21.

Next follows Iasus, situated upon an island,166 on the side towards the continent. It has a port, and the inhabitants derive the greatest part of their subsistence from the sea, which abounds with fish, but the soil is very barren. Stories of the following kind are related of Iasus.

As a player on the cithara was displaying his art in public, every one listened to him attentively till the market bell rung for the sale of fish, when he was deserted by all except one man, who was quite deaf. The minstrel coming up to him said, “Friend, I am much obliged to you for the honour you have done me, and I admire your love of music, for all the others have left me at the sound of the bell.”—“What say you, has the bell rung?”—“Yes, he replied?”—“Good bye to you,” said the man, and away he also went.

Diodorus the Dialectician was a native of this place. He was surnamed Cronus (or Old Time); the title was not properly his from the first; it was his master Apollonius who (in the first instance) had received the surname of Cronus, but it was transferred to Diodorus on account of the want of celebrity in the true Cronus.