Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/401

 B. xin. c. ii. 5, 6. LESBOS. 393 beauty of his elocution, for Aristotle made all his disciples eloquent, but Theophrastus the most eloquent of them all. Antissa 1 is next to Sigrium. It is a city with a harbour. Then follows Methymna, of which place Arion was a native, who, as Herodotus relates the story, after having been thrown into the sea by pirates, escaped safe to Ta3narus on the back of a dolphin. He played on the cithara and sang to it. Ter- pander, who practised the same kind of music, was a native of this island. He was the first person that used the lyre with seven instead of four strings, as is mentioned in the verses at- tributed to him : "we have relinquished the song adapted to four strings, and shall cause new hymns to resound on a seven-stringed cithara." The historian Hellanicus, and Callias, who has commented on Sappho and Alcasus, were Lesbians. 5. Near the strait situated between Asia and Lesbos there are about twenty small islands, or, according to Timosthenes, forty. They are called Hecatonnesoi, 2 a compound name like Peloponnesus, the letter N being repeated by custom in such words as Myonnesus, Proconnesus, Halonnesus, so that Heca- tonnesoi is of the same import as Apollonnesoi, since Apollo is called Hecatus ; 3 for along the whole of this coast, as far as Tenedos, Apollo is held in the highest veneration, and wor- shipped under the names of Smintheus, Cilkeus, Gryneus, or other appellations. Near these islands is Pordoselene, which contains a city of the same name, and in front of this city is another island 4 larger than this, and a city of the same name, uninhabited, in which there is a temple of Apollo. 6. Some persons, in order to avoid the indecorum couched in these names, 5 say that we ought to read in that place Poro- selene, and to call Aspordenum, the rocky and barren moun- tain near Pergamum, Asporenum, and the temple there of the mother of the gods the temple of the Asporene mother of the gods ; what then are we to say to the names Pordalis, Saper- 1 To the N. E. of Sigri. 2 In which are comprehended the Arginusi mentioned above. 3 According to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, Hecatonnesoi means the " hundred islands," the word being composed not of Hecatus but of Hecaton, tKarbv, " a hundred," and vrjaot, " islands." 5 Derived from Tropdrj and
 * The name appears to be wanting.