17. Carura[1295] is the boundary of Phrygia and Caria. It is a village, where there are inns for the reception of travellers, and springs of boiling water, some of which rise in the river Mæander, and others on its banks. There is a story, that a pimp had lodgings in the inns for a great company of women, and that during the night he and all the women were overwhelmed by an earthquake and disappeared. Nearly the whole of the country about the Mæander, as far as the inland parts, is subject to earthquakes, and is undermined by fire and water. For all this cavernous condition of the country, beginning from the plains, extends to the Charonia; it exists likewise in Hierapolis, and in Acharaca in the district Nysæis, also in the plain of Magnesia, and in Myus. The soil is dry and easily reduced to powder, full of salts, and very inflammable. This perhaps is the reason why the course of the Mæander is winding, for the stream is diverted in many places from its direction, and brings down a great quantity of alluvial soil, some part of which it deposits in various places along the shore, and forcing the rest forwards occasions it to drift into the open sea. It has made, for example, Priene, which was formerly upon the sea, an inland city, by the deposition of banks of alluvial earth along an extent of 40 stadia.
18. Phrygia Catacecaumene, (or the Burnt,) which is occupied by Lydians and Mysians, obtained this name from something of the following kind. In Philadelphia,[1296] a city adjoining to it, even the walls of the houses are not safe, for nearly every day they are shaken, and crevices appear. The inhabitants are constantly attentive to these accidents to which the ground is subject, and build with a view to their occurrence.
Apameia among other cities experienced, before the invasion of Mithridates, frequent earthquakes, and the king, on his arrival, when he saw the overthrow of the city, gave a hundred talents for its restoration. It is said that the same thing happened in the time of Alexander; for this reason it is probable that Neptune is worshipped there, although they are an inland people, and that it had the name of Celænæ from Celænus,[1297] the son of Neptune, by Celæno, one of the Danaïdes, or from the black colour of the stones, or from the blackness which is the effect of combustion. What is related of Sipylus and its overthrow is not to be regarded as a fable. For earthquakes overthrew the present Magnesia, which is situated below that mountain, at the time that Sardis and other celebrated cities in various parts sustained great injury.[1298] The emperor[1299] gave a sum of money for their restoration, as formerly his father had assisted the Tralliani on the occurrence of a similar calamity, when the gymnasium and other parts of the city were destroyed; in the same manner he had assisted also the Laodiceans.
19. We must listen, however, to the ancient historians, and to the account of Xanthus, who composed a history of Lydian affairs; he relates the changes which had frequently taken place in this country,—I have mentioned them in a former part of my work.[1300] Here is laid the scene of the fable of what befell Typhon; here are placed the Arimi, and this country is said to be the Catacecaumene. Nor do historians hesitate to suppose, that the places between the Mæander and the Lydians are all of this nature, as well on account of the number of lakes and rivers, as the caverns, which are to be found in many parts of the country. The waters of the lake between Laodiceia and Apameia, although like a sea, emit a muddy smell, as if they had come through a subterraneous channel. It is said that actions are brought against the Mæander for transferring land from one place to another by sweeping away the angles of the windings, and a fine is levied out of the toll, which is paid at the ferries.
20. Between Laodiceia and Carura is a temple of Mēn Carus, which is held in great veneration. In our time there was a large Herophilian[1301] school of medicine under the direction of Zeuxis,[1302] and afterwards of Alexander Philalethes, as in the time of our ancestors there was, at Smyrna, a school of the disciples of Erasistratus under the conduct of Hicesius. At present there is nothing of this kind.
21. The names of some Phrygian tribes, as the Berecyntes [and Cerbesii], are mentioned, which no longer exist. And Alcman says,
“He played the Cerbesian, a Phrygian air.”
They speak also of a Cerbesian pit which sends forth destructive exhalations; this however exists, but the people have no longer the name of Cerbesii. Æschylus in his Niobe[1303] confounds them; Niobe says that she shall remember Tantalus, and his story;
“those who have an altar of Jupiter, their paternal god, on the Idæan hill,”
and again;