Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/414

 400 STRABO. CASAUB. 265. asked it of him, that he had asked and obtained it till the fol- lowing night, and when asked by night, he said that he held it till the coming day. Next adjoining is Tarentum and lapygia, which we will describe when we shall have first gone through the islands which lie off Italy, according to our original purpose ; for we have always given the adjacent islands with every nation we have hitherto described, and since we have gone through CEnotria, which only, the people of ancient times named .Italy, we feel justified in keeping to the same arrangement, and shall pass on to Sicily and the surrounding islands. CHAPTER II. 1. SICILY is triangular in form, and on this account was at first called Trinacria, but afterwards the name was softened and it was changed into Thrinacia. 1 Three low headlands bound the figure : Pelorias is the name of that towards Cuenys and the Columna Rheginorum which forms the strait ; Pachy- nus 2 is that which stretches towards the east, and is washed by the Sea of Sicily, looking towards the Peloponnesus and in the direction of the passage to Crete ; the third is LilybaBum, 3 and is next to Africa, looking towards that region and the setting of the sun in winter. 4 Of the sides which these three headlands bound, two are somewhat concave, while the third is slightly convex, it runs from Lilybseum to Pelorias, and is the longest, being, as Posidonius has said, 1700 stadia adding 1 The ordinary reading is Trinacis, but Kramer found it given Thri- nacia in the Vatican Manuscript, No. 482, which seems to suit the rest of the sentence better. Dionysius Perieg. vers. 467, says, T/OlJ/CtKlJ) 5' 7Ti TJ7, V And Homer, Strabo's great geographical authority, in book xi. of the Odyssey, line 106, terms it QpivaKiy vrjcr^. Virgil, JEn. iii. 440, says, " Trinacria fines Italos mittere relicta." 2 Capo Passaro. 3 Capo di Marsalla, or Capo Boeo. 4 The south-west.