454 PLINY's NATURAL HISTORY. [Book V. way even amidst these barriers ; and victorious after all, ifc then escapes with its sinuous course to the kindred chain of the Ripha3an mountains. Numerous are the names which it bears, as it is continuously designated by new ones throughout the whole of its course. In the first part of its career it lias the name of Imaus after which it is known successively by the names of Emodus, Paropanisus, Circius, Gambades, Paryadres, Choatras, Oreges, Oroandes, Niphates, Taurus, and, where it even out-tops itself, Caucasus. Where it throws forth its arms as though every now and then it would attempt to invade the sea, it bears the names of Sar- pedon, Coracesius, Cragus, and then again Taurus. Where also it opens and makes a passage to admit mankind, it still claims the credit of an unbroken continuity by giving the name of " Gates" to these passes, which in one place are called the " Grates of Armenia'V in another the " Gates of the Caspian," and in another the " Gates of Cilicia." In addition to this, when it has been cut short in its onward career, it retires to a distance from the seas, and covers itself on the one side and the other with the names of numerous nations, being called, on the right-hand side the Hyrcanian and the Caspian, and on the left the Paryadrian^, the Moschian, the Amazonian, the Coraxican, and the Scythian chain. Among the Greeks it bears the one general name of Ceraunian^. ^ "The name of Imaiis was, in the first instance, applied by the Greek geographers to the Hindii-Kush and to the chain parallel to the equator, to which the name of Himalaya is usually given at the present day. The name was gradually extended to the intersection running north and south, the meridian axis of Central Asia, or the Bolor range. The divisions of Asia into ' intra et extra Imaum,' were unknown to Strabo and Phny, though the latter describes the knot of mountains formed by the inter- sections of the Himalaya, the Hindii-Kush, and Bolor, by the expression 'quorum (Montes Emodi) promontorium Imaiis vocatui*.' The Bolor chain lias been for ages, with one or two exceptions, the boundary be- tween the empu^es of Cliina and Turkestan." — Dr. Smith's Dictionary of A.ncient Geography. 2. The Gates of Ai'menia are spoken of in B. vi. c. 12, the Gates of the Caspian ui C. 16 of the same Book, and the Gates of Cihcia in C. 22 of the present Book. 3 ggg q i^. of the next Book. "* " Strabo gives this name to only the eastern portion of the Cauca- sian chain Avhich overhangs the Caspian Sea and forms the northern boundary of Albania, and m which he places the Amazons. Mela seems to a])ply the name to the whole chain which other writers call Caucasus, confining the latter term to a part of it. Plmy (B. r. c. 27 & B. vi. c. 11)
