Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/138

 130 STRABO. CASAUB. 429. later times called both these places and Demetrias " the fetters," for Demetrias commanding Pelion and Ossa, com- manded also the passes at Tempe. Afterwards, however, when the whole country was subject to one power, the passes were freely open to all. 1 16. It was at these straits that Leonidas and his com- panions, together with a small body of persons from the neighbourhood, resisted the numerous forces of the Persians, until the Barbarians, making a circuit of the mountains along narrow paths, surrounded and cut them to pieces. Their place of burial, the Polyandrium, is still to be seen there, and the celebrated inscription sculptured on the Lacedaemonian pillar ; " Stranger, go tell Lacedaemon that we lie here in obedience to her laws." 17. There is also a large harbour here and a temple of Ceres, in which the Amphictyons at the time of every Pylasan assembly offered sacrifice. From the harbour to the Hera- cleian Trachin are 40 stadia by land, but by sea to Cenasum 2 it is 70 stadia. The Spercheius empties itself immediately without the Pylas. To Pylas from the Euripus are 530 stadia. And here Locris terminates. The parts without the Pylas to- wards the east, and the Maliac Gulf, belong to the Thessali- ans ; those towards the west, to the JEtolians and Acarna- nians. The Athamanes are extinct. 18. The Thessalians form the largest and most ancient community. One part of them has been mentioned by Homer, and the rest by many other writers. Homer constantly men- tions the JEtolians under one name ; he places cities, and not nations dependent upon them, if we except the Curetes, whom we must place in the division of ^Etolians. We must begin our account with the Thessalians, omitting very ancient and fabulous stories, and what is not generally admitted, (as we have done in other instances,) but propose to mention what appears suited to our purpose. 1 Translated according to Kramer's proposed emendation. Demetrias, according to Leake, occupies the southern or maritime face of a height called Goritza, which projects from'the coast of Magnesia between 2 and 3 miles to the southward of the middle of Volo. Pausanias, b. vii. c. 7, says that Philip called Chalcis, Corinth, and Magnesia in Thessaly, the " Keys of Greece." Livy, b. xxxii. c. 37. C. Lithada.