Natural History — Book VI

Pliny the Younger & Pliny the Elder · a new plain-English translation from the Latin

1| The Pontus Euxinus, formerly called Axinus from its inhospitable savagery, also pours itself out between Europe and Asia, through a peculiar spite of nature, which indulges the greed of the sea without any limit. It had not been enough for it to have surrounded the lands with ocean and to have carried off part of them by enlarging its emptiness; not enough to have burst in through broken mountains and, with Calpe torn away from Africa, to have swallowed up spaces so much greater than those it left behind; not enough to have poured the Propontis through the Hellespont, devouring the lands once again: from the Bosporus too it spreads out into another waste, never sated, until the Maeotic lakes join their own plunder to it as it ranges abroad.

2| That this happened against the will of the lands is shown by so many narrows and by such small gaps where nature resists: at the Hellespont 875 paces, and at the two Bosporuses a crossing passable even by oxen, whence both take their name; and also by a certain harmonious kinship in their very separation, for the songs of birds and the barking of dogs are heard from one side to the other, and even exchanges of the human voice, conversation continuing between the two worlds, except when the winds carry that very voice away.

3| Some have made the measurement of the Pontus from the Bosporus to Lake Maeotis 1,338,500 paces; Eratosthenes made it 100 less. Agrippa gives 10,000 from Calchadon to the Phasis, and from there to the Cimmerian Bosporus 360,000. We set down the distances in general terms, as ascertained in our own age, since there has been fighting even at the very mouth of the Cimmerian Bosporus.

4| So, from the mouth of the Bosporus, there is the river Rebas, which some have called the Rhesus; then the Syris, the port of Calpas, and the Sangaris, one of the famous rivers. It rises in Phrygia and takes in vast rivers, among them the Tembrogius and the Gallus, and it is also called the Sagiarius by most writers. Then come the Coralius, where the Mariandyni begin; the gulf and the town of Heraclea, set on the river Lycus (it is 200,000 from the mouth of the Pontus); the port of Acone, dreaded for the poison aconitum; the Acherusian cave; the rivers Paedopides, Callichorum and Sonautes; the town of Tium, 38,000 paces from Heraclea; and the river Billis.

5| Beyond this river is the people of Paphlagonia, which some have called Pylaemenia, shut in behind by Galatia; the town of Mastya, founded by the Milesians; then Cromna, at which place Cornelius Nepos adds the Eneti, from whom he thinks we must believe the Veneti in Italy, who share their name, are descended; the town of Sesamon, now called Amastris; Mount Cytorus, 63,000 paces from Tium; then the towns Cimolis and Stephane, and the river Parthenius.

6| The promontory of Carambis, with its vast projection, is 325,000 from the mouth of the Pontus, or, as others have held, 350,000, and an equal distance from the Cimmerian Bosporus, or else, in the choice of some, 312,500. A town bearing the same name once stood there too, and another beyond it, Armine; now there is the colony of Sinope, 164,000 from Cytorus; the river Varecus; the people of the Cappadocians; the town of Caturia Gazelum; the river Halys, running down from the roots of the Taurus through Cataonia and Cappadocia; and the towns of Gangre and Carusa,

7| and the free town of Amisus, 130,000 from Sinope, with a gulf of the same name whose recess is so deep that it makes Asia almost an island, there being not more than 200,000 across the mainland to the Issic Gulf of Cilicia. In this whole tract, it is recorded, only three peoples can rightly be called Greek, the Dorian, the Ionian and the Aeolian, and all the rest are barbarians. Joined to Amisus was the town of Eupatoria, established by Mithridates; once he was defeated, both were named Pompeiopolis.

8| Inland, Cappadocia has a colony of Claudius Caesar, Archelais, past which the river Halys flows; the towns of Comana, past which the Salius flows, Neocaesarea, past which the Lycus flows, and Amasia, past which the Iris flows, in the region of Gazacena; and in Colopene, Sebastia and Sebastopolis, small towns but the equals of those named above. In the rest of its territory it has Melita, founded by Semiramis not far from the Euphrates, Diocaesarea, Tyana, Castabala, Magnopolis, Zela, and, below Mount Argaeus, Mazacum, which is now named Caesarea.

9| The part of Cappadocia that stretches along Greater Armenia is called Melitene; the part along Commagene, Cataonia; along Phrygia, Garsauritis, Sargaurasana and Cammaneni; along Galatia, Morimene, where the river Cappadox divides them, from which the people formerly called the Leucosyri took their name. From Neocaesarea, mentioned above, the river Lycus divides Lesser Armenia. Inland there is also the famous Coeranus; on the coast, following Amisus, the town and river Chadisia, and Lycastum, after which comes the Themiscyrene region; and the river Iris, which carries down the Lycus.

10| Inland is the community of Ziela, renowned for the rout of Triarius and the victory of Gaius Caesar. On the coast is the river Thermodon, which rises at a fortress called Phanoria and glides past the roots of Mount Amazonius. There was a town of the same name, and five others: Amazonium, Themiscyra, Sotira, Amasia and Comana, now Matium.

11| The peoples of the Genetae and the Chalybes; the town of Cotyora; the peoples of the Tibareni, and the Mossyni, who mark their bodies with signs; the people of the Macrocephali; the town of Cerasus; the port of Cordule; the peoples of the Bechires and the Buxeri; the river Melas; the people of the Machorones; the Sideni, and the river Sidenus, which washes the town of Polemonium, 120,000 from Amisus. Then the rivers Iasonium and Melanthium, and, 80,000 from Amisus, the town of Pharnacea; Tripolis, a fortress and a river; likewise Philocalia, and Liviopolis, which has no river; and, 100 from Pharnacea, Trapezus, a free town, shut in by a vast mountain.

12| Beyond it are the people of the Armenochalybes and Greater Armenia, 30,000 paces away. On the coast before Trapezus is the river Pyxites, and beyond it the people of the Sanni Heniochi; then the river Absarrus, with a fort of that name at its mouth, 140,000 from Trapezus. Behind the mountains of that place is Hiberia, while on the coast are the Heniochi, Ampreutae and Lazi; the rivers Acampseon, Isis, Nogrus and Bathys; the peoples of the Colchians; the town of Matium; the river Heracleum together with a promontory called by the same name; and the Phasis, which is the most celebrated river in the Pontus.

13| It rises among the Moschi and is navigable by ships however large for 38,500 paces, then by smaller ones over a long space, and can be crossed by 120 bridges. It once had many towns on its banks, the most celebrated Tyndaris, Circaeum, Cygnus and, at its mouth, Phasis. Most famous, however, was Aea, 15,000 paces from the sea, where the vast rivers Hippos and Cyaneos flow into it from opposite sides; now it has only Surium, itself named after the river flowing in there, up to the point to which we have said it can bear large ships. It also receives other rivers marvellous in size and number, among them the Glaucus. At its mouth is an island without a name, 70,000 from Absarrus.

14| Then another river, the Charies; the people Saltiae, called Phthirophagi by the ancients, and another, the Sanni; the river Chobus, flowing from the Caucasus through the Stuani; then the Rhoan; the region Egritice; the rivers Sigama, Thersos, Astelephus and Chrysorrhoas; the people Absilae; the fort Sebastopolis, 100 from the Phasis; the people of the Sanigae; the town Cygnus; the river and town Penius. Then, under many names, the peoples of the Heniochi.

15| Below lies the Colchian region of the Pontus, in which the ridges of the Caucasus are twisted toward the Ripaean mountains, as has been said, sloping down on one side to the Euxine and Maeotic sea, on the other to the Caspian and Hyrcanian sea. The remaining shores are held by savage nations, the Melanchlaeni and Coraxi, with the city of the Colchians, Dioscurias, beside the river Anthemus, now deserted, once so famous that Timosthenes reported that 300 nations of different languages came down to it, and that afterwards our people conducted business there with 130 interpreters.

16| Some think that Amphitus and Telchius founded it, the charioteers of Castor and of Pollux, and it is generally agreed that the Heniochi people descend from them. The town Heracleum is 100 from Dioscurias, and 70,000 from Sebastopolis. The Achaei, Mardi, Cercetae, and after them the Seraci and Cephalotomi. In the innermost part of that tract the very wealthy town Pityus was plundered by the Heniochi. Behind it are the Epagerritae, a people of the Sarmatae on the ridges of the Caucasus, behind which are the Sauromatae.

17| To these Mithridates had fled while Claudius was emperor, and told that the Thalosii were their neighbours, and touched on the east the straits of the Caspian sea; that these were dried up when the tide receded. On the coast, however, near the Cercetae, is the river Icarus; then the Achaei with the town Hierum and a river, 136,000 from Heracleum. Then the promontory Crunoe, from which the Toretae, a Sindic state, hold a steep brow, 67,500 from Hierum; the river Setheries. From there to the entrance of the Cimmerian Bosporus is 88,500.

18| But the peninsula itself, running out between the Pontus and the Maeotic lake, is of a length not greater than 67,500 paces, and a breadth nowhere under two iugera; they call it Eon. The coast of the Bosporus itself curves on both sides, from Asia and from Europe, into the Maeotis. The towns at the approach [of the Bosporus first] are Hermonasa, then Cepoe of the Milesians, soon Stratoclia and Phanagoria, and the almost deserted Apaturos, and last at the mouth Cimmerium, which was formerly called Chimerion. Then the lake Maeotis, called so in Europe.

19| From Cimmerium the Maeotici, Vali, Serbi, Serrei, Scizi and Gnissi dwell beside it. Then on the river Tanais, flowing in with a double mouth, dwell the Sarmatae, offspring, as they say, of the Medes, and themselves divided into many kinds. First the Sauromatae, Gynaecocratumenoe, the Amazons' marriages; then the Naevazae, Coitae, Cizici, Messeniani, Costoboei, Zecetae, Zigae, Tindari, Thussagetae and Tyrcae, as far as solitudes rough with wooded valleys, beyond which are the Arimphaei, who extend to the Ripaean mountains.

20| The Scythians call the Tanais itself Silis, and the Maeotis Temarunda, by which they mean the mother of the sea. At the mouth of the Tanais also there is a town. The neighbouring land was held first by the Carians, then the Clazomenians and Maeonians, afterwards by the people of Panticapaeum. There are those who report that around the Maeotis, as far as the Ceraunian mountains, these peoples live:

21| from the shore the Napitae, and above them the Essedones, joined to the Colchians by the summits of the mountains; then the Camacae, Orani, Autacae, Mazamacae, Cantiocaptae, Agamathae, Pici, Rymosoli, Acascomarci, and by the ridges of the Caucasus the Icatalae, the Imadochi, Rami, Anclacae, Tydii, Carastasei and Authiandae; the river Lagous from the Cathean mountains, into which the Opharus flows down, and there the peoples Cauthadae and Opharitae; the rivers Menotharus and Imityes, from the Cissian mountains; below, the Acdei, Carnae, Uscardei, Accisi, Gabri and Gegari, and about the spring of the Imityes the Imityi and the Apartaei.

22| Others say that the Scythian Auchetae, Athernei, Asampatae flowed into that region, and that by them the Tanaitae and Napaei were destroyed man by man. Some say that the river Ocharius glides through the Cantici and Sapaei, but that the Satharchei Hertichei, Spondolici, Synhietae, Anasi, Issi, Cataeetae, Tagorae, Caroni, Neripi, Agandaei, Meandaraei and Satharchei Spalaei crossed the Tanais.

23| The inner coast, and the places and rivers and dwellers, have been completed: now let there be given the immense region in the interior, in which I do not deny that I shall report many things otherwise than the ancients did, having investigated them with anxious care, since matters have lately been conducted in that region by Domitius Corbulo, and kings have been sent from there as suppliants, or the children of kings as hostages. We shall begin, however, with the people of the Cappadocians.

24| This one, the farthest-receding of all the Pontic peoples toward the interior, passes Lesser Armenia, Greater Armenia and Commagene on its left side, and on its right all the peoples named in Asia, spread over by very many tribes, and, climbing with great force toward the rising of the sun, crosses the ridges of the Taurus, Lycaonia, Pisidia and Cilicia, goes above the tract of Antiochia, and with its part which is called Cataonia strives as far as its region Cyrrestica. Thus there the length of Asia makes X̅I̅I̅.L, the breadth 640,000.

25| Greater Armenia, however, begins at the Parihedres mountains; it is taken from Cappadocia by the river Euphrates, as has been said, and, where the Euphrates departs, from Mesopotamia by the Tigris, a river no less famous. Armenia herself pours out each of them and makes the beginning of Mesopotamia, which is to lie between two rivers; what lies between there the Arab Orroei hold. So it carries its boundary on into Adiabene; shut in from there by transverse ridges, it spreads its breadth on the left to the river Cyrus, and across it to the Araxes, and its length as far as Lesser Armenia, being separated from that by the river Absarrus flowing down into the Pontus and by the Parihedres mountains, which pour out the Absarrus.

26| The Cyrus rises in the mountains of the Heniochi, which others have called the Coraxic; the Araxes rises on the same mountain as the Euphrates, at an interval of 6 paces, and, increased by the river Usis, itself too, as more have thought, is carried down by the Cyrus into the Caspian sea. The towns celebrated in Lesser Armenia are Caesarea, Aza and Nicopolis; in Greater, Arsamosata, nearest the Euphrates, Carcathiocerta on the Tigris, Tigranocerta on a height, and on the plains beside the Araxes, Artaxata.

27| Aufidius gave the size of the whole as fifty times a hundred thousand; Claudius Caesar gave the length from Dascusa to the border of the Caspian sea as 13,000 paces, and the breadth, half of that, from Tigranocerta to Iberia. It is divided, which is certain, into prefectures, which they call strategiae, some of them once single kingdoms, 120 in number, with barbarous names. Mountains shut it in on the east, but not at once the Cerauni, nor the region of Adiabene.

28| The space between the Cepheni hold; from these the Adiabeni hold the ridges beyond, but through the valleys the nearest to Armenia are the Menobardi and Moscheni. The Tigris and impassable mountains encircle Adiabene. On its left is the region of the Medes, looking out upon the Caspian sea. This is poured in from the ocean, as we shall say in its place, and is wholly girdled by the Caucasus mountains. The inhabitants along the border of Armenia will now be mentioned.

29| The nation of the Albani holds all the plain from the Cyrus, and soon the Iberians, separated from them by the river Ocazanes, flowing down from the Caucasus mountains into the Cyrus. The towns that stand out are, of Albania, Cabalaca, and of Iberia, Harmastus beside the river, and Neoris. The region Thasie and Thriare as far as the Parihedres mountains. Beyond are the Colchian solitudes, on whose side turned toward the Ceraunian mountains the Armenochalybes dwell, and the tract of the Moschi to the river Iberus, flowing down into the Cyrus, and below them the Sacasani and then the Macerones as far as the river Absarrus. So the flat or sloping lands are held. Again, from the border of Albania, along the whole front of the mountains, are the fierce nations of the Silvi, and below, of the Lupenii, and soon the Diduri and Sodi.

30| From them are the Caucasian Gates, by a great error called Caspian by many, an immense work of nature, the mountains suddenly broken, where gates have been added with iron-bound beams, a river of dreadful smell flowing beneath through the middle, and on this side, on a rock, a fort called Cumania, fortified to bar innumerable peoples from passage, the circle of the earth being there closed by gates, directly opposite the town of Harmastus on the Iberus. From the Caucasian Gates, through the Gurdinian mountains, the Valli and Suani, untamed peoples, nevertheless dig mines of gold. From them to the Pontus are very many kinds of the Heniochi, soon of the Achaei.

31| So stands this one of the most famous of lands. Some have reported that between the Pontus and the Caspian sea there lie no more than 375,000 paces, Cornelius Nepos 250,000: so again by such narrows is Asia beset. Claudius Caesar reported 150,000 as the distance between the Cimmerian Bosporus and the Caspian sea, and that Seleucus Nicator had thought of cutting through that space at the time when he was killed by Ptolemy Ceraunus. From the Caucasian Gates to the Pontus it is agreed to be about 200,000.

32| The islands in the Pontus are the Planctae, or Cyaneae, or Symplegades; then Apollonia, called Thynias, to be distinguished from that which is in Europe (it is distant from the mainland 1,000 paces, and encircled by 3,000), and opposite Pharnacea Chalceritis, which the Greeks called Aria and sacred to Mars, and on it birds fought with strangers with blows of their feathers.

33| Now that everything inside Asia has been told, let the mind cross the Ripaean mountains and advance outside along the shore of the ocean. This ocean, washing Asia on three sides of the sky, is called the Scythian on the north, the Eastern on the east, and the Indian on the south, and is divided by gulfs and by several names of the dwellers on its shores. But a great portion of Asia too, lying next to the north, stiff with the hostility of the star, has vast deserts.

34| From the farthest north wind to the beginning of the summer east are the Scythians. Outside them, and beyond the beginnings of the north wind, some have placed the Hyperboreans, spoken of at greater length in Europe. First known from there are the promontory of Celtica, Lytharmis, and the river Carambucis, where, wearied with the force of the stars, the ridges of the Ripaean mountains fail, and there we have heard of certain Arimphaei, a people not unlike the Hyperboreans.

35| Their dwellings are groves, their food berries; hair is considered a disgrace alike for women and men; their customs are gentle. Therefore, they tell, they are held sacred and are inviolate even to the savage peoples of their neighbours, and not only they themselves, but also those who have fled to them. Beyond them are plainly Scythians, Cimmerii, Cissi, Anthi, Georgi and the people of the Amazons, these reaching to the Caspian and Hyrcanian sea.

36| For it also bursts in from the Scythian ocean into the remote parts of Asia; it is called by several names by those who dwell around it, but the two most famous are Caspian and Hyrcanian. Clitarchus thinks it is no smaller than the Pontus Euxinus; Eratosthenes gives its measure, as 5,400 stadia, from the east and the south, along the shore of Cadusia and Albania, then through the Anariaci, Amardi and Hyrcani to the mouth of the Zonus river 4,800, and from there to the mouth of the Iaxartes 2,400; the sum of these makes X̅V̅. L̅X̅X̅V̅ paces.

37| Artemidorus subtracts 25,000 paces from this. Agrippa has reported that the Caspian sea and the peoples around it, and with them Armenia, bounded on the east by the Serican ocean, on the west by the ridges of the Caucasus, on the south by those of the Taurus, and by the Scythian ocean on the north, extend as far as is known 480,000 paces in length and 290,000 in breadth. There are some, however, who give the whole circuit of that sea, from the strait, as 25,000 paces.

38| It bursts in, moreover, through narrow jaws, long in extent; and where it begins to widen out, it bends aslant with crescent-shaped horns, as if descending from the mouth toward the Maeotian lake, resembling a sickle, as Marcus Varro states. The first gulf is called the Scythian; for on both sides the Scythians dwell by the narrows and pass to and fro among themselves, here the Nomads and Sauromatae under many names, there the Abzoae under no fewer. On the right from the entrance, the Udini, a people of the Scythians, hold the very point of the jaws; then along the coast the Albani, who, they say, are descended from Jason,

39| and from whom the sea there is called the Albanian. This people, spread over the Caucasian mountains, comes down as far as the river Cyrus, on the border of Armenia and Hiberia, as has been said. Above its coastal part and that of the Udini the Sarmatae, Uti, Aorsi and Aroteres are stretched out in front, behind whom are the Sauromatid Amazons already mentioned. Rivers run down through Albania into the sea, the Casus and the Albanus, then the Cambyses, rising in the Caucasian mountains, and next the Cyrus, which rises in the Coraxic mountains, as we have said. Agrippa states that the whole coast from the Casus denies access, by reason of very lofty cliffs, for 425,000 paces. From the Cyrus the sea begins to be called Caspian; the Caspi dwell by it.

40| In this place the error of many must be corrected, even of those who recently conducted operations in Armenia with Corbulo. For they have called the gates of Hiberia, which we have said are named the Caucasian, the Caspian Gates, and the maps drawn up and sent from there have this name written on them. And the threat of the emperor Nero was said to be directed to the Caspian Gates, whereas he was seeking those which lead through Hiberia against the Sarmatae, with scarcely any approach from them to the Caspian sea because of the mountains set in the way. There are, however, other gates joined to the Caspian peoples, which cannot be distinguished except by the record of the campaigns of Alexander the Great.

41| For the kingdoms of the Persians, which we now understand as those of the Parthians, are raised up between the two seas, the Persian and the Hyrcanian, by the ridges of the Caucasus. On both sides, down the slopes of its flanks, to Greater Armenia, on the part of its front that turns toward Commagene, Cephene, as we have said, is joined; and to it Adiabene, the beginning of the Assyrians, of which Arbilitis is a part, where Alexander overcame Darius, next to Syria.

42| All of it the Macedonians named Mygdonia, from a resemblance. Its towns are Alexandria, and likewise Antiochia, which they call Nesebis; it is 750,000 paces distant from Artaxata. There was also Ninos, set on the Tigris, facing the setting sun, once most famous. On the remaining front, which stretches toward the Caspian sea, lies Atrapatene, separated by the Araxes from the region of Otene in Armenia. Its town is Gazae, 450,000 paces from Artaxata and as many from Ecbatana of the Medes, of whom the Atrapateni are a part.

43| Ecbatana, the capital of Media, was founded by King Seleucus, 750,000 paces from Seleucia Magna, and 20,000 from the Caspian Gates. The other towns of the Medes are Phisganzaga, Apamea, surnamed Rhagiane. The cause of the name of the Gates is the same as above: the ridges are cut through by a narrow passage, so that scarcely single wagons can pass, 8,000 paces in length, the whole work made by hand. On the right and left cliffs hang over as if burnt, the tract thirsting, for 28,000 paces. The narrows are obstructed by brine collected from the rocks and discharged again from the same; besides, a multitude of serpents allows no passage except in winter.

44| Joined to the Adiabeni are the Carduchi, once so called, now the Cordueni, with the Tigris flowing past; next to these are the Pratitae, called "by the road," who hold the Caspian Gates. On the other side the deserts of Parthia and the ridges of the Citheni meet them. Next comes the most pleasant situation of that same Parthia, which is called Choara. There are two cities of the Parthians there, once set against the Medes: Calliope, and another, Issatis, on a rock; the capital of Parthia itself is Hecatompylos, which is 133,000 paces from the Gates. Thus the kingdoms of the Parthians too are shut off by doors.

45| Those who have gone out through the Gates are received at once by the Caspian people, reaching as far as the shores, the people who gave their name to the Gates and the sea. The left side is mountainous. From that people back to the river Cyrus the distance is given as 225,000 paces, and if one goes up from the same river to the Gates, 700,000. For they made this the hinge of the journeys of Alexander the Great, reporting from these Gates to the beginning of India 15,690 stadia, to the town Bactra, which they call Zariasta, 3,700, and from there to the river Iaxartes V.

46| From the Caspii, toward the east, lies a region called Apavortene, and in it Dareium, a place of renowned fertility; then the peoples Tapyri, Anariaci, Staures and Hyrcani, from whose shores the same sea begins to be called Hyrcanian, from the river Siderus. On this side of it are the rivers Maziris and Strator, all from the Caucasus. There follows the region of Margiane, famed for its sunny aspect, the only vine-bearing land in that tract, shut in on every side by pleasant mountains, with a circuit of 1,500 stadia, difficult of access because of sandy wastes for 120,000 paces, and itself lying opposite the Parthian tract.

47| In it Alexander had founded an Alexandria; when this was destroyed by the barbarians, Antiochus, son of Seleucus, restored it on the same spot as Syriana, with the Margus flowing through it, which is gathered into the lake Zotha; he had preferred that it be called Antiochia. The extent of the city is encompassed by 70 stadia. Into this city Orodes led down the Romans captured in the disaster of Crassus. Above its high places, along the ridges of the Caucasus, the fierce people of the Mardi extends as far as the Bactri, independent. Below that tract are the peoples Orciani, Commori, Berdrigae, Pharmacotrophi,

48| Chomarae, Choamani, Murrasiarae, Mandruani, the rivers Mandrus and Chindrus, and beyond them the Chorasmi, Gandari, Pariani, Zarangae, Arasmi, Marotiani, Arsi, Gaeli, whom the Greeks called Cadusii, Matiani, the town Heraclea, founded by Alexander, which, after being overthrown and restored, Antiochus named Achais, the Dribyces, through the middle of whose territory flows the river Oxus, which rises in the lake Oaxus, the Syrmatae, Oxyttagae, Moci, Bateni, Saraparae, Bactri, whose town is Zariastes, which was afterward called Bactrum from the river. This people holds the far side of the mountain Paropanisus, opposite the sources of the Indus;

49| it is enclosed by the river Ochus. Beyond are the Sogdiani, the town Panda, and at their farthest boundaries Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great. There are altars there set up by Hercules and Father Liber, likewise by Cyrus and Semiramis and Alexander, the limit of all their expeditions in that part of the earth, enclosed by the river Iaxartes, which the Scythians call Silis, and which Alexander and his soldiers thought to be the Tanais. Demodamas, general of the kings Seleucus and Antiochus, whom we follow most in these matters, crossed that river and set up altars to Apollo of Didyma.

50| Beyond are the peoples of the Scythians. The Persians called them all Sacae, from the nearest people; the ancients called them Aramii; the Scythians themselves call the Persians Chorsari and the Caucasus mountain Croucasis, that is, white with snow. The multitude of peoples is countless, and they live on equal terms with the Parthians. The most celebrated of them are the Sacae, Massagetae, Dahae, Essedones, Astacae, Rumnici, Pestici, Homodoti, Histi, Edones, Camae, Camacae, Euchatae, Cotieri, Authusiani, Psacae, Arimaspi, Antacati, Chroasai and Oetaei. There the Napaei are said to have perished at the hands of the Palaei. Famous among them are the rivers Mandragaeus and Caspasus.

51| In no other part is there greater inconstancy among the authorities, owing, I believe, to the countless wandering peoples. Alexander the Great has reported that a draught of the sea itself is sweet, and Marcus Varro that it was brought to Pompey, who was campaigning nearby in the Mithridatic war, as such, its salt undoubtedly overcome by the great size of the rivers flowing into it.

52| The same writer adds that it was ascertained under the leadership of Pompey that the Bactri can be reached from India in seven days, at the river Bactrus, which flows into the Oxus; and that Indian merchandise, carried up from it across the Caspian into the Cyrus, can be conveyed down to the Phasis, into the Pontus, by a journey over land of no more than 5 days. The islands in that whole sea are many; the one most commonly known is Zazata.

53| From the Caspian sea and the Scythian ocean the course turns toward the Eastern sea, the front of the shores being turned toward the east. The first part of it, from the Scythian promontory, is uninhabitable because of the snows; the next is uncultivated through the savagery of the peoples. The Scythian Anthropophagi live there, feeding on human bodies; for this reason vast wastes lie beside them, and a multitude of wild beasts, besetting a ferocity of men not unlike their own. Then again there are Scythians, and again deserts with beasts, as far as the ridge overhanging the sea which they call Tabis. Nor is that region inhabited before nearly half the length of that coast, which looks toward the summer sunrise.

54| The first people known there are the Seres, famous for the wool of their forests; they comb the white down of the leaves after steeping it in water, whence our women have a double labor in unravelling the threads and weaving them again: with so manifold a work, from so distant a part of the world, is this fetched, that a matron may be seen through her dress in public. The Seres are gentle indeed, but themselves like wild beasts in shunning the company of the rest of mankind; they wait for trade to come to them.

55| The first of their rivers known is the Psitharas, the next the Cambari, the third the Lanos, after which comes the promontory Chryse, the gulf Cirnaba, the river Atianos, the gulf and people of the Attaci, shut off from every harmful breath by sunny hills, with the same mildness of climate in which the Hyperboreans live. Amometus composed a volume about them separately, as Hecataeus did about the Hyperboreans. After the Attacori come the peoples Phuni and Thocari, and, already of the Indians, the Casiri, turned inland toward the Scythians; they feed on human bodies; the Nomads of India also roam. There are some who have said that from the north they are bordered by the Cicones and the Brisari.

56| But where the peoples are plainly established, the Hemodian mountains rise and the nation of the Indians begins, lying along not only the Eastern sea but also the southern one, which we have called the Indian. The part that faces the east stretches out in a straight line to the bend and the beginning of the Indian sea, and amounts to |X̅V̅I̅I̅I̅| |L̅X̅X̅V̅|; then the part that bends toward the south, X̅X̅I̅I̅I̅I̅. L̅X̅X̅V̅, as Eratosthenes reports, as far as the river Indus, which is the boundary of India on the west.

57| Many, however, have defined its whole length as forty days and nights of sailing under sail, and from north to south as 28,050; Agrippa has given its length as 3,300,000 and its breadth as 1,300,000. Posidonius measured it from the summer sunrise to the winter sunrise, setting it opposite Gaul, which he measured from the summer sunset to the winter sunset, the whole of it lying toward the west wind; and so he showed, by reasoning not in doubt, that the blast of that wind, set against it, benefits India and makes it healthy.

58| It has a different look of sky, and the stars rise differently; in each year come two summers and two harvests, with the blasts of the etesian winds in the winter between them, while at our midwinter gentle breezes blow there and the sea is navigable. Its peoples and cities are countless, if anyone wished to go through them all. For it has been laid open not merely by the weapons of Alexander the Great and the kings who followed him (Seleucus and Antiochus and their fleet commander Patrocles even sailed round into the Hyrcanian and Caspian sea), but also by other Greek authors, who stayed with the kings of the Indians, such as Megasthenes and Dionysius, sent by Philadelphus, and on that account have reported also the strength of the peoples.

59| There is, however, no room for exactness: so differing and incredible are the things reported. The companions of Alexander the Great wrote that in that tract of India which he subdued there were 5 towns, none smaller than Cos, and 9,000 peoples, and that India is a third part of all the lands, and the multitude of its peoples countless, on reasoning that is certainly plausible: for the Indians are almost the only people that never migrated beyond their own borders. From Father Liber to Alexander the Great their kings are reckoned at 153, over 6,451 years, and they add 3 months. The vastness of the rivers is marvelous;

60| it is reported that Alexander sailed on the Indus no day less than 600 stadia, and could not sail out of it before 5 months, with a few days added, and yet it is agreed that it is smaller than the Ganges. Seneca, who even among us attempted a treatise on India, reported that it has 60 rivers and a hundred and eighteen peoples. The labor would be equal to enumerate the mountains. The Imavus, Hemodus, Paropanisus and Caucasus are joined to one another, and from them the whole land runs down into an immense plain, like Egypt. But so that the description of the land may be understood,

61| we follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Diognetus and Baeton, the surveyors of his marches, wrote that from the Caspian Gates to Hecatompylos of the Parthians there are as many thousands as we have said, thence to Alexandria of the Arii, a city which that king founded, 575,000, to Prophthasia of the Drangae 199,000, to the town of the Arachosii 565,000, to Ortospanum 175,000,

62| thence to the town of Alexander 50 — in some copies different numbers are found — that this city is placed at the very foot of the Caucasus; from it to the river Cophes and the Indian town of Peucolatis 237,000, whence to the river Indus and the town of Taxilla 60,000, to the famous river Hydaspes 120,000, to the Hypasis, no less renowned, [X̅X̅V̅. I̅I̅I̅I̅C̅C̅C̅L̅X̅X̅X̅X̅, which was the end of Alexander's marches, though he crossed the river and dedicated altars on the opposite bank. The letters of the king himself agree with these figures.

63| The rest from there was traversed by Seleucus Nicator: to the Sydrus 169,000, to the river Iomanes the same — some copies add 5 paces —, thence to the Ganges 112,500, to Rhodapha 569,000 — others give 325,000 for this stretch —, to the town Callinipaza 167,500 — others 265,000 —, thence to the confluence of the Iomanes and the Ganges 625,000 — most add 13,500 —, to the town of Palibothra 425, to the mouth of the Ganges 637,500. The peoples,

64| which it is no trouble to mention, from the Hemodian mountains, whose promontory is called Imaus in the language of the inhabitants, meaning snowy, are the Isari, Cosiri, Izi and, along the ridges, the Chirotosagi, and the Bragmanae, a surname of many peoples, among whom are the Mactocalingae; the rivers Prinas and Cainnas, which flows into the Ganges, both navigable; the peoples Calingae nearest the sea and above them the Mandaei, the Malli, whose mountain is Mallus, and the end of that tract is the Ganges.

65| Some have said that this river rises from uncertain sources, like the Nile, and waters the neighboring lands in the same way; others, that it rises in the Scythian mountains; that 19 rivers flow into it, of which the navigable ones, besides those already named, are the Crenacca, Rhamnumbova, Casuagus and Sonus. Others say that its springs burst out at once with a great roar, and that, thrown down over rocky and precipitous places, when it first reaches soft plains it rests in a certain lake, and flows gently from there, at the least 8,000 paces in breadth, at a moderate width 100 stadia, in depth nowhere less than 20 paces, past the last people, the Gangaridae Calingae. The royal seat is called Pertalis;

66| for the king 60,000 foot, 1,000 horse and 700 elephants keep watch, ready for wars. For among the milder peoples of the Indians life is lived in many divisions: some till the earth, others take up military service, others export their own wares and import foreign ones, the best and richest manage the commonwealth, give judgments and sit with the kings. A fifth class, devoted to wisdom, which is celebrated there and almost turned into religion, always ends life by voluntary death, on a funeral pyre first kindled. Besides these there is one thing, half wild and full of immense labor, by which the things named above are sustained: hunting elephants and taming them. With these they plough, by these they are carried, this is the livestock they know best, and with these they serve in the army and fight for their frontiers; strength, age and size determine the selection for the wars.

67| There is an island in the Ganges of great size, containing one people, by name Modogalinga. Beyond are situated the Modubae, Molindae, Uberae with a splendid town of the same name, Modressae, Praeti, Calissae, Sasuri, Passalae, Colebae, Orumcolae, Abali and Thalutae. The king of these keeps under arms 50 foot, 4,000 horse and 4,000 elephants. The stronger people of the Andarae, next, with very many villages and 30 towns fortified with walls and towers, furnishes its king 100 foot, 2,000 horse and 1,000 elephants. The Dardae are the most fertile in gold, and the Setae also in silver.

68| But of almost all in India, and not only in this tract, in power and renown the Prasi stand foremost, with their very large and wealthy city Palibothra, from which some call the people itself Palibothri, indeed the whole tract from the Ganges. For their king 600 foot, 30,000 horse and 9,000 elephants are paid every day, from which a vast conjecture of his wealth is made.

69| After these, in the interior, are the Monaedes and the Suari, whose mountain is Maleus, on which in winter the shadows fall northward, in summer southward, for six months each. Baeton states that the Septentriones appear in that tract once a year, and not for more than fifteen days; Megasthenes says the same happens in many places of India. The Indians call the southern pole Diamasa. The river Iomanes runs down into the Ganges through the Palibothri, between the towns of Methora and Chrysobora.

70| From the Ganges, in the region turned toward the south, the peoples are colored by the sun, already stained indeed, yet not yet scorched in the manner of the Aethiopians; the nearer they approach the Indus, the more they show it in color. The Indus begins at once from the people of the Prasii, in whose mountains the Pygmies are reported. Artemidorus states that between the two rivers there are 2,100,000.

71| The Indus, called Sindus by the inhabitants, pouring out on the ridge of the Caucasus mountain which is called Paropanisus, facing the sunrise, itself receives nineteen rivers, but the most famous are the Hydaspes, bringing four others, and the Cantaba, three; the Acesinus and the Hypasis are navigable in their own right; yet with a certain moderation of waters it is nowhere broader than 50 stadia or deeper than 15 paces, and it forms a very large island, which is named Prasiane, and another smaller, which is Patale.

72| It is itself navigable for 1,450,000 paces, according to the most sparing authorities, and, in a kind of company with the sun, turning toward the west, it pours into the ocean. I shall set down the measurement of the coast as far as it, as I find it, severally, although none of them agree with one another. From the Ganges' mouth to the promontory Calingon and the town Dandaguda 625,000, to Tropina 1,225,000, to the promontory of Perimula, where is the most celebrated emporium of India, 750,000, to the town Patala on the island which we mentioned above 620,000.

73| The mountain peoples between it and the Iomanes are the Caesi and the wild Caetriboni, then the Megallae, whose king has 500 elephants, the number of foot and horse being uncertain, the Chrysei, Parasangae and Asmagi, swarming with the tiger, a wild beast; they arm 30,000 foot, 300 elephants and 800 horse. The Indus shuts these in, surrounded by a ring of mountains and by wastes. Below the wastes, at 625,000, are the Dari and the Surae, and again wastes for 187,000, for the most part with sands surrounding them, no differently than islands by the sea.

74| Below these deserts are the Malthaecorae, Singae, Maroae, Rarungae and Moruni. These, inhabitants of the mountains which extend in a continuous tract along the coast of the ocean, free and without kings, hold the mountain hills with many cities. Then the Nareae, whom the very high mountain Capitalia of the Indians shuts in; its inhabitants on the other side dig far and wide the mines of gold and silver.

75| After these the Oratae, whose king has indeed only 10 elephants but ample strength of foot, the Suarattaratae — and these under their king do not keep elephants, relying on horse and foot —, the Odonbaeorae, the Sarabastrae with the fair city Thorax, fortified by marshy ditches, across which crocodiles, most greedy for human flesh, give no approach except by a bridge. And another town among them is praised, Automula, set on the shore where five rivers meet in one confluence, a famous emporium. Their king has 1,600 elephants, 150,000 foot, 5 horse. The king of the Charmae, poorer, has 60 elephants and small remaining strength.

76| After these comes the people of the Pandae, the only one of the Indians ruled by women. They say that the one daughter of that sex born to Hercules, and for that reason dearer to him, was given a special kingdom; those who trace their origin from her rule over 300 towns, with 150,000 foot and 500 elephants. After this series of three hundred cities come the Derangae, Posingae, Butae, Gogaraei, Umbrae, Nereae, Brangosi, Nobundae, Cocondae, Nesei, Palatitae and Salobriasae. The Orostrae touch the island Patala, from whose farthest shore to the Caspian Gates the distance is reported as 1,925,000.

77| From here next they dwell along the Indus, as the account climbs upstream against it: the Mathoae, Bolingae, Gallitalutae, Dimuri, Megari, Ardabae, Mesae, Abisari and Silae; then deserts for 250,000, after passing which come the Organagae, Abortae and Brasuertae, and after these wastes equal to the former. Then the Sorofages, Arbae, Marogomatrae, Umbritae and Ceae, of whom there are 12 nations, with two cities for each, the Asini, inhabitants of three cities; their capital is Bucephala, founded where the horse of King Alexander, which had this name, was buried.

78| Mountain peoples above these, lying under the Caucasus, are the Sosaeadae and Sondrae, and, for those who have crossed the Indus and run down along with it, the Samarabiae, Sambraceni, Bisambritae, Orsi, Andiseni, and the Taxilae with a famous city. Then, in a tract sloping down into the plains, whose whole name is Amendae, there are four peoples, the Peucolitae, Arsagalitae, Geretae and Assoi. For many do not limit it on the west by the river Indus, but add four satrapies, the Gedrosi, Arachotae, Arii and Paropanisidae, with the river Cophes as the last boundary; all of which others hold to belong to the Arii.

79| Many also assign to India the city Nysa and the mountain Merus, sacred to Father Liber, whence the origin of the story that he was born from the thigh of Jupiter; likewise the people of the Aspagani, fertile in vine, laurel, box and all the fruits that grow in Greece. What is reported that is memorable and almost fabulous about the fertility of the land, the kinds of crops, trees, wild beasts, birds and other animals, will be recorded, each in its own place, in the remaining part of the work, the four satrapies a little later, since my mind is hastening to the island of Taprobane.

80| But before it are others: Patale, which we have indicated as lying at the very mouth of the Indus, triangular in shape, 220,000 paces in breadth; outside the mouth of the Indus, Chryse and Argyre, fertile in metals, as I believe: for what some have reported, that the soil of these is gold and silver, I could hardly believe. From these, 20,000 paces, Crocala, and from it 12,000 Bibaga, crowded with oysters and shellfish, then Coralliba, 8,000 from the one named above, and many that are obscure.

81| That Taprobane was a second world was long thought, under the name of the Antichthones. That it is an island, the age of Alexander the Great and his achievements made clear. Onesicritus, the commander of his fleet, wrote that elephants are born there larger and more warlike than in India; Megasthenes, that it is divided by a river and that the inhabitants are called Palaeogoni, richer in gold and large pearls than the Indians. Eratosthenes also gave its measure: in length 7,000 stadia, in breadth 5, and that there are no cities, but 750 villages.

82| It begins from the Eastern sea, stretched before India between the sunrise and the sunset, and was once believed to be distant a voyage of 20 days from the Prasian people; later, since it was sought with papyrus ships and the rigging of the Nile, it was reckoned, by the course of our ships, at an interval of 7 days. The sea between is shallow, not more than six paces deep, but in particular channels so deep that no anchors reach the bottom. For this reason their ships have a prow at each end, so that there is no need to turn about in the narrows of the channel; the size is up to three thousand amphorae.

83| In sailing they make no observation of the stars; the Septentrio is not seen. They carry birds with them, which they release frequently, and follow the course of those seeking land. They do not sail more than four months in the year. They guard especially against the hundred days after the solstice, for then that sea is wintry.

84| So far as to what has been recorded by the ancients. We have had more careful knowledge in the principate of Claudius, since envoys were even brought from that island. It happened in this way. A freedman of Annius Plocamus, who had bought from the treasury the revenue of the Red Sea, sailing around Arabia, was carried off by north winds past Carmania, and on the 15th day put in at their port Hippuri; with the king's hospitable kindness he was taught the language during a period of six months, and afterward, when the king questioned him, told him of the Romans and Caesar.

85| The king admired the justice in what he heard in an extraordinary manner, because the denarii in the money captured were of equal weight, although their differing images showed that they had been made by several rulers; and, moved chiefly by this to friendship, he sent four envoys, the chief of whom was Rachia. From them it was learned that there are 500 towns, that the harbor is set toward the south at the town Palaesimundum, the most famous of all there and the royal seat, with 200,000 of the common people.

86| Inland there is a lake Megisba, 375,000 paces in circuit, enclosing islands fertile only in pasture; from it two rivers burst forth, the Palaesimundus, flowing past the town of the same name into the harbor by three channels, the narrowest of five stadia, the widest of 15, and the other, toward the north and India, by name Cydara. The nearest promontory of India, they said, is called Coliacum, a voyage of four days, with the Island of the Sun meeting one midway.

87| That sea is of a deep green color, and moreover bushy with trees, whose crests the rudders rub away. They marveled at the Septentriones and the Pleiades in our region as if in a new sky, admitting that not even the moon is seen above the earth among themselves except from the eighth day to the sixteenth; that Canopus shines in the nights, a great and bright star. But what was most wonderful to them was that their shadows fall toward our sky, not their own, and that the sun rises on the left and sets on the right, rather than the reverse.

88| The same men related that the side of the island which is stretched before India is of 10 stadia, from the winter sunrise; that beyond the Hemodian mountains they also look upon the Seres, known to them also from trade; that the father of Rachia had traveled there; that wild beasts come to meet newcomers there, and that they themselves exceed the size of men, with reddish hair, blue eyes, and a harsh sound of voice, with no common language. The rest is the same as our traders report: wares are placed on the farther bank of the river beside the goods for sale, and are taken away by them if the exchange pleases them. Hatred of luxury is never more just than when the mind, carried all the way there, considers what is sought, and how far, and why.

89| But not even Taprobane, though banished by nature outside the world, is free of our vices. Gold and silver are prized there too; marble like tortoiseshell, pearls and gems are held in honor; the whole heap of our own luxury is far greater. They said their own wealth was greater, but that among us there is more use of opulence. No one has a slave; no one sleeps on into the day or during the daytime; their buildings stand only moderately above the ground; the price of grain is never raised; there are no courts or lawsuits; Hercules is worshiped; a king is chosen by the people for age and clemency, one who has no children, and if he afterward begets any, he is set aside, so that the kingship may not become hereditary.

90| Thirty rulers are given it by the people, and no one is condemned to death except by the vote of several; even so there is an appeal to the people, and 70 judges are appointed: if these acquit the accused, the 30 thereafter have no standing, which is the gravest disgrace. The king has the cult of Father Liber, the rest that of the Arabs.

91| If the king does anything wrong, he is punished with death, though no one kills him, all turning away from him and even refusing him the commerce of speech. Festal days are spent in hunting; this is held to be most pleasing, with tigers and elephants. The fields are carefully tilled; there is no use of the vine, but they abound in fruits. There is also pleasure in fishing, especially for tortoises, with whose upper shells entire households of the inhabitants are roofed: they are found of such size. The life of men is moderate at a hundred years.

92| This is what has been learned about Taprobane. The four satrapies, which we put off to this place, stand as follows. In the mountains, from the peoples nearest the Indus. Capisene had the city Capisa, which Cyrus destroyed. Arachosia, with a river and a town of the same name, which some have called Cufis, founded by Semiramis. The river Erymandus flows past Parabeste of the Arachosii. Next to these, on the south, toward the part of the Arachotae, they place the Dexendrusi, on the north the Paropanisidae, and the town Cartana under the Caucasus, which was afterward called Tetragonis. This region is opposite Bactria; then that of the Arii, whose town is Alexandria, named from its founder, the Sydraci, Dangalae, Parapinae, Cataces, Mazi; at the Caucasus the Cadrusi, a town founded by Alexander.

93| Below all these the country is flatter. From the Indus is the Arian region, scorched by heats and surrounded by deserts, yet with much shade interspersed, it gathers cultivators chiefly around two rivers, the Tonberus and the Arosapes. The town is Artacoana; the river Arius, which flows past Alexandria, founded by Alexander. The town extends 30 stadia, and Artacabene, much more beautiful as it is more ancient, fortified again by Antiochus, extends fifty stadia.

94| The Dorsigi, a people; the rivers Pharnacotis and Ophradus; Prophthasia, a town of the Zaraspae, the Drangae, Euergetae, Zarangae, Gedrusi, the towns Peucolis, Lyphorta and Methorcum; deserts; the river Manain, the Acutri, a people, the river Eorus, the Orbi, a people, the navigable river Pomanus in the territory of the Pandae, likewise the Cabirus of the Suari, with a harbored mouth, the town Condigramma, the river Cophes. Into it flow the navigable Saddarus, Parospus and Sodamus.

95| Some want Daritis to be part of Ariana, and they give the length of both as 1,800,000, the breadth half less than that of India. Others have placed the Gedrusi and the Sires for 138,000 paces, then the Ichthyophagi, the Oritae, speaking a language of their own, not that of the Indians, for 200,000 paces. Alexander forbade all the Ichthyophagi to live on fish. Then they have placed the people of the Arbii for 200,000 paces, beyond them deserts; then Carmania, Persis and Arabia.

96| But before we go through these matters people by people, it is fitting to point out what Onesicritus reported, who sailed round with the fleet of Alexander from India into the interior of Persis, as recently set out by Juba, and then the voyage which has been discovered in these years and is kept up today. The voyage of Onesicritus and Nearchus does not give all the names of the stopping places, nor the distances, and Xylinepolis, founded by Alexander, from which they took their start, is not sufficiently explained as to beside what river or where it was.

97| These things, however, worthy of mention, are reported by them: a town founded by Nearchus on the voyage, and the river Arbis, capable of holding ships; opposite, an island 70 stadia away, Alexandria, founded by Leonnatus at the order of Alexander on the borders of the people; Argeruus with a healthy harbor; the navigable river Tonberus, around which are the Pasirae; then the Ichthyophagi, over so long a stretch that they sailed along it in a space of 30 days; the island called that of the Sun and also the Bed of the Nymphs, reddish, in which every animal is destroyed from uncertain causes;

98| the people Ori; the river of Carmania Hyctanis, with harbors and rich in gold. From it they noted that the Septentriones were first seen, and that Arcturus was not seen on all nights nor ever through the whole of them. They noted that the Achaemenidae held sway as far as there. Mines of copper and iron, and of arrenicum and minium, are worked. Thence is the promontory of Carmania, from which the crossing to the opposite coast, to the Macae, a people of Arabia, is 50 paces; three islands, of which only Oracta, which has water, is inhabited, 25,000 paces from the mainland; four islands already in the gulf before Persis — around these sea snakes of twenty cubits each swam up and terrified the fleet —,

99| the island Athotadrus, likewise the Gauratae, on which is the people of the Gyani; the river Hyperis in the middle of the Persian gulf, able to hold merchant ships, the river Sitioganus, by which one sails to Pasargadae on the seventh day, the navigable river Phristimus, an island without a name, the river Granis for ships of moderate size — it flows through Susiane, and on its right dwell the mountain Dexi, who prepare bitumen —, the river Zarotis, with a mouth difficult except to those who know it, two small islands; thence the navigation is shallow, like a marsh, though it is accomplished through certain channels;

100| the mouth of the Euphrates, the lake which the Eulaeus and the Tigris make near Characene, thence by the Tigris to Susa. They found Alexander there celebrating festal days, in the seventh month after he had departed from them at Patala, the third of the voyage. So Alexander's fleet sailed; afterward, from the promontory of Arabia Syagrus to Patala with the west wind, which they call there the hippalus, seemed the surest course, by estimate 1,332,000 paces.

101| A later age judged a nearer and safer course, if one made from the same promontory for the port of India called Sigerus, and for a long time the voyage was made so, until the merchant discovered shortcuts and India was brought near by profit: for it is sailed every year, with cohorts of archers placed on board, since pirates were very troublesome. Nor will it be tiresome to set out the whole course from Egypt, now for the first time opening up with sure knowledge: a matter worth attention, as India drains our empire of no less than HS.D in any year, and sends back wares which sell among us at a hundredfold.

102| The town of Juliopolis is 2,000 paces from Alexandria; from there they sail up the Nile to Coptos 309,000 paces, a course accomplished in 12 days when the etesian winds blow. From Coptos one goes by camels, with stations arranged according to the watering places: the first is called Hydreuma, 32,000 from Coptos, the second on a mountain, a day's journey, the third at a second Hydreuma, 85,000 from Coptos, then on a mountain; next at the Hydreuma of Apollo, 184,000 from Coptos, again on a mountain; next at the New Hydreuma, 236,000 from Coptos.

103| There is also another Hydreuma, the Old — it is called the Troglodytic — where a garrison keeps watch, on a detour of two miles; it is 7,000 from the New Hydreuma. From there to the town Berenice, where is the harbor of the Red Sea, is 257,000 paces from Coptos. But because the greater part of the journey is done at night on account of the heat, and the days are consumed in halts, the whole journey from Coptos to Berenice is completed on the twelfth day.

104| They begin to sail in midsummer before the Dog Star rises, or just after it has risen, and arrive about the thirtieth day at Ocelis in Arabia or at Cane in the frankincense-bearing region. There is also a third port, called Muza, which the Indian voyage does not seek, nor any but the traders in frankincense and Arabian perfumes. Inland the town, its royal seat, is called Sapphar, and another Save. For those making for India it is most advantageous to set out from Ocelis; from there they sail with the wind hippalus for 40 days to the first emporium of India, Muziris. It is not to be sought, because of the neighboring pirates, who hold a place named Nitrias, and it is not rich in wares; besides, the anchorage of ships is far from land, and cargoes are brought and carried off in small boats. Caelobothras was reigning there when I set these things down.

105| Another more useful port is that of the people called Neacyndi, which is named Becare. Pandion was reigning there, far from the emporium in a town in the interior called Modura. The region, however, from which they bring pepper in dugout boats to Becare, is called Cottonara. All these names of peoples, ports or towns are found in none of the earlier writers, from which it appears that the state of places changes.

106| From India they sail back at the beginning of the Egyptian month Tybi, our December, or at any rate within the sixth day of the Egyptian Mechir, which falls before our Ides of January: thus it happens that they return in the same year. They sail from India with the south-east wind, the volturnus, and when they have entered the Red Sea, with the southwest wind or the south. Now we shall return to our subject.

107| Nearchus wrote that the coast of Carmania extends twelve times fifty thousand paces. From its beginning to the river Sabis is 100 paces; from there vineyards are cultivated, and fields as far as the river Ananis, a space of 25 miles; the region is called Armuzia. The towns of Carmania are Zetis and Alexandria. In this part, then, the twin sea also bursts into the lands, which our people have called Red, the Greeks Erythrum, from a king Erythras, or, as others think, because the sun's reflection gives it such a color, others from the sand and the earth, others from the nature of the water itself.

108| But it is divided into two gulfs. The one on the east is called the Persian, with a circuit of 2,500,000, as Eratosthenes reports; opposite is Arabia, whose length is 1,500,000. Again it is enclosed by the other gulf, named Arabian. The ocean that flows into it they call the Azanian. The Persian gulf at its entrance has a breadth of 5; others have made it 4,000. From it to the innermost gulf, in a straight course, it is agreed to be almost 1,125,000, and its shape is in the likeness of a human head.

109| Onesicritus and Nearchus wrote that from the river Indus into the Persian gulf, and from there to Babylon by the marshes of the Euphrates, it is 1,700,000. In a corner of Carmania are the Chelonophagi, who roof their huts with the shells of tortoises and feed on the flesh. From the river Arabis they inhabit the promontory itself, hairy over the whole body except the head and clothed in the skins of fish.

110| Beyond the tract of these, toward India, Caecandrus is reported, a deserted island in the ocean, 50 paces off, and beside it, with a strait flowing between, Stoidis, rich in pearls. Joined to the promontory of the Carmani are the Harmozaei. Some insert the Arbii, 421,000 paces along the whole shore. There is the harbor of the Macedonians and the altars of Alexander on the promontory. The rivers Siccanas, then the Dratinus and the Salsum.

111| After it, the promontory Themisteas; the island Aphrodisias is inhabited. Thence the beginning of Persis, at the river Oratis, by which it is divided from Elymais. Opposite Persis are the islands Psilos, Cassandra and Aracha, with a very high mountain sacred to Neptune. Persis itself, lying toward the west, holds a coast of 550,000 paces, rich even in luxury, and long since transferred to the name of the Parthians. Now a few words on their empire.

112| The kingdoms of the Parthians are eighteen in all; for so they divide the provinces about the two seas, as we have said, the Red on the south, the Hyrcanian on the north. Of these 11, which are called the upper, begin at the border of Armenia and the Caspian shores, and reach to the Scythians, with whom they live on equal terms; the remaining 7 kingdoms are called the lower. As far as the Parthians are concerned, Parthyaea was always in the roots of the mountains often mentioned, which skirt all those peoples.

113| It has the Arii on the east, on the south Carmania and the Ariani, on the west the Pratitae Medes, on the north the Hyrcani, surrounded on every side by deserts. The farther Parthians are called Nomads. This side of the deserts, on the west, are their cities which we have mentioned, Issatis and Calliope; toward the summer east Pyropum, toward the winter east Maria, in the middle Hecatompylos, Arsace, the Nisaean region of Parthyene, a famous one, where there is Alexandropolis, named from its founder. It is necessary in this place to mark out also the Medes'

114| position and to carry the survey of the lands around to the Persian sea, so that the rest may thereafter be more easily known. For Media, lying across from the west and meeting Parthia obliquely, shuts off both kingdoms. It has, therefore, the Caspii and the Parthians to the east, Sittacene and Susiane, and Persis, to the south, on the west Adiabene, on the north Armenia.

115| The Persians have always dwelt by the Red Sea, on account of which that gulf is called Persian. The maritime region there is Ceribobus; but where it itself rises toward the Medes, a place is called Climax Megale, by a steep ascent of the mountain by steps, with a narrow entrance, up to Persepolis, the capital of the kingdom, destroyed by Alexander. Besides, it has on its farthest borders Laodicea, founded by Antiochus.

116| From there to the east the Magi hold the stronghold Phrasargis, in which is the tomb of Cyrus; and theirs also is the town Ecbatana, moved by King Darius to the mountains. Between the Parthians and the Arians the Paraetaceni run out. By these peoples and the Euphrates the lower kingdoms are shut in. The rest we shall describe starting from Mesopotamia, excepting its point and the peoples of the Arabs told of in the earlier volume.

117| Mesopotamia was entirely Assyrian, scattered in villages except for Babylon and Ninus. The Macedonians gathered it into cities on account of the richness of the soil. Besides those already mentioned it has Seleucia, Laodicea and Artemita; likewise, in the nation of the Arabs who are called Orroei and Mardani, Antiochia, which, founded by Nicanor, governor of Mesopotamia, is called Arabis.

118| Joined to these inland are the Arabs Eldamari, above whom, toward the river Pallacontas, is the town Bura, and the Salmani and the Masei, Arabs; joined to the Gordyaei are the Azoni, through whose land the river Zerbis falls into the Tigris; of the Azoni, the Silices, mountain people, and the Orontes, west of whom is the town Gaugamela, likewise Suae on the rocks. Above the Silices are the Sitrae, through whom the Lycus flows from Armenia; from the Sitrae toward the winter sunrise the town Azochis, then on the plains the towns Diospege, Polytelia, Stratonicea and Anthemus.

119| In the neighborhood of the Euphrates, Alexander ordered Nicephorion, which we have mentioned, to be founded, on account of the advantage of the place. At Zeugma too Apamea has been mentioned, from which those making for the east are met by the fortified town Caphrena, once of 70 stadia in extent and called the seat of the satraps, to which the tribute was brought, now reduced to a citadel.

120| Thebata remains, as it was, and, under the leadership of Pompey the Great, the boundary of the Roman empire, Oruros, L.CC from Zeugma. There are some who report that the Euphrates was diverted by the work of Gobares the governor, at the place where we said it splits, lest by its headlong course it should threaten Babylon, and that it is called by all the Assyrians Narmalchan, which means the royal river. Where it is diverted there was a town, Agranis, one of the greatest, which the Persians destroyed.

121| Babylon, the capital of the Chaldaean peoples, for a long time held the highest renown among cities in the whole world, on account of which the remaining part of Mesopotamia and Assyria was called Babylonia; it encloses 60,000 paces with 2 walls, two hundred feet high and fifty wide, at three finger-breadths per foot more than our measure, with the Euphrates flowing through it, a wonderful work in both. There still remains there the temple of Jupiter Belus; he was the discoverer of the science of the stars.

122| For the rest it has returned to solitude, drained by the neighborhood of Seleucia, founded for that reason by Nicator within the fortieth milestone, at the confluence of the Euphrates, led there by a canal, and the Tigris; which nevertheless is surnamed Babylonian, free today and independent, and Macedonian in its customs. They say it has 600,000 of the common people of the city, and that the shape of its walls is that of an eagle spreading its wings, and that its territory is the most fertile of the whole east. In turn, to drain it, the Parthians founded Ctesiphon in Chalonitis, near it at the third milestone, which is now the capital of the kingdoms, and when nothing was gained, King Vologesus recently founded another town in the neighborhood, Vologesocerta.

123| There are still in Mesopotamia the town Hipparenum, also a seat of Chaldaean learning, and this, like Babylon, beside the river [Narraga ] which falls into the Narraga, from which the community has its name. The walls of the Hippareni the Persians destroyed. The Orcheni too, the third seat of Chaldaean learning, are placed in the same region, facing south. After these the Notitae, Orothophanitae and Gnesiochartae.

124| Nearchus and Onesicritus report that it is 412,000 paces to sail on the Euphrates to Babylon from the Persian sea; those who wrote later give 440,000 to Seleucia; Juba gives from Babylon to Characene 175,500. Some say that it flows beyond Babylon in one continuous channel, before it is drawn off for irrigation, for 87,000, and over its whole course for 1,200,000 paces. The diversity of authors causes inconsistency of measure, since even the Persians determine their schoeni and parasangs each by a different measure.

125| Where it ceases to give protection with its channel, as the tract approaches the border of Charax, at once the Attali robbers, a people of the Arabs, trouble it; beyond whom are the Scenitae, and around the bend of the Euphrates the Nomads of Arabia, reaching to the deserts of Syria, from where, as we have said, it bends toward the south, leaving the solitudes of Palmyra.

126| Seleucia is distant from the head of Mesopotamia, for those sailing on the Euphrates, 1,125,000 paces, from the Red Sea, if one sails by the Tigris, 320,000, from Zeugma 724,000; Zeugma is 175 from Seleucia of Syria on our coast. This is the breadth of the lands there between the two seas, but of the Parthian kingdom 944,000. There is still a town of Mesopotamia on the bank of the Tigris near the confluences, which they call Digba.

127| But it is fitting to speak of the Tigris itself too. It has its source in the district of Greater Armenia, at a conspicuous spring in a plain. The place is named Elegosine; the river itself, where it flows more slowly, Diglito; where it is hurried along, from its swiftness it begins to be called Tigris: so the Medes call an arrow. It flows into the lake Aretissa, which bears up all weights put upon it and exhales nitrum in mists. The lake has one kind of fish, and this does not mix with the channel of the passing river, just as no fish from the Tigris swim across into the lake.

128| It is carried through it unlike it both in current and in color, and, when it has crossed it, meeting the mountain Taurus, is sunk into a cavern and, gliding beneath, bursts out on the other side of it. The place is called Zoaranda; that it is the same river is evident from the fact that it brings up what was sunk. Next it crosses another lake, which is called Thospites, and again is sunk into underground channels, and after 22,000 paces is given back near Nymphaeum. Claudius Caesar states that it flows so close to the Arsanias in the region Arrhene that, when they are swollen, they join and yet do not mix, and the lighter Arsanias floats on top for a space of about 4,000, and then, divided off, is sunk into the Euphrates.

129| The Tigris, however, having received from Armenia the famous rivers Parthenias and Nicephorion, separating the Arab Orroei and the Adiabeni and making the Mesopotamia we have described, having coursed past the mountains of the Gordyaei near Apamea, a town of Mesene, on this side of Seleucia in Babylonia 125,000 paces, is divided into two channels; by one it makes for the south and Seleucia, flooding Mesene; by the other, turned to the north, it cuts at the back of the same people the plains of Cauchae. Where the waters have come back together, it is called Pasitigris,

130| and later receives from Media the Choaspes and, as we have said, carried between Seleucia and Ctesiphon, pours itself into the Chaldaean lakes and fills them to an extent of 62,000 paces; then, spreading out in a vast channel, on the right of the town of Charax it is carried into the Persian sea with a mouth of 10 paces. Between the mouths of the two rivers there were 25,000 paces, or, as others report, 7,000, both being navigable. But for a long time the Orcheni and the dwellers along it, irrigating their fields, have blocked the Euphrates, and it is carried to the sea only through the Tigris.

131| The region next the Tigris is called Parapotamia. In it Mesene has been mentioned; its town is Dabitha. Joined to it is Chalonitis with Ctesiphon, with plantations not only of palms but also of olive and fruit trees. To it extends the mountain Zagrus, coming from Armenia between the Medes and Adiabeni, above Paraetacene and Persis. Chalonitis is 380,000 paces distant from Persis; some report that it is as far from the Caspian sea and from Syria by the shortest route.

132| Between these peoples and Mesene is Sittacene, also called Arbelitis and Palaestine. Its town is the Sittace of the Greeks, and on the east Sabdata, and on the west Antiochia between the two rivers, the Tigris and the Tornadotus, likewise Apamea, to which Antiochus gave his mother's name; it is surrounded by the Tigris and divided by the Archous.

133| Below is Susiane, in which is Susa, the old royal seat of the Persians, founded by Darius son of Hystaspes; it is 450,000 paces from Seleucia in Babylonia, and as far from Ecbatana of the Medes, by the mountain Carbantus. On the northern channel of the Tigris is a town, Barbitace; it is 135 from Susa. There, alone of mortals, with a wonderful hatred of gold, they collect it and bury it, so that nobody may use it. Joined to the Susians on the east are the Oxii, robbers, and 40 peoples of the Mizaei, of independent savagery.

134| Above them, subject to the Parthians, are the Mardi and the Saitae, who are stretched out above Elymais, which we joined to Persis on the coast. Susa is 250,000 paces from the Persian sea. Where the fleet of Alexander went up toward it by the Pasitigris, a village on the Chaldaean lake is called Aple, from which Susa is 62,500 paces by water. Next to the Susians on the east are the Cossiaei; above the Cossiaei to the north, Massabatene under the mountain Cambalidus, which is a branch of the Caucasus, whence by a very easy crossing into the Bactri.

135| The river Eulaeus separates Susiane from Elymais; it rises among the Medes, is hidden for a short space in a conduit and rises again, and glides through Massabatene. It goes around the citadel of the Susians and the temple of Diana, most august to those peoples, and itself also in great reverence, since the kings drink from no other and for that reason carry it to distant places. It receives the rivers Hedyphon, coming past the Asylum of the Persians, and the Aduna, from the Susians. A town beside it is Magoa, 15,000 paces from Charax; some place it at the edge of Susiane, nearest the wastes.

136| Below the Eulaeus is Elymais, on the coast joined to Persis, from the river Oratis to Charax 240,000 paces. Its towns are Seleucia and Sostrate, adjoining the mountain Chasirus. The coast which lies before it we have called, like the lesser Syrtes, inaccessible by reason of mud, the rivers Brixa and Ortacia carrying down a great deal of silt, Elymais itself being so wet that there is no approach to Persis except by a circuit around it. It is also infested by serpents, which the rivers bring down. The part of it most impassable is called Characene, from a town of Arabia that closes those kingdoms, about which we shall speak after setting out first the opinion of Marcus Agrippa.

137| For he reported that Media, Parthia and Persis, having the Indus on the east, the Tigris on the west, the Caucasian Taurus on the north and the Red Sea on the south, extend in length 1,320,000 paces and in breadth 840, and in addition that Mesopotamia by itself, shut in by the Tigris to the east, the Euphrates to the west, the Taurus to the north and the Persian sea to the south, is 800,000 paces in length and 360,000 in breadth.

138| Charax, the innermost town of the Persian gulf, from which the Arabia called Eudaemon runs out, is inhabited on a hill made by hand, between the confluence, with the Tigris on the right and the Eulaeus on the left, 2,000 paces in extent. It was founded first by Alexander the Great, colonists being led there from the royal city Durine, which then perished, the soldiers unfit for service being left there; he had ordered it to be called Alexandria, and the village Pellaeum, from his own native land, which he had made specially Macedonian.

139| The rivers overcame that town; afterward Antiochus, the fifth of the kings, restored it and named it after himself, and when it was again damaged, Spaosines son of Sagdodonacus, king of the neighboring Arabs, whom Juba falsely reports to have been a satrap of Antiochus, restored it with moles set in front and gave it his own name, the site being fortified nearby, 6,000 paces in length and a little less in breadth. Earlier it was 10 stadia from the shore — the Vipsanian portico also has it as maritime —, but Juba reports 50 paces;

140| now the envoys of the Arabs and our own traders, who came from there, affirm that it is 120,000 from the shore. In no part have lands brought down by rivers gained more or more quickly. This is the more wonderful as the tide advances far beyond that point and does not drive them back.

141| That Dionysius was born in this place, the most recent authority on the situation of the world, whom the deified Augustus sent ahead to examine everything in the east when his elder son was about to go to Armenia for Parthian and Arabian affairs, does not escape me, nor have I forgotten that each of them seemed to us at the beginning of the work the most careful authority on his own region: in this part, however, we choose to follow the Roman arms and King Juba, in the volumes written to the same Gaius Caesar about the same Arabian expedition.

142| Arabia, second to no people in extent, descends very far from mount Amanus, from the region of Cilicia and Commagene, as we have said, many of its peoples having been led there by Tigranes the Great, but of their own accord to our sea and the Egyptian shore, as we have taught, while the Nubaei also penetrate into the middle of Syria to Mount Libanus; to them are joined the Ramisi, then the Teranei, then the Patami.

143| The peninsula of Arabia itself, running out between the two seas, the Red and the Persian, surrounded by sea by a certain artifice of nature in likeness and size to Italy, looks toward the same part of the sky with no difference; this too is fortunate in that situation. Its peoples from our sea as far as the wastes of Palmyra we have described: the rest we shall now go through from there. The Nomads and harassers of the Chaldaeans are shut in by the Scenitae, as we have said, themselves wanderers, but named from their tents, which they pitch of haircloth wherever they please.

144| Then the Nabataei inhabit a town named Petra, in a valley of a little less than 2,000 paces in extent, surrounded by inaccessible mountains, with a stream flowing through it. It is 600,000 from the town of Gaza on our coast, and 135,000 from the Persian gulf. Here both the roads meet, that of those who sought Palmyra from Syria and that of those who came from Gaza.

145| From Petra the Omani dwelt as far as Characene, in towns once famous, founded by Semiramis, Abaesamis and Soractia; now there are wastes. Then there is a town which obeys the king of the Characeni, on the bank of the Pasitigris, named Forat, in which they assemble from Petra, and from there they sail 12,000 paces to Characene with the tide in their favor, and for those sailing from the Parthian kingdom the village Teredon. Below the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris, on the left of the river the Chaldaeans hold the land, on the right the Nomad Scenitae.

146| Some report that two other towns also are sailed past on the Tigris at long intervals, Barbatia and then Dumatha, which is a voyage of 10 days from Petra. Our traders say that Apamea too obeys the king of the Characeni, placed where the backwater of the Euphrates joins the Tigris; and that thus the Parthians, when they attempt an incursion, are kept off by works put in the way and by flooding.

147| Now from Charax we shall describe the coast, first searched out by Epiphanes. The spot where the Euphrates once had its mouth, the river Salsum, the promontory Caldone, an estuary more like a chasm than a sea, for 50 of the coast, the river Achenus, deserts 100 paces as far as the island Icarus, the gulf Capeus, which the Gaulopes and Gattaei inhabit, the Gerrhaic gulf, the town Gerrha, 5 paces in extent; it has towers made of square blocks of salt. From the shore 50, the region Attene,

148| opposite is the island Tylos, as many thousands from the shore, most celebrated for its very many pearls, with a town of the same name, and beside it another, smaller, 12,500 paces from its promontory; they report that beyond are seen large islands, which have not been reached; the circuit of this one is 112,500 paces, and it lies farther from Persis, approached by one narrow channel. The island of Ascliae, the peoples Nochaeti, Zurazi, Borgodi, Catharraei, Nomads, the river Cynos.

149| Beyond, Juba reports a navigation unexplored from that side because of rocks, passing over mention of the town of the Omani, Batrasavaves, and Omana, which earlier writers made a famous port of Carmania, and likewise Homna and Attana, which our traders say are now the most frequented towns from the Persian sea. From the river Canis, as Juba says, a mountain like something burnt, the peoples Epimaranitae, then Ichthyophagi,

150| a deserted island, the peoples Bathymi [….] Eblythaei mountains, the island Omoemus, the harbor Mochorbae, the islands Etaxalos and Inchobriche, the people Cadaei, many islands without names, but famous Isura, Rhinnea and the nearest, on which are inscribed stone stelae in unknown letters, the harbor Coboea, the deserted islands Bragae, the people Taludaei, the region of Dabanegoris, the mountain Orsa with a harbor, the gulf Duatas, many islands, the mountain Tricoryphos, the region Chardaleon, the islands Solanades, Cachina, likewise those of the Ichthyophagi. Then the Clari, the shore Mamaeum, where there are mines of gold, the region Canauna, the peoples Apitami and Casani, the island Devade, the spring Coralis, the Carphati, the islands Alaea and Amnamethus, the people Darae,

151| the islands Chelonitis, many of the Ichthyophagi, Odanda, deserted, Basa, many of the Sabaei. The rivers Thanar and Amnum, the islands Doricae, the springs Daulotos and Dora, the islands Pteros, Labatanis, Coboris and Sambrachate, and a town bearing the same name on the mainland. To the south many islands, the largest Camari, the river Musecros, the harbor Laupas, the Scenitae Sabaei, many islands, their emporium Acila, from which one sails to India,

152| the region Amithoscatta, Damnia, the Mizi, greater and lesser, Drymatina, the Macae; their promontory, opposite Carmania, is 50 paces distant. A marvelous thing is reported there: that Numenius, put in charge of Mesene by King Antiochus, fighting against the Persians, won a victory there on the same day with his fleet and, when the tide had gone back, again with his cavalry, and set up twin trophies in the same place to Jupiter and Neptune.

153| An island lies out in the deep, Ogyris, famous for King Erythras buried there; it is 125,000 paces from the mainland, and its circuit is 112,500. No less famous is another in the Azanian sea, Dioscuridu, distant from the farthest promontory Syagrus 280,000. The rest on the mainland, still from the south, are the Autaridae, a crossing of 8 days into the mountains, the Larendani and Catabani, the Gebbanitae with several towns, but the greatest Nagia and Thomna, with 65 temples; this is an indication of its size.

154| A promontory; from it the distance to the mainland of the Troglodytae is 50; the Thoani, Actaei, Chatramotitae, Tonabaei, Antiadalaei, Lexianae, Agraei, Cerbani, and the Sabaei, the most famous of the Arabs on account of frankincense, their peoples stretching to both seas. Their towns on the Red Sea shore are Merme, Marma, Corolia and Sabbatha; inland the towns Nascus, Cardava, Carnus and Thomala, to which they bring down wares of perfumes.

155| A part of them are the Atramitae, whose capital is Sabota, enclosing 60 temples within its walls; the royal seat of all, however, is Marebbata. They hold a gulf of 93,000, full of fragrant islands. Joined to the Atramitae in the interior are the Minaei. By the sea dwell also the Aelamitae, with a town of the same name, and joined to them the Chaculatae, the town Sibi, which the Greeks call Apate, the Arsi, Codani, Vadaei with a large town, Barasasaei, Lechieni, and the island Sygaros, which dogs do not enter, and those put ashore around its coasts die wandering.

156| The innermost gulf, in which are the Laeanitae, who gave it its name; their royal seat is Agra, and on the gulf Laeana or, as others say, Aelana: for our writers have written the gulf itself as Laeaniticus, others as Aelaniticus, Artemidorus as Alaeniticus, Juba as Leaniticus. The circuit of Arabia from Charax to Laeana is reported to be X̅L̅V̅I̅I̅.L̅X̅V̅ paces; Juba thinks it a little less than 4,000,000. It is broadest on the north between the towns Heroum and Charax.

157| For let the rest of its interior also be described. To the Nabataei the ancients joined the Thimanei; now there are the Taveni, Suelleni, Araceni, the Arreni with a town in which all trade assembles, the Hemnatae, Avalitae, the towns Domata and Haegra, the Thamudaei, the town Baclanaza, the Chariattaei, the Toali, the town Phodaca, the Minaei, who, as they think, trace their origin from Minos, king of Crete, among whom are the Carmei; the town Maribba, of 14,000 paces, Paramalacum, itself not to be despised, likewise Canon.

158| The Rhadamaei — and their origin too is thought to be Rhadamanthus, brother of Minos —, the Homeritae with the town Mesala, the Hamiroei, Gedranitae, Amphryaei, Lysanitae, Bachylitae, Samnaei, the Amaitaei with the towns Nessa and Chenneseri, the Zamareni with the towns Sagiatta and Canthace, the Bacaschami with the town Riphearina, a word by which they call barley, the Autaei, Ethravi, the Cyrei with the town Ehlataeis, the Chodae, the Aiathuri in the mountains with a town of 25,000 paces, in which is a spring Aenuscabales, which means "of camels,"

159| the town Ampelome, a colony of the Milesians, the town Athrida, the Calingi, whose town Mariba means "lords of all," the towns Pallon and Murannimal beside the river through which they think the Euphrates emerges, the peoples Agraei and Ammoni, the town Athenae, the Caunaravi, which means "very rich in herds," the Chorranitae, Cesani and Choani. There were also Greek towns, Arethusa, Larisa and Chalcis, destroyed in various wars.

160| Only Aelius Gallus, of the equestrian order, has so far carried Roman arms into that land, for Gaius Caesar, the son of Augustus, only looked out upon Arabia. Gallus destroyed towns not named by the authors who wrote before, Negrana, Nestus, Nesca, Magusus, Caminacus, Labaetia, and the Mariba mentioned above, of 6 in circuit, likewise Caripeta, where he advanced farthest.

161| The rest he brought back as explored: that the Nomads live on milk and the flesh of wild animals, the others press wine from palms, as the Indians do, and oil from sesame. That the Homeritae are the most numerous, that the fields of the Minaei are fertile, planted with palm groves, their wealth in cattle. That the Cerbani and Agraei excel in arms, most of all the Chatramotitae. That the Carrei have the widest and most fertile fields, the Sabaei are the wealthiest by the fragrant fertility of their forests, their gold mines, the irrigation of their fields, and their yield of honey and wax. About perfumes we shall speak in our own volume.

162| The Arabs wear turbans or live with uncut hair; the beard is shaved off except on the upper lip; among some even that is left uncut. And, wonderful to say, of their innumerable peoples an equal part lives by trade or by robbery. On the whole they are the richest of peoples, as the greatest wealth of the Romans and Parthians settles among them, since they sell what they take from the sea or the forests and buy nothing in return.

163| Now we shall go through the remaining, opposite coast of Arabia. Timosthenes estimated the whole gulf as four days' sail in length, two days' in breadth, the narrows 7,500 paces; Eratosthenes, from the mouth, 1,200,000 in each direction; Artemidorus, on the side of Arabia, 1,700,050,

164| and on the Troglodytic side 1,187,500 paces as far as Ptolemais; Agrippa 1,732,000, with no difference between the sides. Most have given the breadth as 475,000, and the mouth, turned toward the winter sunrise, some say extends 4,000, others 7,500, others 12,000.

165| The situation, however, is as follows: from the Laeanitic gulf there is a second gulf, which the Arabs call Aea, in which is the town Heroon. There was also Cambysu, between the Neli and the Marchadae, the sick of the army having been led there. The people Tyro, the harbor Daneon, from which to carry a navigable channel through to the Nile, at the part where it runs down toward the Delta, over the interval of 62,500 that lies between the river and the Red Sea, was first of all conceived by Sesostris, king of Egypt, then by Darius of the Persians, and then by the Ptolemy who followed, who also dug a canal 100 feet in breadth and 30 in depth, 37,500 paces in length, as far as the Bitter Springs;

166| beyond this the fear of flooding deterred them, the Red Sea having been found to be three cubits higher than the land of Egypt. Some do not give that reason, but say that it was lest the water of the Nile, which alone furnishes drink, be spoiled by the sea let in. None the less the whole journey is made overland from the Egyptian sea, and the way is threefold: one from Pelusium through the sands, in which, unless reeds fixed in the ground guide one, the road is not found, the wind constantly covering the tracks;

167| the second beyond Mount Casius, which returns after 60,000 paces to the Pelusiac road — the Arabs Autaei live along it —; the third from Gerrhum, which they call Agipsum, through the same Arabs, 60,000 shorter, but rough with mountains and without water. All these roads lead to Arsinoe, founded in the gulf Carandra by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who first explored Troglodytice, and named after his sister; the river which flows past Arsinoe he called the Ptolemaeus.

168| Next is a small town, Aenum — others write Philoterias for this —, then the Asaraei, savage Arabs born of intermarriages with the Troglodytae, the islands Sapirine and Scytala, then deserts as far as Myos Hormos, where there are the spring Tatnos, the mountain Aeas, the island Iambe, many harbors, the town Berenice, named for the mother of Philadelphus, to which we have described the journey from Coptos, the Arabs Autaei and Gebadaei.

169| Troglodytice, which the ancients called Midoe, others Midioe, the mountain Pentedactylos, a number of islands Stenae Dirae, no fewer Halonesi, Cardamine, Topazos, which gave its name to the gem. The gulf is crowded with islands: of these, those called Mareu have water, those of Eratos are dry; these were prefects of kings. Inland the Candaei, whom they call Ophiophagi, accustomed to feed on serpents; nor is any region more fertile in them.

170| Juba, who seems to have pursued these matters most carefully, omitted in this tract — unless it is a fault of the copies — a second Berenice, surnamed Panchrysos, and a third, called Epi Dires, remarkable for its position: for it is placed on a long projecting neck, where the narrows of the Red Sea are 7,500 paces from Arabia. The island Citis is there, itself bearing topazus.

171| Beyond are forests, where is Ptolemais, founded by Philadelphus for hunting elephants, and for that reason surnamed Epi Theras, beside the lake Monoleus. This is the region indicated by us in the second volume, in which, for 45 days before the solstice and as many after, the shadows are consumed at the sixth hour and fall to the south in the remaining hours, on the other days to the north, while in Berenice, which we put first, on the day of the solstice itself at the sixth hour the shadows are entirely consumed and nothing else new is noted, at an interval of 602,000 paces from Ptolemais: a matter of enormous importance and a place of immense subtlety, the world being caught there, since from there Eratosthenes conceived the notion of giving the measure of the earth, by an unquestionable reckoning of shadows.

172| From here the Azanian sea, the promontory which some have written Hippalus, the lake Mandalum, the island Colocasitis and many in the deep, on which there are very many tortoises. The town Sace, the island Daphnidis, the town Aduliton; this was founded by runaway slaves of the Egyptians from their masters.

173| In this place is the greatest emporium of the Troglodytae, and also of the Aethiopians; it is a voyage of 5 days from Ptolemais. They bring down chiefly ivory, rhinoceros horns, hides of hippopotamuses, tortoiseshell, sphingia, slaves. Above the Aethiopians, the Aroteres, are the islands called Aliaeu, likewise Bacchias, Antibacchias and Stratioton. From here on the coast of Aethiopia there is an unknown gulf, which is strange, since merchants search out the more distant parts, a promontory on which is the spring Cucios, sought by sailors;

174| beyond is the harbor of Isis, ten days' rowing distant from the town of the Adulitae; to it myrrh is brought by the Troglodytae. Two islands before the harbor are called the Pseudopylae, the inner as many, the Pylae; on one are stone stelae with unknown letters. Beyond, the gulf Avalites, then the island of Diodorus and other deserted ones, deserts also through the mainland, the town Gaza, the promontory and harbor Mossylites, to which cinnamum is brought down. Thus far Sesostris led his army. Some place one more Aethiopian town beyond, on the shore, Baragaza.

175| From the Mossylic promontory Juba wants the Atlantic sea to begin, to be sailed with the northwest wind as far as Gades, past his own Mauretanias, and his whole opinion is not to be withheld in this place. From the promontory of the Indians called Lepte Acra, by others Drepanum, he proposes that in a straight course, past Exusta, to the island Malichu it is 15,000 paces, thence to the place they call Sceneos 225,000 paces, thence to the islands Adanu 150,000:

176| so it comes out to the open sea at 1,875,000 paces. All the rest, on account of the heat of the sun, did not think it could be sailed. Moreover, Arabs from the islands, called Ascitae, trouble the commerce itself, since, laying two bags of ox-hide side by side as a bridge, they practise piracy with poisoned arrows. The same Juba reports that the peoples of the Troglodytae, the Therothoae, so named from hunting, are of marvelous speed, as are the Ichthyophagi, swimming like sea animals, and the Bangeni, Zangenae, Thalibae, Saxinae, Sirechae, Daremae and Domazenes.

177| He says moreover that those who dwell along the Nile from Syene as far as Meroe are not peoples of the Aethiopians, but of the Arabs; that the town of the Sun too, which we mentioned in the position of Egypt not far from Memphis, has Arabs as its founders. There are some who take even the farther bank away from Aethiopia and attach it to Africa. [They inhabited the banks, however, because of the water.] We, leaving to each the judgment in understanding, shall set down the towns on both sides, in the order in which they are reported, from Syene.

178| And first, on the side of Arabia, the people Catadupi, then the Syenitae, the towns Tacompson, which some have called Thatice, Aramum, Sesamos, Andura, Nasarduma, Aindoma Come with Arabeta and Boggia, Leupitorga, Tantarene, Emeae, Chindita, Noa, Goploa, Gistate, Megadale, Premni, Nups, Direa, Patigga, Bacata, Dumana, Radata, in which a golden cat was worshiped as a god, Boron, and in the interior Mallo, nearest to Meroe.

179| So Bion reported. Juba otherwise: a fortified town, Megatichos, between Egypt and Aethiopia, which the Arabs called Mirsion, then Tacompson, Aramum, Sesamum, Pide, Mamuda, Orambis beside a spring of bitumen, Amodata, Prosda, Parenta, Mania, Tessata, Gallas, Zoton, Grau Comen, Emeum, Pidibotae, Aendondacometae, villagers, Nomads living in tents, Cistaepe, Magadale, Parva Primis, Nups, Direlis, Patinga, Breves, Magasnei, Egasmala, Cramda, Denna, Cadeum, Atthena, Batta, Alana, Macua, Scammi, Gora on an island, after these Abale, Androgalis, Sere, Malli, Agoce.

180| From the side of Africa are reported, with the same name, a second Tacompsos, or a part of the first, Mogore, Saea, Aedosa, Penariae, Primis, Magassa, Buma, Linthuma, Spintum, Sidop, Censoe, Pindicitor, Acug, Orsum, Suara, Maumarum, Urbim, Mulon, a town which the Greeks called Hypaton, Pagoarca, Zamnes, from where elephants begin, Mambli, Berressa, Coetum. There was once also a town Epis, opposite Meroe, destroyed before Bion wrote.

181| These are the things reported as far as Meroe, of which at this time almost none survives on either side. At any rate, wastes were recently reported to the emperor Nero by the praetorian soldiers with a tribune whom he sent to explore, when, among his other wars, he was thinking of an Aethiopian one as well. Roman arms, however, also entered there in the times of the deified Augustus, under the command of Publius Petronius, himself of the equestrian order and prefect of Egypt. He stormed the towns, which are the only ones we find, in the order in which we shall give them: Pselcis, Primis, Bocchis, Forum Cambusis, Attena, Stadisis, where the Nile, hurling itself down, takes itself away by its roar from the hearing of the dwellers around.

182| He plundered Napata also. He advanced farthest from Syene, 870,000 paces, and yet Roman arms did not make the solitude there: Aethiopia was worn down by wars with the Egyptians, ruling and serving by turns, famous and powerful even down to the Trojan wars, when Memnon reigned. And that it ruled Syria and our shore in the age of King Cepheus is evident from the stories of Andromeda.

183| In a similar way they have reported variously about its measure as well, first Dalion, who was carried far upstream beyond Meroe, then Aristocreon and Bion and Basilis, and the younger Simonides, who stayed even five years in Meroe, when he wrote about Aethiopia. For Timosthenes, prefect of the fleets of Philadelphus, gave the journey from Syene to Meroe as 60 days, without measure, Eratosthenes 625,000, Artemidorus 600,000, Sebosus from the farthest parts of Egypt 1,675,000, and from the place last named 1,200,050. But all this dispute has recently been ended,

184| since from Syene the explorers of Nero reported 975,000 in the following stages: from Syene to Hiera Sycaminos 53,000 paces, thence to Tama 72,000, in the region of the Euonymitae Aethiopians, to Primis 120,000, to Acina 64,000, to Pitara 25,000, to Tergedum 106,000. They said that the island Gagaude is in the middle of that tract; that from there parrots were first seen, and from another, which is called Artigula, the animal sphingion, from Tergedum the cynocephali. Thence to Nabata 80,000; that town is small, the only one among those named. From it to the island of Meroe 360,000.

185| They said that around Meroe the grasses are at last greener, and something of forests has appeared, and tracks of rhinoceroses and elephants. That the town of Meroe itself is 70,000 paces from the entrance of the island, and beside it another island, Tadu, to those coming up by the right channel, which makes a harbor.

186| The buildings of the town are few; a woman, Candace, reigns, a name which has passed to the queens for many years now; the shrine of Hammon is held in reverence there and shrines are throughout the tract. Moreover, when the Aethiopians held power, that island was of great renown. They report that it was accustomed to furnish 250,000 armed men and 3,000 craftsmen. Other kings of the Aethiopians, 45 in number, are reported at the present day.

187| The whole people, however, was called Aetheria, then Atlantia, and later Aethiopia, from Aethiops, the son of Vulcan. That monstrous shapes of animals and men are born around its extremities is not at all surprising, given the fiery quickness of the artificer in forming bodies and carving figures. They say at any rate that on the innermost part of the east there are peoples without nostrils, with the whole face a level plane, others bereft of an upper lip, others without tongues.

188| some, with the mouth closed up and lacking nostrils, breathe through a single opening only, and draw their drink through reeds of oat grass, and eat the grains of the same oat grass growing of its own accord. For some, nods and movements of the limbs take the place of speech. For some the use of fire was unknown before Ptolemy Lathyrus, king of Egypt. Some have also reported a people of Pygmies among the marshes from which the Nile rises. On the coast, moreover, where we shall describe it, continuous mountains glow red like things on fire.

189| The whole tract from Meroe lies above the Troglodytae and the Red Sea, from Napata a journey of three days to the Red shore, rain water being kept for use in several places, the region between being very fertile in gold. The farther parts the Atabuli, a people of Aethiopians, hold. Then, opposite Meroe, the Megabarri, whom some have named Adiabari; they have a town of Apollo. A part of them are Nomads, who feed on elephants.

190| Opposite, in the part of Africa, are the Macrobii, and again, from the Megabarri, the Memnones and Dabelli, and at an interval of 20 days the Critensi. Beyond them the Dochi, then the Gymnetes, always naked, then the Anderae, Mattitae, Mesaches; these, from shame at their black color, smear their whole bodies with red ochre. But in the part of Africa are the Medimni, then the Nomads, living on the milk of cynocephali, the Alabi, and the Syrbotae, who are said to be eight cubits tall.

191| Aristocreon reports, on the side of Libya, from Meroe, the town Tolle at a journey of 5 days; thence, at 12 days, Esar, a town of the Egyptians who fled from Psammetichus; he says that 300,000 dwelt in it; opposite, on the Arabian side, is their town Diaron. Bion, however, calls Sape what the other calls Esar; and by that name itself strangers are signified. Their capital is on the island Sembobitis, and a third in Arabia, Sinat. Between the mountains and the Nile are the Simbarri, the Phalliges, and in the mountains themselves the Asachae, of many nations. They are said to be distant from the sea a journey of 5 days; they live by hunting elephants. An island in the Nile is subject to the queen of the Sembritae.

192| From it the Nubaei, Aethiopians, at a journey of 8 days; their town, set on the Nile, is Tenupsis. The Sesambri, among whom all quadrupeds are without ears, even elephants. But in the part of Africa the Ptonebari and Ptoemphani, who have a dog for king, divining his commands from his movements, the Harusbi, with a town situated far from the Nile, afterward the Archisarmi, Phalliges, Marigarri and Chasamari.

193| Bion reports other towns also on islands: from Sembobitis toward Meroe, over a whole journey of 20 days, on the nearest island the town of the Seberritae, under a queen, and another, Asara; on the second, the town Darde; a third they call Medoe, in which is the town Asel, a fourth, Garroe, of the same name as its town. Thence along the banks the towns Nautis, Modus, Demadatis, Secundum, Collocat, Secande, Navectabe with the territory Psegipta, Candragori, Araba, Summara.

194| The region above Sirbitum, where the mountains end, is reported by some to have coastal Aethiopians, the Nisicathae and Nisitae, which means men of three and four eyes, not because they are so, but because they use their arrows with special aim. But for that part of the Nile which stretches above the Greater Syrtes and the southern ocean, Dalion says there are the Vacathi, using only rain water, the Cisori, the Logonpori, a journey of 5 days from the Oecalices, the Usibalchi, Isbeli, Perusii, Ballii and Cispii.

195| The rest is deserts, then fabulous peoples: toward the west the Nigroe, whose king is said to have one eye in the forehead, the Agriophagi, who live mostly on the meat of panthers and lions, the Pamphagi, who chew everything, the Anthropophagi, who feed on human flesh, the Cynamolgi with dog heads, the Artabatitae, who walk on four feet, wandering like wild beasts, then the Hesperioe, the Perorsi and those we mentioned on the border of Mauretania. A certain part of the Aethiopians lives only on locusts, hardened by smoke and salt for a year's food; these do not pass the fortieth year of life.

196| Agrippa judged that the whole land of the Aethiopians, with the Red Sea, extends in length 2,170,000 paces, and in breadth, with Upper Egypt, 1,296,000. Some have divided the length thus: from Meroe to Sirbitum a voyage of 12 days, from there 15 to the Dabelli, from these a journey of 6 days to the Aethiopian ocean. In all, from the ocean to Meroe it is agreed among the authorities to be about 625,000 paces, and thence to Syene as much as we have said.

197| Aethiopia lies from the winter sunrise to the winter sunset. On its southern hinge forests, chiefly of ebony, are green. From the middle of it a lofty mountain overhanging the sea burns with eternal fires, called Theon Ochema by the Greeks. From it, by a voyage of four days, is the promontory called Hesperu Ceras, on the border of Africa, beside the Hesperian Aethiopians. Some also report in that tract moderate hills clothed in pleasant shade, of the Aegipans and Satyrs.

198| Ephorus has reported that there are very many islands in that whole sea, and Eudoxus and Timosthenes also; Clitarchus, that one was announced to King Alexander, so rich that the inhabitants exchanged horses for talents of gold, and another where a sacred mountain had been found, shaded with forest, a scent of marvelous sweetness distilling from the trees. Opposite the Persian gulf an island named Cerne lies facing Aethiopia, of which neither the size nor the interval from the mainland is agreed; it is reported to have only Aethiopian peoples.

199| Ephorus states that those sailing from the Red Sea cannot be carried to it, because of the heat, beyond certain columns — so small islands are called. Polybius has reported that Cerne is at the farthest part of Mauretania, opposite Mount Atlas, 8 stadia from the land; Cornelius Nepos, that it lies opposite Carthage especially, 1,000 paces from the mainland, and not larger than 2,000 in circuit. Another island is also reported opposite Mount Atlas, itself called Atlantis. From it, by a voyage of 5 days along the wastes, one comes to the Hesperian Aethiopians and the promontory which we have called Hesperu Ceras, from where the front of the lands first turns around to the west and the Atlantic sea.

200| Opposite this promontory too the Gorgades islands are reported, once the home of the Gorgons, two days' sail distant from the mainland, as Xenophon of Lampsacus relates. Hanno, a commander of the Carthaginians, penetrated to them and reported that the women's bodies were hairy, that the men escaped by their speed; the skins of two of the Gorgades he put in the temple of Juno, for the sake of proof and as a marvel, where they were seen until the capture of Carthage.

201| Beyond these still two islands of the Hesperides are reported, and everything around here is so uncertain that Statius Sebosus has given the course from the islands of the Gorgons to the islands of the Hesperides as a voyage of 40 days along Atlantis, and from these to Hesperu Ceras as one. Nor is the report of the islands of Mauretania more certain. It is agreed only that a few were found opposite the Autololes by Juba, in which he had established the dyeing of Gaetulian purple.

202| Some think that beyond these lie the Fortunate Isles and certain others, in which number the same Sebosus, also embracing the distances, reports that Junonia is 750,000 paces from Gades, and from it as far again toward the west Pluvialia and Capraria; that in Pluvialia there is no water except from rain. From these, 250,000, the Fortunate Isles, opposite the left side of Mauretania, toward the eighth hour of the sun; one is called Invallis from its convexity and another Planasia from its appearance, the circuit of Invallis being 300,000 paces; that trees there grow to a height of 140 feet.

203| Juba made inquiry about the Fortunate Isles as follows: that they lie also toward the south, near the west, 625,000 paces from the Purpurariae, so that one sails 250,000 above the west, then seeks the east for 375,000. The first is called Ombrion, with no traces of buildings; it has in the mountains a pool, and trees like the ferula, from which water is pressed, bitter from the black ones, pleasant to drink from the whiter.

204| The second island is called Junonia; on it there is only a small shrine built of stone. Near it, of the same name, a smaller one, then Capraria, crowded with large lizards. In sight of these is Ninguaria, which received this name from its perpetual snow, and is cloudy.

205| The one next to it is called Canaria, from the multitude of dogs of huge size — of which two were brought to Juba —; traces of buildings appear there. While all abound in fruit and in birds of every sort, this one abounds also in palm groves bearing dates and in pine nuts; there is also a quantity of honey, and papyrus and siluri are produced in the rivers. They are troubled by monsters, which are constantly cast up, decaying. And, the circuit of the lands having been abundantly described, outside and inside, the measure of the seas seems to be gathered into a narrow compass.

206| Polybius reported the length from the strait of Gades, on a direct course, to the mouth of the Maeotis as 3,337,500, and from the same starting point to Sicily 1,200,050, Crete 375,000, Rhodes 187,500, the Chelidoniae as much, Cyprus 325,000, thence to Seleucia Pieria in Syria 115,000, a computation which makes 2,440,000.

207| Agrippa rates this same interval from the strait of Gades to the Issic gulf along a direct length at 4,440,000, in which I do not know whether there is an error of number, since he gave the same course from the Sicilian strait to Alexandria as 1,400,050. The whole circuit through the gulfs named, from the same starting point, adds up, within the Maeotic lake, to 15,509,000; Artemidorus adds 756,000, and the same writer reported that with the Maeotis it is 17,390,000 paces.

208| This is the measure of unarmed men, challenging fortune with peaceful daring. Now the size of the parts themselves will be compared; however the diversity of authors will bring difficulty, it will nevertheless be viewed most fittingly with breadth added to length. According to this prescribed method, then, the size of Europe is [….], the length 8,714,000. Africa — that a mean computation may be taken from all the variety of those reporting — makes a length of 3,798,000; the breadth, where it is inhabited, nowhere exceeds 250,000.

209| But since Agrippa made it 910,000 in its Cyrenaic part, including its deserts as far as the Garamantes, as far as they were known, the whole measure that will come into the comparison makes 4,708,000. The length of Asia is admitted to be L.X̅I̅I̅I̅.DCCL; its breadth let it be computed from the Aethiopian sea to Alexandria, situated beside the Nile, so that the measure runs through Meroe and Syene, 1,875,000.

210| It follows, then, that Europe exceeds Asia in size by somewhat less than half of Asia, and that the same is larger than Africa by as much again and a sixth part of Africa. But if all the sums are mixed together, it will be clear that Europe makes up a third of the entire earth, and a little over an eighth, Asia a fourth and a fourteenth, and Africa a fifth and in addition a sixtieth.

211| To all this we will add one further science, a Greek invention of the most exquisite subtlety, so that nothing may be lacking in our survey of the lie of the lands: once the regions have been set out, it may also be known with which of them each region shares a fellowship of the stars, or a kinship of days and nights, and which have shadows equal to one another and the same curvature of the world. So this too shall be given, and the whole earth shall be divided among the sections of the sky. Now the segments of the world are several; our writers have called them circles, the Greeks parallels.

212| The first begins with the part of India that faces south. It extends as far as Arabia and the peoples who live along the Red Sea. It contains the Gedrosi, the Carmani, the Persians, the Elymaei, Parthyene, Aria, Susiane, Mesopotamia, Seleucia surnamed Babylonian, Arabia as far as Petra, Coele Syria, Pelusium, the lower parts of Egypt, which are called the Chora, Alexandria, the coastal parts of Africa, all the towns of Cyrenaica, Thapsus, Hadrumetum, Clupea, Carthage, Utica, both Hippos, Numidia, both Mauretanias, the Atlantic sea, the Pillars of Hercules. Within this embrace of the sky, at noon on the day of the equinox, the pointer they call a gnomon, 7 feet long, casts a shadow no more than 4 feet long; and the longest spans of night and day have 14 equinoctial hours, the shortest, conversely, 10.

213| The next circle begins from India where it slopes toward the west and runs through the middle of the Parthians, Persepolis, the nearer parts of Persis, Hither Arabia, Judaea, and the peoples who live about Mount Lebanon; it takes in Babylon, Idumaea, Samaria, Jerusalem, Ascalon, Joppa, Caesarea, Phoenicia, Ptolemais, Sidon, Tyre, Berytus, Botrys, Tripolis, Byblus, Antioch, Laodicea, Seleucia, the coastal parts of Cilicia, southern Cyprus, Crete, Lilybaeum in Sicily, and northern Africa and Numidia. A gnomon of 35 feet at the equinox makes a shadow 24 feet in length, while the longest day and night come to 14 equinoctial hours with two-fifths of one hour added.

214| The third circle rises from the Indians nearest Imavus. It stretches through the Caspian Gates, the parts nearest Media, Cataonia, Cappadocia, the Taurus, the Amanus, Issus, the Cilician Gates, Soli, Tarsus, Cyprus, Pisidia, Pamphylia, Side, Lycaonia, Lycia, Patara, Xanthus, Caunus, Rhodes, Cos, Halicarnassus, Cnidus, Doris, Chios, Delos, the middle Cyclades, Gythium, Malea, Argos, Laconia, Elis, Olympia, Messene in the Peloponnese, Syracuse, Catina, central Sicily, Sardinia's southern parts, Carteia, and Gades. 100 inches of gnomon make a shadow of 77 inches. The longest day is of 14 and a half equinoctial hours with a thirtieth of one hour.

215| Under the fourth circle lie the regions on the other side of Imavus, southern Cappadocia, Galatia, Mysia, Sardis, Smyrna, Sipylus, the mountain Tmolus, Lydia, Caria, Ionia, Tralles, Colophon, Ephesus, Miletus, Chios, Samos, the Icarian sea, the north of the Cyclades, Athens, Megara, Corinth, Sicyon, Achaia, Patrae, the Isthmus, Epirus, northern Sicily, the eastern part of Narbonese Gaul, and the coast of Spain from New Carthage and thence westward. To a gnomon of 21 feet answer shadows of 16 feet. The longest day has 14 equinoctial hours and two-thirds of one hour.

216| In the fifth segment are contained, from the entrance of the Caspian sea, the Bactri, Hiberia, Armenia, Mysia, Phrygia, the Hellespont, the Troad, Tenedos, Abydos, Scepsis, Ilium, the mountain Ida, Cyzicus, Lampsacus, Sinope, Amisus, Heraclea in Pontus, Paphlagonia, Lemnos, Imbros, Thasos, Cassandria, Thessaly, Macedonia, Larisa, Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella, Edesus, Beroea, Pharsalia, Carystus, Euboea of the Boeotians, Chalcis, Delphi, Acarnania, Aetolia, Apollonia, Brundisium, Tarentum, Thurii, Locri, Regium, the Lucani, Naples, Puteoli, the Tuscan sea, Corsica, the Baliares, and central Spain. The gnomon 7 feet, the shadows 6. The greatest length of the day, 15 equinoctial hours.

217| The sixth band, which contains the city of Rome, takes in the Caspian peoples, the Caucasus, the northern parts of Armenia, Apollonia above the Rhyndacus, Nicomedia, Nicaea, Calchadon, Byzantium, Lysimachea, the Chersonese, the Black Gulf, Abdera, Samothrace, Maronea, Aenus, Bessica, Thrace, Maedica, Paeonia, the Illyrians, Durrachium, Canusium, the farthest parts of Apulia, Campania, Etruria, Pisae, Luna, Luca, Genua, Liguria, Antipolis, Massilia, Narbo, Tarraco, central Hither Spain, and thence through Lusitania. Gnomon 8 feet, shadow 8. The longest span of the day is 15 equinoctial hours with a ninth part of one hour added, or, as Nigidius held, a fifth.

218| The seventh division begins from the other shore of the Caspian sea and runs over Callatis, the Bosporus, the Borysthenes, Tomi, the far side of Thrace, the Triballi, the rest of Illyricum, the Hadriatic sea, Aquileia, Altinum, Venetia, Vicetia, Patavium, Verona, Cremona, Ravenna, Ancona, Picenum, the Marsi, the Paeligni, the Sabines, Umbria, Ariminum, Bononia, Placentia, Mediolanum and everything from the Apennines, and beyond the Alps Aquitanian Gaul, Vienna, the Pyrenees, and Celtiberia. To a pointer of 35 feet, shadows of 36, though in part of Venetia the shadow is made equal to the gnomon. The fullest spans of the day are 15 equinoctial hours and three-fifths of an hour.

219| Thus far we have set forth the exact findings of the ancients. The most painstaking of their successors assigned what remains of the earth beyond these to three segments: one from the Tanais through Lake Maeotis and the Sarmatians reaching to the Borysthenes, and then through the Dacians and part of Germany, taking in the Gauls and the shores of the ocean, which would be of 16 hours; a second through the Hyperboreans and Britain, of 17 hours; and last the Scythian one, from the Ripaean ridges to Thule, in which, as we have said, days and nights run on continuously by turns.

220| The same writers also placed two circles before the starting point that we have used: the first through the island of Meroe and Ptolemais on the Red Sea, founded for elephant hunting, where the longest day would be half an hour more than 12 hours; the second running through Syene in Egypt, which would be of 13 hours; and these same writers added to each of the circles half an hour, up to the last. And so much for the lands.

Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/pliny/017-natural-history-book-vi#p1), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.

← All of Pliny the Younger & Pliny the Elder: Letters, Panegyricus & Natural History