Solinus: DE MIRABILIBUS MUNDI C.L.F. Panckoucke edition (Paris 1847)
Solinus•DE MIRABILIBUS MUNDI C.L.F. Panckoucke edition (Paris 1847)
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XXXIX. Cilicia. In ea Cydnus amnis, antrum Corycium, mons Taurus.
39. Cilicia. In it the river Cydnus, the Corycian cave, Mount Taurus.
Ciliciam, qua de agitur, si, ut nunc est, loquamur, derogasse videbimur fidei vetustatis; si terminos sequimur, quos habuit olim, absonum est a contemplatione rerum præsentium. Ergo inter utramque culpam factu optimum est, amborum temporum statum persequi. Cilicia antea usque Pelusium Ægypti pertinebat, Lydis, Medis, Armeniis, Pamphilia, Cappadocia, sub imperio Cilicum constitutis; mox ab Assyriis subacta, in breviorem modum scripta est.
Cilicia, which is under discussion, if we speak of it as it now is, we will seem to have derogated from the credit of antiquity; if we follow the boundaries which it once had, it is discordant with the contemplation of present things. Therefore, between either fault, the best course is to pursue the state of both times. Formerly Cilicia reached as far as Pelusium of Egypt, with the Lydians, Medes, Armenians, Pamphylia, and Cappadocia established under the dominion of the Cilicians; soon, subdued by the Assyrians, it was set down in a more contracted form.
For the most part it lies on a plain, receiving the Issic sea in a wide bay, shut in at the back by the ridges of the Taurus and Amanus mountains. It draws its name from Cilix, whom the pristine age has almost hidden beyond the span of memory. This man, born in Phoenicia, who is held older than Jove, is reckoned among the first nurslings of the earth.
This Choaspes is so sweet that the Persian kings, so long as it flows within the banks of Persia, claimed the cups for themselves from it alone; and when they had to travel abroad, they used to carry its waters with them. From that parent, therefore, the Cydnus draws marvelous suavity. Whatever is candid, the people there call “cydnum”; whence this river received its name.
Ibi Corycos oppidum est, et specus, qui montem impositum mari a summo cavat vertice, patulus hiatu amplissimo: nam, dejectis lateribus in terræ profundum, nemoroso orbe amplectitur mediam inanitatem, virens introrsus lucis pendentibus. Descensus in eum per duo millia et quingentos passus, non sine largo die, hinc inde fontium assidua scaturigine. Ubi perventum ad ima primi sinus, alter rursus specus panditur: quod antrum latis primum patet faucibus, postmodum in processu per angustias obscuratur.
There is there the town of Corycus, and a cavern, which hollows from the summit the mountain set upon the sea, wide-open with a most ample yawning; for, the sides having been cast down into the depth of the earth, it encircles in a nemorous ring the central void, green within with hanging groves. The descent into it is for two thousand and five hundred paces, not without ample daylight, on this side and that by the constant bubbling of springs. When one has come to the lowest parts of the first basin, another cavern again opens: which cave at first stands open with broad jaws, thereafter in its advance grows dark through narrowings.
In it there is a sacred shrine to Jove, a temple, in whose inmost recess the lair of the giant Typhon is set, as those who will have it, believe. Heliopolis was an ancient town of Cilicia, the fatherland of Chrysippus, most potent in Stoic wisdom; which, having been subdued by Tigranes the Armenian and left desolate for a long time, Cn. Magnus, with the Cilicians defeated, named Pompeiopolis.
Mons Taurus ab Indico primo mari surgit; deinde a scopulis Chelidoniis inter Ægyptium et Pamphylium pelagus objectus septentrioni dextero latere, lævo meridianæ plagæ, occidenti obversus fronte profusa. Prorsus palam est, terras eum continuare voluisse penetrato mari, nisi profundis resistentibus extendere radices suas vetaretur. Denique qui periclitantur naturas locorum, tentasse eum omnes exitus promontoriis probant: nam quoquorsum mari alluitur, procedit in prominentias; sed modo intercluditur Phúnicio, modo Pontico sinu, interdum Caspio vel Hyrcano: quibus renitentibus subinde fractus, contra Mæoticum lacum flectitur, multisque difficultatibus fatigatus, Riphæis se jugis annectit.
The Taurus mountain rises first from the Indian Ocean; then, projected from the Chelidonian cliffs between the Egyptian and the Pamphylian sea, with its right side to the north, its left to the meridian region, facing the west with a profuse front. It is altogether clear that it wished to continue the lands, having pierced the sea, if it had not been forbidden, the depths resisting, to extend its roots. Finally, those who make trial of the natures of places prove that it tried all exits with promontories: for whichever way it is washed by the sea, it advances into prominences; but now it is shut off by the Phoenician, now by the Pontic gulf, sometimes by the Caspian or Hyrcanian; by whose resistance, being repeatedly broken, it bends toward the Maeotic lake, and, wearied by many difficulties, it links itself to the Rhipaean ridges.
Named in many ways according to the variety of peoples and languages, among the Indians it is Imaus, next Paropamisus, Choatras among the Parthians, then Niphates, thence Taurus; and where it rises with the most exalted sublimity, Caucasus. Meanwhile it also draws an appellation from the nations: on the right side it is called Caspian or Hyrcanian, on the left Amazonian, Moschic, Scythic; besides these, it has many other vocables. Where it splits open with yawning ridges, it makes “gates,” of which the first are the Armenian, then the Caspian, afterward the Cilician. Into Greece it thrusts forth a vertex, where it is proclaimed Ceraunian.
40. Lycia. In it Mount Chimaera.
And since a fiery nature lies there beneath, the Lycians dedicated to Vulcan the city nearest at hand in Lycia, which, from the word of his own name, they call Hephaestia. Olympos also, among other things, there was a noble town, but it has perished: now it is a fortress, below which the royal waters, on account of the remarkable fluency of their flow, are a spectacle to those who visit.
41. Asia, Phrygia, Lydia, Teuthrania. In these, about the city of Ephesus, about Mount Mimas, about illustrious men, about the times of Homer and Hesiod, about the animal bonnacon, about the tombs of Ajax and Memnon, about the Memnonian birds, about the chameleon, about storks.
Sequitur Asia; sed non eam Asiam loquor, quæ in tertio orbis divortio terminos amnes habet, ab Ægyptio mari Nilum, a Mæotio lacu Tanaim: verum eam, quæ a Telmesso Lyciæ incipit, unde etiam Carpathius auspicatur sinus. Eant igitur Asiam ab oriente Lycia includit et Phrygia, ab occidente Ægea litora; a meridie mare Ægyptium, Paphlagonia a septentrione.
Asia follows; but I do not speak of that Asia which, in the third partition of the world, has rivers as its boundaries—on the side of the Egyptian Sea, the Nile; on the side of the Maeotian lake, the Tanais—but rather of that which begins from Telmessus of Lycia, whence also the Carpathian gulf takes its beginning. Therefore, Asia is bounded on the east by Lycia and Phrygia, on the west by the Aegean shores; on the south by the Egyptian Sea, on the north by Paphlagonia.
Ephesos in ea urbs clarissima est: Epheso decus templum Dianæ, Amazonum fabrica, adeo magnificum, ut Xerxes, quum omnia Asiatica templa igni daret, huic uni pepercerit; sed hæc Xerxi clementia sacras ædes non diu a malo vindicavit: namque Herostratus, ut nominis sui memoriam fama sceleris extenderet, incendium nobilis fabricæ manu sua struxit: sicut ipse fassus est, voto adipiscendæ famæ latioris. Notatur ergo eadem die conflagravisse templum Ephesi; qua Alexander Magnus Pellæ natus est. Qui oritur, ut Nepos edidit, M. Fabio Ambusto, Tito Quintio Capitolino consulibus post Romam conditam anno trecentesimo octogesimo quinto.
Ephesus in it is the most illustrious city: the ornament of Ephesus is the temple of Diana, a work of the Amazons, so magnificent that Xerxes, when he consigned all the Asiatic temples to fire, spared this one alone; but this clemency of Xerxes did not for long protect the sacred edifice from harm: for Herostratus, that he might extend the remembrance of his name by the fame of a crime, contrived with his own hand the burning of the noble structure: as he himself confessed, with the vow of attaining a wider fame. It is noted, therefore, that on the same day the temple at Ephesus went up in flames; on which Alexander the Great was born at Pella. He was born, as Nepos has recorded, in the consulship of Marcus Fabius Ambustus and Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, in the 385th year after the founding of Rome.
Ingenia Asiatica inclyta per gentes fuere. Pútæ Anacreon inde, Mimnermus, et Antimachus, deinde Hipponax, deinde Alcæus, inter quos etiam Sappho mulier; at historiæ conditores, Xanthus, Hecatæus, Herodotus: cum quibus Ephorus, et. Theopompus. Namque de septem sapientia præditis, Bias, Thales, Pittacus; Cleanthes, stoicæ eminentissimus; Anaxagoras naturæ indagator; Heraclitus etiam subtilioris doctrinæ arcanis immoratus.
Asian talents have been illustrious among the nations. Consider from there Anacreon, Mimnermus, and Antimachus, then Hipponax, then Alcaeus, among whom also Sappho, a woman; but the founders of history, Xanthus, Hecataeus, Herodotus: along with whom Ephorus and Theopompus. For indeed, of the seven endowed with wisdom, Bias, Thales, Pittacus; Cleanthes, most eminent of the Stoic school; Anaxagoras, an investigator of nature; Heraclitus too, dwelling upon the arcana of subtler doctrine.
Asiam excipit Phrygia, in qua Celæne, quæ antiquato priori nomine in Apamiam transit, oppidum a rege Seleuco postmodum constitutum. Istic Marsyas ortus, istic et sepultus; unde qui proximat fluvius, Marsyas dicitur: nam sacrilegi certaminis factum, et audaces in deum tibias testatur non procul cum fonte vallis, quæ eventum gesta rei signat, et ab Apamia decem millibus passuum separata, Aulocrene usque adhuc dicitur.
Phrygia takes up after Asia, in which is Celæne, which, its former name antiquated, passes into Apamea, a town afterward established by King Seleucus. There Marsyas was born, there also buried; whence the river that is near is called Marsyas: for the deed of the sacrilegious contest, and the flutes audacious against the god, are attested not far off by a valley with a spring, which marks the outcome of the thing done, and, separated from Apamea by 10 miles, is even to this day called Aulocrene.
Ex arce hujusce oppidi Mæander amnis caput tollit, qui recurrentibus ripis flexuosus inter Cariam et Ioniam præcipitat in sinum, qui Miletum dividit et Prienam. Ipsa Phrygia Troadi superjecta est, aquilonia parte Galatiæ collimitanea; meridiana Lycaoniæ, Pisidiæ, Mygdoniæque contermina; eidem ab oriente vicina Lydiæ; a septentrione Músiæ; Cariæ a parte, qua dies medius est.
From the citadel of this town the river Maeander lifts its head, which, with recurving banks, sinuous, between Caria and Ionia plunges into the gulf that divides Miletus and Priene. Phrygia itself is set over against the Troad, on the north sharing a boundary with Galatia; on the south contiguous with Lycaonia, Pisidia, and Mygdonia; to the same on the east near to Lydia; on the north to Mysia; to Caria on the side where it is midday.
In his locis animal nascitur, quod bonnacum dicunt, cui taurinum caput ac deinceps corpus omne; tantum juba equina. Cornua autem ita multiplici flexu in se recurrentia, ut si quis in ea offenderit, non vulneretur. Sed quidquid præsidii monstro illi frons negat, alvus sufficit: nam quum in fugam vertit, proluvie citi ventris fimum egerit per longitudinem trium jugerum, cujus ardor quidquid attigerit, amburit.
In these places an animal is born which they call the bonnacon, which has a taurine head and thereafter the whole body; only the mane is equine. Its horns, however, are so, by multiple flexion, recurving upon themselves that, if anyone runs afoul of them, he is not wounded. But whatever protection the front denies to that monster, the belly suffices: for when it turns to flight, by a proluvial outpouring of its swift belly it expels dung along the length of three iugera, the heat of which burns whatever it touches.
Smyrna, whence it especially shines, was the homeland to Homer the vates, who, after Ilium was captured, in the 272nd year, departed from human affairs, Agrippa Sylvius, son of Tiberinus, reigning at Alba, in the 160th year before the City was founded. Between him and Hesiod, it is thought, who died at the auspices of the first Olympiad, there were on average 138 years.
In Rhúteo litore Athenienses et Mitylenæi ad tumulum ducis Thessali Achillion oppidum condiderunt, quod propemodum interiit; deinde interpositis quadraginta ferme stadiis, in altero cornu ejusdem litoris ob honorem Salaminis Ajacis alterum oppidum, cui Æantio datum nomen est, Rhodii exstruxerunt.
On the Rhoetean shore the Athenians and the Mytileneans founded, by the tumulus of the Thessalian leader Achilles, the town Achilleion, which has almost perished; then, with nearly 40 stadia intervening, at the other horn of the same shore, in honor of Ajax of Salamis, the Rhodians built another town, to which the name Aeantion was given.
At juxta Ilium Memnonis stat aliud sepulcrum, ad quod sempiterno ex Æthiopia catervatim aves advolant, quas Ilienses Memnonias vocant. Cremutius auctor est, has easdem anno quinto in Æthiopia catervatim coire, et undique versum quod usquam gentium sit, ad regiam Memnonis convenire.
But near Ilium there stands another tomb of Memnon, to which, perpetually, birds fly in flocks from Ethiopia, which the Ilians call Memnonian. Cremutius is author that these same birds, every fifth year, flock together in Ethiopia, and from every quarter, from wherever in the world there are peoples, they assemble at the royal palace of Memnon.
Per omnem Asiam chamæleon plurimus, animal quadrupes, facie qua lacertæ, nisi crura recta et longiora ventri jungerentur; prolixa cauda, eademque in vertiginem torta; hamati ungues subtili aduncitate; incessus piger, et fere idem qui testudinum motus; corpus asperum squamosa cute, qualem in crocodilis deprehendimus; subducti oculi, et recessu concavo introrsum recepti, quos nunquam nictatione obnubit. Visum denique non circumlatis pupillis, sed obtutu rigidi orbis intentat. Hiatus ejus æternus, ac sine ullius usus ministerio: quippe quum neque cibum capiat, neque potu alatur, nec alimento alio, quam haustu æris vivat.
All across Asia the chameleon is very plentiful, a quadruped animal, in aspect like the lizard, except that straight and longer legs are joined to the belly; a lengthened tail, and the same twisted into a spiral; hamate claws with a delicate hookedness; a sluggish gait, and nearly the same motion as that of tortoises; a body rough with a scaly skin, such as we detect in crocodiles; eyes drawn back and received inward in a hollow recess, which it never veils with nictation. Finally, it directs its sight not with pupils rolled about, but with the fixed gaze of a rigid orbit. Its gape is perpetual, and serving no use whatsoever: for it neither takes food, nor is nourished by drink, nor by any other aliment, but lives by a draught of air.
Its color is various, and mutable in moments, so that to whatever thing it has joined itself, it becomes concolor with it. There are two colors which it cannot fashion, red and white; the rest it easily feigns. A body almost without flesh, the vitals without a spleen; nor is anything except a very small amount of blood found in the little heart.
It lies hidden in winter, is brought forth in spring. It is assailable by the raven, by whom, when it has been slain, it destroys its own victor: for if the bird eats even a small bit of it, it dies immediately; but the raven too has a safeguard for remedy, nature extending her hand: for when it understands itself to be afflicted, with a laurel leaf taken it recovers health.
Pythonos Come in Asia locus est campis patentibus, ubi primo adventus sui tempore ciconiæ advolant, et eam, quæ ultima advenerit, lancinant universæ. Aves istas ferunt linguas non habere, verum sonum, quo crepitant, oris potius quam vocis esse. Eximia illis inest pietas: etenim quantum temporis impenderint fútibus educandis, tantum et ipsæ a pullis suis invicem aluntur. Ita enim impense nidos fovent, ut incubitus assiduitate plumas exuant.
Pythonos Come is a place in Asia on open plains, where at the time of their first arrival storks fly in, and they all lacerate the one which has arrived last. These birds are said not to have tongues, but that the sound with which they rattle is of the mouth rather than of the voice. Exceptional piety is in them: indeed, as much time as they have expended upon rearing their offspring, by so much they in turn are fed by their own chicks. For so earnestly do they warm the nests, that by the assiduity of their incubation they shed their feathers.
42. Galatia.
43. Bithynia. In it Hannibal's end and sepulchre.
In ea Prusiadem urbem alluit Hylas flumen, et perspergit Hylas lacus, in quo resedisse credunt delicias Herculis, Hylam puerum, nymphis rapinam: in cujus memoriam usque adhuc solemni cursitatione lacum populus circumit, et Hylam voce clamant.
In it the river Hylas washes the city Prusias, and the lake Hylas besprinkles it, in which they believe there came to rest the delight of Hercules, the boy Hylas, a rapine by the nymphs; in whose memory even to this day the people circle the lake with a solemn coursing, and call Hylas aloud with their voice.
In Bithyno quoque agro Lybyssa locus Nicomediæ proximus, sepulcro Hannibalis famæ datus: qui post Carthaginiense judicium transfuga ad regem Antiochum, deinde post Antiochum apud Thermopylas pugnantem mala pugna, fractumque regem fortunæ vicibus, in hospitium Prusiæ devolutus, ne traderetur Tito Quintio ob hanc causam in Bithyniam misso, captivusque Romam veniret, veneni mali poculo animam expulit, et ab Romanis se vinculis morte defendit.
In the Bithynian countryside too, the place Lybyssa, very near to Nicomedia, was given to the fame of Hannibal by his sepulchre: who, after the Carthaginian judgment, as a defector to King Antiochus, and then, after Antiochus had fought at Thermopylae in a disastrous battle, and the king had been broken by the vicissitudes of fortune, having fallen into the hospitality of Prusias, lest he be handed over to Titus Quinctius, sent into Bithynia for this cause, and come to Rome a captive, expelled his spirit by a cup of baleful poison, and defended himself from Roman chains by death.
44. The harbor of Aconae and the Acherusian cave.
In ora Pontica post Bosphori fauces, et Rhesum amnem, portumque Calpas, Sagaris fluvius ortus in Phrygia, dictusque a plerisque Sangarius, exordium facit Maryandini sinus, in quo oppidum Heraclea appositum Lyco flumini; et Acone portus, qui proventu malorum graminum usque eo celebris est, ut noxias herbas aconita illinc nominemus. Proximus inde Acherusius specus, quem foraminis cæci profundo a usque inferna aiunt patere.
On the Pontic shore, after the jaws of the Bosporus, and the river Rhesus, and the port of Calpas, the river Sagaris, risen in Phrygia and by most called the Sangarius, makes the beginning of the Mariandynian gulf, in which the town Heraclea is set beside the river Lycus; and the port of Acone, which is so celebrated for the produce of baneful grasses that we name from there the noxious herbs, aconites. Next from there is the Acherusian cave, which they say stands open by the depth of a blind perforation all the way to the infernal regions.
45. Paphlagonia, and the origin of the Veneti.
Paphlagoniam limes a tergo Galaticus amplectitur. Ea Paphlagonia Carambi promontorio spectat Tauricam, consurgit Cytoro monte porrecto in spatium passuum trium et sexaginta millium, insignis loco Heneto: a quo, ut Cornelius Nepos perhibet, Paphlagones in Italiam transvecti, mox Veneti sunt nominati. Plurimas in ea regione urbes Milesii condiderunt, Eupatoriam Mithridates: quo subacto a Pompeio, Pompeiopolis est dicta.
Paphlagonia is embraced on its back by the Galatian frontier. That Paphlagonia, by the Carambis promontory, faces Taurica; it rises with Mount Cytorus stretched out to a length of 63,000 paces, notable at the place Henete: from which, as Cornelius Nepos asserts, Paphlagonians transported to Italy were soon named the Veneti. The Milesians founded very many cities in that region; Eupatoria, Mithridates; and when he was subdued by Pompey, it was called Pompeiopolis.
46. Cappadocia. On the horses there.
It passes by Lycaonia, Pisidia, Cilicia. It goes over the tract of Syria of Antiochia, with a part of another region stretching toward Scythia, divided from Greater Armenia by the river Euphrates: which Armenia takes its inception where the Parydri mountains are. Many renowned cities are in Cappadocia; but, to draw back our foot from others, the colony Archelaïs, which Claudius Caesar planted, the Halys flows past; Neocaesarea the river Lycus laves; Melita Semiramis founded; Mazaca, set beneath Argaeus, the Cappadocians hold as the mother of cities: which Argaeus, lofty with snowy ridges, not even in summer’s scorching lacks hoarfrost, and which, right there, the peoples believe to be inhabited by a god.
Terra illa ante alias altrix equorum, et proventui equino accommodatissima est. Quorum hoc in loco ingenium persequemur: nam equis inesse judicium documentis plurimis patefactum est, quum jam aliquot inventi sint, qui nonnisi primos dominos recognoscerent, obliti mansuetudinis, si quando mutassent consueta servitia. Inimicos partis suæ norunt adeo, ut inter prúlia hostes morsu petant.
That land, before others, is a nurse of horses, and most accommodating for equine produce. Of whom we shall here pursue the nature: for that judgment resides in horses has been made evident by very many proofs, since already several have been found who would recognize none but their first masters, forgetting their gentleness whenever they had changed their customary service. They know the enemies of their own party to such a degree that amid battles they assail foes by biting.
Alexandri Magni equus Bucephalus dictus, sive de aspectus torvitate, seu ab insigni, quod taurinum caput armo inustum gerebat, seu quod de fronte ejus quædam corniculorum protuberabant minæ; quum ab equario suo alias etiam molliter sederetur, accepto regio stratu neminem unquam alium præter dominum vehere dignatus est. Documenta ejus in prúliis plura sunt, quibus Alexandrum e durissimis certaminibus sospitem ope sua extulit: quo merito effectum, ut defuncto in India exsequias rex duceret, et suprema ornaret sepulcro; urbem etiam conderet, quam in nominis memoriam Bucephalam nominavit. Equus C. Cæsaris nullum præter Cæsarem dorso recepit.
The horse of Alexander the Great, called Bucephalus—whether from the grimness of his aspect, or from the insignia that he bore, a bull’s head branded on his shoulder, or because from his forehead certain menacing hornlets were protuberant—although by his groom at other times he was also ridden softly, once he had received the royal caparison he deigned to carry no one ever other than his lord. His proofs in battles are many, by which he brought Alexander forth safe from the hardest contests by his aid: whereby it came about deservedly that, when he died in India, the king led the obsequies and honored the last rites with a sepulcher; he even founded a city, which in memory of the name he named Bucephala. The horse of Gaius Caesar admitted no one upon his back except Caesar.
Whose forefeet they report to have had the appearance of a human footprint, just as he was set up before the temple of Venus Genetrix with this effigy. When a king of the Scythians had been slain in single combat and his victorious adversary wished to despoil him, the latter was lacerated by the horse with kicks and with bite. The Agrigentine region too is crowded with sepulchres of horses, because, in requital of their merits, the last offices are believed to have been rendered to them.
The spectacles of the Circus have revealed that pleasure is present in them: for some horses are provoked to running by the songs of pipes, some by dances, some by a variety of colors, and some even by lighted torches. Equine affection is proved by tears. Finally, when King Nicomedes was slain, his horse starved itself to death.
When in battle Antiochus had subdued the Galatians, he leapt upon the horse of a leader by the name Cintaretus, who had fallen in the line, intending to celebrate an ovation; and the horse so despised the curb-bits that, on purpose pitching headlong, by the fall he dashed down both himself and his rider alike. The natures of horses were likewise proved by the Circus-games of Claudius Caesar, when, their driver having been thrown, the four-horse teams outstripped the rival chariots no less by craft than by speed; and after the regulation laps had been run, they of their own accord halted at the place of the palm, as though demanding the prize of victory. Also, when the charioteer—whom they called Rutumannam—had been tossed out, the four-horse team, leaving the contest, sprang to the Capitol, nor did it stop, though hindered by people meeting it on the way, before it had thrice circled Tarpeian Jove with a rightward turn.
In hujusce animalis genere ætas longior maribus: nam legimus equum ad usque annos septuaginta vixisse. Jam illud non venit in ambiguum, quod in annum tertium et tricesimum generant, utpote qui etiam post vicesimum mittatur ad sobolem reficiendam. Notatum etiam advertimus, Opuntem nomine equum ad gregariam Venerem durasse in annos quadraginta.
In the kind of this animal, the lifespan is longer in the males: for we read that a horse lived up to 70 years. Now this is not in doubt, that they beget up to the 33rd year, inasmuch as the male too, even after the 20th, is sent to replenish the offspring. We also note it recorded that a horse by the name Opuntes endured in the gregarious Venus (herd-mating) for 40 years.
47. Assyria with Media. In these, on the origin of unguents, on the Medic tree.
Assyriorum initium Adiabene facit; in cujus parte Arbelitis regio est: quem locum victoria Alexandri Magni non sinit præteriri: nam ibi copias Darii fudit, ipsumque subegit, expugnatisque ejus castris in reliquo apparatu regis reperit scrinium unguentis refertum, unde primum Romana luxuria fecit ingressum ad odores peregrinos. Aliquantisper nos tamen virtute veterum ab hac vitiorum illecebra defensi sumus, atque adeo in censuram Publii Crassi, et Julii Cæsaris: qui edixerunt anno Urbis conditæ sexcentesimo sexagesimo quinto, ne quis unguenta inveheret peregrina. Postmodum vicerunt nostra vitia, et senatui adeo placuit odorum delicia, ut ea etiam in púnalibus tenebris uteretur: sicut L. Plotium, fratrem L. Planci bis consulis, proscriptum a triumviris, in Salernitana latebra unguenti odor prodidit.
Adiabene makes the beginning of the Assyrians; in a part of it is the Arbelaean region: a place which the victory of Alexander the Great does not allow to be passed over; for there he routed the forces of Darius and subdued the man himself, and, his camp having been stormed, in the rest of the royal apparatus he found a casket crammed with unguents, whence Roman luxury first made its entry to foreign odors. For a while, however, we were defended by the virtue of the ancients from this allurement of vices, and indeed down into the censorship of Publius Crassus and Julius Caesar, who proclaimed, in the 665th year from the founding of the City, that no one should import foreign unguents. Afterwards our vices prevailed, and the delight of odors so pleased the senate that it used them even in torchlit darkness: just as the smell of unguent betrayed L. Plotius, brother of L. Plancus, twice consul, proscribed by the triumvirs, in a Salernitan hiding-place.
Hos terrarum ductus excipit Media, cujus arbor inclaruit etiam carminibus Mantuanis: ingens ipsa, cui tale ferme, quale unedonibus folium est; tantum eo differt, quod spinosis fastigiis hispida turgescat. Malum inimicum venenis, sapore aspero, el amaritudinis meræ; odoris autem fragrantia plus quam jucundum, longeque sensibile. Verum pomorum illi tanta ubertas inest, ut onere proventus semper gravetur: nam protinus atque poma ejus deciderunt maturitate, alia protuberant, eaque tantum est opimitati mora, fútus ut decidant ante nati.
Media succeeds these tracts of the earth, whose tree has been made famous even in the Mantuan songs: vast in itself, whose leaf is almost such as that on the unedo-trees; it only differs in this, that it swells, rough with spiny tips. An apple inimical to venoms, of harsh savor, and of pure bitterness; yet its odor’s fragrance is more than pleasant, and perceptible from far away. But there is in it such abundance of apples, that by the burden of its yield it is always weighed down: for as soon as its fruits have fallen through ripeness, others bulge forth, and such is the delay to opulent fullness that the fruits drop before they are born.
48. Caspian Gates.
Caspiæ portæ panduntur· itinere manu facto, longo octo millibus passuum; nam latitudo vix est, plaustro permeabilis. In his angustiis etiam illud asperum, quod præcisorum laterum saxa liquentibus inter se salis venis, exundant humorem affluentissimum, qui constrictus vi caloris, velut in æstivam glaciem corporatur: ita labes invia accessum negat. Præterea octo et viginti millium passuum tractus omnis, quoquo inde pergitur, nullis puteis vel fontibus, sine præsidio sitit: tum serpentes undique gentium convenæ, a verno statim die illuc confluunt.
The Caspian Gates are opened· by a hand-wrought road, 8 miles long; for the breadth is scarcely passable by a wagon. In these narrows there is also this harshness: the rocks of the sheer-cut sides, with liquid veins of salt running among them, ooze a most abundant moisture, which, constricted by the force of heat, is compacted into a body, as if into summer ice: thus a pathless slime denies approach. Moreover, for a whole stretch of 28 miles, wherever one proceeds from there, with no wells or springs, it thirsts without succor: then serpents, newcomers from every quarter, straightway from the spring day, flock there.
49. The place Direum. The region Margiana, and the towns in it.
A Caspiis ad orientem versus est locus, quod Direum appellatur, cujus ubertati non est, quod uspiam comparari queat. Hunc circumsident Tapyri, Narieli, Hyrcani. Proximat ei Margiane regio, inclyta cúli ac soli commodis, adeo ut in toto illo latifundo vitibus sola gaudeat.
From the Caspians toward the east there lies a place which is called Direum, whose fertility has nothing anywhere that could be compared to it. This is encircled by the Tapyri, the Narieli, and the Hyrcani. Next to it is the region of Margiana, renowned for the advantages of climate and soil, to such a degree that in all that broad domain it alone rejoices in vines.
In a theatrical shape it is enclosed by mountains, with a circuit of 1,500 stadia, almost inaccessible on account of the inconvenience of the sandy solitude, which is spread around on every side for one hundred and twenty miles. Alexander the Great admired the amenity of this region to such a degree that there he first founded an Alexandria; which, soon cut down by the barbarians, Antiochus, son of Seleucus, rebuilt, and from the appellation of his house he named it Seleucia; the circuit of which city extends to seventy-five stadia. Into this city Orodes led the Romans captured in the disaster of Crassus.
50. Peoples around the river Oxus. The limit of the journeys of Liber Father and Hercules. Likewise the regions with the peoples.
Oxus amnis oritur de lacu Oxo, cujus oras hinc inde Bateni et Oxistacæ accolunt; sed præcipuam partem Bactri tenent. Bactris præterea est proprius amnis Bactros; unde et oppidum, quod incolunt, Bactrum. Gentis hujus quæ pone sunt, Paropamisi jugis ambiuntur; quæ aversa, Indi fontibus terminantur; reliqua includit Oxus flumen.
The Oxus River rises from Lake Oxus, whose shores on this side and that are inhabited by the Bateni and the Oxistacae; but the Bactrians hold the principal part. For the Bactrians, moreover, there is their own river, the Bactros; whence also the town which they inhabit, Bactrum. Of this people, those who are behind are encompassed by the ridges of the Paropamisus; those on the opposite side are bounded by the sources of the Indus; the remainder is enclosed by the Oxus River.
Ultra hos Panda oppidum Sogdianorum, in quorum finibus Alexander Magnus tertiam Alexandriam condidit, ad contestandos itineris sui terminos. Hic enim locus est, in quo primum a Libero patre, post ab Hercule, deinde a Semiramide, postremo etiam a Cyro aræ sunt constitutæ, quod proximum gloriæ omnes duxerint, illo usque promovisse itineris sui metas.
Beyond these is Panda, a town of the Sogdians, within whose borders Alexander the Great founded a third Alexandria, to attest the boundaries of his journey. For this is the place in which, first by Father Liber, then by Hercules, thereafter by Semiramis, and finally even by Cyrus, altars were constituted, because all judged it nearest to glory to have advanced the goals of their journey as far as that point.
Universi ejus ductus duntaxat ab illa terrarum parte Iaxartes fluvius secat fines, quem tamen Iaxartem soli vocant Bactri: nam Scythæ Silin nominant. Hunc eumdem esse Tanain exercitus Alexandri Magni crediderunt; verum Demodamas, dux Seleuci, et Antiochi, satis idoneus vero auctor, transvectus amnem istum, titulos omnium supergressus est, aliumque esse, quam Tanain, deprehendit. Ob cujus gloriæ insigne dedit nomini suo, ut altaria ibi statueret Apollini Didymæo. Hoc est collimitium, in quo limes Persicus Scythis jungitur; quos Scythas Persæ lingua sua Sacas dicunt, et invicem Scythæ Persas Chorsacos nominant, montemque Caucasum Croucassim, id est nivibus candidantem.
On that side of the earth, along the whole extent of its course, the river Iaxartes alone cuts the borders, which, however, only the Bactrians call Iaxartes; for the Scythians name it Silis. The army of Alexander the Great believed this same river to be the Tanais; but Demodamas, general of Seleucus and of Antiochus, a witness quite adequate to the truth, after crossing that river, outwent the markers of all, and discovered that it was other than the Tanais. As a badge of this glory he bestowed upon his own name the distinction of setting up altars there to Apollo Didymaeus. This is the co-boundary where the Persian frontier is joined to the Scythians; whom the Persians, in their own tongue, call the Sacae, and in turn the Scythians name the Persians the Chorsaci, and the mountain Caucasus they call Croucassim, that is, whitening with snows.
Here the most dense concourse of peoples, together with the Parthians, preserves the discipline of the law of the compact, uncorrupted from the origin of the custom. Among whom the most celebrated are the Massagetae, the Essedones, the Satarchae, and the Apalaei. After these, with most savage barbarians lying between, we observe that concerning the rite of the other nations it has been defined almost inconstantly.
Whence also a contrary defect occurs in walking, with no protecting support favoring the effort of standing firm. They are held for a twofold ministry: some are suited to bear burdens, others are swifter; but neither do the former take on weights beyond what is just, nor do the latter wish to go beyond their accustomed distances.
By a cupidity for begetting they are carried away to such a degree that they grow savage when they seek Venus. They hate the equine race. They even endure thirst for a four-day period; but when an occasion for drinking is given, they fill themselves so much as both to satiate past desires and to be useful for a long time in the future.
They catch muddy waters, they shun the pure. Finally, unless the liquor be more muddy, they themselves by assiduous trampling rouse the mud, so that it is made turbid. They endure for one hundred years, unless perhaps, when transferred into foreign parts, they contract diseases through the unusualness of altered air.
51. The Seres. Likewise the Seric fleece.
Qua ab Scythico Oceano, et mari Caspio in oceanum Eoum cursus inflectitur, ab exordio hujusce plagæ profundæ nives; mox longa deserta; post Anthropophagi, gens asperrima, dein spatia sævissimis bestiis efferata, ferme dimidiam itineris partem impenetrabilem reddiderunt. Quarum difficultatum terminum facit jugum mari imminens, quod Tabim barbari dicunt; post quæ adhuc longinquæ solitudines. Sic in tractu ejus oræ, quæ spectat æstivum orientem, ultra inhumanos situs primos hominum Seres cognoscimus, qui aquarum aspergine inundatis frondibus, vellera arborum adminiculo depectunt liquoris, et lanuginis teneram subtilitatem humore domant ad obsequium.
Where from the Scythian Ocean and the Caspian Sea the course is bent into the Eastern Ocean, from the beginning of this quarter there are deep snows; soon long deserts; after, the Anthropophagi, a most harsh nation; then stretches made wild by most savage beasts have made nearly half the journey’s course impenetrable. The end of these difficulties is a ridge overhanging the sea, which the barbarians call Tabis; after which there are still far‑distant solitudes. Thus, along the tract of that shore which looks toward the summer rising, beyond the inhuman sites we recognize the Seres as the first of mankind, who, when the leaves are inundated by a sprinkling of waters, comb the fleeces of trees with the aid of the liquid, and by moisture tame to compliance the tender subtlety of the down.
Seres ipsi quidem mites, et inter se quietissimi, et qui reliquorum mortalium cútus refugiant, adeo ut ceterarum gentium commercia abnuant. Primum eorum fluvium mercatores ipsi transeunt, in cujus ripis nullo inter partes linguæ commercio, sed depositarum rerum pretia oculis æstimantibus sua tradunt, nostra non emunt.
The Seres themselves indeed are mild, and among themselves most quiet, and they shun the company of the rest of mortals, to such a degree that they refuse the commerce of other nations. The first river of theirs the merchants themselves cross; on its banks, with no traffic of tongue between the parties, but with eyes appraising the prices of the deposited goods, they hand over their own; they do not buy ours.
Sequitur Attacenus sinus, et gens hominum Attacorum, quibus temperies prærogativa miram æris clementiam subministrat. Arcent sane afflatum noxium colles, qui salubri apricitate undique secus objecti prohibent auras pestilentes; atque ideo, ut Amometus affirmat, par illis et Hyperboreis genus vita est. Inter hos et Indiam gnarissimi Ciconas locaveruut.
Next follows the Attacene bay, and the nation of the Attaci, for whom a temperateness by prerogative supplies a wondrous clemency of the air. Truly the hills ward off the noxious breath, which, set opposite on every side with healthful sunniness, prohibit pestilential breezes; and therefore, as Amometus affirms, their kind of life is on a par with that of the Hyperboreans. Between these and India the most well‑informed have placed the Cicones.
LIII. India. In ea de ritu hominum et qualitate, de cúli clementia, de natura soli, de serpentibus Indicis, de leucrocotta bestia, de eale bestia, de tauris Indicis, de mantichora bestia, de bubus Indicis, de monocerote bestia, de anguillis Gangeticis, de Gangeticis vermibus, de balæna Indica, de physetere, de ave psittaco, de Indicis lucis, de ficu Indica, de Indicis arundinibus, de arboribus in insula Indiæ nascentibus, de piperis arbore, de ebeno, de adamante lapide, de lapide beryllo, de chrysoberyllo lapide, de chrysopraso lapide, de hyacinthizonte lapide.
53. India. In it: about the rites and quality of men, about the sky’s clemency, about the nature of the soil, about the Indian serpents, about the leucrocotta beast, about the eale beast, about the Indian bulls, about the manticore beast, about the Indian oxen, about the monoceros beast, about the Gangetic eels, about the Gangetic worms, about the Indian whale, about the physeter, about the bird parrot, about the Indian lights, about the Indian fig, about the Indian reeds, about the trees growing on the island of India, about the pepper tree, about ebony, about the adamant stone, about the beryl stone, about the chrysoberyl stone, about the chrysoprase stone, about the hyacinthizont stone.
Indeed, nor is anything in it doubtful: for, having been made known by the arms of Alexander the Great, and afterwards, by the diligence of other kings, thoroughly traversed, it has been wholly consigned to our knowledge. Megasthenes indeed, having stayed for some time among the Indian kings, wrote on Indian affairs, in order to give to memory the assurance which he had submitted to his eyes. Dionysius likewise, who also was himself sent as a spectator by King Philadelphus, for the sake of testing the truth, reported like things.
They hand down, therefore, that in India there were five thousand towns of principal capacity, and nine thousand peoples. For a long time, too, it was believed to be a third part of the lands. Nor let it be a wonder, whether about the abundance of men or of cities, since the Indians alone have never withdrawn from their natal soil.
Indiam Liber pater primus ingressus est, utpote qui Indis subactis omnium primus triumphavit. Ab hoc ad Alexandrum Magnum numerantur annorum sex millia quadringenti quinquaginta unus, additis et amplius tribus mensibus, habita per reges computatione, qui centum quinquaginta tres tenuisse medium ævum deprehenduntur.
Father Liber was the first to enter India, inasmuch as, with the Indians subdued, he was the very first of all to celebrate a triumph. From him to Alexander the Great there are counted 6,451 years, with more than 3 months added, the reckoning being made through the kings, who are found to have occupied the interval, 153 in number.
Maximi in ea amnes Ganges, et Indus: quorum Gangen quidam fontibus incertis nasci et Nili modo exsultare contendunt; alii volunt a Scythicis montibus exoriri. Hypanis etiam ibi nobilissimus fluvius, qui Alexandri Magni iter terminavit, sicuti aræ in ripa ejus positæ probant. Minima Gangis latitudo per octo millia passuum, maxima per viginti patet; altitudo, ubi vadosissimus est, mensuram centum pedum devorat.
The greatest rivers in it are the Ganges and the Indus: of which some contend that the Ganges is born from uncertain springs and overflows in the manner of the Nile; others maintain that it rises from the Scythian mountains. The Hypanis too is there a most noble river, which terminated the march of Alexander the Great, as the altars placed on its bank prove. The least breadth of the Ganges stretches for eight thousand paces, the greatest for twenty; its depth, where it is most shallow, devours the measure of one hundred feet.
Indorum quidam agros exercent, militiam plurimi, merces alii; optimi ditissimique rem publicam curant, reddunt judicia, assident regibus. Quietum ibi eminentissimæ sapientiæ genus est, vita repletos incensis rogis mortem accersere. Qui vero ferociori sectæ se dediderunt, et silvestrem agunt vitam, elephantos venantur, quibus perdomitis ad mansuetudinem aut arant, aut vehuntur.
Some of the Indians cultivate fields, very many the soldiery, others merchandise; the best and richest take care of the commonwealth, render judgments, sit beside kings. There, the tranquil genus of most preeminent wisdom is this: for those replete with life to summon death, the pyres having been set ablaze. But those who have surrendered themselves to a more ferocious sect and lead a woodland life hunt elephants; when these have been thoroughly subdued to gentleness they either plough with them or are conveyed by them.
Prasia gens validissima Palibotram urbem incolunt, unde quidem gentem ipsam Palibotros nominarunt. Quorum rex peditum sexaginta millia, equitum triginta millia, elephantorum octo millia omnibus diebus ad stipendium vocat. Ultra Palibotram mons Maleus, in quo umbræ hieme in septentriones, æstate in austros cadunt, vicissitudine hac durante mensibus senis.
The very powerful Prasian nation inhabit the city Palibotra, whence indeed they have named the people themselves Palibotros. Their king calls to pay and service every day 60,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, and 8,000 elephants. Beyond Palibotra is Mount Maleus, on which the shadows in winter fall toward the north, in summer toward the south, this vicissitude lasting for six months.
Pandæan people are ruled by women, to whom they assign as first queen a daughter of Hercules. And the city Nysa is given to that region. There is also a mountain sacred to Jove, by the name Meros, in whose cave the ancient Indians affirm that Liber Pater was nurtured; from the argument of that word, credence is given to the wanton rumor that Liber Pater was born from a thigh.
No funeral apparatus. Moreover, as it has been published in the books of the kings Juba and Archelaus, to the extent that the customs of the peoples are dissonant, their habit likewise is most discrepant: some are clothed with linen, others with woolen peploi, some are naked, some have only the obscene parts cloaked, very many even wrapped round with pliant bark-strips. Certain peoples are so tall that they leap over elephants, as over horses, with the easiest bounding.
Very many are pleased neither to kill an animal nor to feed on flesh. The greater part are nourished only by fish, and live from the sea. There are some who slaughter their nearest kin and parents—before they go into emaciation from years or sickness—like sacrificial victims; then they have the viscera of the slain for banquets, which there they reckon not in the place of crime but of piety.
Philosophos habent Indi, gymnosophistas vocant, qui ab exortu ad usque solis occasum contentis oculis orbem candentissimi sideris contuentur, in globo igneo, rimantes secreta quædam, arenisque ferventibus perpetem diem alternis pedibus insistunt. Ad montem, qui Nulo dicitur, habitant quibus adversæ plantæ sunt, et octoni digiti in plantis singulis. Megasthenes per diversos Indiæ montes esse scribit nationes capitibus caninis, armatas unguibus, amictas vestitu tergorum, ad sermonem humanum nulla voce, sed latratibus tantum sonantes, asperis rictibus.
The Indians have philosophers, whom they call gymnosophists, who from the rising all the way to the setting of the sun, with eyes fixed, gaze upon the orb of the most incandescent star, in its fiery globe, probing certain secrets, and upon the seething sands they stand for the whole day on alternate feet. By the mountain which is called Nulo there dwell those whose soles are turned backward, and who have eight toes on each sole. Megasthenes writes that through various mountains of India there are nations with canine heads, armed with claws, clothed with the raiment of hides, possessing no voice for human speech, but sounding only with barkings, with harshly gaping jaws.
In Ctesias one reads that certain women there give birth once, and that the newborns become hoary immediately. There is, again, another nation which in youth is hoary and blackens in old age, lasting beyond the limits of our lifetime. We read also that Monocoli are born there with single legs, and with singular celerity; who, when they wish to defend themselves from the heat, lying on their backs are shaded by the magnitude of their soles.
Those who dwell by the source of the Ganges, in need of no help for food, live by the odor of sylvan fruits, and, going farther, they carry those same things as a safeguard, so that by scent they may be nourished. But if by chance they draw in a more fetid breath, it is certain that they are rendered exanimate.
Among those, indeed, who have a more exact care for the rule of living, many wives enter into the marriage of the same man; and, when the husband has departed from life, before the most grave judges each pleads her own cause on the basis of her merits, and she who, more dutiful than the others, shall have prevailed by the sentence of the judges, carries off this reward of the palm: that, at her own discretion, she kindle her husband’s pyre, and at his last rites give herself as an offering; the rest live in disgrace.
Enormitas in serpentibus tanta est, ut cervos et animantium alia ad parem molem tota hauriant; quin etiam oceanum Indicum, quantus est, penetrent, et insulas magno spatio a continenti separatas pabulandi petant gratia. Idque ipsum palam est, non qualibet magnitudine evenire, ut per tantam sali latitudinem ad loca permeent destinata. Sunt illic multæ ac mirabiles bestiæ, quarum partem persequemur.
The enormity in serpents is so great that they swallow whole stags and other living creatures of a comparable mass; nay rather, they even penetrate the Indian Ocean, vast as it is, and make for islands separated from the continent by a great expanse for the sake of foraging. And this very fact is manifest: it does not occur to just any magnitude that they permeate across so great a latitude of the salt sea to the destined places. There are many and marvelous beasts there, of which we shall pursue a part.
Leucrocotta velocitate præcedit feras universas; ipsa asini feri magnitudine, cervi clunibus, pectore ac cruribus leoninis, capite melium, bisulca ungula, ore ad usque aures dehiscente, dentium locis osse perpetuo. Hæc quod ad formam; voce autem loquentium hominum sonos æmulatur.
The Leucrocotta precedes all wild beasts in speed; itself of the magnitude of a wild ass, with the haunches of a stag, with a leonine chest and legs, with the head of a badger, a cloven hoof, its mouth gaping up to the ears, and in the place of teeth a continuous bone. This as to form; in voice, moreover, it emulates the sounds of speaking humans.
Est et eale, ut equus cetera, cauda vero elephanti, nigro colore, maxillis aprugnis, præferens cornua ultra cubitalem modum longa, ad obsequium cujus velit motus accommodata: neque enim rigent, sed moventur, ut usus exigit prúliandi; quorum alterum quo cum pugnat, protendit, alterum replicat, ut si nisu aliquo fuerit alterius acumen obtusum, acies succedat alterius. Hippopotamis comparatur; et ipsa sane aquis fluminum gaudet.
There is also the eale, in other respects like a horse, but with the tail of an elephant, black in color, with boar-like jaws, bearing horns longer than a cubit, fitted to obey whatever movement it will: for they are not rigid, but move as the use of fighting requires; of which one, the one with which it fights, it extends, the other it folds back, so that if by some effort the point of the one has been blunted, the edge of the other may take its place. It is compared to hippopotami; and it too truly rejoices in the waters of rivers.
Indicis tauris color fulvus est, volucris pernicitas, pilus in contrarium versus, hiatus omne quod caput. Hi quoque circumferunt cornua flexibilitate qua volunt, tergi duritia omne telum respuunt, et tam immiti ferocitate, ut capti animas projiciant furore.
Indian bulls have a fulvous color, the swiftness of a bird, hair turned contrariwise, a gape—everything that is head. These too carry their horns about with whatever flexibility they wish, they repel every missile by the hardness of the hide, and are of so cruel a ferocity that, when captured, they throw away their lives in fury.
Mantichora quoque nomine inter hæc nascitur, triplici dentium versu cúunte ordinibus alternis, facie hominis, glaucis oculis, sanguineo colore, corpore leonino, cauda veluti scorpionis aculeo spiculata, voce tam sibila, ut imitetur modulos fistularum, tubarumque concinentum. Humanas carnes avidissime affectat. Pedibus sic viget, saltu sic potest, ut morari eam nec extentissima spatia possint, nec obstacula altissima.
The Manticore likewise by name is born among these, with a triple row of teeth running in alternating ranks, with the face of a human, glaucous eyes, a sanguine color, a leonine body, a tail spiculated as if with a scorpion’s sting, a voice so sibilant that it imitates the modulations of reed-pipes and of trumpets sounding in concert. It most avidly desires human flesh. It is so vigorous in its feet, so capable in leaping, that neither the most outstretched spaces nor the loftiest obstacles can delay it.
Sed atrocissimum est monoceros, monstrum mugitu horrido, equino corpore, elephanti pedibus, cauda suilla, capite cervino. Cornu e media fronte ejus protenditur, splendore mirifico, ad longitudinem pedum quatuor, ita acutum, ut quidquid impetat, facile ictu ejus perforetur. Vivus non venit in hominum potestatem: et interimi quidem potest, capi non potest.
But the most atrocious is the monoceros, a monster with horrid bellowing, with an equine body, elephantine feet, a swinish tail, a cervine head. A horn is extended from the middle of its forehead, with marvelous splendor, to a length of four feet, so sharp that whatever it attacks is easily perforated by its blow. Alive it does not come into the power of men: and indeed it can be slain, it cannot be captured.
Aquæ etiam gignunt miracula non minora. Anguillas ad tricenos pedes longas educat Ganges; quem Statius Sebosus inter miracula præcipua ait vermibus abundare, cæruleis nomine et colore. Hi bina habent brachia longitudinis cubitorum non minus senum, adeo robustis viribus, ut elephantos ad potum ventitantes, mordicus comprehensos ipsorum manu rapiant in profundum.
Waters too beget marvels no less great. The Ganges rears eels up to 30 feet long; Statius Sebosus says, among the chief miracles, that it abounds in worms, called “Ceruleans” and cerulean in color. These have two arms of a length of not less than 6 cubits, with strength so robust that elephants coming repeatedly to drink, seized by the trunk with a bite, they drag down into the deep.
The Indian seas have whales exceeding spaces of four iugera; and also those whom they call physeters, which, enormous beyond the mass of huge columns, lift themselves above the yardarms of ships, and the waves gulped through their pipes they thus belch forth, that with a stormy inundation they for the most part sink the hulls of those sailing.
Sola India mittit avem psittacum, colore viridem, torque puniceo, cujus rostri tanta duritia est, ut quum e sublimi præcipitat in saxum, nisu se oris excipiat, et quodam quasi fundamento utatur extraordinariæ firmitatis; caput vero tam valens, ut si quando ad discendum plagis siet admonendus, nam studet, ut quod homines alloquatur, ferrea clavicula sit verberandus. Dum in pullo est, atque adeo intra alterum ætatis suæ annum, quæ monstrata sunt, et citius discit, et retinet tenacius; major pullo, est et obliviosus, et indocilis. Inter nobiles et ignobiles discretionem digitorum facit numerus; qui præstant, quinos in pedes habent digitos, ceteri ternos; lingua lata, multoque latior quam ceteris avibus: unde perficitur ut articulata verba penitus eloquatur.
Only India sends the parrot, green in color, with a crimson collar; whose beak has such hardness that, when it precipitates from on high onto rock, it catches itself by the effort of its mouth, and uses, as it were, a certain foundation of extraordinary firmness; its head indeed so strong that, if ever it must be admonished for learning by blows—for it is eager to address human beings—it has to be beaten with a little iron rod. While it is in the chick stage, and indeed within the second year of its age, the things shown to it it both learns more quickly and retains more tenaciously; older than a chick, it is both forgetful and unteachable. Among the noble and the ignoble the number of toes makes the distinction: those that excel have five toes on the feet, the rest three; the tongue is broad, and much broader than in other birds: whence it comes about that it fully utters articulated words.
Indorum nemora in tam proceram sublimantur excelsitatem, ut transjaci ne sagittis quidem possint. Pomaria ficus habent, quarum codices in orbem spatio sexaginta passuum extuberantur; ramorum umbræ ambitu bina stadia consumunt; foliorum latitudo forma; Amazonicæ peltæ comparatur; pomum eximiæ suavitatis. Quæ palustria sunt, arundinem creant ita crassam, ut fissis internodiis, lembi vice vectitet navigantes.
The groves of the Indians are exalted to so tall a loftiness that they cannot be shot across even with arrows. The orchards have fig trees, whose trunks bulge out in a circle to a span of 60 paces; the shade of the branches, in its circuit, covers 2 stadia; the breadth and form of the leaves is compared to an Amazonian pelta-shield; the fruit is of exceptional sweetness. Those that are marshy produce reed so thick that, the internodes split, it carries voyagers in the stead of a skiff.
From there the Caucasus mountain begins, which penetrates the greatest part of the world with perpetual ridges. The same, on the front that is obverted to the sun, displays pepper trees, which they assert, in the similitude of the juniper, to bear diverse fruits. Of these, that which first bursts forth, like the fringe of hazels, is called long pepper; that which then, fallen, is toasted by the fervid sun, draws its appellation from its color; but that which is stripped from the tree itself, as it is, is called white pepper.
But, as only India sends pepper, so also it alone sends ebony; nor, however, does the whole of it, but only a small part of itself puts forth woods of this kind. The tree is for the most part slender, and more frequently a withe, rarely swelling into the thickness of a trunk, with gaping bark and very much reticulated, the veins dehiscing, so that through the very hollows the inmost part is scarcely covered by a thin inner bark; all the wood, and the core as well, are almost the same both in appearance and in luster as that which is in the gagate stone (jet). The kings of the Indians fashion scepters from it, and whatever images of the gods they have are only of ebony.
They likewise report that in that material a noxious liquid is not contained, and that whatever has been maleficent is averted by its touch: for this reason they have cups of ebony. Thus it is nothing marvelous if abroad it is at a premium, since even the very people to whom it grows are honored by it. Ebony at Rome in the Mithridatic triumph was first exhibited by Pompey the Great.
Indicorum lapidum in adamantibus dignitas prima, utpote qui lymphationes abigunt, venenis resistunt, et pavitantium vanos metus pellunt. Hæc primum de iis prædicari oportuit, quæ respicere ad utilitatem videbamus; nunc reddemus quæ adamantum sint species, et quis colos cuique eximius. In quodam crystalli genere invenitur, materiæ in qua nascitur adæque similis splendore liquidissimo, in mucronem sexangulum utrinque secus leniter turbinatus, nec unquam ultra magnitudinem nuclei avellanæ repertus.
Among the Indian stones, the first dignity belongs to diamonds, since they drive away fits of frenzy, resist poisons, and expel the empty fears of those who tremble. These things ought first to be proclaimed about them, which we saw to have regard to utility; now we shall render what the species of diamonds are, and what color is eximious for each. It is found in a certain kind of crystal, quite similar to the matrix in which it is born, with a most limpid splendor, gently turbinated on either side into a six-angled point, and never discovered beyond the size of a hazelnut’s kernel.
Next to this, one is detected in the most excellent gold, paler, and gleaming back more toward the argent color. The third appears in the veins of copper, nearer to a brazen aspect. A fourth is read of in iron-bearing metals, surpassing the others in weight, yet not in power: for both these, and those found in copper, can be broken, and many are even bored through by another diamond; but those which we first indicated are conquered by neither iron nor tamed by fire.
Nevertheless, if they are macerated for a long time in goat’s blood, not otherwise than if in it hot or fresh, with several hammers first broken and the anvils shattered, at length they yield and leap asunder into little particles; which fragments are sought by engravers for the use of engraving gems of whatever kind. Between the adamant and the magnet there is a certain occult dissension of nature, to such a degree that, placed near, it does not permit the magnet to capture iron; or, if the magnet when brought close has drawn the iron, the adamant, as though it were some prey, snatches it from the magnet and carries it off.
Lychnitem perinde fert India, cujus lucis vigorem ardor excitat lucernarum: qua ex causa lychniten Græci vocaverunt. Duplex ei facies: aut enim purpurea emicat claritate, aut meracius suffunditur cocci rubore, per omne intimum sui, siquidem pura sit, inoffensam admittens perspicuitatem; at si excanduit rediis solis incita, vel ad calorem digitorum attritu excitata est, aut palearum cassa, aut chartarum fila ad se rapit, contumaciter scalpturis resistens; ac si quando insignita est, dum signa exprimit, quasi quodam animali morsu partem ceræ retentat. Beryllos in sexangulas formas Indi atterunt, ut hebetem coloris lenitatem angulorum repercussu excitent ad vigorem.
India likewise produces lychnites, whose vigor of light the ardor of lamps excites: for which cause the Greeks called it lychnites. It has a double aspect: for either it flashes forth with a purple brilliance, or it is more purely suffused with the scarlet red of coccus, through its whole inmost part, if indeed it be pure, admitting unobstructed perspicuity; but if it has grown incandescent, stirred by the rays of the sun, or has been excited by the warmth of the fingers by friction, it draws to itself the chaff of straws, or the threads of papers, contumaciously resisting engravings; and if at any time it has been insigned, while it expresses the signs, as if by a certain animal’s bite it retains a portion of the wax. The Indians wear down beryls into hexagonal forms, so that by the repercussion of the angles they may arouse to vigor the dull softness of the color.
The genus of beryls is divided into species in manifold fashion; the exceptional ones, by an intermingled tempering of glaucous and cerulean, display a certain grace of the pure sea. Beneath these are the chrysoberyls, which, shining more languidly, are suffused with a golden cloud. They have likewise adjudged the chrysoprases, drawing a mixed light from gold and leek-green, to the genus of beryls as well.
They approve the hyacinthizing ones, namely those that nearly recall hyacinths; but those which, similar to crystal, are obscured by intercurrent capillary filaments (for from this defect is their name), the most knowing in stones have handed over to the common crowd. The Indian kings love to fashion this kind of gems into very long cylinders, and, once pierced, they suspend them by elephants’ bristles and wear them as necklaces, or they insert golden umbilici at each end, so as to kindle a drooping face to a richer nitid luster, whereby, through artifice, with metal added on this side and that, they draw a more shining light.
54. Taprobane. In it on the quality of the people, on the stars, on the nature of the sea, and on the discipline of the nation, on the size of tortoises, on the pearl.
Taprobanem insulam, antequam temeritas humana exquisito penitus mari fidem panderet, diu orbem alterum putaverunt, et quidem eum, quem habitare antichthones crederentur. Verum Alexandri Magni virtus ignorantiam publici erroris exstinxit, dum in hæc usque secreta propagavit nominis sui gloriam. Missus igitur Onesicritos, præfectus classi Macedonicæ, terram istam, quanta esset, quid gigneret, quomodo haberetur, exquisitam notitiæ nostræ dedit.
The island Taprobane, before human temerity, by thoroughly exploring the sea, spread belief abroad, they long supposed to be another orb; and indeed that one which was believed to be inhabited by the Antichthones. But the virtue of Alexander the Great extinguished the ignorance of the public error, while he propagated the glory of his name even into these secrets. Accordingly Onesicritus, prefect of the Macedonian fleet, having been sent, furnished to our knowledge a carefully investigated account of that land—how great it was, what it produced, how it was held.
It abounds in pearls and in gems. It is situated between Orient and Occident. It begins from the Eoan sea, stretched out before India. From the Prasii, a nation of the Indians, at first the voyage to it was twenty days, but this was when one went thither in papyrus boats and Nile craft: soon, with our ships, the journey was accomplished in seven days.
A shallow sea lies between, of a depth not more than six paces, but in certain channels so depressed that no anchors have ever been able to reach the bottom of that profundity. In sailing there is no observation of the stars: for neither are the Septentriones seen there, nor do the Vergiliae appear. They see the Moon above the earth only from the 8th to the 16th (hour).
There Canopus shines, a bright and very ample star. They have the rising sun on the right hand, the setting on the left. Therefore, with no observation for navigating available, so that, as they proceed, they may reach the destined place, they carry birds, whose flight, making for land, they have as masters for steering the course.
Ad usque Claudii principatum de Taprobane hæc tantum noveramus: tunc enim fortuna patefecit scientiæ viam latiorem. Nam libertus Annii Plocami, qui tunc Rubri maris vectigal administrabat, Arabiam petens, aquilonibus præter Carmaniam raptus, quinto decimo demum die appulsus est ad hoc litus, portumque invectus, qui Hippuros nominatur. Sex deinde mensibus sermonem perdoctus, ductusque ad colloquia regis, quæ compererat, reportavit.
Up to the principate of Claudius we knew only this about Taprobane: then indeed fortune laid open a broader way to science. For the freedman of Annius Plocamus, who at that time administered the tribute of the Red Sea, while bound for Arabia, was carried by north winds past Carmania, and only on the fifteenth day made landfall at this shore, and was brought into a harbor which is named Hippuros. Then, in six months, having been thoroughly instructed in the language and led to colloquies with the king, he reported back what he had ascertained.
That the king, to be sure, was astonished at the money which had been taken along with him, because, although it was stamped with disparate faces, nevertheless it had an equal mode of weight; in contemplation of which equality, since he had more fervently coveted Roman friendship, he sent legates all the way to us, under the prince Rachia, from whom all things were ascertained.
Ergo inde homines corporum magnitudine alios omnes antecedunt; crines fuco imbuunt, cæruleis oculis ac truci visu, terrifico sono vocis. Quibus immatura mors est, in annos centum ævum trahunt; aliis omnibus annosa ætas, et extenta pæne ultra humanam fragilitatem. Nullus aut ante diem, aut per diem somnus; noctis partem quieti destinant; lucis ortum vigilia antevertunt.
Therefore from there the humans surpass all others in the magnitude of their bodies; they imbue their hair with pigment, with cerulean eyes and a truculent gaze, with a terrifying sound of voice. For those to whom death is untimely, they drag out their span to one hundred years; for all the others, a time of long old age, stretched almost beyond human fragility. No sleep either before daybreak or in the daytime; they assign a part of the night to rest; they anticipate the rise of light with vigil.
But this is sought in him who has no children: for he who is a father, even if his life is examined, is not admitted to govern; and if by chance, while he reigns, he should wish to beget offspring, he is stripped of power. And this is most especially guarded, lest the kingdom become hereditary. Next, even if the king should display the greatest equity, they are unwilling that everything be licit to him; therefore he receives forty rectors, lest he judge alone in capital causes; and thus too, if the judgment has displeased, an appeal is made to the people: by whom, judges being appointed—seventy in number—the sentence is delivered, to which one necessarily acquiesces.
In dress the king, unlike the others, is clothed in a syrma, such as the habit in which we see Liber the Father clothed. But if he himself is even arraigned for any offense, he is punished with death; not, however, such that he be handled by anyone’s hand, but by public consensus the faculty of all things is interdicted to him; even the power of conversation is denied to the punished man. All devote themselves to cultivation.
Maria quoque sagacissime expiscantur: marinas testudines capere gaudent, quarum tanta est magnitudo, ut superficies earum domum faciat, et numerosam familiam non arte receptet. Major pars hujus insulæ calore ambusta est, et in vastas desinit solitudines. Latus ejus mare alluit perviridi colore fruticosum, ita ut jubæ arborum plerumque gubernaculis atterantur.
They also most sagaciously fish the seas: they take delight in capturing sea turtles, whose size is so great that their surface makes a house and, without artifice, accommodates a numerous family. The greater part of this island is scorched by heat, and ends in vast solitudes. Its side, fruticose with a very green color, the sea laves, so that the tresses of the trees are for the most part worn down by the rudders.
Margaritas legunt plurimas, maximasque; conchæ sunt, in quibus reperiuntur, quæ certo anni tempore, luxuriante conceptu, sitiunt rorem velut maritum, cujus desiderio hiant; et quum maxime lunares liquuntur aspergines, oscitatione quadam hauriunt humorem cupitum; sic concipiunt, gravidæque fiunt, et de saginæ qualitate reddunt habitus unionum: nam si purum fuit, quod acceperant, candicant orbiculi lapillorum; si turbidum, aut pallore languescunt, aut rufo innubilantur. Ita magis de cúlo, quam de mari partus habent. Denique quoties excipiunt matutini æris semen, fit clarior margarita; quoties vespere, fit obscurior; quantoque magis hauserit, tanto magis proficit lapidum magnitudo.
They gather very many pearls, and very large ones; the shells are those in which they are found, which at a fixed time of the year, with conception luxuriating, thirst for the dew as for a husband, and gape with desire for it; and when most of all the lunar sprinklings melt, by a certain gaping they draw in the desired moisture; thus they conceive and become pregnant, and according to the quality of their fattening they produce the conditions of the pearls: for if what they received was pure, the little roundlets of the stones grow white; if turbid, they either grow faint with pallor, or are clouded with ruddiness. Thus they have offspring more from the sky than from the sea. Finally, as often as they receive the seed of the morning air, the pearl becomes brighter; as often in the evening, it becomes darker; and the more it has drunk in, the more the size of the stones increases.
If a flash of coruscation should suddenly glitter, they are compressed by intempestive fear, and, closed up by sudden dread, they contract abortive flaws; for either the little pebbles become very tiny, or empty. In the shells themselves there is sense: they fear that their offspring be stained; and when the day has become white-hot with more burning rays, lest the stone be dyed by the heat of the sun, they sink into the deep, and by the whirlpools they vindicate themselves from the heat. Yet to this there is a providence: age brings aid: for the whiteness perishes with old age, and as the shells grow large the pearls turn yellow. This stone is soft in water; hardened when eviscerated.
They swim in flocks; there is a fixed leader for the swarm; if she is captured, even those that have escaped return into the snares. India too gives pearls, and the British shore gives them as well; as the deified Julius attested by an inscription placed beneath, that a cuirass which he dedicated to Venus Genetrix in her temple was made from British pearls. It is widely reported that Lollia Paulina, wife of the princeps Gaius, had a tunic of pearls, valued then at 40,000,000 sesterces: for the greed of procuring which, her father, M. Lollius, after despoiling the regions of the East, expected to offend Gaius Caesar, son of Augustus; and, with the friendship of the princeps interdicted, he perished by poison.
55. The Indian Itinerary. The Persian and Arabian Gulfs. The Azanian Sea.
Ultra hos deserta Carmaniæ, Persis deinde, atque inde navigatio: in qua Solis insula rubens semper, et omni animantium generi inaccessa, quippe quæ nullum non animal illatum necet. Ex India revertentes ab Azario Carmaniæ flumine Septentriones primum vident. Achæmenides in hoc tractu sedes fecerunt.
Beyond these, the deserts of Carmania, then Persis, and from there a navigation: in the course of which lies the island of the Sun, ever red, and inaccessible to every kind of living creature, seeing that it kills every animal brought in. Those returning from India, from the Azarius river of Carmania, see the Septentriones for the first time. The Achaemenids established seats in this tract.
Dicendum hoc loco, quatenus ab Alexandria Ægypti pergatur in usque Indiam. Nilo vehente Copton usque etesiis flatibus cursus est; deinde terrestre iter Hydreum tenus; post, transactis aliquot mansionibus, Berenicen pervenitur, ubi Rubri maris portus est. Inde Occlis Arabiæ portus tangitur.
It must be said at this point how one proceeds from Alexandria of Egypt all the way into India. With the Nile carrying one as far as Copton and the Etesian winds blowing, there is a passage; then a terrestrial journey as far as Hydreum; afterward, several stations having been traversed, Berenice is reached, where there is a port of the Red Sea. Thence the port of Occlis in Arabia is touched.
Those returning sail in the month of December. The favorable wind from India is the Volturnus (southeast); but when one has come into the Red Sea, either the Africus (southwest) or the Auster (south) bears them. The span of India is reported as seventeen times fifty thousand paces, and that of Carmania as 100,000, a part of which does not lack vines.
Irrumpit hæc litora Rubrum mare, idque in duos sinus scinditur: quorum qui ab oriente est, Persicus appellatur, quandoquidem oram illam habitavere Persidis populi, vicies et sexagies centena millia passuum circuitu patens; ex adverso, unde Arabia est, alter Arabicus vocatur; Oceanum vero, qui ibi influit, Azanium nominarunt.
The Red Sea breaks into these shores, and it is cleft into two gulfs: of these, the one which is on the east is called the Persian, since the peoples of Persis inhabited that shore, extending in circumference for 8,000 miles; over against it, where Arabia is, the other is called the Arabic; and the Ocean which flows in there they named Azanian.
Carmaniæ Persis annectitur, quæ incipit ab insula Aphrodisiæ variarum opum dives, translata quondam in Parthicum nomen, litore, quo occasui objacet, porrecta millia passuum quingenta quinquaginta. Oppidum ejus nobilissimum Susa, in quo templum Susia Dianæ. A Susis Babytace oppidum centum et triginta quinque millibus passuum distat, in quo mortales universi odio auri cúmunt hoc genus metallum, et abjiciunt in terrarum profunda, ne polluti usu ejus avaritia corrumpant æquitatem. Hic inconstantissimus est mensurarum modus; nec immerito, quum aliæ circa Persidem nationes schúnis, aliæ parasangis, aliæ incomperta disciplina terras metiantur, et incertam fidem faciat mensuræ ratio discors.
Carmania is annexed to Persia, which begins from the island of Aphrodisias, rich in various resources, once transferred into the Parthian designation, with a shoreline that lies toward the west, extended to 550 miles. Its most noble town is Susa, in which is the temple of Susian Diana. From Susa the town of Babytace is distant 135 miles, in which all mortals, out of hatred for gold, gather up this kind of metal and cast it into the depths of the earth, lest, defiled by its use, greed should corrupt equity. Here the mode of measures is most inconstant; and not without cause, since the nations around Persia measure lands, some by schoeni, others by parasangs, others by an unascertained discipline, and the discordant reckoning of measure makes trust uncertain.
56. Parthia and the regions around Parthia. Likewise the sepulcher of Cyrus.
Parthia quanta omnis est, a meridie Rubrum mare, a septentrione Hyrcanum salum claudit. In ea regna duodeviginti dividuntur in duas partes. Undecim, quæ vocantur superiora, incipiunt ab Armenico limite, et Caspio litore, porrecta ad terras Scytharum, quibuscum concorditer degunt; reliqua septem inferiora, sic enim vocitant, habent ab ortu Arios Arianosque, Carmaniam a medio die, Medos ab occidui solis plaga, a septentrione Hyrcanos.
Parthia, in its whole extent, is bounded on the south by the Red Sea, on the north by the Hyrcanian sea. In it eighteen kingdoms are divided into two parts. Eleven, which are called the upper, begin from the Armenian border and the Caspian shore, stretched out toward the lands of the Scythians, with whom they dwell concordantly; the remaining seven, the lower—so indeed they call them—have on the east the Arii and the Areians, Carmania at midday (to the south), the Medes from the quarter of the setting sun, and on the north the Hyrcanians.
Media itself, however, stretching across from the west, embraces both the kingdoms of Parthia; on the north it is surrounded by Armenia; on the east it looks upon the Caspians; on the south, Persia. Then this tract extends as far as the fortress which the Magi hold, by the name Pasargada. Here is the tomb of Cyrus.
57. Babylon. Then a return to the Atlantic Ocean: in it, the islands Gorgades, the Hesperides, the Fortunate Islands.
Chaldææ genti caput Babylon, Semiramidi condita, tam nobilis, ut propter eam et Assyrii et Mesopotamia in Babyloniæ nomen transierint. Urbs est sexaginta millia passuum circuitu patens, muris circumdata, quorum altitudo ducentos pedes detinet, latitudo quinquaginta, in singulos pedes ternis digitis ultra quam mensura nostra est altioribus. Amni interluitur Euphrate.
Babylon, the capital of the Chaldaean nation, founded by Semiramis, is so noble that on account of it both the Assyrians and Mesopotamia have passed into the name of Babylonia. It is a city extending to a circumference of sixty miles, surrounded by walls measuring two hundred feet in height and fifty in thickness—each foot exceeding our measure by three digits. It is washed through by the river Euphrates.
Tempus est ad Oceani oras reverti, represso in Æthiopiam stilo: namque ut Atlanticos æstus occipere ab occidente et Hispania dudum dixeramus; ab his quoque partibus mundi, unde primum Atlantici nomen induat, exprimi par est. Pelagus Azanium usque ad Æthiopum litora promovetur. Æthiopicum ad Mossylicum promontorium; inde rursus oceanus Atlanticus.
It is time to return to the shores of the Ocean, with the stylus checked at Ethiopia: for just as we said a little while ago that the Atlantic tides begin from the West and from Spain; from these parts of the world as well, whence it first assumes the name “Atlantic,” it is fitting that it be set forth. The Azanian Sea is extended as far as the shores of the Ethiopians. The Ethiopian [Sea] to the Mossylic promontory; from there, again, the Atlantic Ocean.
Accordingly Juba, of the whole region which very many have denied to be passable on account of the sun’s ardor, having also made a commemoration of peoples and of islands as an argument for establishing credibility, wished the entire sea from India all the way to Gades to be understood as navigable, yet by the blasts of the Corus; the breath of which, although it can carry a fleet past Arabia, Egypt, and Mauretania, can do so provided only that the course be directed from that promontory of India which some have named Lepten Acran, others Drepanum. He added both the places of stations and the measure of the spaces: for from the Indian projection to the island Malichu he affirms there to be fifteen hundred thousand paces (1,500 miles); from Malichu to Sceneon two hundred and twenty-five thousand (225 miles); from there to the island Adanu one hundred and fifty thousand (150 miles): thus there are completed to the open sea eighteen times one hundred and seventy-five thousand paces, that is, 3,150,000 paces (3,150 miles). The same man thus contends against the opinion of very many who, because of the sun’s blazing, say that the greatest part of that region is inaccessible to the human race, that he declares the passage of merchants there to be harried from the Arabian islands, which the Ascitae Arabs hold, to whom from the emergent circumstance a name has been given: for they place boarded-over latticed platforms upon ox-hide skins, and, borne on this kind of raft, they infest passers-by with poisoned arrows.
He also adds that scorched Ethiopia is inhabited by the nations of the Troglodytes and the Ichthyophagi; of whom the Troglodytes excel in such celerity that they overtake, by running on foot, the wild beasts which they drive; the Ichthyophagi are, no differently than sea-beasts, strong at swimming in the sea. Thus, with the Atlantic sea thoroughly examined as far as the west, he also makes mention of the islands of the Gorgades.
Xenophon of Lampsacus finally reported that Hanno, the Punic king, had penetrated into those places, and that there he found women with winged swiftness; and of all that had appeared, two were captured, with bodies so shaggy and rough that, as evidence of the thing seen, he hung up the skins of the two among the offerings of Juno for the sake of the marvel; these endured down to the time of the destruction of Carthage.
Ultra Gorgadas Hesperidum insulæ, sicut Sebosus affirmat, dierum quadraginta navigatione in intimos maris sinus recesserunt. Fortunatas insulas certe contra lævam Mauritaniæ tradunt jacere, quas Juba sub meridie quidem sitas, sed proximas occasui dicit. De harum nominibus exspectari magna non miror, sed infra famam vocabuli res est.
Beyond the Gorgades, the islands of the Hesperides, as Sebosus affirms, have withdrawn by a navigation of forty days into the innermost bays of the sea. They hand down that the Fortunate Islands certainly lie over against the left side of Mauretania, which Juba says are situated under the south, yet nearest to the setting. As to their names, I do not marvel that great things are expected; but the reality is beneath the fame of the name.
In the first of them, whose name is Norion, there are no buildings, nor have there ever been. The mountain ridges are sodden with pools. Ferulae rise there to the size of a tree: of these, those which are black, when pressed, yield a most bitter liquor; those which are white disgorge waters even suited for drinking.
A great abundance of birds, fruit-bearing groves, palm-groves bearing caryotas (dates), much pine-nut, a generous honey-harvest, rivers abounding in silurid fishes. They also report that into it the billowy sea spews forth beasts; then, when those monsters have been wasted away by putrefaction, everything there is tainted with a foul odor; and therefore the quality of the islands does not entirely correspond to the appellation given to them.