Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/229

B. xi. c. ii. 4, 5. SEA OF AZOFF. 221 In front of the mart at the distance of 100 stadia is an is- land Alopecia, a settlement of a mixed people. There are other small islands not far off in the lake. The city Tanais, 1 to those who sail in a direct line to- wards the north, is distant from the mouth of the Mseotis 2200 stadia, nor is the distance much greater in sailing along the coast (on the east). 4. In the voyage along the coast, the first object which presents itself to those who have proceeded to the distance of 800 stadia from the Tanais, is the Great Rhombites, as it is called, where large quantities of fish are captured for the pur- pose of being salted. Then at the distance of 800 stadia more is the Lesser Rhombites, 2 and a promontory, which has smaller fisheries. The [nomades] at the former have small islands as stations for their vessels, those at the Lesser Rhom- bites are the Mseotae who cultivate the ground. For along the whole of this coasting voyage live MasotaB, who are hus- bandmen, but not less addicted to war than the nomades. They are divided into several tribes ; those near the Tanais are more savage, those contiguous to the Bosporus are more gentle in their manners. From the Lesser Rhombites to Tyrambe, and the river An- ticeites, are 600 stadia; then 120 to the Cimmerian village, whence vessels set out on their voyage along the lake. In this coasting voyage we meet with some look-out places, (for observing the fish,) said to belong to the Clazomenians. 5. Cimmericum was formerly a city built upon a peninsula, the* isthmus of which it enclosed with a ditch and mound. The Cimmerii once possessed great power in the Bosporus,' whence it was called the Cimmerian Bosporus. These are the people who overran the territory of the inhabitants of the inland parts, on the right of the Euxine, as far as Ionia. They were dislodged from these places by Scythians, and the Scythians by Greeks, who founded Panticapaeum, 3 and the other cities on the Bosporus. 1 If there ever did exist such a city as Tanais I should expect to find it at the extremity of that northern embouchure of the Don, which I have before mentioned as bearing the very name the Greeks gave to the city, with the slightest variation of orthography, in the appellation Tdanaets or Danaetz. Clarke's Travels in Russia, chap. 14. 2 Strabo makes the distance too great between the two rivers Rhom- bites. 3 Kertch.