28 
Flint's natural history. [Book VI. 
is separated from Otene, a region of Armenia, by the river 
Araxes ; Gazse*^ is its chief city, distant from Artaxata four 
hundred and fifty miles, and the same from Ecbatana in Media, 
to which country Atropatene belongs. 
CHAP. 17. (14.) — MEDIA AND THE CASPIAN GATES. 
Ecbatana, the capital of Media, was built^'* by king Seleucus, 
at a distance from Great Seleucia of seven hundred and fifty 
miles, and twenty miles from the Caspian Gates. The re- 
maining towns of the Medians are Phazaca, Aganzaga, and 
Apamea,*^ surnamed Ehagiane. The reason of these passes 
receiving the name of ''Gates," is the same that has been 
stated above.^® The chain of mountains is suddenly broken by 
a passage of such extreme narrowness that, for a distance of 
eight miles, a single chariot can barely find room to move along : 
the whole of this pass has been formed by artificial means. 
Both on the right hand and the left are overhanging rocks, 
which look as though they had been exposed to the action of 
fire ; and there is a tract of country, quite destitute of water, 
have included a considerable portion of the province now known by thd 
name of Azerbaijan. It derived its name from Atropates or Atropes, who 
was governor of this district under the last Darius. 
*2 Most probably the place now known as Gazaea, the royal residence of 
the Parthian kings, and, as its name would imply, their treasure city. 
Colonel Rawlinson thinks that this place underwent many changes of name 
according to the rulers who successively occupied it ; among other names, it 
appears to have borne that of Ecbatana. 
*3 A city of great magnitude, pleasantly situate near the foot of Mount 
Orontes, in the northern part of Greater Media. Its original foundation 
was attributed by Diodorus Siculus to Semiramis, and by Herodotus to 
Deioces. It was the capital of the Median kingdom, and afterwards the 
summer residence of the Persian and Parthian kings. The genuine ortho- 
gi-aphy of the name seems to be Agbatana. The ruins seen at the modern 
Hamadan are generally supposed to represent those of the ancient Ecba- 
tana ; but it is most probable that at different times, if not contempora- 
neously, there were several cities of this name in Media. 
Pliny in this statement, as also in the distances which he here assigns 
to Ecbatana, is supposed to have confounded Ecbatana with Europus, now 
Veramin, rebuilt by Seleucus Nicator. 
45 This was a city in the vicinity of Rhagae, which was distant about 
600 stadia from the Caspian Gates. It was built by the Greeks after the 
Macedonian conquest of Asia. The other places here mentioned do not 
appear to have been identified. 
See the beginning of c. 12, p. 21. 
