Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/256

STRABO. CASATJB. 161. from [the mountains]. Situated on the Ebro is the city of Caesar Augusta, 1 and the colony of Celsa, 2 where there is a stone bridge across the river. This country is inhabited by many nations, the best known being that of the Jaccetani. 3 Commencing at the foot of the Pyrenees, it widens out into the plains, and reaches to the districts around Ilerda 4 and Osca, 5 [cities] of the Hergetes not far distant from the Ebro. It was in these cities, and in Calaguris, 6 a city of the Gascons, as well as those of Tarraco 7 and Hemeroscopium, 8 situated on the coast, that Sertorius sustained the last efforts of the war, after being ejected from the country of the Keltiberians. He died at Osca, and it was near to Ilerda that Afranius and Petreius, Pompey's generals, were afterwards defeated by divus 9 Cassar. Ilerda is distant 160 stadia from the Ebro, which is on its west, about 460 from Tarraco, which is on the south, and 540 from Osca, which lies to the north. 10 Passing through these places from Tarraco to the extremities of the Vascons who dwell by the ocean, near Pompelon 11 and the city of QEaso 12 situated on the ocean, the route extends 2400 stadia, to the very^frontiers of Aguitaine and Iberia. It was in the country of the Jaccetani that Sertorius fought against Pom-- pey, and here afterwards Sextus, Pompey's son, fought against the generals of Caesar. The nation of the Vascons, in which is Pompelon, or Pompey's city, lies north of Jaccetania. 1 1 . The side of the Pyrenees next Iberia is covered with forests containing numerous kinds of trees and evergreens, whilst the side next Keltica is bare : in the midst [the moun- tains] enclose valleys admirably fitted for the habitation of "Saragossa. . 2 Xelsa. f They occupied the northern half of Catalonia. 4 Lerida. 5 Huesca. 6 Calahorra. 7 Tarragona. 8 Denia. 9 VTTO Kaivapoe TOV Srtov, by the deified Caesar. We have adopted the Latin divus as the most suitable epithet for the emperor in an English version. 10 Gosselin here labours to reconcile these distances with the actual topography of those parts, but it is useless to attempt to make all the loose statements furnished by Strabo tally with the exact distances of the places he mentions by supposing the stadia to be so continually varied. 11 Pampeluna. 12 Gosselin is of opinion that this CEaso. is not Ojarco near Fontarabia, but thinks it probable that Ea near Cape Machicaco is the site where it stood.