15. This mountain overhangs both the Euxine and the Caspian seas, forming a kind of rampart to the isthmus which separates one sea from the other. To the south it is the boundary of Albania and Iberia, to the north, of the plains of the Sarmatians. It is well wooded, and contains various kinds of timber, and especially trees adapted to ship-building. Eratosthenes says that the Caucasus is called Mount Caspius by the natives, a name borrowed perhaps from the Caspii. It throws out forks towards the south, which embrace the middle of Iberia, and touch the Armenian and those called the Moschic mountains,[937] and besides these the mountains of Scydises, and the Paryadres. All these are portions of the Taurus, which forms the southern side of Armenia, and are broken off in a manner from it towards the north, and extend as far as Caucasus, and the coast of the Euxine which lies between Colchis and Themiscyra.[938] 16. Situated on a bay of this kind, and occupying the most easterly point of the whole sea, is Dioscurias,[939] called the recess of the Euxine Sea, and the extreme boundary of navigation, for in this sense we are to understand the proverbial saying, “To Phasis where ships end their course.” Not as if the author of the iambic intended to speak of the river, nor of the city of the same name upon the river, but Colchis designated by a part, because from the city and the river there remains a voyage of not less than 600 stadia in a straight line to the recess of the bay. This same Dioscurias is the commencement of the isthmus lying between the Caspian Sea and the Euxine. It is a common mart of the nations situated above it, and in its neighbourhood. There assemble at Dioscurias 70 or, according to some writers who are careless in their statements,[940] 300 nations. All speak different languages, from living dispersed in various places and without intercourse, in consequence of their fierce and savage manners. They are chiefly Sarmatians, but all of them Caucasian tribes. So much then respecting Dioscurias. 17. The greater part of the rest of Colchis lies upon the sea. The Phasis,[941] a large river, flows through it. It has its source in Armenia, and receives the Glaucus,[942] and the Hippus,[943] which issue from the neighbouring mountains. Vessels ascend it as far as the fortress of Sarapana,[944] which is capable of containing the population even of a city. Persons proceed thence by land to the Cyrus in four days along a carriage road.[945] Upon the Phasis is a city of the same name, a mart of the Colchians, bounded on one side by the river, on another by a lake, on the third by the sea. Thence it is a voyage of three or two[946] days to Amisus and Sinope, on account of the softness of the shores caused by the discharge of rivers.[947]