Chap. 15.] ACCOUNT OF COtTNTEIES, ETC. 25 



nations which dwell upon its banks, the two most famous of which 

 are the Caspian and the Hyrcanian races. Clitarchus is of 

 opinion that the Caspian Sea is not less in area than the Eux- 

 ine. Eratosthenes gives the measure of it on the south-east, 

 along the coast of Cadusia^^ and Albania, as five thousand four 

 hundred stadia ; thence, through the territories of the Anariaci, 

 the Amardi, and the Hyrcani, to the mouth of the river Zonus 

 he makes four thousand eight hundred stadia, and thence to the 

 mouth of the Jaxartes-'^ two thousand four hundred; whichmakea 

 in all a distance of one thousand five hundred and seventy-five 

 miles. Artemidorus, however, makes this sum smaller by twen- 

 ty-five miles. Agrippa bounds the Caspian Sea and the nations 

 around it, including Armenia, on the east by the Ocean of the 

 Seres,^^ on the west by the chain of the Caucasus, on the south 

 by that of Taurus, and on the north by the Scythian Ocean ; and 

 he states it, so far as its extent is known, to be four hundred 

 and eighty miles in length, and two hundred and ninety in 

 breadth. There are not wanting, however, some authors who 

 state that its whole circumference, from the Straits, ^^ is two 

 thousand five hundred miles. 



Its waters make their way into this sea by a very narrow 

 mouth,^^ but of considerable length ; and where it begins to 

 enlarge, it curves obliquely wdth horns in the form of a cres- 

 cent, just as though it would make a descent from its mouth 

 into Lake Maeotis, resembling a sickle in shape, as M. Yarro 

 says. The first^* of its gulfs is called the Scythian Gulf; 

 it is inhabited on both sides, by the Scythians, who hold com- 

 munication with each other across the Straits,^^ the Nomades 

 being on one side, together with the Sauromatse, divided into 



^5 The country of the Cadusii, in the mountainous district of Media 

 Atropatene, on the south-west shores of the Caspian Sea, between the paral- 

 lels of 390 and 370 north latitude. This district probably corresponds 

 with the modern district of Gilan. 



20 Now the Syr-Daria or Yellow River, and watering the barren steppes 

 of the Kirghiz- Cossacks. It reaUy discharges itself into the Sea of Ai-al, 

 and not the Caspian. 



'^ The supposed Eastern Ocean of the ancients. 



-- The imaginary passage by which it was supposed to communicate with 

 the Scythian Ocean. 



23 This being in reality the mouth of the Rha or Volga, as mentioned 

 in Note 18, p. 24. 



'* On the eastern side. 



35 Across the mouths of the "Volga. 



