7.2
And putting to sea from Ilium, he touched at Ismarus, a city of the Cicones, and captured it in war, and pillaged it, sparing Maro alone, who was priest of Apollo.As to the adventures of Ulysses with the Cicones, see Hom. Od. 9.39-66. The Cicones were a Thracian tribe; Xerxes and his army marched through their country (Hdt. 7.110). As to Maro, the priest of Apollo at Ismarus, see Hom. Od. 9.196-211. He dwelt in a wooded grove of Apollo, and bestowed splendid presents and twelve jars of red honey-sweet wine, in return for the protection which he and his wife received at the hands of Ulysses. And when the Cicones who inhabited the mainland heard of it, they came in arms to withstand him, and having lost six men from each ship he put to sea and fled.
7.3
And he landed in the country of the Lotus-eaters,As to the adventures of Ulysses with the Lotus-eaters, see Hom. Od. 9.82-104; Hyginus, Fab. 125. The Lotus-eaters were a tribe of northern Africa, inhabiting the coast of Tripolis (Scylax, Periplus 110; Pliny, Nat. Hist. v.28). As to the lotus, see Hdt. 4.177; Polybius xii.2.1, quoted by Athenaeus xiv.65, p. 651 DF; Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. iv.3.1ff. The tree is the Zizyphus Lotus of the botanists. Theophrastus says that the tree was common in Libya, that is, in northern Africa, and that an army marching on Carthage subsisted on its fruit alone for several days. The modern name of the tree is ssodr or ssidr. A whole district in Tripolis is named Ssodria after it. See A. Wiedemann, Herodots Zweites Buch, p. 385, note on Herodotus, ii.96. and sent some to learn who inhabited it, but they tasted of the lotus and remained there; for there grew in the country a sweet fruit called lotus, which caused him who tasted it to forget everything. When Ulysses was informed of this, he restrained the rest of his men, and dragged those who had tasted the lotus by force to the ships. And having sailed to the land of the Cyclopes, he stood in for the shore.
