BOOK VI. XXXII. 142-145 



as we have explained, and also the Nubei penetrating v.65. 

 to the middle of Syria as far as Mount Lebanon 

 adjoining ■vvhom are the Ramisi and then the Teranei 

 and then the Patami. Arabia itself however is a 

 peninsula projecting between two seas, the Red 

 Sea and the Persian Gulf, some device of nature 

 having surrounded it by sea with a conformation 

 and an area resembling Italy, and also with exactly 

 the same orientation, so that it also has the advantage 

 of that geographical position. We have stated the 

 peoples that inhabit it from the Mediterranean to 

 the deserts of Pahnyra, and we will now recount 

 the remainder of them from that point onward. 



Bordering on the Nomnds and thc tribes that 

 harry the territories of the Chaldaeans are, as we 

 have said, the Scenitae, thcmselves also a wandering v. 65, 86. 

 people, but taking their name from their tents made ^^" ^"^* 

 of goat's-hair cloth, which they pitch wherever they 

 fancy. Next are the Nabataeans inhabiting a to^wTi 

 named Petra ; it lies in a deep valley a Uttle less 

 than two miles wide, and is surrounded by in- 

 accessible mountains with a river flowing between 

 them. Its distancc from the town of Gaza on the 

 Mediterranean coast is 600 miles, and from the 

 Persian Gulf 635 miles." At Petra two roads meet, 

 one leading from Syria to Palmyra, and the other 

 coming from Gaza. After Petra the country as far 

 as Charax was inhabited by the Omani, with the once 

 famous towns of Abacsamis and Soractia, founded 

 by Samiramis ; but now it is a desert. Then there 

 is a town on the bank of the Pasitigris named Forat, 

 subject to the king of the Characeni ; tliis is resorted 

 to by people from Petra, who make the journey 

 from there to Charax, a distance of 12 miles by 



447 



