Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/275

 B. xi. c. xiv. 1, 2. ARMENIA. 267 dried, and bread of roasted almonds ; they express a wine from some kind of roots. They eat the flesh of wild animals, and do not breed any tame animals. So much then respect- ing the Medes. As to the laws and customs in common use throughout the whole of Media, as they are the same as those of the Persians in consequence of the establishment of the Persian empire, I shall speak of them when I give an ac- count of the latter nation. CHAPTER XIV. 1. THE southern parts of Armenia lie in front of the Tau- rus, which separates Armenia from the whole of the country situated between the Euphrates and the Tigris, and which is called Mesopotamia. The eastern parts are contiguous to the Greater Media, and to Atropatene. To the north are the range of the mountains of Parachoathras lying above the Caspian Sea, the Albanians, Iberians, and the Caucasus. The Caucasus encircles these nations, and approaches close to the Armenians, the Moschic and Colchic mountains, and ex- tends as far as the country of the people called Tibareni. On the west are these nations and the mountains Paryadres and Scydises, extending to the Lesser Armenia, and the country on the side of the Euphrates, which divides Armenia from Cappadocia and Commagene. 2. The Euphrates rises in the northern side of the Tau- rus, and flows at first towards the west through Armenia, it then makes a bend to the south, and intersects the Taurus between the Armenians, Cappadocians, and Commageni. Then issuing outwards and entering Syria, it turns towards the winter sun-rise as far as Babylon, and forms Mesopotamia with the Tigris. Both these rivers terminate in the Persian Gulf. Such is the nature of the places around Armenia, almost all of them mountainous and rugged, except a few. tracts which verge towards Media. To the above-mentioned Taurus, which commences again in the country on the other side of the Euphrates, occupied