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From the Peneius, he says, to Pydna is one hundred and twenty stadia. Along the seaboard of the Strymon and the Dateni are, not only the city Neapolis, but also Datum1 itself, with its fruitful plains, lake, rivers, dock-yards, and profitable gold mines; and hence the proverb, "a Datum of good things," like that other proverb, "spools of good things." Now the country that is on the far side of the Strymon, I mean that which is near the sea and those places that are in the neighborhood of Datum, is the country of the Odomantes and the Edoni and the Bisaltae, both those who are indigenous and those who crossed over from Macedonia, amongst whom Rhesus reigned. Above Amphipolis, however, and as far as the city Heracleia,2 is the country of the Bisaltae, with its fruitful valley; this valley is divided into two parts by the Strymon, which has its source in the country of the Agrianes who live round about Rhodope; and alongside this country lies Parorbelia, a district of Macedonia, which has in its interior, along the valley that begins at Eidonene, the cities Callipolis, Orthopolis, Philippopolis, Garescus.If one goes up the Strymon, one comes to Berge;3 it, too, is situated in the country of the Bisaltae, and is a village about two hundred stadia distant from Amphipolis. And if one goes from Heracleia towards the north and the narrows through which the Strymon flows, keeping the river on the right, one has Paeonia and the region round about Doberus,4 Rhodope, and the Haemus Mountain on the left, whereas on the right one has the region round about the Haemus.5 This side the Strymon are Scotussa, near the river itself, and Arethusa, near lake Bolbe.6 Furthermore, the name Mygdones is applied especially to the people round about the lake. Not only the Axius flows out of the country of the Paeonians, but also the Strymon, for it flows out of the country of the Agrianes through that of the Medi and Sinti and empties into the parts that are between the Bisaltae and the Odomantes.
1 Appian Bellum Civile 4.105 and also Harpocration say the Datum was the earlier name of Philippi and that Crenides was the name of the same place in still earlier times. Leake (Northern Greece, Vol. III, pp. 223-4), Kiepert (Alte Geographic 315), Forbiger (Strabo Vol. II, p. 140, footnote, 175), Besnier (Lexique Geog. Ancienne s.v. "Neapolis"), Lolling (Hellenische Landeskunde, 220, 230) identify Datum with Neapolis. But Heuzey (quoted by Philippson, Pauly-Wissowa s.v. "Datum") tries to reconcile these disagreements and the above statement of Strabo by assuming that originally Datum was that territory east of Mt. Pangarum which comprised the Plain of Philippi, the basin of the Angites River (including Drabescus now Drama), and the adjacent coast; and that later Neapolis (now Kavala) was founded on the coast and Datum was founded on the site of Crenides, and still later the city of Datum was named Philippi.
2 Heracleia Sintica (now Zervokhori).
3 Now Tachyno (Leake, Northern Greece, Vol. III, p. 229).
4 The site of the city Doberus is uncertain (see Pauly-Wissowa, s.v.), though it appears to have been somewhere near Tauriana.
5 The text, which even Meineke retains, is translated as it stands, but Strabo probably wrote as follows: "one has Paeonia and the region round about Doberus on the left, whereas on the right one has the parts round about Rhodope and the Haemus Mountain.
6 Now Beschikgoel.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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