Читать книгу The Natural History of Pliny (Vol. 1-6) - Pliny the Elder - Страница 292

Table of Contents

Lying to the east of the Caspii is the region known as Apavortene,258 in which there is a place noted for its singular fertility, called Dareium.259 We then come to the nations of the Tapyri,260 the Anariaci, the Staures, and the Hyrcani, past whose shores and beyond the river Sideris261 the Caspian begins to take the name of the ‘Hyrcanian’ Sea: on this side of that stream are also the rivers Maxeras and Strato; all of them take their rise in the Caucasian chain. Next comes the district of Margiane,262 so remarkable for its sunny climate. It is the only spot in all these regions that produces the vine, being shut in on every side by verdant and refreshing hills. This district is fifteen hundred stadia in circumference, but is rendered remarkably difficult of access by sandy deserts, which extend a distance of one hundred and twenty miles: it lies opposite to the country of Parthia, and in it Alexander founded the city of Alexandria. This place having been destroyed by the barbarians, Antiochus,263 the son of Seleucus, rebuilt it on the same site as a Syrian city.264 For, seeing that it was watered by the Margus,265 which passes through it, and is afterwards divided into a number of streams for the irrigation of the district of Zothale, he restored it, but preferred giving it the name of Antiochia.266 The circumference of this city is seventy stadia: it was to this place that Orodes conducted such of the Romans as had survived the defeat of Crassus. From the mountain heights of this district, along the range of Caucasus, the savage race of the Mardi, a free people, extends as far as the Bactri.267 Below the district inhabited by them, we find the nations of the Orciani, the Commori, the Berdrigæ, the Harmatotropi,268 the Citomaræ, the Comani, the Marucæi, and the Mandruani. The rivers here are the Mandrus and the Chindrus.269 Beyond the nations already mentioned, are the Chorasmii,270 the Candari,271 the Attasini, the Paricani, the Sarangæ, the Marotiani, the Aorsi,272 the Gaëli, by the Greek writers called Cadusii,273 the Matiani, the city of Heraclea,274 which was founded by Alexander, but was afterwards destroyed, and rebuilt by Antiochus, and by him called Achaïs; the Derbices also,275 through the middle of whose territory the river Oxus276 runs, after rising in Lake Oxus,277 the Syrmatæ, the Oxydracæ, the Heniochi, the Bateni, the Saraparæ, and the Bactri, whose chief city is Zariaspe, which afterwards received the name of Bactra, from the river278 there. This last nation lies at the back of Mount Paropanisus,279 over against the sources of the river Indus, and is bounded by the river Ochus.280 Beyond it are the Sogdiani,281 the town of Panda, and, at the very extremity of their territory, Alexandria,282 founded by Alexander the Great. At this spot are the altars which were raised by Hercules and Father Liber, as also by Cyrus, Semiramis, and Alexander; for the expeditions of all these conquerors stopped short at this region, bounded as it is by the river Jaxartes, by the Scythians known as the Silis, and by Alexander and his officers supposed to have been the Tanais. This river was crossed by Demodamas, a general of kings Seleucus and Antiochus, and whose account more particularly we have here followed. He also consecrated certain altars here to Apollo Didymæus.283