78 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOEY. [Book VI. 



the district of Chalonitis, with the city of Ctesiphon, 71 famous, 

 not only for its palm-groves, but for its olives, fruits, and other 

 shrubs. Mount Zagrus 72 reaches as far as this district, and ex- 

 tends from Armenia between the Medi and the Adiabeni, 

 above Paraetacene and Persis. Chalonitis 73 is distant from 

 Persis three hundred and eighty miles ; some writers say 

 that by the shortest route it is the same distance from As- 

 syria and the Caspian Sea. 



Between these peoples and Mesene is Sittacene, which is 

 also called Arbelitis 74 and Palaestine. Its city of Sittace 75 is 

 of Greek origin ; this and Sabdata 76 lie to the east, and on the 

 west is Antiochia, 77 between the two rivers Tigris and Torna- 

 dotus, 78 as also Apamea, 79 to which Antiochus 80 gave this name, 

 being that of his mother. The Tigris surrounds this city, 

 which is also traversed by the waters of the Archoiis. 



is of opinion that it is represented by the modern Digil-Ab, on the Tigris, 

 and suggests that Digilath may be the correct reading. 



71 Mentioned in the last Chapter. 



72 Now called the Mountains of Luristan. 



73 The name of the district of Chalonitis is supposed to be still pre- 

 served in that of the river of Hoi wan. Pliny is thought, however, to have 

 been mistaken in placing the district on the river Tigris, as it lay to the 

 east of it, and close to the mountains. 



74 From Arbela, in Assyria, which bordered on it. 



75 A great and populous city of Babylonia, near the Tigris, but not on 

 it, and eight parasangs within the Median wall. The site is that probably 

 now called Eski Baghdad, and marked by a ruin called the Tower of 

 Nimrod. Parisot cautions against confounding it with a place of a similar 

 name, mentioned by Pliny in B. xii. c. 17, a mistake into which, he says, 

 Hardouin has fallen. 



16 Now called Felongia, according to Parisot. Hardouin considers it 

 the same as the Sambana of Diodorus Siculus, which Parisot looks upon 

 as the same as Ambar, to the north of Felongia. 



77 Of this Antiochia nothing appears to be known. By some it has 

 been supposed to be the same with Apollonia, the chief town of the dis- 

 trict of Apolloniatis, to the south of the district of Arbela. 



78 Also called the Physcus, the modern Ordoneh, an eastern tributary of 

 the Tigris in Lower Assyria. The town of Opis stood at its junction with 

 the Tigris. 



79 D'Anville supposes that this Apamea was at the point where the 

 Dijeil, now dry, branched off from the Tigris, which bifurcation he places 

 near Samurrah. Lynch, however, has shown that the Dijeil branched off 

 near Jibbarah, a little north of 34 North lat., and thinks that the Dijeil 

 once swept the end of the Median wall, and flowed between it and Jeb- 

 barah. Possibly this is the Apamea mentioned by Pliny in c. 27. 



80 The son of Seleucus Nicator. 



