Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/339

Chap 18.] then come to Mount Serrium and Zone, and then the place called Doriscus , capable of containing ten thousand men, for it was in bodies of ten thousand that Xerxes here numbered his army. We then come to the mouth of the Hebrus, the Port of Stentor, and the free town of Ænos , with the tomb there of Polydorus , the region formerly of the Cicones.

From Doriscus there is a winding coast as far as Macron Tichos, or the "Long Wall," a distance of 122 miles; round Doriscus flows the river Melas, from which the Gulf of Melas receives its name. The towns are, Cypsela, Bisanthe , and Macron Tichos, already mentioned, so called because a wall extends from that spot between the two seas, — that is to say, from the Propontis to the Gulf of Melas, thus excluding the Chersonesus , which projects beyond it.

The other side of Thrace now begins, on the coast of the Euxine, where the river Ister discharges itself; and it is in this quarter perhaps that Thrace possesses the finest cities, Histropolis, namely, founded by the Milesians,

3 The Plain of Doriscus is now called the Plain of Romigik. Parisot suggests the true reading here to be 100,000, or, as some MSS. have it, 120,000, there being nothing remarkable in a plain containing 10,000 men. Pliny however does not mention it as being remarkable, but merely suggests that the method used by Xerxes here for numbering his host is worthy of attention.

4 Now the Maritza. At its mouth it divides into two branches, the eastern forming the port of Stentor.

6 A son of Priam and Hecuba, murdered by Polymnestor, king of the Thracian Chersonesus, to obtain his treasures. See the Æneid, B. iii.

7 From the Greek, μάκρον τεῑχος.

10 Now Rodosto, or Rodostshig, on the coast of the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora.

12 He here skips nearly five degrees of latitude, and at once proceeds to the northern parts of Thrace, at the mouth of the Danube, and moves to the south.

13 Or, the "city of the Ister," at the south of Lake Halmyris, on the Euxine. Its site is not exactly known; but by some it is supposed to have been the same with that of the modern Kostendsje.