The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3): Literally Translated, with NotesStrabo
History
The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3): Literally Translated, with Notes
Strabo
Geography -- Early works to 1800
19. The island of Icaria, from which the Icarian Sea has its name, is
near Samos. The island has its name from Icarus, the son of Dædalus,
who, it is said, having accompanied his father in his flight, when both
of them, furnished with wings, set out from Crete, fell on that island,
unable to sustain his flight. He had mounted too near the sun, and the
wings dropped off on the melting of the wax [with which they were
fastened].
The whole island is 300 stadia in circumference; it has no harbours, but
only anchorages, the best of which is called Histi. A promontory
stretches towards the west. There is also on the island a temple of
Diana, called Tauropolium, and a small town Œnoë; and another,
Dracanum,[53] of the same name as the promontory on which it stands,
with an anchorage for vessels. The promontory is distant from the
promontory of the Samians, called Cantharius, 80 stadia, which is the
shortest passage from one to the other. The Samians occupy it at present
in its depopulated state, chiefly for the sake of pasture which it
affords for cattle.
20. Next to the Samian strait at Mycale, on the right hand on the voyage
to Ephesus, is the sea-coast of the Ephesians, a part of which even the
Samians possess. First on the sea-coast is the Panionium,[54] distant
from the sea three stadia, where the Panionia, a common festival of the
Ionians, is celebrated, and a sacrifice is performed in honour of the
Heliconian Neptune. The priests are Prienians. We have spoken of them in
the description of Peloponnesus.
Then follows Neapolis, which formerly belonged to the Ephesians, but now
belongs to the Samians, having exchanged Marathesium[55] for it, the
more distant for the nearer place. Next is Pygela, a small town,
containing a temple of Diana Munychia. It was founded by Agamemnon, and
colonized by some of his soldiers, who had a disease in the buttocks,
and were called Pygalgeis; as they laboured under this complaint, they
settled there, and the town had the appropriate name of Pygela.[56]
Next is a harbour called Panormus, with a temple of the Ephesian Diana;
then the city.
On the same coast, at a little distance from the sea, is Ortygia, a fine
wood with trees of all kinds, but the cypress in the greatest abundance.
Through this wood flows the river Cenchrius, in which Latona is said to
have bathed after the birth of her child. For here is laid the scene of
the birth of the child, the cares of the nurse Ortygia, the cave in
which the birth took place, the neighbouring olive tree under which the
goddess first reposed when the pains of childbirth had ceased.
Above the wood is the mountain Solmissus, where, it is said, the Curetes
stationed themselves, and with the noise of their arms perplexed and
terrified Juno, who was enviously watching in secret the delivery of
Latona, who was thus assisted in concealing the birth of the child.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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