Chap. 31.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC. 77 



hundred and twenty-five miles on this side of Babylonian Se- 

 leucia, and then divides into two channels, one 65 of which 

 runs southward, and flowing through Mesene, runs towards 

 Belencia, while the other takes a turn to the north and passes 

 through the plains of the Cauchae, 66 at the back of the dis- 

 trict of Mesene. When the waters have reunited, the river 

 assumes the name of Pasitigris. After this, it receives the 

 Choaspes, 67 which comes from Media; and then, as we have 

 already stated/ 8 flowing between Seleucia and Ctesiphon, dis- 

 charges itself into the Chaldean Lakes, which it supplies for a 

 distance of seventy miles. Escaping from them by a vast 

 channel, it passes the city of Charax to the right, and empties 

 itself into the Persian Sea, being ten miles in width at the 

 mouth. Between the mouths of the two rivers Tigris and the 

 Euphrates, the distance was formerly twenty-five, or, according 

 to some writers, seven miles only, both of them being navi- 

 gable to the sea. But the Orcheni and others who dwell on 

 its banks, have long since dammed up the waters of the 

 Euphrates for the purposes of irrigation, and it can only dis- 

 charge itself into the sea by the aid of the Tigris. 



The country on the banks of the Tigris is called Parapo- 

 tamia ; 69 we have already made mention of Mesene, one of its 

 districts. Dabithac 70 is a town there, adjoining to which is 



65 Hardouin remarks that this is the right arm of the Tigris, by Ste- 

 phanus Byzantinus called Delas, and by Eustathius Sylax, which last he ' 

 prefers. 



66 According to Ammianus, one of the names of Seleucia on the Tigris 

 was Coche. 



67 A river of Susiana, which, after passing Susa, flowed into the Tigris, 

 below its junction with the Euphrates. The indistinctness of the ancient 

 accounts has caused it to be confused with the Eulaeus, which flows nearly 

 parallel with it into the Tigris. It is pretty clear that they were not 

 identical. Pliny here states that they were different rivers, but makes the 

 mistake below, of saying that Stisawa's situate upon the EulaBUS, instead of 

 the Choaspes. These errors may be accounted for, it has been suggested, 

 by the fact that there are two considerable rivers which unite at Bund-i- 

 Kir, a little above Ahwaz, and form the ancient Pasitigris or modern 

 Karun. It is supposed that the Karun represents the ancient Eulseus, and 

 the Kerkhah the Choaspes. 



68 In c. 26 of the present Book, The custom of the Persian kings 

 drinking only of the waters of the Euteus and Choaspes, is mentioned m 

 B. xxxi, c. 21. 



69 Or the country " by the river." 



70 Pliny is the only writer who makes mention of this place. Parisot 



