[28]
The Colophonians once possessed notable naval and cavalry forces, in which latter they were so far superior to the others that wherever in wars that were hard to bring to an end, the cavalry of the Colophonians served as ally, the war came to an end; whence arose the proverb, "he put Colophon to it," which is quoted when a sure end is put to any affair. Native Colophonians, among those of whom we have record, were: Mimnermus, who was both a flute-player and elegiac poet; Xenophanes, the natural philosopher, who composed the "Silli"1 in verse; and Pindar speaks also of a certain Polymnastus as one of the famous musicians:“Thou knowest the voice, common to all, of Polymnastus the Colophonian.
”2And some say that Homer was from there. On a straight voyage it is seventy stadia from Ephesus, but if one includes the sinuosities of the gulfs it is one hundred and twenty.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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