Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/249

 B. xi. c. vii. 1. HYRCANIA. 241 if, under the form of history, they related what they had never seen nor heard, (not at least from eye-witnesses,) and had no other object than to please and surprise the reader. A person would more readily believe the stories of the heroes in Hesiod, Homer, and in the tragic poets, than Ctesias, He- rodotus, Hellanicus, and writers of this kind. 4. We cannot easily credit the generality of the historians of Alexander, for they practise deception with a view to en- hance the glory of Alexander ; the expedition also was direct- ed to the extremities of Asia, at a great distance from our country, and it is difficult to ascertain or detect the truth or falsehood of what is remote. The dominion of the Romans and of the Parthians has added very much to former dis- coveries, and the writers who speak of these people describe nations and places, where certain actions were performed, in a manner more likely to produce belief than preceding histttapsjr -.*. for they had better opportunities of personal observation. CHAPTER VII. V*^ 1. THE nomades, or wandering tribes, who live on the left side of the coast on entering the Caspian Sea, are called by the moderns Daha3, and surnamed Parni. 1 Then there inter- venes a desert tract, which is followed by Hyrcania ; here the Caspian spreads like a deep sea till it approaches the Median and Armenian mountains. The shape of these hills at the foot is lunated. 2 Their extremities terminate at the sea, and form the recess of the bay. A small part of this country at the foot of the mountains, as far as the heights, if we reckon from the sea, is inhabited by some tribes of Albanians and Armenians, but the greater por- tion by Gelas, Cadusii, Amardi, Vitii, and Anariacse. It is said, that some Parrhasii were settled together with the Anariaca?, who are now called Parrhasii, (Parsii ?) and that the ^Enianes built a walled city in the territory of the Vitii, which city is 1 C. viii. 2. 2 At tibi coepit in latitudinem pandi lunatis obliquatur cornibus. Pliny, N. H.