“Penelope seized the well-turned key with her firm hand.”[1175]
But admitting this, the other assertions are not to be allowed to which Demetrius is disposed to attend; nor has he refuted in a convincing manner those persons who maintain that we ought to read “far from Chalybe.” For having conceded that, although at present there are not silver mines among the Chalybes, they might formerly have existed, he does not grant that they were far-famed, and worthy of notice, like the iron mines. But some one may say, what should prevent them from being as famous as the iron mines, or does an abundance of iron make a place celebrated, and not an abundance of silver? Again, if the silver mines had obtained celebrity in the age of Homer, but not in the heroic times, can any one blame the poet’s representation? How did their fame reach him? How did the fame of the copper mines at Temesa in Italy, or of the wealth of Thebes in Egypt, reach his ears, although Egyptian Thebes was situated almost at double the distance of the Chaldæi.
But Demetrius does not altogether agree with those whose opinions he espouses. For when he is describing the neighbourhood of Scepsis his own birth-place, he mentions Enea, a village, Argyria, and Alazonia, as near Scepsis, and the Æsepus;[1176] but if these places exist at all, they must be near the sources of the Æsepus. Hecatæus places them beyond the mouths of that river. Palæphatus, who says that the Amazons formerly occupied Alope, and at present Zeleia, does not advance anything in agreement with these statements. But if Menecrates agrees with Demetrius, neither does Menecrates say what this Alope, or Alobe, is, (or, in whatever manner they please to write the name,) nor yet does Demetrius himself.
24. With regard to Apollodorus, who mentions these places in his discourse on the array of the Trojan forces, we have said much before in reply to him, and we must now speak of him again.[1177] He is of opinion that we ought not to understand the Halizoni without the Halys, for no auxiliaries came to Troy from the country on the other side of the Halys. First, then, we will inquire of him who are the Halizoni within the Halys, and situated
“far from Alybe, where are silver mines?”
He will not be able to reply. Next we will ask the reason why he does not admit that some auxiliaries came from the country on the other side of the Halys. For if it was the case, that all the rest were living on this side the Halys, except the Thracians, nothing prevented this one body of allies from coming from afar, from the country beyond the Leuco-Syrians? Or, was it possible for the persons immediately engaged in the war to pass over from those places, and from the country beyond them, as the Amazons, Treres, and Cimmerians, but impossible for allies to do so?
The Amazons were not allies, because Priam had fought in alliance with the Phrygians against them:
“at that time, says Priam, I was among their auxiliaries on that day, when the Amazons came to attack them.”[1178]
The people also who were living on the borders of the country of the Amazons were not situated at so great a distance that it was difficult to send for them from thence, nor did any animosity exist, I suppose, at that time to prevent them from affording assistance.
25. Nor is there any foundation for the opinion, that all the ancients agree that no people from the country beyond the Halys took part in the Trojan war. Testimony may be found to the contrary. Mæandrius at least says that Heneti came from the country of the Leuco-Syrians to assist the Trojans in the war; that they set sail thence with the Thracians, and settled about the recess of the Adriatic; and that the Heneti, who had no place in the expedition, were Cappadocians. This account seems to agree with the circumstance, that the people inhabiting the whole of that part of Cappadocia near the Halys, which extends along Paphlagonia, speak two dialects, and that their language abounds with Paphlagonian names, as Bagas, Biasas, Æniates, Rhatotes, Zardoces, Tibius, Gasys, Oligasys, and Manes. For these names are frequently to be found in the Bamonitis, the Pimolitis, the Gazaluïtis, and Gazacene, and in most of the other districts. Apollodorus himself quotes the words of Homer, altered by Zenodotus;