Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/361

 Cliap. 24.] ACCOUNT OF C0TJ3TTEIES, ETC. 327 In the middle of the curve it is joined by the mouth of Lake Mseotis, Avhich is called the Cimmerian^ Bosporus, and is two miles and a half in width. Between the two Bospori, the Thracian and the Cimmerian, there is a distance in a straight line, of 500 miles, as Polybius informs us. We learn from Yarro and most of the ancient writers, that the circumference of the Eiixine is altogether 2150 miles ; but to this number Cornelius Nepos adds 350 more ; while Artemidorus makes it 2919 miles, Agrippa 23G0, and jMu- cianus 2425, In a similar manner some writers have fixed the length of the European shores of this sea at 1478 miles, others again at 1172. M. Yarro gives the measurement as follows : — from the mouth of the Euxine to Apollonia 187 miles, and to Callatis the same distance ; thence to the mouth of the Ister 125 miles ; to the Borysthenes 250 ; to Chersonesus-, a town of the Heracleota?, 325 ; to Pantica- pseum^, by some called Bosporus, at the very extremity of the shores of Europe, 212 miles : the whole of whieli added together, makes 1337^ miles. Agrippa makes the distance from Byzantium to the river Ister 560 miles, and from thence to Panticapseum, 635. Lake Maeotis, which receives the river Tanais as it flows from the Biphaean Mountains^ and forms the extreme boun- dary between Europe and Asia, is said to be 1406 miles in circumference ; which however some writers state at only 1125. From the entrance of this lake to the mouth of the Tanais in a straight line is, it is generally agreed, a distance of 375 miles. The inhabitants of the coasts of this fourth great Gulf of ' Now the Straits of Kaffa or Enikale. 2 Tliis town lay about the middloot'the Tauric Cliorsoncsus or Crimea, and was situate on a small peninsula, ealled the Smaller Chersonesus, to distinguish it from the larger one, of which it formed a part. It was founded by the inhabitants of the Pontic Ilcraclea, or Ileracleium, the site of which is unkno^'Tl. See note ^ to p. 333. 3 Now Kertsch, in tlic Crimea. It derived its name fi-om llic river Panticapes ; and was founded by llie ^lilesians about B.C. 5 tl. It was the residence of the Greek kings of Bosporus, and lience it was some- times so called. ■* " Tliirty-six" properly. 5 The Tanais or Don does not rise in the Kiiiha^an ^Mountains, or western branch of the Urahan chain, but on slightly elevated ground in the centre of European Russia.