The Geography of Strabo, Volume 2 (of 3)

immediately engaged in the war to pass over from those places, and from the country beyond them, as the Amazons, Treres, and Cimmerians, but impossible for allies to do so?

The Amazons were not allies, because Priam had fought in alliance with the Phrygians against them:

“at that time, says Priam, I was among their auxiliaries on that day, when the Amazons came to attack them.”[1178]

The people also who were living on the borders of the country of the Amazons were not situated at so great a distance that it was difficult to send for them from thence, nor did any animosity exist, I suppose, at that time to prevent them from affording assistance.

25. Nor is there any foundation for the opinion, that all the ancients agree that no people from the country beyond the Halys took part in the Trojan war. Testimony may be found to the contrary. Mæandrius at least says that Heneti came from the country of the Leuco-Syrians to assist the Trojans in the war; that they set sail thence with the Thracians, and settled about the recess of the Adriatic; and that the Heneti, who had no place in the expedition, were Cappadocians. This account seems to agree with the circumstance, that the people inhabiting the whole of that part of Cappadocia near the Halys, which extends along Paphlagonia, speak two dialects, and that their language abounds with Paphlagonian names, as [CAS. 553] Bagas, Biasas, Æniates, Rhatotes, Zardoces, Tibius, Gasys, Oligasys, and Manes. For these names are frequently to be found in the Bamonitis, the Pimolitis, the Gazaluïtis, and Gazacene, and in most of the other districts. Apollodorus himself quotes the words of Homer, altered by Zenodotus;

“from Henete, whence comes a race of wild mules,”

and says, that Hecatæus the Milesian understands Henete to mean Amisus. But we have shown that Amisus belongs to the Leuco-Syrians, and is situated beyond the Halys.

26. He also somewhere says that the poet obtained his knowledge of the Paphlagonians, situated in the interior, from persons who had travelled through the country on foot, but that he was not acquainted with the sea-coast any more than with the rest of the territory of Pontus; for otherwise he would have mentioned it by name. We may, on the contrary, after the description which has just been given of the country, retort and say that he has traversed the whole of the sea-coast, and has omitted nothing worthy of record which existed at that time. It is not surprising that he does not mention Heracleia, Amastris, or Sinope, for they were not founded; nor is it strange that he should omit to speak of the interior of the country; nor is it a proof of ignorance not to specify by name many places which were well known, as we have shown in a preceding part of this work.

He says that Homer was ignorant of much that was remarkable in Pontus, as rivers and nations, otherwise he would have mentioned their names. This may be admitted with respect to some very remarkable nations and rivers, as the Scythians, the Palus Mæotis, and the Danube. For he would not have described the Nomades, by characteristic signs, as living on milk, Abii, a people without certain means of subsistence, “most just” and “renowned Hippemolgi,” (milkers of mares,) and not distinguished them as Scythians, or Sauromatæ, or Sarmatæ, if, indeed, they had these names among the Greeks (at that time). Nor in mentioning the Thracians and Mysians, who live near the Danube, would he have passed over in silence the Danube itself, one of the largest rivers, particularly as, in other instances, he is inclined to mark the boundaries of places by rivers; nor in speaking of the Cimmerians would he have omitted the Bosporus, or the Mæotis.