Greek Texts & Translations

of coast is called also Iolcus. Here was held the Pylaic (Peliac?) assembly and festival.

Artemidorus places the Gulf of Pagasae farther from Demetrias, near the places subject to Philoctetes. In the gulf he says is the island Cicynethus, ^note and a small town of the same name. 16

The poet next enumerates the cities subject to Philoctetes.

Methone is not the Thracian Methone razed by Philip. We have already noticed the change of name these places and others in the Peloponnesus have undergone. Other places enumerated as subject to Philoctetes, are Thaumacia, Olizon, and Meliboea, all along the shore next adjacent.

In front of the Magnetes lie clusters of islands; the most celebrated are Sciathus, ^note Peparethus, ^note Icus, ^note Halonnesus, and Scyrus, ^note which contain cities of the same name. Scyrus however is the most famous of any for the friendship which subsisted between Lycomedes and Achilles, and for the birth and education of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. In after times, when Philip became powerful, perceiving that the Athenians were masters of the sea, and sovereigns both of these and other islands, he made those islands which lay near his own country more celebrated than any of the rest. For as his object in waging war was the sovereignty of Greece, he attacked those places first which were near him; and as he attached to Macedonia many parts of Magnesia itself, of Thrace, and of the rest of the surrounding country, so also he seized upon the islands in front of Magnesia, and made the possession of islands which were before entirely unknown, a subject of warlike contention, and brought them into notice.

Scyrus however is particularly celebrated in ancient histories. It is also highly reputed for the excellence of its goats, and the quarries of variegated marble, such as the Carystian, the Deucallian, (Docimaean?) the Synnadic, and the Hierapolitic kinds. For there may be seen at Rome columns, consisting of a single stone, and large slabs of variegated marble, (from Scyrus,) with which the city is embellished both at the public charge and at the expense of individuals, which has caused works of white marble to be little esteemed.