Book 7
frag.36
If one goes up the Strymon, one comes to Berge;Now Tachyno (Leake, Northern Greece, Vol. III, p. 229). it, too, is situated in the country of the Bisaltae, and is a village about two hundred stadia distant from Amphipolis. And if one goes from Heracleia towards the north and the narrows through which the Strymon flows, keeping the river on the right, one has Paeonia and the region round about Doberus,The site of the city Doberus is uncertain (see Pauly-Wissowa, s.v.), though it appears to have been somewhere near Tauriana. Rhodope, and the Haemus Mountain on the left, whereas on the right one has the region round about the Haemus.The text, which even Meineke retains, is translated as it stands, but Strabo probably wrote as follows: “one has Paeonia and the region round about Doberus on the left, whereas on the right one has the parts round about Rhodope and the Haemus Mountain. This side the Strymon are Scotussa, near the river itself, and Arethusa, near lake Bolbe.Now Beschikgoel. Furthermore, the name Mygdones is applied especially to the people round about the lake. Not only the Axius flows out of the country of the Paeonians, but also the Strymon, for it flows out of the country of the Agrianes through that of the Medi and Sinti and empties into the parts that are between the Bisaltae and the Odomantes.
frag.37
The Strymon River rises in the country of the Agrianes who live round about Rhodope.
frag.38
Some represent the Paeonians as colonists from the Phrygians, while others represent them as independent founders. And it is said that Paeonia has extended as far as Pelagonia and Pieria; that Pelagonia was called Orestia in earlier times, that Asteropaeus, one of the leaders who made the expedition from Paeonia to Troy, was not without good reason called “son of Pelegon,” and that the Paeonians themselves were called Pelagonians.
