Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/390

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376
STRABO.
CASAUB. 252.

compelled, therefore, on account of the barrenness of the soil, to apply to maritime trade chiefly, to employ themselves in the salting of fish, and in such other occupations. Antiochus[1] says that when Phocea was taken by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, those who had the means embarked with their families, and sailed under the conduct of Creontiades, first to Cyrnos and Marseilles, but having been driven thence, they founded Elea;[2] the name of which some say is derived from the river Elees.[p 1] The city is distant about two hundred stadia from Posidonia. After this city is the promontory of Palinurus. But in front of the Eleatis are the Œnotrides, two islands[p 2] having good anchorage.[3] And beyond Palinurus are the promontory, harbour, and river of Pyxus;[p 3] the three having the same name. This colony was founded[y 1] by Micythus, then governor of Messina in Sicily; but those who were located here, except a few, abandoned the place. After Pyxus are the gulf,[p 4] the river,[p 5] and the city[4] of Laüs. This, the last[p 6] city of the Leucani, situate a little above the sea, is a colony[5] of the Sybarites, and is distant from Elea 400 stadia. The whole circuit of Leucania, by sea is 650 stadia. Near to Laüs is seen the tomb of Draco, one of the companions of Ulysses, and the oracular response, given to the Italian Greeks, alludes to him:

  1. ↑ Strabo here cites the historian Antiochus, but it is surprising that he does not rather cite the writer from whom Antiochus seems to have borrowed this account, we mean Herodotus, who relates it (lib. i. § 164). But Strabo, probably, looking upon Herodotus as a collector of fables, chose rather to yield to the authority of Antiochus, who had written very accurate memoirs upon Italy, and who was, likewise, himself a very ancient author, (Dion. Halicarn. Antiq. Rom. lib. i. § 12,) and flourished about 420 years before the Christian era.
  2. ↑ Or Velia, founded 532 B. C., mentioned by Horace, Epist. I. xv. 1, “Quæ sit hyems Veliæ, quod cœlum, Vala, Salerni.”
  3. ↑ Pliny affirms that these two islands were called, the one Pontia, the other Ischia; “Contra Veliam Pontia et Ischia, utræque uno nomine Œnotrides, argumentum possessæ ab Œnotriis Italiæ.” Hist. Nat. lib. iii. § 13. If this reading be not faulty, Pliny will have placed in the latitude, of which our author is now giving a description, a small island bearing the same name, Pontia, as the island lying off Cape Misenum.
  4. ↑ Called Laino in the time of Cluverius. Lib. iv. cap. 14.
  5. ↑ Founded about the year 510 B. C.
  1. ↑ The modern Alento.
  2. ↑ Now unknown.
  3. ↑ The Buxentum of the Latins.
  4. ↑ Gulf of Policastro.
  5. ↑ Now the river Laino.
  6. ↑ Upon this coast.
  1. ↑ 471 years before the Christian era.
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