Page:The Anabasis of Alexander.djvu/225

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Exploits in Sogdiana.

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and Asia, saying that the Palus Maeotis> issuing from the furthest recess of the Euxine^[1] Sea, and this river Tanais, which discharges itself into the Maeotis, separate Asia and Europe,^[2] just in the same way as the sea near Gadeira and the Nomad Libyans opposite Gadeira separates Libya and Europe.^[3] Libya also is said by these men to be divided from the rest of Asia by the river Nile. In this place (viz. at the river Tanais), some of the Macedonians, being engaged in foraging, were cut to pieces by the barbarians. The perpetrators of this deed escaped to a mountain, which was very rugged and precipitous on all sides. In number they were about 30,000. Alexander took the lightest men in his army and marched against these. Then the Macedonians made many ineffectual assaults upon the mountain. At first they were beaten back by the missiles of the barbarians, and many of them were wounded, includiag Alexander himself, who was shot right through the leg with an arrow, and the fibula of his leg was broken. Notwithstanding this, he captured the place, and some of the barbarians were cut to pieces there by the Mace-

↑ Euxeinos (kind to strangers); called before the Greeks settled upon it Axenos (inhospitable). See Ovid (Tristia, iv.. 4). C£. Ammianus (xxii. 8, 33): " A contrario per oavillationem Pontus Euxinus adpellatur, et euethen Graeoi dieimus stultum, et nootem euphronen et furias Eumenidas."
↑ So Gurtivs (vi. 6) makes the Don the boundary of Etirope and Asia. "Tanais Europam et Asiam medius interfuit." Ammianus says: "Tanais inter Caueasias oriens rupes, per sinuosos labitur circumflexus, Asiamque disterminans ab Europa, in stagnis Maeotieis deliteseit." The Eha, or Volga, is first mentioned by Ptolemy in the second century of the Christian era.
↑ Gadeira is now called Cadiz. The Greeks called the continent of Africa by the name of Libya. So Polybius (iii. 37) says that the Don is the boundary of Europe, and that Libya is separated from Asia and Europe respectively by the Nile and the Straits of Gibraltar, or, as he calls the latter, " the mouth at the pillars of Hercules." Arrian here, like many ancient authors, considers Libya a part of Asia. Of. Juvenal, x. i.

[1] Euxeinos (kind to strangers); called before the Greeks settled upon it Axenos (inhospitable). See Ovid (Tristia, iv.. 4). C£. Ammianus (xxii. 8, 33): " A contrario per oavillationem Pontus Euxinus adpellatur, et euethen Graeoi dieimus stultum, et nootem euphronen et furias Eumenidas."

[2] So Gurtivs (vi. 6) makes the Don the boundary of Etirope and Asia. "Tanais Europam et Asiam medius interfuit." Ammianus says: "Tanais inter Caueasias oriens rupes, per sinuosos labitur circumflexus, Asiamque disterminans ab Europa, in stagnis Maeotieis deliteseit." The Eha, or Volga, is first mentioned by Ptolemy in the second century of the Christian era.

[3] Gadeira is now called Cadiz. The Greeks called the continent of Africa by the name of Libya. So Polybius (iii. 37) says that the Don is the boundary of Europe, and that Libya is separated from Asia and Europe respectively by the Nile and the Straits of Gibraltar, or, as he calls the latter, " the mouth at the pillars of Hercules." Arrian here, like many ancient authors, considers Libya a part of Asia. Of. Juvenal, x. i.

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