Chap. 4.] ACCorNT OF countries, etc. d 



cephali,"* the town of Cerasus,"' the port of Chordulo, the 

 nations called the Bechires^ and the Buzeri, the river Mclas,®^ 

 the people called the Macrones, and Sidene with its river 

 Sidenus,^^ by which the town of Polemonium^^ is washed, at a 

 distance from Araisus of one hundred and twenty miles. We 

 next come to the rivers lasonius^'* and Melanthius/^ and, at a 

 distance of eighty miles from Amisus, the town of Pharnacea,®* 

 the fortress and river of Tripolis ;^' the fortress and river of 

 Philocalia, the fortress of Liviopolis, but not upon a river, and, 

 at a distance of one hundred miles from Pharnacea, the free 

 city of Trapezus,^^ shut in by a mountain of vast size. Be- 

 yond this town is the nation of the Armenochalybes^'^ and the 



may hare been the ancestors of the Mongol tribes who still dwell in tents 

 jimilar to those mentioned by Mela as used by the Mossyni. 



"** Or the " long-headed people." 



?3 Its site is not improbably that of the modern Kheresoun, on the coast 

 3f Asia Minor, and west of T rebizond. Lucullus is said to have brought 

 whence the first cherry-trees planted in Europe. 



^^ It has been remarked, that Pliny's enumeration of names often rather 

 3onfuses than helps, and that it is difficult to say where he intends to place 

 the Bechires. We may perhaps infer from Mela that they were west of 

 Irapezus and east of the Thermodon. 



*^ !Now the Kara Su, or Black River, still retaining its ancient appel- 

 lation. It rises in Cappadocia, in the chain of Mount Argseus. 



82 Still called by the same name, according to Parisot. though some- 

 fcimes it is called the river of Yatisa. More recent authorities, however, 

 3all it Poleman Chai. 



^'^ On the coast of Pontus, built by king Poleraon, perhaps the Second, 

 Dn the site of the older city of Side, at the mouth of the Sidenus. 



** Probably near the promontory of Jasonium, 130 stadia to the north- 

 sast of Polemonium. It was believed to have received its name from 

 Jason the Argonaut having landed there. It still bears the name of 

 Jasoon, though more commonly called Bona or Vona. 



^ Sixty stadia, according to Arrian, from the town of Cotyora. 



^® Supposed to have stood on almost the same site as the modem Khe- 

 resoun or Kerasunda. It was built near, or, as some think, on the site of 

 Cerasus. 



^■^ Still known by the name of Tireboli, on a river of the same name, the 

 lireboli Su. 



*"* Now called Tarabosan, Trabezun, or Trebizond. This place was 

 originally a colony of Sinope, after the loss of whose independence Tra- 

 pezus belonged, first to Lesser Armenia, and afterwards to the kingdom of 

 Pontus. In the middle ages it was the seat of the so-called empire of 

 Trebizond. It is now the second commercial port of the Black Sea, rank- 

 in ir next after Odessa. 



«» The " Chalybes of Armenia." See p. 21. 



