21.

With respect to the rivers, the poet says that the Selleïs flows near Arisbe, for Asius came from Arisbe and the river Selleïs. Practius is a river, but no city of that name, as some have thought, is to be found. This river runs between Abydos and Lampsacus; the words, therefore,

“and dwelt near Practius,”

must be understood of the river, as these expressions of the poet,

“they dwelt near the sacred waters of Cephisus,”1372

and

“they occupied the fertile land about the river Parthenius.”1373

There was also in Lesbos a city called Arisba, the territory belonging to which was possessed by the Methymnæans. There is a river Arisbus in Thrace, as we have said before, near which are situated the Cabrenii Thracians. There are many names common to Thracians and Trojans, as Scæi, a Thracian tribe, a river Scæus, a Scæan wall, and in Troy, Scæan gates. There are Thracians called Xanthii, and a river Xanthus in Troja; an Arisbus which discharges itself into the Hebrus,1374 and an Arisbe in Troja; a river Rhesus in Troja, and Rhesus, a king of the Thracians. The poet mentions also another Asius, besides the Asius of Arisbe,

“who was the maternal uncle of the hero Hector, own brother of Hecuba, and son of Dymas who lived in Phrygia on the banks of the Sangarius.”1375