Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/250

 236 STRABO. CASAUB. 157. of Ulysses. That some of those who followed Teucer in his expedition settled among the Gallicians ; l and that two cities were there, the one called Hellenes, 2 the other Amphilochi ; but Amphilochus 3 having died, his followers wandered into the interior. He adds, that it is said, that some of the followers of Hercules, and certain also of the inhabitants of Messene, settled in Iberia. Both he and others assert that a portion of Cantabria was occupied by Laconians. Here is the city named Opsicella, 4 founded by Ocela, 5 who passed into Italy with Antenor and his children. Some believe the account of the merchants of Gades, asserted by Artemidorus, that in Libya there are people living above Maurusia, near to the Western Ethiopians, named Lotorjhagi, because they feed on th~teaves ami root of the lotus 15 without wanting to 1 Teucer, the son of Telamon, king of the island of Salamis, being driven out of the country by his father, founded in Cyprus the city of Salamis. Justin adds, that after the death of his father he returned to the island of Salamis; but being prevented by the son of Ajax, his brother, from debarking, he went into Iberia, and took up his abode on the spot where Cgrthagena was after warclsjmilt : that subsequently he removed into the cbunrry of the Gallicians, and settled amongst them. 2 The Hellenes derived their name from Hellen the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. This name, which at first designated only a smallpeople of Thgssajy, became afterwards the general appellation of the irmaDTtants of the whole of Greece. 3 Amphilochus, on his return from Troy, founded with Mopsus the city of Mallos in Qilicia. He afterwards retired to Argps, but not being con- tented there he rejoined Mopsus, who however would no longer divide with him the government of their common colony. This dispute resulted in a remarkable combat, which cost the life of both. (Compare Strabo, 1. xiv. c. 4.) Sophocles and other tragic poets have taken advantage of this tradition. Herodotus likewise speaks of the voyages of Amphilochus into Cilicia, and of the city of Poside'ium which he founded there, but he tells us nothing of his death. Thucydides merely says that Amphilochus on his return home after the Trojan war, being discontented with his compatriots, founded in the Gulf of Ambracia a city which he named after his father- land, Argos. Nojie of these traditions mention a voyage to Iberia. 4 Siebenkees suspects that thisTname sTTould be read Ocella. The Oce- lenses in Lusitania are commended by Pliny. 5 Some MSS. read Opsicella. 6 Strabo, or rather Artemidorus, seems to have confused the two kinds of lotus mentioned by the ancients. That whereof they ate the roo.ts and the grajn is the lqtus_of the liile, and a plant of the species nymphcea. The lotus alluded to in this instance is a shrub, (the rhamnus lotus of Linnaeus,) named seedra by the inhabitants of Barbary, with whom the fruit is an article of food. Herodotus mentions both kinds, (lib. ii. c. 92, ancTiv. c. 177,) and Polybius describes the second, as an eye_-witness.