of Palamedes wrecked the Grecian fleet, though
far distant from one another, separate the AEgean from the Thessalian
Sea, which, extending as it proceeds, on the right, where it is widest,
is full of the Sporades and Cyclades islands, which latter are so called
because they lie round Delos, an island celebrated as the birthplace of
the gods; on the left it washes Imbros, Tenedos, Lemnos, and Thasos; and
when agitated by any gale it beats violently on Lesbos.

3. From thence, with a receding current, it flows past the temple of
Apollo Sminthius, and Troas, and Troy, renowned for the adventures of
heroes; and on the west it forms the Gulf of Melas, near the head of
which is seen Abdera, the abode of Protagoras and Democritus; and the
blood-stained seat of the Thracian Diomede; and the valleys through
which the Maritza flows on its way to its waves; and Maronea, and AEnus,
founded under sad auspices and soon deserted by AEneas, when under the
guidance of the gods he hastened onwards to ancient Italy.

4. After this it narrows gradually, and, as if by a kind of natural wish
to mingle with its waters, it rushes towards the Black Sea; and taking
a portion of it forms a figure like the Greek +Ph+. Then
separating the Hellespont from Mount Rhodope, it passes by
Cynossema,[123] where Hecuba is supposed to be buried, and Caela, and
Sestos, and Callipolis, and passing by the tombs of Ajax and Achilles,
it touches Dardanus and Abydos (where Xerxes, throwing a bridge across,
passed over the waters on foot), and Lampsacus, given to Themistocles by
the king of Persia; and Parion, founded by Parius the son of Jason.

5. Then curving round in a semicircle and separating the opposite lands
more widely in the round gulf of the sea of Marmora, it washes on the
east Cyzicus, and Dindyma, the holy seat of the mighty mother Cybele,
and Apamia, and Cius, and Astacus afterwards called Nicomedia from the
King Nicomedes.

6. On the west it beats against the Chersonese, AEgospotami where
Anaxagoras predicted that stones would fall from heaven, and Lysimachia,
and the city which Hercules founded and consecrated to the memory of his
comrade Perinthus. And in order to preserve the full and complete figure
of the letter +Ph+, in the very centre of the circular gulf lies
the oblong island of Proconnesus, and also Besbicus.

7. Beyond the upper end of this island the sea again becomes very narrow
where it separates Bithynia from Europe, passing by C