296 PLINT's NAXrEAL HISTORY, [Book IT. 



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. 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 Furies to mingle with his silvery streams. 



CHAP. 16. (9.) — MAGNESIA. 



To Thessaly Magnesia joins, in which is the fountain 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- 



1 Tlie jugerum was properly 240 feet long and 120 broad, but PUny 

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

 Greek 7rXe0pov, 100 Grecian or 104 Roman feet long. Tempe is tho 

 only chamiei through which the waters of the Thessalian plain flow into 

 the sea. 



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

 Titaresius was a river of the infernal regions. Its waters were impreg- 

 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 Xeraghi. 



3 Near Libethrum ; said to be a favourite haimt of the Muses, whence 

 their name " Libethrides." It is near the modem 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. 



5 Ansart says that on its site stands the modem Korakai Pyrgos. 



^ Near Neokliori, and called Eleutherokhori. 



7 Now Kortos, near ArgaUsti, according to Ansart. 



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



^ At the foot of Mount Pelion. Leake places it at some ruins near a 

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

 modern name from this place, in the vicinity of which it stUl abounds. 



