Greek Texts & Translations

69. Between Elaea, Pitane, Atarneus, and Pergamum on this side the Caïcus, is Teuthrania, distant from none of these places above 70 stadia. Teuthras is said to have been king of the Cilicians and Mysians. According to Euripides, Auge, with her son Telephus, was enclosed in a chest and thrown into the sea, by command of her father Aleus, who discovered that she had been violated by Hercules. By the care of Minerva the chest crossed the sea, and was cast ashore at the mouth of the Caïcus. Teuthras took up the mother and her son, married the former, and treated the latter as his own child. This is a fable, but another concurrence of circumstances is wanting to explain how the daughter of the Arcadian became the wife of the king of the Mysians, and how her son succeeded to the throne of the Mysians. It is however believed that Teuthras and Telephus governed the country lying about Teuthrania and the Caïcus, but the poet mentions a few particulars only of this history: as when he slew the son of Telephus, the hero Eurypylns, and many of his companions, the Ceaei, were killed around him for the sake of the gifts of women. ^note Homer here rather proposes an enigma than a clear meaning. For we do not know who the Cetaei were, nor what people we are to understand by this name, nor what is meant by the words, for the sake of the gifts of women. ^note Gram- marians adduce and compare with this other trifling stories, but they indulge in invetion rather than solve the difficulty. 70

Let us dismiss this doubtful matter, and turn to what is more certain; for instance, according to Homer, Eurypylus appears to have been king of the places about the Caïcus, so that perhaps a part of the Cilicians were his subjects, and that there were not only two but three dynasties among that people.

This opinion is supported by the circumstance that in the Elaïtis there is a small river, like a winter torrent, of the name of Ceteium. This falls into another like it, then again