CHAP. 24.—THE HELLESPONT.—THE LAKE MÆOTIS.
The fourth great Gulf of Europe begins at the Hellespont
and ends at the entrance of the Mæotis[1]. But in order
that the several portions of the Euxine and its coasts may
be the better known, we must briefly embrace the form
of it in one general view. This vast sea, lying in front of
Asia, is shut out from Europe by the projection of the shores
of the Chersonesus, and effects an entrance into those countries by a narrow channel only, of the width, as already
mentioned, of seven stadia, thus separating Europe from
Asia. The entrance of these Straits is called the Hellespont; over it
Xerxes, the king of the Persians, constructed a bridge of boats,
across which he led his army.
A narrow channel extends thence a distance of eighty-six
miles, as far as Priapus[2], a city of Asia, at which Alexander
the Great passed over. At this point the sea becomes
wider, and after some distance again takes the form of a
narrow strait. The wider part is known as the Propontis[3],
the Straits as the Thracian Bosporus[4], being only half-a-
mile in width, at the place where Darius, the father of
Xerxes, led his troops across by a bridge. The extremity of
this is distant from the Hellespont 239 miles.
We then come to the vast sea called the Euxine, which
invades the land as it retreats afar, and the name of which
was formerly Axenus[5]. As the shores bend inwards, this
sea with a vast sweep stretches far away, curving on both
sides after the manner of a pair of horns, so much so that in
shape it bears a distinct resemblance to a Scythian bow[6].
In the middle of the curve it is joined by the mouth of
Lake Mæotis, which is called the Cimmerian[7] Bosporus,
and is two miles and a half in width. Between the two
Bospori, the Thracian and the Cimmerian, there is a distance
in a straight line, of 500 miles, as Polybius informs us. We
learn from Varro and most of the ancient writers, that the
circumference of the Euxine is altogether 2150 miles; but
to this number Cornelius Nepos adds 350 more; while
Artemidorus makes it 2919 miles, Agrippa 2360, and Mucianus 2425. In
a similar manner some writers have fixed
the length of the European shores of this sea at 1478 miles,
others again at 1172. M. Varro gives the measurement as
follows:—from the mouth of the Euxine to Apollonia 187
miles, and to Callatis the same distance; thence to the
mouth of the Ister 125 miles; to the Borysthenes 250; to
Chersonesus[8], a town of the Heracleotæ, 325; to
Panticapæum[9], by some called Bosporus, at the very extremity
of
the shores of Europe, 212 miles: the whole of which added
together, makes 1337[10] miles. Agrippa makes the distance
from Byzantium to the river Ister 560 miles, and from
thence to Panticapæum, 635.
Lake Mæotis, which receives the river Tanais as it flows
from the Riphæan Mountains[11], and forms the extreme boundary
between Europe and Asia, is said to be 1406 miles in
circumference; which however some writers state at only
1125. From the entrance of this lake to the mouth of the
Tanais in a straight line is, it is generally agreed, a distance
of 375 miles.
The inhabitants of the coasts of this fourth great Gulf of
Europe, as far as Istropolis, have been already[12] mentioned in
our account of Thrace. Passing beyond that spot we come
to the mouths of the Ister. This river rises in Germany in
the heights of Mount Abnoba[13], opposite to Rauricum[14], a
town of Gaul, and flows for a course of many miles beyond
the Alps and through nations innumerable, under the name
of the Danube. Adding immensely to the volume of its
waters, at the spot where it first enters Illyricum, it assumes
the name of Ister, and, after receiving sixty rivers, nearly
one half of which are navigable, rolls into the Euxine by
six[15] vast channels. The first of these is the mouth of
Peuce[16], close to which is the island of Peuce itself, from
which the neighbouring channel takes its name; this mouth
is swallowed up in a great swamp nineteen miles in length.
From the same channel too, above Istropolis, a lake[17] takes
its rise, sixty-three miles in circuit; its name is Halmyris.
The second mouth is called Naracu-Stoma[18]; the third, which
is near the island of Sarmatica, is called Calon-Stoma[19]; the
fourth is known as Pseudo-Stomon[20], with its island
called Conopon-Diabasis[21]; after which come the Boreon-
Stoma[22] and the Psilon-Stoma[23]. These mouths are each of
them so considerable, that for a distance of forty miles, it is
said, the saltness of the sea is quite overpowered, and the
water found to be fresh.
1. Now generally known as the Palus Mæotis or Sea of Azof.
2. The modern Caraboa, according to Brotier, stands on its site.
Priapus was the tutelary divinity of Lampsacus in this
vicinity.
3. Or "entrance of Pontus"; now the Sea of Marmora.
4. "Ox Ford," or "passage of the cow," Io being said to have crossed
it in that form: now called the "Straits of Constantinople."
5. Said to have been called a)/cenos or "inhospitable,"
from its frequent
storms and the savage state of the people living on its shores. In later
times, on the principle of Euphemism, or abstaining from words of ill
omen, its name was changed to eu)/ceinos "hospitable."
6. This was a favourite comparison of the ancients; the north coast,
between the Thracian Bosporus and the Phasis, formed the bow, and the
southern shores the string. The Scythian bow somewhat resembled in
form the figure S, the capital Sigma of the Greeks.
7. Now the Straits of Kaffa or Enikale.
8. This town lay about the middle of the Tauric Chersonesus or Crimea,
and was situate on a small peninsula, called the Smaller Chersonesus, to
distinguish it from the larger one, of which it formed a part. It was
founded by the inhabitants of the Pontic Heraclea, or Heracleium, the
site of which is unknown. See note9 to p. 333.
9. Now Kertsch, in the Crimea. It derived its name from the river
Panticapes; and was founded by the Milesians about B.C. 541. It was
the residence of the Greek kings of Bosporus, and hence it was
sometimes so called.
10. "Thirty-six" properly.
11. The Tanais or Don does not rise in the Riphæan Mountains, or
western branch of the Uralian chain, but on slightly elevated ground in
the centre of European Russia.
12. Chap. 18 of the present Book. Istropolis is supposed to be the
present Istere, though some would make it to have stood on the site of
the present Kostendsje, and Brotier identifies it with Kara-Kerman.
13. Now called the Schwarzwald or Black Forest. The Danube or Ister
rises on the eastern side at the spot called Donaueschingen.
14. So called from the Raurici, a powerful people of Gallia Belgica, who
possessed several towns, of which the most important were Augusta, now
Augst, and Basilia, now Bâle.
15. Only three of these are now considered of importance, as being the
main branches of the river. It is looked upon as impossible by modern
geographers to identify the accounts given by the ancients with the
present channels, by name, as the Danube has undergone in lapse of time,
very considerable changes at its mouth. Strabo mentions seven mouths,
three being lesser ones.
16. So called, as stated by Pliny, from the island of Peuce, now Piczina.
Peuce appears to have been the most southerly of the mouths.
17. Now called Kara-Sou, according to Brotier. Also called Rassefu
in the maps.
18. Now called Hazrali Bogasi, according to Brotier. It is called by
Ptolemy the Narakian Mouth.
19. Or the "Beautiful Mouth." Now Susie Bogasi, according to Brotier.
20. Or the "False Mouth": now the Sulina Bogasi, the principal mouth
of the Danube, so maltreated by its Russian guardians.
21. Or the "Passage of the Gnats," so called from being the resort of
swarms of mosquitoes, which were said at a certain time of the year to
migrate to the Palus Mæotis. According to Brotier the present name
of this island is Ilan Adasi, or Serpent Island.
22. The "Northern Mouth ": near the town of Kilia.
23. Or the "Narrow Mouth."