The width of the Cimmerian Bosporus[1] is twelve miles and a half: it contains the towns of Hermisium[2], Myrmecium, and, in the interior[3] of it, the island of Alopece. From the spot called Taphræ[4], at the extremity of the isthmus, to the mouth of the Bosporus, along the line of the Lake Mseotis, is a distance of 260 miles.
Leaving Taphræ, and going along the mainland, we find in the interior the Auchetæ[5], in whose country the Hypanis has its rise, as also the Neurœ, in whose district the Borysthenes has its source, the Greloni[6], the Thyssagetæ, the Budini, the Basilidæ, and the Agathyrsi[7] with their azure-coloured hair. Above them are the Nomades, and then a nation of Anthropophagi or cannibals. On leavang Lake Buges, above the Lake Mjcotis we come to the Sauromatæ and the Essedones[8]. Along the coast, as far as the river Tanais[9], are
- ↑ He alludes here, not to the Strait so called, but to the Peninsula bordering upon it, upon which the modern town of Kertsch is situate, and which projects from the larger Peninsula of the Crimea, as a sort of excrescence on its eastern side.
- ↑ Probably Hermes or Mercury was its tutelar divinity : its site appears to be unknown.
- ↑ Probably meaning the Straits or passage connecting the Lake Mæotis with the Euxine. The fertile district of the Cimmerian Bosporus was at one time the granary of Greece, especially Athens, which imported thence annually 400,000 medimni of corn.
- ↑ A town so called on the Isthmus of Perekop, from a (
Greek characters) or
trench, which was cut across the isthmus at this point.
- ↑ Lomonossov, in his History of Russia, says that these people were
the same as the Sclaroni : but that one meaning of the name 'Slavane'
being "a boaster," the Greeks gave them the corresponding appellation
of Auchetæ, from the word (Greek characters), which signifies "boasting."
- ↑ Of the Geloni, called by Virgil "picti," or "painted," nothing certain seems to be known: they are associated by Herodotus with the Budini, supposed to belong to the Slavic family by Scbafarik. In B. iv. c. 108, 109, of his History, Herodotus gives a very particular account of the Budini, who had a city built entirely of wood, the name of which was Gelonus. The same author also assigns to the Geloni a Greek origin.
- ↑ The Agathyrsi are placed by Herodotus near the upper course of the river Maris, in the S.E. of Dacia or the modem Transylvania. Pliny however seems here to assign them a different locality.
- ↑ Also called "Assedones" and "Issedones." It has been suggested by modern geographers that their locality must be assigned to the east of Ichim, on the steppe of the central horde of the Kirghiz, and that of the Arimaspi on the northern declivity of the chain of the Altai.
- ↑ Now the Don.
