32 PLimr's katueal history. [Book VI. 
Chorasmii,^* the Candari/* tlie Attasini, the Paricani, the 
Sarangae, the Marotiani, the Aorsi,"^^ the Gaeli, by the Greek 
writers called Cadusii/^ the Matiani, the city of Heraclea/^ 
which was founded by Alexander, but was afterwards de- 
stroyed, and rebuilt by Antiochus, and by him called Achais; the 
Derbices also,*^^ through the middle of whose territory the river 
Oxus^^ runs, after rising in Lake Oxus,^^ the Syrmatae, the Oxy- 
drac8D, the Heniochi, the Bateni, the Saraparse, and the Bactri, 
whose chief city is Zariaspe, which afterwards received the name 
of Bactra, from the river there. This last nation lies at the 
''^ An extensive tribe of Sogdiana, now represented by the district of 
Khawarezm, in the desert country of Khiva. 
A tribe in the north-western part of Sogdiana. They appear to have 
been situate to the east of the district of Khawarezm. It has been sug- 
gested that they derived their name from the Sanscrit Gandharas, a tribe 
beyond the Indus. 
'^^ The chief seat of the Aorsi, who appear to have been a numerous 
and powerful people both of Europe and Asia, was in the country 
between the Tanais, the Euxine, the Caspian, and the Caucasus. It seems 
doubtful, however, whether it is these people who are alluded to in the 
present passage. 
'^'^ These would almost seem to be a different people from those men- 
tioned in c. 15 of the present Book, as dwelling in Atropatene. The present 
appears to have been a tribe of Sogdiana. 
'^^ Strabo mentions a town of this name, which he places, together with 
Apamea, in the direction of Rhagae. If Pliny has observed anything 
like order in his recital of nations and places, the Heraclea here mentioned 
cannot be that spoken of by Strabo, but must have been distant nearly 
1000 miles from it. 
This was a tribe, apparently of Scythian origin, settled in Ma,rgiana, 
on the left bank of the Oxus. Strabo says that they worshipped the 
earth, and forbore to sacrifice or slay any female ; but that they put to 
death their fellow-creatures as soon as they had passed their seventieth 
year, it being the privilege of the next of kin to eat the flesh of the de- 
ceased person. The aged women, however, they used to strangle, and 
then consign them to the earth. 
so The modem Jihoun or Amou. It now flows into the Sea of Aral, 
but the ancients universally speak of it as running into the Caspian ; and 
there are still existing distinct traces of a channel extending in a south - 
westerly direction from the sea of Aral to the Caspian, by which at least a 
portion, and probably the whole of the waters of the Oxus found their way 
into the Caspian ; and not improbably the Sea of Ai-al itself was connected 
with the Caspian by this channel. 
81 Most probably under this name he means the Sea of Aral. 
^'■^ The Bactrus. This river is supposed to be represented by the modern 
Dakash. Hardouin says that Ptolemy, B. vi, c. 11, calls this river the 
Zariaspis, or Zariaspes, See the Note at the end of c, 17, p. 30, 
