Geography

​Philip, having been reared in Pella, which was formerly small, increased it in size; and it has a lake before it, from which the Lydias river flows; and a certain branch of the Axius river fills this lake. Next, the Axius, dividing Bottiaea and the land of Amphaxitis, and having received the Erigon river, empties between Chalastra and Therme; and upon the Axius river lies a place which Homer calls Amydon, and says that the Paeonians came from there to Troy as allies: “From afar out of Amydon, from wide-flowing Axius.” But since the Axius is turbid, whereas a certain spring rising from Amydon and mixing with it has water of the fairest quality, for this reason they rewrite the following verse: “Of Axius, whose fairest water is spread over Aia,” in this way: “Of Axius, to which the fairest water of Aie is spread.” For it is not the water of the Axius that is spread, as being the fairest, over the spring, but that of the spring over the Axius. Epitome.

​In the phrase “is spread over aia” or “Aian” (for the reading is twofold), some understood “Aian” not as the land, but as a certain spring, as is clear from what the geographer says, stating that the Amydon in Homer was later called Abydon, and was razed to the ground. And near Amydon is a spring called Aia, which discharges very pure water into the Axius, which, being filled from many rivers, flows turbid. Therefore, he says, the current reading, “the fairest water of Axius is spread over aia,” is corrupt, as it is obviously not the Axius that spreads its water over the spring, but the reverse; and then the geographer, finding fault with it with some difficulty, seems also to wish to reject entirely the interpretation of “aia” as the land, and to cast such a word out of the Homeric epic. Eustathius on Iliad 2.850. ​After the river Axius is the city of Thessalonike, which was formerly called Therme; and it is a foundation of Cassander, who named it after his own wife, the child of Philip son of Amyntas; and he relocated the surrounding small towns into it, such as Chalastra, Aeneia, Cissus, and some others. And from this Cissus, one might suspect that the Iphidamas in Homer also came, whose grandfather Cisses, he says, reared him in Thrace, which is now called Macedonia. Epitome.

​Somewhere around there is also Mount Bermion, which was formerly occupied by the Briges, a Thracian tribe, some of whom crossed over into Asia and were renamed Phrygians. After Thessalonikeia is the remainder of the Thermaic Gulf as far as Canastraeon. This is a cape forming a peninsula, rising opposite the Magnesian land; and the name of the peninsula is Pallene; and it has an isthmus of five stadia which has been dug through; and upon it lies a city which was formerly Potidaea, a foundation of the Corinthians, but later Cassandreia, named after the same king Cassander, who restored it after it had been overthrown; the voyage around this peninsula is five hundred and seventy stadia. And still earlier, they say that the Giants were born here, and those who tell myths call the country Phlegra, while those who speak more plausibly declare that a certain barbarian and impious tribe occupied the place, which was destroyed by Heracles when, having captured Troy, he sailed back to his own land. And here too, the Trojan women are said to have been the cause of the ruin, by setting fire to the ships so that they might not be slaves to the wives of those who had captured them. Vatican Epitome.

​The city of Beroea lies at the foot of Mount Bermion. Epitome.