296 plint's fatueal history. [Book lY. 



distance of five hundred stadia, being navigable half that 

 distance. The vale, for a distance of five miles through which 

 this river runs, is called by the name of Tempe ; being a 

 jugerum^ and a half nearly in breadth, while on the right 

 and left, the mountain chain slopes away with a gentle 

 elevation, beyond the range of human vision, the foliage 

 imparting its colour to the light within. Along this vale 

 glides the Peneus, reflecting the green tints as it rolls along 

 its pebbly bed, its banks covered with tufts of verdant 

 herbage, and enlivened by the melodious warblings of the 

 birds w The Peneus receives the river Orcus, or rather, I 

 should say, does not receive it, but merely carries its waters, 

 which swim on its surface like oil, as Homer says^ ; and then, 

 after a short time, rejects them, refusing to allow the waters 

 of a river devoted to penal sufferings and engendered for 

 the Puries to mingle with his silvery streams. 



CHAP. 16. (9.) — MAGNESIA. 



To Thessaly Magnesia joins, in which is the fountaia of 

 Libethra^. Its towns are lolcos'^, Hormenium, Pyrrha^, 

 Methone^, and Olizon'^. The Promontory of Sepias^ is here 

 situate. We then come to the towns of Casthanea^ and Spa- 



* The jngerum was properly 240 feet long and 120 broad, but Pliny 

 uses it here solely as a measure of length ; corresponding probably to the 

 Grreek 7rXe9pov, 100 Grrecian or 104. Roman feet long. Tempe is the 

 only channel through which the waters of the Thessahan plain flow into 

 the sea. 



2 XL B. ii. c. 262, He alludes to the poetical legend that the Orcus or 

 Titaresius was a river of the uxfernal regions. Its waters were unpreg- 

 nated with an oily substance, whence probably originated the story of 

 the unwillingness of the Peneus to mingle with it. It is now called the 

 Elasonitiko or X.eraghi. 



3 Near Libetln-um ; said to be a favom-ite haunt of the Mvises, whence 

 their name " Libetln-ides." It is near the modern Goritza. 



■* Leake places its site on the height between the southernmost houses 

 of Yolo and Vlakho-Makhala. No remains of it are to be seen. 



^ Ansart says that on its site stands the modern Korakai Pyrgos. 



^ Near Neokhori, and called Eleutherokhori. 



^ Now Kortos, near Argahsti, accorchng to Ansart. 



** Now Haghios Georgios, or the Promontory of St. George. 



^ At the foot of Mount Pehon. Leake places it at some ridns near a 

 small port called Tamukhari. The chestnut tree derived its Greek and 

 modern name from this place, in the vicuiity of wliich it stiU abounds. 



