Res Gestae

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).

Athos,[*](Modern ʽἱερὸν ῎ορος, Monte Santo.) that lofty mountain in Macedonia through which the Medic ships once passed,[*](Under Xerxes; see Hdt. vii. 122.) and Caphereus, the headland of Euboea[*](Its mediæval name was Negroponte and the headland’s Cappo d’Oro.) where Nauplius,

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Looking eastward. father of Palamedes, wrecked the Argive fleet,[*](In order to avenge the death of his son, Nauplius kindled a beacon-fire on the cliff, which misled the Greek fleet and caused its almost utter destruction.) although they face each other at a long distance apart, separate the Aegean and the Thessalian seas.[*](This is not accurate, but makes the Aegean too small and the Thessalian sea, more commonly called Mare Thracicum, too large; see Strabo, Mela, and Pliny.) The Aegean gradually grows larger, and on the right, where it is of wide extent, is rich in islands through the Sporades and Cyclades, so-called because they are all grouped about Delos, famous as the cradle of the gods.[*](Apollo and Diana.) On the left, it washes Imbros and Tenedos, Lemnos and Thasos, and when the wind is strong, dashes violently upon Lesbos.

From there, with back-flowing current,[*](Cf. Hor., Odes, i. 2, 13, retortis violenter undis.) it laves the temple of Apollo Sminthius,[*](On Tenedos; Iliad. i. 38; Strabo, xiii. 1, 46. The god had this epithet from σμίνθος, a kind of field-mouse destructive to the crops, destroyed by Apollo.) the Troad, and Ilium, famed for the death of heroes, and forms the bay of Melas,[*](The Bay of Saros, west of the Thracian Chersonese and the Hellespont.) facing the west wind, at the entrance of which is seen Abdera, the home of Protagoras and Democritus, and the bloodstained dwelling of the Thracian Diomedes,[*](According to the myth, he fed his horses on human flesh, and was slain by Hercules.) and the vales through which the Hebrus[*](To-day the Maritza.) flows into it, and Maronea and Aenos,[*](Modern Marogna. The identification of this town with the city founded by Aeneas in Thrace is doubtful, since Homer says that auxiliaries came from there to Ilium, and Apollodorus represents Heracles as landing there on his return from Troy; see Heyne, Excursus to Aen. iii. p. 416; and xxviii. 4, 13, below.) a city which Aeneas began under unfavourable auspices, but presently abandoned it and hastened on to ancient Ausonia under the guidance of the gods.

After this, the Aegean gradually grows narrower and flows as if by a kind of natural union into the Pontus; and joining with a part of this it takes the

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form of the Greek letter φ.[*](κυνὸς σῆμα,the dog’s monument, since Hecuba, after the capture of Troy, was said to have been changed into a dog; cf. Ovid, Metam. xiii. 399 ff.) Then it separates Hellespontus from the province of Rhodopa and flows past Cynossema,[*](Gallipoli.) where Hecuba is supposed to be buried, and Coela, Sestos and Callipolis.3 On the opposite side it washes the tombs of Achilles and Ajax, and Dardanus and Abydus, from which Xerxes built a bridge and crossed the sea on foot; then Lampsacus, which the Persian king gave to Themistocles as a gift,[*](See Nepos, Them. 10, 3.) and Parion, founded by Paris, the son of lasion.