Chap. 24] ACCOTTNT OF COTTNTRIES, ETC. 
327 
In tlie middle of the curve it is joined by the mouth of 
Lake Maeotis, which is called the Cimmerian^ Bosporus, 
and is two miles and a half in width. Between the two 
Bospori, the Thracian and the Cimmerian, there is a distance 
in a straight line, of 500 miles, as Polybius informs us. We 
learn from Varro and most of the ancient writers, that the 
circumference of the Euxine is altogether 2150 miles ; but 
to this number Cornelius ^N'epos adds 350 more; while 
Artemidorus makes it 2919 miles, Agrippa 2360, and Mu- 
cianus 2425. In a similar manner some writers have fixed 
the length of the European shores of this sea at 1478 miles, 
others again at 1172. M. Varro gives the measurement as 
follows : — from the mouth of the Euxine to Apollonia 187 
miles, and to Callatis the same distance ; thence to the 
mouth of the Ister 125 miles ; to the Borysthenes 250 ; to 
Chersonesus^, a town of the Heracleotae, 325 ; to Pantica- 
pseum^, by some called Bosporus, at the very extremity of 
the shores of Europe, 212 miles : the whole of which added 
together, makes 1337"^ miles. Agrippa makes the distance 
jfrom Byzantium to the river Ister 560 miles, and from 
thence to Panticapseum, 635. 
- Lake Mseotis, which receives the river Tanais as it flows 
from the B-iphaean Mountains^, and forms the extreme boun- 
dary between Europe and Asia, is said to be 1406 miles in 
circumference ; which however some writers state at only 
1125. Erom the entrance of this lake to the mouth of the 
Tanais in a straight line is, it is generally agreed, a distance 
of 375 miles. 
The inhabitants of the coasts of this fourth great Gulf of 
' Now the Straits of Kaffa or Enikale. 
2 This town lay about the middle of the Tauric Chersonesus or Crimea, 
and was situate on a small peninsula, called the Smaller Chersonesus, to 
distinguish it from the larger one, of which it formed a part. It was 
founded by the inhabitants of the Pontic Heraclea, or Heracleium, the 
site of which is unknown. See note ^ to p. 333. 
3 Now Kertsch, in the Crimea. It derived its name from the river 
Panticapes ; and was founded by the Milesians about B.C. 541. It was 
the residence of the Grreek kings of Bosporus, and hence it was some- 
times so called. " Thirty-six" properly. 
^ The Tanais or Don does not rise in the Riphaean Mountains, or 
western branch of the Urahan chain, but on sUghtly elevated ground iil 
the centre of European Kussia. 
