BOOK IV. I. 3-5 



and the Moesic races, and joining them in front are 

 the Medi and the Denseletae, and joininjj these the 

 Thracians who extcnd all ihe way to the Black Sea. 

 Such is the girdle that walls in the lofty heights of 

 Despoto Dagh and then of the Great Balkan. On the 

 coast of Epirus is the fortrcss of Khimarra " on the 

 Acroceraunians, and bclow it the spring named the 

 RoyalWater andthetowns of Maeandriaand Cestria, 

 the Thesprotian river Thyamis,* the colony of Butrinto, 

 and the veiy celebrated Gulf of Arta, whose inlet, 

 half a mile wide, admits an extcnsive sheet of water, 

 37 miles long and 15 miles broad. Into it discharges 

 the river Acheron flowing from the Acherusian Lake 

 in Thesprotia, a course of 35 miles, and remarkable 

 in the eyes of people who admire all the achieve- 

 ments of their own race for its 1000-foot bridge. 

 On the gulf hes the town of Ambracia, and there are 

 the Molossian rivcrs Aphas and Arta, the city of 

 Anactoria and the place whcre Pandosia stood. 



The towns of Acarnania, which was previously 

 called Curetis, are Heraclia, Echinus, and, on the 

 actual coast, the colonv founded by Augustus, Act- 

 ium, with the famous temple of Apollo, and the free 

 city of Nicopohs. Passing fi-om the Gulf of Aml)racia 

 into the lonian Sea we come to the coast of Leueadia 

 and Capo Ducato, and then to the gulf and the 

 actual peninsula «^ of I>cucadia, formerly callcd 

 Neritis, which by the industry of its inhabitants was 

 once cut ofF from lhe mainland and which has been 

 rcstored to it by the mass of sand pilcd up against it 

 by the violence of the winds; the place has a Greek 

 name meaning ' canalized,' and is 600 yards long. On 

 the peninsida is the town of Leucas, formerly called 

 Neritus. Then come the Acarnanian cities of Alyzia, 



