4.49.1
These are the native-born Scythian rivers that help to swell it; but the Maris river, which commingles with the Ister, flows from the Agathyrsi. The Atlas, Auras, and Tibisis, three other great rivers that pour into it, flow north from the heights of Haemus. note The Athrys, the Noes, and the Artanes flow into the Ister from the country of the Crobyzi in Thrace; the Cius river, which cuts through the middle of Haemus, from the Paeonians and the mountain range of Rhodope.
4.49.2
The Angrus river flows north from Illyria into the Triballic plain and the Brongus river, and the Brongus into the Ister, which receives these two great rivers into itself. The Carpis and another river called Alpis also flow northward, from the country north of the Ombrici, to flow into it;
4.49.3
for the Ister traverses the whole of Europe, rising among the Celts, who are the most westerly dwellers in Europe, except for the Cynetes, and flowing thus clean across Europe it issues forth along the borders of Scythia.
ch. 50
4.50.1
With these rivers aforesaid, and many others, too, as its tributaries, the Ister becomes the greatest river of all, while river for river the Nile surpasses it in volume, since that owes its volume of water to no tributary river or spring.
4.50.2
But the Ister is always the same height in summer and winter, the reason for which, I think, is this. In winter it is of its customary size, or only a little greater than is natural to it, for in that country in winter there is very little rain, but snow everywhere.
4.50.3
In the summer, the abundant snow that has fallen in winter melts and pours from all sides into the Ister; so this snow-melt pours into the river and helps to swell it and much violent rain besides, as the summer is the season of rain.
4.50.4
And in proportion as the sun draws to itself more water in summer than in winter, the water that commingles with the Ister is many times more abundant in summer than it is in winter; these opposites keep the balance true, so that the volume of the river appears always the same.
ch. 51
4.51.1
One of the rivers of the Scythians, then, is the Ister. The next is the Tyras; note this comes from the north, flowing at first out of a great lake, which is the boundary between the Scythian and the Neurian countries; at the mouth of the river there is a settlement of Greeks, who are called Tyritae.
ch. 52
4.52.1
The third river is the Hypanis; this comes from Scythia, flowing out of a great lake, around which wild, white horses graze. This lake is truly called the mother of the Hypanis.
4.52.2
Here, then, the Hypanis rises; for five days' journey its waters are shallow and still sweet; after that for four days' journey seaward it is amazingly bitter,
4.52.3
for a spring runs into it so bitter that although its volume is small its admixture taints the Hypanis, one of the few great rivers of the world. This spring is on the border between the farming Scythians note and the Alazones; the name of it and of the place where it rises is in Scythian Exampaeus; in the Greek tongue, Sacred Ways.
