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1 Or præfectures, as the Romans called them.
2 In the last Chapter.
3 An extensive tribe occupying the country about the rivers Axius, Strymon, and Nestus or Mestus.
4 This river is now called the Mesto or Kara-Sou.
5 A range between the Strymon and the Nestus, now the Pangea or Despoto-Dagh.
6 Probably a canton or division of the Bessi.
7 The most powerful people of Thrace; dwelling on both sides of the Artiscus, and on the plain of the Hebrus.
8 Now the Maritza. It rises near the point where Mount Scomius joins Mount Rhodope. The localities of most of the tribes here named are unknown.
9 The name of this people is often used by the poets to express the whole of Thrace. The district of Edonis, on the left bank of the Strymon, properly extended from Lake Cercinitis as far east as the river Nestus.
10 Or "Trouble City," also called Eumolpias.
11 Or "Philip's City;" founded by Philip of Macedon; still called Philippopoli.
12 Because it stood on a hill with three summits. Under the Roman empire it was the capital of the province of Thracia.
13 On account probably of the winding nature of the roads; as the height of the Balkan range in no part exceeds 3000 feet. With Theopompus probably originated the erroneous notion among the ancients as to its exceeding height.
14 The people of Mœsia. The Aorsi and Getæ are again mentioned in C. 25 of this Book.
15 The inhabitants of the present Bulgaria, it is supposed.
16 Following the account which represent him as a king of the Cicones, and dwelling in the vicinity of Mount Rhodope. The Sithonii here mentioned dwelt about the mouth of the Ister, or Danube, and were a different people from those of Sithonia, in Chalcidice, referred to in a previous note.
17 The Sea of Marmora.
18 It is difficult to conceive which place of this name is here alluded to, as there seem to have been four places on this coast so called, and all mentioned by Pliny in the present Book.
19 Call Æsyma by Homer; between the rivers Strymon and Nestus.
20 Now called Kavallo, on the Strymonic Gulf. The site of Datos appears to be unknown.
21 Now called Filiba, or Felibejik, on a height of Mount Pangæus, on the river Gangites, between the Nestus and the Strymon. It was founded by Philip, on the site of the ancient town of Crenides, in the vicinity of the gold mines. Here Augustus and Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius, B.C. 42; and here the Apostle Paul first preached the Gospel in Europe, A.D. 53. See Acts xvi. 12.
22 Its site seems unknown, but it is evidently a different place from that mentioned in the last Chapter.
23 Also called Mestus.
24 Sintica, previously mentioned.
25 Now Aco Mamas, at the head of the Toronaic Gulf. It was the most important Greek city on the coast of Macedon. It was taken and destroyed by Philip, B.C. 347, and its inhabitants sold as slaves. Mecyberna, already mentioned, was used as its sea-port.
26 On the coast, and east of the river Nestus. Its people were proverbial for their stupidity, though it produced the philosophers Democritus, Protagoras, and Anaxarchus. No traces of its site are to be found.
27 Now called the Lagos Buru. The name of the Bistones is sometimes used by the poets for that of the Thracians in general.
28 Or mares rather. Diomedes was the son of Ares, or Mars, and king of the Bistones. He was slain by Hercules.
29 By some identified with the modern Curnu, by others with Bauron.
30 Or Ismarus, at the foot of Mount Ismarus.
31 Now Marogna.
32 A promontory opposite the island of Samothrace.
33 A town on a promontory of the same name, said to have been frequented by Orpheus.
34 The Plain of Doriscus is now called the Plain of Romigik. Parisot suggests the true reading here to be 100,000, or, as some MSS. have it, 120,000, there being nothing remarkable in a plain containing 10,000 men. Pliny however does not mention it as being remarkable, but merely suggests that the method used by Xerxes here for numbering his host is worthy of attention.
35 Now the Maritza. At its mouth it divides into two branches, the eastern forming the port of Stentor.
36 Still called Enos.
37 A son of Priam and Hecuba, murdered by Polymnestor, king of the Thracian Chersonesus, to obtain his treasures. See the Æneid, B. iii.
38 From the Greek, μάκρον τεῖχος.
39 Now the Gulf of Enos.
40 Now Ipsala, or Chapsylar, near Keshan.
41 Now Rodosto, or Rodostshig, on the coast of the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora.
42 Now called the Peninsula of the Dardanelles, or of Gallipoli. The wall was built to protect it from incursions from the mainland.
43 He here skips nearly five degrees of latitude, and at once proceeds to the northern parts of Thrace, at the mouth of the Danube, and moves to the south.
44 Or, the "city of the Ister," at the south of Lake Halmyris, on the Euxine. Its site is not exactly known; but by some it is supposed to have been the same with that of the modern Kostendsje.
45 Now Temesvar, or Jegni Pangola, the capital of Scythia Minor. It was said to have been so called from the Greek τέμνω, "to cut," because Medea here cut to pieces the body of her brother Absyrtus. It is famous as the place of Ovid's banishment; and here he wrote his 'Tristia' and his 'Pontic Epistles.'
46 Usually identified with the modern Collat, or Collati.
47 Its site does not appear to be known, nor yet those of many of the towns here mentioned.
48 This story no doubt arose from the similarity of its name to γέρανος, "a crane;" the cranes and the Pigmies, according to the poets, being in a state of continual warfare.
49 Supposed to be the present Varna.
50 Now called Daphne-Soui, according to D'Anville.
51 Said to have been built by Aristæus, son of Apollo.
52 Now Missivri.
53 Or Anchiale, now Akiali.
54 Now Sizeboli, famous for its temple of Apollo, with his statue, thirty cubits in height, which Lucullus carried to Rome. In later times it was called Sozopolis.
55 Now Tiniada.
56 The present Midjeh, according to D'Anville.
57 Afterwards called Zagora, which name it still bears.
58 Or Straits of Constantinople.
59 Between Galata and Fanar, according to Brotier.
60 Or Golden Horn; still known by that name.
61 The site of the present Constantinople.
62 These rivers do not appear to have been identified.
63 The present Silivri occupies its site.
64 An important town of Thrace. Eski Erekli stands on its site.
65 Now Vizia, or Viza.
66 He alludes to the poetical story of Tereus, king of Thrace, Progne, and Philomela. Aldrovandus suggests that the real cause of the absence of the swallow is the great prevalence here of northern winds, to which they have an aversion.
67 So called probably from the Thracian tribe of the Cænici, or Cæni.
68 Now called Erkene, a tributary of the Hebrus.
69 All that is known of it is, that it is mentioned as a fortress on the Propontis.
70 Hexamila now occupies its site.
71 The isthmus or neck of the Peninsula of Gallipoli, or the Dardanelles.
72 That of Corinth. They are both about five miles wide at the narrowest part.
73 Now Cardia, or Caridia. It was the birth-place of king Eumenes.
74 From καρδία, in consequence of its supposed resemblance to a heart.
75 Lysimachus destroyed Cardia, and, building Lysimachia, peopled it with the inhabitants.
76 Mannert identifies it with the ancient Ægos and the modern Galata.
77 More generally called Ægospotamos, the "Goat River," upon which the town of Ægos stood. It was here that Lysander defeated the Athenian fleet, B.C. 405, which put an end to the Peloponnesian war.
78 Antoninus, in his Itinerary, makes this distance twenty-six miles.
79 B. ii. c. 92. The present Straits of Gallipoli.
80 Now Gallipoli, a place of considerable commercial importance.
81 Now Ialova; famous in Grecian poetry, with Abydos, for the loves of Hero and Leander.
82 Now Lamsaki.
83 The village of Aidos, or Avido, probably marks its site. To the north, Xerxes passed over to Sestos on his bridge of boats, B.C. 480.
84 Now Capo Helles.
85 Now Jeni-Hisari, the N.W. promontory of Troas. Here Homer places the Grecian camp during the Trojan war.
86 Meaning the "Bitch's tomb," the fable being that Hecuba, in her old age, was changed into that animal. It was near the town of Madytus.
87 Meaning that their fleet was anchored off here during the Trojan war.
88 A magnificent temple was erected near his tomb at Eleus, where he also had a sacred grove. It was greatly enriched by the votive offerings of Greek travellers. According to D'Anville, its site lay to the south of Mastusia.
89 Now called Kilidbahr. Near this place the Spartans were defeated by the Athenians, who erected a trophy near the tomb of Hecuba.
90 In the present Chapter; where he says that the distance from Byzantium to Dyrrhachium is 711 miles. See p. 305.
91 αἲξ, "a goat." Other authors give other derivations for the name of Ægean,—from the town of Ægæ in Eubœa, or from Ægeus, the father of Theseus, who threw himself into it; or from Ægæa, a queen of the Amazons, who perished there; or from Ægæon, a god of the sea; or from the Greek αἰγὶς, "a squall," on account of its storms.
92 See c. 5 of this Book.
93 Both places in Eubœa, mentioned in c. 21 of this Book.
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- Cross-references to this page
(63):
- Harper's, Abrincatui
- Harper's, Lugdūnum
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ABRINCATUI
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- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), HEBRUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), HYPSALTAE
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), I´SMARUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ISTRO´POLIS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), LA´MPSACUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), LIGER
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), LUGDU´NUM
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), LYSIMACHIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), MASTU´SIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), MELDI
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- Cross-references in notes to this page
(2):
- Diodorus Siculus, Library, Diod. 14.38
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), THRA´CIA
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(7):
- Lewis & Short, Anthēdon
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