Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/107

 CHAP. in. 19. INTRODUCTION. 93 affirm that certain cities of Trerus were also overwhelmed, in the neighbourhood of Thrace. Artemita, formerly one of the Echinades, 1 is now part of the mainland; the same has hap- pened to some other of the islets near the Achelous, occasioned, it is said, in the same way, by the alluvium carried into the sea by that river, and Hesiod 2 assures us that a like fate awaits them all. Some of ihe ^Etoljan ^promontories were formerlj^Jslands. Asteria, 3 called by Homer Asteris, is no^ longer what it was. " There is a rocky isle In the mid-sea, Samos the rudebetween And Ithaca, not large, named Asteris. It hath commodious havens, into which A passage clear opens on either side." 4 There is no good anchorage there now. Neither is there in Ithaca the cavern, nor yet the temple of the nymphs described to us by Homer. It seems more correct to attribute this to change having come over the places, than either to the ignor- ance or the romancing of the poet. This however, being uncertain, must be left to every man's opinion. 19. Myrsilus tells us that Antissa 5 was formerly an island, and so called because it was opposite to Lesbos, 6 then named Issa. Now, however, it forms one of the towns of Lesbos. 7 Seme have believed that Lesbos itself has been disjoined from Mount Ida in the same way as Prochytas 8 and Pithecussa 9 from Misenum, 10 CapreaB n from the Athenaeum, Sicily from 1 These are certain little islands at the mouth of the river Achelous, the modern Aspropotamo, which formed the boundary between Acarnania and ^Etolia. Now Curzolari. 2 It is supposed we should here read Herodotus. Conf. Herod, ii. 10, 3 Daskalio. 4 Now there is a certain rocky island in the middle of the sea, between Ithaca and the rugged Samos, Asteris, not large ; and in it there are havens fit for ships, with two entrances. Odyssey iv. 844. 5 That is to say, the territory opposite Issa ; probably the ruins near to Kalas Limenaias. 6 The present island of Metelino. 7 'H. df'AvTiffffa v7)ffoq iv Trportpoj/, we Mwpffi'Xof rGC rijg [ete] AeajScv KaXovfitvrjQ 7rp6repoj>*I<r!777c, Kai rrjv vfjtrov'AvTifftrav KaXtlaOai avvefli). Our rendering of this passage, though rather free, seemed necessary to the clear explication of the Greek. 8 Procita. * Ischia. 10 Miseno, the northern cape of the Gulf of Naples. 11 Capri.