Geography

​Thrace as a whole consists of twenty-two tribes; and although it is exceedingly exhausted, it is able to send out fifteen thousand cavalry and twenty myriads of infantry. After Maroneia comes the city of Orthagoreia and the region around Serrium, a rough coastal voyage, and Tempyra, the small town of the Samothracians, and another called Characoma, in front of which lies the island of Samothrace, and Imbros is not far from it; but Thasos is more than twice its size. From Characoma is Doriscus, where Xerxes measured the number of his army. Then comes the Hebrus, having a navigable course of one hundred and twenty stadia to Cypsela; he says this is the boundary of Macedonia, which the Romans took away from Perseus, and afterwards from the Pseudo-Philip. Now Paulus, who captured Perseus, having united also the Epirot tribes with Macedonia, divided the country into four parts, and assigned one to Amphipolis, another to Thessalonica, another to Pella, and another to the Pelagones. Along the Hebrus dwell the Corpili, and further up the Brenae, and then, at the furthest end, the Bessi; for the navigation extends up to this point. All these tribes are predatory, but especially the Bessi, whom he says border on the Odrysae and the Sapaei. The royal residence of the Asti was Bizye. But some call Odrysae all those who dwell above the coast from the Hebrus and Cypsela as far as Odessus, over whom Amadocus, Cersobleptes, Berisades, Seuthes, and Cotys ruled. E.

​The river in Thrace now called Rhyginia was formerly called Erigon. Epit.

​The brothers Iasion and Dardanus used to inhabit Samothrace; but when Iasion was struck by lightning because of his sin against Demeter, Dardanus departed from Samothrace, came and dwelt at the foot of Mount Ida, calling the city Dardania, and taught the Trojans the mysteries in Samothrace. Samothrace was formerly called Samos. Epit.

​Many have declared that the gods worshiped in Samothrace are the same as the Cabiri, though they themselves are unable to say who the Cabiri are, just as with the Cyrbantes and Corybantes, and likewise the Curetes and Idaean Dactyli. E.

​Near the outlet of the Hebrus, which has two mouths, lies the city of Aenus in the Melas Gulf, a foundation of the Mytilaeneans and Cymaeans, and even earlier of the Alopeconnesians; then comes Cape Sarpedon; then the peninsula called the Thracian Chersonese, which forms the Propontis, the Melas Gulf, and the Hellespont. For the cape projects towards the south-east, connecting Europe with Asia by a seven-stadium strait at Abydus and Sestus, having the Propontis on the left, and on the right the Melas Gulf, so called because the Melas empties into it, as Herodotus and Eudoxus state. And Herodotus, he says, has stated that this stream did not suffice for the army of Xerxes; and the said cape is closed by an isthmus of forty stadia. In the middle of the isthmus, therefore, is founded the city of Lysimacheia, named after the king who built it; and on either side, on the Melas Gulf, lies Cardia, the largest of the cities in the Chersonese, founded by the Milesians and Clazomenians, and later also by the Athenians; and on the Propontis lies Pactye. After Cardia come Drabus and Limnae; then Alopeconnesus, where the Melas Gulf mostly ends; then the great cape Mazusia; then in a gulf lies Elaeus, where the Protesilaeum is, opposite which, at a distance of forty stadia, is Sigeum, a cape of the Troad. And this is almost the southernmost point of the Chersonese, slightly more than four hundred stadia from Cardia; and the remaining distance to the other side of the isthmus, it is slightly more than this distance for those sailing around. E.

​The Chersonese in Thrace forms three seas: the Propontis on the north, the Hellespont on the east, and the Melas Gulf on the south, where also the river Melas, eponymous with the gulf, empties. Epit.

​On the isthmus of the Chersonese lie three cities: Cardia on the Melas Gulf, Pactye on the Propontis, and Lysimacheia in the interior; the length of the isthmus is forty stadia. Epit.