Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/396

 388 STRABO. CASAUB. 615. 68. At 100 stadia farther is Cane, the promontory oppo- site to Lectum,, and forming the gulf of Adramyttium, of which the Ela'itic Gulf is a part. Canee is a small city of the Locrians who came from Cynus ; it is situated in the Canaean territory, opposite the most southerly extremities of Lesbos. This territory extends to the Arginusae, and the promontory above, which some call Aiga, or the goat. The second sylla- ble however must be pronounced long, Aigan, like Actan and Archan, for this was the name of the whole mountain, which at present is called Cane, or Canse. 1 The sea sur- rounds the mountain on the south and west ; towards the east the plain of Cai'cus lies below, and on the north the Eiai'tic district. The mountain itself is very much contracted. It inclines indeed towards the ./Egaean Sea, from which it has the name (^Ega), but afterwards the promontory itself was called ^Ega, the name which Sappho gives it, and then Cane and Canae. 1 It is difficult to clear up this passage rjv AITA TIVZQ bfjiwvv [*,<*> rqi wy' Sel Si /micpwf TTJV dtvr'epav ffva(3r)v 'AIFAN we 'AKTAN Kai 'APXAN. There is no doubt that the first of these words in capitals, to be homonymous with goat, should be aZya, as is read in the old editions, and in many manuscripts, and not euya, aiyd, or alyav, as in others. Atya is the accusative of AY, (Mx,} a goat, which name Artemidorus actually gives to this promontory. But as our language has no termination of cases, the passage requires some explana- tion. If the Greeks desired to express in the nominative case the posi- tion of the promontory with respect to the island of Lesbos, they would say, according to Artemidorus, The cape JEx (AY) is in front of Lesbos ; according to Strabo, The cape Mga (Atya) is in front of Lesbos. The first, ^Ex, signifies a goat, as Artemidorus intended ; the second, ^Ega, in the Doric dialect (for ^Ege, AiyiJ) means a goat's skin. If they desired to employ the word in the accusative, they said, according to Artemi- dorus, We have doubled Cape JEga (Aryct) ; according to Strabo, We have doubled Cape Mgan (Ai'yav). The matter is clear thus far, but what fol- lows, dtl Sf p,a.KQw(* * * tog aKTav KOI apav, is difficult to explain. The two last words are Doric genitive plurals, the first for O.KT&V, shores, the second for apx&v, beginnings ; and yet one would expect to find examples of accusatives in the singular number, as O.KTUV and ap%dv ; the difference of accent is here of no importance, for the last syllables of these accusatives are long, as Strabo wishes to make the last syllable long of jEgan (Ai'yav). If he had required examples agreeing with this last word in quantity, accent, and case, he might have cited sycan, (avKav, a fig-tree,) or some other word of this form. It might be sup- posed that AKTO.V was here taken in the acceptation [ctierETjv, CIKTTJV, and, in the Doric dialect, aKTav] but there still remains apav, unless we change the word to apxrav, a bear's skin. Coray.