25.

Stratoniceia is a colony of Macedonians. It was embellished by the kings with costly edifices. In the district of the Stratoniceians are two temples. The most celebrated, that of Hecate, is at Lagina, where every year great multitudes assemble at a great festival. Near the city is the temple of Jupiter Chrysaoreus,172 which is common to all the Carians, and whither they repair to offer sacrifice, and to deliberate on their common interests. They call this meeting the Chrysaoreon, [Cas. 660] which is composed of villages. Those who represent the greatest number of villages have the precedency in voting, like the Ceramiētæ. The Stratoniceians, although they are not of Carian race, have a place in this assembly, because they possess villages included in the Chrysaoric body.

In the time of our ancestors there flourished at Stratoniceia a distinguished person, Menippus the orator, surnamed Catocas, whom Cicero173 commends in one of his writings above all the Asiatic orators whom he had heard, comparing him to Xenocles, and to those who flourished at that time.

There is another Stratoniceia, called Stratoniceia at the Taurus, a small town adjacent to the mountain.