Part 39 (1/2)

9. Then, a long time after these events, while our republic was under consuls, and was afterwards brought under the power of the Caesars, that nation was constantly warring with us, sometimes with equal fortune; being at one time defeated, and at another victorious.

10. Now I will in a few words describe the situation and position of the country as well as I can. It is a region of great extent both in length and breadth, entirely surrounding on all sides the famous Persian gulf with its many islands. The mouth of this gulf is so narrow that from Harmozon, the promontory of Carmania, the opposite headland, which the natives call Maces, is easily seen.

11. When the strait between these capes is pa.s.sed, and the water becomes wider, they are navigable up to the city Teredon, where, after having suffered a great diminution of its waters, the Euphrates falls into the sea. The entire gulf, if measured round the sh.o.r.e, is 20,000 furlongs, being of a circular form as if turned in a lathe. And all round its coasts are towns and villages in great numbers; and the vessels which navigate its waters are likewise very numerous.

12. Having then pa.s.sed through this strait we come to the gulf of Armenia on the east, the gulf of Cantichus on the south, and on the west to a third, which they call Chalites.[141] These gulfs, after was.h.i.+ng many islands, of which but few are known, join the great Indian Ocean, which is the first to receive the glowing rising of the sun, and is itself of an excessive heat.

13. As the pens of geographers delineate it, the whole of the region which we have been speaking of is thus divided. From the north to the Caspian gates it borders on the Cadusii, and on many Scythian tribes, and on the Arimaspi, a fierce one-eyed people. On the west it is bounded by the Armenians, and Mount Niphates, the Asiatic Albani, the Red Sea, and the Scenite Arabs, whom later times have called the Saracens. To the south it looks towards Mesopotamia, on the east it reaches to the Ganges, which falls into the Southern Ocean after intersecting the countries of the Indians.

14. The princ.i.p.al districts of Persia, under command of the Vitaxae, that is to say of the generals of the cavalry, and of the king's Satraps, for the many inferior provinces it would be difficult and superfluous to enumerate, are a.s.syria, Susiana, Media, Persia, Parthia, the greater Carmania, Hyrcania, Margiana, the Bactrians, the Sogdians, the Sacae, Scythia beyond Mount Emodes, Serica, Aria, the Paropanisadae, Drangiana, Arachosia, and Gedrosia.

15. Superior to all the rest is that which is the nearest to us, a.s.syria, both in renown, and extent, and its varied riches and fertility. It was formerly divided among several peoples and tribes, but is now known under one common name as a.s.syria. It is in that country that amid its abundance of fruits and ordinary crops, there is a lake named Sosingites, near which bitumen is found. In this lake the Tigris is for a while absorbed, flowing beneath its bed, till, at a great distance, it emerges again.

16. Here also is produced naphtha, an article of a pitchy and glutinous character, resembling bitumen: on which if ever so small a bird perches, it finds its flight impeded and speedily dies. It is a species of liquid, and when once it has taken fire, human ingenuity can find no means of extinguis.h.i.+ng it except that of heaping dust on it.

17. In the same district is seen an opening in the earth from which a deadly vapour arises, which by its foul odour destroys any animal which comes near it. The evil arises from a deep well, and if that odour spread beyond its wide mouth before it rose higher, it would make all the country around uninhabitable by its fetid effect.

18. There used, as some affirm, to be a similar chasm near Hierapolis in Phrygia; from which a noxious vapour rose in like manner with a fetid smell which never ceased, and destroyed everything within the reach of its influence, except eunuchs; to what this was owing we leave natural philosophers to determine.

19. Also near the temple of the Asbamaean Jupiter, in Cappadocia (in which district that eminent philosopher Apollonius is said to have been born near the town of Tyana), a spring rises from a marsh, which, however swollen with its rising floods, never overflows its banks.

20. Within this circuit is Adiabene, which was formerly called a.s.syria, but by long custom has received its present name from the circ.u.mstance, that being placed between the two navigable rivers the Ona and the Tigris, it can never be approached by fording; for in Greek we use d?aa??e?? for to ”cross:” this was the belief of the ancients.

21. But we say that in this country there are two rivers which never fail, which we ourselves have crossed, the Diabas, and the Adiabas: both having bridges of boats over them; and that Adiabene has received its name from this last, as Homer tells us Egypt received its name from its great river, and India also, and Commagena which was formerly called Euphratensis, as did the country now called Spain, which was formerly called Iberia from the Iberus.[142] And the great Spanish province of Boetica from the river Boetis.[143]

22. In this district of Adiabene is the city of Nineveh, named after Ninus, a most mighty sovereign of former times, and the husband of Semiramis, who was formerly queen of Persia, and also the cities of Ecbatana, Arbela, and Gaugamela, where Alexander, after several other battles, gave the crowning defeat to Darius.

23. In a.s.syria there are many cities, among which one of the most eminent is Apamia, surnamed Mesene, and Teredon, and Apollonia, and Vologesia, and many others of equal importance. But the most splendid and celebrated are these three, Babylon, the walls of which Semiramis cemented with pitch; for its citadel indeed was founded by that most eminent monarch Belus. And Ctesiphon which Vardanes built long ago, and which subsequently King Pacorus enlarged by an immigration of many citizens, fortifying it also with walls, and giving it a name, made it the most splendid place in Persia--next to it Seleucia, the splendid work of Seleucus Nicator.

24. This, however, as we have already related, was stormed by the generals of Verus Caesar, who carried the image of the c.u.maean Apollo to Rome, and placed it in the temple of the Palatine Apollo, where it was formally dedicated to that G.o.d by his priests. But it is said that after this statue was carried off, and the city was burnt, the soldiers, searching the temple, found a narrow hole, and when this was opened in the hope of finding something of value in it, from some deep gulf which the secret science of the Chaldaeans had closed up, issued a pestilence, loaded with the force of incurable disease, which in the time of Verus and Marcus Antoninus polluted the whole world from the borders of Persia to the Rhine and Gaul with contagion and death.

25. Near to this is the region of the Chaldaeans, the nurse of the ancient philosophy, as the Chaldaeans themselves affirm; and where the art of true divination has most especially been conspicuous. This district is watered by the n.o.ble rivers already mentioned, by the Ma.r.s.es, by the Royal river, and by that best of all, the Euphrates, which divides into three branches, and is navigable in them all, having many islands, and irrigating the fields around in a manner superior to any industry of cultivators, making them fit both for the plough and for the production of trees.

26. Next to these come the Susians, in whose province there are not many towns; though Susa itself is celebrated as a city which has often been the home of kings, and Arsiana, and Sele, and Aracha. The other towns in this district are unimportant and obscure. Many rivers flow through this region, the chief of which are the Oroates, the Harax, and the Meseus, pa.s.sing through the narrow sandy plain which separates the Caspian from the Red Sea, and then fall into the sea.

27. On the left, Media is bounded by the Hyrcanian Sea;[144] a country which, before the reign of the elder Cyrus and the rise of Persia, we read was the supreme mistress of all Asia after the a.s.syrians had been conquered; the greater part of whose cantons had their name changed into one general appellation of Ac.r.a.patena, and fell by right of war under the power of the Medes.

28. They are a warlike nation, and the most formidable of all the eastern tribes, next to the Parthians, by whom alone they are conquered.

The region which they inhabit is in the form of a square. All the inhabitants of these districts extend over great breadth of country, reaching to the foot of a lofty chain of mountains known by the names of Zagrus, Orontes, and Jasonium.

29. There is another very lofty mountain called Coronus; and those who dwell on its western side abound in corn land and vineyards, being blessed with a most fertile soil, and one enriched by rivers and fountains.

30. They have also green meadows, and breeds of n.o.ble horses, on which (as ancient writers relate, and as we ourselves have witnessed) their men when going to battle mount with great exultation. They call them Nesaei.[145]

31. They have also as many cities as Media, and villages as strongly built as towns in other countries, inhabited by large bodies of citizens. In short, it is the richest quarter of the kingdom.

32. In these districts the lands of the Magi are fertile; and it may be as well to give a short account of that sect and their studies, since we have occasion to mention their name. Plato, that most learned deliverer of wise opinions, teaches us that Magiae is by a mystic name Machagistia,[146] that is to say, the purest wors.h.i.+p of divine beings; of which knowledge in olden times the Bactrian Zoroaster derived much from the secret rites of the Chaldaeans; and after him Hystaspes, a very wise monarch, the father of Darius.

33. Who while boldly penetrating into the remoter districts of upper India, came to a certain woody retreat, of which with its tranquil silence the Brahmans, men of sublime genius, were the possessors. From their teaching he learnt the principles of the motion of the world and of the stars, and the pure rites of sacrifice, as far as he could; and of what he learnt he infused some portion into the minds of the Magi, which they have handed down by tradition to later ages, each instructing his own children, and adding to it their own system of divination.