The Geography of Strabo, Volume 2 (of 3): Literally Translated, with NotesStrabo
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The Geography of Strabo, Volume 2 (of 3): Literally Translated, with Notes
Strabo
Geography -- Early works to 1800
If any one should maintain that the poet was not acquainted with a river
which he has not mentioned, we should say that his argument is absurd,
for he has not mentioned by name even the river Meles, which runs by
Smyrna, his birth-place according to many writers, while he has
mentioned the rivers Hermus and Hyllus by name, but yet not the
Pactolus,[1179] which discharges itself into the same channel as these
rivers, and rises in the mountain Tmolus.[1180] He does not mention
either Smyrna itself, or the other cities of the Ionians, or most of
those of the Æolians, although he specifies Miletus, Samos, Lesbos, and
Tenedos. He does not mention the Lethæus, which flows beside
Magnesia,[1181] nor the Marsyas, which rivers empty themselves into the
Mæander,[1182] which he mentions by name, as well as [CAS. 554]
“the Rhesus, Heptaporus, Caresus, and Rhodius,”[1183]
and others, many of which are not more than small streams. While he
specifies by name many countries and cities, sometimes he makes an
enumeration of rivers and mountains, sometimes he does not do so. He
does not mention the rivers in Ætolia and Attica, nor many others. And
if, in mentioning people that live afar off, he does not mention those
who are very near, it is certainly not through ignorance of them, for
they were well known to other writers. With respect to people who were
all equally near, he does not observe one rule, for some he mentions,
and not others, as for instance he mentions the Lycii, and Solymi, but
not the Milyæ, nor Pamphylians, nor Pisidians; the Paphlagonians,
Phrygians, and Mysians, but not the Mariandyni, nor Thyni, nor
Bithynians, nor Bebryces; the Amazons, but not the Leuco-Syrians, nor
Syrians, nor Cappadocians, nor Lycaonians, while he frequently speaks of
the Phœnicians, Ægyptians, and Æthiopians. He mentions the Aleian plain,
and the Arimi mountains, but not the nation among which these are
situated.
The argument drawn from this is false; the true argument would have been
to show that the poet has asserted what is not true. Apollodorus has not
succeeded in this attempt, and he has more particularly failed when he
ventures to call by the name of fiction “the renowned Hippemolgi and
Galactophagi.”[1184] So much then in reply to Apollodorus. I now return
to the part of my description which follows next in order.
28. Above the places about Pharnacia and Trapezus are the Tibareni, and
Chaldæi, extending as far as the Lesser Armenia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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