78 
plii^t's natural histoey. 
[Book VI. 
the district of Chalonitis, with the city of Ctesiphon/^ famous, 
not only for its palm-groves, but for its olives, fruits, and other 
shrubs. Mount Zagrus^''^ reaches as far as this district, and ex- 
tends from Armenia between the Medi and the Adiabeni, 
above Parsetacene and Persis. Chalonitis^^ is distant from 
.Persis three hundred and eighty miles; some writers say 
that by the shortest route it is the same distance from As- 
syria and the Caspian Sea. 
Between these peoples and Mesene is Sittacene, which is 
also called Arbelitis'^^ and Palsestine. Its city of Sittace*^^ is 
of Greek origin ; this and Sabdata"^^ lie to the east, and on the 
west is Antiochia,"^^ between the two rivers Tigris and Torna- 
do tus,"^® as also Apamea,"^^ to which Antiochus^*^ gave this name, 
being that of his mother. The Tigris surrounds this city, 
which is also traversed by the waters of the Archoiis. 
is of opinion that it is represented by the modern DigU-Ab, on the Tigris, 
and suggests that Digilath may be the correct reading. 
'^'^ Mentioned in the last Chapter. 
Now called the Mountains of Luristan. 
The name of the district of Chalonitis is supposed to be still pre- 
served in that of the river of Holwan. Pliny is thought, however, to have 
been mistaken in placing the district on the river Tigris, as it lay to the 
east of it, and close to the mountains. 
''^ From Arbela, in Assyria, which bordered on it. 
"^^ A great and populous city of Babylonia, near the Tigris, but not on 
it, and eight parasangs within the Median wall. The site is that probably 
now called Eski Baghdad, and marked by a ruin called the Tower of 
Nimrod. Parisot cautions against confounding it with a place of a similar 
name, mentioned by Pliny in B. xii. c. 17, a mistake into which, he says, 
Hardouin has fallen. 
Now called Felongia, according to Parisot. Hardouin considers it 
the same as the Sambana of Diodorus Siculus, which Parisot looks upon 
as the same as Ambar, to the north of Felongia. 
■^■^ Of this Antiochia nothing appears to be known. By some it has 
been supposed to be the same with Apollonia, the chief town of the dis- 
trict of Apolloniatis, to the south of the district of Arbela. 
Also called the Physcus, the modern Ordoneh, an eastern tributary of 
the Tigris in Lower Assyria. The town of Opis stood at its junction with 
the Tigris. 
D'Anville supposes that this Apamea was at the point where the 
Dijeil, now dry, branched off from the Tigris, which bifurcation he places 
near Saraurrah. Lynch, however, has shown that the Dijeil branched off 
near Jibbarah, a little north of 34" North lat., and thinks that the Dijeil 
once swept the end of the Median wall, and flowed between it and Jeb- 
barah. Possibly this is the Apamea mentioned by Pliny in c. 27. 
The son of Seleucus Nicator. 
