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[18]

Phrygia "Catacecaumene,"1 which is occupied by Lydians and Mysians, received its appellation for some such reason as follows: In Philadelphia, the city near it, not even the walls are safe, but in a sense are shaken and caused to crack every day. And the inhabitants are continually attentive to the disturbances in the earth and plan all structures with a view to their occurrence. And, among the other cities, Apameia was often shaken by earthquakes before the expedition of King Mithridates, who, when he went over to that country and saw that the city was in ruins, gave a hundred talents for its restoration; and it is said that the same thing took place in the time of Alexander. And this, in all probability, is why Poseidon is worshipped in their country, even though it is in the interior,2 and why the city was called Celaenae,3 that is, after Celaenus, the son of Poseidon by Celaeno, one of the daughters of Danaüs, or else because of the "blackness" of the stone, which resulted from the burn-outs. And the story of Mt. Sipylus and its ruin should not be put down as mythical, for in our own times Magnesia, which lies at the foot of it, was laid low by earthquakes, at the time when not only Sardeis, but also the most famous of the other cities, were in many places seriously damaged. But the emperor4 restored them by contributing money; just as his father in earlier times, when the inhabitants of Tralleis suffered their misfortune (when the gymnasium and other parts of the city collapsed), restored their city, as he also restored the city of the Laodiceians.

1 "Burnt up."

2 Poseidon was not only the god of the sea, but also the "earth-shaker" (ἐνοσίχθωνor ἐνοσίγαιος), and epithet frequently used in Homer.

3 i.e., "Black."

4 i.e., Tiberius (see Tac. Ann. 2.47).

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load focus English (H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., 1903)
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