Book 13
1.5
The situation of the country actually called Troja is best marked by the position of Ida, a lofty mountain, looking to the west, and to the western sea, but making a slight bend to the north and towards the northern coast. This latter is the coast of the Propontis, extending from the straits near Abydos to the Aesepus, and to the territory of Cyzicene. The western sea is the exterior (part of the) Hellespont, and the Aegtaean Sea.
1.5
Ida has many projecting parts like feet, and resembles in figure a tarantula, and is bounded by the following extreme points, namely, the promontoryNear Mussatsch-Koi. at Zeleia, and that called Lectum; the former terminates in the inland parts a little above Cyzicene (to the Cyziceni belongs the present Zeleia), and Lee tum projects into the Aegaean Sea, and is met with in the coasting voyage from Tenedos to Lesbos. They (namely, Somnus and Juno) came, says Homer, to Ida, abounding with springs, the nurse of wild beasts, to Lectum where first they left the sea,Il. xiv. 283. where the poet describes Lectum in appropriate terms, for he says correctly that Lectum is a part of Ida, and that this was the first place of disembarkation for persons intending to ascend Mount Ida.The passage in brackets Meineke suspects to be an interpolation, as Rhesus and Heptaporus cannot be placed in this part of Ida, nor do any of the streams mentioned by Homer in the same passage flow into the Aegean Sea. [He is exact in the epithet abounding with springs; for the mountain, especially in that part, has a very large supply of water, which appears from the great number of rivers which issue from it; all the rivers which rise in Ida, and proceed to the sea, the Rhesus, and Heptaporus,Il. xii. 19. and others, which he mentions afterwards, and which are now to be seen by us.]
