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The remainder of the country between the Ister and the mountains on either side of Paeonia consists of that part of the Pontic seaboard which extends from the Sacred Mouth of the Ister as far as the mountainous country in the neighborhood of the Haemus and as far as the mouth at Byzantium. And just as, in traversing the Illyrian seaboard, I proceeded as far as the Ceraunian Mountains, because, although they fall outside the mountainous country of Illyria, they afford an appropriate limit, and just as I determined the positions of the tribes of the interior by these mountains, because I thought that marks1 of this kind would be more significant as regards both the description at hand and what was to follow, so also in this case the seaboard, even though it falls beyond the mountain-line, will nevertheless end at an appropriate limit—the mouth of the Pontus—as regards both the description at hand and that which comes next in order. So, then, if one begins at the Sacred Mouth of the Ister and keeps the continuous seaboard on the right, one comes, at a distance of five hundred stadia, to a small town, Ister, founded by the Milesians; then, at a distance of two hundred and fifty stadia, to a second small town, Tomis; then, at two hundred and eighty stadia, to a city Callatis,2 a colony of the Heracleotae;3 then, at one thousand three hundred stadia, to Apollonia,4 a colony of the Milesians. The greater part of Apollonia was founded on a certain isle, where there is a temple of Apollo, from which Marcus Lucullus carried off the colossal statue of Apollo, a work of Calamis,5 which he set up in the Capitolium. In the interval between Callatis and Apollonia come also Bizone,6 of which a considerable part was engulfed by earthquakes,7 Cruni,8 Odessus,9 a colony of the Milesians, and Naulochus,10 a small town of the Mesembriani. Then comes the Haemus Mountain, which reaches the sea here;11 then Mesembria, a colony of the Megarians, formerly called “Menebria” (that is, “city of Menas,” because the name of its founder was Menas, while “bria” is the word for “city” in the Thracian language. In this way, also, the city of Selys is called Selybria12 and Aenus13 was once called Poltyobria14). Then come Anchiale,15 a small town belonging to the Apolloniatae, and Apollonia itself. On this coast-line is Cape Tirizis,16 a stronghold, which Lysimachus17 once used as a treasury. Again, from Apollonia to the Cyaneae the distance is about one thousand five hundred stadia; and in the interval are Thynias,18 a territory belonging to the Apolloniatae (Anchiale, which also belongs to the Apolloniatae19), and also Phinopolis and Andriaca,20 which border on Salmydessus.21 Salmydessus is a desert and stony beach, harborless and wide open to the north winds, and in length extends as far as the Cyaneae, a distance of about seven hundred stadia; and all who are cast ashore on this beach are plundered by the Astae, a Thracian tribe who are situated above it. The Cyaneae22 are two islets near the mouth of the Pontus, one close to Europe and the other to Asia; they are separated by a channel of about twenty stadia and are twenty stadia distant both from the temple of the Byzantines and from the temple of the Chalcedonians.23 And this is the narrowest part of the mouth of the Euxine, for when one proceeds only ten stadia farther one comes to a headland which makes the strait only five stadia24 in width, and then the strait opens to a greater width and begins to form the Propontis.
1 Others wrongly emend “marks” to “outlines.” See critical note to Greek text, and especially cp. 17. 1. 48 where the “marks” on the wall of the well indicate the risings of the Nile.
2 On these three places, see 7. 5. 12.
3 Cp. 7. 4. 2.
4 Now Sizeboli.
5 Flourished at Athens about 450 B.C. This colossal statue was thirty cubits high and cost 500 talents (Pliny 34.18).
6 Now Kavarna.
7 Cp. 1. 3. 10.
8 Now Baltchik.
9 Now Varna.
10 In Pliny 4.18, “Tetranaulochus”; site unknown.
11 In Cape Emineh-bouroun (“End of Haemus”).
12 Or Selymbria; now Selivri.
13 Now Aenos.
14 Or Poltymbria; city of Poltys.
15 Now Ankhialo.
16 Cape Kaliakra.
17 See 7. 3. 8, 14.
18 Now Cape Iniada.
19 The parenthesized words seem to be merely a gloss (see critical note).
20 The sites of these two places are unknown.
21 Including the city of Salmydessus (now Midia).
22 Cp. 1. 2. 10 and 3. 2. The islet, or rock, on the Asiatic side was visible in the sixteenth century, but “is now submerged,”—”on the bight of Kabakos” (Tozer, op. cit., p. 198). Tozer (loc. cit.) rightly believes that the ancients often restricted the Cyanean Rocks to those on the European side—what are now the Oräkje Tashy (see Pliny 4. 27).
23 These temples were called the Sarapieium and the temple of Zeno Urius; and they were on the present sites of the two Turkish forts which command the entrance to the Bosporus (Tozer).
24 But cp. “four stadia” in 2. 5. 23.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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