32 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOET. [Book VI. 



Chorasmii/* the Candari/^ the Attasini, the Paricani, the 

 Sarangae, the Marotiani, the Aorsi,'^ the Gaeli, by the Greek 

 writers called Cadusii/^ the Matiani, the city of Heraclea/* 

 which was founded by Alexander, but was afterwards de- 

 stroyed, and rebuilt by Antiochus, and by him called Achais; the 

 Derbices also,'^ through the middle of whose territory the river 

 Oxus^ runs, after rising in Lake Oxus,*^ the Syrmatae, the Oxy- 

 dracae, the Heniochi, the Bateni, the Saraparse, and the Bactri, 

 whose chief city is Zariaspe, which afterwards received the name 

 of Bactra, from the river®- there. This last nation lies at the 



'* An extensive tribe of Sogdiana, now represented by the district of 

 Kbawarezra, in tbe desert country of Khiva. 



'^ A tribe in the north-western part of Sogdiana. They appear to have 

 been situate to the east of the district of Kbawarezra. It has been sug- 

 gested that they derived their name from the Sanscrit Gandharas, a tribe 

 beyond the Indus. 



'8 The chief seat of the Aorsi, who appear to have been a numerous 

 and powerful people both of Europe and Asia, was in the country 

 between the Tanais, the Euxine, the Caspian, and the Caucasus. It seems 

 doubtful, however, whether it is these people who are alluded to in the 

 present passage. 



■''' These would almost seem to be a different people from those men- 

 tioned in c. 15 of the present Book, as dwelling in Atropatene. The present 

 appears to have been a tribe of Sogdiana. 



'^ Strabo mentions a town of this name, which he places, together -with 

 Apamea, in the direction of Rhagae. If Pliny has obsei-ved anything 

 like order in his recital of nations and places, the' Heraclea here mentioned 

 cannot be that spoken of by Strabo, but must have been distant nearly 

 1000 miles from it. 



'5 This was a tribe, apparently of Scythian origin, settled in Margiana, 

 on the left bank of the Oxus. Strabo says that they worshipped the 

 earth, and forbore to sacrifice or slay any female ; but that they put to 

 death their fellow-creatures as soon as they had passed their seventieth 

 year, it being the privilege of the next of kin to eat the flesh of the de- 1 

 ceased person. The aged women, however, they used to strangle, andl 

 then consign them to the earth. 



*o The modem Jihoun or Amou. It now flows into the Sea of Aral, 

 but the ancients universally speak of it as running into the Caspian ; and 

 there are still existing distinct traces of a channel extending in a south- 

 westerly direction from the sea of Aral to the Caspian, by which at least a 

 portion, and probably the whole of the waters of the Oxus found their way 

 into the Caspian ; and not improbably the Sea of Aral itself was connected 

 with the Caspian by this channel. 



"^ Most probably under this name he means the Sea of Aral. 



^'- The Bactrus. This river is supposed to be represented by the modemi 

 Dakash. Hardouin cays that Ptolemy, B. vi. c. 11, calls this river the I 

 Zanaspis, or Zariaspes. See the Note at the end of c. 17, p. 30. 



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