Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/390

 382 STRABO. CASAUB. 610. " Go to Assus, if you mean to reach quickly the confines of death." The harbour is formed of a large mole. Cleanthes, the Stoic philosopher, was a native of this place. He succeeded to the school of Zeno of Citium, and left it to Chrysippus of Soli. Here also Aristotle resided for some time, on account of his relationship to Hermeas the tyrant. Hermeas was an eunuch, servant of a money-changer. When he was at Athens he was the hearer both of Plato and of Aristotle. On his return he became the associate in the tyranny of his master, who attacked the places near Atar- neus and Assus. He afterwards succeeded his master, sent for both Aristotle and Xenocrates, and treated them with kindness. He even gave his niece in marriage to Aristotle. But Memnon of Rhodes, who was at that time general in the service of the Persians, invited to his house Hermeas, under the mask of friendship, and on pretence of business. He seized Hermeas, and sent him to the king, who ordered him to be hanged. The philosophers, avoiding places in posses- sion of the Persians, escaped by flight. 58. Myrsilus says that Assus was founded by Methymnae- ans ; but according to Hellanicus it was an JEolian city, like Gargara and Lamponia of the JEolians. Gargara l was found- ed from Assus ; it was not well peopled, for the kings intro- duced settlers from Miletopolis, 2 which they cleared of its in- 1 Gargara is the same town called above by Strabo Gargaris, unless he meant by the latter name the territory of Gargara, a distinction we find made below between Pedasa and Pedasis. The author of the Etymolo- gicum Magnum calls the place Gargarus, and informs us that the inhabit- ants abandoned it on account of the cold, it being situated on Mount Ida ; that they founded a new town in the plain, and that the town abandoned afterwards received the name of Old Gargara. The town called Lamponia by Strabo is called Lamponium by Hella- nicus and Herodotus. 2 By " the kings," we must probably understand the kings of Bithynra rather than the kings of Persia, as understood by Rambach (De Mileto ej usque coloniae) ; for if we suppose that colonists are here meant who came to Gargara from Miletus after the destruction of this latter town by the Persians, how could Demetrius of Scepsis say of the Gargareans that, " JEolians as they were, or instead of ^Eolians they became semi- barbarians?" He ought at least to have said, " that they became loni- ans," for Miletus, a Greek city of Ionia, at the time of its destruction by the Persians, was far from being barbarous. But Miletopolis, although from its name and position in the territory of Cyzicus was probably, like Cyzicus, a colony of Miletus, yet might have been peopled with barbari-