When I was sailing up the Nile, schœni of different measures were used in passing from one city to another, so that the same number of schoeni gave in some places a longer, in others a shorter, length to the voyage. This mode of computation has been handed down from an early period, and is continued to the present time.
6. In proceeding from Hyrcania towards the rising sun as far as Sogdiana, the nations beyond (within?) the Taurus were known first to the Persians, and afterwards to the Macedonians and Parthians. The nations lying in a straight line[1020] above these people are supposed to be Scythian, from their resemblance to that nation. But we are not acquainted with any expeditions which have been undertaken against them, nor against the most northerly tribes of the nomades. Alexander proposed to conduct his army against them, when he was in pursuit of Bessus and Spitamenes, but when Bessus was taken prisoner, and Spitamenes put to death by the Barbarians, he desisted from executing his intention.
It is not generally admitted, that persons have passed round by sea from India to Hyrcania, but Patrocles asserts that it may be done.
7. It is said that the termination of Taurus, which is called Imaus, approaches close to the Indian Sea, and neither advances towards nor recedes from the East more than India itself. But on passing to the northern side, the sea contracts (throughout the whole coast) the length and breadth of India, so as to shorten on the East the portion of Asia we are now describing, comprehended between the Taurus and the Northern Ocean, which forms the Caspian Sea.
The greatest length of this portion, reckoned from the Hyrcanian Sea to the (Eastern) Ocean opposite Imaus, is about 30,000 stadia,[1021] the route being along the mountainous tract of Taurus; the breadth is less than 10,000 stadia.[1022] We have said before, that[1023] from the bay of Issus to the eastern sea along the coast of India is about 40,000 stadia, and to Issus from the western extremities at the pillars 30,000 stadia. The recess of the bay of Issus is little, if at all, more to the east than Amisus; from Amisus to Hyrcania is about 10,000 stadia in a line parallel to that which we have described as drawn from the bay of Issus to India. There remains therefore for the portion now delineated the above-mentioned length towards the east, namely, 30,000 stadia.[1024]
Again, since the breadth of the longest part of the habitable earth, which has the shape of a chlamys, (or a military cloak,) is about 30,000 stadia, this distance would be near the meridian line drawn through the Hyrcanian and the Persian Seas, for the length of the habitable earth is 70,000 stadia. If therefore from Hyrcania to Artemita[1025] in Babylonia are 8000 stadia according to Apollodorus of Artemita, and thence to the mouth of the Persian Sea 8000, and again 8000, or a little short of that number, to the places on the same parallel with the extremities of Æthiopia, there would remain, to complete the breadth as I have described it, of the habitable earth, the number of stadia[1026] which I have mentioned, reckoning from the recess of the Hyrcanian Sea to its mouth. This segment of the earth being truncated towards the eastern parts, its figure would resemble a cook’s knife, for the mountainous range being prolonged in a straight line, answers to the edge, while the shape of the coast from the mouth of the Hyrcanian Sea to Tamarus on the other side terminates in a circular truncated line.
8. We must mention some of the extraordinary circumstances which are related of those tribes which are perfectly barbarous, living about Mount Caucasus, and the other mountainous districts.
What Euripides expresses in the following lines is said to be a custom among them;