Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/394

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380
STRABO.
CASAUB. 255.

that of Scylletium.[1] The circumnavigation of the peninsula, which is comprised between this isthmus and the strait, is 2000 stadia. He says that afterwards the names of Italy and of the Œnotrians were extended as far as Metapontium and the Siritis; the Chones, a people of Œnotrian descent, and highly civilized, inhabited these districts, and called their country Chone. However, this author has written in a very loose and old-fashioned manner, without giving any definite boundaries to the Leucani and Bruttii. Now Leucania is situated on the Tyrrhenian and Sicilian Seas, extending on one coast from the Silaro[2] to the river Lao, and on the other from Metapontium[p 1] to Thurii. Along the continent it stretches from the country of the Samnites, as far as the isthmus between Thurii and Cerilli,[p 2] near the Lao. This isthmus is 300 stadia[3] across. Beyond are the Bruttii, who dwell on the peninsula; in this is included another peninsula, which is bounded by the isthmus between Scylletium[p 3] and the Hipponiate gulf.[p 4] The nation received its appellation from the Leucani, for they call runaways Bruttii, and they say that formerly they ran away from them when employed as shepherds, and that afterwards their independence was established through the weakness [of the Leucani], when Dion [of Syracuse] was prosecuting a war against [the younger] Dionysius, and fomented hostilities amongst all.[4] This is all we shall remark as to the Leucani and Bruttii.

  1. ↑ Golfo di Squillace. Scylletium was once a Greek city of note, communicating its name to the gulf. Servius observes that the Athenians who founded the colony were returning from Africa. There was a Greek inscription found in 1791 relative to the Λαμπαδηδρομία, which seems to confirm the tradition of the Athenian origin of Scylletium. It was the birth-place of Cassiodorus.
  2. ↑ Σιλαρις. The Silaro, which divides Lucania from Campania, takes its rise in the Apennines, in a district which formerly belonged to the Hirpini; and after receiving the Tanager, now Negro, and the Calor, now Calore, falls into the Gulf of Salerno. Silius Italicus (viii. 582) states that this river possessed the property of incrusting twigs with a calcareous deposit:
    “Nunc Silarus quos nutrit aquis, quo gurgite tradunt
    Duritiem lapidum mersis inolescere ramis.”

    At its mouth was a haven named Portus Albernus.
  3. ↑ This measure, upon our charts, is 330 Olympic stadia. Gosselin.
  4. ↑ ἐξετάραξεν ἅπαντας πρὸς ἅπαντας. Lit. “He stirred up every body
  1. ↑ Torre di Mare.
  2. ↑ Cirella.
  3. ↑ Golfo di Squillace.
  4. ↑ The Golfo di S. Eufemia.
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