- niap. 17.] ACCOUNT OF COTJNTEIES, ETC. 301
- lie level plain of the adjacent country into the sea, a distance
)f seventy-five' miles ; its circumference at its base being loO niles in extent. There was formerly upon its summit the ^oxs-n of Acroathon-: the present towns are TJranopolis Pala^orium, Thvssus, Cleonc^ and Apollonia, the uihabitants 3f which have the surname of Macrobii^ The town also_ ot Cassera, and then the other side of the Isthmus, after Avhich pome Acanthus^ Stagira", Sithone^ Heraclea^ and the coun- try of Mygdonia that lies below, in which are situate, at some distance 'from the sea, Apollonia'" and Arethusa. Again, upon the coast we have Posidium, and the bay with the town oi Cermorus, Ampllipolis'^ a free town, and the nation ot the 1 This is a mistake. It is only forty miles in length. From Lieut. Smith {Journal of Royal Geogr. Soc. vol. vii. p. 65) we learn that its average breadth is about fom- miles ; consequently Phny s statement as to its circumference must be greatly exaggerated. Juvenal Sat x. 1. 174 mentions the story of the canal as a specunen of Greek falsehood ; but distinct traces havie sm-vived, to be seen by modern traveUers, aU the way from the GuK of Monte Santo to the Bay of Erso m the Gult ot Lon- tessa, except about 200 yards in the middle, winch has been probably ^s^'cTr^ Acrothoum. Phny, with Strabo and Mela, errs in thinking that it stood on the mountain. It stood on the peninsula only, probably on the site of the modern Lavra. , . . t^ r a^a 3 Or the ' Heaven City,' from its elevated position. It was lounclea by Alexarchus, brother of Cassandcr, king of Macedon. 4 Probably on the west side of the peninsula, south of Thyssus. 5 Or " long-lived." , i . -i i i i^ 6 Kow Erisso ; on the east side of the Isthmus, about a mde and a halt from the canal of Xerxes. There are ruins here of a large mole 7 A httle to the north of the Istlmms now caUed Stavro. It was the birth-place of Aristotle the philosopher, commonly called the Stagi- rite, and was, in consequence, restored by Phihp by whom it, had been des royed ; or, as Pliny says in B. vii. c. 30, by Alexander the Gmit- 8 The nkme of the central one of the three peninsulas projecting from ChalcicUce. The poets use the word Silhonius frequently as sigmiymg '^s'poSly not the same as theHcraclea Sintica previously mentioned. 10 Now ckUed PoUina, south of Lake Bolbe, on the road from Thes- '^J^l^^'Son or Neptune. Now Capo Stavros in Thessaly, the west front of the Gulf of Pagasa, if indeed this is the place hero "2on the left or eastern bank of the river Strymon wliieh flowed round it, whence its name Amphi-poUs" round the -ty." Its site is now oc- cupied by a village called Neokhorio, m Turkish Jeni-Kcm or JNew
