22 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book VI. 



of gates; they are just opposite to Harmastis, a town of tlie 

 Iberi. 



Beyond the Gates of Caucasus, in the Gordysean Moun- 

 tains, the Yalli and the Suani, uncivilized tribes, are found ; 

 still, however, they work the mines of gold there. Beyond 

 these nations, and extending as far away as Pontus, are nu- 

 merous nations of the Heniochi, and, after them, of the Achaei. 

 Such is the present state of one of the most famous tracts upon 

 the face of the earth. 



Some writers have stated that the distance between the 

 Euxine and the Caspian Sea is not more than three hundred 

 and seventy-five miles ; Cornelius Nepos makes it only two 

 hundred and fifty. Within such straits is Asia pent up in this 

 second instance 97 by the agency of the sea ! Claudius Caesar 

 has informed us that from the Cimmerian Bosporus to the 

 Caspian Sea is a distance of only one hundred and fifty 98 miles, 

 and that Meator Seleucus" contemplated cutting through this 

 isthmus just at the time when he was slain by Ptolemy 

 Ceraunus. It is a well-known fact that the distance from 

 the Gates of Caucasus to the shores of the Euxine is two 

 hundred miles. 



CHAP. 13. (12.) THE ISLANDS OF THE EUXINE. 



The islands of the Euxine are the Planctae or Cyanese, 1 

 otherwise called Symplegades, and Apollonia, surnamed Thy- 

 nias, 2 to distinguish it from the island of that name 3 in 

 Europe ; it is four miles in circumference, and one mile 

 distant from the mainland. Opposite to Pharnacea 4 is Chal- 

 ceritis, to which the Greeks teive given the name of Aria, 5 



97 The first instance was that of the narrow isthmus to which the con- 

 tinent of Asia is reduced from Sinope across to the Gulf of Issus, as men- 

 tioned in c. 2. 



93 The shortest distance across, in a straight line, is in reality little less 

 than 600 miles. 



99 The ancestor of the Seleucidae, kings of Syria, treacherously slain by 

 Ptolemy Ceraunus, brother of Ptolemy Philadelphus. 



1 Already mentioned in B. iv. c. 27. 



2 Mentioned in c. 44 of the last Book. 



3 The one lying at the mouth of the Danube, and mentioned in B. iv. 

 c. 27. 



4 Mentioned in c. 4 of the present Book. See p. 9. 



6 Or " Mars' Island," also called Aretias ; at this island, in the south of 



