Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/199

 B. x. c. in. 23. THE CURETES. 191 tyli, for the country below mountains is called the foot, and the summits of mountains their heads ; so the separate ex- tremities of Ida (and all are sacred to the mother of the gods) are called Idasan Dactyli. ! But Sophocles 2 supposes, that the first five were males, who discovered and forged iron, 3 and many other things which were useful for the purposes of life ; that these persons had five sisters, and from their number had the name of Dactyli. 4 Different persons however relate these fables dif- ferently, connecting one uncertainty with another. They differ both with respect to the numbers and the names of these persons ; some of whom they call Celmis, and Damna- meneus, and Hercules, and Acmon, who, according to some writers, were natives of Ida, according to others, were settlers, but all agree that they were the first workers in iron, and upon Mount Ida. All writers suppose them to have been magicians, attendants upon the mother of the gods, and to have lived in Phrygia about Mount Ida. They call the Troad Phrygia, because, after the devastation of Troy, the neigh- bouring Phrygians became masters of the country. It is also supposed that the Curetes and the Corybantes were descend- ants of the Idaean Dactyli, and that they gave the name of Idaean Dactyli to the first hundred persons who were born in Crete ; that from these descended nine Curetes, each of whom had ten children, who were called Idoean Dactyli. 5 23. Although we are not fond of fabulous stories, yet we have expatiated upon these, because they belong to subjects of a theological nature. All discussion respecting the gods requires an examination of ancient opinions, and of fables, since the ancients expressed enigmatically their physical notions concerning the nature of things, and always intermixed fable with their discoveries. It is not easy therefore to solve these enigmas exactly, but if we lay before the reader a multitude of fabulous tales, some consistent with each other, others which are contradictory, we 1 i. e. toes. 2 In a lost play, The Deaf Satyrs. 3 In hoc quoque dissentio, sapientes fuisse, qui ferri metalla et aeris invenerunt, cum incendio silvamm adusta tellus, in summo venas jacentes liquefacta fudisset. Seneca, Epist. 90. 4 Diodorus Siculus, b. v., says that they obtained the name from being equal in number to the ten fingers or toes (Dactyli). 5 Groskurd proposes Corybantes for these latter Idaean Dactyli.