Читать книгу The Natural History of Pliny (Vol. 1-6) - Pliny the Elder - Страница 299

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We will now proceed to give some further particulars relative to the four Satrapies, of which we have postponed further mention407 till the present occasion.

(23). After passing the nations in the vicinity of the Indus, we come to the mountain districts. The territory of Capisene formerly had a city, called Capisa,408 which was destroyed by Cyrus. Arachosia409 has a river and a city of the same name; the city was built by Semiramis; by some writers it is called Cophen. The river Erymanthus410 flows past Parabeste,411 which belongs to the Arachosii. Writers make the Dexendrusi come next, forming the boundary of the Arachotæ on the southern side, and of the Paropanisadæ on the north. The city of Cartana412 lies at the foot of Caucasus; in later times it has been called Tetragonis.413 This region lies over against that of the Bactri, who come next, and whose chief city is Alexandria,414 so called from the name of its founder. We then come to the Syndraci,415 the Dangalæ,416 the Parapinæ,417 the Catuces, and the Mazi: and then at the foot of Caucasus, to the Cadrusi, whose town418 was built by Alexander.

Below all these countries, is the line of coast which we come to after leaving the Indus. Ariana419 is a region parched by the sun and surrounded by deserts; still, however, as the face of the country is every here and there diversified with well-shaded spots, it finds communities grouped together to cultivate it, and more especially around the two rivers, known as the Tonberos420 and the Arosapes.421 There is also the town of Artacoana,422 and the river Arius,423 which flows past Alexandria,424 a city founded by Alexander; this place is thirty stadia in extent. Much more beautiful than it, as well as of much greater antiquity, is Artacabane,425 fortified a second time by Antiochus, and fifty stadia in breadth. We then come to the nation of the Dorisdorsigi, and the rivers Pharnaracotis,426 and Ophradus; and then to Prophthasia,427 a city of the Zaraspades, the Drangæ,428 the Evergetæ,429 the Zarangæ, and the Gedrusi;430 the towns of Pucolis, Lyphorta, the desert of the Methorgi,431 the river Manais,432 the nation of the Acutri, the river Eorum, the nation of the Orbi, the Pomanus, a navigable river in the territories of the Pandares, the Apirus in the country of the Suari, with a good harbour at its mouth, the city of Condigramma, and the river Cophes;433 into which last flow the navigable streams of the Saddaros,434 the Parospus, and the Sodanus. Some writers will also have it that Daritis435 forms part of Ariana, and give the length of them both as nineteen hundred and fifty miles, and the breadth one half of that436 of India. Others again have spread the Gedrusi and the Pasires over an extent of one hundred and thirty-eight miles, and place next to them the Ichthyophagi Oritæ,437 a people who speak a language peculiar to themselves, and not the Indian dialect, extending over a space of two hundred miles. Alexander forbade the whole of the Ichthyophagi438 to live any longer on fish. Next after these the writers have placed extensive deserts, and then Carmania, Persia, and Arabia.