Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/208

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194
STRABO.
BOOK II.

the Tyrigetæ, the Bastarni, and the Sauromati, as far as the river Don, and the Lake Mæotis,[1] on its right being the whole of Thrace and Illyria,[2] and in fine the rest of Greece.

Fronting Europe lie the islands which we have mentioned. Without the Pillars, Gadeira,[p 1] the Cassiterides,[p 2] and the Britannic Isles. Within the Pillars are the Gymnesian Islands,[p 3] the other little islands of the Phœnicians,[3] the Marseillais, and the Ligurians; those fronting Italy as far as the islands of Æolus and Sicily, and the whole of those[4] along Epirus and Greece, as far as Macedonia and the Thracian Chersonesus.

31. From the Don and the Mæotis[p 4] commences [Asia] on this side the Taurus; beyond these is [Asia] beyond the Taurus. For since this continent is divided into two by the chain of the Taurus, which extends from the extremities of Pamphylia to the shores of the Eastern Sea,[p 5] inhabited by the Indians and neighbouring Scythians, the Greeks naturally called that part of the continent situated north of these mountains [Asia] on this side the Taurus, and that on the south [Asia] beyond the Taurus. Consequently the parts adjacent to the Mæotis and Don are on this side the Taurus. The first of these is the territory between the Caspian Sea and the Euxine, bounded on one side[p 6] by the Don, the Exterior Ocean,[p 7] and the Sea of Hyrcania; on the other[p 8] by the Isthmus where it is narrowest from the recess of the Euxine to the Caspian.

Secondly, but still on this side the Taurus, are the countries above the Sea of Hyrcania as far as the Indians and

  1. ↑ The Getæ inhabited Moldavia. The Tyrigetæ, or Getæ of Tyras or the Dniester, dwelt on the banks of that river. The Bastarni inhabited the Ukraine. The Sarmatians, or Sauromatians, extended along either bank of the Don and the environs of the Sea of Azof, the ancient Palus Mæotis.
  2. ↑ Thrace and Macedonia form part of the modern Roumelia: Illyria comprehended Dalmatia, Bosnia, Croatia, &c.
  3. ↑ Ivia, Formentera, Spalmador, &c. They were called Phœnician Islands, because the Carthaginians had sent out a colony thither 160 years after the founding of their city.
  4. ↑ Namely all the islands of the Ionian and Ægæan Seas, from Corfu to the Dardanelles.
  1. ↑ Cadiz.
  2. ↑ The Scilly Isles.
  3. ↑ Majorca and Minorca.
  4. ↑ The Sea of Azof.
  5. ↑ The Bay of Bengal.
  6. ↑ The North.
  7. ↑ The Northern Ocean.
  8. ↑ The south.
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