PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOEY. [Book VI. 
CHAP. 4. THE EEaiON OF THEMTSCTRA, AND THE NATIONS 
THEREIN. 
The river Iris brings down to the sea the waters of the 
Lycus. In the interior is the city of Ziela,^^ famous for the 
defeat of Triarius^^ and the victory of C. Caesar.^® Upon the 
coast there is the river Thermodon, which rises at the fortified 
place called Phanaroea/^ and flows past the foot of Mount 
Amazonius.'^ There was formerly a town of the same name 
as the river, and five . others in all, Amazonium, Themiscyra, 
Sotira, Amasia, and Comana,^^ now only a Manteium. (4.) We 
find here the nations of the Genetse,'* the Chalybes,'^ the town 
of Cotyorum,^^ the nations of the Tibareni and the Mossyni, 
who make marks upon their bodies,"' the people called Macro- 
Amazons. At the mouth of the Thermodon was a city of the same name, 
which had been destroyed by the time of Augustus. It is doubtful whe- 
ther the modern Thermeh occupies its site. 
The same place apparently as is mentioned in the last Chapter under 
the name of Zela. 
Valerius Triarius, one of the legates of Lucullus, in the war against 
Mithridates. Plutarch tells us that Lucullus was obliged to conceal 
Triarius from the fury of his troops. . 
69 Over Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates. 
"'^ Now called the Thermea. 
'1 Still called Mason-Dagh. 
'2 He alludes to Comana, in Pontus, the site of which is now called 
Gumenek, near to which, on the Tocat-su, the modern name of the Iris, 
Hamilton found some remains of a Roman town, and part of a bridge ap- 
parently of Roman construction. The language of Pliny seems to imply 
that it had become in his day nothing beyond a manteium or seat of an 
oracle. 
Strabo speaks of a promontory called Genetes ; and Stephanus By- 
£antinus mentions a river and port of the same name. 
Strabo places the Chaldei, who, he says, were originally called Cha- 
Ij'bes, in that part of the country which lies above Pharnacia (the modern 
Kerasunt). 
Or Cotyora. According to Xenophon, this was a colony of Sinope, 
which furnished supplies for the Ten Thousand in their retreat. The 
place was on a bay called after the town. Hamilton, in his Besearches^ 
&c., Vol. i., is of opinion that Cotyorum may have stood on the site of 
Ordou, where some remains of an ancient port, cut out of the solid rock, are 
still visible. He remarks, however, that some writers suppose that Cotyora 
was the modern bay of Pershembah, which is more sheltered than Ordou. 
Cotyora was the place of embarkation of the Ten Thousand. 
Similar to what we call tatooing. Parisot suggests that these people 
