8 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOSr. [Book VI. 



CHAP. 4. THE REGION OF THEMT8CTRA, AND THE NATIONS 



THEREIN. 



The river Iris brings down to the sea the waters of the 

 Lycus. In the interior is the city of Ziela,^^ famous for the 

 defeat of Triarius^^ and the victory of C. Caesar.®^ Upon the 

 coast there is the river Thermodon, which rises at the fortified 

 place called Phanaroea/*^ and flows past the foot of Mount 

 Amazonius.''^ There was formerly a town of the same name 

 as the river, and five others in all, Amazonium, Themiscyra, 

 Sotira, Amasia, and Comana,''^ now only a Manteium. (4.) "We 

 find here the nations of the Genetae,''* the Chalybes,''^ the to^na 

 of Cotyorum,^^ the nations of the Tibareni and the Mossyni, 

 who make marks upon their bodies,"' the people called Macro- 

 Amazons. At the mouth of the Thermodon was a city of the same name, 

 which had been destroyed by the time of Augustus. It is doubtful whe- 

 ther the modern Therraeh occupies its site. 



^' The same place apparently as is mentioned in the last Chapter under 

 the name of Zela. 



62 Valerius Triarius, one of the legates of Lucullus, in the war against 

 Mithridates. Plutarch tells us that Lucullus was obliged to conceal 

 Triarius from the fury of his troops. 



^3 Over Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates. 



'0 Now called the Thermea. 



" Still called Mason-Dagh. 



'- He alludes to Coraana, in Pontus, the site of which is now called 

 Gumenek, near to which, on the Tocat-su, the modern name of the Iris, 

 Hamilton found some remains of a Roman town, and part of a bridge ap- 

 parently of Roman construction. The language of Pliny seems to imply 

 that it had become in his day nothing beyond a matiteium or seat of an 

 oracle. 



'* Strabo speaks of a promontory called Genetes ; and Stephanus By- 

 xantinus mentions a river and port of the same name. 



'^ Strabo places the Chaldei, who, he says, were originally called Cha- / 

 lybes, in that part of the country which lies above Pharnacia (the modem ' 

 Kerasunt). 



'6 Or Cotyora. According to Xenophon, this was a colony of Sinope 

 which furnished supplies for the Ton Thousand in their retreat. T)^ 

 place was on a bay called after the town. Hamilton, in his Researcf'Sy 

 &c., Vol. i., is of opinion that Cotyorum may have stood on the site of 

 Ordou, where some remains of an ancient port, cut out of the solid roc>are 

 still visible. He remarks, however, that some writers suppose that Cry^ra 

 was the modern bay of Pershembah, which is more sheltered than *dou. 

 Cotyora was the place of embarkation of the Ten Tliousand. 



'' Similar to what we call tatooiug. Parisot suggests that the/ People 



