[14] Near Anthedon is a place called Isus, and esteemed sacred, belonging to Bœotia; it contains remains of a city, and the first syllable of Isus is short. Some persons are of opinion, that the verse ought to be written, ῏ισόν τε ζαθέην ᾿ανθηδόνα τ̓ ἐσχατόωσαν, “ The sacred Isus, and the extreme Anthedon,
” lengthening the first syllable by poetical licence for the sake of the metre, instead of νῖσάν τε ζαθέην, “ The sacred Nisa;
” for Nisa is not to be found anywhere in Bœotia, as Apollodorus says in his observations on the Catalogue of the Ships; so that Nisa could not stand in this passage, unless by Nisa Homer meant Isus, for there was a city Nisa, in Megaris, from whence Isus was colonized, situated at the base of Cithæron, but it exists no longer.1 Some however write κρεῦσιάν τε ζαθέην, “ The sacred Creusa,
” meaning the present Creusa, the arsenal of the Thespieans, situated on the Crisæan Gulf. Others write the passage φαοͅάς τε ζαθέας, “ The sacred Pharæ,
” Pharæ is one of the four villages, (or Tetracomiæ,) near Tanagra, namely, Heleon, Harma, Mycalessus, Pharæ. Others again write the passage thus, νῦσάν τρ ζαθέηα “ The sacred Nysa.
” Nysa is a village of Helicon. Such then is the description of the sea-coast opposite Eubœa.
1 This passage is very corrupt.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.