Note 2793 — PORTUS ITIUS

Evidently ναύσταθμον had a wider range of meaning than statio navium. Plutarch (Aristides, 23) implies that a ναύσταθμον could be burned, from which Haigneré (Recueil hist. du Boulonnais, iii, 1897, p. 455) infers that ‘un ναύσταθμος n’est pas une rade foraine, ni une anse, mais un lieu fermé, où se trouvent des arsenaux maritimes’. This was sometimes the meaning of the word, but only rarely. Pliny (Nat. Hist., iii, 8 [14], § 89) mentions a harbour in Sicily, called Portus Naustathmus. See also Stephanus, Thesaurus Graecae linguae, v, 1842-6, col. 1383-4. Professor Haverfield (Eng. Hist. Rev., xviii, 1903, p. 335) insists that Strabo (iv, 5, § 2) meant by ναύσταθμον ‘the whole region of the Itian highland in which Caesar had his portus Itius and his ulterior portus’.