Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/221

NATIONS IN ASIA MINOR. 200 north-eastward as far as Armenia, formed the most noted boundary. line during the Roman times, but Herodotus does not once mention it; the river Halys is in his view the most important geographical limit. Northward of Taurus, on the upper portions of the rivers Halys and Sangarius, was situated the spacious and lofty central plain of Asia Minor. To the north, west, and south of this central plain, the region is chiefly mountainous, as it ap- proaches all the three seas, the Euxine, the ^ZEgean, and the Pamphylian, most mountainous in the case of the latter, per mitting no rivers of long course. The mountains Kadmus, Messo- gis, Tmolus, stretch westward towards the JEgean sea, but leaving extensive spaces of plain and long valleys, so that the course of the Mtcander, the Kai'ster, and the Ilermus is of considerable length. The north-western part includes the mountainous regions of Ida, Temnus, and the Mysian Olympus, yet with much admix- ture of fertile and productive ground. The elevated tracts near the Euxine appear to have been the most wooded, especially Kytorus : the Parthenius, the Sangarius, the Halys, and the Iris, are all considerable streams flowing northward towards that sea, Nevertheless, the plain land interspersed through these numerous elevations was often of the greatest fertility ; and as a whole, the peninsula of Asia Minor was considered as highly productive by the ancients, in grain, wine, fruit, cattle, and in many parts, oil ; though the cold central plain did not carry the olive. 1 Along the western shores of this peninsula, where the various bands of Greek emigrants settled, we hear of Pelasgians, Teu- krians, Mysians, Bithynians, Phrygians, Lydians or Mceonians, Karians, Lelegians. Farther eastward are Lykians, Pisidians, Kilikians, Phrygians, Kapadokians, Paphlagonians, Mariandyn- ians, etc. Speaking generally, we may say that the Phrygians, Teukrians, and Mysians appear in the north-western portion, between the river Hermus and the Propontis, the Karians and Lelegians south of the river Maeander, and the Lydians in the central region between the two. Pelasjnans are found here and 1 Cicero, Pro Legc Manilla, c. 6 ; Strabo, xii, p. 572 ; Hcrodot. v, 32. See the instructive account of the spread and cultivation of the olive-tree, in Hitter. Erdkunde, West-Asicn, b iii, Abtheilung iii; Abschn. i, s. 50. pp 522-537.