[20]
After Dium come the outlets of the Haliacmon; then Pydna, Methone, Alorus, and the Erigon and Ludias Rivers. The Erigon flows from the country of the Triclari1 through that of the Orestae and through Pellaea, leaves the city on the left,2 and meets the Axius; the Ludias is navigable inland to Pella, a distance of one hundred and twenty stadia. Methone, which lies between the two cities, is about forty stadia from Pydna and seventy from Alorus. Alorus is in the inmost recess of the Thermaean Gulf, and it is called Thessaloniceia because of its fame.3 Now Alorus is regarded as a Bottiaean city, whereas Pydna is regarded as a Pierian.4 Pella belongs to lower Macedonia, which the Bottiaei used to occupy; in early times the treasury of Macedonia was here. Philip enlarged it from a small city, because he was reared in it. It has a headland in what is called Lake Ludias; and it is from this lake that the Ludias River issues, and the lake itself is supplied by an offshoot of the Axius. The Axius empties between Chalastra and Therma; and on this river lies a fortified place which now is called Abydon, though Homer calls it Amydon, and says that the Paeonians went to the aid of Troy from there, “"from afar, out of Amydon, from wide-flowing Axius."
”5 The place was destroyed by the Argeadae.
1 Otherwise unknown.
2 Tafel, Kramer, Meineke, and Forbiger think that Strabo wrote "Pelagonia" instead of "Pellaea" (or "the Pellaean country") and that "the city" which the Erigon leaves "on the left" is Heracleia Lyncestis (now Bitolia), for "Pellaea" seems to be used by no other writer and the Erigon leaves "the city" Pella "on the right," not "on the left." But both this fragment and Frag. 22 contain other errors which seem to defy emendation (cp. C. Müller, Index Variae Lectionis); for example, both make the Haliacmon empty between Dium and Pydna (and so does Ptolemaeus, 3.12). But lack of space requires that this whole matter be reserved for special discussions.
3 The text as it stands seems impossible, for Thessaloniceia, not Alorus, was in the innermost part of the gulf—unless, indeed, we assume that Strabo wrongly identified Alorus with Thessaloniceia. In any case, we should probably interpret "it" as referring to "the Thermaean Gulf" and "its" as meaning "Thessaloniceia's."
4 Cp. Frag. 22.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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