Book 8
7.5
Each of the twelve divisions consisted of seven or eight communities, so populous was the country. Pellene is situated sixty stadia above the sea, and it is a strong fortress. But there is also a village Pellene, from which come the Pellenic cloaks, which they were also wont to set up as prizes at the games; it lies between Aegium and Pellene. But Pellana is different from these two; it is a Laconian place, and its territory inclines, approximately, towards the territory of Megalopolis. Aegeira is situated on a hill. Bura, which was swallowed up in an, earthquake, is situated above the sea at a distance of about forty stadia; and they say that it was from the spring Sybaris in Bura that the riverSee 6. 1. 12-13. in Italy got its name. Aega (for Aegae is also called thus) is now uninhabited, and the cityOthers emend “city” to “country,” but Strabo often speaks of cities thus, whether inhabited or not; and in giving the name of a city he often means to include all the surrounding territory which it possesses. is in the possession of the people of Aegium. But Aegium has a considerable population. The story is told that Zeus was nursed by a goat there, just as Aratus says: “Sacred goat, which, in story, didst hold thy breast o’er Zeus;”Aratus Phaenomena 163and he goes on to say that “the interpreters call her the Olenian goat of Zeus,”Aratus Phaenomena 164thus clearly indicating that the place is near Olene. Here too is Ceraunia,Ceraunia is almost certainly an error for “Ceryneia,” the city mentioned by Polybius 2.41, Paus. 7.6, and others. which is situated on a high rock. These places belong to the people of Aegium, and so does Helice, and the Amarium, where the Achaeans met to deliberate on affairs of common interest. And the Selinus River flows through the territory of Aegium; it bears the same name as the river that flows in Ephesus past the Artemisium, and also the river in the Eleia of todaySee 8. 3. l. that flows past the plot of land which Xenophon says he bought for Artemis in accordance with an oracle.Xen. Anab. 5.3.8 And there is another Selinus; it flows past the territory of the Hyblaean Megarians,Megara Hyblaea was on the eastern coast of Sicily, to the north of Syracuse. whom the Carthaginians forced to migrate. As for the remaining cities, or divisions, of the Achaeans, one of them, Rhypes, is uninhabited, and the territory called Rhypis was held by the people of Aegium and the people of Pharae. Aeschylus, too, says somewhere: “Sacred Bura and thunder-smitten Rhypes.”Aesch. Fr. 403 (Nauck)Myscellus, the founder of Croton, was from Rhypes. And Leuctrum too, a deme of Rhypes, belonged to the district of Rhypis. After Rhypes comes Patrae, a noteworthy city; between the two, however, is Rhium (also Antirrhium),See critical note. which is forty stadia distant from Patrae. And recently the Romans, after their victory at Actium, settled a considerable part of the army at Patrae; and it is exceptionally populous at present, since it is a Roman colony; and it has a fairly good anchoring-place. Next comes Dyme, a city without a harbor, the farthest of all towards the west, a fact from which it takes its name.δύειν “to set,” δύσμη “setting,” “west.” But in earlier times it was called Stratos. The boundary between it and the Eleian country, Buprasium, is formed by the Larisus River, which flows from a mountain. Some writers call this mountain Scollis, but Homer calls it the Olenian Rock. When Antimachus calls Dyme “Cauconian,” some interpret “Cauconian” as an epithet derived from the Cauconians, since the Cauconians extended as far as Dyme, as I have already said above,8. 3. 11, 17. but others as derived from a River Caucon, just as Thebes is called “Dircaean” and “Asopian,” Argos “Inacheian,” and Troy “Simuntian.” But shortly before my time Dyme received as colonists a mixed group of people whom Pompey still had left over from the crowd of pirates, after he broke up all piracy and settled some of the pirates at Soli in Cilicia and others in other places—and in particular at Dyme. Phara borders on the territory of Dyme. The people of this Phara are called Phareis, but those of the Messenian city Pharaeatae; and in the territory of Phara is a spring Dirce which bears the same name as the spring at Thebes. But Olenus is deserted; it lies between Patrae and Dyme; and its territory is held by the people of Dyme. Then comes Araxus, the promontory of the Eleian country, one thousand and thirty stadia from the isthmus.
