Volume 1
The geography of Strabo / Literally translated, with notes. The first six books by H. C .Hamilton, esq., the remainder by W. Falconer.
- Strabo
- Date:
- 1854-1857
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The geography of Strabo / Literally translated, with notes. The first six books by H. C .Hamilton, esq., the remainder by W. Falconer. Source: Wellcome Collection.
419/542 page 405
![city from them. The inhabitants generally are rather called Mamertini than Messenians. The district abounds in wine, which we do not call Messenian, but INIamertinian: it vies with the best produced in Italy.^ The city is well peopled, but Catana is more populous, which has been colonized by the Romans.^ Tauromenium is less populous than either. Catana was founded by people from Naxos, and Tauromenium by the Zanclteans of llybla,^ but Catana was deprived of its original inliabitants when Iliero, the tyrant of S}racuse, introduced others, and called it by the name of ^Etna instead of Catana. It is of this that Pindar says he was the founder, when he sings, “ Thou undeistandest what I say, O father, that bearest the same name with the splendid holy sacrifices, thou founder of jEtna.” ■* But on the death of Iliero,’’’ the Catameans returned and ex- l^elled the new inhabitants, and demolished the mausoleum of the tyrant. The iEtnfeans, compelled to retire,® established themselves on a hilly district of ^tna, called Innesa,'^ and called the place ^Etna. It is distant from Catana about 80 stadia. They still acknowledged Iliero as their founder. jl-ltna lies the highest of any part of Catana, and partici- pates the most in the inconveniences occasioned by the mouths of the volcano, for the streams of lava flowing down in Cata- naea® pass through it first. It was here that Amphinoinus * These wines, although grown in Sicily, were reckoned among the Italian wines. .See Athen. Deipiios. lib. i. cap. 21, ed. Schweigh. tom. i. p. 102. And from the time of Julius Caisar they were classed in the fourth division of the most esteemed wines. See Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xiv. J 8, No. 4 and ^17. .\t the same time as Syracuse. ’ .\ note in the French translation suggests that we should read Sici- lians of llybla. Tu)v ivYj3\y YcKtXwv instead of XayicXaioJV. * Iliero in Greek wasTspaiv. The line of I’indar in Kramer’s edition is, [o] rot Xiyuj, t^aOtuiv i(pu)v OjUitivvjat Trdrfp, KTidTOQ zViTVaQ. The words played on are 'Upmv and lepajj/. * This occurred in the year 408. “ About 401. ’ Cluvier considers that the monastery of Saint Nicolas de Arenis, about 12 modern miles from Catana, is situated about tlie place to which Strabo here alludes. * ri/v Ka-avaiap. The spelling of this name, like very many in the present work, was by no means uniform in classic authors. Strabo has generally called it Catana (Kardpri); Ptolemy, Kardvr] kcXo'jpui ; Pliny,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24872556_0001_0419.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
