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Chap. 17.]
ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC.
301
the level plain of the adjacent country into the sea, a distance of seventy-five[1] miles; its circumference at its base being 150 miles in extent. There was formerly upon its summit the town of Acroathon[2]: the present towns are Uranopolis[3], Palæorium, Thyssus, Cleonæ[4] and Apollonia, the inhabitants of which have the surname of Macrobii[5] The town also of Cassera, and then the other side of the Isthmus, after which come Acanthus[6] Stagira[7], Sithone[8] Heraclea[9] and the country of Mygdonia that lies below, in which are situate, at some distance from the sea, Apollonia[10] and Arethusa. Again, upon the coast we have Posidium[11], and the bay with the town of Cermorus, Ampllipolis[12] a free town, and the nation of the
- ↑ This is a mistake. It is only forty miles in length. From Lieut. Smith (Journal of Royal Geogr. Soc. vol. vii. p. 65) we learn that its average breadth is about four miles; consequently Pliny's statement as to its circumference must be greatly exaggerated. Juvenal Sat x. 1. 174 mentions the story of the canal as a specimen of Greek falsehood; but distinct traces have survived, to be seen by modern travellers, all the way from the Gulf of Monte Santo to the Bay of Erso in the Gulf of Contessa, except about 200 yards in the middle, winch has been probably
- ↑ Or Acrothöum. Pliny, with Strabo and Mela, errs in thinking that it stood on the mountain. It stood on the peninsula only, probably on the site of the modern Lavra.
- ↑ Or the 'Heaven City,' from its elevated position. It was founded by Alexarchus, brother of Cassandcr, king of Macedon.
- ↑ Probably on the west side of the peninsula, south of Thyssus.
- ↑ Or "long-lived."
- ↑ Now Erisso; on the east side of the Isthmus, about a mile and a halt from the canal of Xerxes. There are ruins here of a large mole
- ↑ A little to the north of the Isthmus now called Stavro. It was the birth-place of Aristotle the philosopher, commonly called the Stagirite, and was, in consequence, restored by Phihp by whom it, had been destroyed; or, as Pliny says in B. vii. c. 30, by Alexander the Great.
- ↑ The name of the central one of the three peninsulas projecting from Chalcidice. The poets use the word Sithonius frequently as sigmiymg 'Thracian.'
- ↑ Possibly not the same as the Heraclea Sintica previously mentioned.
- ↑ Now called Pollina, south of Lake Bolbe, on the road from Thessalonica to Amphipolis.
- ↑ Sacred to Poseidon or Neptune. Now Capo Stavros in Thessaly, the west front of the Gulf of Pagasa, if indeed this is the place here meant.
- ↑ On the left or eastern bank of the river Strymon which flowed round it, whence its name Amphi-polis "round the city." Its site is now occupied by a village called Neokhorio, in Turkish Jeni-Keni or "New
