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A city.[1]
Also [sc. attested is] Naxian stone, the Cretan whetstone; for Naxos [is] a city of Crete.[2]
The man[3] who wrote that Naxia [is] a city of Caria, of which the citizen is [called] a Naxieus and a Naxiates, says also that [there is] a city of Sicily [called] Naxos;[4] also a Cretic one, from which [comes] the Naxian stone; if [this adjective] is written with an iota, he says it was taken as kritikê ("critical"), meaning determining and disclosing. Naxos [is] also a notable Cycladic island. [It is named] either from some person named Naxos or from the [verb] νάξαι ["to squeeze"], that is to sacrifice. They say that the Naxian women there are the only ones to give birth in eight months, as a gift of Hera. Dionysus also, they say, was born in this way. And according to Heracleides there is a spring there, from which very sweet wine flows.[5]

Ναξία: πόλις. καὶ Ναξία λίθος, ἡ Κρητικὴ ἀκόνη: Νάξος γὰρ πόλις Κρήτης. ὁ γράψας ὅτι Ναξία πόλις Καρίας, ἧς ὁ πολίτης Ναξιεὺς καὶ Ναξιάτης: λέγει καὶ ὅτι πόλις Σικελίας Νάξος. καὶ Κρητικὴ δέ, ἀφ' ἧς ἡ Ναξία λίθος: ἣν εἰ διὰ τοῦ ι γράφεται, κριτικὴ εἰλῆφθαι λέγει, ἀντὶ τοῦ διακρίνουσα καὶ φανεροῦσα. καὶ Κυκλὰς δὲ νῆσος ἐπίσημος ἡ Νάξος. ἢ ἀπό τινος Νάξου, ἢ παρὰ τὸ νάξαι, ὅ ἐστι θῦσαι. φασὶ δὲ τὰς ἐκεῖ Ναξίας γυναῖκας μόνας ὀκτάμηνα τίκτειν κατὰ δωρεὰν Ἥρας. καὶ Διόνυσος δέ, φασίν, οὕτως ἐτέχθη. καὶ κρήνη δὲ καθ' Ἡρακλείδην ἐκεῖ, ἐξ ἧς οἶνος ῥεῖ μάλα ἡδύς.

[1] In Karia (see below), present-day SW Turkey; Barrington Atlas map 61 grid F2.
[2] Also in Photius; and cf. the scholia to Pindar, Isthmian Odes 6.73 (106), where the phrase Ναξίαν ... ἀκόναν occurs.
[3] Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Naxia and Naxos. His material now follows here, abridged (though conversely it is the Suda that provides the name of Heracleides).
[4] Barrington Atlas map 47 grid G3; present-day Naxos-Giardini.
[5] Heracleides of Pontus fr.136 Schütrumpf.

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