Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/419

 B. vi. c. ii. $ 3. SICILY, 405 city from them. The inhabitants generally are rather called Mamertini than Messenians. The district abounds in wine, which we do not call Messenian, but Mamertini an : it vies with the best produced in Italy. 1 The city is well peopled, but Catana is more populous, which has been colonized by the Romans. 2 Tauromenium is less populous than either. Catana' was founded by people from Naxos, and Tauromenium by the Zanclaeans of Hybla, 3 but Catana was deprived of its original inhabitants when Hiero, the tyrant of Syracuse, introduced v others, and called it by the name of ./Etna instead of Catana. It is of this that Pindar says he was the founder, when he sings, " Thou underslandest what I say, father, that bearest the same name with the splendid holy sacrifices, thou founder of ^Etna." 4 But on the death of Hiero, 5 the Catanaaans returned and ex- pelled the new inhabitants, and demolished the mausoleum of the tyrant. The ^Etna3ans, compelled to retire, 6 established themselves on a hilly district of -ZEtna, called Innesa, 7 and called the place JEtna. It is distant from Catana about 80 stadia. They still acknowledged Hiero as their founder. JEtna lies the highest of any part of Catana, and partici- pates the most in the inconveniences occasioned by the mouths of the volcano, for the streams of lava flowing down in Cata- naea 8 pass through it first. It was here that Amphinomus 1 These wines, although grown in Sicily, were reckoned among the Italian wines. See Athen. Deipnos. lib. i. cap. 21, ed. Schweigh: torn. i. p. 102. And from the time of Julius Caesar they were classed in the fourth division of the most esteemed wines. See Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xiv. 8, No. 4 and 17. 2 At the same time as Syracuse. 3 A note in the French translation suggests that we should read Sici- lians of Hybla. TU>V tv "Y/3Xy SiKtAoij/ instead of ZaycXa/W. 4 Hiero in Greek was 'Ispwv. The line of Pindar in Kramer's edition is, Zvvtg [o] rot Xgyw, ZaOewv itpu>v 6fiwvvp,t Trartp, Kricrrop Airvac. The words played on are 'lepwv and iep&v. 6 This occurred in the year 468. 6 About 461. 7 Cluvier considers that the monastery of Saint Nicolas de Arenis, about 12 modern miles from Catana, is situated about the place to which Strabo here alludes. 8 rrv Karavaiav. The spelling of this name, like very many in the present work, was by no means uniform in classic authors. Strabo lias generally called it Catana (Kardvt]) ; Ptolemy, ILaravrj KoXuvia ; Pliny,