Book 13
1.15
PityaAccording to the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (1933), cited by Leaf (Troy, p. 187, “Lampsacus was formerly called Pityeia, or, as others spell it, Pitya. Some say that Phrixus stored his treasure there and that the city was named after the treasure, for the Thracian word for treasure is ‘pitye’” (but cf. the Greek word “pitys,” “pine tree”). Strabo, however, places Pitya to the east of Parium, whereas Lampsacus lies to the west (see Leaf, l.c., pp. 185 ff.; and his Strabo on the Troad, p. 87). In section 18 (following) Strabo says that “Lampsacus was formerly called Pityussa.” is in Pityus in the territory of Parium, lying below a pine covered mountain;Leaf (l.c.) translates, “hill shaped like a pine tree,” adding (p. 187) that “the resemblance to a pine tree, so far as my personal observation went, means no more than that the hill slopes gently up to a rounded top.” However, the Greek adjective probably means in the present passage “pine covered” (cf. the use of the same adjective in 8. 6. 22, where it applies to a sacred precinct on the Isthmus of Corinth). and it lies between Parium and Priapus in the direction of Linum, a place on the seashore, where are caught the Linusian snails, the best in the world.
1.16
On the coasting voyage from Parium to Priapus lie both the old Proconnesus and the present Proconnesus, the latter having a city and also a great quarry of white marble that is very highly commended; at any rate, the most beautiful works of arti.e., buildings, statues, and other marble structures (see 5. 2. 5 and 5. 3. 8, and the footnotes on “works of art”). in the cities of that part of the world, and especially those in Cyzicus, are made of this marble. Aristeas was a Proconnesian—the author of the Arimaspian Epic, as it is called—a charlatan if ever there was one.See 1. 2. 10, and Hdt. 4.13
