Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/227

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B. III. C. II. § 2, 3.
SPAIN.
213

carried on here, although at the present moment the city or Bætis[1] though not so finely built, is outshining it, on account of the honour it has received from the soldiers of Cæsar taking up their quarters there.

2. After these are Italica,[2] and Ilipa,[3] situated on the Guadalquiver; farther on are Astygis,[p 1] Carmo,[p 2] and Obulco; and besides these Munda,[p 3] Ategua, Urso,[p 4] Tukkis,[4] Julia,[5] and Ægua, where the sons of Pompey were defeated. None of these places are far from Corduba. Munda is in some sort regarded as the metropolis of the whole district. This place is distant from Carteia 1400[6] stadia, and it was here that Cnæus fled after his defeat, and sailing thence landed on a rocky height overlooking the sea, where he was murdered. His brother Sextus, having escaped from Corduba, after carrying on the war for a short time in Spain, caused a revolt in Sicily. Flying thence into Asia he was seized at Miletus[7] by the generals[8] of Antony, and executed. Amongst the Kelts the most famous place is Conistorgis.[p 5] Upon the estuaries is Asta,[9] in which the Gaditani mostly hold their assemblies; it is opposite the sea-port of the island, at a distance of not more than 100 stadia.

3. A vast number of people dwell along the Guadalquiver; and you may sail up it almost 1200 stadia from the sea to Corduba, and the places a little higher up. The banks and little islets of this river are cultivated with the greatest diligence.

  1. ↑ Strabo is the only writer who mentions this city of Bætis. Casaubon and others are inclined to the opinion that the MSS. are corrupted, and that formerly another name stood here.
  2. ↑ This city, the native place of the emperors Trajan and Adrian, and the poet Silius Italicus, was founded by Publius Scipio in the second Punic war, who placed here the soldiers incapacitated from the performance of military service. It is supposed to correspond to Sevilla la Vieja, about a league distant from Seville.
  3. ↑ The Ilipa Ilia of Pliny and Illipula Magna of Ptolemy. Its exact position is not determined.
  4. ↑ Hodie Martos, Pliny gave it the surname of Augusta Gemella.
  5. ↑ The Itucci of Pliny, to which he gives the surname Virtus Julia.
  6. ↑ We should probably read 430.
  7. ↑ Kramer, using the criticism of Lachmann, observes that this is a misreading for Midaium, and that a like mistake occurs in Appian.
  8. ↑ Furnius and Titius.
  9. ↑ About the spot where this city is supposed to have stood, between Xerez and Tribugena, there is still a place called Mesa de Asta.
  1. ↑ Hodie Ecija on the Xenil.
  2. ↑ Carmona.
  3. ↑ Monda, seven leagues west of Malaga.
  4. ↑ Osuna.
  5. ↑ In Lusitania.
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