Chapter 256

2761Now called Stalimene.

2762Its site is now called Palæo Kastro. Hephæstia, or Vulcan’s Town, stood near the modern Rapanidi. That god was said to have fallen into this island when thrown from heaven by Jupiter.

2763Now Thaso, or Tasso. Its gold mines were in early periods very valuable.

2764Mentioned in C.17of this Book.

2765Ansart says that “forty-two” would be the correct reading here, that being also the distance between Samothrace and Thasos.

2766Its modern name is Samothraki. It was the chief seat of the mysterious worship of the Cabiri.

2767Only twelve, according to Ansart.

2768Barely eighteen, according to Brotier.

2769Now Monte Nettuno. Of course the height here mentioned by Pliny is erroneous; but Homer says that from this mountain Troy could be seen.

2770Now called Skopelo, if it is the same island which is mentioned by Ptolemy under the name of Scopelus. It exports wine in large quantities.

2771Or the Fox Island, so called from its first settlers having been directed by an oracle to establish a colony where they should first meet a fox with its cub. Like many others of the islands here mentioned, it appears not to have been identified.

2772See C.18of this Book.

2773None of these islands appear to have been identified by modern geographers.

2774Now generally known as the Palus Mæotis or Sea of Azof.

2775The modern Caraboa, according to Brotier, stands on its site. Priapus was the tutelary divinity of Lampsacus in this vicinity.

2776Or “entrance of Pontus”; now the Sea of Marmora.

2777“Ox Ford,” or “passage of the cow,” Io being said to have crossed it in that form: now called the “Straits of Constantinople.”

2778Said to have been calledἄξενοςor “inhospitable,” from its frequent storms and the savage state of the people living on its shores. In later times, on the principle of Euphemism, or abstaining from words of ill omen, its name was changed toεὔξεινος, “hospitable.”

2779This was a favourite comparison of the ancients; the north coast, between the Thracian Bosporus and the Phasis, formed the bow, and the southern shores the string. The Scythian bow somewhat resembled in form the figureΣ, the capital Sigma of the Greeks.

2780Now the Straits of Kaffa or Enikale.

2781This town lay about the middle of the Tauric Chersonesus or Crimea, and was situate on a small peninsula, called the Smaller Chersonesus, to distinguish it from the larger one, of which it formed a part. It was founded by the inhabitants of the Pontic Heraclea, or Heracleium, the site of which is unknown. See note2844to p. 333.

2782Now Kertsch, in the Crimea. It derived its name from the river Panticapes; and was founded by the Milesians aboutB.C.541. It was the residence of the Greek kings of Bosporus, and hence it was sometimes so called.

2783“Thirty-six” properly.

2784The Tanais or Don does not rise in the Riphæan Mountains, or western branch of the Uralian chain, but on slightly elevated ground in the centre of European Russia.

2785Chap. 18 of the present Book. Istropolis is supposed to be the present Istere, though some would make it to have stood on the site of the present Kostendsje, and Brotier identifies it with Kara-Kerman.

2786Now called the Schwarzwald or Black Forest. The Danube or Ister rises on the eastern side at the spot called Donaueschingen.

2787So called from the Raurici, a powerful people of Gallia Belgica, who possessed several towns, of which the most important were Augusta, now Augst, and Basilia, now Bâle.

2788Only three of these are now considered of importance, as being the main branches of the river. It is looked upon as impossible by modern geographers to identify the accounts given by the ancients with the present channels, by name, as the Danube has undergone in lapse of time, very considerable changes at its mouth. Strabo mentions seven mouths, three being lesser ones.

2789So called, as stated by Pliny, from the island of Peuce, now Piczina. Peuce appears to have been the most southerly of the mouths.

2790Now called Kara-Sou, according to Brotier. Also called Rassefu in the maps.

2791Now called Hazrali Bogasi, according to Brotier. It is called by Ptolemy the Narakian Mouth.

2792Or the “Beautiful Mouth.” Now Susie Bogasi, according to Brotier.

2793Or the “False Mouth”: now the Sulina Bogasi, the principal mouth of the Danube, so maltreated by its Russian guardians.

2794Or the “Passage of the Gnats,” so called from being the resort of swarms of mosquitoes, which were said at a certain time of the year to migrate to the Palus Mæotis. According to Brotier the present name of this island is Ilan Adasi, or Serpent Island.

2795The “Northern Mouth”: near the town of Kilia.

2796Or the “Narrow Mouth.”

2797Though Strabo distinguishes the Getæ from the Daci, most of the ancient writers, with Pliny, speak of them as identical. It is not known, however, why the Getæ in later times assumed the name of Daci.

2798“Dwellers in waggons.” These were a Sarmatian tribe who wandered with their waggons along the banks of the Volga. The chief seats of the Aorsi, who seem in reality to have been a distinct people from the Hamaxobii, was in the country between the Tanais, the Euxine, the Caspian, and the Caucasus.

2799“Dwellers in Caves.” This name appears to have been given to various savage races in different parts of the world.

2800There were races of the Alani in Asia on the Caucasus, and in Europe on the Mæotis and the Euxine; but their precise geographical position is not clearly ascertained.

2801The present Transylvania and Hungary.

2802The name given in the age of Pliny to the range of mountains extending around Bohemia, and through Moravia into Hungary.

2803Its ruins are still to be seen on the south bank of the Danube near Haimburg, between Deutsch-Altenburg and Petronell. The Roman fleet of the Danube, with the 14th legion, was originally established there.

2804In Pliny’s time this migratory tribe seems to have removed to the plains between the Lower Theiss and the mountains of Transylvania, from which places they had expelled the Dacians.

2805The Lower Theiss.

2806Now the river Mark, Maros, or Morava.

2807The name of the two streams now known as the Dora Baltea and Dora Riparia, both of which fall into the Po. This passage appears to be in a mutilated state.

2808A chief of the Quadi; who, as we learn from Tacitus, was made king of the Suevi by Germanicus,A.D.19. Being afterwards expelled by his nephews Vangio and Sido, he received from the emperor Claudius a settlement in Pannonia. Tacitus gives the name of Suevia to the whole of the east of Germany from the Danube to the Baltic.

2809According to Hardouin, Pliny here speaks of the other side of the mountainous district called Higher Hungary, facing the Danube and extending from the river Theiss to the Morava.

2810This, according to Sillig, is the real meaning ofa desertishere, the distance being measured from the Danube, and not between the Vistula and the wilds of Sarmatia. The reading “four thousand” is probably corrupt, but it seems more likely than that of 404 miles, adopted by Littré, in his French translation.

2811Placed by Forbiger near Lake Burmasaka, or near Islama.

2812The Dniester. The mountains of Macrocremnus, or the “Great Heights,” seem not to have been identified.

2813According to Hardouin, the modern name of this island is Tandra.

2814Now called the Teligul, east of the Tyra or Dniester.

2815Now called Sasik Beregen, according to Brotier.

2816The modern Gulf of Berezen, according to Brotier.

2817Probably the modern Okzakow.

2818The modern Dnieper. It also retains its ancient name of Borysthenes.

2819We learn from Strabo that the name of this town was Olbia, and that from being founded by the Milesians, it received the name of Miletopolis. According to Brotier, the modern Zapurouski occupies its site, between the mouths of the river Buzuluk.

2820This was adjacent to the strip of land called “Dromos Achilleos,” or the ‘race-course of Achilles.’ It is identified by geographers with the little island of Zmievoi or Oulan Adassi, the ‘Serpents Island.’ It was said that it was to this spot that Thetis transported the body of Achilles. By some it was made the abode of the shades of the blest, where Achilles and other heroes of fable were the judges of the dead.

2821A narrow strip of land N.W. of the Crimea and south of the mouth of the Dnieper, running nearly due west and east. It is now divided into two parts called Kosa Tendra and Kosa Djarilgatch. Achilles was said to have instituted games here.

2822According to Hardouin, the Siraci occupied a portion of the present Podolia and Ukraine, and the Tauri the modern Bessarabia.

2823According to Herodotus, this region, called Hylæa, lay to the east of the Borysthenes. It seems uncertain whether there are now any traces of this ancient woodland; some of the old maps however give the name of the “Black Forest” to this district. From the statements of modern travellers, the woody country does not commence till the river Don has been reached. The district of Hylæa has been identified by geographers with the great plain of Janboylouk in the steppe of the Nogai.

2824For Enœchadlæ, Hardouin suggests that we should readInde Hylæi, “hence the inhabitants are called by the name of Hylæi.”

2825The Panticapes is usually identified with the modern Somara, but perhaps without sufficient grounds. It is more probably the Kouskawoda.

2826The Nomades orwandering, from the Georgi oragriculturalScythians.

2827The Acesinus does not appear to have been identified by modern geographers.

2828Above called Olbiopolis or Miletopolis.

2829The Bog or Boug. Flowing parallel with the Borysthenes or Dnieper, it discharged itself into the Euxine at the town of Olbia, at no great distance from the mouth of the Borysthenes.

2830Probably meaning the mouth or point at which the river discharges itself into the sea.

2831The modern Gulf of Negropoli or Perekop, on the west side of the Chersonesus Taurica or Crimea.

2832Forming the present isthmus of Perekop, which divides the Sea of Perekop from the Sea of Azof.

2833Called by Herodotus Hypacyris, and by later writers Carcinites. It is generally supposed to be the same as the small stream now known as the Kalantchak.

2834Hardouin says that the city of Carcine has still retained its name, but changed its site. More modern geographers however are of opinion that nothing can be determined with certainty as to its site. Of the site also of Navarum nothing seems to be known.

2835Or Buces or Byce. This is really a gulf,almostenclosed, at the end of the Sea of Azof. Strabo gives a more full description of it under the name of theSapra Limnè, “the Putrid Lake,” by which name it is still called, in Russian,Sibachéor Sivaché Moré. It is a vast lagoon, covered with water when an east wind blows the water of the Sea of Azof into it, but at other times a tract of slime and mud, sending forth pestilential vapours.

2836It is rather a ridge of sand, thatalmostseparates it from the waters of the gulf.

2837This river has not been identified by modern geographers.

2838According to Herodotus the Gerrhus or Gerrus fell into the Hypacaris; which must be understood to be, not the Kalantchak, but the Outlouk. It is probably now represented by the Moloschnijawoda, which forms a shallow lake or marsh at its mouth.

2839It is most probable that the Pacyris, mentioned above, the Hypacaris, and the Carcinites, were various names for the same river, generally supposed, as stated above, to be the small stream of Kalantchak.

2840Now the Crimea.

2841It does not appear that the site of any of these cities has been identified. Charax was a general name for a fortified town.

2842Mentioned again by Pliny in B. vi. c. 7. Solinus says that in order to repel avarice, the Satarchæ prohibited the use of gold and silver.

2843On the site of the modern Perekop, more commonly called Orkapi.

2844Or Chersonesus of the Heracleans. The town of Kosleve or Eupatoria is supposed to stand on its site.

2845After the conquest of Mithridates, when the whole of these regions fell into the hands of the Romans.

2846The modern Felenk-burun. So called from the Parthenos or Virgin Diana or Artemis, whose temple stood on its heights, in which human sacrifices were offered to the goddess.

2847Supposed to be the same as the now-famed port of Balaklava.

2848The modern Aia-burun, the great southern headland of the Crimea. According to Plutarch, it was called by the natives Brixaba, which, like the name Criumetopon, meant the “Ram’s Head.”

2849Now Kerempi, a promontory of Paphlagonia in Asia Minor. Strabo considers this promontory and that of Criumetopon as dividing the Euxine into two seas.

2850According to Strabo, the sea-line of the Tauric Chersonesus, after leaving the port of the Symboli, extended 125 miles, as far as Theodosia. Pliny would here seem to make it rather greater.

2851The modern Kaffa occupies its site. The sites of many of the places here mentioned appear not to be known at the present day.

2852The modern Kertsch, situate on a hill at the very mouth of the Cimmerian Bosporus, or Straits of Enikale or Kaffa, opposite the town of Phanagoria in Asia.

2853In C.24of the present Book. Clark identifies the town of Cimmerium with the modern Temruk, Forbiger with Eskikrimm. It is again mentioned in B. vi. c. 2.

2854He alludes here, not to the Strait so called, but to the Peninsula bordering upon it, upon which the modern town of Kertsch is situate, and which projects from the larger Peninsula of the Crimea, as a sort of excrescence on its eastern side.

2855Probably Hermes or Mercury was its tutelar divinity: its site appears to be unknown.

2856Probably meaning the Straits or passage connecting the Lake Mæotis with the Euxine. The fertile district of the Cimmerian Bosporus was at one time the granary of Greece, especially Athens, which imported thence annually 400,000 medimni of corn.

2857A town so called on the Isthmus of Perekop, from aτάφροςor trench, which was cut across the isthmus at this point.

2858Lomonossov, in his History of Russia, says that these people were the same as the Sclavoni: but that one meaning of the name ‘Slavane’ being “a boaster,” the Greeks gave them the corresponding appellation of Auchetæ, from the wordαὐχὴ, which signifies “boasting.”

2859Of the Geloni, called by Virgil “picti,” or “painted,” nothing certain seems to be known: they are associated by Herodotus with the Budini, supposed to belong to the Slavic family by Schafarik. In B. iv. c. 108, 109, of his History, Herodotus gives a very particular account of the Budini, who had a city built entirely of wood, the name of which was Gelonus. The same author also assigns to the Geloni a Greek origin.

2860The Agathyrsi are placed by Herodotus near the upper course of the river Maris, in the S.E. of Dacia or the modern Transylvania. Pliny however seems here to assign them a different locality.

2861Also called “Assedones” and “Issedones.” It has been suggested by modern geographers that their locality must be assigned to the east of Ichim, on the steppe of the central horde of the Kirghiz, and that of the Arimaspi on the northern declivity of the chain of the Altaï.

2862Now the Don.

2863Most probably these mountains were a western branch of the Uralian chain.

2864From the Greekπτεροφορὸς, “wing-bearing” or “feather-bearing.”

2865This legendary race was said to dwell in the regions beyond Boreas, or the northern wind, which issued from the Riphæan mountains, the name of which was derived fromῥιπαὶor “hurricanes” issuing from a cavern, and which these heights warded off from the Hyperboreans and sent to more southern nations. Hence they never felt the northern blasts, and enjoyed a life of supreme happiness and undisturbed repose. “Here,” says Humboldt, “are the first views of a natural science which explains the distribution of heat and the difference of climates by local causes—by the direction of the winds—the proximity of the sun, and the action of a moist or saline principle.”—Asie Centrale, vol. i.

2866Pindar says, in the “Pythia,” x. 56, “The Muse is no stranger to their manners. The dances of girls and the sweet melody of the lyre and pipe resound on every side, and wreathing their locks with the glistening bay, they feast joyously. For this sacred race there is no doom of sickness or of disease; but they live apart from toil and battles, undisturbed by the exacting Nemesis.”

2867Hardouin remarks that Pomponius Mela, who asserts that the sun rises here at the vernal and sets at the autumnal equinox, is right in his position, and that Pliny is incorrect in his assertion. The same commentator thinks that Pliny can have hardly intended to censure Mela, to whose learning he had been so much indebted for his geographical information, by applying to him the epithet “imperitus,” ‘ignorant’ or ‘unskilled’; he therefore suggests that the proper reading here is, “ut non imperiti dixere,” “as some by no means ignorant persons have asserted.”

2868The Attacori are also mentioned in B. vi. c. 20.

2869Sillig omits the word “non” here, in which case the reading would be, “Those writers who place them anywhere but, &c.;” it is difficult to see with what meaning.

2870Herodotus, B. iv., states to this effect, and after him, Pomponius Mela, B. iii. c.5.

2871These islands, or rather rocks, are now known as Fanari, and lie at the entrance of the Straits of Constantinople.

2872Fromσὺνandπληγὴ, “a striking together.” Tournefort has explained the ancient story of these islands running together, by remarking that each of them consists of one craggy island, but that when the sea is disturbed the water covers the lower parts, so as to make the different points of each resemble isolated rocks. They are united to the mainland by a kind of isthmus, and appear as islands only when it is inundated in stormy weather.

2873Upon which the city of Apollonia (now Sizeboli), mentioned in C.18of the present Book, was situate.

2874So called because it was dedicated by Lucullus in the Capitol. It was thirty cubits in height.

2875In C.24of the present Book.

2876Mentioned in the last Chapter as the “Island of Achilles.”

2877From the Greekμακαρῶν, “(The island) of the Blest.” It was also called the “Island of the Heroes.”

2878Meaning all the inland or Mediterranean seas.

2879As the whole of Pliny’s description of the northern shores of Europe is replete with difficulties and obscurities, we cannot do better than transcribe the learned remarks of M. Parisot, the Geographical Editor of Ajasson’s Edition, in reference to this subject. He says, “Before entering on the discussion of this portion of Pliny’s geography, let us here observe, once for all, that we shall not remark as worthy of our notice all those ridiculous hypotheses which could only take their rise in ignorance, precipitation, or a love of the marvellous. We shall decline then to recognize the Doffrefelds in the mountains of Sevo, the North Cape in the Promontory of Rubeas, and the Sea of Greenland in the Cronian Sea. The absurdity of these suppositions is proved by—I. The impossibility of the ancients ever making their way to these distant coasts without the aid of large vessels, the compass, and others of those appliances, aided by which European skill finds the greatest difficulty in navigating those distant seas. II. The immense lacunæ which would be found to exist in the descriptions of these distant seas and shores: for not a word do we find about those numerous archipelagos which are found scattered throughout the North Sea, not a word about Iceland, nor about the numberless seas and fiords on the coast of Norway. III. The absence of all remarks upon the local phænomena of these spots. The North Cape belongs to the second polar climate, the longest day there being two months and a half. Is it likely that navigators would have omitted to mention this remarkable phænomenon, well known to the Romans by virtue of their astronomical theories, but one with which practically they had never made themselves acquainted?—The only geographers who here merit our notice are those who are of opinion that in some of the coasts or islands here mentioned Pliny describes the Scandinavian Peninsula, and in others the Coast of Finland. The first question then is, to what point Pliny first carries us? It is evident that from the Black Sea he transports himself on a sudden to the shores of the Baltic, thus passing over at a single leap a considerable space filled with nations and unknown deserts. The question then is, what line has he followed? Supposing our author had had before his eyes a modern map, the imaginary line which he would have drawn in making this transition would have been from Odessa to the Kurisch-Haff. In this direction the breadth across Europe is contracted to a space, between the two seas, not more than 268 leagues in length. A very simple mode of reasoning will conclusively prove that Pliny has deviated little if anything from this route. If he fails to state in precise terms upon what point of the shores of the Baltic he alights after leaving the Riphæan mountains, his enumeration of the rivers which discharge themselves into that sea, and with which he concludes his account of Germany, will supply us with the requisite information, at all events in great part. In following his description of the coast, we find mention made of the following rivers, the Guttalus, the Vistula, the Elbe, the Weser, the Ems, the Rhine, and the Meuse. The five last mentioned follow in their natural order, from east to west, as was to be expected in a description starting from the east of Europe for its western extremity and the shores of Cadiz. We have a right to conclude then that the Guttalus was to the east of the Vistula. As we shall now endeavour to show, this river was no other than the Alle, a tributary of the Pregel, which the Romans probably, in advancing from west to east, considered as the principal stream, from the circumstance that they met with it, before coming to the larger river. The Pregel after being increased by the waters of the Alle or Guttalus falls into the Frisch-Haff, about one degree further west than the Kurisch-Haff. It may however be here remarked, Why not find a river more to the east, the Niemen, for instance, or the Duna, to be represented by the Guttalus? The Niemen in especial would suit in every respect equally well, because it discharges itself into the Kurisch-Haff. This conjecture however is incapable of support, when we reflect that the ancients were undoubtedly acquainted with some points of the coast to the east of the mouth of the Guttalus, but which, according to the system followed by our author, would form part of the Continent of Asia. These points are, 1st. The Cape Lytarmis (mentioned by Pliny, B. vi. c. 4). 2ndly. The mouth of the river Carambucis (similarly mentioned by him), and 3rdly, a little to the east of Cape Lytarmis, the mouth of the Tanais. The name of Cape Lytarmis suggests to us Lithuania, and probably represents Domess-Ness in Courland; the Carambucis can be no other than the Niemen; while the Tanais, upon which so many authors, ancient and modern, have exhausted their conjectures, from confounding it with the Southern Tanais which falls into the Sea of Azof, is evidently the same as the Dwina or Western Duna. This is established incontrovertibly both by its geographical position (the mouth of the Dwina being only fifty leagues to the east of Domess-Ness) and the identity evidently of the names Dwina and Tanais. Long since, Leibnitz was the first to remark the presence of the radicalT. n, orD. n, either with or without a vowel, in the names of the great rivers of Eastern Europe; Danapris or Dnieper, Danaster or Dniester, Danube (in German Donau, in Hungarian Duna), Tanais or Don, for example; all which rivers however discharge themselves into the Black Sea. There can be little doubt then of the identity of the Duna with the Tanais, it being the only body of water in these vast countries which bears a name resembling the initialTan, orTn, and at the same time belongs to the basin of the Baltic. We are aware, it is true, that the White Sea receives a river Dwina, which is commonly called the Northern Dwina, but there can be no real necessity to be at the trouble of combating the opinion that this river is identical with the Northern Tanais. As the result then of our investigations, it is at the eastern extremity of the Frisch-Haff and near the mouth of the Pregel, that we would place the point at which Pliny sets out. As for the Riphæan mountains, they have never existed anywhere but in the head of the geographers from whom our author drew his materials. From the mountains of Ural and Poias, which Pliny could not possibly have in view, seeing that they lie in a meridian as eastern as the Caspian Sea, the traveller has to proceed 600 leagues to the south-west without meeting with any chains of mountains or indeed considerable elevations.”

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