Geography

​Mylasa has produced remarkable men in our time, who were at once orators and leaders of the people of the city, Euthydemus and Hybreas. Euthydemus, then, having inherited from his ancestors both a great estate and reputation, and having added to them his own eloquence, was not only great in his native city, but was also deemed worthy of the highest honor in Asia. But to Hybreas, as he himself used to relate in his lecture-room and was admitted by his fellow-citizens, his father left only a wood-carrying mule and a mule-driver. Having supported himself by these for a short time, and having attended the lectures of Diotrephes of Antioch, he returned and applied himself to the office of market-inspector. Having bustled about in this office and made a small amount of money, he directed his efforts to public life and to following the forensic advocates, and he quickly rose in influence and was admired even while Euthydemus was still alive, but most of all after his death, when he became master of the city. Indeed, while alive, Euthydemus was far more powerful, being at once influential and useful to the city, so that even if there was something tyrannical about him, this was redeemed by the usefulness that accompanied it. At any rate, people praise this saying of Hybreas, which he uttered in a public speech towards the end of Euthydemus’s life: ‘Euthydemus, you are a necessary evil to the city; for we can live neither with you nor without you.’ Having, then, risen greatly in power and being thought to be both a good citizen and an orator, he met with a setback in his political opposition to Labienus. For the others indeed, when he advanced with an army and a Parthian alliance, since the Parthians already held Asia , yielded as being unarmed and peaceable; but Zenon of Laodiceia and Hybreas did not yield, both being orators, but caused their own cities to revolt; and Hybreas even further provoked by a certain remark a youth who was easily irritated and full of folly. For when that youth proclaimed himself Parthian Emperor, Hybreas said: ‘Well then, I too declare myself Carian Emperor.’ And as a result of this, Labienus marched against the city, having already organized legions of the Romans who were in Asia. He did not indeed capture Hybreas himself, who had retired to Rhodes, but he ruined and plundered his house, which had costly furnishings; and in like manner he also maltreated the whole city. But when Labienus left Asia, Hybreas returned and restored both himself and the city. So much, then, for Mylasa.

​Stratoniceia is a settlement of Macedonians; and it too was adorned with costly buildings by the kings. There are in the territory of the Stratoniceans two temples: one at Lagina, that of Hecate, which is very famous and brings together great festivals every year; and, near the city, that of Zeus Chrysaoreus, which is common to all Carians, to which they gather to sacrifice and to deliberate on their common affairs. Their league is called the Chrysaorian League, consisting of villages; and those who contribute the greatest number of villages have the precedence in voting, like the Ceramians. The Stratoniceans also participate in the league, although they are not of the Carian race, but because they possess villages that belong to the Chrysaorian league. And here too was born a remarkable man, the orator Menippus surnamed Catocas, in the time of our fathers, whom Cicero praises most of all the orators in Asia whom he had heard, as he himself says in a certain writing, comparing him with Xenocles and others who flourished in those times. There is also another Stratoniceia, which is called ‘Stratoniceia near the Taurus’, a small town situated close to the mountain.

​Alabanda too lies under two hills, which are so joined together as to present the appearance of a draped pack-ass. Indeed, Apollonius ‘the Soft’, mocking the city both for this shape and for the multitude of its scorpions, said that it was a draped pack-ass loaded with scorpions. Both this city and that of the Mylasians are full of these pests, as is all the mountainous country between them. It is inhabited by luxury-loving and wanton people, having many female harp-players. And there were men worthy of mention, two brothers who were orators of Alabanda, Menecles, whom we mentioned a little above, and Hierocles; and also those who migrated to Rhodes, namely, Apollonius and Molon.