' [ 156 ] 
but a journal of his march, and where he relates 
things as he found them, he exprefly aflerts it. For 
he fays, that the Greeks in their return home, came 
down to the river Tigris, where had formerly been a 
large but at that time deferted city called Larifta, in- 
habited formerly by the Medes. Tctimiv, continues 
he, ficcmAevs o fl eparocv, ots irctoa. M vS'oor EAAMBA- 
NON t r,v ctpy^ry, 7roAiop?/ctn', vS'ev'i tqottco eS'uvocvTo sA ay. 
HAION eTi? NE$EAH tt pox.xAv-l>ci(rcc vtpccytcFe, pisyspuoi 
v j > / - \ <) c / ~ u 
av^rpo^TTOi e&Anrov, Xj vtcps ea.A co. 
Tho’ Xenophon calls this a cloud, yet the word 
pi? ana n, probably made ufe of by thofe, from whom 
he received his account, not only lignifies a cloud, 
but any obftacle in general. That fuch effects could 
be owing to no common cloud, I imagined mult be 
evident enough. And as the year before Chrift yq,/,. 
from a number of arguments, too long to be here in- 
lifted on, appeared to me to be the year, when Cyrus 
finifhed his reduction of the Median empire, I was 
naturally led to try, whether there was any folar 
eclipfe that year, that could be the caufe of fo re- 
markable a darknefs. 
The geography of the eaft is fo very imperfed, that 
it may be difficult to determine the fituation of this 
Larifta. For Xenophon hath given no other account 
of it, than that it lay on the banks of the Tigris. It 
is not improbable however, as Bochart thinks, that 
Xenophon inquired upon the fpot, What ruins thofe 
were ? And was anfwered |D"H Larefen , i. e. Referis, 
or the ruins of Refen . But this he eafily miftook, or 
changed into Lari(fa i a name he was much better 
acquainted with. 
Refen 
