Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/330

 296 plint's fatueal history. [Book lY. distance of five hundred stadia, being navigable half that distance. The vale, for a distance of five miles through which this river runs, is called by the name of Tempe ; being a jugerum^ and a half nearly in breadth, while on the right and left, the mountain chain slopes away with a gentle elevation, beyond the range of human vision, the foliage imparting its colour to the light within. Along this vale glides the Peneus, reflecting the green tints as it rolls along its pebbly bed, its banks covered with tufts of verdant herbage, and enlivened by the melodious warblings of the birds w The Peneus receives the river Orcus, or rather, I should say, does not receive it, but merely carries its waters, which swim on its surface like oil, as Homer says^ ; and then, after a short time, rejects them, refusing to allow the waters of a river devoted to penal sufferings and engendered for the Puries to mingle with his silvery streams. CHAP. 16. (9.) — MAGNESIA. To Thessaly Magnesia joins, in which is the fountaia of Libethra^. Its towns are lolcos'^, Hormenium, Pyrrha^, Methone^, and Olizon'^. The Promontory of Sepias^ is here situate. We then come to the towns of Casthanea^ and Spa- uses it here solely as a measure of length ; corresponding probably to the Grreek 7rXe9pov, 100 Grrecian or 104. Roman feet long. Tempe is the only channel through which the waters of the Thessahan plain flow into the sea. 2 XL B. ii. c. 262, He alludes to the poetical legend that the Orcus or Titaresius was a river of the uxfernal regions. Its waters were unpreg- nated with an oily substance, whence probably originated the story of the unwillingness of the Peneus to mingle with it. It is now called the Elasonitiko or X.eraghi. 3 Near Libetln-um ; said to be a favom-ite haunt of the Mvises, whence their name " Libetln-ides." It is near the modern Goritza. ■* Leake places its site on the height between the southernmost houses of Yolo and Vlakho-Makhala. No remains of it are to be seen. ^ Ansart says that on its site stands the modern Korakai Pyrgos. ^ Near Neokhori, and called Eleutherokhori. ^ Now Kortos, near Argahsti, accorchng to Ansart. ^ At the foot of Mount Pehon. Leake places it at some ridns near a small port called Tamukhari. The chestnut tree derived its Greek and modern name from this place, in the vicuiity of which it stiU abounds.
 * The jngerum was properly 240 feet long and 120 broad, but Pliny
 * Now Haghios Georgios, or the Promontory of St. George.