Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/128

 114 STRABO. close to the sea, and those next the Bosphorus, 1 the vine brings its fruit to maturity, although the grapes are exceedingly- small, and the vines are covered up all the winter. And in the parts near the mouth of the Palus Mseotis, the frost is so strong that a general of Mithridates defeated the barbarians here in a cavalry engagement during the winter, and on the very same spot in a naval fight in summer, when the ice was thawed. Eratosthenes furnishes us with the following inscription, which he found in the temple of JEsculapius at Panticapaseon, 2 on a brazen vase which had been broken by the frost : '.' If any one doubts the intensity of our winter's cold, let him believe when he sees this vase. The priest Stratius placed it here, not because he considered it a worthy offering to the god, but as a proof of the severity of our winter." Since therefore the provinces we have just enumerated [are so superior in climate, that they] cannot be compared with the countries surrounding the Bosphorus, nor even the regions of Amisus and Sinope, (for every one will admit that they are much superior to these latter,) it would be idle to compare them with the districts near the Borysthenes and the north of Keltica ; for we have shown that their tem- perature is not so low as Amisus, Sinope, Byzantium, and Marseilles, which are universally acknowledged to be 3700 stadia south of the Dnieper and Keltica. 17. If the followers of Deiraachus add to the 30.000 sta- dia the distance to Taprobanc and the boundaries of the torrid zone, which cannot be reckoned less than 4000 stadia, 3 they will then remove Bactria and Aria from their actual localities and place them 34,000 stadia from the torrid zone, a distance equal to that which Hipparchus states to be be- tween the equator and [the mouth of] the Dnieper, and the two countries will therefore be removed 8800 stadia north of [the mouth of] the Dnieper and Keltica ; for there are reckoned to be 8800 stadia from the equator to the parallel of latitude which separates the temperate from the tor- 1 The Strait of Zabache. 2 Kertsch in the Crimea. 3 Strabo is too fond of this kind of special pleading : before, in order to controvert Hipparchus, he estimated this distance at 3000 stadia; now he adds an additional thousand stadia in order to get a latitude which shall be the southern limit of the habitable earth.