The Geography of Strabo, Volume 2 (of 3): Literally Translated, with NotesStrabo
History
The Geography of Strabo, Volume 2 (of 3): Literally Translated, with Notes
Strabo
Geography -- Early works to 1800
3. In the Anti-Taurus are deep and narrow valleys, in which is situated
Comana,[1081] and the temple of Enyus (Bellona), which they call Ma.
It is a considerable city. It contains a very great multitude of
persons who at times are actuated by divine impulse, and of servants of
the temple. It is inhabited by Cataonians, who are chiefly under the
command of the priest, but in other respects subject to the king. The
former presides over the temple, and has authority over the servants
belonging to it, who, at the time that I was there, exceeded in number
six thousand persons, including men and women. A large tract of land
adjoins the temple, the revenue of which the priest enjoys. He is
second in rank in Cappadocia after the king, and, in general, the
priests are descended from the same family as the kings. Orestes, when
he came hither with his sister Iphigenia from Tauric Scythia,[1082]
is thought to have introduced the sacred rites performed in honour of
Diana Tauropolus, and to have deposited here the tresses (Coman, κόμην)
of mourning, from which the city had the name of Comana.
The river Sarus flows through this city, and passes out through the
valleys of the Taurus to the plains of Cilicia, and to the sea lying
below them.
4. The Pyramus,[1083] which has its source in the middle of the plain,
is navigable throughout Cataonia. There is a large subterraneous
channel, through which the water flows under-ground to a great distance,
and then may be seen springing up again to the surface. If an arrow is
let down into the pit from above, the resistance of the water is so
great that it is scarcely immersed. Although it pursues its course with
great[1084] depth and breadth, it undergoes an extraordinary contraction
of its size by the time it has reached the Taurus. There is also an
extraordinary fissure in the mountain, through which the stream is
carried. For, as in rocks which have burst and split in two [CAS. 536]
parts, the projections in one correspond so exactly with the hollows in
the other that they might even be fitted together, so here I have seen
the rocks at the distance of two or three plethra, overhanging the river
on each side, and nearly reaching to the summit of the mountain, with
hollows on one side answering to projections on the other. The bed
between (the mountains) is entirely rock; it has a deep and very narrow
fissure through the middle, so that a dog and a hare might leap across
it. This is the channel of the river; it is full to the margin, and in
breadth resembles a canal.[1085] But on account of the winding of its
course, the great contraction of the stream, and the depth of the
ravine, a noise, like that of thunder, strikes at a distance on the ears
of those who approach it. In passing out through the mountains, it
brings down from Cataonia, and from the Cilician plains, so great a
quantity of alluvial soil to the sea, that an oracle to the following
effect is reported to have been uttered respecting it:
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