The Alps are inhabited by numerous nations, but all Keltic with the exception of the Ligurians, and these, though of a different race, closely resemble them in their manner of life. They inhabit that portion of the Alps which is next the Apennines, and also a part of the Apennines themselves. This latter mountain ridge traverses the whole length of Italy from north to south, and terminates at the Strait of Sicily. 29. The first parts of Italy are the plains situated under the Alps, as far as the recess of the Adriatic and the neighbouring places.[873] The parts beyond form a narrow and long slip, resembling a peninsula, traversed, as I have said, throughout its length by the Apennines; its length is 7000 stadia, but its breadth is very unequal. The seas which form the peninsula of Italy are, the Tyrrhenian, which commences from the Ligurian, the Ausonian, and the Adriatic.[874] 30. After Italy and Keltica, the remainder of Europe extends towards the east, and is divided into two by the Danube. This river flows from west to east, and discharges itself into the Euxine Sea, leaving on its left the entire of Germany commencing from the Rhine, as well as the whole of the Getæ, the Tyrigetæ, the Bastarnæ, and the Sauromatæ, as far as the river Don, and the Lake Mæotis,[875] on its right being the whole of Thrace and Illyria,[876] and in fine the rest of Greece. Fronting Europe lie the islands which we have mentioned. Without the Pillars, Gadeira,[877] the Cassiterides,[878] and the Britannic Isles. Within the Pillars are the Gymnesian Islands,[879] the other little islands of the Phœnicians,[880] the Marseillais, and the Ligurians; those fronting Italy as far as the islands of Æolus and Sicily, and the whole of those[881] along Epirus and Greece, as far as Macedonia and the Thracian Chersonesus. 31. From the Don and the Mæotis[882] 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,[883] 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[884] by the Don, the Exterior Ocean,[885] and the Sea of Hyrcania; on the other[886] by the Isthmus where it is narrowest from the recess of the Euxine to the Caspian.