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The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3)

Strabo · late 1st century BCE to early 1st century CE (composition of Strabo’s Geography; Volume 3 corresponds to books ca. VII–XVII) primary

passage 52 of 312 · BOOK XIV. > CHAPTER V. (8/10)

↪ you wandered here via “Chalybes tribe near the sea” — the connecting lines are tinted below

in brief
Strabo reviews Ephorus’ and Apollodorus’ lists of tribes inhabiting the peninsula, arguing Apollodorus adds the Galatians and misrepresents Homer’s named peoples and omissions.

and is a continuation of it; the continent then makes a bend at Physcus, and forms the commencement of the second or western side, extending to the Propontis and Byzantium.

  1. Ephorus had said that this peninsula was inhabited by sixteen tribes, three of which were Grecian, and the rest barbarous, with the exception of the mixed nations; he placed on the sea-coast Cilicians, Pamphylians, Lycians, Bithynians, Paphlagonians, Mariandyni, Troes, and Carians; and in the interior, Pisidians, Mysians, Chalybes, Phrygians, and Milyæ.[275] Apollodorus, when discussing this position, says there is a seventeenth tribe, the Galatians, who are more recent than the time of Ephorus; that of the sixteen tribes mentioned, the Greeks were not settled (in the peninsula) at the period of the Trojan war, and that time has produced great intermixture and confusion among the barbarous nations. Homer, he continues, recites in his Catalogue the Troes, and those now called Paphlagonians, Mysians, Phrygians, Carians, Lycians, Meionians, instead of Lydians and other unknown people, as Halizoni and Caucones; nations besides not mentioned in the Catalogue but elsewhere, as Ceteii, Solymi, the Cilicians from the plain of Thebe, and Leleges. But the Pamphylians, Bithynians, Mariandyni, Pisidians, and Chalybes, Milyæ, and Cappadocians are nowhere mentioned by the poet; some because they did not then inhabit these places, and some because they were surrounded by other tribes, as Idrieis and Termilæ by Carians, Doliones and Bebryces by Phrygians.

  2. But Apollodorus does not seem to have carefully examined the statements of Ephorus, for he confounds and misrepresents the words of Homer. He ought first to have inquired of Ephorus why he placed the Chalybes within the peninsula, who were situated at a great distance from Sinope, and Amisus towards the east. Those who describe the isthmus of this peninsula to be on the line drawn from Issus to the Euxine, lay down this line as a sort of meridian line, which some suppose to pass through Sinope, others through Amisus; but no one through the Chalybes, for such a line would be altogether an oblique line. For the meridian passing through the Chalybes, drawn through the Lesser Armenia, and the Euphrates, would comprise (on the east) the whole of Cappadocia, Commagene, Mount Amanus, and the Bay of Issus. [CAS. 678] But if we should grant (to Ephorus) that this oblique line is the direction of the isthmus, most of these places, Cappadocia in particular, would be included, and (the kingdom of) Pontus, properly so called, which is a part of Cappadocia on the Euxine; so that if we were to admit the Chalybes to be a part of the peninsula, with more reason we ought to admit the Cataonians, the two nations of Cappadocians, and the Lycaonians, whom even he himself has omitted. But why has he placed in the interior the Chalybes, whom the poet, as we have shown, calls Halizoni? It would have been better to divide them, and to place one portion of them on the sea-coast, and another in the inland parts. The same division ought to be made of the Cappadocians and Cilicians. But Ephorus does not even mention the former, and speaks only of the Cilicians on the sea-coast. The subjects, then, of Antipater of Derbe, the Homonadeis, and many other tribes contiguous to the Pisidians,

“men, who know not the sea, nor have ever eaten food seasoned with salt,”[276]

where are they to be placed? Nor does he say whether the Lydians and the Meonians are two nations or the same nation, or whether they live separately by themselves or are comprehended in another tribe. For it was impossible for Ephorus to be ignorant of so celebrated a nation, and does he not, by passing it over in silence, appear to omit a most important fact?

  1. But who are “the mixed nations”? For we cannot say that he either named or omitted others, besides those already mentioned, whom we should call mixed nations. Nor, indeed, should we say that they were a part of those nations whom he has either mentioned or omitted. For if they were a mixed people, still the majority constituted them either Greeks or Barbarians. We know nothing of a third mixed people.
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topics: custom and the manners of a people · history and the writing of history · language, naming, and meaning

The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) · Strabo · 54 BCE–24