Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/589

 CAUCA. Next oome the ^mcni, whoBe town is Venta; and then, more to the east, near the Imensa Aestnary, the Trinoantes, whose town is CamndoUnam. Of all these texts and localities the onlj one wholly beyond donbt is LioAxixn ssLincob^ With this as a starting-pdnt, Rhages= Leicester. Then the Si- meni are considered to be the Iceni not otherwise mentioned by Ptolemy; and as Venta=s^ortMcA, or the parts about it, we have a limit for the Caty- euchlani on the north and east The Imensa Aestn- ary is generally considered to mean that of the Thames ,* the error being, perhaps, that of the MSS. Then oome the Trinoantes (Trinobantes), generally placed ill Middlesex, bat whose capital is here the mysterious Camnd oUnBiniu [Colonia.] Bntland, mints, Beds, and Northampton best coincide with these conditions, but they are by no means the connties which best justify us in identifying the Catuellani [Oatuellani], whose relations were with the Boduni (ssDobuni ss Gl(Htcesier8hire)ymth the Catyeuchlani. [R. 0. L.] CAUCA (Kai/ira : JEth, Kovfrouoi, Cancenses : Coca), a city at the extreme E. of the territory of the Vaocaei, in Hispania Tarraconensis; belonging to the eonvenhu of Clunia ; and lying on the great niad from Emerita to Caesarangnsta, 22 M. P. from Nivaria and 29 M. P. from Segovia. (Appian. Hitp. 51,89; nin,AnL p. 4S5 Plin. iii. 3. s. 4 ; PtoLu. 6. § 50; Zosim. iv. 24; Geog. Bav. iv. 44; Mariana, JIuL Hiap. iii. 2 ; FloreX| Etp, S. t. 14; Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1, p. 432.) [P-S.] CAUCA'SIAE POBTAE. [Caucasus.] CAU'CASUS, CAUCA'SII MONTES (6 Ko^ jrcurof, rd KavKcuria 5f»ir : also, 6 KmtKiffis^ Herod, iii. 97, Steph. B. a. v, ; rh KabKoffop^ Arrian. PeripL ; rb KavicduTioy 6pos, Herod, i. 104, Dion. Per. 663 : £th. Kcanctifftos and KavKoalTtis: region Koviccurfa, whence Adj, and JEth. KavKoauufSSf Steph. B. s. v. : Camoastu, KawhaSf Goffkaa^ JaXbm the great mountain chain which extends across the uthmuB between the Euxine and Caspian Seas, and now forms the boundary between Europe and Asia, but belonged entirely to Asia in the ancient division of the con- tinenta. This range forms the KW. margin of the great table-land of W. Asia. [Asia.] It commences cm the W. at the base of the tongue of low land (PefM»- wia of Taman)^ which divides the £. part of the Sea of Azov (Palus Maeotis) from the Black Sea, in 45° 10' N. lat, and 36° 45' £. long.; and it runs first along the N£. shore of the Black Sea, and then across the isthmus, with a general direction from NW. to SE., terminating on the W. coast of the Caspian, in the peninsula of Apsheron in 40° 20' N. lat, and 50^ 20' £. long. Its length is 750 miles, ito breadth from 65 to 150 miles. Its elevation varies greatly, the central portion forming some of the lofltiest moun- tains in the world, higher than the Alps, while ite extremities sink down into mere hills. The highest summit, M. EUnsrz, in 43° 20' N. Ut, and 42° 30' £. long., attains a h«glit of not much less than 18,000 feet; and the next in elevation, M. Kazbek, in 42° 50' N. lat, and 44° 20' £. long, is just 16,000 feet high. The part of the chain W. of Etburz sinks very rapidly, and along the shore of the Euxine its height is only about 200 feet ; but the £. part of the chain preserves a much greater elevation till it ap- proaches very near the Caspian, where it subsides rather suddenly. Nearly all the principal summits of the central part, from M. Elbura eastward, are above the line of perpetual snow, which is here frum CAUCASUS. 671 10,000 to 11,000 feet above the sea. The central chain is bordered by two others, running parallel to it; that on the N., called by the inhabitants the Black MowUaina, forms a sort of shoulder, by which the Caucasus sinks down to the great plain of Sar- matia and the basin of the Caspian ; while that on the S., called in Armenian Sdorin Goffkas^ i. e. the Lower Caucasus^ branches off from tlie central mass in 44° £. long., and running between the rivers Bion (Phasis) and Kur (Cyrus), from WNW. to ESE., connecto the main chain with the highlands of Ar- menia, and with the Taurus system. The moun- tains are chiefly of the secondary formation, with some primary rocks ; and, though there are no active volcanoes, the frequent earthquakes, and the naphtha springs at the £. extremity, indicate much igneous actioui The summite are flat or rounded, with an entire absence of the sharp peaks familiar to us in the Alps. The chief rivers of the Caucasus are on the R. side, the Terek (Alontas), and the Kuban (Hypanis or Vardanes), both rising in M. Elburz, and falling, the former into the Caspian^ the ktter into the Sea o/Atov; and, on the S. side, the Bion (Phasis) falling into the Euxine, and the Kur (Cy- rus) failing into the Csspian. This brief general description of the chain will render more intelligible the statements of the ancient writers respecting it. (The chief modem works on the Caucasus are, Bonegg, Hittor. 'topograph, Beschreibtmg des Kau- kasusy St Petersb. 1796, 1797, 2 vols. 8vo., aud the works of Koch, especially his splendid Atlas, Karte des Kaukasischen Isthtmtss und Armeniens, Berlin, 1850, consisting of four large maps, repeated in four editions, one coloured polUicalli/j another elknogra- phicaUyy the third botanically, and the fourth geolO' gically. The Atlss to Bennell's Comparative Geo- graphy of W, Asia is also very useful.) Id the early Greek writers, the Caucasus appears as the object of a dim and uncertain knowledge, which embraced little more than its name, and tihAt vague notion of its position which they had also of other places about the region of the Euxine, and which they traced mythically to the Argonautio expedition (Strab. xi. p. 505). In Aeschylus, it is the scene of the punbhment of Prometheus, who ia chained to a rock at the extremity of the range overhanging the sea, but at a considerable distance from the smnmit " the Caucasus itself, highest of mountains" (Aesch. iVom. Kmct. 719, comp.422, 89, 1088; Prom. SoL Fr. 179, ap. Cic. Quaest Tusc, ii. 10; comp. Hygin.Fa&.54; Apollon. Bhod.iL 1246, et seq.; Val. Flacc. v. 155, where the Caucasus is called Promethei cubile: Strab. iv. p. 183, xi. p. 505, who expressly asserts that the Caucasus was the easternmost mountain known to the earlier Greeks; and adds that it was, in later myths, the scene of expeditions of Heracles and Dionysus.) Hecataeus mentions the Caucasus twice, in con- nection with the Dandarii and Coli, peoples who dwelt about it; and he adds that the lower parte of the chain were called Colici Montes (KvAucci 6pri; Fr. 161, 186, ap. Steph. B. s. w, Aay^dpioi, KwAoi; oomp. Plin. vi. 5.) Herodotus shows a general know- ledge 'if the chain, which is accurate as &r as it goes: he derived it from the Persians, of whose empire the Caucasus was the N. boundary ; a boundary, indeed, never passed by any Asiatic conqueror till the time of Zenghis Khan. (Herod, iii. 97 ; Heeren, Jdeen, &c. vol. i. pt. 1. p. 148). He describes it as ex- tending along the W. side of the Caspian Sea, and as the loftiest of mountains, and the greatest in