Book 14
1.4
These are the twelve Ionian cities. At a subsequent period Smyrna also was added to the Ionian association at the instance of the Ephesians, for anciently they inhabited the same city, at which time Ephesus was called Smyrna. Callinus somewhere gives it this name, and calls the Ephesians Smyrnaeans in the address to Jupiter: And pity the Smyrnaeans; and in another passage, remember now, if ever, the beautiful thighs of the oxen [which the Smyrnaeans burnt in sacrifice]. Smyrna was an Amazon, who got possession of Ephesus; from her the inhabitants and the city had their name, in the same manner as some Ephesians were called Sisyrbitae from Sisyrba; and a certain spot in Ephesus was called Smyrna, as Hipponax testifies: He lived in Smyrna, at the back of the city between Tracheia and Lepre Acta. The mountain Prion was called Lepre Acta; it overhangs the present city, and has on it a portion of the wall. Even now the farms at the back of the Prion retain the name in the term Opistholepria. The country along the foot of the mountain about Coressus was called Tracheia. The city was anciently built about the Athenaeum, which is now beyond the city, at the (fountain) Hypelaeus. Smyrna therefore was situated near the present gymnasium, at the back of the present city, but between Tracheia and Lepre Acta. The Smyrnaeans, upon quitting the Ephesians, marched to the place where Smyrna now stood, and which was in the possession of Leleges. They expelled these people and founded the ancient Smyrna, which is distant from the present city about 20 stadia. They were themselves afterwards expelled by Aeolians, and took refuge at Colophon; they then returned with a body of men from the latter place, and recovered their own city, Smyrna. Mimnermus relates this in his poem of Nanno, and says of Smyrna, that it was always a subject of contention; after leaving Pylus, the lofty city of Neleus, we came in our voyage to the long wished-for Asia, and settled at Colophon, and hastening thence from the river Astëeis, by the will of the gods we took Aeolian Smyrna.
