ness had nearly proved fatal to Alexander the Great. The Py- 

 ramus which flowed past the city of Oppian, was of a more sublime 

 description. As issuing from the defiles of Mount Taurus, it rushes 

 through a rocky and tortuous channel to the sea, with a noise, says 

 the scholiast who describes it, loud as tlumder, it may have pre- 

 sented to the poet a lively picture of the inundation which he de- 

 picts so strongly, when speaking of the Oroiites. Cilicia had, 

 moreover, been the scene of many events so renowned both in 

 real and mythological history, that they could scarcely fail to 

 excite the emotions of a young and susceptible mind. Some 

 of its cities had suffered from the ravages of the Greeks, in 

 their famous expedition to Troy ; and one of the female Cilician 

 captives had given rise to the fatal contention on which the Iliad is 

 founded. It had sent warriors to the siege of that city, and given 

 Andromache a wife to Hector. One of its rocky passes had wit- 

 nessed a mighty struggle between the armies of the East and West 

 for the empire of the world. After the defeat of Crassus it became 

 a frontier barrier of the Romans against the Parthian incursions. 

 It may have derived some glory from being the province of the 

 great master of Roman eloquence ; and if, agreeably to the observa- 

 tion ofStrabo, the names of places sacred to the Muses, are ample 

 evidence that in such places poetry has been cultivated with success, 

 Cihcia may claim no small share of poetical renown. It contained 

 the famous saffron-bearing mountain Corycus : and the more famous 

 Corycian cave, a favourite haunt of the Nine. Mallos was built by 

 Mopsus, the son of Apollo and the nymph Manto, daughter of the 

 prophet Tiresias. Another prophet equally renowned, Calchas, 



l^aX^ot? Qeffo^idtjg otawsoKiav oy^ a^is'og 



was said to have carried on a contest, in this country, with Mopsus, 



