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
Neoptolemus,[1366] surnamed the Glossographer, a writer of repute, was
of Parium. Charon,[1367] the Historian, was of Lampsacus.
Adeimantes,[1368] Anaximenes,[1369] the Rhetorician, and Metrodorus, the
friend of Epicurus, even Epicurus himself might be said to be a
Lampsacenian, having lived a long time at Lampsacus, and enjoyed the
friendship of Idomeneus and Leontes, the most distinguished of its
citizens.
It was from Lampsacus that Agrippa transported the Prostrate Lion, the
workmanship of Lysippus, and placed it in the sacred grove between the
lake[1370] and the strait.
20. Next to Lampsacus is Abydos, and the intervening places, of which
the poet speaks in such a manner as to comprehend both Lampsacene and
some parts of Pariane, for, in the Trojan times, the above cities were
not yet in existence:
“those who inhabited Percote, Practius, Sestos, Abydos, and
the famed Arisbe, were led by Asius, the son of
Hyrtacus,”[1371]
who, he says,
“came from Arisbe, from the river Selleïs in a chariot drawn
by large and furious coursers;”
implying by these words that Arisbe was the royal seat of Asius, whence,
he says, he came,
“drawn by coursers from the river Selleïs.”
But these places are so little known, that writers do not agree among
themselves about their situation, except that they are near Abydos,
Lampsacus, and Parium, and that the name of the last place was changed
from Percope to Percote.
21. With respect to the rivers, the poet says that the Selleïs flows
near Arisbe, for Asius came from Arisbe and the river Selleïs. Practius
is a river, but no city of that name, as some have thought, is to be
found. This river runs between Abydos and Lampsacus; the words,
therefore,
“and dwelt near Practius,”
must be understood of the river, as these expressions of the poet,
“they dwelt near the sacred waters of Cephisus,”[1372]
and
“they occupied the fertile land about the river Parthenius.”[1373]
There was also in Lesbos a city called Arisba, the territory belonging
to which was possessed by the Methymnæans. There is a river Arisbus in
Thrace, as we have said before, near which are situated the Cabrenii
Thracians. There are many names common to Thracians and Trojans, as
Scæi, a Thracian tribe, a river Scæus, a Scæan wall, and in Troy, Scæan
gates. There are Thracians called Xanthii, and a river Xanthus in Troja;
an Arisbus which discharges itself into the Hebrus,[1374] and an Arisbe
in Troja; a river Rhesus in Troja, and Rhesus, a king of the Thracians.
The poet mentions also another Asius, besides the Asius of Arisbe,
“who was the maternal uncle of the hero Hector, own brother of
Hecuba, and son of Dymas who lived in Phrygia on the banks of
the Sangarius.”[1375]
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