[13]
This country was called "Adrasteia"1 and "Plain of Adrasteia," in accordance with a custom whereby people gave two names to the same place, as "Thebe" and "Plain of Thebe," and "Mygdonia" and "Plain of Mygdonia." According to Callisthenes, among others, Adrasteia was named after King Adrastus, who was the first to found a temple of Nemesis. Now the city is situated between Priapus and Parium; and it has below it a plain that is named after it, in which there was an oracle of Apollo Actaeus and Artemis. . . .2 But when the temple was torn down, the whole of its furnishings and stonework were transported to Parium, where was built an altar,3 the work of Hermocreon, very remarkable for its size and beauty; but the oracle was abolished like that at Zeleia. Here, however, there is no temple of Adrasteia, nor yet of Nemesis, to be seen, although there is a temple of Adrasteia near Cyzicus. Antimachus says as follows:“There is a great goddess Nemesis, who has obtained as her portion all these things from the Blessed.4 Adrestus5 was the first to build an altar to her beside the stream of the Aesepus River, where she is worshipped under the name of Adresteia.
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1 On the site of Adrasteia, see Leaf, p. 77.
2 Three words in the Greek text here are corrupt. Strabo may have said that this temple was "on the shore," or "in the direction of Pityeia" (the same as Pitya; see section 15 following), or "in the direction of Pactye".
3 This altar was a stadium (about 600 feet) in length (10. 5. 7).
4 A not uncommon appellation of the gods.
5 Note the variant spelling of the name.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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