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[68]

Then, at a distance of a hundred stadia, one comes to Cane, the promontory which rises opposite Lectum and forms the Adramyttene Gulf, of which the Elaïtic gulf is a part. Canae is a small town of Locrians from Cynus, and lies in the Canaean territory opposite the southernmost ends of Lesbos. This territory extends as far as the Arginussae Islands and the promontory above them, which some call Aega, making it the same as the word for the animal;1 but the second syllable should be pronounced long, that is, "Aega," like Acta and Archa, for Aega used to be the name of the whole of the mountain which is now called Cane or Canae. The mountain is surrounded on the south and west by the sea, and on the east by the plain of the Caïcus, which lies below it, and on the north by the territory of Elaea. This mountain forms a fairly compact mass off to itself, though it slopes towards the Aegaean Sea, whence it got its name.2 Later the promontory itself was called Aega, as in Sappho,3 but the rest was called Cane or Canae.

1 i.e., Ἄιξ, "goat."

2 It is not clear in the Greek whether Strabo says that the Aegean Sea got its name from Aega or vice versa. Elsewhere (8. 7. 4) he speaks of "Aegae in Boeotia from which it is probable that the Aegean Sea got its name."

3 A fragment otherwise unknown (Sappho Fr. 131 (Bergk)).

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load focus Greek (1877)
load focus English (H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., 1903)
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