Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/435

 B. vi. c.ii. $ 11. SICILY. LIPARI ISLANDS. 421 issued, and smoke and smoky blazes ; afterwards it congealed and became a rock like mill-stones. Titus Flaminius, 1 who then commanded in Sicily, despatched to the senate [of Rome] a full account of the phenomenon ; the senate sent and offered sacrifices to the infernal and marine divinities both in the little island [which had thus been formed] and the Lipari Islands. Now the chorographer reckons that from Encodes to Phosnicodes are 10 miles, from thence to Didyma 30, from thence to the northernmost point 2 of Lipari 29, and from thence to Sicily 19, while from Strongyle are 16. 3 Me- lita 4 lies before 5 Pachynus ; from thence come the little dogs called Maltese ; 6 so does also Gaudus, 7 both of them are situ- ated about 88 miles distant from that promontory. Cossura 8 is situated before Cape Lilybaeum, and opposite the Cartha- ginian city Aspis, which they call [in Latin] Clypea, it is situated in the midst of the space which lies between those 1 A note in the French translation suggests that, notwithstanding the accord of all manuscripts, we should, doubtless, understand Titus Quinc- tius Flaminius, praetor in A. u. c. 628, and B. c. 126. 2 Trpoc dpicrov, in Kramer's text. We have followed the example set by the French translators, and approved by Groskurd, who proposes to read Trpog apicT^iicbv aKp]ov. Kramer however justly remarks, that many other things in this passage are exceedingly confused, and remain incapable of conjectural elucidation. 3 From Ericodes, now Alicudi, to Phoenicodes, now Felicudi, the distance given by the chorographer is the same as that set down by Ptolemy, and by far too much for that which, according to our charts, separates Felicudi from Salini, but tallies exactly with that to the island Panaria, so that the evidence, both of the chorographer and Ptolemy, seems to point to Panaria, not to Salini, as the ancient Didyma. Fur- ther, the 29 miles given in Strabo's text as the distance from Didyma to Lipari, are reduced to 19 miles in the chart of Ptolemy, and even this last distance would be much too great for the interval which separates Salini from Lipari, but agrees with the distance from Lipari to Panaria, and seems likewise to confirm the identity of Panaria and Didyma. The ]9 miles, from Lipari to Sicily, agree with Ptolemy and our charts. Ptolemy gives the equivalent of 44 miles as the distance between Sicily and Strongyle, while our modern maps confirm his computation. M. Gossellin observes that the 16 miles of the existing text of Strabo must be a transcriber's error ; but the construction of the text might very well allow the distance to be from Didyma to Strongyle, which would be nearly correct. 4 Malta. 5 Towards Africa and the south. 9 McXcraia. 7 All other classic authors, both Greek and Latin, give the name of Gaulus to this island ; it is the modern Gozzo. 8 Pantelaria.