TO THE COUNTRY OF THE CICONES. 59 
a long and dreary plain, full of bogs ; having 
upon our right a view of the sea, of Mount 
Athos, Samothrace, Thasos, and several smaller 
islands ; and upon our left, bordering the plain 
from the south-west to the north-east, the lofty- 
range of Rhodope. We met several parties Tahtar 
of traveUing Tahtars, the couriers of Turkey, 
going at their usual expeditious rate. Some 
of them halted to speak to our Tchohodar ; 
and told him that they had all been detained, 
owing to the turbulent state of the country, 
and particularly owing to some dissensions 
at a place called Fairy, in the road to Constan- 
tinople ; that the passage had been for some 
time closed in consequence of those troubles, 
but that it was now again open. After passing 
this desolated plain, about two hours and a 
Pieria, and retained this appellation to the time when Thucydides wrote 
his history, as he expressly states : xa) 'in xa) yvv ^ 4101x0s xoXTas xaXtTrai 
i ««•« Tu Tlayyaiai t^o; (aKa.irea.i yrt, x. t. X. {Thucyd. Hist. lib. 11. 
c. 99. p. 144. ed. Hudsoni.) That we are not liable to much error in 
the position here assigned to Phugres, may be made plain from Scylax ; 
who, enumerating the cities of Thrace, places Amphipolis, Pkagres, 
Calepsits, CEsyma, and other emporia, towards the Isle of Tliasos ; 
as yosshis reads the text of that very antient geographer. {Scylae. 
Caryand. Peiipl. ed. Gronov. p. 64. L. Bat. \691 ■) But according 
to the celebrated Chronicle of the Arundelian Marbles, Alexander 
the Argive, father of Perdiccas, died 462 years before Christ : there- 
fore the building of Pkagres took place nearly twenty-three 
centuries ago. 
