dancing way.²⁴⁵ These are called by the poet "betarmones":²⁴⁶“Come now, all ye that are the best 'betarmones' of the Phaeacians.
”²⁴⁷ And because the Corybantes are inclined to dancing and to religious frenzy, we say of those who are stirred with frenzy that they are "corybantising."

Strabo 10.3.[22] Some writers say that the name "Idaean Dactyli" was given to the first settlers of the lower slopes of Mt. Ida, for the lower slopes of mountains are called "feet," and the summits "heads"; accordingly, the several extremities of Ida (all of which are sacred to the MOTHER of the gods) were called Dactyli.²⁴⁸ Sophocles²⁴⁹ thinks that the first male Dactyli were five in number, who were the first to discover and to work iron, as well as many other things which are useful for the purposes of life, and that their sisters were five in number, and that they were called Dactyli from their number. But different writers tell the myth in different ways, joining difficulty to difficulty; and both the names and numbers they use are different; and they name one of them "Celmis" and others "Damnameneus" and "Heracles" and "Acmon." Some call them natives of Ida, others settlers; but all agree that iron was first worked by these on Ida; and all have assumed that they were wizards and attendants of the MOTHER of the gods, and that they lived in Phrygia about Ida; and they use the term Phrygia for the Troad because, after Troy was sacked, the Phrygians, whose territory bordered on the Troad, got the mastery over it. And they suspect that both the Curetes and the Corybantes were offspring of the Idaean Dactyli; at any rate, the first hundred men born in Crete were called Idaean Dactyli, they say, and as offspring of these were born nine Curetes, and each of these begot ten children who were called Idaean Dactyli.

Strabo 10.3.[23] I have been led on to discuss these people rather at length, although I am not in the least fond of myths, because the facts in their case border on the province of theology. And theology as a whole must examine early opinions and myths, since the ancients expressed enigmatically the physical notions which they entertained concerning the facts and always added the mythical element to their accounts. Now it is not easy to solve with accuracy all the enigmas, but if the multitude of myths be set before us, some agreeing and others contradicting one another, one might be able more readily to conjecture out of them what the truth is. For instance, men probably speak in their myths about the "mountain-roaming" of religious zealots and of gods themselves, and about their "religious frenzies," for the same reason that they are prompted to believe that the gods dwell in the skies and show forethought, among their other interests, for prognostication by signs. Now seeking for metals, and hunting, and searching for the things that are useful for the purposes of life, are manifestly closely related to mountain-roaming, whereas juggling and magic are closely related to religious frenzies, worship, and divination. And such also is devotion to the arts, in particular to the Dionysiac and Orphic arts. But enough on this subject. 4.

Strab. 10.4.1 Since I have already described the islands of the Peloponnesus in detail, not only the others, but also those in the Corinthian Gulf and those in front of it, I must next discuss Crete (for it, too, belongs to the Peloponnesus) and any islands that are in the neighborhood of Crete. Among these are the Cyclades and the Sporades, some worthy of mention, others of less significance.

Strab. 10.4.2  But at present let me first discuss Crete.²⁵⁰ Now although Eudoxus says that it is situated in the Aegaean Sea, one should not so state, but rather that it lies between Cyrenaea and that part of Greece which extends from Sunium to Laconia, stretching lengthwise parallel with these countries from west to east, and that it is washed on the north by the Aegaean and the Cretan Seas, and on the south by the Libyan Sea, which borders on the Aegyptian. As for its two extremities, the western is in the neighborhood of Phalasarna; it has a breadth of about two hundred stadia and is divided into two promontories (of these the southern is called Criumetopon,²⁵¹ the northern Cimarus), whereas the eastern is Samonium, which falls toward the east not much farther than Sunium.

Strabo 10.4.[3]

As for its size, Sosicrates, whose account of the island, according to Apollodorus, is exact, defines it as follows: In length, more than two thousand three hundred stadia, and in breadth, . . . ,²⁵² so that its circuit, according to him, would amount to more than five thousand stadia; but Artemidorus says it is four thousand one hundred. Hieronymus²⁵³ says that its length is two thousand stadia and its breadth irregular, and therefore might mean that the circuit is greater than Artemidorus says. For about a third of its length . . . ;²⁵⁴ and then comes an isthmus of about one hundred stadia, which, on the northern sea, has a settlement called Amphimalla, and, on the southern, Phoenix, belonging to the Lampians. The island is broadest near the middle. And from here the shores again converge to an isthmus narrower than the former, about sixty stadia in width, which extends from Minoa, city of the Lyctians, to Hierapytna and the Libyan Sea; the city is situated on the gulf. Then the island projects into a sharp promontory, Samonium, which slopes in the direction of Aegypt and the islands of the Rhodians.

Strabo 10.4.[4]The island is mountainous and thickly wooded, but it has fruitful glens. Of the mountains, those towards the west are called Leuca;²⁵⁵ they do not fall short of Taÿgetus in height, extend in length about three hundred stadia, and form a ridge which terminates approximately at the narrows. In the middle, in the most spacious part of the island, is Mount Ida, loftiest of the mountains of Crete and circular in shape, with a circuit of six hundred stadia; and around it are the best cities. There are other mountains in Crete that are about as high as the Leuca, some terminating towards the south and others towards the east.

Strabo 10.4.[5] The voyage from Cyrenaea to Criumetopon takes two days and nights, and the distance from Cimarus to Taenarum is seven hundred stadia,²⁵⁶ Cythera lying between them; and the voyage from Samonium to Aegypt takes four days and nights, though some say three. Some state that this is a voyage of five thousand stadia, but others still less. Eratosthenes says that the distance from Cyrenaea to Criumetopon is two thousand, and from there to the Peloponnesus less . . .²⁵⁷

Strabo 10.4.[6]“But one tongue with others is mixed,
”the poet says;“there dwell Achaeans, there Eteo-Cretans²⁵⁸ proud of heart, there Cydonians and Dorians, too, of waving plumes, and goodly Pelasgians.
”²⁵⁹²⁶⁰ Of these peoples, according to Staphylus,²⁶¹ the Dorians occupy the part towards the east, the Cydonians the western part, the Eteo-Cretans the southern; and to these last belongs the town Prasus, where is the temple of the Dictaean Zeus; whereas the other peoples, since they were more powerful, dwelt in the plains. Now it is reasonable to suppose that the Eteo-Cretans and the Cydonians were autochthonous, and that the others were foreigners, who, according to Andron,²⁶² came from Thessaly, from the country which in earlier times was called Doris, but is now called Hestiaeotis; it was from this country that the Dorians who lived in the neighborhood of Parnassus set out, as he says, and founded Erineüs, Boeüm, and Cytinium, and hence by Homer²⁶³ are called "trichaïces."²⁶⁴ However, writers do not accept the account of Andron at all, since he represents the Tetrapolis Doris as being a Tripolis,²⁶⁵ and the metropolis of the Dorians as a mere colony of Thessalians; and they derive the meaning of "trichaïces" either from the "trilophia,"²⁶⁶ or from the fact that the crests were "trichini."²⁶⁷

Strabo 10.4.[7] There are several cities in Crete, but the greatest and most famous are three: Cnossus, Gortyna and Cydonia. The praises of Cnossus are hymned above the rest both by Homer, who calls it "great" and "the kingdom of Minos,"²⁶⁸ and by the later poets. Furthermore, it continued for a long time to win the first honors; then it was humbled and deprived of many of its prerogatives, and its superior rank passed over to Gortyna and Lyctus; but later it again recovered its olden dignity as the metropolis. Cnossus is situated in a plain, its original circuit being thirty stadia, between the Lyctian and Gortynian territories, being two hundred stadia distant from Gortyna, and a hundred and twenty from Lyttus, which the poet named Lyctus.²⁶⁹ Cnossus is twenty-five stadia from the northern sea, Gortyna is ninety from the Libyan Sea, and Lyctus itself is eighty from the Libyan. And Cnossus has Heracleium as its seaport.

Strabo 10.4.[8] But Minos is said to have used as seaport Amnisus, where is the temple of Eileithuia.²⁷⁰ In earlier times Cnossus was called Caeratus, bearing the same name as the river which flows past it. According to history, Minos was an excellent law-giver, and also the first to gain the mastery of the sea;²⁷¹ and he divided the island into three parts and founded a city in each part, Cnossus in the . . .²⁷² And it, too,²⁷³ lies to the north. As Ephorus states, Minos was an emulator of a certain Rhadamanthys of early times, a man most just and bearing the same name as Minos's brother, who is reputed to have been the first to civilize the island by establishing laws and by uniting cities under one city as metropolis²⁷⁴ and by setting up constitutions, alleging that he brought from Zeus the several decrees which he promulgated. So, in imitation of Rhadamanthys, Minos would go up every nine years,²⁷⁵ as it appears, to the cave of Zeus, tarry there, and come back with commandments drawn up in writing, which he alleged were ordinances of Zeus; and it was for this reason that the poet says,“there Minos reigned as king, who held converse with great Zeus every ninth year.
”²⁷⁶²⁷⁷ Such is the statement of Ephorus; but again the early writers have given a different account of Minos, which is contrary to that of Ephorus, saying that he was tyrannical, harsh, and an exactor of tribute, representing in tragedy the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth, and the adventures of Theseus and Daedalus.

Strabo 10.4.[9] Now, as for these two accounts, it is hard to say which is true; and there is another subject that is not agreed upon by all, some saying that Minos was a foreigner, but others that he was a native of the island. The poet, however, seems rather to advocate the second view when he says,“Zeus first begot Minos, guardian o'er Crete.
”²⁷⁸In regard to Crete, writers agree that in ancient times it had good laws, and rendered the best of the Greeks its emulators, and in particular the Lacedaemonians, as is shown, for instance, by Plato²⁷⁹ and also by Ephorus, who in his Europe²⁸⁰ has described its constitution. But later it changed very much for the worse; for after the Tyrrhenians, who more than any other people ravaged Our Sea,²⁸¹ the Cretans succeeded to the business of piracy; their piracy was later destroyed by the Cilicians; but all piracy was broken up by the Romans, who reduced Crete by war and also the piratical strongholds of the Cilicians. And at the present time Cnossus has even a colony of Romans.

Strabo 10.4.[10] So much for Cnossus, a city to which I myself am not alien, although, on account of man's fortune and of the changes and issues therein, the bonds which at first connected me with the city have disappeared: Dorylaüs was a military expert and one of the friends of Mithridates Euergetes. He, because of his experience in military affairs, was appointed to enlist mercenaries, and often visited not only Greece and Thrace, but also the mercenaries of Crete, that is, before the Romans were yet in possession of the island and while the number of mercenary soldiers in the island, from whom the piratical bands were also wont to be recruited, was large. Now when Dorylaüs was sojourning there war happened to break out between the Cnossians and the Gortynians, and he was appointed general, finished the war successfully, and speedily won the greatest honors. But when, a little later, he learned that Euergetes, as the result of a plot, had been treacherously slain in Sinope by his closest associates, and heard that the succession had passed to his wife and young children, he despaired of the situation there and stayed on at Cnossus. There, by a Macetan woman, Sterope by name, he begot two sons, Lagetas and Stratarchas (the latter of whom l myself saw when he was an extremely old man), and also one daughter. Now Euergetes had two sons, one of whom, Mithridates, surnamed Eupator, succeeded to the rule when he was eleven years old. Dorylaüs, the son of Philetaerus, was his foster brother; and Philotaerus was a brother of Dorylaüs the military expert. And when the king Mithridates reached manhood, he was so infatuated with the companionship of his foster brother Dorylaüs that he not only conferred upon him the greatest honors, but also cared for his kinsmen and summoned those who lived at Cnossus. These were the household of Lagetas and his brother, their father having already died, and they themselves having reached manhood; and they quit Cnossus and went home. My MOTHER'S MOTHER was the sister of Lagetas. Now when Lagetas prospered, these others shared in his prosperity, but when he was ruined (for he was caught in the act of trying to cause the kingdom to revolt to the Romans, on the understanding that he was to be established at the head of the government), their fortunes were also ruined at the same time, and they were reduced to humility; and the bonds which connected them with the Cnossians, who themselves had undergone countless changes, fell into neglect. But enough for my account of Cnossus.

Strabo 10.4.[11] After Cnossus, the city of the Gortynians seems to have ranked second in power; for when these two cooperated they held in subjection all the rest of the inhabitants, and when they had a quarrel there was dissension throughout the island. But Cydonia was the greatest addition to whichever side it attached itself. The city of the Gortynians also lies in a plain; and in ancient times, perhaps, it was walled, as Homer states,“and well-walled Gortyn,
”²⁸²but later it lost its walls from their very foundations, and has remained unwalled ever since; for although Ptolemy Philopator began to build a wall, he proceeded with it only about eighty²⁸³ stadia; at any rate, it is worth mentioning that the settlement once filled out a circuit of about fifty stadia. It is ninety stadia distant from the Libyan Sea at Leben, which is its trading center; it also has another seaport, Matalum, from which it is a hundred and thirty stadia distant. The Lethaeus River flows through the whole of its territory.

Strabo 10.4.[12] From Leben came Leucocomas and his lover Euxynthetus, the story of whom is told by Theophrastus in his treatise On Love. Of the tasks which Leucocomas assigned to Euxynthetus, one, he says, was this—to bring back his dog from Prasus. The country of the Prasians borders on that of the Lebenians, being seventy stadia distant from the sea and a hundred and eighty from Gortyn. As I have said,²⁸⁴ Prasus belonged to the Eteo-Cretans; and the temple of the Dictaean Zeus was there; for Dicte is near it, not "close to the Idaean Mountain," as Aratus says,²⁸⁵ for Dicte is a thousand stadia distant from Ida, being situated at that distance from it towards the rising sun, and a hundred from Samonium. Prasus was situated between Samonium and the Cherronesus, sixty stadia above the sea; it was razed to the ground by the Hierapytnians. And neither is Callimachus right, they say, when he says that Britomartis, in her flight from the violence of Minos, leaped from Dicte into fishermen's "nets,"²⁸⁶ and that because of this she herself was called Dictynna by the Cydoniatae, and the mountain Dicte; for Cydonia is not in the neighborhood of these places at all, but lies near the western limits of the island. However, there is a mountain called Tityrus in Cydonia, on which is a temple, not the "Dictaean" temple, but the "Dictynnaean."

Strabo 10.4.[13] Cydonia is situated on the sea, facing Laconia, and is equidistant, about eight hundred stadia, from the two cities Cnossus and Gortyn, and is eighty stadia distant from Aptera, and forty from the sea in that region.²⁸⁷ The seaport of Aptera is Cisamus. The territory.of the Polyrrhenians borders on that of the Cydoniatae towards the west, and the temple of Dictynna is in their territory. They are about thirty stadia distant from the sea, and sixty from Phalasarna. They lived in villages in earlier times; and then Achaeans and Laconians made a common settlement, building a wall round a place that was naturally strong and faced towards the south.

Strabo 10.4.[14] Of the three cities that were united under one metropolis by Minos, the third, which was Phaestus, was razed to the ground by the Gortynians; it is sixty stadia distant from Gortyn, twenty from the sea, and forty from the seaport Matalum; and the country is held by those who razed it. Rhytium, also, together with Phaestus, belongs to the Gortynians:“and Phaestus and Rhytium.
”²⁸⁸ Epimenides,²⁸⁹ who performed the purifications by means of his verses, is said to have been from Phaestus. And Lissen also is in the Phaestian territory. Of Lyctus, which I have mentioned before,²⁹⁰ the seaport is Cherronesus, as it is called, where is the temple of Britomartis. But the Cities Miletus and Lycastus, which are catalogued along with Lyctus,²⁹¹ no longer exist; and as for their territory, the Lyctians took one portion of it and the Cnossians the other, after they had razed the city to the ground.

Strabo 10.4.[15] Since the poet speaks of Strabo 10.4. at one time as "possessing a hundred cities,"²⁹² and also at another as "possessing ninety cities,"²⁹³ Ephorus says that the ten were founded later than the others, after the Trojan War, by the Dorians who accompanied Althaemenes the Argive; he adds that it was Odysseus, however, who called it "Crete of the ninety cities." Now this statement is plausible, but others say that the ten cities were razed to the ground by the enemies of Idomeneus.²⁹⁴ However, in the first place, the poet does not say that Crete had one hundred cities at the time of the Trojan War, but rather in his own time (for he is speaking in his own person, although, if the statement was made by some person who was living at the time of the Trojan War, as is the case in the Odyssey, when Odysseus says "of the ninety cities," then it would be well to interpret it accordingly). In the second place, if we should concede this,²⁹⁵ the next statement²⁹⁶ could not he maintained; for it is not likely that these cities were wiped out by the enemies of Idomeneus either during the expedition or after his return from Troy; for when the poet said,“and all his companions Idomeneus brought to Crete, all who escaped from the war, and the sea robbed him of none,
”²⁹⁷ he would also have mentioned this disaster; for of course Odysseus could not have known of the obliteration of the cities, since he came in contact with no Greeks either during his wanderings or later. And he²⁹⁸ who accompanied Idomeneus on the expedition to Troy and returned safely home at the same time could not have known what occurred in the homeland of Idomeneus either during the expedition or the return from Troy, nor yet even after the return; for if ldomeneus escaped with all his companions, he returned home strong, and therefore his enemies were not likely to be strong enough to take ten cities away from him. Such, then, is my description of the country of the Cretans.

Strabo 10.4.[16] As for their constitution, which is described by Ephorus, it might suffice to tell in a cursory way its most important provisions. The lawgiver, he says, seems to take it for granted that liberty is a state's greatest good, for this alone makes property belong specifically to those who have acquired it, whereas in a condition of slavery everything belongs to the rulers and not to the ruled; but those who have liberty must guard it; now harmony ensues when dissension, which is the result of greed and luxury, is removed; for when all citizens live a self-restrained and simple life there arises neither envy nor arrogance nor hatred towards those who are like them; and this is why the lawgiver commanded the boys to attend the "Troops,"²⁹⁹ as they are called, and the full grown men to eat together at the public messes which they call the "Andreia," so that the poorer, being fed at public expense, might be on an equality with the well-to-do; and in order that courage, and not cowardice, might prevail, he commanded that from boyhood they should grow up accustomed to arms and toils, so as to scorn heat, cold, marches over rugged and steep roads, and blows received in gymnasiums or regular battles; and that they should practise, not only archery, but also the war-dance, which was invented and made known by the Curetes at first, and later, also, by the man³⁰⁰ who arranged the dance that was named after him, I mean the Pyrrhic dance, so that not even their sports were without a share in activities that were useful for warfare; and likewise that they should use in their songs the Cretic rhythms, which were very high pitched, and were invented by Thales, to whom they ascribe, not only their Paeans and other local songs, but also many of their institutions; and that they should use military dress and shoes; and that arms should be to them the most valuable of gifts.

Strabo 10.4.[17] It is said by some writers, Ephorus continues, that most of the Cretan institutions are Laconian, but the truth is that they were invented by the Cretans and only perfected by the Spartans; and the Cretans, when their cities, and particularly that of the Cnossians, were devastated, neglected military affairs; but some of the institutions continued in use among the Lyctians, Gortynians, and certain other small cities to a greater extent than among the Cnossians; in fact, the institutions of the Lyctians are cited as evidence by those who represent the Laconian as older; for, they argue, being colonists, they preserve the customs of the MOTHER city, since even on general grounds it is absurd to represent those who are better organized and governed as emulators of their inferiors; but this is not correct, Ephorus says, for, in the first place, one should not draw evidence as to antiquity from the present state of things, for both peoples have undergone a complete reversal; for instance, the Cretans in earlier times were masters of the sea, and hence the proverb, "The Cretan does not know the sea," is applied to those who pretend not to know what they do know, although now the Cretans have lost their fleet; and, in the second place, it does not follow that, because some of the cities in Crete were Spartan colonies, they were under compulsion to keep to the Spartan institutions; at any rate, many colonial cities do not observe their ancestral customs, and many, also, of those in Crete that are not colonial have the same customs as the colonists.

Strabo 10.4.[18] Lycurgus the Spartan law-giver, Ephorus continues, was five generations later than the Althaemenes who conducted the colony to Crete;³⁰¹ for historians say that Althaemenes was son of the Cissus who founded Argos about the same time when Procles was establishing Sparta as metropolis;³⁰² and Lycurgus, as is agreed by all, was sixth in descent from Procles; and copies are not earlier than their models, nor more recent things earlier than older things; not only the dancing which is customary among the Lacedaemonians, but also the rhythms and paeans that are sung according to law, and many other Spartan institutions, are called "Cretan" among the Lacedaemonians, as though they originated in Crete; and some of the public offices are not only administered in the same way as in Crete, but also have the same names, as, for instance, the office of the "Gerontes,"³⁰³ and that of the "Hippeis"³⁰⁴ (except that the "Hippeis" in Crete actually possessed horses, and from this fact it is inferred that the office of the "Hippeis" in Crete is older, for they preserve the true meaning of the appellation, whereas the Lacedaemonian "Hippeis" do not keep horses); but though the Ephors have the same functions as the Cretan Cosmi, they have been named differently; and the public messes are, even today, still called "Andreia" among the Cretans, but among the Spartans they ceased to be called by the same name as in earlier times;³⁰⁵ at any rate, the following is found in Alcman:“In feasts and festive gatherings, amongst the guests who partake of the Andreia, 'tis meet to begin the paean
”³⁰⁶

Strabo 10.4.[19] It is said by the Cretans, Ephorus continues, that Lycurgus came to them for the following reason: Polydectes was the elder brother of Lycurgus; when he died he left his wife pregnant; now for a time Lycurgus reigned in his brother's place, but when a child was born he became the child's guardian, since the office of king descended to the child, but some man, railing at Lycurgus, said that he knew for sure that Lycurgus would be king; and Lycurgus, suspecting that in consequence of such talk he himself might be falsely accused of plotting against the child, and fearing that, if by any chance the child should die, he himself might be blamed for it by his enemies, sailed away to Crete; this, then, is said to be the cause of his sojourn in Crete; and when he arrived he associated with Thales, a melic poet and an expert in lawgiving; and after learning from him the manner in which both Rhadamanthys in earlier times and Minos in later times published their laws to men as from Zeus, and after sojourning in Egypt also and learning among other things their institutions, and, according to some writers, after meeting Homer, who was living in Chios, he sailed back to his homeland, and found his brother's son, Charilaüs the son of Polydectes, reigning as king; and then he set out to frame the laws, making visits to the god at Delphi, and bringing thence the god's decrees, just as Minos and his house had brought their ordinances from the cave of Zeus, most of his being similar to theirs.

Strabo 10.4.[20] The following are the most important provisions in the Cretan institutions as stated by Ephorus. In Crete all those who are selected out of the "Troop" of boys at the same time are forced to marry at the same time, although they do not take the girls whom they have married to their own homes immediately, but as soon as the girls are qualified to manage the affairs of the house. A girl's dower, if she has brothers, is half of the brother's portion.

The children must learn, not only their letters, but also the songs prescribed in the laws and certain forms of music. Now those who are still younger are taken to the public messes, the "Andreia"; and they sit together on the ground as they eat their food, clad in shabby garments, the same both winter and summer, and they also wait on the men as well as on themselves. And those who eat together at the same mess join battle both with one another and with those from different messes. A boy director presides over each mess. But the older boys are taken to the "Troops"; and the most conspicuous and influential of the boys assemble the "Troops," each collecting as many boys as he possibly can; the leader of each "Troop" is generally the father of the assembler, and he has authority to lead them forth to hunt and to run races, and to punish anyone who is disobedient; and they are fed at public expense; and on certain appointed days "Troop" contends with "Troop," marching rhythmically into battle, to the tune of flute and lyre, as is their custom in actual war; and they actually bear marks of³⁰⁷ the blows received, some inflicted by the hand, others by iron³⁰⁸ weapons.

Strabo 10.4.[21] They have a peculiar custom in regard to love affairs, for they win the objects of their love, not by persuasion, but by abduction; the lover tells the friends of the boy three or four days beforehand that he is going to make the abduction; but for the friends to conceal the boy, or not to let him go forth by the appointed road, is indeed a most disgraceful thing, a confession, as it were, that the boy is unworthy to obtain such a lover; and when they meet, if the abductor is the boy's equal or superior in rank or other respects, the friends pursue him and lay hold of him, though only in a very gentle way, thus satisfying the custom; and after that they cheerfully turn the boy over to him to lead away; if, however, the abductor is unworthy, they take the boy away from him. And the pursuit does not end until the boy is taken to the "Andreium" of his abductor. They regard as a worthy object of love, not the boy who is exceptionally handsome, but the boy who is exceptionally manly and decorous. After giving the boy presents, the abductor takes him away to any place in the country he wishes; and those who were present at the abduction follow after them, and after feasting and hunting with them for two months (for it is not permitted to detain the boy for a longer time), they return to the city. The boy is released after receiving as presents a military habit, an ox, and a drinking-cup (these are the gifts required by law), and other things so numerous and costly that the friends, on account of the number of the expenses, make contributions thereto. Now the boy sacrifices the ox to Zeus and feasts those who returned with him; and then he makes known the facts about his intimacy with his lover, whether, perchance, it has pleased him or not, the law allowing him this privilege in order that, if any force was applied to him at the time of the abduction, he might be able at this feast to avenge himself and be rid of the lover. It is disgraceful for those who are handsome in appearance or descendants of illustrious ancestors to fail to obtain lovers, the presumption being that their character is responsible for such a fate. But the parastathentes³⁰⁹ (for thus they call those who have been abducted) receive honors; for in both the dances and the races they have the positions of highest honor, and are allowed to dress in better clothes than the rest, that is, in the habit given them by their lovers; and not then only, but even after they have grown to manhood, they wear a distinctive dress, which is intended to make known the fact that each wearer has become "kleinos,"³¹⁰ for they call the loved one "kleinos" and the lover "philetor."³¹¹ So much for their customs in regard to love affairs.

Strabo 10.4.[22] The Cretans choose ten Archons. Concerning the matters of greatest importance they use as counsellors the "Gerontes," as they are called. Those who have been thought worthy to hold the office of the "Cosmi" and are otherwise adjudged men of approved worth are appointed members of this Council. I have assumed that the constitution of the Cretans is worthy of description both on account of its peculiar character and on account of its fame. Not many, however, of these institutions endure, but the administration of affairs is carried on mostly by means of the decrees of the Romans, as is also the case in the other provinces. 5.

Strab. 10.5.1  The islands near Crete are Thera, the metropolis of the Cyrenaeans, a colony of the Lacedaemonians, and, near Thera, Anaphe, where is the temple of the Aegletan Apollo. Callimachus speaks in one place as follows,“Aegletan Anaphe, neighbor to Laconian Thera,
”³¹²and in another, mentioning only Thera,“MOTHER of my fatherland, famed for its horses.
”³¹³Thera is a long island, being two hundred stadia in perimeter; it lies opposite Dia,³¹⁴ an island near the Cnossian Heracleium,³¹⁵ but it is seven hundred stadia distant from Crete. Near it are both Anaphe and Therasia. One hundred stadia distant from the latter is the little island Ios, where, according to some writers, the poet Homer was buried. From Ios towards the west one comes to Sicinos and Lagusa and Pholegandros, which last Aratus calls "Iron" Island, because of its ruggedness. Near these is Cimolos, whence comes the Cimolian earth.³¹⁶ From Cimolos Siphnos is visible, in reference to which island, because of its worthlessness, people say "Siphnian knuckle-bone."³¹⁷ And still nearer both to Cimolos and to Crete is Melos, which is more notable than these and is seven hundred stadia from the Hermionic promontory, the Scyllaeum, and almost the same distance from the Dictynnaeum. The Athenians once sent an expedition to Melos and slaughtered most of the inhabitants from youth upwards.³¹⁸ Now these islands are indeed in the Cretan Sea, but Delos itself and the Cyclades in its neighborhood and the Sporades which lie close to these, to which belong the aforesaid islands in the neighborhood of Crete, are rather in the Aegaean Sea.

Strabo 10.5.[2] Now the city which belongs to Delos, as also the temple of Apollon, and the Letöum,³¹⁹ are situated in a plain; and above the city lies Cynthus, a bare and rugged mountain; and a river named Inopus flows through the island—not a large river, for the island itself is small. From olden times, beginning with the times of the heroes, Delos has been revered because of its gods, for the myth is told that there Leto was delivered of her travail by the birth of Apollo and Artemis:“for aforetime, ”says Pindar,“it³²⁰ was tossed by the billows, by the blasts of all manner of winds,³²¹ but when the daughter of Coeüs³²² in the frenzied pangs of childbirth set foot upon it, then did four pillars, resting on adamant, rise perpendicular from the roots of the earth, and on their capitals sustain the rock. And there she gave birth to, and beheld, her blessed offspring.
”³²³The neighboring islands, called the Cyclades, made it famous, since in its honor they would send at public expense sacred envoys, sacrifices, and choruses composed of virgins, and would celebrate great general festivals there.³²⁴

Strabo 10.5.[3] Now at first the Cyclades are said to have been only twelve in number, but later several others were added. At any rate, Artemidorus enumerates fifteen, after saying of Helena that it stretches parallel to the coast from Thoricus to Sunium and is a long island, about sixty stadia in length; for it is from Helena, he says, that the Cyclades, as they are called, begin; and he names Ceos, the island nearest to Helena, and, after this island, Cythnos and Seriphos and Melos and Siphnos and Cimolos and Prepesinthos and Oliaros, and, in addition to these, Paros, Naxos, Syros, Myconos, Tenos, Andros, and Gyaros. Now I consider all of these among the twelve except Prepesinthos, Oliaros, and Gyaros. When our ship anchored at one of these, Gyaros, I saw a small village that was settled by fishermen; and when we sailed away we took on board one of the fishermen, who had been chosen to go from there to Caesar as ambassador (Caesar was at Corinth, on his way³²⁵ to celebrate the Triumph alter the victory at Actium ³²⁶). While on the voyage he told enquirers that he had been sent as ambassador to request a reduction in their tribute; for, he said, they were paying one hundred and fifty drachmas when they could only with difficulty pay one hundred. Aratus also points out the poverty of the island in his Catalepton“O Leto, shortly thou wilt pass by me, who am like either iron Pholegandros or worthless Gyaros.
”³²⁷

Strabo 10.5.[4] Now although Delos had become so famous, yet the razing of Corinth to the ground by the Romans³²⁸ increased its fame still more; for the importers changed their business to Delos because they were attracted both by the immunity which the temple enjoyed and by the convenient situation of the harbor; for it is happily situated for those who are sailing from Italy and Greece to Asia. The general festival is a kind of commercial affair, and it was frequented by Romans more than by any other people, even when Corinth was still in existence.³²⁹ And when the Athenians took the island they at the same time took good care of the importers as well as of the religious rites. But when the generals of Mithridates, and the tyrant³³⁰ who caused it to revolt, visited Delos, they completely ruined it, and when the Romans again got the island, alter the king withdrew to his homeland, it was desolate; and it has remained in an impoverished condition until the present time. It is now held by the Athenians.

Strabo 10.5.[5] Rheneia is a desert isle within four stadia from Delos, and there the Delians bury their dead;³³¹ for it is unlawful to bury, or even burn, a corpse in Delos itself, and it is unlawful even to keep a dog there. In earlier times it was called Ortygia.

Strabo 10.5.[6] Ceos was at first a Tetrapolis, but only two cities are left, Iulis and Carthaea, into which the remaining two were incorporated, Poeëessa into Carthaea and Coressia into Iulis. Both Simonides the melic poet and his nephew Bacchylides were natives of Iulis, and also after their time Erasistratus the physician, and Ariston the peripatetic philosopher and emulator of Bion the Borysthenite. It is reputed that there was once a law among these people (it is mentioned by Menander,“Phanias, the law of the Ceians is good, that he who is unable to live well should not live wretchedly
”), which appears to have ordered those who were over sixty years of age to drink hemlock, in order that the food might be sufficient for the rest. And it is said that once, when they were being besieged by the Athenians, they voted, setting a definite age, that the oldest among them should be put to death, but the Athenians raised the siege. The city lies on a mountain, about twenty-five stadia distant from the sea; and its seaport is the place on which Coressia was situated, which has not as great a population as even a village. Near Coressia, and also near Poeëessa, is a temple of Sminthian Apollo; and between the temple and the ruins of Poeëessa is the temple of Nedusian Athena, founded by Nestor when he was on his return from Troy. There is also a River Elixus in the neighborhood of Coressia.

Strabo 10.5.[7] After Ceos one comes to Naxos and Andros, notable islands, and to Paros. Archilochus the poet was a native of Paros. Thasos was founded by the Parians, as also Parium, a city on the Propontis. Now the altar in this city is said to be a spectacle worth seeing, its sides being a stadium in length; and so is the Parian stone, as it is called, in Paros, the best for sculpture in marble.

Strabo 10.5.[8] And there is Syros (the first syllable is pronounced long), where Pherecydes³³² the son of Babys was born. The Athenian Pherecydes is later than he.³³³ The poet seems to mention this island, though he calls it Syria:“There is an island called Syria, above Ortygia.
”³³⁴

Strabo 10.5.[9] And there is Myconos, beneath which, according to the myth, lie the last of the giants that were destroyed by Heracles. Whence the proverb, "all beneath Myconos alone," applied to those who bring under one title even those things which are by nature separate. And further, some call bald men Myconians, from the fact that baldness is prevalent in the island.

Strabo 10.5.[10] And there is Seriphos, the scene of the mythical story of Dictys, who with his net drew to land the chest in which were enclosed Perseus and his MOTHER Danae, who had been sunk in the sea by Acrisius the father of Danae; for Perseus was reared there, it is said, and when he brought the Gorgon's head there, he showed it to the Seriphians and turned them all into stone. This he did to avenge his MOTHER, because Polydectes the king, with their cooperation, intended to marry his MOTHER against her will. The island is so rocky that the comedians say that it was made thus by the Gorgon.

Strabo 10.5.[11] Tenos has no large city, but it has the temple of Poseidon, a great temple in a sacred precinct outside the city, a spectacle worth seeing. In it have been built great banquet halls—an indication of the multitude of neighbors who congregate there and take part with the inhabitants of Tenos in celebrating the Poseidonian festival.

Strabo 10.5.[12] And there is Amorgos, one of the Sporades, the home of Simonides the iambic poet; and also Lebinthos, and Leros:“And so says Phocylides: 'the Lerians are bad, not one, but every one, all except Procles; and Procles is a Lerian.'
”³³⁵For the natives of the island were reproached with being unprincipled.

Strabo 10.5.[13] Nearby are both Patmos and the Corassiae; these are situated to the west of Icaria, and Icaria to the west of Samos. Now Icaria is deserted, though it has pastures, which are used by the Samians. But although it is such an isle as it is, still it is famous, and after it is named the sea that lies in front of it, in which are itself and Samos and Cos and the islands just mentioned—the Corassiae and Patmos and Leros. Famous, also, is the mountain in it, Cerceteus, more famous than the Ampelus,³³⁶ which is situated above the city of Samians.³³⁷ The Icarian Sea connects with the Carpathian Sea on the south, and the Carpathian with the Aegyptian, and on the west with the Cretan and the Libyan.

Strabo 10.5.[14] In the Carpathian Sea, also, are many of the Sporades, and in particular between Cos and Rhodes and Crete. Among these are Astypalaea, Telos, Chalcia, and those which Homer names in the Catalogue:“And those who held the islands Nisyros and Crapathos and Casos and Cos, the city of Eurypylus, and the Calydnian Islands;
”³³⁸³³⁹ for, excepting Cos and Rhodes, which I shall discuss later,³⁴⁰ I place them all among the Sporades, and in fact, even though they are near Asia and not Europe, I make mention of them here because my argument has somehow impelled me to include the Sporades with Crete and the Cyclades. But in my geographical description of Asia I shall add a description of such islands that lie close to it as are worthy of note, Cyprus, Rhodes, Cos, and those that lie on the seaboard next thereafter, Samos, Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos. But now I shall traverse the remainder of the Sporades that are worth mentioning.

Strabo 10.5.[15] Now Astypalaea lies far out in the high sea and has a city. Telos extends alongside Cnidia, is long, high, narrow, has a perimeter of about one hundred and forty stadia, and has an anchoring-place. Chalcia is eighty stadia distant from Telos, four hundred from Carpathos, about twice as far from Astypalaea, and has also a settlement of the same name and a temple of Apollo and a harbor.

Strabo 10.5.[16] Nisyros lies to the north of Telos, and is about sixty stadia distant both from it and from Cos. It is round and high and rocky, the rock being that of which millstones are made; at any rate, the neighboring peoples are well supplied with millstones from there. It has also a city of the same name and a harbor and hot springs and a temple of Poseidon. Its perimeter is eighty stadia. Close to it are also isles called Isles of the Nisyrians. They say that Nisyros is a fragment of Cos, and they add the myth that Poseidon, when he was pursuing one of the giants, Polybotes, broke off a fragment of Cos with his trident and hurled it upon him, and the missile became an island, Nisyros, with the giant lying beneath it. But some say that he lies beneath Cos.

Strabo 10.5.[17] Carpathos, which the poet calls Crapathos, is high, and has a circuit of two hundred stadia. At first it was a Tetrapolis, and it had a renown which is worth noting; and it was from this fact that the sea got the name Carpathian. One of the cities was called Nisyros, the same name as that of the island of the Nisyrians. It lies opposite Leuce Acte in Libya, which is about one thousand stadia distant from Alexandreia and about four thousand from Carpathos.

Strabo 10.5.[18] Casos is seventy stadia from Carpathos, and two hundred and fifty from Cape Samonium in Crete. It has a circuit of eighty stadia. In it there is also a city of the same name, and round it are several islands called Islands of the Casians.

Strabo 10.5.[19]They say that the poet calls the Sporades "Calydnian Islands," one of which, they say, is Calymna. But it is reasonable to suppose that, as the islands which are near, and subject to, Nisyros and Casos are called "Islands of the Nisyrians" and "Islands of the Casians," so also those which lie round Calymna were called "Islands of the Calymnians"—Calymna at that time, perhaps, being called Calydna. But some say that there are only two Calydnian islands, Leros and Calymna, the two mentioned by the poet. The Scepsian³⁴¹ says that the name of the island was used in the plural, "Calymnae," like "Athenae" and "Thebae"; but, he adds, the words of the poet should be interpreted as a case of hyperbaton, for he does not say, "Calydnian Islands," but “those who held the islands Nisyros and Crapathos and Casos and Cos, the city of Eurypylus, and Calydnae.”³⁴² Now all the honey produced in the islands is, for the most part, good, and rivals that of Attica, but the honey produced in the islands in question is exceptionally good, and in particular the Calymnian.

1 i.e., the promontories of Thermopylae and Sunium, which lie beyond the corresponding extremities of Euboea—Cenaeum and Geraestus.

2 i.e., "Long" Island (see Map VIII, end of Loeb Vol. IV).

3 9. 2. 2, 8.

4 "Inside" means the lower or southeastern region, "outside" the upper or northwestern.

5 Hom. Il. 2.536

6 Elephenor.

7 Hom. Il. 2.542

8 Aristotle of Chalcis wrote a work on Euboea, but it is no longer extant. He seems to have flourished in the fourth century B.C.

9 Abas, founder of Aba, who later conquered Euboea and reigned over it (Stephanus Byzantinus, s.v. Α῎βαι and Α᾿βαντίς).

10 On the heroine "Euboea," see Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. "Euboea"(4).

11 Cow's Stall.

12 i.e., from the Greek words "eu" (well) and "bous" (cow).

13 Or Hestiaeotis (see 9. 5. 3 and footnote 2).

14 Dem. 9.32 (119 Reiske).

15 "Woodland."

16 i.e., from "oreius" (mountaineer).

17 9. 5. 17.

18 Mentioned in Hom. Il. 2.538.

19 See 9. 5. 16.

20 i.e., asbestos.

21 See 8. 7. 1.

22 Hom. Od. 3.177

23 Son of Orestes (13. 1. 3).

24 See note on Aristotle, 10. 1. 3.

25 "Knights."

26 Across the Hellespont to Asia, 334 B.C.

27 Cf. 9. 2. 8 and footnotes.

28 1. 3. 16.

29 Aesch. Fr. 30 （Nauck）

30 Hom. Il. 2.640

31 Hom. Od. 15.295

32 "Whenever they took one of the islands, the barbarians, as though capturing each severally, would net the people. They net them in this way: the men link hands and form a line extending from the northern sea to the southern, and then advance through the whole island hunting out the people" (6. 31).

33 i.e., on a part of the old site.

34 i.e.,like the Eleians, who regularly rhotacised final s (see Buck, Greek Dialects, section 60).

35 322 B.C.

36 The rest of the paragraph is probably an interpolation, rejected by Meineke, following conj. of Kramer.

37 Used by the Macedonian phalanx.

38 The Roman "pilum."

39 Hom. Il. 2.543

40 Hom. Il. 19.389

41 Odysseus.

42 Hom. Od. 8.229

43 Hom. Il. 4.469

44 Hom. Il. 13.713

45 6. 1. 13.

46 8. 3. 11.

47 9. 5. 10.

48 8. 2. 3.

49 This Nicopolis ("Victory City") was founded by Augustus Caesar in commemoration of his victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 B.C. See 7. 7. 5.

50 Amaxiki, now in ruins.

51 An error either of Strabo or of the MSS. "Stratus" and "Alyzia" should exchange places in the sentence.

52 i.e., the Acquired.

53 Son of Antigonus Gonatas; reigned over Macedonia 239-229 B.C.

54 Hom. Il. 2.639

55 Homer specifically mentions Leucas only once, as the "rock Leucas" (Hom. Od. 24.11). On the Ithaca-Leucas problem, see Appendix in this volume.

56 Hom. Od. 24.377

57 Hom. Il. 2.633

58 See Dictionary in Vol. IV.

59 "leuca."

60 Or perhaps "resuscitated."

61 The author of this epic poem on the deeds of Alcmaeon is unknown.

62 Hom. Il. 2.631

63 Hom. Il. 2.625

64 Hom. Il. 2.615

65 Hom. Il. 2.536

66 Hom. Il. 8.173

67 Hom. Il. 2.633

68 "epeirus" (cp. "Epeirus").

69 On Homer's use of this "poetic figure," in which he specifies the part with the whole, cp. 8. 3. 8 and 1. 2. 23.

70 Hom. Od. 14.100

71 Hom. Od. 4.671

72 i.e., politically it was composed of four cities.

73 Hom. Od. 1.245

74 Hom. Il. 2.634

75 See Dictionary in Vol. I.

76 Hom. Od. 4.671

77 Hom. Od. 1.246

78 In the words of Telemachus.

79 Hom. Od. 16.249

80 Hom. Od. 15.367

81 Hom. Il. 2.632

82 Hom. Od. 9.21

83 Hom. Il. 2.632

84 Hom. Od. 9.21

85 Hom. Od. 3.81

86 Accusative of "Nericus."

87 Hom. Il. 2.632

88 Hom. Od. 24.377.

89 Hom. Od. 9.21.

90 Hom. Od. 24.378.

91 Hom. Od. 9.25 (see 1. 2. 20 and footnote).

92 Hom. Il. 3.201; Hom. Od. 1.247; 9.27; 10.417; 15.510; 16.124; 21.346.

93 Hom. Od. 14.1

94 On eudeielos, see 9. 2. 41. and footnote.

95 Hom. Od. 4.607; but in this particular passage the Homeric text has hippelatos ("fit for driving horses") instead of eudeielos, although in Hom. Od. 9.21, and elsewhere, Homer does apply the latter epithet to Ithaca.

96 Hom. Od. 9.26

97 Hom. Il. 12.239

98 Hom. Od. 10.190

99 But in this passage "climata" is used in a different sense from that in 1. 1. 10 (see also footnote 2 ad loc., Vol. I, p. 22). It means here the (four) quarters of the sky, (l) where the sun sets, (2) where it rises, (3) the region of the celestial north pole, and (4) the region opposite thereto south of the equator.

100 Odysseus was at the isle of Circe when he uttered the words in question, and hence, relatively, the celestial phenomena had changed (see 1. l. 21).

101 i.e., the infinite number of possible northern arctic circles vanish when the traveller (going south) crosses the equator, and, in the same way, the corresponding quarter of the southern sky vanishes when the traveller, going north, crosses the equator (see Vol. I, p. 364, note 2).

102 See critical note.

103 See critical note.

104 59 B.C.

105 Probably from Caesar. He was back in Rome in 44 B.C.

106 Hom. Od. 1.180

107 See Dictionary in Vol. I.

108 Hom. Il. 2.625.

109 Son of Phyleus (Meges).

110 Hom. Il. 15.519

111 Hom. Il. 2.631

112 See footnote on Andron, 10. 4. 6.

113 Hom. Od. 16.247, 249.

114 Hom. Od. 1.246

115 See critical note.

116 i.e., towards the direction of winter sunrise (rather southeast) as explained by Poseidonius (see discussion in 1. 2. 21.

117 Demetrius of Scepsis.

118 Hom. Od. 4.846

119 Hom. Il. 13.12

120 Or "smoky"; the meaning of the Greek word is doubtful.

121 Hom. Il. 24.753

122 Hom. Il. 24.78

123 Achilles.

124 Hom. Il. 24.752.

125 See 14. 1. 3.

126 See 8. 3. 19.

127 Hom. Il. 13.13

128 Archil. Fr. 6 （51） （Bergk） Two more lines are preserved: "but I myself escaped the doom of death. Farewell to that shield! I shall get another one as good."

129 See critical note.

130 In Greek "Oxeiai" and "Thoai," both words meaning "sharp" or "pointed" (see 8. 3. 26 and footnote, and Hom. Od. 15.299.

131 i.e., "Along the Acheloüs.

132 Soph. Trach. 7-11

133 One vase-painting shows Acheloüs fighting with Achilles as a serpent with the head and arms of a man, and with ox horns, and another as a human figure, except that he had the forehead, horns, and ears of an ox (Jebb, note ad loc.).

134 Cf. 3. 2. 14 and footnote.

135 Literally, "ox-prowed" (see Jebb, loc. cit.).

136 Cp. 3. 2. 14.

137 Hom. Il. 2.628

138 The latter name is not found in the Iliad or Odyssey.

139 Hom. Od. 1.180.

140 Hom. Od. 15.427.

141 Gulf of Ismid.(see 12. 4. 2.).

142 See Book 7 Fr. 55.

143 10. 2. 4.

144 Alcman Fr. 24 （Bergk）

145 She married him in 279 B.C.

146 Cf. 10. 2. 6.

147 Hom. Il. 13.217

148 Hom. Il. 2.640.

149 10. 2. 3.

150 i.e., Aetolia the "Acquired" (10. 2. 3).

151 10. 2. 8, 10.

152 Cf. 10. 2. 9.

153 The suitors.

154 Hom. Od. 2.52

155 Hom. Od. 15.16

156 10. 2. 25; but Homer nowhere specifically mentions the "Acarnanians."

157 "Shore of the mainland," Hom. Od. 24.378.

158 See 10. 2. 8.

159 Diomedes and Oeneus.

160 Diomedes.

161 Alcmaeon.

162 Amphiaraüs.

163 Hom. Il. 2.638 ff.

164 Thuc. 2.68.

165 Hom. Il. 14.116-17

166 Hom. Il. 9.529

167 8. 3. 8, 10. 2. 10.

168 See Dictionary in Vol. I.

169 Cp. 8. 3. 33.

170 Cf. 8. 3. 33.

171 9. 3. 11.

172 See 9. 3. 11.

173 Polybius 34 Fr. 1

174 Eudoxus of Cnidus (fl. about 350 B.C.

175 Polybius Book 34, Fr. 1

176 See 2. 4. 2 and 7. 5. 9

177 Cf. 2. 3. 1 ff. and 2. 4. 3 ff.

178 Archemachus (fl. not later than the third century B.C.) wrote works (now lost) on the History of Euboea and Metonymies (Change of Names).

179 "Cura." From this passage one might identify the "Curetes" with the "Abantes" (see 10. 1. 3), whom Homer speaks of as "letting their hair grow long behind" (Hom. Il. 2.542). According to a scholium (on Iliad l. c.), the Euboeans wore their hair long behind "for the sake of manly strength." The Greeks in general, however, let their hair grow long all over the head in Trojan times, being often referred to by Homer as the "long-haired Achaeans."

180 The Greek adjective used is ἀκούρους ("acurus").

181 10. 2. 3, 22.

182 Hom. Il. 14.116

183 Hom. Il. 9.548

184 Known in mythology as "the Calydonian boar."

185 Hom. Il. 9.529

186 10. 3. 11.

187 "Corai" (see footnote on "girls" and "youths," p. 91).

188 e.g., Hom. Il. 13.685.

189 Hdt. 7.208, 209.

190 "Corai" and "Coroi." But the corresponding Homeric forms (κοῦροι, κοῦραι) yield English "Curae" and "Curoe"; and Strabo evidently had those forms in mind (see note on 10. 3. 11).

191 "Curetes."

192 Hom. Il. 19.193

193 Hom. Il. 19.248

194 "The Pyrrhic dance of our time seems to be a sort of Dionysiac dance, being more respectable than that of early times, for the dancers have thyrsi instead of spears, and hurl them at one another, and carry fennel-stalks and torches" (Athenaeus 14.631b).

195 Or, following the conjecture of Kramer (see critical note), we should have, instead of but . . . affairs," simply in the work of a soldier."

196 Plat. Phaedo 61.

197 Philolaus, Fr. 4 (Stobaeus 1. 458-460) See also Athenaeus 14.632b-c Aristot. Met. 1.5, Sextus Empiricus Adv. Math. 4.6 Cp. Plat. Tim. 32c, 36d, 37a, 41b, Plat. Rep. 617b, Plat. Epin. 991e.

198 "Coroi" (see note on "youths," 10. 3. 8).

199 "Curo-trophein," to "rear youth."

200 See 12. 8. 21.

201 i.e., from Mt. Ida, Mt. Dindymum (12. 5. 3), Mt. Sipylus, Pessinus (l.c.), and Mt. Cybela (l.c.), and Cybeba. Cf. Diod. Sic. 3.58), who spells the next to last name "Cybelum."

202 The story of the Cretan Curetes.

203 Or perhaps "was drawled" (sc. from the lips of men; see Bergk, or Pind. Fr. 79 (Sandys)). Roberts (Dio. Hal. On Literary Composition 14) translates the verb "crept in" and Sandys (l.c.) "flowed."

204 Eur. Ba. 55

205 The verb is also used in the sense of "bringing back home," and in the above case might be construed as a double entente.

206 i.e., "Boisterous" one.

207 Eur. Ba. 72

208 Where Zeus was hid.

209 The leader of the Chorus is spokesman of the chorus, and hence of all the Greeks.

210 Referring to the triple rim of their helmets (cp. the triple crown of the Pope).

211 Name of the Phrygian priests of Cybele.

212 i.e., the tambourine.

213 They shouted "ev-ah!" (εὖα; cf. Lat. ovatio), as the Greek word shows.

214 "Triennial Festivals."

215 Eur. Ba. 120

216 The reading and metrical arrangement of this corrupt passage is that of Nauck, Fr. 586.

217 "Drum on" is an effort to reproduce in English Strabo's word-play.

218 Soph. Fr. 47.9 （Nauck）

219 Cp. end of section 17 following.

220 Cp. end of section18 following.

221 The instruments, like those who play them (cp. sections 19 and 23 following), are boldly referred to as "mountain-ranging."

222 A kind of reed-flute.

223 Literally "cups"; hence, a kind of cymbal.

224 In connection with this bold use of "semblance" (εἰκών) by Aeschylus, note Strabo's studied use of "resembles" (ἔοικε, twice in this paragraph) and "unlikely" (ἀπεικός). Others either translate εἰκών "echo," or omit the thought.

225 "Sweet-singer.

226 Plat. Rep. 1.327, 2.354

227 Dem. 18.313.

228 Hes. Fr. 198 （Rzach）

229 Hellanicus of Lesbos (fl. about 430 B.C.).

230 "Cretans."

231 "Chalc" means "brazen."

232 See 14. 2. 7.

233 See 10. 3. 11.

234 See 10. 4. 12.

235 Demetrius of Scepsis.

236 Fl. about 460 B.C.; only fragments of his works are extant.

237 Quoted in 10. 3. 13.

238 13. 1. 51.

239 In Crete.

240 See 13. 1. 47.

241 Acusilaüs (fl. fifth century B.C.) wrote works entitled History and Genealogies. Only fragments remain.

242 Pherecydes (fl. in the fifth century B.C.) wrote a mythological and historical work in ten books. Only fragments remain.

243 Hdt. 3.37.

244 13. 1. 48.

245 i.e., "Cory-bant-es" is here derived from the two verbs "coryptein" ("butt with the head") and "bainein" ("walk" or "go").

246 "Harmony-walkers."

247 Hom. Od. 8.250

248 "Dactyli" means either "fingers" or "toes."

249 Soph. Cophi Satyri Fr. 337 (Nauck)

250 For map of Crete, see Insert in Map VIII at end of Loeb Vol. IV.

251 "Ram's Forehead."

252 The text is corrupt (see critical note), and no known MS. contains a number for the breadth of the island. Moreover, the Greek words (either three or four) contained in the MSS. at this point are generally unintelligible. According to measurements on Kiepert's wall map, however, the maximum dimensions are 1400 x 310 stadia.

253 On Hieronymus, see notes on 8. 6. 21 and 9. 5. 22.

254 All MSS. omit something here (see critical note). Jones conjectures "(it is) about two hundred stadia" in breadth (the breadth of the western end as given in 10. 4. 2).

255 "White."

256 A very close estimate (for the same estimate, see 8. 5. l).

257 Eratosthenes probably said "a thousand less," but no number is given in the MSS. (see critical note).

258 "Cretans of the old stock."

259 Hom. Od. 19.175

260 See 5. 2. 4, where the same passage is quoted.

261 Staphylus of Naucratis wrote historical works on Thessaly, Athens, Aeolia, and Arcadia, but only a few fragments are preserved. The translator does not know when he lived.

262 Andron (fl. apparently in the fourth century B.C.) wrote a work entitled Kinships, of which only a few fragments remain. It treated the genealogical relationships between the Greek tribes and cities, and appears to have been an able work.

263 Hom. Od. 19.177.

264 Andron fancifully connects this adjective with "tricha" ("in three parts"), making it mean "three-fold" (so Liddell and Scott q.v.), but it is surely a compound of θρίξ and ἀΐσσω (cp. κορυθάϊξ), and mans "hairshaking," or, as translated in the above passage from Homer, "of waving plumes."

265 i.e., as composed of three cities instead of four.

266 "Triple.crest" (of a helmet).

267 "Made of hair."

268 Hom. Od. 19.178.

269 Hom. Il. 2.647 and 17.611.

270 The goddess of child-birth.

271 So Diod. Sic. lc, but see Hdt. 3.122.

272 The thought, if not the actual Greek words, of the passage here omitted from the Greek MSS. can be supplied from Diod. Sic. 5.78, who, like Strabo, depends much upon Ephorus for historical material: "(Cnossus in the) part of the island which inclines towards Asia, Phaestus on the sea, turned towards the south, and Cydonia in the region which lies towards the west, opposite the Peloponnesus".

273 Cydonia, as well as Cnossus.

274 See 10. 4. 14.

275 We should say "every eight years," or "every ninth year."

276 Hom. Od. 19.178

277 Five different interpretations of this passage have been set forth, dependent on the meaning and syntax of ἐννέωρος: that Minos (1) reigned as king for nine years, (2) was nine years old when he became king, (3) for nine years held converse with Zeus, (4) every nine years held converse with Zeus, and (5) reigned as king when he had come to mature age. Frazer (Paus. 3.2.4 adopts the first. Butcher and Lang, and A. T. Murray, adopt the second. Heracleides of Pontus On the Cretan Constitutions 3 seems to have adopted the third, saying that Minos spent nine years formulating his laws. But Plat. Minos 319c and Plat. Laws 624 says that Minos visited the cave of his father "every ninth year" (δι᾽ ἐνάτου ἔτους); and Strabo (as 16. 2. 38 shows) expressly follows Plato. Hence the above rendering of the Homeric passage. Apart from the above interpretations, Eustathius (note on Odyssey 10.19, on a different passage) suggests that ἐννέωρος might pertain to "nine seasons, that is, two years and one month" (the "one month," however, instead of "one season," seems incongruous). This suggests that the present passage might mean that Minos held converse with Zeus during a period of one season every other year.

278 Hom. Il. 13.450

279 Plat. Laws 631b, 693e, 751dff., 950.

280 The fourth book of his history was so entitled.

281 The Mediterranean.

282 Hom. Il. 2.646

283 "Eighty" seems to be an error for "eight."

284 10. 4. 6.

285 Aratus Phaenomena 33

286 "Dictya."

287 Strabo refers, respectively, to the distance by land to Aptera and by sea, but his estimates are erroneous (see Pauly-Wissowa s.v. "Aptera").

288 Hom. Il. 2.648

289 Epimenides was a wizard, an ancient "Rip Van Winkle," who, according to Suidas, slept for sixty of his one hundred and fifty years. According to Diogenes Laertius 1.110, he went to Athens in "the forty sixth Olympiad" (596-593 B.C ) "and purified the city, and put a stop to the plague" (see Plutarch's account of his visit in Solon's time, Plut. Sol. 12). According to Plat. Laws 642d he went to Athens "ten years before the Persian war" (i.e., 500 B.C.), and uttered the prophecy that the Persians would not come for ten years, and would get the worst of it when they came. But see Pauly-Wissowa s.v. "Epimenides."

290 10. 4. 7.

291 Hom. Il. 2.647.

292 Hom. Il. 2.649.

293 Hom. Od. 19.174.

294 The grandson of Minos.

295 i.e., that Homer was speaking of his own time.

296 i.e., that ten were razed by the enemies of Idomeneus.

297 Hom. Od. 3.191 (Nestor speaking).

298 Nestor.

299 Literally, "Herds" (cf. the Boy Scout "Troops").

300 Pyrrhicus (see 10. 3. 8).

301 This Althaemenes, therefore, is not to be confused with the Althaemenes who was the grandson of Minos.

302 i.e., of Laconia (see 8. 5. 4).

303 "Old Men," i.e., "Senators."

304 "Horsemen," i.e., "Knights."

305 The later Spartan name was "Syssitia" or "Philitia" (sometimes "Phiditia").

306 Alcman Fr. 22 （Bergk）

307 Others translate ἐκφέρουσι in the sense of delivering blows.

308 Possibly an error for "wooden."

309 The literal meaning of the word seems to be "those who were chosen as stand-bys" by lovers.

310 Famous.

311 i.e., "lover" or "sweetheart."

312 Callinus Fr. 113 （Schneider）

313 Callinus Fr. 112 （Schneider）

314 i.e., almost due north of Dia.

315 Heracleium was the seaport of Cnossus (10. 4. 7).

316 A hydrous silicate of aluminium, now called "cimolite."

317 i.e., the phrase is a proverb applied to worthless people or things.

318 416 B.C. (see Thuc. 5.115-116).

319 Temple of Leto.

320 Delos.

321 There was a tradition that Delos was a floating isle until Leto set foot on it.

322 Leto.

323 Pind. Fr. 58 （Bergk）

324 i.e., in honor of Apollo and Leto (see Thuc. 3.104).

325 i.e., back to Rome.

326 31 B.C.

327 Aratus Catalepton Fr.

328 146 B.C.

329 As many as ten thousand slaves were sold there in one day (14. 5. 2).

330 Aristion, through the aid of Mithridates, made himself tyrant of Athens in 88 B.C. (cf. 9. 1. 20).

331 This began in 426 B.C., when "all the sepulchres of the dead in Delos were removed" to Rheneia (Thuc. 3104).

332 Fl. about 560 B.C.

333 Pherecydes of Leros (fl. in the first half of the fifth century B.C.), often called "the Athenian," wrote, among other things, a work in ten books on the mythology and antiquities of Attica.

334 Hom. Od. 15.403

335 Phocylides Fr. 1 （Bergk）

336 See 14. 1. 15.

337 But both of these mountains are in Samos (Pliny, in 5. 37, spells the former "Cercetius"). Hence the sentence seems to be a gloss that has crept in from the margin of the text.

338 Hom. Il. 2.676

339 Cf. the interpretation of this passage in 10. 5. 19.

340 14. 2. 5-13, 19.

341 Demetrius of Scepsis.

342 Hom. Il. 2.676

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