Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/344

 336 STRABO. CASAUB. 579. below that mountain, at the time that Sardis and other cele- brated cities in various parts sustained great injury. 1 The emperor 2 gave a sum of money for their restoration, as for- merly his father had assisted the Tralliani on the occurrence of a similar calamity, when the gymnasium and other parts of the city were destroyed ; in the same manner he had assisted also the Laodiceans. 19. We must listen, however, to the ancient historians, and to the account of Xanthus, who composed a history of Lydian affairs ; he relates the changes which had frequently taken place in this country, I have mentioned them in a former part of my work. 3 Here is laid the scene of the fable of what befell Ty- phon ; here are placed the Arimi, and this country is said to be the Catacecaumene. Nor do historians hesitate to suppose, that the places between the Maeander and the Lydians are all of this nature, as well on account of the number of lakes and rivers, as the caverns, which are to be found in many parts of the country. The waters of the lake between Laodiceia and Apameia, although like a sea, emit a muddy smell, as if they had come through a subterraneous channel. It is said that actions are brought against the Mseander for transferring land from one place to another by sweeping away the angles of the windings, and a fine is levied out of the toll, which is paid at the ferries. 20. Between Laodiceia and Carura is a temple of Men Carus, which is held in great veneration. In our time there was a large Herophilian 4 school of medicine under the direc- tion of Zeuxis, 5 and afterwards of Alexander Philalethes, as in the time of our ancestors there was, at Smyrna, a school of 1 The number of cities destroyed were twelve, and th.e catastrophe took place in the night. An inscription relating to this event is still preserved at Naples. Tacit. Ann. B. ii. c. 47. Sueton. in V. Tiberii. 2 Tiberius, the adopted son of Augustus. 3 B. i. c. iii. 4. 4 Herophilus, a celebrated physician, and contemporary of Erasistratus. He was one of the first founders of the medical school in Alexandria, and whose fame afterwards surpassed that of all others. He lived in the 4th and 3rd centuries B. c. 5 Zeuxis. was the author of a commentary on Hippocrates: it is now lost ; even in the time of Galen, about A. D. 150, it was rare. Alexander Philalethes, who succeeded Zeuxis, had as his pnpil and probably suc- cessor Demosthenes Philalethes, who was the author of a treatise on the eyes, which was still in existence in the 14th century.