Book 14
5.22
The assertion that the allies were only those who occupied the peninsula may be proved to be erroneous by the same arguments by which we before showed that those who lived within the Halys were not the only allies. For the places about Pharnacia, where we said the Halizoni lived, are situated without the Halys, and also without the isthmus, for they are without the line drawn from Sinope to Issus;Groskurd is desirous of reading Tarsus for Issus. See above, c. v. § 11. But Strabo is here considering the two opinions held respecting the isthmus. and not only without this line, but also without the true line of the isthmus drawn from Amisus to Issus; for Apollodorus incorrectly describes the isthmus and the line of its direction, substituting one line for another (the line drawn from Sinope to Issus for the line drawn from Amisus to Issus).
5.22
But the greatest absurdity is this, that after having said that the peninsula was of a triangular shape, he speaks of three exterior sides. For in speaking of exterior sides, he seems to except the line of the isthmus itself, considering it still a side, although not an exterior side, from its not being upon the sea. But if this line were so shortened that the extremities of the (exterior) sides falling upon Issus and Sinope nearly coincided, the peninsula might in that case be said to be of a triangular shape; but as his own line (from Sinope to Issus) is 3000 stadia in length, it would be ignorance, and not a knowledge of chorography, to call such a four-sided figure a triangle. Yet he published a work on Chorography, in the metre of comedy, (Iambic metre,) entitled The Circuit of the Earth.
