Chapter 40

2520From this expression we may gather that Strabo wrote this 6th Book of his Geography during the lifetime of Juba, and, as we shall presently see, abouta. a.18; while he did not compile the 17th Book till after Juba’s death, which must have taken place beforeA. D.21. See M. l’Abbé Sevin, Rech. sur la Vie, &c., de Juba,Ac. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres, vol. iv.Mém.p. 462.

2521Attalus III., king of Pergamus, died 133B. C., and constituted the Roman people his heir.

2522We may here observe that the Seleucidæ ceased to reign in Syria as early as 83B. C., when that country, wearied of their sad dissensions, willingly submitted to Tigranes the king of Armenia, but their race was not extinct, and even in the year 64B. C.when Pompey made the kingdom a Roman province, there were two princes of the Seleucidæ, Antiochus Asiaticus and his brother Seleucus-Cybiosactes, who had an hereditary right to the throne; the latter however died about 54B. C., and in him terminated the race of the Seleucidæ.

2523The race of the kings of Paphlagonia became extinct about 7B. C.See M. l’Abbé Belley, Diss. sur l’ère de Germanicopolis, &c.Ac. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres, vol. xxx.Mém.p. 331.

2524The royal race of Cappadocia failed about 91B. C.

2525The race of the Lagidæ terminated with Ptolemy Auletes, who died 44B. C., leaving two daughters, Cleopatra and Arsinoë. Ptolemy Apion died 96B. C.; he left Cyrene, whereof he was king, to the Roman people.

2526Now the Fasz or Rion.

2527The Forat, Ferat, or Frat.

2528The ancient Ister.

2529Strabo will relate in book vii. chap. iv. § 4, that after the defeat of Mithridates Eupator they became subject to the Romans.

2530See more as to these people in book vii. chap. iii. § 17.

2531Inhabitants of tents.

2532In the year 20B. C.See book xvi. chap. i. § 28.

2533Compare Tacitus, Annales, lib. ii. § 1.

2534As Vonones, mentioned by Tacitus in his second book.

2535Compare the words of Tacitus, Annal. lib. i. § 9, Non aliud discordantis patriæ remedium fuisse, quàm ut ab uno regeretur.

2536Germanicus was appointed to take charge of the East inA. D.17, in 18 he took possession of his government, and died in 19. Drusus was in command of the armies of Germany inA. D.17. Thus we may safely conclude this 6th book of Strabo’s Geography to have been written inA. D.18.

2537The ancient Tanais.

2538Palus Mæotis.

2539The ancient Ister.

2540The ancient Propontis.

2541Strabo, in a subsequent passage, states that the distance from the Danube to the city Trieste, at the head of the Adriatic, is about 1200 stadia.

2542The ancient Tyras.

2543The Borysthenes.

2544The Bastarnæ were a people occupying portions of the modern Moldavia, Podolia, and the Ukraine.

2545The Tyregetæ, or the Getæ of the river Tyras, were a people dwelling on the Dniester, to the south of the Bastarnæ.

2546The ancient geographers supposed that the Northern Ocean extended to the 56° of north latitude. Their notions of the existence of the Baltic were vague. They therefore confounded it with the Northern Ocean, thus making the continent of Europe to extend only to the 56° of north latitude.

2547See book iv. chap. iv. § 2, pp. 291, 292.

2548Strabo’s words are, γνήσιοι γὰρ oἱ Γερμανοὶ κατὰ τὴν Ῥωμαίων διάλεκτον. It is possible he may be endeavouring to explain that the γερ in Germani is equivalent to the Latin verus, “true,” the wahr of modern German, and that Germani signifies the true men of the country, the undoubted autochthones of Galatia or Gaul.

2549The Marsi were a people dwelling on the banks of the Ems, near Munster.

2550The Sicambri were located near the Menapii. See above, p. 289.

2551The Albis.

2552Amasias.

2553The name of this tribe is written variously by different authors. They are supposed to have occupied the lands between the Rhine, the Ems, and the Lippe, but their boundaries were very uncertain, on account of their continual wars.

2554This refers to the chain of mountains which, running from the north of Switzerland, traverses Wurtemberg, Franconia, Bohemia, Moravia, and joins Mount Krapak.

2555The Hercynian Wood, or Black Forest, was either one or a succession of continuous forests, extending from the banks of the Rhine to the confines of Persia and Bactriana.

2556The Suevi occupied a considerable portion of Germany, to the north and east of Bohemia.

2557Coldui manuscripts. Kramer agrees with Cluverius in this instance, and we have followed Kramer’s text.

2558The Lugii of Tacitus.

2559Zeus thinks these were the Burri of Dio Cassius, lxviii. 8. See Zeus, Die Deutschen, &c., p. 126.

2560Kramer has Γούτωνας, although the MSS. have Βούτωνας. He is led to this emendation by Cluverius and others. Cluv. Germ. Antiq. lib. iii. c. 34, page 625.

2561The Gambrivii of Tacitus, Germ. cap. 2.

2562Cluverius considers these were the Chamavi.

2563We have followed Kramer’s text. MSS. read Bucteri.

2564For Caulci, Campsiani, Cluverius would read Cathulci, Campsani. A little further on Strabo calls the Campsiani Ampsani.

2565Amasias.

2566Visurgis.

2567Lupias.

2568Salas.

2569Borcum. Pliny calls this island Burchana, and adds, that the Romans gave it the name of Fabaria, on account of the beans (in Latin Faba) which grow there.

2570Segimundus in Tacitus, Annal. lib. i. cap. 57.

2571Ægimerus in Tacitus, Annal. lib. i. cap. 71.

2572Acrumerus, according to the correction of Cluverius. He is Actumerus in Tacitus, Annal. lib. xi. 16, 17.

2573MSS. Batti, which Vossius reckons were the Batavi.

2574Cluverius considers these were the Marsi of Tacitus, Annal. lib. ii. cap. 25.

2575Called Tubantes by the Roman writers.

2576Schwartz Wald, or Black Forest.

2577The Lake Constance.

2578Strabo could hardly have intended 300, since the diameter of the lake is given at 200. Velser conjectures that 500 or 600 would be the proper reading. Its exact circumference is about 550 stadia.

2579Gossellin considers that by Keltica we are to understand Cisalpine Gaul, and the neighbourhood of Milan and Mantua.

2580Gossellin says that the sources of the Danube are about 14 leagues distant from the western extremity of the Lake Constance.

2581The Rhæti possessed the countries of the Grisons and the Tyrol, extending to the eastern shores of the Lake Constance.

2582The Helvetii, or Swiss, possessed the southern borders of the Lake Constance.

2583The Vindelici occupied the country on the northern borders of the lake, with the regions of Swabia and Bavaria south of the Danube, and reaching to the Inn.Gossellin.

2584It is evident that some words have been omitted in this place. The words we have inserted are the conjecture of Cluverius and Groskurd.

2585As far as we can make out from Strabo and Pliny, book iii. cap. 27, the desert of the Boii stretched along the shores of the Danube from the river Inn to the mountains a little west of Vienna, which were the boundary between the Norici and the Pannonians. This strip of land is now called the Wiener-Wald, or Forest of Vienna. Doubtless it took its name of Desert of the Boii on account of its contiguity to the south of the country occupied by those people, and which still bears the name of Bohemia.

2586The Pannonians occupied the districts of Hungary west of the Danube.

2587The Norici inhabited that part of Austria which lies between the Danube and the Alps.

2588The Insubri occupied the Milanese.

2589The Carni have left their name to Carniola.

2590See also book ii. chap. 3, § 6. Festus relates that the Ambrones abandoned their country on account of this tide. The Ambrones were a tribe of the Helvetii, and more than once joined with the Cimbri.

2591The French translation has happily paraphrased, not translated, this passage as follows: “For although it is true that the ocean has tides of more or less height, still they occur periodically, and in an order constantly the same.”

2592Aristotle, Ethics, Eudem. lib. iii. cap. 1, Nicolas of Damascus, and Ælian, Var. Histor. lib. xii. cap. 23, have attributed the like extravagant proceedings to the Kelts or Gauls. Nicolas of Damascus, Reliq. pp. 272, 273, says that the Kelts resist the tides of the ocean with their swords in their hands, till they perish in the waters, in order that they may not seem to fear death by taking the precaution to fly.

2593It is probable that Clitarchus obtained his information from the Gauls. As for the sudden influx of the tide, there are several other examples of the kind, in which the troops surprised were not so successful in getting off.

2594Tacitus, De Morib. Germanor. cap. viii., says that these priestesses were held in great reputation, and mentions one Veleda as “diu apud plerosque numinis loco habitam.”

2595Pliny, lib. xix. cap. 1, describes this carbasus as very fine flax, grown in the neighbourhood of Tarragona in Spain. The Père Hardouin considers that the carbasus or fabric manufactured of this flax was similar to the Frenchbatiste.—The flax and the fabric were alike called carbasus.

2596The Sicambri, or Sugambri, dwelt to the south of the Lippe.

2597The Cimbri occupied Jutland, the ancient Cimbrica Chersonesus.

2598The shores of the Baltic.

2599Gossellin places the Jazyges in the southern districts of the Ukraine, between the Dniester and the Sea of Azoff.

2600Gossellin considers that the name of Russia is derived from these Roxolani.

2601The Bastarnæ and Tyregetæ, mentioned in chap. i. § 1, of this book, to whom, in book ii. chap. v. § 30, Strabo adds also the Sauromatæ.

2602The Sauromatæ, or Sarmatians, living to the east of the Sea of Azoff and along the banks of the Don.

2603The term Atlantic was applied with much more latitude by Strabo and Eratosthenes than by us.

2604But he himself turned back his shining eyes apart, looking towards the land of the equestrian Thracians and the close-fighting Mysians. Iliad xiii. 3.

2605The Strait of the Dardanelles.

2606Milkers of mares.

2607People who live on milk.

2608Devoid of riches.

2609Dwelling in waggons.

2610Perhaps Teurisci.

2611A note in the French translation suggests that Capnobatæ has some connexion with the practice of intoxication by inhaling smoke, and of using the vapour of linseed, burned upon red-hot stones, as a bath. See Herodot. book i. chap. 202; book iv. chap. 75.

2612And the illustrious Hippemolgi, milk-nourished, simple in living and most just men. Iliad xiii. 5.

2613δεκάτῳ, text: but there is no doubt it should be the thirteenth.

2614People without life.

2615The Greek is ἀνεστίους, literally “without hearths.”

2616Strabo does not intend by the word κυνισμὸς, which he here uses, the profession of a Cynic philosopher, which some of the Stoics affected in consequence of their not thoroughly understanding the dogmas of Zeno, the founder of their sect. It was to these ultra-Stoics that the name of Stoaces [Στόακες] was given by way of ridicule. Athenæus, book xiii. chap. 2, remarks that a like propensity to overdo the precept of the teacher led the disciples of Aristippus, who recommended rational pleasures, to become mere libertines.

2617Heraclides of Pontus, page 215, gives them even as many as thirty wives.

2618Kramer reads δαπάναις, which we have rendered by “expenses,” but all manuscripts have ἀπάταις. The French translation gives a note with Koray’s conjecture of δαπάναις, which is supported by a very similar passage respecting Alcibiades, where Isocrates (P. I. page 354, ed. Coray) says, “He was so lavish in the sacrifices and other expenses for the feast.” Both the French and German translations adopt the emendation.

2619Ζάλμοξις is the reading of the Paris manuscript, No. 1393, and we should have preferred it for the text, as more likely to be a Getæan name, but for the circumstance of his being generally written Zamolxis.

2620D’Anville imagines that this is the modern mountain Kaszon, and the little river of the same name on the confines of Transylvania and Moldavia.

2621See Strabo’s former remarks on this identical subject, book i. chap. ii. § 3, page 25.

2622εἰς τὸν Πόντον.

2623Ister.

2624Tanaïs.

2625Borysthenes.

2626Hypanis.

2627Phasis.

2628Thermodon.

2629Halys.

2630Gossellin observes, that these must have been the Scythians inhabiting the Taurica Chersonesus, now the Crimea. The people on the opposite or southern shore were less savage. The Ionians had made settlements amongst these as early as the sixth centuryB. C.

2631Africa.

2632The Mediterranean.

2633Od. book iv. line 83. See Strabo’s remarks on this reading of Zeno, book i. chap. ii. § 34, page 66.

2634See the notes on these various monsters, book i. chap. ii. § 35, p. 68.

2635The Riphæan Mountains were probably the chain of the Ural Mountains, which separate Russia from Siberia.

2636This mountain is unknown.

2637The Gorgons were Stheino, Euryalé, and Medusa, the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. See also book i. chap. ii. § 8, page 29.

2638The Hesperides were the daughters of Night. They dwelt on an island on the western edge of the world. See also Apollodorus, book ii. chap. v. § 11.

2639Ælian, Var. Histor. book iii. chap. 18, says that Theopompus related an interview between Midas, king of Phrygia, and Silenus, in which Silenus reported the existence of an immense continent, larger than Asia, Europe, and Africa taken together, and that amongst others a race of men called Meropes occupied several extensive cities there.

2640Ephorus speaks of the Cimmerii who dwelt round the Lake Avernus. See Strabo, book v. chap. iv. § 5, page 263.

2641See Strabo, book ii. chap. iv. § 2, page 158.

2642A note in the French translation says that this place has not been identified in the works of Aristotle now remaining, and suggests that there may be some error in the text.

2643See what Strabo has said on this subject in book i. chap. ii. § 37, pp. 70, 71.

2644Strabo will speak further on the subject of Gerena in book viii. chap. iii. § 7, and § 29.

2645Reference is here made to the epithet ἀκάκητα, which Homer applies to Mercury, Iliad xvi. 185. The grammarians explain it correctly as “free from evil,” or “who neither does nor suffers wrong.” However, there were some who interpreted it differently. They maintain that Mercury was so called from a cavern in Arcadia, called Acacesium, (see Schol. in Homer, edit. Villois. pag. 382,) which was situated near Cyllene, a mountain of Arcadia, where he was born. See Apollodor. Biblioth. lib. iii. cap. x. § 2. Hesiod, however, applies the same epithet to Prometheus, (Theogon. verse 613,) who, according to the scholiast, was thus designated from Acacesium, a mountain, not a cavern, of Arcadia, where he was greatly revered.

2646Homer, Iliad iii. verse 201, in speaking of Ulysses, says, Ὃς τράφη ἐν δήμῳ Ἰθάκης. Some writers affirmed that the Δῆμος was the name of a place in Ithaca, while others think it a word, and understand the passage “who was bred in the country of Ithaca.” On comparing this passage with others, Iliad xvi. vss. 437, 514, and with a parallel expression of Hesiod Theogon. verse 971, one is greatly astonished at the ignorance and eccentricity of those who sought to make a place Demus out of this passage of Homer.

2647According to some, Pelethronium was a city of Thessaly; according to others, it was a mountain there, or even a part of Mount Pelion.

2648There is no mention of any Glaucopium throughout the writings of Homer. Eustathius, on the Odyssey, book ii. page 1451, remarks that it was from the epithet γλαυκῶπις, blue-eyed or fierce-eyed, which he so often gives to Minerva, that the citadel at Athens was called the Glaucopium, while Stephen of Byzantium, on Ἀλαλκομένιον, asserts that both the epithet γλαυκῶπις and the name of the citadel Glaucopium comes from Glaucopus, the son of Alalcomeneus.

2649And the close-fighting Mysians, and the illustrious Hippemolgi, milk-nourished,simple in living, and most just of men. Iliad xiii. 5. The word which Cowper renders “blest with length of days,” and Buckley “simple in living,” is ἄβιοι. Its signification is very uncertain. Some propose to derive it from α, privative, and βιὸς, a bow, or bowless; while others regard it as a proper name, Abii. In Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, xv. 3, it means, without a living, poor, as derived from α, privative, and βίος, a means of living, livelihood. Cowper’s meaning is made up from α, intensive, and βίος, life.

2650Pontus Axenus.

2651This word is corrupt in the MSS.

2652He was called Idanthyrsus. See Herodotus, book iv. chap. 127.

2653Satyrus is supplied by Koray. See also chapter iv. of this book, § 4, and book xi. chap. ii. § 7. Groskurd refers also to Diodorus, book xiv. 93, and says that Leuco was the son of Satyrus.

2654The mountains in the north of Thrace still bear the name of Emineh-Dag, or Mount Emineh, at their eastern point; but the western portion is called the Balkan.

2655Piezina, at the embouchure of the Danube, between Babadag and Ismail.

2656A note in the French translation says, these were the Carni and the Iapodes, who having followed Sigovesus, in the reign of the elder Tarquin, had taken up their abode in the neighbourhood of the Adriatic; and refers to the Examen Critique des Anciens Historiens d’Alexandre, by M. de Sainte Croix, page 855.

2657Diodorus Siculus, in Excerpt. Peiresc. pag. 257; Memnon apud Photium, cod. 214, cap. 6; and Plutarch, in Demetrio, § 39 and 52, confirm what Strabo says here of the manner in which Dromichætes treated Lysimachus.

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