[907] Du Theil justly remarks on the obscurity of this passage. His translation or paraphrase is as follows; “La troisième contiendra ce qui touche à l’isthme dont nous avons parlé; et, par suite, ceux des pays qui, au sud de cet isthme et des Pyles Caspiennes, mais toujours en deçà, ou, au moins, dans le sein même du Taurus, se succédant de l’est à l’ouest, se rapprochent le plus de l’Europe.” In B. ii. c. v. § 31, Strabo assigns Colchis to the third portion, but in this book to the first.
[908] The Kizil Ermak.
[909] B. i. c. iii. § 2.
[910] A district of wide extent in Central Asia, comprehending nearly the whole of ancient Persia; and bounded on the N. by the provinces of Bactriana, Margiana, and Hyrcania; on the E. by the Indus; on the S. by the Indian Ocean and the eastern portion of the Persian Gulf; and on the W. by Media and the mountains S. of the Caspian Sea. Its exact limits are laid down with little accuracy in ancient authors, and it seems to have been often confounded (as in Pliny, b. vi. c. 23, 25) with the small province of Aria. It comprehended the provinces of Gedrosia, Drangiana, Arachosia, Paropamisus mountains, Aria, Parthia, and Carmania. Smith, art. Ariana. See b. xv. c. ii. § 7, 8.
[911] The Aorsi and Siraci occupied the country between the Sea of Azoff, the Don, the Volga, the Caspian Sea, and the Terek. May not the Aorsi, says Gossellin, be the same as the Thyrsagetæ, Agathursi, Utidorsi, Adorsi, Alanorsi of other writers, but whose real name is Thyrsi? The Siraci do not appear to differ from the Soraci or Seraci of Tacitus, (Ann. xii. 15, &c.,) and may be the same as Iyrces, Ἰύρκες, afterwards called Turcæ.
[912] The country to the N. and N. E. of Anapa. By Bosporus we are to understand the territory on each side of the Straits of Kertch.
[913] B. ii. c. v. § 31.
[914] Cn. Pompeius Theophanes was one of the more intimate friends of Pompey, by whom he was presented with the Roman franchise in the presence of his army. This occurred in all probability about B. C. 62. Smith, art. Theophanes.
[915] About B. C. 16. Smith, art. Polemon I.
[916] If there ever did exist such a city as Tanaïs I should expect to find it at the extremity of that northern embouchure of the Don, which I have before mentioned as bearing the very name the Greeks gave to the city, with the slightest variation of orthography, in the appellation Tdanaets or Danaetz. Clarke’s Travels in Russia, chap. 14.