The Geography of Strabo, Volume 2 (of 3)

Tieium is now a small town and has nothing remarkable belonging to it, except that it was the birth-place of Philetærus, the founder of the family of the Attalic kings.

Next is the river Parthenius, flowing through a country abounding with flowers; from these it obtained its name.[1117] Its source is in Paphlagonia. Then succeeded Paphlagonia, and the Heneti. It is a question what Heneti the poet means, when he says,

“the brave Pylæmenes led the Paphlagonians out of the country of the Heneti, where they have a race of wild mules;”[1118]

for at present, they say, no Heneti are to be found in Paphlagonia. Others say that it is a village on the shore distant ten schœni from Amastris. But Zenodotus writes the verse in this manner, “From Heneta,” and says that it means the present Amisus. According to others it was a tribe bordering upon the Cappadocians, which engaged in an expedition with the Cimmerians, and were afterwards driven away into Adria. But the account most generally received is, that the Heneti were the most considerable tribe of the Paphlagonians; that Pylæmenes was descended from it; that a large body of this people accompanied him to the Trojan war; that when they had lost their leader they passed over to Thrace upon the capture of Troy; and in the course of their wanderings arrived at the present Henetic territory.

Some writers say that both Antenor and his sons participated in this expedition, and settled at the inner recess of the [CAS. 544] gulf of Adria, as we have said in the description of Italy.[1119] It is probable that this was the cause of the extinction of the Heneti, and that they were no longer to be found in Paphlagonia.

9. The boundary of the Paphlagonians to the east is the river Halys, which flows from the south between the Syrians and the Paphlagonians; and according to Herodotus,[1120] (who means Cappadocians, when he is speaking of Syrians,) discharges itself into the Euxine Sea. Even at present they are called Leuco-Syrians, (or White Syrians,) while those without the Taurus are called Syrians. In comparison with the people within the Taurus, the latter have a burnt complexion; but the former, not having it, received the appellation of Leuco-Syrians (or White Syrians). Pindar says that

“the Amazons commanded a Syrian band, armed with spears with broad iron heads;”

thus designating the people that lived at Themiscyra.[1121] Themiscyra belongs to the Amiseni,[1122] and the district of the Amiseni to the Leuco-Syrians settled beyond the Halys.

The river Halys forms the boundary of the Paphlagonians to the east; Phrygians and the Galatians settled among that people, on the south; and on the west Bithynians and Mariandyni (for the race of the Caucones has everywhere entirely disappeared); on the north the Euxine. This country is divided into two parts, the inland, and the maritime, extending from the Halys as far as Bithynia. Mithridates Eupator possessed the maritime part as far as Heracleia, and of the inland country he had the district nearest to Heracleia, some parts of which extended even beyond the Halys. These are also the limits of the Roman province of Pontus. The remainder was subject to chiefs, even after the overthrow of Mithridates.

We shall afterwards speak of those Paphlagonians in the inland parts, who were not subject to Mithridates; we propose at present to describe the country which he governed, called Pontus.