Chap. 26.] ACCOUKT OF COTJNTEIES, ETC. 
331 
from Pseudostomos, a mouth of the Ister, so called, 130 
miles. "We then come to the Axiacae, who take their name 
from the river Axiaces\ and beyond them, the Crobyzi, the 
river Ehodes^, the Sagarian Grulf ^, and the port of Ordesos"^, 
At a distance of 120 miles from the Tyra is the river Bory- 
sthenes^, with a lake and a people of similar name, as also 
a town^ in the interior, at a distance of fifteen miles from the 
sea, the ancient names of which were Olbiopolis and Mile- 
topolis. Again, on the shore is the port of the Achsei, and 
the island of Achilles^, famous for the tomb there of that 
hero, and, at a distance of 125 miles from it, a peninsula 
which stretches forth in the shape of a sword, in an oblique 
direction, and is called, from having been his place of exercise, 
Dromos Achilleos^ : the length of this, according to Agrippa, 
is eighty miles. The Taurian Scythians and the Siraci^ 
occupy all this tract of country. 
At this spot begins a well-wooded district which has 
^ Now called the TeHgul, east of the Tyra or Dniester. 
2 Now called Sasik Beregen, according to Brotier. 
3 The modern Grulf of Berezen, according to Brotier. 
^ Probably the modern Okzakow. 
^ The modern Dnieper. It also retains its ancient name of Borysthenes. 
^ We learn from Strabo that the name of this town was Olbia, and 
that from being founded by the Milesians, it received the name of Mile- 
topohs. According to Brotier, the modern Zapurouski occupies its site, 
between the mouths of the river Buzuluk. 
7 This was adjacent to the strip of land called " Dromos Achilleos," or 
the ' race-course of Achilles.' It is identified by geographers with the 
little island of Zmievoi or Oulan Adassi, the * Serpents Island.' It was 
said that it was to this spot that Thetis transported the body of Achilles. 
By some it was made the abode of the shades of the blest, where Achilles 
and other heroes of fable were the judges of the dead. 
^ A narrow strip of land N.W. of the Crimea and south of the mouth 
of the Dnieper, running nearly due west and east. It is now divided 
into two parts called Kosa Tendra and Kosa Djarilgatch. Achilles was 
said to have instituted games here. 
9 According to Hardouin, the Siraci occupied a portion of the present 
PodoHa and Ukraine, and the Tauri the modern Bessarabia. 
According to Herodotus, this region, called Hylsea, lay to the east of 
the Borysthenes. It seems uncertain whether there are now any traces 
of this ancient woodland ; some of the old maps however give the name 
of the " Black Forest " to this district. From the statements of modern 
travellers, the woody country does not commence till the river Don has 
been reached. The district of Hylaea has been identified by geographers 
with the great plain of Janboylouk in the steppe of the Nogai. 
