Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/355

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

Cliap. 23.] ACCOXJITT OF COTJNTEIES, ETC. 321 After we pass these, no regular order can "be well observed ; tlie rest must therefore be mentioned indiscriminatelj. There is the island of Scyros and that of los^, eighteen miles distant from Xaxos, and deser'iuf]: of all veneration for the • • • tomb there of Homer ; it is twenty-five miles m length, and was formerly known by the name of Phoenice ; also Odia, Oletandros, and Gyara^, -vs-ith a city of the same name, the island being twelve miles in circumference, and distant from Andros sixty-two. At a distance of eighty miles from Gryara is Syrnos, then C}Tia)thus, Telos"*, noted for its un- guents, and by Callimachus called Agathussa, Donusa% Patmos^, thii'ty miles in circumference, the Corassia)'^, Le- ^ 'Now Scyro, east of Euboea, aud one of the Sporades. Here AcliiUes was said to have been concealed by his mother Thetis, in -woman's attire. • 2 JS'ow Nio, one of the Sporades, inaccm-ately called by Stephanus one of the Cjclades. The modern town is built on the site of the ancient one, of which there are some remains. It was said that Homer died here, on his voyage from Smyrna to Athens, and that liis mother, Clvmene, was a native of this island. In 1773, Van Ki'ienen, a Dutch nobleman, asserted that he had discovered the tomb of Homer here, with certain inscriptions relative to him ; but they have been generally re- garded by the leanied as forgeries. Odia and Oletandi'os seem not to have been identified. ' Now called Gioura, or Jura. It was little better than a barren rock, though inhabited ; but so notorious for its poverty, that its mice were said to be able to gnaw through u'on. It was used as a place of banishment under the Roman emperors, whence the line of Ju- venal, i. 73 — " Aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris et carcere dignum." " Dare some deed deserving of the httle Gyara and the gaol." It is now uninhabited, except by a few sheplierds in the summer. ^ Now Telos, or Piskopi, a small island in the Carpathian Sea, and one of the Sporades. It Ues off the coast of Caria. Syrnos appears not to have been identified. s NearNaxos. Virgil calls it 'viridis,' or 'green,' which Soi-vius ex- plains by the colour of its marble. Like Gyara, it was used as a place of banishment under the Roman Empire. In C. 22, Phny has mentioned Cynfcthus as one of the names of Dclos. ^ Now Patmo, one of the Sporades, and west of the Pi-omontory of Posidium, in Caria. To this place St. John was banit^hed, and liere iic wrote the Apocalypse. 7 A group between Icaria and Samoa. They are now called Pluu'ni and Krusi. YOL. I. T