At the commencement of this work will be found some other narrations of a similar kind, which should be considered at the same time, and which will greatly tend to strengthen our belief both in these works of nature and also in its other changes.
18. The Piræus having been formerly an island, and lying πέραν, or off the shore, is said to have thus received its name. Leucas,382 on the contrary, has been made an island by the Corinthians, who cut through the isthmus which connected it with the shore [of the mainland]. It is concerning this place that Laertes is made to say,
“Oh that I possess’d
Such vigour now as when in arms I took
Nericus, continental city fair.”383
Here man devoted his labour to make a separation, in other instances to the construction of moles and bridges. Such is that which connects the island opposite to Syracuse384 with the mainland. This junction is now effected by means of a bridge, but formerly, according to Ibycus, by a pier of picked stones, which he calls elect. Of Bura385 and Helice,386 one has been swallowed by an earthquake, the other covered by the waves. Near to Methone,387 which is on the Hermionic Gulf,388 a mountain seven stadia in height was cast up during a fiery eruption; during the day it could not be approached on account of the heat and sulphureous smell; at night it emitted an agreeable odour, appeared brilliant at a distance, and was so hot that the sea boiled all around it to a distance of five stadia, and appeared in a state of agitation for twenty stadia, the heap being formed of fragments of rock as large as towers. Both Arne and Mideia389 have been buried in the waters of Lake Copaïs.390 These towns the poet in his Catalogue391 thus speaks of;
“Arne claims
A record next for her illustrious sons,
Vine-bearing Arne. Thou wast also there
Mideia.”392
It seems that several Thracian cities have been submerged by the Lake Bistonis,393 and that now called Aphnitis.394 Some also affirm that certain cities of Trerus were also overwhelmed, in the neighbourhood of Thrace. Artemita, formerly one of the Echinades,395 is now part of the mainland; the same has happened to some other of the islets near the Achelous, occasioned, it is said, in the same way, by the alluvium carried into the sea by that river, and Hesiod396 assures us that a like fate awaits them all. Some of the Ætolian promontories were formerly islands. Asteria,397 called by Homer Asteris, is no longer what it was.
“There is a rocky isle
In the mid-sea, Samos the rude between
And Ithaca, not large, named Asteris.
It hath commodious havens, into which
A passage clear opens on either side.”398
There is no good anchorage there now. Neither is there in Ithaca the cavern, nor yet the temple of the nymphs described to us by Homer. It seems more correct to attribute this to change having come over the places, than either to the ignorance or the romancing of the poet. This however, being uncertain, must be left to every man’s opinion.
19. Myrsilus tells us that Antissa399 was formerly an island, and so called because it was opposite to Lesbos,400 then named Issa. Now, however, it forms one of the towns of Lesbos.401 Some have believed that Lesbos itself has been disjoined from Mount Ida in the same way as Prochytas402 and Pithecussa403 from Misenum,404 Capreæ405 from the Athenæum, Sicily from Rhegium,406 and Ossa from Olympus.407 Many changes similar to these have occurred elsewhere. The river Ladon in Arcadia ceased for some time its flow. Duris informs us that the Rhagæ408 in Media gained that appellation from chasms made in the ground near the Gates of the Caspian409 by earthquakes, in which many cities and villages were destroyed, and the rivers underwent various changes. Ion, in his satirical composition of Omphale, has said of Eubœa,
“The light wave of the Euripus has divided the land of Eubœa from Bœotia; separating the projecting land by a strait.”
20. Demetrius of Callatis, speaking of the earthquakes which formerly occurred throughout the whole of Greece, states that a great portion of the Lichadian Islands and of Kenæum410 were submerged; that the hot springs of Ædepsus411 and Thermopylæ were suppressed for three days, and that when they commenced to run again those of Ædepsus gushed from new fountains. That at Oreus412 on the sea-coast the wall and nearly seven hundred houses fell at once. That the greater part of Echinus,413 Phalara,414 and Heraclæa of Trachis415 were thrown down, Phalara being overturned from its very foundations. That almost the same misfortune occurred to the Lamians416 and inhabitants of Larissa; that Scarpheia417 was overthrown from its foundations, not less than one thousand seven hundred persons being swallowed up, and at Thronium418 more than half that number. That a torrent of water gushed forth taking three directions, one to Scarphe and Thronium, another to Thermopylæ, and a third to the plains of Daphnus in Phocis. That the springs of [many] rivers were for several days dried up; that the course of the Sperchius419 was changed, thus rendering navigable what formerly were highways; that the Boagrius420 flowed through another channel; that many parts of Alope, Cynus, and Opus were injured,421 and the castle of Œum, which commands the latter city, entirely overturned. That part of the wall of Elateia422 was thrown down; and that at Alponus,423 during the celebration of the games in honour of Ceres, twenty-five maidens, who had mounted a tower to enjoy the show exhibited in the port, were precipitated into the sea by the falling of the tower. They also record that a large fissure was made [by the water] through the midst of the island of Atalanta,424 opposite Eubœa,425 sufficient for ships to sail in;