Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/106

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92
STRABO.
BOOK I.
“Oh that I possess’d
Such vigour now as when in arms I took
Nericus, continental city fair.”[q 1]

Here man devoted his labour to make a separation, in other instances to the construction of moles and bridges. Such is that which connects the island opposite to Syracuse[p 1] with the mainland. This junction is now effected by means of a bridge, but formerly, according to Ibycus, by a pier of picked stones, which he calls elect. Of Bura[p 2] and Helice,[p 3] one has been swallowed by an earthquake, the other covered by the waves. Near to Methone,[1] which is on the Hermionic Gulf,[2] a mountain seven stadia in height was cast up during a fiery eruption; during the day it could not be approached on account of the heat and sulphureous smell; at night it emitted an agreeable odour, appeared brilliant at a distance, and was so hot that the sea boiled all around it to a distance of five stadia, and appeared in a state of agitation for twenty stadia, the heap being formed of fragments of rock as large as towers. Both Arne and Mideia[3] have been buried in the waters of Lake Copaïs.[p 4] These towns the poet in his Catalogue[4] thus speaks of;

“Arne claims
A record next for her illustrious sons,
Vine-bearing Arne. Thou wast also there
Mideia.”[5]

It seems that several Thracian cities have been submerged by the Lake Bistonis,[6] and that now called Aphnitis.[p 5] Some also

  1. ↑ Odyss. xxiv. 376.
  1. ↑ The island of Ortygia, now St. Marcian.
  2. ↑ Diakopton.
  3. ↑ Probably Bulika, according to others Trypia or Niora.
  4. ↑ In Bæotia.
  5. ↑ Diaskillo, al. Biga.
  1. ↑ Methone is the same town which Pausanias (l. ii. c. 32) names Methona, it was situated in the Argolis between Trœzene and Epidaurus. The above writer tells us that in the reign of Antigonus, son of Demetrius king of Macedonia, there was a breaking out of subterranean fires close to Methona. This event, which it is probable Strabo alludes to, occurred some where between the year 277 and 244, before the Christian era. The town still exists under its ancient name of Methona.
  2. ↑ An error in all the MSS. The Saronic Gulf is intended.
  3. ↑ Vide Strabo, b. ix. c. ii. § 34, 35.
  4. ↑ The Second Iliad, or Catalogue of Ships.
  5. ↑ And those who inhabited grape-clustered Arne, and those [who inhabited] Mideia. Iliad ii. 507.
  6. ↑ This Thracian lake or lagoon is now called Burum. It is formed by the mouths of several rivers, and lies to the north of the isle of Thaso.
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