Book 14
5.3
After Coracesium, one comes to Arsinoe,“Arsinoe” is thought to be an error for “Sydrie,” or “Syedra” or “Aunesis”. a city; then to Hamaxia, a settlement on a hill, with a harbor, where ship-building timber is brought down. Most of this timber is cedar; and it appears that this region beyond others abounds in cedar-wood for ships; and it was on this account that Antony assigned this region to Cleopatra, since it was suited to the building of her fleets. Then one comes to Laertes, a stronghold on a breast-shaped hill, with a mooring-place. Then to Selinus, a city and river. Then to Cragus, a rock which is precipitous all round and near the sea. Then to Charadrus, a fortress, which also has a mooring-place (above it lies Mt. Andriclus); and the coast alongside it, called Platanistes, is rugged. Then to Anemurium, a promontory, where the mainland approaches closest to Cyprus, in the direction of the promontory of Crommyus,Cp. 14. 6. 3. the passage across being three hundred and fifty stadia. Now the coasting-voyage along Cilicia from the borders of Pamphylia to Anemurium is eight hundred and twenty stadia, whereas the rest, as far as Soli, is about five hundred stadia. On this latter one comes to Nagidus, the first city after Anemurium; then to Arsinoe, which has a landing-place; then to a place called Melania,Elsewhere (16. 2. 33) referred to as “Melaenae or Melaniae.” and to Celenderis, a city with a harbor. Some writers, among whom is Artemidorus, make Celenderis, not Coracesium, the beginning of Cilicia. And he says that the distance from the Pelusian mouthThe mouth of the Nile at Pelusium. to Orthosia is three thousand nine hundred stadia; to the Orontes River, one thousand one hundred and thirty; to the GatesElsewhere (14. 5. 19), “Pylae” (“Gates”) is called “a boundary between the Cilicians and the Syrians.” next thereafter, five hundred and twenty-five; and to the bordersi.e., the western borders (Celenderis, according to Artemidorus). of the Cilicians, one thousand two hundred and sixty.Elsewhere (16. 2. 33) the MSS. give the figures of Artemidorus as follows: “From Orthosia to Pelusium, 3650 stadia, including the sinuosities of the gulfs: from Melaenae, or Melaniae, in Cilicia near Celenderis, to the common boundaries of Cilicia and Syria, 1900; thence to the Orontes, 520; and then to Orthosia, 1130.” Groskurd, Forbiger and Meineke accept these figures and emend the present passage correspondingly.
