Book 12
3.27
If any one should maintain that the poet was not acquainted with a river which he has not mentioned, we should say that his argument is absurd, for he has not mentioned by name even the river Meles, which runs by Smyrna, his birth-place according to many writers, while he has mentioned the rivers Hermus and Hyllus by name, but yet not the Pactolus,B. xiii. c. iv. § 5, it joins the Hyllus, called Phrygius in the time of Strabo. The Phrygius takes its rise in the mountains north of Thyatira, (Ak Hissar,) and falls into the Hermus (Gedis Tschai). which discharges itself into the same channel as these rivers, and rises in the mountain Tmolus.Bos Dagh. He does not mention either Smyrna itself, or the other cities of the Ionians, or most of those of the Aeolians, although he specifies Miletus, Samos, Lesbos, and Tenedos. He does not mention the Lethaeus, which flows beside Magnesia,Manisa. nor the Marsyas, which rivers empty themselves into the Maeander,Bojuk Meinder. which he mentions by name, as well as the Rhesus, Heptapous, Caresus, and Rhodius,Il. xii. 20.Il. xii. 20. and others, many of which are not more than small streams. While he specifies by name many countries and cities, sometimes he makes an enumeration of rivers and mountains, sometimes he does not do so. He does not mention the rivers in Aetolia and Attica, nor many others. And if, in mentioning people that live afar off, he does not mention those who are very near, it is certainly not through ignorance of them, for they were well known to other writers. With respect to people who were all equally near, he does not observe one rule, for some he mentions, and not others, as for instance he mentions the Lycii, and Solymi, but not the Milye, nor Pamphylians, nor Pisidians; the Paphlagonians, Phrygians, and Mysians, but not the Mariandyni, nor Thyni, nor Bithynians, nor Bebryces; the Amazons, but not the Leuco-Syrians, nor Syrians, nor Cappadocians, nor Lycaonians, while he frequently speaks of the Phoenicians, Aegyptians, and Aethiopians. He mentions the Aleian plain, and the Arimi mountains, but not the nation among which these are situated.
