The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Geography of Strabo, Vol. III., translated by H. C. Hamilton.

[396] According to Diodorus Siculus, xix. 33, an exception was made for women with child, or with a family; but otherwise, if she did not comply with this custom, she was compelled to remain a widow during the rest of her life, and to take no part in sacrifices or other rites, as being an impious person.

[397] By Arrian and Plutarch he is called Dandamis.

[398] By φιμοῖς, probably here is meant a circular segment, or band of iron, furnished with slightly raised points in the inside; it passes over the bone of the nose, and is fastened below by a cord which is continued as a bridle. Such a contrivance is still in use for mules and asses in the East.

[399] Coraÿ reads πόθος instead of κόρος in the text. The translation would then be, “who required nothing;” but ἐκείνου here refers to Alexander.

[400] On the day of his birth, Herod. ix. 109.

[403] The text is corrupt. Tzschucke’s emendation is adopted, viz. βόνασοι. Groskurd translates the word by “hump-backed oxen,” or zebus.

[404] Ælian de Nat. Animal. xvii. 21.

[405] Bird of paradise?

[406] Not far from the present Anopschir on the Ganges, south-east from Delhi. Groskurd.

[407] Patalputer, b. ii. c. i. § 9.

[408] Probably the Iomanes.

[409] A subordinate town in the pachalic of Aleppo, and its modern name is still Antakieh. It was anciently distinguished as Antioch by the Orontes, because it was situated on the left bank of that river, where its course turns abruptly to the west, after running northwards between the ranges of Lebanon and Antilebanon, and also Antioch by Daphne, because of the celebrated grove of Daphne which was consecrated to Apollo, in the immediate neighbourhood.

[410] In Dion Cassius, liv. ix. he is called Zarmanus, a variation probably of Garmanus, see above, § 60. Chegas, or Sheik, seems to be the Tartar title Chan or Khan, which may be detected also in the names Musi-canus, Porti-canus, Oxy-canus, Assa-canus. Vincent, Voyage of Nearchus, p. 129. Groskurd writes Zarmanos Chanes.

[411] Bargosa is probably a corruption of Barygaza mentioned in Arrian’s Periplus of the Red Sea. It was a large mart on the north of the river Nerbudda, now Baroatsch or Barutsch. Groskurd.

[412] “Beyond,” as Strabo has just been speaking of India, with reference to which Ariana is to the west of the Indus.

[413] To the south of the great chain bearing that name, extending from west to east of Asia.

[414] The exact place corresponding with the Caspiæ Pylæ is probably a spot between Hark-a-Koh and Siah-Koh, about 6 parasangs from Rey, the name of the entrance of which is called Dereh. Smith, art. Caspiæ Pylæ.

[415] An extensive province of Asia along the northern side of the Persian Gulf, extending from Carpella (either C. Bombareek or C. Isack) on the E. to the river Bagradas (Nabend) on the W. According to Marcian the distance between these points was 4250 stadia. It appears to have comprehended the coast-line of the modern Laristan, Kirman, and Moghostan. It was bounded on the N. by Parthia and Ariana; on the E. by Drangiana and Gedrosia; on the S. by the Persian Gulf, and on the W. by Persis. Smith, art. Carmania.

[418] By the achronical rising of the Pleiades is meant the rising of this constellation, or its first becoming visible, after sunset. Vincent (Voyage of Nearchus) fixes on the 23rd October, 327 B. C., as the date of the departure of Alexander from Nicæa; August, 326 B. C., as the date of his arrival at Pattala; and the 2nd of October, 326 B. C., as the date of the departure of the fleet from the Indus.

[419] The pith in the young head-shoot of the palm-tree.

[420] Called Pura by Arrian.

[421] The Oritæ are no doubt here meant.

[422] By the line drawn from the Caspian Gates to Carmania.

[423] See above, c. i. § 12.

[426] See b. xi. c. viii. § 9.

[427] The text is corrupt: ἐκ μέρους is probably taken from some other part of the text and here inserted.

[428] The same as Zarangæ; they probably dwelt on the lake Zarah, which undoubtedly retains its Zend name. Wilson’s Ariana.

[429] Corresponding nearly with the present Hamadan.

[430] None is said to be found there at the present day.

[431] They were called Ariaspi; Cyrus, son of Cambyses, gave them the name Euergetæ, “benefactors,” in consideration of the services which they had rendered in his expedition against the Scythians.

[432] At the beginning of winter.

[433] The text is corrupt; the words between brackets are supplied by Kramer’s conjecture. See b. xi. c. xi. § 2.

[434] Theophrastus, iv. 5. The Pistatia-nut tree.

[435] Bamian, see b. xi. c. xi. § 2.

[436] In the text 19,000. Kramer’s proposed reading is adopted of separating the amount.

[437] Ariana in the text. Groskurd proposes to read Carmania; Kramer, Bactriana.

[438] About 140 feet. Arrian says twenty-five orguiæ, or about 150 feet.

[439] Groskurd proposes to supply after “Sea” words which he thinks are here omitted; upon insufficient grounds, however, according to Kramer.

[440] The Arosis of Arrian, now the Tab.

[441] This passage is very corrupt, and many words, according to Kramer, appear to be omitted. See b. ii. c i. § 26. We read with Groskurd “Media” for “Caspian Gates” in the text: and insert “9000 stadia,” here from b. ii. c. i. § 26, and, following the same authority, 3000 for 2000 stadia in the text below.

[442] Persæ, v. 17 and 118.

[444] Taug or Taüog, on the river Grâ.

[445] The Uxii occupied the district of Asciac.

[446] There seems little doubt that the Karun represents the ancient Eulæus (on which some authors state Susa to have been situated), and the Kerkhah the old Choaspes. See Smith, art. Choaspes.

[447] Groskurd adds 1000 stadia to this amount.

[448] Quin. Curtius, v. 10. Diod. Sic. xvii. 67.

[450] Hollow Persis.

[452] The capital of Parætacene is Ispahan.

[453] Probably the Ab-Kuren.

[455] Orxines, Quint. Cur. x. c. 1.

[456] For sacrifice to Cyrus. Arrian, vi. c. 29.

[457] Arrian adds, “Son of Cambyses.”

[458] Groskurd reads, ἅλλεσθαι, hops or jumps up.

[459] Founded probably by the Macedonians.

[460] The Elymæi reached to the Persian Gulf. Ptolem. vi. 1. They appear to have left vestiges of their name in that of a gulf, and a port called Delem.

[461] The account of the Persians is taken from Herodotus, i. 131, &c.

[462] According to Herodotus, the priest who sacrificed was crowned.

[463]

Roused the sacred fire, as the law bids,
Touching the god with consecrated wand.
Athenæus xii. 40, p. 850. Bohn’s Classical Library.

[464] i. e. “who kindle fire.”

[465] i. e. places where fire is kindled.

[466] B. xi. c. viii. § 4.

[467] Not the same plant as mentioned above, c. i. § 10, but the pistacia terebinthus.

[468] An interpolation. The Cardaces were not Persians, but foreign soldiers. “Barbari milites quos Persæ Cardacas appellant,” (Cornel. Nepos.) without doubt were Assyrian and Armenian Carduci. See b. xvi. c. i. § 24, and Xenoph. Anab. iv. 3. Later Gordyæi or Gordyeni, now the Kurds. Groskurd.

[469] Cardamum is probably the “lepidum perfoliatum” of Linnæus, or the “nasturtium orientale” of Tournefort. Xenophon also, Expedit. Cyr. iii. 5 and vii. 8, speaks of the great use made of this plant by the Persians.

[470] The length of the arms and the surname “Longhand” here given to Darius are assigned by others to Artaxerxes. It was in fact the latter to whom this surname was given, according to Plutarch, in consequence of the right arm being longer than the left. Therefore Falconer considers this passage an interpolation. Coraÿ.

[471] This, says Gossellin, may account for the rarity of the Persian Darius, badly struck, and coined long before the time of Alexander, and appearing to belong to a period anterior to the reign of Darius Hystaspes.

[472] Chalybon was the name of the modern Aleppo, but the wine of Damascus must have possessed the same qualities, and had the same name. “The Chalybonian wine, Posidonius says, is made in Damascus in Syria, from vines which were planted there by the Persians.” Athenæus, b. i. page 46, Bohn’s Classical Library.

[473] In the text “ten or eleven years,” which reading is contrary to all other authorities, and is rejected by Kramer.

[474] This is only an approximation. From the conquest of the Medes by Cyrus to the death of Darius Codomanus, last king of Persia, is a period of 225 years.

[475] According to Dion Cassius, xviii. § 26, Aturia is synonymous with Assyria, and only differs from it by a barbarous pronunciation; which shows that the name Assyria belonged peculiarly to the territory of Nineveh.

[477] It is to be remarked that the people bordering upon the Gordyæi are the only people of Mesopotamia here mentioned, for the whole of Mesopotamia, properly so called, is comprised under the name of Assyria.

[478] The bridge or passage at the foot of the modern fortress Roum-Kala.

[479] B. xii. c. iii. § 5; Herod. i. 6 and 72.

[480] Al. Lucan. b. xi. c. xii. § 4; b. xiv. c. v. § 18; b. xvi. c. ii. § 8.

[481] Probably walls built for the protection of certain districts. Such was the διατείχισμα Σεμιράμιδος, constructed between the Euphrates and the Tigris, and intended, together with canals brought from those rivers, to protect Babylon from the incursions of the Arabian Scenitæ or Medes. B. ii.

[482] κλίμακες, roads of steep ascent, with steps such as may be seen in the Alps of Europe; the word differs from ὁδοὶ, roads below, inasmuch as the former roads are only practicable for travellers on foot and beasts of burthen, the latter for carriages also.

[483] The union of these two names, says Kramer, is remarkable, and still more so is the insertion of the article τῆς before them: he, therefore, but with some hesitation, suggests that the word μάχης has been omitted in the text by the copyist.

[486] Called also Zabus, Zabatus, and Zerbes, now the Great Zab.

[487] Adopting Kramer’s reading, καὶ ἃ.

[488] Probably a branch of the Karadgeh-dagh.

[489] The Little Zab, or Or.

[490] As the name Artacene occurs nowhere else, Groskurd, following Cellarius (v. Geogr. Ant. i. 771), suspects that here we ought to read Arbelene, and would understand by it the same district which is called Arbelitis by Ptolemy, vi. 1, and by Pliny, H. N. vi. 13, § 16, but as this form of the national name is nowhere to be found, it would appear improper to introduce it into the text. It is more probable, continues Kramer, that Strabo wrote Adiabene, of which Arbelitis was a part, according to Pliny, loco citato.

[491] The same, no doubt, as the goddess Anaïtis. B. xi. c. viii. § 4, and b. xv. c. iii. § 15.

[492] All manuscripts agree in giving this number, but critics agree also in its being an error for 365. The number of stadia in the wall, according to ancient authors, corresponded with the number of days in the year.

[493] That is, at a short distance from the Persian Gulf, a little more to the south than the modern town Basra.

[494] Some extensive ruins near the angle formed by the Adhem (the ancient Physcus) and the Tigris, and the remains of the Nahr-awan canal, are said to mark the site of Opis.

[495] The name Cœle-Syria, or Hollow Syria, which was properly applied to the district between Libanus and Antilibanus, was extended also to that part of Syria which borders upon Egypt and Arabia; and it is in this latter sense that Strabo here speaks of Cœle-Syria. So also Diodorus Siculus, i. § 30, speaks of “Joppa in Cœle-Syria;” and Polybius, v. 80, § 2, of “Rhinocolura, the first of the cities in Cœle-Syria;” and Josephus, Ant. Jud. xiii. 13, § 2, “of Scythopolis of Cœle-Syria.”

[497] El-Kas near Sebakit-Bardoil, the ancient lake Serbonis.

[499] Strabo has misunderstood the meaning of Eratosthenes, who had said that the excess of the waters of the Euphrates sunk into the ground and reappeared under the form of torrents, which became visible near “Rhinocolura in Cœle-Syria and Mt. Casius,” the Casius near Egypt. Our author properly observes that the length and nature of the course contradicts this hypothesis: but, misled by the names Cœle-Syria and Casius, he forgets that the Casius of Egypt and the district bordering upon Egypt, improperly called Cœle-Syria, are here in question; he transfers the first name to Cœle-Syria of Libanus, and the second to Mt. Casius near Seleucia and Antioch, and adds that, according to the notion of Eratosthenes, the waters of the Euphrates would have to traverse Libanus, Antilibanus, and the Casius (of Syria), whilst Eratosthenes has not, and could not, say any such thing. The hypothesis of Eratosthenes could not, indeed, be maintained, but Strabo renders it absurd. The error of our author is the more remarkable, as the name of the city Rhinocolura ought necessarily to have suggested to him the sense in which the words Casius and Cœle-Syria should be understood.

[500] καὶ οὕτως πλημμυρεῖν. These words are, as Kramer proposes, transferred from below. There can be no meaning given to them as they stand in the text, which is here corrupt.

[501] Herod. i. 193.

[502] Herod. i. 194.

[504] Strabo probably here refers to Hecatompylos, which, in b. xi. c. ix. § 1, he calls “the royal seat of the Parthians,” and which shared with Ecbatana the honour of being a residence of the Parthian kings. The name Hyrcania has here a wide meaning; the proper name would have been Parthia.

[505] Cicero de Nat. Deor. i. § 5.

[506] Descura. D’Anville.

[508] Asciac part of Khosistan.

[510] Groskurd here supposes an omission by the copyist of the words ἑσπέραν καὶ πρὸς before ἄρκτον.

[511] Parætacene, Cossæa, and Elymaïs occupied the mountainous parts of Irak Adjami.

[513] Media extended partly into Irak Adjami, and partly into Kurdistan.

[514] ὕστερον in the text must be omitted, or altered to πρότερον, unless, as Kramer proposes, the words καὶ πρὸς τοὺς Πέρσας be introduced into the text. Strabo frequently mentions together the three successive governments of Persians, Macedonians, and Parthians. B. xi. c. xiii. § 4, and c. xiv. § 15.

[515] Mithridates I., son of Phraates, 163 B. C., and 124 years after the expedition of Antiochus.

[516] Probably the Djerrahi.

[517] On comparing this passage with others, (b. xi. c. xiv. § 12, and b. xvi. c. i. § 1, and c. i. § 8,) in which Strabo speaks of Adiabene, we perceive that he understood it to be a part of the country below the mountains of Armenia, and to the north of Nineveh, on both banks of the Tigris. Other authors have given a more extended meaning to the name, and applied it to the country on the north of the two rivers Zab, from whence (Amm. Marcel. xxiii. 5, 6) the name Adiabene appears to be derived. In this sense Adiabene may be considered the same as Assyria Proper.

[518] B. xi. c. xiv. § 15.

[519] Groskurd proposes reading Saulopodes, delicate walkers, in place of Saccopodes, sack-footed.

[520] Herod. i. 198. Almost all the details concerning the Babylonian customs are taken from Herodotus, who sets them forth with greater clearness; there are, however, some differences, as, for example, the disposal of young women in marriage, and the different tribunals, which prove that Strabo had other sources of information.

[521] Groskurd here suspects a corruption of the text, and for τούτου reads τοῦ πρώτου, “of the first,” and for ἄλλου, “of another,” δευτέρου, “of the second.”