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
24. But Apollodorus does not seem to have carefully examined the
statements of Ephorus, for he confounds and misrepresents the words of
Homer. He ought first to have inquired of Ephorus why he placed the
Chalybes within the peninsula, who were situated at a great distance
from Sinope, and Amisus towards the east. Those who describe the isthmus
of this peninsula to be on the line drawn from Issus to the Euxine, lay
down this line as a sort of meridian line, which some suppose to pass
through Sinope, others through Amisus; but no one through the Chalybes,
for such a line would be altogether an oblique line. For the meridian
passing through the Chalybes, drawn through the Lesser Armenia, and the
Euphrates, would comprise (on the east) the whole of Cappadocia,
Commagene, Mount Amanus, and the Bay of Issus. [CAS. 678] But if we
should grant (to Ephorus) that this oblique line is the direction of the
isthmus, most of these places, Cappadocia in particular, would be
included, and (the kingdom of) Pontus, properly so called, which is a
part of Cappadocia on the Euxine; so that if we were to admit the
Chalybes to be a part of the peninsula, with more reason we ought to
admit the Cataonians, the two nations of Cappadocians, and the
Lycaonians, whom even he himself has omitted. But why has he placed in
the interior the Chalybes, whom the poet, as we have shown, calls
Halizoni? It would have been better to divide them, and to place one
portion of them on the sea-coast, and another in the inland parts. The
same division ought to be made of the Cappadocians and Cilicians. But
Ephorus does not even mention the former, and speaks only of the
Cilicians on the sea-coast. The subjects, then, of Antipater of Derbe,
the Homonadeis, and many other tribes contiguous to the Pisidians,
“men, who know not the sea, nor have ever eaten food seasoned
with salt,”[276]
where are they to be placed? Nor does he say whether the Lydians and the
Meonians are two nations or the same nation, or whether they live
separately by themselves or are comprehended in another tribe. For it
was impossible for Ephorus to be ignorant of so celebrated a nation, and
does he not, by passing it over in silence, appear to omit a most
important fact?
25. But who are “the mixed nations”? For we cannot say that he either
named or omitted others, besides those already mentioned, whom we should
call mixed nations. Nor, indeed, should we say that they were a part of
those nations whom he has either mentioned or omitted. For if they were
a mixed people, still the majority constituted them either Greeks or
Barbarians. We know nothing of a third mixed people.
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