Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/201

 B. x. c. iv. 3. CRETE. 193 According to Eudoxus, it is situated in the JEgaean sea, but he ought not to have described its situation in that man- ner, but have said, that it lies between Cyrenaica and the part of Greece comprehended between Sunium and Laconia, 1 Extending in length in the direction from west to east, and parallel to these countries ; 2 that it is washed on the north by the JEgad&n and Cretan seas, and on the south by the African, which joins the ^Egyptian sea. The western extremity of the island is near Phalasarna ; 3 its breadth is about 200 stadia, and divided into two promon- tories ; of which the southern is called Criu-Metopon, (or Ram's head,) and that on the north, Cimarus. 4 The eastern promontory is Samonium, 5 which does not stretch much fur- ther towards the east than Sunium. 6 3. Sosicrates, who, according to Apollodorus, had an exact knowledge of this island, determines its length (not?) 7 to exceed 2300 stadia, and its breadth (about 300), 8 so that ac- cording to Sosicrates the circuit of the island is not more than 5000 stadia, but Artemidorus makes it 4100. Hieronymus 1 rr/ 'EXXdo rf/c cnrb 'Eovviov 2 Gossellin observes that the false position assigned to these countries, and the contradiction perceptible in the measures in stadia, given by Strabo, and above all the impossibility of reconciling them upon one given plan, is a proof that the author consulted different histories, and different maps, in which the distances were laid down in stadia differing in length. 3 The ruins are indicated as existing a little to the north of Hagios Kurghianis, in the Austrian map. 4 Cimarus is given in Kiepert, as the island Grabusa Agria, at the ex- tremity of Cape Buso, and also in the Austrian map. Kramer remarks that the promontory Cimarus is mentioned by no other author. Corycus on the other hand is placed by Strabo below, $ 5, in these parts, although the reading is suspicious, and in b. viii. c. v. 1, and in b. xvii. c. iii. 22 ; but the reading again in this last reference is doubtful. Cape Cimarus is now C. Buso or Grabusa. 5 In b. ii. c. iv. 3, it is written Salmonium, (c. Salamoni,) in which passage Kramer has retained the spelling of the name, on the ground that this form is to be found in Apollonius, Arg. 4, 1693, and Dionys. Perieg. 110. Salmone in the Acts, xxvii. 7. 6 C. Colonna. 7 Not in the text of Kramer. Casaubon's conjecture. 8 The words of the text are, TrXdrei fit VTTO TO [teytOoQ, which Meineke translates, " Its width is not in proportion to its length." Kramer says that the preposition VTTO suggests the omission of the words TtrpctKoffiMv or TpictKoaiuv TTOV, and that the words r. p. are probably introduced from the margin, and are otherwise inadmissible. V OL. ii. O