19.

They say that the poet calls the Sporades, Calydnæ, [Pg 214]

[CAS. 489] one of which is Calymna.889 But it is probable that as the islands, which are near and dependent, have their names from the Nisyrii and Casii, so those that lie around Calymna had their name from that island, which was then perhaps called Calydna. Some say that the Calydnæ islands are two, Leros and Calymna, and that the poet means these. But the Scepsian says, that the name of the island was used in the plural number, Calymnæ, like Athenæ, Thebæ, and that the words of the poet must be understood according to the figure hyperbaton, or inversion, for he does not say, the islands Calydnæ, but,

“they who occupied the islands Nisyrus, Crapathus, Casus, and Cos, the city of Eurypylus, and Calydnæ.”

All the honey of the islands is, for the most part, excellent, and rivals that of Attica; but the honey of these islands surpasses it, particularly that of Calymna.  ³⁰