50 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book Yl. 



here, the Peucolaitse/' the Arsagalitae, the Geretae, and the 

 Asso'i. 



The greater part of the geographers, in fact, do not look 

 upon India as bounded by the river Indus, but add to it the 

 four Satrapies of the Gedrosi,^° the Arachotse,^^ the Arii,^- and 

 the Paropanisidse,^^ the river Cophes ^ thus forming the extreme 

 boundary of India. All these territories, however, according 

 to other writers, are reckoned as belonging to the country of 

 the Arii. (21.) Many writers, too, place in India the city of 

 Xysa,^^ and the mountain of Merus, sacred to Father Bacchus ; 

 in which circumstance^^ originated the story that he sprang from 

 the thigh of Jupiter. They also place here the nation of the 

 Astacani, whose country abounds in the vine, the laurel, the 

 box- tree, and all the fruits which are produced in Greece. As 

 to those wonderful and almost fabulous stories which are re- 

 lated about the fertility of the soil, and the various kinds of 

 fruits and trees, as well as wild beasts, and birds, and other 

 sorts of animals, they shall be mentioned each in its proper 



''^ Parisot supposes that these were the inhabitants of the district which 

 now bears the name of Pekheli. 



^^ Gedrosia comprehended probably the same district as is now known 

 by the name of Mekran, or, according to some, the whole of modern Be- 

 loochistan. 



^1 The people of the city and district of Arachotus, the capital of Ara- 

 chosia. M. Court has identified some ruins on the Argasan river, near 

 Kandahar, on the road to Shikarpur, with those of Arachotus; but Pro- 

 fessor Wilson considers them to be too much to the south-east. Colonel 

 Ilawlinson thinks they are those to be seen at a place called Ulan Robat. 

 lie states that the most ancient name of the city, Cophen, (mentioned by 

 i^liny inc. 25 of the present Book), has given rise to the territorial desig- 

 nation. See p. 57. 



^- The people of Aria, consisting of the eastern part of Khorassan, and 

 the western and north-western part of Afghanistan. This was one of tlie 

 most important of the eastern provinces or satrapies of the Persian empire. ' 



^^ This was the collective name of several peoples dwelling on tlie 

 southern slopes of the Hindoo Koosh, and of the country which they in- 

 habited, which was not known by any other name. It corresponded to tlie 

 eastern part of modern Afghanistan and the portion of the Punjaub lyiug 

 to the west of the Indus. 



^^ It is supposed that the Cophes is represented by the modern river of 

 Kabul. 



^ The place here alluded to was in the district of Gorynoa, at the 

 north-western corner of the Punjaub, near the confluence of the rivers 

 Cophen and Choaspes, being probably the same place as Nagara or Diony- 

 sopolis, the modern Nagar or Naggar. 



^ The word nrjpoQ, in Greek, signifying a " thigh." 



1 



