The Geography of Strabo, Volume 2 (of 3)

but the Macedonians, according to Theopompus, who refused the levy of men; besides it is not probable that those, who were in the neighbourhood of Agamemnon, would disobey his orders.

16. Ægina is a place in the territory of Epidaurus. There is in front of this continent, an island, of which the poet means to speak in the lines before cited. Wherefore some write,

“and the island Ægina,”

instead of

“and they who occupied Ægina,”

making a distinction between the places of the same name.

It is unnecessary to remark, that this island is among the most celebrated. It was the country of Æacus and his descendants. It was this island which once possessed so much power at sea, and formerly disputed the superiority with the Athenians in the sea-fight at Salamis during the Persian war.[206] The circuit of the island is said to be about 180 stadia. It has a city of the same name on the south-west. Around it are Attica, and Megara, and the parts of Peloponnesus as far as Epidaurus. It is distant from each about 100 stadia. The eastern and southern sides are washed by the Myrtoan and Cretan seas. Many small islands surround it on the side towards the continent, but Belbina is situated on the side towards the open sea. The land has soil at a certain depth, but it is stony at the surface, particularly the plain country, whence the whole has a bare appearance, but yields large crops of barley. It is said that the Æginetæ were called Myrmidones, not as the fable accounts for the name, when the ants were metamorphosed into men, at the time of a great famine, by the prayer of Æacus; but because by digging, like ants, they threw up the earth upon the rocks, and were thus made able to cultivate the ground, and because they lived in excavations under-ground, abstaining from the use of bricks and sparing of the soil for this purpose.

Its ancient name was Œnone, which is the name of two of the demi in Attica, one near Eleutheræ;

“to inhabit the plains close to Œnone, (Œnoe,) and Eleutheræ;”

and another, one of the cities of the Tetrapolis near Marathon, to which the proverb is applied,

“Œnone (Œnoe?) and its torrent.”

Its [CAS. 375] inhabitants were in succession Argives, Cretans, Epidaurians, and Dorians. At last the Athenians divided the island by lot among settlers of their own. The Lacedæmonians, however, deprived the Athenians of it, and restored it to the ancient inhabitants.

The Æginetæ sent out colonists to Cydonia[207] in Crete, and to the Ombrici. According to Ephorus, silver was first struck as money by Pheidon. The island became a mart, the inhabitants, on account of the fertility of its soil, employing themselves at sea as traders; whence goods of a small kind had the name of “Ægina wares.”

17. The poet frequently speaks of places in succession as they are situated;

“they who inhabited Hyria, and Aulis;”[208]

“and they who occupied Argos, and Tiryns, Hermione, and Asine, Trœzen, and Eïones.”[209]

At other times he does not observe any order;

“Schœnus, and Scolus, Thespeia, and Græa.”[210]

He also mentions together places on the continent and islands

“they who held Ithaca, and inhabited Crocyleia,”[211]

for Crocyleia is in Acarnania. Thus he here joins with Ægina Mases, which belongs to the continent of Argolis.

Homer does not mention Thyreæ, but other writers speak of it as well known. It was the occasion of a contest between the three hundred Argives against the same number of Lacedæmonians; the latter were conquerors by means of a stratagem of Othryadas. Thucydides places Thyreæ in Cynuria, on the confines of Argia and Laconia.[212]