The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 15: CHAP. 13. (12.)—THE ISLANDS OF THE EUXINE.

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About This Book

The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.

CHAP. 13. (12.)—THE ISLANDS OF THE EUXINE.

The islands of the Euxine are the Planctæ or Cyaneæ,198 otherwise called Symplegades, and Apollonia, surnamed Thynias,199 to distinguish it from the island of that name 200 in Europe; it is four miles in circumference, and one mile distant from the mainland. Opposite to Pharnacea 201 is Chalceritis, to which the Greeks have given the name of Aria,202 and consecrated it to Mars; here, they say, there were birds that used to attack strangers with blows of their wings.