[2023] Now the Bossut. Sirmium occupied the site of the present Sirmich.
[2024] The modern Tzeruinka, according to D’Anville and Brotier.
[2025] Now the Walpo and the Sarroiez, according to Hardouin; or the Bosna and the Verbas, according to Brotier and Mannert.
[2026] Corresponding to the present Servia and Bulgaria.
[2027] Of the Danube with the Saave or Savus just mentioned.
[2028] Now the Morava, which runs through Servia into the Danube. The Pingus is probably the Bek, which joins the Danube near Gradistic. The Timachus is the modern Timoch, and the Œscus is the Iscar in Bulgaria.
[2029] Now called the Vid, the Osma, and the Jantra, rising in the Balkan chain.
[2030] Ajasson remarks here that the name of Illyricum was very vaguely used by the ancients, and that at different periods, different countries were so designated. In Pliny’s time that region comprised the country between the Arsia and the mouth of the Drilo, bounding it on the side of Macedonia. It would thus comprehend a part of modern Carniola, with part of Croatia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Upper Albania. In later times this name was extended to Noricum, Pannonia, Mœsia, Dacia, Macedonia, Thessalia, Achaia, Epirus, and even the Isle of Crete.
[2031] Here meaning that part of the Mediterranean which lies between Italy and Greece south of the Adriatic. In more ancient times the Adriatic was included in the Ionian Sea, which was probably so called from the Ionian colonies which settled in Cephallenia and the other islands on the western coast of Greece.
[2032] More properly “Diomedeæ,” being a group of small islands off the coast of Apulia now called Isole di Tremiti, about eighteen miles from the mouth of the Fortore. They were so called from the fable that here the companions of Diomedes were changed into birds. A species of sea-fowl (which Pliny mentions in B. x. c. 44) were said to be the descendants of these Greek sailors, and to show a great partiality for such persons as were of kindred extraction. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses, B. xiv. l. 500. The real number of these islands was a matter of dispute with the ancients, but it seems that there are but three, and some mere rocks. The largest of the group is the island of San Domenico, and the others are San Nicola and Caprara. The small island of Pianosa, eleven miles N.E., is not considered one of the group, but is not improbably the Teutria of Pliny. San Domenico was the place of banishment of Julia, the licentious daughter of Augustus.