i 
Chap. 4.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC. 9 
cephali/* the town of Cerasus/^ the port of Chordule, the 
nations called the Bechires^^ and the Buzeri, the river Melas,^^ 
the people called the Macrones, and Sidene with its river 
Sidenus/^ by which the town of Polemonium^^ is washed, at a 
distance from Amisus of one hundred and twenty miles. We 
next come to the rivers lasonius^"* and Melanthius,^^ and, at a 
distance of eighty miles from Amisus, the town of Pharnacea,^* 
the fortress and river of Tripolis the fortress and river of 
Philocalia, the fortress of Liviopolis, but not upon a river, and, 
at a distance of one hundred miles from Pharnacea, the free 
city of Trapezus,^^ shut in by a mountain of vast size. Be- 
yond this town is the nation of the Armenochalybes^*** and tho 
may have heen the ancestors of the Mongol trihes who still dwell in tents 
similar to those mentioned by Mela as used by the Mossyni, 
Or the ^' long-headed people.'* 
Its site is not improbably that of the modern Kheresoun, on the coast 
of Asia Minor, and west of Trebizond. Lucuilus is said to have brought 
thence the first cherry-trees planted in Europe. 
It has been remarked, that Pliny's enumeration of names often rather 
confuses than helps, and that it is difficult to say where he intends to place 
the Bechires. We may perhaps infer from Mela that they were west of 
Trapezus and east of the Thermodon. 
^1 Now the Kara Su, or Black Biver, still retaining its ancient appel- 
lation. It rises in Cappadocia, in the chain of Mount Argseus. 
82 Still called by the same name, according to Parisot, though some- 
times it is called the river of Yatisa. More recent authorities, however, 
call it Poleman Chai. 
On the coast of Pontus, built by king Polemon, perhaps the Second, 
on the site of the older city of Side, at the mouth of the Sidenus. 
8^ Probably near the promontory of Jasonium, 130 stadia to the north- 
east of Polemonium. It was believed to have received its name from 
Jason the Argonaut having landed there. It still bears the name of 
Jasoon, though more commonly called Bona or Vona. 
^ Sixty stadia, according to Arrian, from the town of Cotyora. 
Supposed to have stood on almost the same site as the modern Khe- 
resoun or Kerasunda. It was built near, or, as some think, on the site of 
Cerasus. 
Still known by the name of Tireboli, on a river of the same name, the 
Tireboli Su. 
Now called Tarabosan, Trabezun, or Trebizond. This place was 
originally a colony of Sinope, after the loss of whose independence Tra- 
pezus belonged, first to Lesser Armenia, and afterwards to the kingdom of 
Pontus. In the middle ages it was the seat of the so-called empire of 
Trebizond. It is now the second commercial port of the Black Sea, rank- 
ing next after Odessa. 
8» The Chalybes of Armenia." See p. 21. 
