[3888] The Gulf of Satalieh or Adalia.
[3889] Still known as Cape Khelidonia or Cameroso.
[3890] Parisot remarks here, “Pliny describes on this occasion, with an exactness very remarkable for his time, the chain of mountains which runs through the part of Asia known to the ancients, although it is evident that he confines the extent of them within much too small a compass.”
[3891] The Caspian and the Hyrcanian Seas are generally looked upon as identical, but we find them again distinguished by Pliny in B. vi. c. 13, where he says that this inland sea commences to be called the Caspian after you have passed the river Cyrus (or Kúr), and that the Caspii live near it; and in C. 16, that it is called the Hyrcanian Sea, from the Hyrcani who live along its shores. The western side would therefore in strictness be called the Caspian, and the eastern the Hyrcanian Sea.
[3892] “The name of Imaüs was, in the first instance, applied by the Greek geographers to the Hindú-Kúsh and to the chain parallel to the equator, to which the name of Himâlaya is usually given at the present day. The name was gradually extended to the intersection running north and south, the meridian axis of Central Asia, or the Bolor range. The divisions of Asia into ‘intra et extra Imaum,’ were unknown to Strabo and Pliny, though the latter describes the knot of mountains formed by the intersections of the Himâlaya, the Hindú-Kúsh, and Bolor, by the expression ‘quorum (Montes Emodi) promontorium Imaüs vocatur.’ The Bolor chain has been for ages, with one or two exceptions, the boundary between the empires of China and Turkestan.”—Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of Ancient Geography.
[3893] The Gates of Armenia are spoken of in B. vi. c. 12, the Gates of the Caspian in C. 16 of the same Book, and the Gates of Cilicia in C. [22] of the present Book.
[3894] See C. ix. of the next Book.
[3895] “Strabo gives this name to only the eastern portion of the Caucasian chain which overhangs the Caspian Sea and forms the northern boundary of Albania, and in which he places the Amazons. Mela seems to apply the name to the whole chain which other writers call Caucasus, confining the latter term to a part of it. Pliny (B. v. c. [27] & B. vi. c. 11) gives precisely the same representation, with the additional error of making the Ceraunii (i. e. the Caucasus of others) part of the Great Taurus Chain. He seems to apply the name of Caucasus to the spurs which spread out both to the north-east and the south-east from the main chain near its eastern extremity, and which he regarded as a continuous range, bordering the western shores of the Caspian. See B. vi. c. 10.”—Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of Ancient Geography.
[3896] Of Chelidonium, now Khelidonia, formed by the range of Taurus.
[3897] See B. ii. c. [110]. The flame which continually burned on this mountain has been examined by Beaufort, the modern traveller. The name of the mountain is now Yanar: it is formed of a mass of scaglia with serpentine. Spratt says that the flame is nothing more than a stream of inflammable gas issuing from a crevice, such as is seen in several places in the Apennines. By Homer it is represented as a fabulous monster, which is explained by Servius, the commentator of Virgil, in the following manner. He says that flames issue from the top of the mountain, and that there are lions in the vicinity; the middle part abounds in goats, and the lower part with serpents. Simena appears to be unknown.