Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/577

 CASPIANA. caHed Caspi, there eeem to have been two monn- taiDS, each called Catpuu^ one near the Armenian frontier, the other near the Parthian. It was through the pass of the Gaspiae Pylae that Alexander the Great porsned Dareins. (Arrian, Anab. iii. 19; Curt, vi 14; Amm. Marc xsiii. 6.) It was one of the roost important places in ancient geography, and fitxn it many of the meridians were measured. (Strsb. L p. 64, xL pp. 505, 514, X7. p. 720, &c) The exact place corresponding wiUi the ancient Gas- piae Pylae is probably a spot between Ilarh-a-Koh and ^oA-JToA, abont 6 parasangs from iSey, the name of the entrance of which is called Derek. (Morier, Second Jovmetf.) [V.] CASPIA'NA. [Gasph.] GA'SPII (K^bwtoi), a nation apparently originally inhabiting a district of Media, near the mouth of the Gyrus (iTiir), and adjacent to a mountun which bore the name of M. Gaspius. Their exact position and their extent are equally uncertain and indefinite, as the name might apply to any of the tribes who lired near the Gaspian Sea, n^hich derived its own name from thenu Hence it is that we find mention of a similar named people in another locality on the eastern confines of Media near Hyrcania, and at the Caspian gates (Herod, iii 29; Strab. EpU. xi.), and also in Albania (Strdb. xL p. 502), occupying a dis- trict which bore the technical name of Gaspiakb, and to whom Strabo attributes the name of the Sea. According to Strabo (xL pp. 517 — 520), the manners of these people were of the most barbarous character, and resembled those of the people of Bactriana and Sogdiana. Ptolemy placed die Gaspii mther more to the SE. than other geographers. (PtoL vi. 2. § 5; Mel. L 2, iiL 5; Gurt iv. 12.) [V.J GA'SPII MONTES {Kdffirui S(ni% a western portion of the great chain of the Orontes and Goro- nus {Lemawend)^ which extended along the SE. ahores of the Gaspian Sea, on the borders of Media, Hyrcaoia, and Parthia, about 40 miles N. of the modern town of Tehenm. They doubtless derived their name from one of the tribes who lived on the bonkrB of that sea. [Gaspu.] [V.] GASPFNQIUM, is pbwed by the Table on a road from Lugdnnum Batavorum {L^fdea) to Novio- Diagus (iVjfm^en). It is 45 Roman miles from Noviomagua. Walckenaer fixes it at Gorkum and Spyck f other geographers fix it at Amem, [6. L.] GA'SPIUM MABE (^ KaffwUx ddXarra, HenxL L 203; Ptd. v. 9. § 7, vii. 5. § 4; Strab. ii. p. 71, zi pp. 502, 506, &c.; rh fLitnrioif riKaeyoSj Stiab. xL p. 508), the laigest of the inland seas of Asia, extending between aL 489 and 37^ N., and long. 48^ and 55^ £., and the shores of which were Scythia intra Imaum, Hyrcania, Atropatene, and Sannatia Asiatica. It derived its name, accord- ing to Strabo, from the Gas|tti. [GA8Pn.1 It bora also the name of the Marb HTRCAinuM (Plin. vi. 13; M. Hyrcanum, Prop, ii 23, 66; Sinus Hyrcanns, Mela, iii. 5; h TpKoyla ddarr€i, Hecat. Fragm. ex Athcn. ii.; Pdyb. T. 44; Strab. ii. pu 68, XL p. 507 ; Ptol. v. IS. § 6 ; Diod. xviL 75.) In many authors these names are used indif- ferently the one fax the other; they are, however, distinguished by Pliny (vi. 13), who states that this sea commences to be odled the Gaspian after you have passed the river Gyrus (i^ur), and that the Caspii live near it; and, in vi. 16, that it is called the Hyreanian Sea from the Hyrcani who live along its shore. The western side would, therefore, in strictness, be called the Caspian, the Eastern, the GASSAKDREIA. 559 Hyreanian. Of the size, form, and character of this inland sea, there was a great variety of opinions amcmg the ancients; and it is not a little remarkable that the earliest account of it which we have in He- rodotus (i. 202, 203) is by far the most accurate. According to him, it took a vessel with oars 15 days to traverse its length, and 8 days to cross its broad- est part Herodotus muntained that it was a truly inland sea, having no connection with the external ocean. It seems dear, also, that Herodotus made its greatest length from S. to N. (which is its true direction), and not, as the later writers supposed, from W. to E. The real length of the sea is 740 miles finm its most N. to its most S. point; its ave- rage breadth is about 210 miles. In the earliest times (as would appear from a fragment of Hecataens, p. 92, ed. Elausen) it was supposed that the Gaspian Sea was connected with the Pontus Euxinus by means of the river Phasis, and still later through the Palus Maeotis (Strab. xi. p. 509), a view which has also been taken by some modem writers and travellers. (Kant, Phy$. Geogr. i. 1. p. 113, and iiL 1. p. 112; F. Parrot's Reiae z, Ararat, i- p. 24, BerL 1834.) Aristotle (Meteor, i. 13. § 29, and il 1. § 10) appears to have been ac- quainted with the true nature of this sea; yet the majority of writers certainly held opinions more or less erroneous. The prevalent one was that it was connected with the N<nthem Ocean, and even Strabo (xi p. 519) seems to have sanctioned this view (compare also Mela, iii. 5 ; Plin. vL 13 ; Gurt. vL 4), an error which perhaps arose from a statement of Eratosthenes. (Strab. xi. p. 507.) Diodorus (xviii. 5), however, described this sea correctly, and Ptolemy (vii. 5. § 4,) confirmed his view. It seems extremely probable that much of the confusion which appears to have existed in antiquity with regard to this sea may have arisen from indistinct accounts of the con- nection between it and the Oxiana Palus (Sea of Aral). ■ There seems to be no doubt that these seas were originally connected by an ann of the Oxus (Gikon), and it is not unlikely that the Gaspian and Aral Sea were considered by many as the basins of one and the same sea, following the indistinct and uncertain accounts which prevailed respecting them, and perhaps thereby originating the distinctive names of M. Hyrcanium and M. Gaspinm for the Eastern and Western Seas, which were strictly true of one only. (Malte-Brun, Getch. d, Erdkunde, I p. 71; Kephalides, Comtn. deMari CatpiOj Getting. 1814; Elchwald, AUe Geogr, d, Catp. Meeres. Berlin, 1838.) [v.] GASSAKDREIA (Kaor<n£ir3pcia, Kcurc&SpcM: Eik, KMr<rw9pe6s: Pinaka), a town situated on the narrow isthmus which connects the peninsula of Pallene with the main land, on which formerly stood the rich and flourishing dty of Potidaea. (Strab. vii. p. 330; Plin. iv. 10.) Potidaea (norf&uo: Eth.noTi!iatdTiiSf nori&uc^f) was a Dorian dty originally colonised firom Gorinth (Thuc i. 56; Scymn. Gh. v. 628), though at what period is not known; it must have existed before the Per- sian wars. It surrendered to the Persians on their march into Greece. (Herod, vii. 123.) After the battle of Salamis it closed its gates against Arta- bazus, who at the head of a lai^e detachment had escorted Xerxes to the Hellespont On his retuni this general laid siege to the place of which he would probably have obtained possession through the treachery of one of its dtizens, had not the plot been acddentally discovered. An attempt afterwards