18 PLLNT*S NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book VI . 



Paryadres,^ is separated, as we have already stated,®^ from 

 Cappadocia by the river Euphrates, and, where that river turns 

 off" in its course, from Mesopotamia, by the no less famous 

 river Tigris. Both of these rivers take their rise in Armenia, 

 which also forms the commencement of Mesopotamia, a tract 

 of country which lies between these streams ; the inter- 

 vening space between them being occupied by the Arabian 

 Orei.^® It thus extends its frontier as far as Adiabene, at 

 which point it is stopped short by a chain of mountains 

 which takes a cross direction; whereupon the province ex- 

 tends in width to the left, crossing the course of the Araxes,*^' 

 as far as the river Cyrus ;'^^ while in length it reaches as 

 fiir as the Lesser Armenia, ^^ from which it is separated by 

 the river Absarus, which flows into the Euxine, and by the 

 mountains known as the Paryadres, in which the Absarus 

 takes its rise. 



CHAP. 10. THE EI VERS CTEUS AND AEAXES. 



The river Cyrus''*' takes its rise in the mountains of the 

 Heniochi, by some writers called the Coraxici ; the Ai^axes rises 

 in the same mountains as the river Euphrates, at a distance from 

 it of six miles only ;^^ and after being increased by the waters 



Frat of the present day ; and on the south and south-east by the moun- 

 tains called Masius, Niphates, and Gordisei (the prolongation of the 

 Taurus), and the lower course of the Araxes. On the east the country 

 comes to a point at the confluence of the Syrus and Araxes. 



" Now known as the Kara-bel-Dagh, or Kut-Tagh, a mountain chain 

 running south-west and north-east from the east of Asia Minor into the 

 centre of Armenia, and forming the chief connecting link between the 

 Taurus and the mountains of Armenia. 



'^^ In B. V. c. 20. 



" He means, where the river Euphrates runs the farthest to the west. 



^^ Littre suggests that the reading should be " Aroei." 



''^ The modern Eraskh or Aras. 



^ The modern Kur. 



^ This district was bounded on the east by the Euphrates, on the north 

 and north-west by the mountains Scodises, Paryadres, and Anti-Taurus, 

 and on the south by the Taurus. 



'•^ This river is said by Ammianus to have taken its name from Cyrus. 

 It appears, however, to have been a not uncommon name of the rivers of 

 Persia. 



'^ It is probable that these rivers take their rise near each other, but it 

 is not improbable that the intervening distance mentioned in the present 

 passage is much too smtill. 



