Kitap 9
4.14
These places are rendered difficult of access by a rocky country, and by bodies of water, forming ravines through which they pass. For besides the Spercheius,The Hellada. which flows past Anticyra, there is the Dyras, which, it is said, endeavoured to extinguish the funeral pile of Hercules, and another river, the Melas, distant about 5 stadia from Trachin. Herodotus says,B. vii. c. 198, and c. 200. that to the south of Trachin there is a deep fissure, through which the Asopus, (which has the same name as other rivers that we have mentioned,) empties itself into the sea without the Pylae, having received the river Phoenix which flows from the south, and unites with it. The latter river bears the name of the hero, whose tomb is shown near it. From the Asopus (Phoenix?) to Thermopylae are 15 stadia.
4.15
These places were of the greatest celebrity when they formed the keys of the straits. There were frequent contests for the ascendency between the inhabitants without and those within the straits. Philip used to call Chalcis and Corinth the fetters of Greece with reference to the opportunity which they afforded for invasions from Macedonia; and persons in later times called both these places and Demetrias the fetters, for Demetrias commanding Pelion and Ossa, commanded also the passes at Tempe. Afterwards, however, when the whole country was subject to one power, the passes were freely open to all.Translated according to Kramer’s proposed emendation. Demetrias, according to Leake, occupies the southern or maritime face of a height called Goritza, which projects from the coast of Magnesia between 2 and 3 miles to the southward of the middle of Volo. Pausanias, b. vii. c. 7, says that Philip called Chalcis, Corinth, and Magnesia in Thessaly, the Keys of Greece. Livy, b. xxxii. c. 37.
