Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/487

Cliap. 27.] ACCOUNT OF COFNTEIES, ETC. 453 rivers Eurymedon', which flows past Aspendus, and Catar- ractes^, near to which is Lyrnesus : also the towns of Olbia^, and Phaselis^ the last on this coast. CHAP. 27. — MOUNT TAUEUS. Adjoining to Painphylia is the Sea of Lycia and the conn- try of Lycia^ itself, where the chain of Taurus, coming from the eastern shores, terminates the vast Gulf ^ by the Promon- tory of Chelidonium. Of immense extent, and separating nations innumerable, after taking its first rise at the Indian Sea^, it branches off to the north on the right-hand side, and on the left towards the south. Then taking a direction towards the west, it would cut through the middle of Asia, were it not that the seas check it in its triumphant career along the land. It accordingly strikes off in a northerly direction, and forming an arc, occupies an immense tract of country, nature, designedl}^ as it were, every now and then throwing seas in the way to oppose its career ; here the Sea of Phoenicia, there the Sea of Pontus, in tliis direction the Caspian and Hyrcanian^, and then, opposite to them, the Lake Mfeotis. Although somewhat curtailed by these ob- stacles, it still winds along between them, and makes its 1 Now known as the Kapri-Su. ' Now called Dudon-Su. It descends the mountains of Taurus in a great broken waterfall, whence its name. 3 Probably occupying the site of the modern Atalieh or Satalieh. ■* On the borders of Lycia and Pamphyha, at the foot of Mount Solyma. Its ruins now bear the name of Tekrova. 5 It was inclosed by Coria and Pamphylia on the west and cast, and on the north by the district of Ciby rates in Phrygia. 6 The Gulf of Sataheh or Adalia. 7 Still kno-n as Cape Khelidonia or Cameroso. 8 Parisot remarks here, " Phny describes on this occasion, with an exactness vei-y remarkable for his time, the chain of mountains which runs through the partof Asia known to the ancients, although it is evitlent that he confines the extent of them within much too small a compass." ^ The Caspian and the Ilyrcanian Seas are generally looked upon as identical, but we find them again distinguished by Pliny in B.vi. c. 13, where he says that this inland sea commences to be called ihe Caspian after you have passed the river Cyrus (or Kiir), and that the Cas]iii live near it ; and in C. IG, that it is called the Jli/rcanian Sea, from the ilyr- cani who live along its shores. The western side would therefore in strictness be called the Caspian, and the eastern the Ui/rcanian Sea.