424 
PLIIST's NATITRAIi HISTOEX. 
[Book y. 
and the Tigris was called Mesopotamia, tliat beyond Taurus 
Sophene, and tliat on this side of the same chain Comagene. 
Beyond Armenia was the country of Adiabene, anciently 
called Assyria, and at the part where it joins up to Cilicia, 
it was called Antiochia. Its length, between Cilicia and 
Arabia^ is 470 miles, and its breadth, from Seleucia Pieria^ to 
Zeugma^, a town on the Euphrates, 175. Those who make 
a still more minute division of this country will have it that 
Phoenice is surrounded by Syria, and that first comes the 
maritime coast of Syria, part of which is Idumsea and Judaea, 
after that Phoenice, and then Syria. The whole of the tract 
of sea that lies in front of these shores is called the Phoe- 
nician Sea. The Phoenician people enjoy the glory of having 
been the inventors of letters^, and the first discoverers of the 
sciences of astronomy, navigation, and the art of war. 
CHAP. 14. IDUMJGA, PALJESTIKA, AINTD SAMARIA. 
On leaving Pelusium we come to the Camp of Cha- 
brias''', Mount Casius^, the temple of Jupiter Casius, and the 
tomb of Pompeius Magnus. Ostracine^, at a distance of 
sixty-five miles from Pelusium, is the frontier town of Ara- 
^ Or Ostracine, the northern point of Arabia. 
2 This was a great fortress of Syria founded by Seleucus B.C. 300, at 
the foot of Mount Pieria and overhanging the Mediterranean, four miles 
north of the Orontes and twelve miles west of Antioch. It had fallen 
entirely to decay in the sixth century of our era. There are considerable 
ruins of its harbour and mole, its walls and necropoUs. They bear the 
name of Seleukeh or Kepse. 
3 From the G-reek ^evyjia, " a junction built by Seleucus Nicator on 
the borders of Commagene and Cyrrhestice, on the west bank of the 
Euphrates, where the river had been crossed by a bridge of boats con- 
structed by Alexander the Great . The modern K-umkaleh is supposed 
to occupy its site. 
^ On this subject see B. vii. c. 57. The invention of letters and the 
first cultivation of the science of astronomy have been claimed for the 
Egyptians and other nations. The Tyrians were probably the first who 
applied the science of astronomy to the purposes of navigation. There 
is little doubt that warfare must have been studied as an art long before 
the existence of the Phoenician nation. 
^ Strabo places this between Mount Casius and Pelusium. 
^ See C. 12 of the present Book. Chabrias the Athenian aided Nec- 
tanebus II. against his revolted subjects. 
7 Its ruins are to be seen on the present Has Straki, 
