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After Thurii comes Lagaria, a stronghold, bounded by Epeius and the Phocaeans; thence comes the Lagaritan wine, which is sweet, mild, and extremely well thought of among physicians. That of Thurii, too, is one of the famous wines. Then comes the city Heracleia, a short distance above the sea; and two navigable rivers, the Aciris and the Siris. On the Siris there used to be a Trojan city of the same name, but in time, when Heracleia was colonized thence by the Tarantini, it became the port of the Heracleotes. It is Twenty-four stadia distant from Heracleia and about three hundred and thirty from Thurii. Writers produce as proof of its settlement by the Trojans the wooden image of the Trojan Athene which is set up there—the image that closed its eyes, the fable goes, when the suppliants were dragged away by the Ionians who captured the city; for these Ionians came there as colonists when in flight from the dominion of the Lydians, and by force took the city, which belonged to the Chones,1 and called it Polieium; and the image even now can be seen closing its eyes. It is a bold thing, to be sure, to tell such a fable and to say that the image not only closed its eyes (just as they say the image in Troy turned away at the time Cassandra was violated) but can also be seen closing its eyes; and yet it is much bolder to represent as brought from Troy all those images which the historians say were brought from there; for not only in the territory of Siris, but also at Rome, at Lavinium, and at Luceria, Athene is called "Trojan Athena," as though brought from Troy. And further, the daring deed of the Trojan women is current in numerous places, and appears incredible, although it is possible. According to some, however, both Siris and the Sybaris which is on the Teuthras2 were founded by the Rhodians. According to Antiochus, when the Tarantini were at war with the Thurii and their general Cleandridas, an exile from Lacedaemon, for the possession of the territory of Siris, they made a compromise and peopled Siris jointly, although it was adjudged the colony of the Tarantini; but later on it was called Heracleia, its site as well as its name being changed.
1 Cp. 6. 1. 2.
2 The "Teuthras" is otherwise unknown, except that there was a small river of that name, which cannot be identified, near Cumae (see Propertius 1. 11.11 and Silius Italicus 11.288). The river was probably named after Teuthras, king of Teuthrania in Mysia (see 12. 8. 2). But there seems to be no evidence of Sybarites in that region. Meineke and others are probably right in emending to the "Trais" (now the Trionto), on which, according to Diod. Sic. 12.22, certain Sybarites took up their abode in 445 B.C.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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