[215] Ὀργυιά.] A great depth. We cannot suppose the snow to have been of that depth everywhere. None of the commentators make any remark.
[216] Ἐβουλιμίασαν.] Spelman quotes a description of the βουλιμία or βούλιμος from Galen Med. Def., in which it is said to be "a disease in which the patient frequently craves for food, loses the use of his limbs, falls down, turns pale, feels his extremities become cold, his stomach oppressed, and his pulse feeble." Here, however, it seems to mean little more than a faintness from long fasting.
[217] That this number is corrupt is justly suspected by Weiske, and shown at some length by Krüger de Authent. p. 47. Bornemann, in his preface, p. xxiv., proposes ἑπτὰ καὶ ἑκατὸν, a hundred and seven. Strabo, xi. 14, says that the satrap of Armenia used to send annually to the king of Persia twenty thousand horses. Kühner. Krüger, 1. c., suggests that Xenophon may have written Σ' two hundred, instead, of ΙΖ', seventeen. In sect. [35] we find Xenophon taking some of these horses himself, and giving one to each of the other generals and captains; so that the number must have been considerable.
[218] "This description of a village on the Armenian uplands applies itself to many that I visited in the present day. The descent by wells is now rare, but is still to be met with; but in exposed and elevated situations, the houses are uniformly semi-subterraneous, and entered by as small an aperture as possible, to prevent the cold getting in. Whatever is the kind of cottage used, cows, sheep, goats, and fowls participate with the family in the warmth and protection thereof." Ainsw. Travels, p. 178.
[219] Οἶνος κρίθινος.] Something like our beer. See Diod. Sic. i. 20, 34; iv. 2; Athenæus i. 14; Herod, ii. 77; Tacit. Germ. c. 23. "The barley-wine I never met with." Ainsw. p. 178.
[220] The reeds were used, says Krüger, that none of the grains of barley might be taken into the mouth.
[221] Xenophon seems to mean grape-wine, rather than to refer to the barley-wine just before mentioned, of which the taste does not appear to have been much liked by the Greeks. Wine from grapes was not made, it is probable, in these parts, on account of the cold, but Strabo speaks of the οἶνος Μοναρίτης of Armenia Minor as not inferior to any of the Greek wines. Schneider.
[222] Σκηνοῦντας.] Convivantes, epulantes. Comp. v. 3. 9; vii. 3. 15. Kühner. Having no flowers or green herbs to make chaplets, which the Greeks wore at feasts, they used hay.
[223] This is rather oddly expressed; for the guide and the chief were the same person.
[224] Not the Colchian Phasis, which flows into the Euxine, but a river of Armenia (Ἀράξης, now Aras) which runs into the Caspian. See Ainsworth, Travels, p. 179, 247. However Xenophon himself seems to have confounded this Phasis with that of Colchis. See Rennell, p. 230. Kühner.