The coast of Illyricum is clustered with more than 1000 islands, the sea being of a shoaly nature, and numerous creeks and æstuaries running with their narrow channels between portions of the land. The more famous are those before the mouths of the Timavus, with warm springs[1] that rise with the tides of the sea, the island of Cissa near the territory of the Istri, and the Pullaria[2] and Absyrtides[3], so called by the Greeks from the circumstance of Absyrtus, the brother of Medea, having been slain there. Some islands near them have been called the Electrides[4], upon which amber, which they call "electrum," was said to be found; a most assured instance however of that untruthfulness[5] which is generally ascribed to the Greeks, seeing that it has never yet been ascertained which of the islands were meant by them under that name. Opposite to the Iader is Lissa, and other islands whose names have been already mentioned[6]. Opposite to the Liburni are some islands called the Crateæ, and no smaller number styled Liburnicæ and Celadussæ[7] Opposite to Surium is Bavo, and Brattia[8],
2 Now called Cherso and Osero, off the Illyrian coast. Ptolemy
mentions only one, Apsorrus, on which he places a town of that name
and another called Crepsa. The Pullaria are now called Li Brioni, in
the Sinus Flanaticus, opposite the city of Pola.
4 In B. xxxvii. c. 11, he again mentions this circumstance, and states that some writers have placed them in the Adriatic opposite the mouths of the Padus. Scymnus of Chios makes mention of them in conjunction with the Absyrtides. This confusion probably arose from the fact pre- viously noted that the more ancient writers had a confused idea that the Ister communicated with the Adriatic, at the same time mistaking it pro- bably for the Vistula, which flows into the Baltic. At the mouth of this last-mentioned river, there were Electrides or "amber-bearing" islands.
7 According to Brotier, these are situate between the islands of Zuri
and Sebenico, and are now called Kasvan, Capri, Smolan, Tihat, Sestre,
Parvich, Zlarin, &c. Some writers however suggest that there were
no islands called Celadussæ, and that the name in Pliny is a corruption of
Dyscelados in Pomponius Mela; which in its turn is supposed to have been
invented from what was really an epithet of Issa, in a line of Apollonius
Rhodius, B. iv. l. 565. Ίσσἀ τε δυσκέλαδος, "and inauspicious Issa."
See Brunck's remarks on the passage.
- ↑ Now called the Bagni di Monte Falcone. See B. ii. c. 106.
- ↑ 2
- ↑ See p. 258.
- ↑ 4
- ↑ "Vanitatis."
- ↑ Crexa, Gissa, and Colentum, in c. 25.
- ↑ 7
- ↑ Now Brazza. According to Brotier the island is still celebrated for the delicate flavour of the flesh of its goats and lambs. Issa is now called Lissa, and Pharia is the modern Lesina. Baro, now Bua, lies off
