Latin Texts & Translations

Leaving the Ister, we come to the towns of Cremniscos ^[Note], Æpolium, the mountains of Macrocremnus, and the famous river Tyra ^[Note], which gives name to a town on the spot where Ophiusa is said formerly to have stood. The Tyragetæ inhabit a large island ^[Note] situate in this river, which is distant

from Pseudostomos, a mouth of the Ister, so called, 130 miles. We then come to the Axiacæ, who take their name from the river Axiaces ^[Note], and beyond them, the Crobyzi, the river Rhodes ^[Note], the Sagarian Gulf ^[Note], and the port of Ordesos ^[Note]. At a distance of 120 miles from the Tyra is the river Borysthenes ^[Note], with a lake and a people of similar name, as also a town ^[Note] in the interior, at a distance of fifteen miles from the sea, the ancient names of which were Olbiopolis and Miletopolis. Again, on the shore is the port of the Achæi, and the island of Achilles ^[Note], famous for the tomb there of that hero, and, at a distance of 125 miles from it, a peninsula which stretches forth in the shape of a sword, in an oblique direction, and is called, from having been his place of exercise, Dromos Achilleos ^[Note]: the length of this, according to Agrippa, is eighty miles. The Taurian Scythians and the Siraci ^[Note] occupy all this tract of country.

At this spot begins a well-wooded district ^[Note], which has

given to the sea that washes its banks the name of the Hylæan Sea; its inhabitants are called Enœchadlæ ^[Note]. Beyond them is the river Pantieapes ^[Note], which separates the Nomades ^[Note] and the Georgi, and after it the Acesinus ^[Note]. Some authors say that the Panticapes flows into the Borysthenes below Olbia ^[Note]. Others, who are more correct, say that it is the Hypanis ^[Note]: so great is the mistake made by those who have placed it ^[Note] in Asia.

The sea runs in here and forms a large gulf ^[Note], until there is only an intervening space ^[Note] of five miles between it and the Lake Mæotis, its margin forming the sea-line of extensive tracts of land, and numerous nations; it is known as the Gulf of Carcinites. Here we find the river Pacyris ^[Note], the towns of Navarum and Carcine ^[Note], and behind it Lake Buges ^[Note], which

discharges itself by a channel into the sea. This Buges is separated by a ridge of rocks ^[Note] from Coretus, a gulf in the Lake Mæotis; it receives the rivers Buges ^[Note], Gerrus ^[Note], and Hypacaris ^[Note], which approach it from regions that lie in various directions. For the Gerrus separates the Basilidæ from the Nomades, the Hypacaris flows through the Nomades and the Hylæi, by an artificial channel into Lake Buges, and by its natural one into the Gulf of Coretus: this region bears the name of Scythia Sindice.

At the river Carcinites, Scythia Taurica ^[Note] begins, which was once covered by the sea, where we now see level plains extended on every side: beyond this the land rises into mountains of great elevation. The peoples here are thirty in number, of which twenty-three dwell in the interior, six of the cities being inhabited by the Orgocyni, the Chara- ceni ^[Note], the Lagyrani, the Tractari, the Arsilachitæ, and the Caliordi. The Scythotauri possess the range of mountains: on the west they are bounded by the Chersonesus, and on the east by the Scythian Satarchæ ^[Note]. On the shore, after we leave Carcinites, we find the following towns; Taphræ ^[Note], situate on the very isthmus of the peninsula, and then Heraclea Chersonesus ^[Note], to which its freedom has been granted ^[Note] by the Romans. This place was formerly called

Megarice, being the most polished city throughout all these regions, in consequence of its strict preservation of Grecian manners and customs. A wall, five miles in length, surrounds it. Next to this comes the Promontory of Parthenium ^[Note], the city of the Tauri, Placia, the port of the Symboli ^[Note], and the Promontory of Criumetopon ^[Note], opposite to Carambis ^[Note], a promontory of Asia, which runs out in the middle of the Euxine, leaving an intervening space between them of 170 miles, which circumstance it is in especial that gives to this sea the form of a Scythian bow. After leaving this headland we come to a great number of harbours and lakes of the Tauri ^[Note]. The town of Theodosia ^[Note] is distant from Criumetopon 125 miles, and from Chersonesus 165. Beyond it there were, in former times, the towns of Cytæ, Zephyrium, Acræ, Nymphæum, and Dia. Panticapæum ^[Note], a city of the Milesians, by far the strongest of them all, is still in existence; it lies at the entrance of the Bosporus, and is distant from Theodosia eighty-seven miles and a half, and from the town of Cimmerium, which lies on the other side of the Strait, as we have previously ^[Note] stated, two miles and a half. Such is the width here of the channel which separates Asia from Europe, and which too, from being generally quite frozen over, allows of a passage on foot.

The width of the Cimmerian Bosporus ^[Note] is twelve miles and a half: it contains the towns of Hermisium ^[Note], Myrmecium, and, in the interior ^[Note] of it, the island of Alopece. From the spot called Taphræ ^[Note], at the extremity of the isthmus, to the mouth of the Bosporus, along the line of the Lake Mæotis, is a distance of 260 miles.

Leaving Taphræ, and going along the mainland, we find in the interior the Auchetæ ^[Note], in whose country the Hypanis has its rise, as also the Neurœ, in whose district the Borysthenes has its source, the Geloni ^[Note], the Thyssagetæ, the Budini, the Basilidæ, and the Agathyrsi ^[Note] with their azure-coloured hair. Above them are the Nomades, and then a nation of Anthropophagi or cannibals. On leaving Lake Buges, above the Lake Mæotis we come to the Sauromatæ and the Essedones ^[Note]. Along the coast, as far as the river Tanais ^[Note], are

the Mæotæ, from whom the lake derives its name, and the last of all, in the rear of them, the Arimaspi. We then come to the Riphæan ^[Note] mountains, and the region known by the name of Pterophoros ^[Note], because of the perpetual fall of snow there, the flakes of which resemble feathers; a part of the world which has been condemned by the decree of nature to lie immersed in thick darkness; suited for nothing but the generation of cold, and to be the asylum of the chilling blasts of the northern winds.

Behind these mountains, and beyond the region of the northern winds, there dwells, if we choose to believe it, a happy race, known as the Hyperborei ^[Note], a race that lives to an extreme old age, and which has been the subject of many marvellous stories ^[Note]. At this spot are supposed to be the hinges upon which the world revolves, and the extreme limits of the revolutions of the stars. Here we find light for six months together, given by the sun in one continuous day, who does not, however, as some ignorant persons have asserted, conceal himself from the vernal equinox ^[Note] to autumn. On the contrary, to these people there is but one rising of the sun for the year, and that at the summer solstice, and but one setting, at the winter solstice. This region, warmed by the rays of the sun, is of a most delightful temperature, and exempt from

every noxious blast. The abodes of the natives are the woods and groves; the gods receive their worship singly and in groups, while all discord and every kind of sickness are things utterly unknown. Death comes upon them only when satiated with life; after a career of feasting, in an old age sated with every luxury, they leap from a certain rock there into the sea; and this they deem the most desirable mode of ending existence. Some writers have placed these people, not in Europe, but at the very verge of the shores of Asia, because we find there a people called the Attacori ^[Note], who greatly resemble them and occupy a very similar locality. Other writers again have placed them midway between the two suns, at the spot where it sets to the Antipodes and rises to us; a thing however that cannot possibly be, in consequence of the vast tract of sea which there intervenes. Those writers who place them nowhere ^[Note] but under a day which lasts for six months, state that in the morning they sow, at mid-day they reap, at sunset they gather in the fruits of the trees, and during the night conceal themselves in caves. Nor are we at liberty to entertain any doubts as to the existence of this race; so many authors ^[Note] are there who assert that they were in the habit of sending their first-fruits to Delos to present them to Apollo, whom in especial they worship. Virgins used to carry them, who for many years were held in high veneration, and received the rites of hospitality from the nations that lay on the route; until at last, in consequence of repeated violations of good faith, the Hyperboreans came to the determination to deposit these offerings upon the frontiers of the people who adjoined them, and they in their turn were to convey

them on to their neighbours, and so from one to the other, till they should have arrived at Delos. However, this custom, even, in time fell into disuse.

The length of Sarmatia, Scythia, and Taurica, and of the whole of the region which extends from the river Borysthenes, is, according to Agrippa, 980 miles, and its breadth 717. I am of opinion, however, that in this part of the earth all estimates of measurement are exceedingly doubtful.