834 plint's NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book IV. 



Megarice, being the most polished city throughout all these 

 regions, in consequence of its strict preservation of Grecian 

 manners and customs. A wall, five miles in length, sur- 

 rounds it. Next to this comes the Promontory of Par- 

 thenium\ the city of the Tauri, Placia, the port of the Sym- 

 bolic, and the Promontory of Criumetopon^, opposite to 

 Carambis^, a promontory of Asia, which runs out in the 

 middle of the Euxine, leaving an intervening space between 

 them of 170 miles, which circumstance it is in especial that 

 gives to this sea the form of a Scythian bow. After leaving 

 this headland we come to a great number of harbours and 

 lakes of the Tauri'. The town of Theodosia*^ is distant 

 from Criumetopon 125 miles, and from Chersonesus 165. 

 Beyond it there were, in former times, the towns of CytsB, 

 Zephyrium, Acras, Nymphseum, and Dia. Panticapaeum', a 

 city of the Milesians, by far the strongest of them all, is 

 still in existence ; it lies at the entrance of the Bosporus, 

 and is distant from Theodosia eighty-seven miles and a half, 

 and from the town of Cimmerium, which lies on the other 

 side of the Strait, as we have previously^ stated, two miles 

 and a half. Such is the width here of the cliannel which 

 separates Asia from Europe, and which too, from being 

 generally quite frozen over, allows of a passage on foot. 



^ The modern Felenk-burun. So called from the Parthenos or Yirgia 

 Diana or Artemis, whose temple stood on its heights, in which human 

 sacrifices were offered to the goddess. 



2 Supposed to be the same as the now-famed port of Balaklava. 



3 The modern Aia-burun, the great southern headland of the Crimea. 

 According to Plutarcli, it was called by the natives Brixaba, which, 

 like the name Criumetopon, meant the " Ram's Head." 



* Now Kerempi, a promontory of Paphlagonia in Asia Minor. Strabo 

 considers this promontory and that of Criumetopon as dividing the 

 Euxine into two seas. 



^ According to Strabo, the sca-hne of the Tauric Chersonesus, after 

 leavmg the port of the Symboh, extended 125 miles, as far as Theodosia. 

 Pliny would here seem to make it rather greater. 



^ The modern Kaffa occupies its site. The sites of many of the places 

 here mentioned appear not to be known at the present day. 



7 The modern Kertsch, situate on a hill at the very mouth of the 

 Cimmei'ian Bosporus, or Straits of Enikale or Kaffa, opposite the town 

 of Phanagoria in Asia. 



^ In C. 21 of the present Book. CLxrk identifies the town of Cim- 

 merium with the modem Temruk, Forbiger witli Eskiki'imm. It is 

 again mentioned in B. vi. c. 2. 



