Book 13
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In the valley about the Aesepus, on the left of its course, the first place we meet with is Polichna, a walled stronghold; then Palaescepsis, next Alizonium, a place invented for the supposed existence of the Halizoni whom we have mentioned before.B. xii. c. iii. § 21. Then Caresus, a deserted city, and Caresene, and a river of the same name, (Caresus,) which also forms a considerable valley, but less than that about the Aesepus. Next follow the plains of Zeleia, and the mountain plains, which are well cultivated. On the right of the Aesepus, between Polichna and Palaescepsis is Nea-Come,Below Strabo calls this same place Aenea, and in b. xii. c. iii. § 23, Enea-Come. Pliny calls it Nea; it is said to be the same place called by the Turks Ene. and Argyria, (the silver mines,)̓αοͅγύια, in the neuter gender, with the accent on the antipenultima, means silver mines. But ̓αοͅγυοͅία with the accent on the penultima, becomes the name of a town. which are another fiction framed to sup port the same hypothesis, in order that the words of Homer may be defended, where silver is produced.Il. ii. 856.Il. ii. 856.
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Where then is Alybe, or Alope, or in whatever way they please to play upon the name? For they ought to have had the impudence to invent this place also, and not to leave their system imperfect and exposed to detection, when they had once ventured so far. This is the contradiction which may be given to Demetrius.
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As to the rest, we ought at least in the greatest number of instances to attend to a man of experience, and a native of the country, who also had bestowed so much thought and time on this subject as to write thirty books to interpret little more than 60 lines of the catalogue of the Trojan forces.
