[56] Pliny and Mela give a different origin and name to this town: by them it is called Phygela from Φυγὴ, flight or desertion of the sailors, who, wearied with the voyage, abandoned Agamemnon.
[57] Chersiphron was of Gnossus in Crete. The ground being marshy on which the temple was to be built, he prepared a foundation for it of pounded charcoal, at the suggestion of Theodorus, a celebrated statuary of Samos.
[58] The temple is said to have been burnt the night Alexander the Great was born.—Cicero, de Nat. Deo. ii. 27.
[59] Plutarch says that the artist offered Alexander to make a statue of Mount Athos, which should hold in the left hand a city, capable of containing 10,000 inhabitants, and pouring from the right hand a river falling into the sea.
[60] For the word κρήνη, a fountain, which occurs in the text before Penelope, and is here unintelligible, Kramer proposes to read κηρίνη. The translation of the passage, thus corrected, would be, “a figure in wax of Penelope.” Kramer does not adopt the reading, on the ground that no figures in wax are mentioned by ancient authors.
[61] ὀνήιστος.
[62] Coraÿ is of opinion that the name of Artemidorus of Ephesus has been omitted by the copyist in this passage, before the name of Alexander. Kramer thinks that if the name had existed in the original manuscript, it would have been accompanied, according to the practice of Strabo, with some notice of the writings of Artemidorus. The omission of the name is remarkable, as Artemidorus is one of the geographers most frequently quoted by Strabo. He flourished about 100 B. C. His geography in eleven books is lost. An abridgement of this work was made by Marcianus, of which some portions still exist, relating to the Black Sea and its southern shore.
[63] It must have been in existence in the time of Strabo.—Tacit. Ann. ii. 54.
[64] Another explanation is given to the proverb, from the circumstance of Colophon having a casting vote in the deliberations of the twelve cities forming the Panionium.
[65] Lebedigli Lebeditz hissar.