9.

In sailing from Nisæa to Attica there lie, in the course of the voyage, five small islands. Then succeeds Salamis, which is about 70, and according to others, 80, stadia in length. It has two cities of the same name. The ancient city, which looked towards Ægina and to the south, as Æschylus has described it;

it is uninhabited. The other is situated in a bay on a spot of a peninsular form contiguous to Attica. In former times it had other names, for it was called Sciras, and Cychreia, from certain heroes; from the former Minerva is called Sciras; hence also Scira, a place in Attica; Episcirosis, a religious rite; and Scirophorion, one of the months. From Cychreia the serpent Cychrides had its name, which Hesiod says Cychreus bred, and Eurylochus ejected, because it infested the island, but that Ceres admitted it into Eleusis, and it became her attendant. Salamis was called also Pityussa from “pitys,” the pine tree. The island obtained its renown from the Æacidæ, who were masters of it, particularly from Ajax, the son of Telamon, and from the defeat of Xerxes by the Greeks in a battle on the coast, and by his flight to his own country. The Æginetæ participated in the glory of that engagement, both as neighbours, and as having furnished a considerable naval force. [In Salamis is the river Bocarus, now called Bocalia.]289