river is mentioned by [1]Pliny, as lying between Trapezus and Apſarus.
From the Pyxites to Archabis 90 ſtadia. This is put down as a river in Ptolemy, but not in Arrian, although, I think, implied. The text of Ptolemy is undoubtedly very corrupt. According to the Latin copy, it is placed in E. Long. 61° .59′, and according to the Greek in 52° E. Long. a difference of full ten degrees, or more than 500 Engliſh miles. The longitude according to D'Anville is nearly 59° 40′ Eaſt. In the maps of Ptolemy it is placed, as it ought to be, to the North-Eaſt of Trapezus and Athenæ Ponticæ. It ſeems to be ſpecified in the Peutingerian Tables under the name of Abgabes; but is there placed too much to the Weſt, being only nine miles, or ſeventy-two ſtadia, from Athenæ Ponticæ; Whereas Arrian counts it to be 227 ſtadia, or more than 28 miles.
From Archabis to[2] Apſarus 60 ſtadia. This is the name of a river, and of a cattle on its banks. It is placed by [3] Ptolemy 80′
- ↑ Plin. lib. vi. cap. 4.
- ↑ Now called Gonieh.
- ↑ The latitudes laid down in Ptolemy's Geography are very incorrect, and particularly thoſe in the neighbourhood, or under the ſame parallel with Byzantium. He erroneouſly ſuppoſed, as indeed Strabo had done before him, that this city and Marſeilles were in the ſame latitude; and as the latitude of Marſeilles had been aſcertained by Pytheas by the proportion of the length of the gnomon to its ſhadow at the Summer ſolſtice, and found, according to his computation, to be 43° 5′, or according to a more accurate calculation, which included the ſemidiameter of the Sun, 43° 19′ 25″, they reckoned the latitudes of many other places according to their diſtance North or South from the one, which they aſſumed as a ſtandard; which was the ſource of great confuſion, ſince the true latitude of Byzantium is only 41° 1′, and of courſe it was placed by Ptolemy:2° 18′ 25″ too far to the North; a ſpace, which is nearly equal to 160 Engliſh miles; and the ſame error was extended to every place, whoſe latitude was computed from a compariſon of its difference with that of Byzantium." Blair's Hiſtory of the Riſe and Progreſs of Geography, p. 88.
