“around issues vapour as though caused by fire—the other gushes out in the summer, cold like hail, or frozen as snow,”
for no warm springs are now found in that spot, nor is the source of the Scamander there, but in the mountain, and there is one source instead of two.[1436] It is probable that the warm spring has failed, but the cold spring flowing from the Scamander along a subterraneous channel emerges at this place; or, because the water was near the Scamander, it was called the source of that river, for there are several springs, which are said to be its sources.
44. The Andirus empties itself into the Scamander; a river which comes from the district of Caresene, a mountainous country, in which are many villages. It is well cultivated by the husbandmen. It adjoins Dardania, and extends as far as the places about Zeleia and Pityeia. The country, it is said, had its name from the river Caresus, mentioned by the poet,
“the Rhesus, Heptaporus, Caresus, and Rhodius,”[1437]
but the city of the same name as the river is in ruins.
Demetrius again says, the river Rhesus is now called Rhoeites, unless it is the Rhesus which empties itself into the Granicus.
The Heptaporus, which is called also Polyporus, is crossed seven times in travelling from the places about Cale Peuce (or the beautiful pitch tree) to the village Melænæ and to the Asclepieium, founded by Lysimachus.
Attalus, the first king, gives this account of the beautiful pitch tree; its circumference, he says, was 24 feet; the height of the trunk from the root was 67 feet; it then formed three branches, equally distant from each other; it then contracts into one head, and here it completes the whole height of two plethra, and 15 cubits. It is distant from Adramyttium 180 stadia towards the north.
The Caresus flows from Malus, a place situated between Palæscepsis and Achæïum, in front of the isle of Tenedos, and empties itself into the Æsepus.
The Rhodius flows from Cleandria and Gordus, which are distant 60 stadia from Cale Peuce, and empties itself into the Ænius (Æsepus?).