Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/251

Chap 14.] mentioned, is called Pelorus, faces Scylla and juts out towards Italy, while Pachynum extends in the direction of Greece, Peloponnesus being at a distance from it of 440 miles, and Lilybæum, towards Africa, being distant 180 miles from the promontory of Mercury , and from that of Caralis in Sardinia 190. These promontories and sides are situate at the following distances from each other: by land it is 186 miles from Pelorus to Pachynum, from Pachynum to Lilybæum 200, and from Lilybæum to Pelorus 170.

In this island there are five colonies and sixty-three cities or states. Leaving Pelorus and facing the Ionian Sea, we have the town of Messana, whose inhabitants are also called Mamertini and enjoy the rights of Roman citizens; the promontory of Drepanum , the colony of Tauromenium , formerly called Naxos, the river Asines , and Mount Ætna, wondrous for the flames which it emits by night. Its crater is twenty stadia in circumference, and from it red-hot cinders are thrown as far as Tauromenium and Catina, the noise being heard even at Maroneum and the Gemellian Hills. We then come to the three rocks of the Cyclopes, the Port of Ulysses , the colony of Catina , and the rivers Symæthus and Terias; while more inland lie the Læstrygonian Plains.

To these rivers succeed the towns of Leontinum and Megaris, the river Pantagies, the colony of Syracuse , with the fountain of Arethusa , (the people in the Syracusan