454 PLINY's NATURAL HISTORY. [Book V. 



way even amidst these barriers ; and victorious after all, ifc 

 then escapes with its sinuous course to the kindred chain 

 of the Ripha3an mountains. Numerous are the names 

 which it bears, as it is continuously designated by new ones 

 throughout the whole of its course. In the first part of its 

 career it lias the name of Imaus\ after which it is known 

 successively by the names of Emodus, Paropanisus, Circius, 

 Gambades, Paryadres, Choatras, Oreges, Oroandes, Niphates, 

 Taurus, and, where it even out-tops itself, Caucasus. Where 

 it throws forth its arms as though every now and then it 

 would attempt to invade the sea, it bears the names of Sar- 

 pedon, Coracesius, Cragus, and then again Taurus. Where 

 also it opens and makes a passage to admit mankind, it still 

 claims the credit of an unbroken continuity by giving the 

 name of " Gates" to these passes, which in one place are 

 called the " Grates of Armenia'V in another the " Gates of the 

 Caspian," and in another the " Gates of Cilicia." In addition 

 to this, when it has been cut short in its onward career, it 

 retires to a distance from the seas, and covers itself on the 

 one side and the other with the names of numerous nations, 

 being called, on the right-hand side the Hyrcanian and the 

 Caspian, and on the left the Paryadrian^, the Moschian, the 

 Amazonian, the Coraxican, and the Scythian chain. Among 

 the Greeks it bears the one general name of Ceraunian^. 



^ "The name of Imaiis was, in the first instance, applied by the Greek 

 geographers to the Hindii-Kush and to the chain parallel to the equator, 

 to which the name of Himalaya is usually given at the present day. The 

 name was gradually extended to the intersection running north and south, 

 the meridian axis of Central Asia, or the Bolor range. The divisions of 

 Asia into ' intra et extra Imaum,' were unknown to Strabo and Phny, 

 though the latter describes the knot of mountains formed by the inter- 

 sections of the Himalaya, the Hindii-Kush, and Bolor, by tlie expression 

 'quorum (Montes Emodi) promontorium Imaiis vocatui*.' The Bolor 

 chain lias been for ages, with one or two exceptions, the boundary be- 

 tween the empu^es of Cliina and Turkestan." — Dr. Smith's Dictionary of 

 A.ncient Geography. 



2. The Gates of Ai'menia are spoken of in B. vi. c. 12, the Gates of the 

 Caspian ui C. 16 of the same Book, and the Gates of Cihcia in C. 22 of 

 the present Book. 3 ggg q i^. of tlie next Book. 



"* " Strabo gives this name to only the eastern portion of the Cauca- 

 sian chain Avhich overhangs the Caspian Sea and forms the northern 

 boundary of Albania, and m which he places the Amazons. Mela seems 

 to a])ply the name to the whole chain which other writers call Caucasus, 

 confining the latter term to a part of it. Plmy (B. r. c. 27 & B. vi. c. 11) 



