Chap. 18.] 
ACCOUNT OE COUNTEIES, ETC. 
31 
the district of Margiane/^ so remarkable for its sunny climate. 
It is the only spot in all these regions that produces the vine, 
being shut in on every side by verdant and refreshing hills. 
This district is fifteen hundred stadia in circumference, but is 
rendered remarkably difficult of access by sandy deserts, which 
extend a distance of one hundred and twenty miles : it lies 
opposite to the country of Parthia, and in it Alexander founded 
the city of Alexandria. This place having been destroyed 
by the barbarians, Antiochus,^' the son of Seleucus, rebuilt it 
on the same site as a Syrian city.^^ For, seeing that it was 
watered by the Margus,^^ which passes through it, and is after- 
wards divided into a number of streams for the irrigation of 
the district of Zothale, he restored it, but preferred giving 
it the name of Antiochia."^^ The circumference of this city is 
seventy stadia : it was to this place that Orodes conducted such 
of the Eomans as had survived the defeat of Crassus. From 
the mountain heights of this district, along the range of 
Caucasus, the savage race of the Mardi, a free people, extends 
as far as the Bactri.*^^ Eelow the district inhabited by them, 
we find the nations of the Orciani, the Commori, the Eerdrigse, 
the Harmatotropi,'^ the Citomarse, the Comani, the Marucaei, 
and the Mandruani. The rivers here are the Mandrus and the 
Chindrus.'^^ Beyond the nations already mentioned, are the 
^6 This district occupied the southern part of modern Khiva, the south- 
western part of Bokhara, and the north-eastern part of Khorassan. This 
province of the ancient Persian empire received its name from the river 
Margus, now the Moorghab. It first became known to the Greeks by 
the expeditions of Alexander and Antiochus I. 
Antiochus Soter, the son of Seleucus Nicator. 
^ The meaning of this, which has caused great diversity of opinion 
among the Commentators, seems to be, that on rebuilding it, he preferred 
giving it a name borne by several cities in Syria, and given to them in 
honour of kings of that country. To this he appears to have been 
prompted by a supposed resemblance which its site on the Margus bore to 
that of Antiochia on the Orontes. 
The modern Moorghab ; it loses itself in the sands of Khiva. 
Its remains are supposed to be those of an ancient city, still to be seen 
at a spot called Merv,'on the river Moorghab. 
The people of modern Bokhara. 
'^^ This appears to mean the nations of " Chariot horse-breeders.'* 
In former editions, called the 'Gridinus.' It is impossible to identify 
many of these nations and rivers, as the spelling varies considerably in the 
respective MSS. 
