Strabo, Geography

After the Rhizonic Gulf comes the city of Lissus,¹ and Acrolissus,² and Epidamnus,³ founded by the Corcyraeans, which is now called Dyrrachium, like the peninsula on which it is situated. Then comes the Apsus⁴ River; and then the Aoüs,⁵ on which is situated Apollonia,⁶ an exceedingly well-governed city, founded by the Corinthians and the Corcyraeans, and ten stadia distant from the river and sixty from the sea. The Aoüs is called “Aeas “⁷ by Hecataeus, who says that both the Inachus and the Aeas flow from the same place, the region of Lacmus,⁸ or rather from the same subterranean recess, the former towards the south into Argos and the latter towards the west and towards the Adrias. In the country of the Apolloniates is a place called Nymphaeum; it is a rock that gives forth fire; and beneath it flow springs of warm water and asphalt—probably because the clods of asphalt in the earth are burned by the fire. And near by, on a hill, is a mine of asphalt; and the part that is trenched is filled up again in the course of time, since, as Poseidonius says, the earth that is poured into the trenches changes to asphalt. He also speaks of the asphaltic vine-earth which is mined at the Pierian Seleuceia⁹ as a cure for the infested vine; for, he says, if it is smeared on together with olive oil, it kills the insects¹⁰ before they can mount the sprouts of the roots;¹¹ and, he adds, earth of this sort was also discovered in Rhodes when he was in office there as Prytanis,¹² but it required more olive oil. After Apollonia comes Bylliaca,¹³ and Oricum¹⁴ and its seaport Panormus, and the Ceraunian Mountains, where the mouth of the Ionian Gulf¹⁵ and the Adrias begins.