[3898] So called from Ἥφαιστος, the Greek name of Vulcan. Pliny mentions this spot also in B. ii. c. [110]. The flame probably proceeded from an inflammable gas, or else was ignited by a stream of naphtha.
[3899] More generally known as Phœnicus, a flourishing city on Mount Olympus; now Yanar Dagh, a volcano on the eastern coast of Lycia, with which it often exchanged names. Having become the head-quarters of the pirates, it was destroyed by the Roman general Servilius Isauricus. Its ruins are to be seen at a spot called Deliktash.
[3900] Mentioned again in B. xxxvi. c. 34, as the spot whence the gagates lapis or ‘agate’ took its name. The ruins at Aladja are regarded by Leake as marking the site of Gagæ; but Sir Charles Fellowes identifies the place with the modern village of Hascooe, the vicinity of which is covered with ruins.
[3901] On the road from Phaselis in Lycia to Patara. Its site is a village called Hadgivella, about sixteen miles south-west of Phaselis. The remains are very considerable.
[3902] The remains of Rhodiopolis were found by Spratt and Forbes in the vicinity of Corydalla.
[3903] On the Limyrus, probably the modern Phineka; the ruins to the north of which are supposed to be those of Limyra.
[3904] The modern Akhtar Dagh.
[3905] Now Andraki. This was the port of Myra, next mentioned. It stood at the mouth of the river now known as the Andraki. Cramer observes that it was here St. Paul was put on board the ship of Alexandria, Acts xxvii. 5, 6.
[3906] Still called Myra by the Greeks, but Dembre by the Turks. It was built on a rock twenty stadia from the sea. St. Paul touched here on his voyage as a prisoner to Rome, and from the mention made of it in Acts xxvii. 5, 6, it would appear to have been an important sea-port. There are magnificent ruins of this city still to be seen, in part hewn out of the solid rock.
[3907] From an inscription found by Cockerell at the head of the Hassac Bay, it is thought that Aperlæ is the proper name of this place, though again there are coins of Gordian which give the name as Aperræ. It is fixed by the Stadismus as sixty stadia west of Somena, which Leake supposes to be the same as the Simena mentioned above by Pliny.