Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/31

 B. vin. c. in. 24. ELIS. PYLUS. 23 100 stadia. 1 There is also a cenotaph and a small town in it both of the same name Prote. We ought not perhaps to carry our inquiries so far into an- tiquity, and it might be sufficient to describe the present state of each place, if certain reports about them had not been de- livered down to us in childhood ; but as different writers give different accounts, it is necessary to examine them. The most famous and the most ancient writers being the first in point of personal knowledge of the places, are, in general, persons of the most credit. Now as Homer surpasses all others in these respects, we must examine what he says, and compare his descriptions with the present state of places, as we have just said. We have already considered his description of the Hollow Elis and of Buprasium. 24. He describes the dominions of Nestor in these words : " And they who inhabited Pylus, and the beautiful Arene, and Thryum, a passage across the Alpheius, and the well-built ^Epy, and Cyparisseis, and Amphigeneia, and Pteleum, and Helos, and Dorium, where the Muses having met with Thamyris the Thracian, deprived him of the power of song, as he was coming from CEchalia, from the house of Eurytus the CEchalian. 2 It is Pylus, therefore, to which the question relates, and we shall soon treat of it. We have already spoken of Arene. The places, which he here calls Thryum, in another passage he calls Thryoessa, " There is a city Thryoessa, lofty, situated on a hill, Far off, on the banks of the Alpheius." 3 He calls it the ford or passage of the Alpheius, because, ac- cording to these verses, it seems as if it could be crossed at this place on foot. Thryum is at present called Epitalium, a village of Macistia. With respect to evmrov AtTrv, "JEpy the well-built," some writers ask which of these words is the epithet of the other, and what is the city, and whether it is the present Mar- galas of Amphidolia, but this Margate is not a natural fortress, but another is meant, a natural strong-hold in Macistia. Writers who suppose this place to be meant, say, that JEpy is the name of the city, and infer it from its natural properties, as in the example of Helos, 4 JEgialos, 5 and many others: 1 Some MSS. have 120 stadia. 2 II. ii. 591. 3 II. xi. 710. 4 A marsh. 5 The sea-shore.