Description of Colchos, Lazica, or Mingrelia The extreme length of the Euxine sea,[1] from Constantinople to the mouth of the Phasis, may be computed as a voyage of nine days and a measure or seven hundred miles. Prom the Iberian Caucasus, the most lofty and craggy mountains of Asia, that river descends with such oblique vehemence that in a short space it is traversed by one hundred and twenty bridges. Nor does the stream become placid and navigable till it reaches the town of Sarapana, five days' journey from the Cyrus, which Hows from the same hills, but in a contrary direction, to the Caspian lake. The proximity of these rivers has suggested the practice, or at least the idea, of wafting the precious merchandise of India down the Oxus, over the Caspian, up the Cyrus, and with the current of the Phasis into the Euxine and Mediterranean seas. As it successively collects the streams of the plain of Colchos, the Phasis moves with diminished speed, though accumulated weight. At the mouth it is sixty fathom deep and half a league broad, but a small woody island is interposed in the midst of the channel: the water, so soon as it has deposited an earthy or metallic sediment, floats on the surface of the waves and is no longer susceptible of corruption. In a course of one hundred miles, forty of which are navigable for large vessels, the Phasis divides the celebrated region of Colchos,[2] or Mingrelia,[3] which, on three sides, is fortified by
- ↑ The Periplus, or circumnavigation of the Euxine sea, was described in Latin by Sallust, and in Greek by Arrian: 1. The former work, which no longer exists, has been restored by the singular diligence of M. de Brosses, first president of the parliament of Dijon (Hist. de la Républiquc Romaine, tom. ii. l. iii. p. 199-298), who ventures to assume the character of the Roman historian. His description of the Euxine is ingeniously formed of all the fragments of the original, and of all the Greeks and Latins whom Sallust might copy, or by whom he might be copied; and the merit of the execution atones for the whimsical design. 2. The Periplus of Arrian is addressed to the emperor Hadrian (in Geograph. Minor. Hudson, tom. i.). and contains whatever the governor of Pontus had seen [A.D. 131-2], from Trebizond to Dioscurias; whatever he had heard, from Dioscurias to the Danube; and whatever he knew, from the Danube to Trebizond. [It is included in Müller's Geog. Græc. Min. i. p. 257 sqq. For Arrian see Mr. Pelham's article in Eng. Hist. Review, Oct. 1896.]
- ↑ Besides the many occasional hints from the poets, historians, &c. of antiquity, we may consult the geographical descriptions of Colchos, by Strabo (l. xi. p. 760-765 [2, § 14-19]), and Pliny (Hist. Natur. vi. 5, 19, &c.).
- ↑ I shall quote, and have used, three modern descriptions of Mingrelia and the adjacent countries, 1. Of the Père Archangeli Lamberti (Relations de Thévenot, part i. p. 31-52, with a map), who has all the knowledge and prejudices of a missionary. 2. Of Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 54, 68-168): his observations are judicious; and his own adventures in the country are still more
spun through many a page of Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 15, 17, 28, 29, 30. Gothic. l. iv. c. 7-16), and Agathias (l. ii. iii. and iv. p. 55-132, 141). [For a full account in English see Bury's Later Roman Empire, i. p. 427-430, and 441 sqq.]
