Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/359

 B. XITI. c. i. $ 21, 22. THE TROAD. 351 who, he says, " came from Arisbe, from the river Sellei's in a chariot drawn by large and furious coursers ; " implying by these words that Arisbe was the royal seat of Asius, whence, he says, he came, " drawn by coursers from the river Selle'is." But these places are so little known, that writers do not agree among themselves about their situation, except that they are near Abydos, Lampsacus, and Parium, and that the name of the last place was changed from Percope to Percote. 21. With respect to the rivers, the poet says that the Sel- leis flows near Arisbe, for Asius came from Arisbe and ths river Sellei's. Practius is a river, but no city of that name, as some have thought, is to be found. This river runs between Abydos and Lampsacus ; the words, therefore, "and dwelt near Practius," must be understood of the river, as these expressions of the poet, " they dwelt near the sacred waters of Cephisus," l and "they occupied the fertile land about the river Parthenius." 2 There was also in Lesbos a city called Arisba, the territory belonging to which was possessed by the Methymnseans. There is a river Arisbus in Thrace, as we have said before, near which are situated the Cabrenii Thracians. There are many names common to Thracians and Trojans, as Scsei, a Thracian tribe, a river Scasus, a Scaean wall, and in Troy, Scsean gates. There are Thracians called Xanthii, and a river Xanthus in Troja ; an Arisbus which discharges itself into the Hebrus, 3 and an Arisbe in Troja; a river Rhesus in Troja, and Rhesus, a king of the Thracians. The poet mentions also another Asius, besides the Asius of Arisbe, "who was the maternal uncle of the hero Hector, own brother of Hecu- ba, and son of Dymas who lived in Phrygia on the banks of the San- gar ius." 4 22. Abydos was founded by Milesians by permission of Gyges, king of Lydia ; for those places and the whole of the Troad were under his sway. There is a promontory near 1 II. iv. 522. 2 II. ii. 254. 3 The Maritza in Roumelia-
 * II. xvi. 717.