Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/203

 B. x. c. iv. 6, 7. CRETE. 195 voyage of two days and nights. From Cimarus [to Malea] are 700 stadia. 1 In the midway is Cythera. 2 From the pro- montory Samonium 3 to .^Egypt a ship sails in four days and nights, but, according to other writers, in three. Some say that it is a voyage of 5000 stadia ; others, of still less than this. According to Eratosthenes, the distance from Cyrenaica to Criu-Metopon is 2000 stadia, and thence to Peloponnesus less than [1000]. 4 6. One language is intermixed with another, says the poet ; there are in Crete, " Achaei, the brave Eteocretans, Cydones, Dorians divided into three bands, 5 and the divine Pelasgi." 6 Of these people, says Staphylus, the Dorians occupy the eastern parts of the island, Cydonians the western, Eteocretans the southern, to whom Prasus, a small town, belonged, where is the temple of the Dictasan Jupiter ; the other nations, being more powerful, inhabited the plains. It is probable that the Eteocretans 7 and Cydonians were aboriginal inhabitants, and that the others were foreigners, who Andron says came from Thessaly, formerly called Doris, but now Hestia?otis, from which country he says the Dorians, who were settled about Parnassus, migrated, and founded Erineum, Boeum, and Cy- tinium, whence they are called by the poet Trichaices, or tri- partite. But the account of Andron is not generally admitted, who represents the Tetrapolis Doris as composed of three cities, and the metropolis of the Dorians as a colony of Thes- salians. The epithet Trichaices 8 is understood to be derived either from their wearing a triple crest, 9 or from having crests of hair. 10 7. There are many cities in Crete, but the largest and most distinguished are Cnossus, 11 Gortyna, 12 Cydonia. 13 Both Homer and later writers celebrate Cnossus 11 above the rest, 1 Of 700 stadia to a degree. Gossellin. 2 Cerigo. 3 The distance from Samonium (Cape Salamone) to Alexandria, in a straight line, is about 5500 stadia of 11 11^ to the degree. Gossellin. 4 Gossellin's conjecture, for the number is wanting in the text. 5 rpixaiKtQ. 6 Od. xix. 175. 7 So also Diod. Sic. b. v. 8 9 11 The ruins are situated at Makro Teikhos, to the south-east of Can- dia, the modern capital. 12 II. ii. 646; Od. xix. 178. Hagius Dheka. Pashley. 13 Near Jerami, in the Austrian map. Pashley places it at Khania. o 2