R. J. Cholmeley, M.A., The Idylls of Theocritus

[32] αἰνέω τάν τε Κρότωνα the sentence begins as if τάν τε Ζάκυνθον followed. The interposition of καλὰ πόλις changes the latter to the nominative.

καλὰ πόλις may possibly be the actual beginning of the song (? anacreontic in rhythm, καλὴ πόλις Ζάκυνθος), but is more probably to be taken as iii. 15 νῦν ἔγνων τὸν ῎Ερωτα: βαρὺς θεός (Hiller).

Ζάκυνθος conjectured to be some place near or some part of Croton, the position of the words between Κρότωνα and Λακίνιον making the commentators adverse to referring the name to the island Zacynthus. But that the island is meant is rendered almost certain by Holm (Hist. of Greece, iii. ch. 3. Appendix). He points out that Croton and Zacynthus (and no other town in Western Greece) in the fourth century adopted a coinage identical with that used by the commercial and political league of Rhodes, Ephesus, Cnidus, and Samos (the type is Heracles strangling the serpents), only omitting the ΣΥΝ （συμμαχία） which appears on the coins of the league. Some intimate relations must, therefore, have existed between Croton and Zacynthus, and to these Corydon refers, just as every after-dinner speaker now refers to U. S. A., and every Frenchman to his dear ally Russia.