424! PLINT's NATURAL HISTORY. [Book Y. 



and tlie Tigris was called Mesopotamia, tliat beyond Taurus 

 Sophene, and that on this side of the same chain Comagene. 

 Beyond Armenia was the country of Adiabene, anciently 

 called Ass}Tia, and at the part where it joins up to Cilicia, 

 it was called Antiochia. Its length, between Cilicia and 

 Arabia\ is 470 miles, and its breadth, from Seleucia Pieria^ to 

 Zeugma^, a town on the Euphrates, 175. Those who make 

 a still more minute division of this country will have it that 

 Phoenice is surrounded by Syria, and that first comes the 

 maritime coast of Syria, part of which is Idumsea and Judaea, 

 after that Phoenice, and then Syria. The whole of the tract 

 of sea that lies in front of these shores is called the Phoe- 

 nician Sea. The Phoenician people enjoy the glory of having 

 been the inventors of letters'*, and the first discoverers of the 

 sciences of astronomy, navigation, and the art of war. 



CHAP. 14. — IDTJM^A, PAL.ESTII^A, AIN'D SAMARIA. 



On leaving Pelusium we come to the Camp of Cha- 

 brias", Mount Casius^, the temple of Jupiter Casius, and the 

 tomb of Pompeius Magnus. Ostracine^, at a distance of 

 sixty-five miles from Pelusium, is the frontier town of Ara- 



' Or Ostracine, the northern point of Arabia. 



2 This was a great fortress of Syria founded by Seleucus B.C. 300, at 

 the foot of Mount Pieria and overhanging the Mediterranean, four miles 

 north of the Orontes and twelve miles west of Antioch. It had fallen 

 entirely to decay ia the sixth century of otu* era. There are considerable 

 ruins of its harbour and mole, its walls and necropoUs. They bear the 

 name of Seleukeh or Kepse. 



3 From the Greek ^evyiia, " a junction ;" built by Seleucus Nicator on 

 the borders of Commagene and Cyrrhestice, on. the west bank of the 

 Euphrates, where the river had been crossed by a bridge of boats con- 

 structed by Alexander the Great. The modern Bumkaleh is supposed 

 to occupy its site. 



^ On this svibject see B. vii. c. 57. The invention of letters and the 

 first cultivation of the science of astronomy have been claimed for the 

 Egy]5tians and other nations. The Tyrians were probably the first who 

 applied the science of astronomy to the piu'poses of navigation. There 

 is little doubt that warfare must have been studied as an art long before 

 the existence of the Phoenician nation. 



5 Strabo places this between Mount Casius and Pelusium. 



" See C. 12 of the present Book. Chabrias the Athenian aided "Neo- 

 tanebus II. against his revolted subjects. 



? Its ruins are to be seen on the present Ras Straki, 



