396 FROM THE VALE OF TEMPE, 
X. 
CHAP. Scholiast upon the Argonautica of Apollonim 
Rhodius mentions Pieria as a mountain of 
Thrace', It was also owing to this cause that 
Orpheus was called a Thracian, whose sepulchre 
was long shewn in Pieria. The same indecision 
attaches to the antient geography of Macedonia. 
Its natural barrier to the south was of course 
formed by the Dejlle of Tempe and the Peneus 
river, where it is placed by the oldest geogra- 
pher, Scylax, who has been considered as the 
inventor of geographical tables'. But in a 
later age, when the Macedonians were restricted 
within narrower boundaries, the Lydias and the 
Haliacmon were its utmost southern limits, as 
appears from Herodotus^. In journeying along 
the western side of the Thermccan Gulph, the 
whole district, from the mouth of the Peneus to 
that of the Axius, is one swampy plain, bounded 
on its western side by the chain of Olympus : to 
the south of it is seen Ossa; and upon the east 
it is terminated by the sea. There are no hills, 
nor other natural barriers to form subdivisions ; 
(1) Vid. Schol. //jBoZfow. Rlwd. Jrgohautic. lib. i. ver. 31. 
(2) 'Avo "Si Xltivuou ■jttrai/.iZ Maxtiivts tlffir 'ihas- Scylacis Caryandemis 
Periplus, p. 61. eA. J. Gron^v. L. Bat. 1697. 
(3) Mt-i^^i Avii'id T8 •rtraftou xa) 'AXtoix/iioto;, o1 oii^i^tufft yrit rhv Somuitiot 
n tea) Maxih/i^a, ». r. X. Herodoti Hist. lib. vii. p. 419. ed. Gronov. 
L. Bat. 1715. 
