Greek Texts & Translations

of the Euxine Sea, and the extreme boundary of navigation, for in this sense we are to understand the proverbial saying, To Phasis where ships end their course.
Not as if the author of the iambic intended to speak of the river, nor of the city of the same name upon the river, but Colchis designated by a part, because from the city and the river there remains a voyage of not less than 600 stadia in a straight line to the recess of the bay. This same Dioscurias is the commencement of the isthmus lying between the Caspian Sea and the Euxine. It is a common mart of the nations situated above it, and in its neighbourhood. There assemble at Dioscurias 70 or, according to some writers who are careless in their statements, ^note 300 nations. All speak different languages, from living dispersed in various places and without intercourse, in consequence of their fierce and savage manners. They are chiefly Sarmatians, but all of them Caucasian tribes. So much then respecting Dioscurias. 17

The greater part of the rest of Colchis lies upon the sea. The Phasis, ^note a large river, flows through it. It has its source in Armenia, and receives the Glaucus, ^note and the Hippus, ^note which issue from the neighbouring mountains. Vessels ascend it as far as the fortress of Sarapana, ^note which is capable of containing the population even of a city. Persons proceed thence by land to the Cyrus in four days along a carriage road. ^note Upon the Phasis is a city of the same name, a mart of the Colchians, bounded on one side by the river, on another by a lake, on the third by the sea. Thence it is a voyage of three or two ^note days to Amisus and Sinope, on account of the softness of the shores caused by the discharge of rivers. ^note

The country is fertile and its produce is good, except the