Chap. 26.] ACCOUNT Or COrOTEIES, ETC. 
335 
The width of the Cimmerian Bosporus^ is twelve miles and 
a half: it contains the towns of Hermisinm^ Myrmecium, 
and, in the interior^ of it, the island of Alopece. Trom the 
spot called Taphrse"*, at the extremity of the isthmus, to the 
mouth of the Bosporus, along the line of the Lake Maeotis, 
is a distance of 260 miles. 
Leaving Taphrse, and going along the mainland, we find 
in the interior the Auchetae^, in whose country the Hypanis 
has its rise, as also the Neuroe, in whose district the Bory- 
sthenes has its source, the Greloni^,theThyssaget8e,theBudini, 
the Basilidae, and the Agathyrsi^ with their azure-coloured 
hair. Above them are the Komades, and then a nation of 
Anthropophagi or cannibals. On leaving Lake Buges, above 
the Lake Mseotis we come to the Sauromatae and the Esse- 
dones'. Along the coast, as far as the river Tanais^, are 
^ He alludes here, not to the Strait so called, but to the Peninsida 
bordering upon it, upon which the modern town of Kertsch is situate, 
and which projects from the larger Peninsula of the Crimea, as a sort of 
excrescence on its eastern side. 
2 Probably Hermes or Mercury was its tutelar divinity : its site 
appears to be unknown. 
3 Probably meaning the Straits or passage connecting the Lake Mseotis 
with the Euxine. The fertile district of the Cimmerian Bosporus was 
at one time the granary of Grreece, especially Athens, which imported 
thence annually 400,000 medimni of com. 
^ A town so called on the Isthmus of Perekop, from a rdippos or 
trench, which was cut across the isthmus at this point. 
5 Lomonossov, in his History of Russia, says that these people were 
the same as the Sclavoni : but that one meaning of the name * Slavane ' 
being " a boaster," the Grreeks gave them the corresponding appellation 
of Auchetse, from the word avxV) which signifies "boasting." 
^ Of the Geloni, called by Yirgil " picti," or " painted," nothing cer- 
tain seems to be known : they are associated by Herodotus with the 
Budini, supposed to belong to the Slavic family by Schafarik. In B. iv. 
c. 108, 109, of his History, Herodotus gives a very particular account of 
the Budini, who had a city built entirely of wood, the name of wliich was 
Gelonus. The same author also assigns to the Geloni a Grreek origin. 
7 The Agathyrsi are placed by Herodotus near the upper course of the 
river Maris, in the S.E. of Dacia or the modem Transylvania. Pliny 
however seems here to assign them a different locahty. 
s Also called " Assedones " and " Issedones." It has been suggested by 
modern geographers that their locahty must be assigned to the east of 
Ichim, on the steppe of the central horde of the Kirghiz, and that of the 
Arimaspi on the northern declivity of the chain of the Altai". 
^ Now the Don. 
