Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/238

230 STRABO. CASAUB. 499. CHAPTER III. 1. THE greater part of Iberia is well inhabited, and con- tains cities and villages where the houses have roofs covered with tiles, and display skill in building ; there are market- places in them, and various kinds of public edifices. 2. Some part of the country is encompassed by the Cauca- sian mountains ; for branches of this range advance, as I have said, towards the south. These districts are fruitful, com- prise the whole of Iberia, and extend to Armenia and Colchis. In the middle is a plain watered by rivers, the largest of which is the Cyrus, which, rising in Armenia, immediately enters the above-mentioned plain, having received the Ara- gus, 1 which flows at the foot of the Caucasus, and other streams, passes through a narrow channel into Albania. It flows however between this country and Armenia in a large body through plains, which afford excellent pasture. After having received several rivers, and among these the Alazo- nius, 2 Sandobanes, the Rhoetaces, and Chanes, all of which are navigable, it discharges itself into the Caspian Sea. Its former name was Corus. 3. The plain is occupied by those Iberians who are more disposed to agriculture, and are inclined to peace. Their dress is after the Armenian and Median fashion. Those who inhabit the mountainous country, and they are the most numerous, are addicted to war, live like the Sarmatians and Scythians, on whose country they border, and with whom they are connected by affinity of race. These people how- ever engage in agriculture also, and can assemble many myriads of persons from among themselves, and from the Scythians and Sarmatians, whenever any disturbance occurs. 4. There are four passes into the country; one through Sarapana, a Colchian fortress, and through the defiles near it, along which the Phasis, rendered passable from one side to the other by a hundred and twenty bridges, in conse- 1 The Arak. 2 In the English map, reduced from the Russian military map, there are two rivers Alasan, flowing in contrary directions from M. Bebala. The modern names of the other rivers here mentioned are not well as- certained.