LIBER VI · CAPUT 15
MEDIA AND THE CASPIAN GATES
Latine · Mayhoff 1906
Adiabenis conectuntur Carduchi quondam dicti, 44 nunc Cordueni, praefluente Tigri, his Pratitaeπαρ᾽ ὁδόν appellati, qui tenent Caspias Portas. iis ab latere altero occurrunt deserta Parthiae et Citheni iuga. mox eiusdem Parthiae amoenissimus situs, qui vocatur Choara. duae urbes ibi Parthorum oppositae quondam Medis, Calliope et alia in rupe Issatis; ipsum vero Parthiae caput Hecatompylos; abest a Portis CXXXIII p. ita Parthorum quoque regna foribus discluduntur. egressos Portis excipit protinus gens Caspia ad litora usque, quae nomen portis et mari dedit. laeva montuosa. ab ea gente retrorsus ad Cyrum amnem produntur CCXXV p., ab eodem amne si subeatur ad Portas, DCC. hune enim cardinem Alexandri Magni itinerum fecere abiis Portis ad Indiae principiunm stadia XV. DCLXXXX prodendo, ad Bactra oppidum, quod appellant Zariasta, MMM. DCC, inde ad Iaxartem amnem V???.
English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57
Joining up to Adiabene are the people formerly known as the ‘Carduchi,’ now the Cordueni, in front of whom the river Tigris flows: and next to them are the Pratitæ, entitled the Par Odon, who hold possession of the Caspian Gates. On the other side of these gates we come to the deserts of Parthia and the mountain chain of Cithenus; and after that, the most pleasant locality of all Parthia, Choara by name. Here were two cities of the Parthians, built in former times for their protection against the people of Media, Calliope, and Issatis, the last of which stood formerly on a rock. Hecatompylos, the capital of Parthia, is distant from the Caspian Gates one hundred and thirty-three miles. In such an effectual manner is the kingdom of Parthia shut out by these passes. After leaving these gates we find the nation of the Caspii, extending as far as the shores of the Caspian, a race which has given its name to these gates as well as to the sea: on the left there is a mountainous district. Turning back from this nation to the river Cyrus, the distance is said to be two hundred and twenty miles; but if we go from that river as far down as the Caspian Gates, the distance is seven hundred miles. In the itineraries of Alexander the Great these gates were made the central or turning point in his expeditions; the distance from the Caspian Gates to the frontier of India being there set down as fifteen thousand six hundred and eighty stadia, to the city of Bactra, commonly called Zariaspa, three thousand seven hundred, and thence to the river Jaxartes five thousand stadia.