Greek Texts & Translations

name of tyrants, although most of them were moderate and just in their government, from the time of Pairisades and Leucon. Pairisades was accounted even a god. The last sovereign, whose name was also Pairisades, being unable to resist the barbarians, by whom great and unusual tributes were exacted, surrendered the kingdom into the hands of Mithridates. After him it became subject to the Romans. The greater portion of it is situated in Europe, but a part of it is also situated in Asia. 5

The mouth of the [Palus] Maeotis is called the Kimmerian Bosporus. The entrance, which at the broadest part is about 70 stadia across, where there is a passage from the neighbourhood ^note of Panticapaeum to Phanagoria, the nearest city in Asia. The [Palus] Maeotis closes in an arm of the sea which is much narrower. This arm of the sea and the Don ^note separate Europe from Asia. Then the Don flows from the north opposite into the lake, and into the Kimmerian Bosporus. It discharges itself into the lake by two mouths, ^note which are distant from each other about 60 stadia. There is also a city of the same name as the river; and next to Panticapaeum it is the largest mart belonging to the barbarians.

On sailing into the Kimmerian Bosporus, ^note on the left hand is Myrmecium, ^note a small city, 20 stadia from Panticapaeum, and 40 stadia from Parthenium; ^note it is a village where is the narrowest entrance into the lake, about 20 stadia in breadth; opposite to it is a village situated in Asia, called Achilleum. Thence to the Don, and to the island at its mouths, is a voyage in a direct line of 2200 stadia. The distance is somewhat greater if the voyage is performed along the coast of Asia, but taking the left-hand side, (in which direction the isthmus of the Chersonese is fallen in with,) the distance is more than tripled. This latter course is along the desert shore of Europe, but the