Chap. 31.] 
ACCOUNT or COUNTBTES, ETC. 
77 
hundred and twenty-five miles on this side of Babylonian Se- 
leucia, and then divides into two channels, one^^ of which 
runs southward, and flowing through Mesene, runs towards 
Seleucia, while the other takes a turn to the north and passes 
through the plains of the Caucha3,^^ at the back of the dis- 
trict of Mesene. When the waters have reunited, the river 
assumes the name of Pasitigris. After this, it receives the 
Choaspes,^' which comes from Media ; and then, as we have 
already stated,^^ flowing between Seleucia and Ctesiphon, dis- 
charges itself into the Chaldaean Lakes, which it supplies for a 
distance of seventy miles. Escaping from them by a vast 
channel, it passes the city of Charax to the right, and empties 
itself into the Persian Sea, being ten miles in width at the 
mouth. Between the mouths of the two rivers Tigris and the 
Euphrates, the distance was formerly twenty-five, or, according 
to some writers, seven miles only, both of them being navi- 
gable to the sea. But the Orcheni and others who dwell on 
its banks, have long* since dammed up the waters of the 
Euphrates for the purposes of irrigation, and it can only dis- 
charge itself into the sea by the aid of the Tigris. 
The country on the banks of the Tigris is called Parapo- 
tamia we have already made mention of Mesene, one of its 
districts. Dabithac'^^ is a town there, adjoining to which is 
Hardouin remarks that this is the right arm of the Tigris, by Ste- 
phanus Byzantinus called Delas, and by Eustathius Sylax, which last he 
prefers. 
^ According to Ammianus, one of the names of Seleucia on the Tigris 
was Coche. 
A river of Susiana, which, after passing Susa, flowed into the Tigris, 
below its junction with the Euphrates. The indistinctness of the ancient 
accounts has caused it to be confused with the Eulseus, which flows nearly 
parallel with it into the Tigris. It is pretty clear that they were not 
identical. Pliny here states that they were different rivers, but makes the 
mistake below, of saying that Susa was situate upon the Eulseus, instead of 
the Choaspes. These errors may be accounted for, it has been suggested, 
by the fact that there are two considerable rivers which unite at Bund-i- 
Kir, a little above Ahwaz, and form the ancient Pasitigris or modern 
Earun. It is supposed that the Karun represents the ancient Eula3us, and 
the Kerkhah the Choaspes. 
In c. 26 of the present Book, The custom of the Persian kings 
drinking only of the waters of the Eulseus and Choaspes, is mentioned in 
B. xxxi, c. 21. 
^3 Or the country *' by the river.*' 
Pliny is the only writer who makes mention of this place. Parisot 
