Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/494

 460 Pliny's natural histoet. [Book V. name of which was Dulopolis. "We then come to Cnidos^ a free toAATi, situate on a promontory, Triopia^, and after that the towns of Pegusa and Stadia. At this last town Doris begins ; but, first, it may be as well to describe the districts that lie to the back of Caria and the several jurisdictions in the interior. The first of these^ is called Cibyratica, Cibyra being a town of Phrygia. Twenty-five states resort to it for legal purposes, together with the most famous city of Laodicea"*. (29.) This place at first bore the name of Diospolis, and after that of Ehoas, and is situate on the river Lycus, the Asopus and the Caprus^ washing its sides. The other people belonging to the same jurisdiction, whom it may be not amiss to mention, are the Hydrelitse^, the Themisones^, and the Hierapolitae^. The second jurisdiction receives its title ^ Part of it was situate on an island now called Cape Krio, connected by a causeway with the mainland. Its site is covered with ruins of a most interesting character in every direction. The Triopian promontory, evidently alluded to by Pliny, is the modern Cape Krio. 2 It has been remarked that in liis description here Phny is very brief and confused, and that he may intend to give the name of Triopia either to the small peninsida or island, or may include in this term the western part of the whole of the larger peninsula. ^ Of these conventus. For an account of Cibyra see last page. ■* On the Lycus, now known as the Choruk-Su. By different writers it has been assigned to Lydia, Caria, and Phrygia, but in the ultimate division of the Roman provinces it was assigned to the Greater Phrygia. It was founded by Antiochus II. on the site of a previous town, and named in honour of liis wife Laodice. Its site is occupied by ruins of great magnificence. In the Apostohc age it was the seat of a flourishing Clu-istian Chiirch, which however very soon gave signs of degeneracy, as we learn from St. John's Epistle to it. Revel, ii. 14-22. St. Paul also addresses it in common with the neighbouring church of Colossse. Its site is now called Eski-Hissar, or the Old Castle. ^ A tributary of the Phrygian Mseander. ^ The people of Hydrela, a town of Cai-ia, said to have been founded by one of three brothers who emigrated from Sparta. 7 The people of Themisonium, now caUed Tseni. tween the rivers Lycus and Mseander, about five miles north of Laodicea, on the road from Apamea to Sardis. It was celebrated for its warm springs, and its Plutonium, or cave of Pluto, from which issued a me- phitic vapour of a poisonous nature ; see B. ii. c. 95. The Christian Chm^ch here is allvided to by St. Paul in liis Epistle to the Colossians, iv. 13. Its ruins are situate at an uninhabited place called Pambuk-Kalessi.
 * The people of Hierapolis, a town of Phrygia, situate on a height be-