Chap. 21.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC. 
443 
schoeni^ in width, from tlie territory of the Commageni^ on 
the right, an*d it admits of a bridge being thrown across it, 
even where it forces a passage through the range of Taurus. 
At Claudiopolis^, in Cappadocia, it takes an easterly direc- 
tion ; and here, for the first time in this contest, Taurus 
turns it out of its course ; though conquered before, and 
rent asunder by its channel, the mountain-chain now gains 
the victory in another way, and, breaking its career, com- 
pels it to take a southerly direction. Thus is this warfare 
of nature equally waged, — the river proceeding onward to 
the destination which it intends to reach, and the mountains 
forbidding it to proceed by the path which it originally 
intended. After passing the Cataracts^, the river again 
becomes navigable ; and, at a distance of forty miles from 
thence, is Samosata^, the capital of Commagene. 
CHAP. 21. — STEIA UPON THE EUPHRATES. 
Arabia, above mentioned, has the cities of Edessa^, for- 
merly called Antiochia, and, from the name of its fountain, 
Callirhoe^, and Carrhse^, memorable for the defeat of Crassus 
1 The length of the scJioenus has been mentioned by our author in 
C. 11 of the present Book. M. Saigey makes the Persian parasang to be 
very nearly the same length as the schoenus of Pliny. 
2 Commagene was a district in the north of Syria, bounded by the 
Euphrates on the east, by CiHcia on the west, and by Amanus on the 
north. Its capital was Samosata. 
3 The place here spoken of by Pliny is probably the same mentioned 
by Ptolemy as in Cataonia, one of the provinces of Cappadocia. Ac- 
cording to Parisot, the site of the place is called at the present day 
' Ba Claudie.' 
* Salmasius has confounded these cataracts with those of Nachour, or 
Elegia, previously mentioned. It is evident, however, that they are not 
the same. 
* Now caUed Someisat. In literary history, it is celebrated as being 
the birth-place of the satirist Lucian. Nothing remains of it but a heap 
of ruins, on an artificial mound. 
^ In the district of Osrhoene, in the northern part of Mesopotamia. 
It was situate on the Syrtus, now the Daisan, a small tributary of the 
Euphrates. Pliny speaks rather loosely when he places it in Arabia. 
It is supposed that it bore the name of Antiochia during the reign of 
the Syrian king, Antiochus IV. The modern town of Orfahor Uufah is 
supposed to represent its site. 7 " Xhe beautiful stream.^' It is 
generally supposed that this was another name of Edessa. 
Supposed to be the Haran, or Charan, of the Old Testament. It 
