[575] See Ovid, Metam. xv. 290, 291; also Seneca, Nat. Quæst. vi. 29.
[576] This event is mentioned by Thucydides, lib. 3, Smith’s Trans, i. 293; and by Diodorus, xii. 7, Booth’s Trans. p. 287, as the consequence of an earthquake; but the separation was from Locris, not from Eubœa. See the remarks of Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 415.
[577] It is somewhat uncertain to what island our author applied this name; see the remarks of Alexandre in Lemaire.
[578] See Ovid, Metam. xv. 287.
[579] It is not improbable, from the situation and geological structure of the places here enumerated, that many of the changes mentioned above may have actually occurred; but there are few of them of which we have any direct evidence.
[580] This celebrated narrative of Plato is contained in his Timæus, Op. ix. p. 296, 297; it may be presumed that it was not altogether a fiction on the part of the author, but it is, at this time, impossible to determine what part of it was derived from ancient traditions and what from the fertile stores of his own imagination. It is referred to by various ancient writers, among others by Strabo. See also the remarks of Brotier in Lemaire, i. 416, 417.
[581] Many of these changes on the surface of the globe, and others mentioned by our author in this part of his work, are alluded to by Ovid, in his beautiful abstract of the Pythagorean doctrine, Metam. xv. passim.
[582] See Aristotle, Meteor. ii. 8, and Strabo, i. For some account of the places mentioned in this chapter the reader may consult the notes of Hardouin in loco.
[583] Poinsinet, as I conceive correctly, makes the following clause the commencement of the next chapter.
[584] See Ovid, Metam. xv. 293-295; also the remarks of Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 418.