Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/364

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PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY.
[Book IV.

while the Daci, whom they have driven as far as the river Pathissus[1] inhabit the mountain and forest ranges. On leaving the river Marus[2], whether it is that or the Duria[3], that separates them from the Suevi and the kingdom of Vannius[4], the Basternse, and, after them, other tribes of the Germans occupy the opposite sides[5]. Agrippa considers the whole of this region, from the Ister to the ocean, to be 2100 miles in length, and 4400 miles in breadth to the river Vistula in the deserts[6] of Sarmatia. The name "Scythian" has extended, in every direction, even to the Sarmatæ and the Germans; but this ancient appellation is now only given to those who dwell beyond those nations, and live unknown to nearly all the rest of the world.

CHAP. 26.—SCYTHIA.

Leaving the Ister, we come to the towns of Cremniscos[7], Æpolium, the mountains of Macrocremnus, and the famous river Tyra[8], which gives name to a town on the spot where Ophiusa is said formerly to have stood. The Tyragetse inhabit a large island[9] situate in this river, which is distant

    plains between the Lower Theiss and the mountains of Transylvania, from which places they had expelled the Dacians.

  1. ↑ The Lower Theiss.
  2. ↑ Now the river Mark, Maros, or Morava.
  3. ↑ The name of the two streams now known as the Dora Baltea and Dora Riparia, both of which fall into the Po. This passage appears to be in a mutilated state.
  4. ↑ A chief of the Quadi ; who,'as we learn from Tacitus, was made king of the Suevi by Germanicus, A.D. 19. Being afterwards expelled by his nephews Vangio and Sido, he received from the emperor Claudius a settlement in Pannonia.Tacitus gives the name of Suevia to the whole of the east of Germany from the Danube to the Baltic.
  5. ↑ According to Hardouin, Pliny here speaks of the other side of the mountainous district called Higher Hungary, facing the Danube and extending from the river Theiss to the Morava,
  6. ↑ This, according to Sillig, is the real meaning of a desertis here, the distance being measured from the Danube, and not between the Vistula and the wilds of Sarmatia. The reading "four thousand" is probably corrupt, but it seems more Hkely than that of 404 miles, adopted by Littr{{subst:e'}}, in his French translation.
  7. ↑ Placed by Forbiger near Lake Burmasaka, or near Islama.
  8. ↑ The Dniester. The mountains of Macrocremnus, or the "Great Heights," seem not to have been identified.
  9. ↑ According to Hardouin, the modern name of this island is Tandra.
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