Antiochus Crosses the Arius
The Apasiacae live between the rivers Oxus and Tanais,
note
the former of which falls into the Hyrcanian
Sea, the latter into the Palus Maeotis. note Both
are large enough to be navigable; and it
seems surprising how the Nomads managed to
come by land into Hyrcania along with their horses. Two
accounts are given of this affair, one of them probable, the
other very surprising yet not impossible. The Oxus rises in
the Caucasus, and being much augmented by tributaries in
Bactria, it rushes through the level plain with a violent and
turbid stream. When it reaches the desert it dashes its
-- 47 --
stream against some precipitous rocks with a force raised to
such tremendous proportions by the mass of its waters, and
the declivity down which it has descended, that it leaps from
the rocks to the plain below leaving an interval of more than a
stade between the rock and its falls. It is through this space
that they say the Apasiacae went on foot with their horses
into Hyrcania, under the fall, and keeping close to the rock.
The other account is more probable on the face of it. It is
said that, as the basin of the river has extensive flats into
which it descends with violence, the force of the stream makes
hollows in them, and opens chasms into which the water
descends deep below the surface, and so is carried on for a
short way, and then reappears: and that the barbarians, being
well acquainted with the facts, make their way on horseback,
over the space thus left dry, into Hyrcania. . . .
