61.

Homer says that Thebe was the city of Eetion;

“We went to Thebe, the sacred city of Eetion.”1484

To him also belonged Chrysa, which contained the temple of Apollo Smintheus, for Chryseïs was taken from Thebe;

“We went,”

he says,

“to Thebe, ravaged it, and carried everything away; the sons of the Achæans divided the booty among themselves, but selected for Atrides the beautiful Chryseïs.”

Lyrnessus he calls the city of Mynes, for

“having plundered Lyrnessus, and destroyed the walls of Thebe,”1485

Achilles slew Mynes and Epistrophus, so that when Bryseïs says,

“you suffered me not to weep when the swift Achilles slew my husband, and laid waste the city of the divine Mynes,”1486

the poet cannot mean Thebe, for that belonged to Eetion, but Lyrnessus, for both cities lay in what was afterwards called the plain of Thebe, which, on account of its fertility, was a subject of contest among the Mysians and Lydians formerly, and latterly among the Greeks who had migrated from Æolis and Lesbos. At present Adramytteni possess the greater part of it; there are Thebe and Lyrnessus, a strong place, but both are deserted. One is situated at the distance of 60 stadia from Adramyttium on one side, and the other 88 stadia on the other side.