Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/236

 228 STRABO. CASAUB. 498. honey, which has generally a bitter taste. It furnishes all materials for ship-building. It produces them in great plenty, and they are conveyed down by its rivers. It supplies flax, hemp, wax, and pitch, in great abundance. Its linen manu- facture is celebrated, for it was exported to foreign parts ; and those who wish to establish an affinity of race between the Colchians and the .^Egyptians, advance this as a proof of it. Above the rivers which I have mentioned in the Moschic territory is the temple of Leucothea, 1 founded by Phrixus 2 and his oracle, where a ram is not sacrificed. It was once rich, but was plundered in our time by Pharnaces, and a little afterwards by Mithridates of Pergamus. 3 For when a coun- try is devastated, in the words of Euripides, " respect to the gods languishes, and they are not honoured." 4 18. How great anciently was the celebrity of this country, appears from the fables which refer obscurely to the expedition of Jason, who advanced as far even as Media ; and still earlier intimations of it are found in the fables relative to the expe- dition of Phrixus. The' kings that preceded, and who pos- sessed the country when it was divided into Sceptuchies, 5 were not very powerful, but when Mithridates Eupator had enlarged his territory, this country fell under his dominion. One of his courtiers was always sent as sub-governor and administrator of its public affairs. Of this number was Moa- phernes, my mother's paternal uncle. It was from this country that the king derived the greatest part of his supplies for the equipment of his naval armament. But upon the overthrow of Mithridates, all the country subject to his power was dis- united, and divided among several persons. At last Polemon 1 According'to Heyne, this was an Assyrian goddess worshipped under various titles. * 2 In consequence of the intrigues of his stepmother Ino he was to be sacrificed to Zeus, but his mother Nephele removed him and his sister Helle, and the two then rode away on the ram with the golden fleece, the gift of Hermes, through the air. Helle fell into the sea, which was after- wards called, after her, the Hellespont. Smith, art. Phrixus. 3 The son of Menodotus by a daughter o Adobogion, a descendant of the tetrarchs of Galatia. He was the -personal friend of Caesar, who at the commencement of the Alexandrian war (B. c. 48) sent him into Syria and Cilicia to raise auxiliary forces. Smith, art. Mithridates, and see B. xiii. c. iv. 3. 4 Eurip. Troad. 26.