Chap. 30.] 
ACCOUNT or COUNTRIES, ETC. 
73 
inventor of the science of Astronomy. In all other respects 
it has been reduced to a desert, having been drained of its 
population in consequence of its vicinity to Seleucia,^^ founded 
for that purpose by Mcator, at a distance of ninety miles, on 
the confluence of the Tigris and the canal that leads from the 
Euphrates. Seleucia, however, still bears the surname of 
Babylonia : it is a free and independent city, and retains the 
features of the Macedonian manners. It is said that the 
population of this city amounts to six hundred thousand, and 
that the outline of its walls resembles an eagle with expanded 
wings : its territory, they say, is the most fertile in all the East. 
The Parthi again, in its turn, founded Ctesiphon,^^ for the 
purpose of drawing away the population of Seleucia, at a dis- 
tance of nearly three miles, and in the district of Chalonitis ; 
Ctesiphon is now the capital of all the Parthian kingdoms. 
Einding, however, that this city did not answer the intended 
purpose, king Yologesus^^ has of late years founded another 
city in its vicinity, Vologesocerta^^ by name. Besides the 
above, there are still the following towns in Mesopotamia : Hip- 
parenum,*^ rendered famous, like Babylon, by the learning of 
37 The city of Seleucia ad Tigrin, long the capital of "Western Asia, 
until it was eclipsed by Ctesiphon. Its site has been a matter of consi- 
derable discussion, but the most probable opinion is, that it stood on the 
western bank of the Tigris, to the north of its junction with the royal 
canal (probably the river Chobar above mentioned), opposite to the mouth 
of the river Delas or Silla (now Diala), and to the spot where Ctesiphon 
was afterwards built by the Parthians. It stood a little to the south of 
the modern city of Baghdad ; thus commanding the navigation of the 
Tigris and Euphrates, and the whole plain formed by those two rivers. 
Ammianus, like Pliny, has ascribed its foundation to the Parthians 
under Varanes, or Vardanes, of whom, however, nothing is known. It 
stood in the south of Assyria, on the eastern or left bank of the Tigris. 
Strabo speaks of it as being the winter residence of the Parthian kings, 
who lived there at that season, owing to the mildness of the climate. In 
modern times the site of this place has been identified with that called by 
the Arabs Al Madain, or the " two cities." 
Or Vologeses. This was the name of five kings of Parthia, of the 
race of the Arsacidse, Arsaces xxiii., xxvii., xxviii., xxix., xxx. It 
was the first of these monarchs who founded the place here mentioned 
by Pliny. 
^ Or the *' City of Yologesus cet-ta being the Armenian for " city." 
*i Nothing appears to be known of this place ; but Hardouin thinks 
that it is the same with one called Maarsares by Ptolemy, and situate on 
the same river Narraga. 
