1 Or the “Hospitable” Sea, now the Black Sea.
2 Or the “Inhospitable.”
3 The streams which discharge their waters into the Palus Mæotis, or Sea of Azof.
4 Straits of the Dardanelles or of Gallipoli, spoken of in B. iv. c. 18, as seven stadia in width.
5 The Thracian Bosporus, now the Channel or Straits of Constantinople, and the Cimmerian Bosporus or Straits of Kaffa, or Yeni Kale.
6 From βοῦς, an ox, and πορός, “a passage.” According to the legend, it was at the Thracian Bosporus that the cow Io made her passage from one continent to the other, and hence the name, in all probability, celebrated alike in the fables and the history of antiquity. The Cimmerian Bosporus not improbably borrowed its name from the Thracian. See Æsch. Prom. Vinc. l. 733.
7 This sentence seems to bear reference to the one that follows, and not, as punctuated in the Latin, to the one immediately preceding it.
8 It is not probable that this is the case at the Straits of Kaffa, which are nearly four miles in width at the narrowest part.
9 Now the Riva, a river of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, falling into the Euxine north-east of Chalcedon.
10 Probably an obscure town.
11 On the river Calpas or Calpe, in Bithynia. Xenophon, in the Anabasis, describes it as about half way between Byzantium and Heraclea. The spot is identified in some of the maps as Kirpeh Limán, and the promontory as Cape Kirpeh.
12 Still known as the Sakaria.
13 Now called the Sursak, according to Parisot.
14 Now the Lef-ke. See the end of c. 42 of the last Book.
15 The modern Gulf of Sakaria. Of the Mariandyni, who gave the ancient name to it, little or nothing is known.
16 Its site is now known as Harakli or Eregli. By Strabo it is erroneously called a colony of Miletus. It was situate a few miles to the north of the river Lycus.
17 Now called the Kilij.
18 Stephanus Byzantinus speaks of this place as producing whetstones, or ἀκοναὶ, as well as the plant aconite.
19 This name was given to the cavern in common with several other lakes or caverns in various parts of the world, which, like the various rivers of the name of Acheron, were at some time supposed to be connected with the lower world.
20 Now called Falios (or more properly Filiyos), according to D’Anville, from the river of that name in its vicinity, supposed by him and other geographers to be the same as the ancient Billis, here mentioned by Pliny. By others of the ancient writers it is called Billæus.
21 Paphlagonia was bounded by Bithynia on the west, and by Pontus on the east, being separated from the last by the river Halys; on the south it was divided by the chain of Mount Olympus from Phrygia in the earlier times, from Galatia at a later period; and on the north it bordered on the Euxine.
22 In the Homeric catalogue we find Pylæmenes leading the Paphlagonians as allies of the Trojans; from this Pylæmenes the later princes of Paphlagonia claimed their descent, and the country was sometimes from them called Pylæmenia.
23 Suspected by Hardouin to have been the same as the Moson or Moston mentioned by Ptolemy as in Galatia.
24 It is mentioned by Homer, Il. ii. 855, as situate on the coast of Paphlagonia.
25 Strabo also, in B. xii., says that these people afterwards established themselves in Thrace, and that gradually moving to the west, they finally settled in the Italian Venetia, which from them took its name. But in his Fourth Book he says that the Veneti of Italy owe their origin to the Gallic Veneti, who came from the neighbourhood known as the modern Vannes.
26 This city, ninety stadia east of the river Parthenius, occupied a peninsula, and on each side of the isthmus was a harbour. The original city, as here mentioned, seems to have had the name of Sesamus or Sesamum, and it is spoken of by that name in Homer, Il. ii. 853, in conjunction with Cytorus. The territory of Amastris was famous for its growth of the best box-wood, which grew on Mount Cytorus. The present Amasra or Hanasserah occupies its site.
28 Otherwise called “Cinolis.” There is a place called Kinla or Kinoglu in the maps, about half-way between Kerempeh and Sinope, which is the Kinuli of Abulfeda, and probably the Cirolis or Cimolis of the Greek geographers.
29 The modern Estefan or Stefanos.
30 Now known by the name of Bartin, a corruption of its ancient appellation.
31 It still retains its ancient appellation in its name of Cape Kerempeh: of the ancient town nothing is known.
32 Now called Sinope, or Sinoub. Some ruins of it are still to be seen. The modern town is but a poor place, and has probably greatly declined since the recent attack upon it by the Russian fleet. Diogenes, the Cynic philosopher, was a native of ancient Sinope.
33 The boundary, according to Stephanus Byzantinus, also of the nations of Paphlagonia and Cappadocia. As Parisot remarks, this is an error, arising from the circumstance of a small tribe bearing the name of Cappadocians, having settled on its banks, between whom and the Paphlagonians it served as a limit.
34 On the river Iris. It was the ancient residence of the kings of Pontus, but in Strabo’s time it was deserted. It has been suggested that the modern Azurnis occupies its site.
35 In the north-west of Pontus, in a fertile plain between the rivers Halys and Amisus. It is also called Gadilon by Strabo. D’Anville makes it the modern Aladgiam; while he calls Gaziura by the name of Guedes.
36 Now called the Kisil Irmak, or Red River. It has been remarked that Pliny, in making this river to come down from Mount Taurus and flow at once from south to north, appears to confound the Halys with one of its tributaries, now known as the Izchel Irmak.
37 Its site is now called Kiengareh, Kangreh, or Changeri. This was a town of Paphlagonia, to the south of Mount Olgasys, at a distance of thirty-five miles from Pompeiopolis.
38 A commercial place to the south of Sinope. Its site is the modern Gherseh on the coast.
39 Now called Eski Samsun; on the west side of the bay or gulf, anciently called Sinus Amisenus. According to Strabo, it was only 900 stadia from Sinope, or 112½ Roman miles. The walls of the ancient city are to be seen on a promontory about a mile and a half from the modern town.
40 He means the numerous indentations which run southward into the coast, from the headland of Sinope to a distance of about one degree to the south.
41 On examining the map, we shall find that the distance is at least 300 miles across to the gulf of Issus or Iskenderoon.
42 Not speaking the Greek language.
43 A part of it only was added to Eupatoria; and it was separated from the rest by a wall, and probably contained a different population from that of Amisus. This new quarter contained the residence of the king, Mithridates Eupator, who built Eupatoria.
44 The boundaries of Cappadocia varied under the dominion of the Persians, after the Macedonian conquest, and as a Roman province under the emperors.
45 Founded by Archelaüs, the last king of Cappadocia. In Hamilton’s Researches, the site has been assumed to be the modern Ak-serai, but that place is not on the river Halys, as Leake supposes. It is, however, considered that Ak-serai agrees very well with the position of Archelais as laid down in the Itineraries, and that Pliny may have been misled in supposing that the stream on which it stood was the Halys.
46 Also called by the name of Chryse, or “Golden,” to distinguish it from another place of the same name in Pontus. It is generally supposed that the town of Al-Bostan, on the Sihoon or Sarus, is on or near the site of this Comana.
47 Now called Niksar, according to D’Anville, though Hardouin says that it is Tocat. Parisot remarks, that this place belonged rather to Pontus than to Cappadocia.
48 A small tributary of the Iris, or Yeshil-Irmak, mentioned in the next Chapter.
49 Still called Amasia, or Amasiyeh, and situate on the river Iris, or Yeshil Ermak. It was at one time the residence of the princes of Pontus, and the birth-place of the geographer Strabo. The remains of antiquity here are very considerable, and extremely interesting.
50 Both to the west of Neo-Cæsarea. According to Tavernier, as quoted by Hardouin, the modern name of Sebastia is Sivas.
51 Which gave name to the district of Melitene, mentioned in c. 20 of the last Book.
52 Near Nazianzus, in Cappadocia, the birth-place of Gregory Nazianzen. The traveller Ainsworth, on his road from Ak-Serai to Kara Hissar, came to a place called Kaisar Koi, and he has remarked that by its name and position it might be identified with Diocæsarea. Some geographers, indeed, look upon Diocæsarea and Nazianzus as the same place.
53 Its ruins are still to be seen at Kiz Hisar. It stood in the south of Cappadocia, at the northern foot of Mount Taurus. Tyana was the native place of Apollonius, the supposed worker of miracles, whom the enemies of Christianity have not scrupled to place on a par with Jesus Christ.
54 Some ruins, nineteen geographical miles from Ayas, are supposed to denote the site of ancient Castabala or Castabulum.
55 This place was first called Eupatoria, but not the same which Mithridates united with a part of Amisus. D’Anville supposes that the modern town of Tchenikeb occupies its site.
56 Or Ziela, now known as Zillah, not far south of Amasia. It was here that Julius Cæsar conquered Pharnaces, on the occasion on which he wrote his dispatch to Rome, “Veni, vidi, vici.”
57 Still known by the name of Ardgeh-Dagh.
58 Its site is still called Kaisiriyeh. It was a city of the district Cilicia, in Cappadocia, at the base of the mountain Argæus. It was first called Mazaca, and after that, Eusebeia. There are considerable remains of the ancient city.
59 Hardouin remarks, that the district of Sargarausene was not situate in front of Phrygia, but lay between Morimene and Colopenene, in the vicinity of Pontus.
60 Now known as the Konax, a tributary of the Halys, rising in Mount Littarus, in the chain of Paryadres.
61 Or “White Syrians.” Strabo says that in his time both the Cappadocian peoples, those situate above the Taurus and those on the Euxine, were called Leucosyri, or White Syrians, as there were some Syrians who were black, and who dwelt to the east of the Amanus.
62 It is doubtful whether this is the name of a river or a town. Notwithstanding its alleged celebrity, nothing is known of it.
63 Hecatæus, as quoted by Stephanus Byzantinus, speaks of Chadisia as a city of the Leucosyri, or Cappadocians. Neither the river nor the town appears to have been identified.
64 Probably on the river of that name, which has been identified with the Mers Imak, a river two or three miles east of the Acropolis of Amisus.
65 The extensive plain on the coast of Pontus, extending east of the river Iris beyond the Thermodon, and celebrated as the country of the Amazons. At the mouth of the Thermodon was a city of the same name, which had been destroyed by the time of Augustus. It is doubtful whether the modern Thermeh occupies its site.
66 The same place apparently as is mentioned in the last Chapter under the name of Zela.
67 Valerius Triarius, one of the legates of Lucullus, in the war against Mithridates. Plutarch tells us that Lucullus was obliged to conceal Triarius from the fury of his troops.
68 Over Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates.
69 Now called the Thermea.
70 Still called Mason-Dagh.
71 He alludes to Comana, in Pontus, the site of which is now called Gumenek, near to which, on the Tocat-su, the modern name of the Iris, Hamilton found some remains of a Roman town, and part of a bridge apparently of Roman construction. The language of Pliny seems to imply that it had become in his day nothing beyond a manteium or seat of an oracle.
72 Strabo speaks of a promontory called Genetes; and Stephanus Byzantinus mentions a river and port of the same name.
73 Strabo places the Chaldei, who, he says, were originally called Chalybes, in that part of the country which lies above Pharnacia (the modern Kerasunt).
74 Or Cotyora. According to Xenophon, this was a colony of Sinope which furnished supplies for the Ten Thousand in their retreat. The place was on a bay called after the town. Hamilton, in his Researches, &c., Vol. i., is of opinion that Cotyorum may have stood on the site of Ordou, where some remains of an ancient port, cut out of the solid rock are still visible. He remarks, however, that some writers suppose that Cotyora was the modern bay of Pershembah, which is more sheltered than Ordou. Cotyora was the place of embarkation of the Ten Thousand.
75 Similar to what we call tatooing. Parisot suggests that these people may have been the ancestors of the Mongol tribes who still dwell in tents similar to those mentioned by Mela as used by the Mossyni.
76 Or the “long-headed people.”
77 Its site is not improbably that of the modern Kheresoun, on the coast of Asia Minor, and west of Trebizond. Lucullus is said to have brought thence the first cherry-trees planted in Europe.
78 It has been remarked, that Pliny’s enumeration of names often rather confuses than helps, and that it is difficult to say where he intends to place the Bechires. We may perhaps infer from Mela that they were west of Trapezus and east of the Thermodon.
79 Now the Kara Su, or Black River, still retaining its ancient appellation. It rises in Cappadocia, in the chain of Mount Argæus.
80 Still called by the same name, according to Parisot, though sometimes it is called the river of Vatisa. More recent authorities, however, call it Poleman Chai.
81 On the coast of Pontus, built by king Polemon, perhaps the Second, on the site of the older city of Side, at the mouth of the Sidenus.
82 Probably near the promontory of Jasonium, 130 stadia to the north-east of Polemonium. It was believed to have received its name from Jason the Argonaut having landed there. It still bears the name of Jasoon, though more commonly called Bona or Vona.
83 Sixty stadia, according to Arrian, from the town of Cotyora.
84 Supposed to have stood on almost the same site as the modern Kheresoun or Kerasunda. It was built near, or, as some think, on the site of Cerasus.
85 Still known by the name of Tireboli, on a river of the same name, the Tireboli Su.
86 Now called Tarabosan, Trabezun, or Trebizond. This place was originally a colony of Sinope, after the loss of whose independence Trapezus belonged, first to Lesser Armenia, and afterwards to the kingdom of Pontus. In the middle ages it was the seat of the so-called empire of Trebizond. It is now the second commercial port of the Black Sea, ranking next after Odessa.
88 Theodoret says that the Sanni, and the Lazi, subsequently mentioned, although subdued by the Roman arms, were never obedient to the Roman laws. The Heniochi were probably of Grecian origin, as they were said to have been descended from the charioteers of the Argonauts, who had been wrecked upon these coasts.
89 Or Apsarus, or Absarum. Several geographers have placed the site of this town near the modern one known as Gonieh. Its name was connected with the myth of Medea and her brother Absyrtus. It is not improbable that the names Acampsis and Absarus have been given to the same river by different writers, and that they both apply to the modern Joruk.
90 It is suggested by Hardouin that these are the same as the Zydretæ mentioned in the Periplus of Arrian, and by him placed between the Heniochi and the Lazi.
92 Supposed to be the same as the modern Tshorok.
93 Or “Deep” River. This stream may possibly be identified by observing that Pliny places only one river between it and the Phasis.
94 Probably the Madia of Ptolemy, who places it in the interior.
95 At the present day called Eraklia, according to Parisot.
96 Now called the Faz or Rhioni.
97 Still called El Faz or Poti.
98 This place was in reality thirty-seven miles and a half from the sea. It was said to have been the native place of the enchantresses Circe and Medea.
99 The rivers Hippos and Cyaneos do not appear to have been identified.
100 In the previous page.
101 Now called the Tchorocsu.
102 It is doubtful whether this is the same river as that mentioned by Strabo under the name of Chares. D’Anville says that its modern name is Enguri.
103 Or “Feeders on Lice;” so called, according to Strabo, from the extreme filthiness of their habits.
104 There is a nation in this vicinity still called by a similar name. Professor Pallas, who visited them, says that nothing can equal their dishonesty, rapacity, and voracity. Parisot suggests that they are probably the descendants of the Phthirophagi of Pliny.
105 Now called the Khalira, according to D’Anville.
106 Now called the Hati-Scari, according to D’Anville.
107 Now the Okhum, according to D’Anville.
108 Now the Mosti-Skari, according to D’Anville.
109 Still called Savastopoli, according to Hardouin.
110 This must not be confounded with the other place of the same name mentioned in the present Chapter. See p. 10.
111 Hermoläus suggests Pityus as the correct reading.
112 The Sanni Heniochi; one of these nations has been already mentioned in the last page.
113 Inhabited anciently by the Coli, and constituting the northern portion of ancient Colchis.
114 In B. v. c. 27.
115 Or nation “with the black cloaks,” from some peculiarity in their dress.
116 This was the great trading-place of the wild tribes in the interior; and so numerous were they, that the Greeks asserted that there were seventy different languages spoken in the market of Dioscurias.
117 Whence the appellation Heniochi, from the Greek ἡνιοχὸς.
118 There were two places called Heracleium on this coast, one north and the other south of the river Achæus: probably the latter is here meant.
119 Said to have been descended from the Achæans or Greeks who accompanied Jason in the Argonautic Expedition, or, according to Ammianus, who resorted thither after the conclusion of the Trojan war.
120 Probably meaning the “martial people,” or the “people of Mars.” This was the title, not of a single nation, but of a number of peoples distinguished for their predatory habits.
121 This people occupied the N.E. shore of the Euxine, between the Cimmerian Bosporus and the frontier of Colchis. Their name is still in existence, and is applied to the whole western district of the Caucasus, in the forms of Tcherkas, as applied to the people, and Tcherkeskaia or Circassia, to the country.
122 Hardouin suggests that these ought to be read as forming one name, the “Cerri Cephalatomi,” and suggests that they were so called from their habit of cutting off the heads of their slain enemies.
123 Meaning, nearly in the extreme corner of Pontus.
124 In the time of Strabo this was a considerable sea-port, and after its destruction by the Heniochi, it was restored, and served as an important frontier fortress of the Roman empire against the Scythians.
125 This was Mithridates, king of Bosporus, which sovereignty he obtained by the favour of the emperor Claudius, in A.D. 41. The circumstances are unknown which led to his subsequent expulsion by the Romans, who placed his younger brother Cotys on the throne in his stead.
126 Hardouin thinks that the Thalli inhabited the present country of Astrakan.
127 It was the ancient opinion, to which we shall find frequent reference made in the present Book, that the northern portion of the Caspian communicated with the Scythian or Septentrional ocean.
128 Mentioned only by Pliny. It is supposed to answer to the present Ukrash river; and the town and river of Hierus are probably identical with the Hieros Portus of Arrian, which has been identified with the modern Sunjuk-Kala.