Geography

​For they say that those who set out from Phricium, the Locrian mountain above Thermopylae, put in at the place where Cyme is now situated, and finding the Pelasgians hard pressed by the Trojan War, yet still holding Larisa, which was about seventy stadia distant from Cyme, they built against them what is even now called Neon Teichos, thirty stadia from Larisa; and having taken Larisa, they founded Cyme and relocated the survivors thither. And after the Locrian mountain they call both Cyme and Larisa ‘Phriconis’; and Larisa is now deserted. That the Pelasgians were a great nation is said to be attested in this way by the rest of history as well; at any rate, Menecrates of Elaea in his work ‘On Founders’ says that the entire coast now called Ionian, beginning from Mycale, was formerly inhabited by Pelasgians, as well as the neighboring islands. And the Lesbians say that they were marshalled under Pylaeus, who is called by the poet the leader of the Pelasgians, after whom also the mountain in their country is still called Pylaium. And the Chians also say that the Pelasgians from Thessaly were their founders. This nation was migratory and quick to relocate; it increased greatly in power and then suffered a sudden disappearance, especially at the time of the passage of the Aeolians and Ionians into Asia.

​Now a peculiar thing happened to the Larisaeans, both those in the Caystrian plain, and those of Phriconis, and thirdly those in Thessaly; for they all had their land silted up by rivers—the first by the Cayster, the second by the Hermus, and the third by the Peneus. In the Phriconian Larisa, Piasus is said to have been honored, who they say was a ruler of the Pelasgians and fell in love with his daughter Larisa, and having violated her, paid the penalty for his outrage; for as he was bending over a jar of wine, she, having observed it, seized him by the legs, lifted him up, and cast him down into the jar. Such, then, are the ancient matters.

​To the contemporary Aeolian cities, one must still add Aegae and Temnus, whence came Hermagoras, who wrote the manuals on rhetoric. These cities are situated in the mountainous region that lies above the territory of Cyme, Phocaea, and Smyrna, along which the Hermus flows. Not far from these cities is also Magnesia under Sipylus, which has been declared a free city by the Romans. This too was damaged by the earthquakes that occurred recently. On the other hand, for one heading in the opposite direction towards the Caicus, from Larisa, for one crossing the Hermus to Cyme, it is seventy stadia; thence to Myrina, forty stadia; and an equal distance thence to Grynium, and from there to Elaea. According to Artemidorus, from Cyme there is Adae, and then, after forty stadia, a promontory which they call Hydra, which forms the Elaitic Gulf with the opposite promontory of Harmatus. The width of the mouth is about eighty stadia, and as one goes deep into the gulf, Myrina, an Aeolian city with a harbor, is at sixty stadia; then comes the Harbor of the Achaeans, where the altars of the twelve gods are; then Grynium, a small town of the Myrinaeans, with a temple of Apollo, an ancient oracle, and a sumptuous temple of white stone, and the distance to it is forty stadia; then seventy stadia to Elaea, which has a harbor and a naval station of the Attalid kings, founded by Menestheus and the Athenians who campaigned with him against Ilium. The matters that follow concerning Pitane, Atarneus, and the other places in this region have already been discussed.