A.D. 363.] GLORY OF ARSACES. 331 of Arsaces are claimed by all the Parthian kings, who were formerly abject and inconsiderable. 6. So that they still worship and honour Arsaces as a god, and down to our day have given him so much honour that, in conferring the royal power, one of his race has been always preferred to any one else. And also in intestine quarrels, such as are common in that nation, every one avoids as sacrilege wounding any descendant of Arsaces, whether in arms or living as a private individual. 7. It is well known that this nation, after subduing many others by force, extended its dominions as far as the Propontis and Thrace; but that it subsequently became diminished and suffered great disasters, owing to the arrogance of its ambitious monarchs, who carried their licentious inroads into distant countries. First, in consequence of the conduct of Cyrus, who crossed the Bosphorus with a fabulous host, but was wholly destroyed by Tomyris, queen of the Scythians, who thus terribly avenged her sons. 8. After him, when Darius, and subsequently Xerxes, changed the use' of the elements and invaded Greece, they had nearly all their forces destroyed by land and sea, and could scarcely escape in safety themselves. I say nothing of the wars of Alexander, and of his leaving the sovereignty over the whole nation by will to his successor. 9. Then, a long time after these events, while our republic was under consuls, and was afterwards brought under the power of the Caesars, that nation was constantly warring with us, sometimes with equal fortune; being at one time defeated, and at another victorious. 10. Now I will in a few words describe the situation and position of the country as well as I can. It is a region of great extent both in length and breadth, entirely surrounding on all sides the famous Persian gulf with its many islands. The mouth of this gulf is so narroTM. that 1 As the Greek epigram has it— Τὸν γαίης καὶ πόντου αμειφθείσαισι κελευθος Thus translated in Bohn & Greek Anthology,' p. 25 :— from Harmozon, the promontory of Carmania, the opposite headland, which the natives call Maces, is easily seen. 11. When the strait between these capes is passed, and the water becomes wider, they are navigable up to the city Teredon, where, after having suffered a great diminution of its waters, the Euphrates falls into the sea. The entire gulf, if measured round the shore, is 20,000 furlongs, being of a circular form as if turned in a lathe. And all round its coasts are towns and villages in great numbers; and the vessels which navigate its waters are likewise very numerous. 12. Having then passed through this strait we come to the gulf of Armenia on the east, the gulf of Cantichus on the south, and on the west to a third, which they call Chalites.' These gulfs, after washing many islands, of which but few are known, join the great Indian Ocean, which is the first to receive the glowing rising of the sun, and is itself of an excessive heat. 13. As the pens of geographers delineate it, the whole of the region which we have been speaking of is thus divided. From the north to the Caspian gates it borders on the Cadusii, and on many Scythian tribes, and on the Arimaspi, a fierce one-eyed people. On the west it is bounded by the Armenians, and Mount Niphates, the Asiatic Albani, the Red Sea, and the Scenite Arabs, whom later times have called the Saracens. To the south it looks towards Mesopotamia, on the east it reaches to the Ganges, which falls into the Southern Ocean after intersecting the countries of the Indians. 14. The principal districts of Persia, under command of the Vitaxa, that is to say of the generals of the cavalry, and of the king's Satraps, for the many inferior provinces it would be difficult and superfluous to enumerate, are Assyria, Susiana, Media, Persia, Parthia, the greater Carmania, Hyrcania, Margiana, the Bactrians, the Sogdians, the Sacæ, Scythia beyond Mount Emodes, Serica, Aria, the Paropanisadæ, Drangiana, Arachosia, and Gedrosia. 1 The probability is that all these names are corrupt. Ammianus's ignorance of the relative bearings of countries makes it difficult to decide what they ought to be. If the proper reading of the last name be, as Valesius thinks, Sarbaletes, that is the name given by Ptolemy to a part of the Red Sea. A French translator of the last century considers the Gulf of Armenia a portion of the Caspian Sea. A.D. 363) ASSYRIA. 333 15. Superior to all the rest is that which is the nearest to us, Assyria, both in renown, and extent, and its varied riches and fertility. It was formerly divided among several peoples and tribes, but is now known under one common name as Assyria. It is in that country that amid its abundance of fruits and ordinary crops, there is a lake named Sosingites, near which bitumen is found. In this lake the Tigris is for a while absorbed, flowing beneath its bed, till, at a great distance, it emerges again. 16. Here also is produced naphtha, an article of a pitchy and glutinous character, resembling bitumen: on which if ever so small a bird perches, it finds its flight impeded and speedily dies. It is a species of liquid, and when once it has taken fire, human ingenuity can find nc means of extinguishing it except that of heaping dust on it. 17. In the same district is seen an opening in the earth from which a deadly vapour arises, which by its foul odour destroys any animal which comes near it. The evil arises from a deep well, and if that odour spread beyond its wide mouth before it rose higher, it would make all the country around uninhabitable by its fetid effect. 18. There used, as some affirm, to be a similar chasm near Hierapolis in Phrygia; from which a noxious vapour rose in like manner with a fetid smell which never ceased, and destroyed everything within the reach of its influence, except eunuchs; to what this was owing we leave natural philosophers to determine. 19. Also near the temple of the Asbamaan Jupiter, in Cappadocia (in which district that eminent philosopher Apollonius is said to have been born near the town of Tyana), a spring rises from a marsh, which, however swollen with its rising floods, never overflows its banks. 20. Within this circuit is Adiabene, which was formerly called Assyria, but by long custom has received its present name from the circumstance, that being placed between the two navigable rivers the Ona and the Tigris, it can never be approached by fording; for in Greek we use διαβαίνειν for to “ cross:" this was the belief of the ancients. 21. But we say that in this country there are two rivers which never fail, which we ourselves have crossed, the Diabas, and the Adiabas: both having bridges of boats over them; and that Adiabene has received its name from this last, as Homer tells us Egypt received its name from its great river, and India also, and Commagena which was formerly called Euphratensis, as did the country now called Spain, which was formerly called Iberia from the Iberus. And the great Spanish province of Boetica from the river Botis. 22. In this district of Adiabene is the city of Nineveh, named after Ninus, a most mighty sovereign of former times, and the husband of Semiramis, who was formerly queen of Persia, and also the cities of Ecbatana, Arbela, and Gaugamela, where Alexander, after several other battles, gave the crowning defeat to Darius. 23. In Assyria there are many cities, among which one of the most eminent is Apamia, surnamed Mesene, and Teredon, and Apollonia, and Vologesia, and many others of equal importance. But the most splendid and celebrated are these three, Babylon, the walls of which Semiramis cemented with pitch; for its citadel indeed was founded by that most eminent monarch Belus. And Ctesiphon which Vardanes built long ago, and which subsequently King Pacorus enlarged by an immigration of many citizens, fortifying it also with walls, and giving it a name, made it the most splendid place in Persia-next to it Seleucia, the splendid work of Seleucus Nicator. 24. This, however, as we have already related, was stormed by the generals of Verus Cæsar, who carried the image of the Cumaan Apollo to Rome, and placed it in the temple of the Palatine Apollo, where it was formally dedicated to that god by his priests. But it is said that after this statue was carried off, and the city was burnt, the soldiers, searching the temple, found a narrow hole, and when this was opened in the hope of finding something of value in it, from some deep gulf which the secret science of the Chaldæans had closed up, issued a pestilence, loaded with the force of incurable disease, which in the time of Verus and Marcus Antoninus polluted the whole world from the borders of Persia to the Rhine and Gaul with contagion and death. The Ebro. The Guadalquivir. A.D. 263.] GHALDEA. 335 25. Near to this is the region of the Chaldæans, the nurse of the ancient philosophy, as the Chaldæans them selves affirm; and where the art of true divination has most especially been conspicuous. This district is watered. by the noble rivers already mentioned, by the Marses, by the Royal river, and by that best of all, the Euphrates, which divides into three branches, and is navigable in them all, having many islands, and irrigating the fields around in a manner superior to any industry of cultivators, making them fit both for the plough and for the production of trees. 26. Next to these come the Susians, in whose province there are not many towns; though Susa itself is celebrated as a city which has often been the home of kings, and Arsiana, and Sele, and Aracha. The other towns in this district are unimportant and obscure. Many rivers flow through this region, the chief of which are the Oroates, the Harax, and the Meseus, passing through the narrow sandy plain which separates the Caspian from the Red Sea, and then fall into the sea. 27. On the left, Media is bounded by the Hyrcanian Sea; a country which, before the reign of the elder Cyrus and the rise of Persia, we read was the supreme mistress of all Asia after the Assyrians had been conquered; the greater part of whose cantons had their name changed into one general appellation of Acrapatena, and fell by right of war under the power of the Medes. 28. They are a warlike nation, and the most formidable of all the eastern tribes, next to the Parthians, by whom alone they are conquered. The region which they inhabit is in the form of a square. All the inhabitants of these districts extend over great breadth of country, reaching to the foot of a lofty chain of mountains known by the names of Zagrus, Orontes, and Jasonium. 29. There is another very lofty mountain called Coronus; and those who dwell on its western side abound in corn land and vineyards, being blessed with a most fertile soil, and one enriched by rivers and fountains. 30. They have also green meadows, and breeds of noble horses, on which (as ancient writers relate, and as we 'Ammianus seems to distinguish between the Hyrcanian and Caspian Sea, which are only different names for the same sea or inland lake. |
