As those who pronounce their words with a thick enunciation are called Barbarians, so foreigners, I mean those who were not Greeks, were observed to pronounce their words in this manner. The term Barbarians was therefore applied peculiarly to these people, at first by way of reproach, as having a thick and harsh enunciation; afterwards the term was used improperly, and applied as a common gentile term in contradistinction to the Greeks. For after a long intimacy and intercourse had subsisted with the Barbarians, it no longer appeared that this peculiarity arose from any thickness of enunciation, or a natural defect in the organs of the voice, but from the peculiarities of their languages.

But there was in our language a bad and what might be called a barbarous utterance, as when any person speaking Greek should not pronounce it correctly, but should pronounce the words like the Barbarians, who, when beginning to learn the Greek language, are not able to pronounce it perfectly, as neither are we able to pronounce perfectly their languages.

This was peculiarly the case with the Carians. For other nations had not much intercourse with the Greeks, nor were disposed to adopt the Grecian manner of life, nor to learn our language, with the exception of persons who by accident and singly had associated with a few Greeks; but the Carians were dispersed over the whole of Greece, as mercenary soldiers. Then the barbarous pronunciation was frequently met with among them, from their military expeditions into Greece; and afterwards it spread much more, from the time that they occupied the islands together with the Greeks: not even when driven thence into Asia, could they live apart from Greeks, when the Ionians and Dorians arrived there.

Hence arose the expression, “to barbarize,” for we are accustomed to apply this term to those whose pronunciation of the Greek language is vicious, and not to those who pronounce it like the Carians.

We are then to understand the expressions, “barbarous speaking” and “barbarous speakers,” of persons whose pronunciation of the Greek language is faulty. The word “to barbarize” was formed after the word “to Carize,” and transferred into the books which teach the Greek language; thus also the word “to solœcize” was formed, derived either from Soli or some other source.

29. Artemidorus says that the journey from Physcus, on the coast opposite to Rhodes, towards Ephesus, as far as Lagina is 850 stadia; thence to Alabanda 250 stadia; to Tralles 160. About halfway on the road to Tralles the Mæander is crossed, and here are the boundaries of Caria. The whole number of stadia from Physcus to the Mæander, along the road to Ephesus, is 1180 stadia. Again, along the same road, from the Mæander of Ionia to Tralles 80 stadia, to Magnesia 140 stadia, to Ephesus 120, to Smyrna 320, to Phocæa and the boundaries of Ionia, less than 200 stadia; so that the length of Ionia in a straight line would be, according to Artemidorus, a little more than 800 stadia.

But as there is a public frequented road by which all travellers pass on their way from Ephesus to the east, Artemidorus thus describes it. [From Ephesus] to Carura, the boundary of Caria towards Phrygia, through Magnesia and Tralles, Nysa, Antioch, is a journey of 740 stadia. From Carura, the first town in Phrygia, through Laodiceia, Apameia, Metropolis, and Chelidoniæ,[180] to Holmi, the beginning of the Paroreius, a country lying at the foot of the mountains, about 920 stadia; to Tyriæum,[181] the termination towards Lycaonia of the Paroreius,[182] through Philomelium[183] is little more than 500 stadia. Next is Lycaonia as far as Coropassus,[184] through Laodiceia in the Catacecaumene, 840 stadia; from Coropassus [Cas. 662] in Lycaonia to Garsaüra,[185] a small city of Cappadocia, situated on its borders, 120 stadia; thence to Mazaca,[186] the metropolis of the Cappadocians, through Soandus and Sadacora, 680 stadia; thence to the Euphrates, as far as Tomisa, a stronghold in Sophene, through Herphæ,[187] a small town, 1440 stadia.

The places in a straight line with these, as far as India, are described in the same manner by Artemidorus and Eratosthenes. Polybius says, that with respect to those places we ought chiefly to depend upon Artemidorus. He begins from Samosata in Commagene, which is situated at the passage, and the Zeugma of the Euphrates, to Samosata across the Taurus, from the mountains of Cappadocia about Tomisa, he says is a distance of 450 stadia.


CHAPTER III.