Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/324

 316 STRABO. CASAUB.564. basia, is celebrated by the Prusienses, who wander about the mountains and woods, a rebel rout, calling on Hylas by name, as though in search of him. The Prusienses having shown a friendly disposition towards the Romans in their administration of public affairs, obtained their freedom. But the Apamies were obliged to admit a Roman colony. Prusa, situated below the Mysian Olympus, on the borders of the Phrygians and the Mysians, is a well-governed city ; it was founded by Cyrus, 1 who made war against Croesus. 4. It is difficult to define the boundaries of the Bithynians, Mysians, Phrygians, of the Doliones about Cyzicus, and of the Mygdones and Troes ; it is generally admitted that each of these tribes ought to be placed apart from the other. A pro- verbial saying is applied to the Phrygians and Mysians, " The boundaries of the Mysi and Phryges are apart from one another," but it is difficult to define them respectively. The reason is this ; strangers who came into the country were soldiers and barbarians ; they had no fixed settlement in the country of which they obtained possession, but were, for the most part, wanderers, expelling others from their territory, and being ex- pelled themselves. All these nations might be supposed to be Thracians, because Thracians occupy the country on the other side, and because they do not differ much from one another. 5. But as far as we are able to conjecture, we may place Mysia between Bithynia and the mouth of the .^Esepus, con- tiguous to the sea, and nearly along the whole of Olympus. Around it, in the interior, is the Epictetus, nowhere reaching the sea, and extending as far as the eastern parts of the Asca- nian lake and district, for both bear the same name. Part of this territory was Phrygian, and part Mysian ; the Phrygian was further distant from Troy ; and so we must understand the words of the poet 2, when he says, " Phorcys, and the god-like Ascanius, were the leaders of the Phryges far from Ascania," that is, the Phrygian Ascania ; for the other, the Mysian Ascania, was nearer to the present NicaBa, which he mentions, when he says, 1 In the text, Prusias. The translation follows the suggestion of Kramer. 2 II. ii. 862.