Mount Hæmus on the North; on the East was the Euxine, and on the South was the Egean Sea. The principal nations of Thrace were the Bessi, a very savage people, in the North West, and the Mædi below them, in the South-west, at the top of the Ægean; their maritime parts were inhabited by the small tribes of the Bristones and Ciconii. In the centre were the Odrysæ, in the South-east the Pæti, and in the North-east the Astæ. We have considered the Strymon as the Eastern boundary of Macedonia, but in its utmost extent it reached as far as Mons Pangaus and the river Nessus, or Mestus, now Mesto, which flows into the Ægean a little east of the island of Thasus; the Strymon, however, is the more antient and natural boundary. East of Amphipolis was Philippi, the celebrated scene of the defeat of Brutus and Cassius by Antony and Augustus, B.C. 42, A.U.C. 712. The poet Horace was a tribune in the vanquished army*, but afterwards found a more congenial and more profitable employment in the service of the muses and his patron Macænas. This city is also well known in the travels and epistles of St. Paul. At the mouth of the river Nessus was Abdera, the birth *Quod mihi pareret legio Romana tribuno. Unde simul primum me dimisere Philippi -Philippos et celerem fugam Hor. Sct. I. 6. 58. Hor. Epist. II. 2. 49. Hur. Od. II. 7. .9 place of the philosopher Democritus. Democritus. Eastward are Maronea, Mesembria, Sarrum, or Serrhium, and Enos, now, respectively, Marogna, Miseira, Saros, and Eno. Enos is at the Eastern mouth of the river Hebrus, now the Maritza. Inland, on the Western side of the Hebrus, was Scapta-hyla, or, as Lucretius calls it, Scaptesula, where Thucydides, who had some gold and silver mines there in right of his wife, retired after his banishment from Athens, to write his history of the Peloponnesian War; it is still called Skepsilar. The river Melas runs into the small gulf called Melanis Sinus, at the top of which was the city of Cardia, destroyed by Lysimachus when he founded the city of Lysimachia, a little South of it; it was afterwards called Hexamilium, now Hexamili, because the isthmus is six miles across. The peninsula contained between the Melanis Sinus and the Hellespontus was called the Chersonesus Thracius, of which we have frequent mention in Demosthenes. The Hellespontus, which was so called from Helle, the sister of Phryxus, who was drowned there, is now called the Straight of the Dardanelles. The town of Sestos was on its western or European shore, nearly opposite to Abydos, on the Eastern or Asiatic: this was the place where Xerxes built his famous bridge of boats, and where Leander was drowned in swimming from Abydos in the night to visit his mistress Hero, who was priestess of Venus here. It is now called Zermunic, and is the first place that was seized by the Turks in passing from Asia to Europe. Above it is the fatal little stream of Ægos Potamos, where the Athenian fleet was totally defeated * Quales expirat Scaptesula subtus odores, Lucret. VI. 810. by Lysander, Dec. 13. B.C. 405, Ol. 93, 4., which put an end to the Peloponnesian war. Still North is Callipolis, now Gallipoli. At the North part of the Hellespont the sea widens again, and was antiently called the Propontis, because it was before the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea; it is now called the White Sea, or Sea of Marmora, from the little Island of Proconnesus, now Marmora, which it contains. At its North-western angle was Bisanthe, or Rhodestus, now Rodosto. About one-third along the Northern coast was Perinthus, afterwards Heraclea, now corrupted into Erekli, from which a wall, called Macron Tichos, was built across to the Euxine by the Emperor Anastasius. East of it was Se-lymbria, now Selibria; and at its North-eastern extremity, called from its beauty Chrysoceras, or the Horn of Gold, was the renowned city of Byzantium, fixed on by Constantine the Great as the seat of the Roman Empire, A.D. 330, and from him called Constantinople, a name which it has always preserved, though, by a familiar corruption already noticed, it is called, by the Turks, Estamboul*. That part of the city which was the antient Byzantium is now the seraglio. The Turkish sultan, Mahomet the Second, took Constantinople, May 28. A.D. 1453, and it has ever since been the seat of the Turkish empire. On this occasion many of the captive Greek inhabitants fled into Italy and the West; and this event, with the invention of printing, which was nearly contemporary, may be considered as instrumental, under Providence, to the restoration of learning and pure religion in the world. A very narrow strait, antiently called the Thracian Bosphorus, now the Channel of Constan * Ες τὴν πολιν. tinople, connects the Propontis with the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea, which it enters near some well known rocks, antiently called the Cyaneæ, or Symplegades*, which, from their appearing more or less open or confined, according to the course of the vessel, were said by the poets to open and shut upon the ships which entered, and crush them to pieces; the Argo had a narrow escape, as we are told by Apollonius Rhodius, with the loss of her rudder. Proceeding along the North coast of the Euxine we find Halmydessus, or Salmydessus, a place celebrated for its shipwrecks; it is still called Midjeh. A little above it is Bizya, the residence of Tereus, the husband of Procne. Above it is the promontory of Thynias, whence came the Thyni, who settled afterwards in Asia, and gave name to Bithynia. Above it was Apollonia, afterwards Sozopolis, now Sizeboli: above it, at the North-eastern extremity of Thrace, was Hæmiextrema, now Emineh-borun; and almost at the Northwestern extremity was Philippolis, so called from Philip, the father of Alexander, which preserves its name. the centre was Adrianopolis, or Adrianople, near the confluence of the three rivers, the Hebrus, Tonsus, and Ardiscus, by whose waters Orestes was purified from the pollution of his mother's blood, whence the place was formerly called Orestias. * Compressos utinam Symplegades clisissent. Ovid. Epist. Her. Med. Jas. 119. In + Lamprid. in Elagab. CHAPTER X. GRECIAN ISLANDS. A.G. Plates XII. XIII. THESE we shall describe, beginning from the North of the Ægean Sea, or Archipelago, along the coast of Greece; and afterwards those on the coast of Asia Minor. South-west of the mouth of the Hebrus (Pl. XII.) was the island of Samothrace, or Samothraki, remarkable for the sanctity of its asylum, and the mysterious worship of four deities called the Cabiri. Its reputation even continued to the time of Juvenal*. Below it was Imbrus, or Imbro, where also the same deities were worshipped. North-west of Samothrace, and a little West of the mouth of the river Nestus, was Thasos, now * Jures licet et Samothracum Et nostrorum aras. Juv. Sat. III. 144. |