249 Or Choarene.
250 Its site is unknown; but it is mentioned by Appian as one of the many towns erected by Seleucus.
251 By the use of the word “quondam,” he implies that in his time it was in ruins.
252 A place of considerable importance, which seems to have derived its name from its “hundred gates.” It was one of the capitals of the Arsacidan princes; but, extensive though it may have been, there is great doubt where it was situate, the distance recorded by ancient writers not corresponding with any known ruins.
253 In a northern direction, along the western shores of the Caspian.
254 According to Hardouin, Eratosthenes, as quoted by Strabo, makes the distance 5060 stadia, or about 633 miles. He has, however, mis-translated the passage, which gives 5600 stadia, or 700 miles exactly, as stated by Pliny.
255 Or 1960 miles.
256 Bactra, Bactrum, or Bactrium, was one of the chief cities, if not the capital, of the province of Bactriana. It was one of the most ancient cities in the world, and the modern Balkh is generally supposed to occupy its site. Strabo, as well as Pliny, evidently considers that Bactra and Zareispa were the same place, while Appian distinguishes between the two, though he does not clearly state their relative positions.
258 By some writers called Apavareticene, in the south-eastern part of Parthia. Ansart says that it is now known as Asterabad and Ghilan.
259 Or Dara. A strongly fortified place, built by Arsaces I., and situate on the mountains of the Zapaorteni.
260 According to Ansart, the district now known as Tabaristan, or Mazanderan, derives the first of those names from the Tapyri.
261 D’Anville remarks that this river still retains its “starry” name, being the modern Aster or Ester, on which Asterabad is situate.
262 This district occupied the southern part of modern Khiva, the south-western part of Bokhara, and the north-eastern part of Khorassan. This province of the ancient Persian empire received its name from the river Margus, now the Moorghab. It first became known to the Greeks by the expeditions of Alexander and Antiochus I.
263 Antiochus Soter, the son of Seleucus Nicator.
264 The meaning of this, which has caused great diversity of opinion among the Commentators, seems to be, that on rebuilding it, he preferred giving it a name borne by several cities in Syria, and given to them in honour of kings of that country. To this he appears to have been prompted by a supposed resemblance which its site on the Margus bore to that of Antiochia on the Orontes.
265 The modern Moorghab; it loses itself in the sands of Khiva.
266 Its remains are supposed to be those of an ancient city, still to be seen at a spot called Merv, on the river Moorghab.
267 The people of modern Bokhara.
268 This appears to mean the nations of “Chariot horse-breeders.”
269 In former editions, called the ‘Gridinus.’ It is impossible to identify many of these nations and rivers, as the spelling varies considerably in the respective MSS.
270 An extensive tribe of Sogdiana, now represented by the district of Khawarezm, in the desert country of Khiva.
271 A tribe in the north-western part of Sogdiana. They appear to have been situate to the east of the district of Khawarezm. It has been suggested that they derived their name from the Sanscrit Gandharas, a tribe beyond the Indus.
272 The chief seat of the Aorsi, who appear to have been a numerous and powerful people both of Europe and Asia, was in the country between the Tanais, the Euxine, the Caspian, and the Caucasus. It seems doubtful, however, whether it is these people who are alluded to in the present passage.
273 These would almost seem to be a different people from those mentioned in c. 15 of the present Book, as dwelling in Atropatene. The present appears to have been a tribe of Sogdiana.
274 Strabo mentions a town of this name, which he places, together with Apamea, in the direction of Rhagæ. If Pliny has observed anything like order in his recital of nations and places, the Heraclea here mentioned cannot be that spoken of by Strabo, but must have been distant nearly 1000 miles from it.
275 This was a tribe, apparently of Scythian origin, settled in Margiana, on the left bank of the Oxus. Strabo says that they worshipped the earth, and forbore to sacrifice or slay any female; but that they put to death their fellow-creatures as soon as they had passed their seventieth year, it being the privilege of the next of kin to eat the flesh of the deceased person. The aged women, however, they used to strangle, and then consign them to the earth.
276 The modern Jihoun or Amou. It now flows into the Sea of Aral, but the ancients universally speak of it as running into the Caspian; and there are still existing distinct traces of a channel extending in a south-westerly direction from the sea of Aral to the Caspian, by which at least a portion, and probably the whole of the waters of the Oxus found their way into the Caspian; and not improbably the Sea of Aral itself was connected with the Caspian by this channel.
277 Most probably under this name he means the Sea of Aral.
278 The Bactrus. This river is supposed to be represented by the modern Dakash. Hardouin says that Ptolemy, B. vi. c. 11, calls this river the Zariaspis, or Zariaspes. See the Note at the end of c. 17, p. 30.
279 Now known as the Hindoo-Koosh; a part of the great mountain-chain which runs from west to east through the centre of the southern portion of the highlands of Central Asia, and so divides the part of the continent which slopes down to the Indian ocean from the great central table-land of Tartary and Thibet. The native term, Hindoo-Koosh, is only a form of the ancient name “Indicus Caucasus,” which was sometimes given to this chain. The ancient name was derived probably from the Persian word paru, a “mountain.”
280 Flowing from the north side of the Paropanisus. According to Pliny and Ptolemy, this river flowed through Bactria into the Oxus; but according to Strabo, through Hyrcania into the Caspian Sea. Some suppose it to have been only another name for the Oxus. Ansart suggests that it may have been the river now known as the Bash.
281 D’Anville says that there is still the valley of Al Sogd, in Tartary, beyond the Oxus. The district called Sogdiana was probably composed of parts of modern Turkistan and Bokhara. The site of Panda does not appear to be known.
282 It was built on the Jaxartes, to mark the furthest point reached by Alexander in his Scythian expedition. It has been suggested that the modern Kokend may possibly occupy its site.
283 The “twin,” of the same birth with Diana.
284 The Sacæ probably formed one of the most numerous and most powerful of the Scythian Nomad tribes, and dwelt to the east and north-east of the Massagetæ, as far as Servia, in the steppes of Central Asia, which are now peopled by the Kirghiz Cossacks, in whose name that of their ancestors, the Sacæ, is traced by some geographers.
285 Meaning the “Great Getæ.” They dwelt beyond the Jaxartes and the Sea of Aral, and their country corresponds to that of the Khirghiz Tartars in the north of Independent Tartary.
286 The Dahæ were a numerous and warlike Nomad tribe, who wandered over the vast steppes lying to the east of the Caspian Sea. Strabo has grouped them with the Sacæ and Massagetæ, as the great Scythian tribes of Inner Asia, to the north of Bactriana.
287 See also B. iv. c. 20, and B. vi. c. 7. The position of the Essedones, or perhaps more correctly, the Issedones, may probably be assigned to the east of Ichim, in the steppes of the central border of the Kirghiz, in the immediate vicinity of the Arimaspi, who dwelt on the northern declivity of the Altaï chain. A communication is supposed to have been carried on between these two peoples for the exchange of the gold that was the produce of those mountain districts.
288 They dwelt, according to Ptolemy, along the southern banks of the Jaxartes.
289 Or the Mardi, a warlike Asiatic tribe. Stephanus Byzantinus, following Strabo, places the Amardi near the Hyrcani, and adds, “There are also Persian Mardi, without the a;” and, speaking of the Mardi, he mentions them as an Hyrcanian tribe, of predatory habits, and skilled in archery.
290 D’Anville supposes that the Euchatæ may have dwelt at the modern Koten, in Little Bukharia. It is suggested, however, by Parisot, that they may have possibly occupied a valley of the Himalaya, in the midst of a country known as “Cathai,” or the “desert.”
291 The first extant notice of them is in Herodotus; but before him there was the poem of Aristeas of Proconnesus, of which the title was ‘Arimaspea;’ and it is mainly upon the statements in it that the stories told relative to this people rest—such as their being one-eyed, and as to their stealing the gold from the Gryphes, or Griffins, under whose custody it was placed. Their locality is by some supposed to have been on the left bank of the Middle Volga, in the governments of Kasan, Simbirsk, and Saratov: a locality which is sufficiently near the gold districts of the Uralian chain to account for the legends connecting them with the Gryphes, or guardians of the gold.
292 The former reading was, “The Napæi are said to have perished as well as the Apellæi.” Sillig has, however, in all probability, restored the correct one. “Finding,” he says, “in the work of Diodorus Siculus, that two peoples of Scythia were called, from their two kings, who were brothers, the Napi and the Pali, we have followed close upon the footsteps of certain MSS. of Pliny, and have come to the conclusion that some disputes arose between these peoples, which ultimately led to the destruction of one of them”.
293 Of the Caspian Sea.
294 Said on the supposition that it is a bay or gulf of the Scythian or Septentrional Ocean.
295 Ansart suggests that this is the modern Rocsha.
296 From the Oxus.
297 Ansart suggests that this island is that now called Idak, one of the Ogurtchinski group.
298 This would apply to the north-eastern coasts of Siberia, if Pliny had had any idea of land situate in such high latitudes; but, on the contrary, as already remarked, he appears to have supposed that the continent of Asia terminated a little above the northern extremity of the Caspian. It would be a loss of time to guess what locality is meant by the Scythian Promontory.
299 Or “man-eaters.”
300 This, it would appear, he looks upon as the extreme north-eastern point of Asia. Parisot suggests that the word Tabis is allied to the Mongol Daba, which signifies “mountain;” or else that it may have some affinity with “Thibet.”
301 The people of Serica, which country with Ptolemy corresponds to the north-western part of China, and the adjacent portions of Thibet and Chinese Tartary. The capital, Sera, is by most supposed to be Singan, on the Hoang-ho, but by some Peking. Pliny evidently refers to the same people, and has some notion of the locality of their country.
302 This is generally supposed to bear reference to the cloths exported by the Seres, as Serica, and corresponding to our silks. On examination, however, it will appear that he rather refers to some textures of cotton, such as calicos or muslins; it being not unknown to Pliny that silks or bombycina were the produce of the bombyx or silk-worm; see B. xi. c. 22. The use of the word “canities” points strongly to cotton as being the substance meant.
303 Whether it is silk or cotton that is here referred to, Pliny seems in this passage to allude to some peculiarity in the texture, which was perhaps so close, that when brought to the Western world it was the custom to draw out a portion of the threads. In such case it perhaps strongly resembled the Chinese crapes of the present day. Speaking of Cleopatra in B. x. 141, of the Pharsalia, Lucan says, “Her white breasts are resplendent through the Sidonian fabric, which, wrought in close texture by the sley of the Seres, the needle of the workman of the Nile has separated, and has loosened the warp by stretching out the web.”
304 He either refers to dresses consisting of nothing but open work, or what we may call fine lace, and made from the closely woven material imported from China, or else to the ‘Coan vestments’ which were so much worn by the Roman women, especially those of light character, in the Augustan age. This Coan tissue was remarkable for its extreme transparency. It has been supposed that these dresses were made of silk, as in the island of Cos silk was spun and woven at an early period, so much so as to obtain a high celebrity for the manufactures of that island. Seneca, B. vii. De Benef. severely censures the practice of wearing these thin garments. For further information on this subject, see B. xi. c. 26, 27, and B. xii. c. 22.
305 Meaning that they do not actively seek intercourse with the rest of the world, but do not refuse to trade with those who will take the trouble of resorting to them. This coincides wonderfully with the character of the Chinese even at the present day.
306 Ptolemy speaks of it as the Œchordas.
307 The headland of Malacca, in the Aurea Chersonnesus, was also called by this name, but it is hardly probable that that is the place here meant.
308 See B. iv. c. 18.
309 The Emodi Montes (so called probably from the Indian hemâdri, or the “golden”) are supposed to have formed that portion of the great lateral branch of the Indian Caucasus, the range of the Himalaya, which extends along Nepaul, and probably as far as Bhotan.
310 In c. 14 of the present Book.
311 The whole of this passage seems very intricate, and it is difficult to make sense of it. His meaning, however, is probably this: that the coast of India, running from extreme north-east to south-east, relatively to Greece, the country of Eratosthenes, is exactly opposite to the coast of Gaul, running from extreme north-west to south-west—India thus lying due west of Gaul, without any intervening land. This, it will be remembered, was the notion of Columbus, when contemplating the possibility of a western passage to India.
312 This appears also to be somewhat obscure. It is clear that if India lies to the west of Gaul, it cannot be Pliny’s meaning that it is refreshed by the west wind blowing to it from Gaul. He may possibly mean that the west wind, which is so refreshing to the west of Europe, and Gaul in particular, first sweeps over India, and thus becomes productive of that salubrity which Posidonius seems to have discovered in India, but for which we look in vain at the present day. Amid, however, such multiplied chances of a corrupt text, it is impossible to assume any very definite position as to his probable meaning. The French translators offer no assistance in solving the difficulty, and Holland renders it, “This west wind which from behind Gaul bloweth upon India, is very healthsome,” &c.
313 As to the Etesian winds, see B. ii. c. 48.
314 In the geographical work which Patrocles seems to have published, he is supposed to have given some account of the countries bordering on the Caspian Sea, and there is little doubt that, like other writers of that period, he regarded that sea as a gulf or inlet of the Septentrional Ocean, and probably maintained the possibility of sailing thither by sea from the Indian Ocean. This statement, however, seems to have been strangely misinterpreted by Pliny in his present assertion, that Patrocles had himself accomplished this circumnavigation.
315 Sec B. v. c. 36.
316 Or Bacchus.
317 Or seventy-five miles.
318 This is the statement of Arrian.
319 Among the lost works of that philosopher.
320 In c. 17 of the present Book.
324 A town placed by Strabo on the confines of Bactriana, and by Ptolemy in the county of the Paropanisidæ.
327 The present Attok, according to D’Anville.
328 One of the principal rivers of that part of India known as the Punjaub. It rises in the north-western Himalayah mountains in Kashmere, and after flowing nearly south, falls into the Acesines or Chenab. Its present most usual name is the Jhelum.
329 The most eastern, and most important of the five rivers which water the country of the Punjaub. Rising in the western Himalaya, it flows in two principal branches, in a course nearly south-west (under the names respectively of Vipasa and Satadru), which it retains till it falls into the Indus at Mittimkote. It is best known, however, by its modern name of Sutlej, probably a corrupt form of the Sanscrit Satadru.
330 See c. 18 of the present Book. The altars there spoken of, as consecrated by Alexander the Great, appear to have been erected in Sogdiana, whereas those here mentioned were dedicated in the Indian territory.
331 It does not appear that this river has been identified. In most of the editions it is called Hesidrus; but, as Sillig observes, there was a town of India, near the Indus, called Sydros, which probably received its name from this river.
332 It has been suggested that this place is the modern Kanouge, on the Ganges.
333 The modern Jumna. It must be borne in mind by the reader, that the numbers given in this Chapter vary considerably in the different MSS.
335 The Sanscrit for “snowy” is “himarat.” The name of Emodus, combined with Imaüs, seems here to be a description of the knot of mountains formed by the intersections of the Himalaya, the Hindoo Koosh, and the Bolor range; the latter having been for many ages the boundary between the empires of China and Turkistan. It is pretty clear, that, like Ptolemy, Pliny imagined that the Imaüs ran from south to north; but it seems hardly necessary, in this instance at least, to give to the word “promontorium” the meaning attached to our word “promontory,” and to suppose that he implies that the range of the Imaüs runs down to the verge of the eastern ocean.
336 A name evidently given to numerous tribes of India, from the circumstance that Alexander and his followers found it borne by the Brahmins or priestly caste of the Hindoos.
337 Still called the Cane, a navigable river of India within the Ganges, falling into the Ganges, according to Arrian as well as Pliny, though in reality it falls into the Jumna.
338 The Calingæ, who are further mentioned in the next Chapter, probably dwelt in the vicinity of the promontory of Calingon, upon which was the town of Dandaguda, mentioned in c. 23 of the present Book. This promontory and city are usually identified with those of Calinapatnam, about half-way between the rivers Mahanuddy and Godavery; and the territory of the Calingæ seems to correspond pretty nearly to the district of Circars, lying along the coast of Orissa.
339 By the Malli, Parisot is of opinion that the people of Moultan are meant.
340 So much so, indeed, that its sources were unknown to the learned world till the beginning of the present century, although the Chinese emperor Tang-Hi on one occasion sent a body of Llamas for the purpose of inquiring into the subject. It is now ascertained that the river Ganges is the result of the confluence of three separate streams, which bear the respective names of the Gannavi, the Bhagirathi, and the Alakananda. The second is of the most sacred character, and is the one to which the largest concourse of pilgrims resort. The ancients held various opinions as to the sources of the river.
341 The Cainas and the Jomanes, mentioned in the last Chapter.
342 The modern Gandaki or Gundûk is generally supposed to be represented by the Condochates.
343 Represented as flowing into the Ganges at Palimbothra, the modern Patna. There has been considerable discussion among the learned as to what river is indicated by this name. It has, however, been considered most probable that it is the same as the Sonus of Pliny, the modern Soane, though both that author, as well as Arrian, speaks of two rivers, which they call respectively Erannoboas and Sonus. The name was probably derived from the Sanscrit Hyranyavahas, the poetical name of the Sonus.
344 Supposed to be the same as the river Cosi or Coravaha.
345 The wide diffusion of the Calingæ, and their close connection with the Gangaridæ, are shown by the fact that Pliny here calls them “Calingæ Gangarides,” and mentions the Modogalingæ on a large island in the Ganges, and the Maccocalingæ on the upper course of that river. See note 338, p. 42.
346 Called Parthalis in most of the editions.
347 Or castes, as we call them. These institutions prevail equally at the present day, and the divisions of the duties of the respective castes are pretty much as Pliny states them to be, except that the husbandmen and merchants form one class, called the Vaisya, the Brahmins being the ministers of religion, the Kshatriya forming the warlike class, the Sudra constituting the menial or servant class. Pliny here represents the rulers and councillors as forming a distinct class. Such, however, does not appear to be the fact; for we find that the sovereign is chosen from the Kshatriya or military class, while from the Brahmins are selected the royal councillors, judges, and magistrates of the country.
348 He alludes to the Brahmins, who seem to have been called by the Greek writers “Gymnosophists,” or “naked wise men.” The Brahmin Calanus is a memorable example of this kind of self-immolation.
349 It is extremely doubtful if, even in his own day, Pliny was correct in venturing upon so sweeping an assertion.
350 The Sudra or menial caste.
351 He is incorrect here; these duties devolve on the Vaisya class.
352 Inhabited, probably, by a branch of the Calingæ previously mentioned.
353 Ansart suggests that this may be the modern kingdom of Pegu. He thinks also that the preceding kingdom may be that now called Arracan.
354 These may possibly be the Daradræ of Ptolemy, but it seems impossible to guess their locality.
355 Probably the present Patna. D’Anville, however, identifies it with Allahabad, while Welford and Wahl are inclined to think it the same as Radjeurah, formerly called Balipoutra or Bengala. The Prasii are probably the race of people mentioned in the ancient Sanscrit books under the name of the “Pragi” or the Eastern Empire, while the Gangarides are mentioned in the same works under the name of “Gandaressa” or Kingdom of the Ganges.
356 Hardouin is of opinion that these nations dwelt in the localities occupied by the districts of Gwalior and Agra.
357 The Septentriones or “Seven Trions,” in the original. Parisot is of opinion that under this name of Mount Maleus he alludes to the Western Ghauts, and that the name still survives in the word Malabar. He also remarks that this statement of Pliny is not greatly exaggerated.
358 Ansart says that this is the same as the modern town of Muttra or Matra upon the Jumna, and to the north of Agra.