The Geography of Strabo, Volume 2 (of 3): Literally Translated, with NotesStrabo
History
The Geography of Strabo, Volume 2 (of 3): Literally Translated, with Notes
Strabo
Geography -- Early works to 1800
The Twelfth Book contains the remainder of Pontus, viz.
Cappadocia, Galatia, Bithynia, Mysia, Phrygia, and Mæonia: the
cities, Sinope in Pontus, Heracleia, and Amaseia, and likewise
Isauria, Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, with the islands lying
along the coast; the mountains and rivers.
CHAPTER I.
1.[1072]Cappadocia consists of many parts, and has experienced frequent
changes.
The nations speaking the same language are chiefly those who are bounded
on the south by the Cilician Taurus,[1073] as it is called; on the east
by Armenia, Colchis, and by the intervening nations who speak different
languages; on the north by the Euxine, as far as the mouth of the
Halys;[1074] on the west by the Paphlagonians, and by the Galatians, who
migrated into Phrygia, and spread themselves as far as Lycaonia, and the
Cilicians, who occupy Cilicia Tracheia (Cilicia the mountainous).[1075]
2. Among the nations that speak the same language, the ancients placed
the Cataonians by themselves, contra-distinguishing them from the
Cappadocians, whom they considered as a different people. In the
enumeration of the nations they placed Cataonia after Cappadocia, then
the Euphrates, and the nations on the other side of that river, so as to
include even Melitene in Cataonia, although Melitene lies between
Cataonia and the Euphrates, approaches close to Commagene, and
constitutes a tenth portion of Cappadocia, according to the division of
the country into ten provinces. For the kings in our times who preceded
Archelaus[1076] usually divided the kingdom of Cappadocia in this
manner.
Cataonia is a tenth portion of Cappadocia. In our time each province had
its own governor, and since no difference appears in the language of the
Cataonians compared with that of the other Cappadocians, nor any
difference in their customs, it is surprising how entirely the
characteristic marks of a foreign nation have disappeared, yet they were
distinct nations; Ariarathes, the first who bore the title of king of
the Cappadocians, annexed the Cataonians to Cappadocia.
3. This country composes the isthmus, as it were, of a large peninsula
formed by two seas; by the bay of Issus, extending to Cilicia Tracheia,
and by the Euxine lying between Sinope and the coast of the Tibareni.
The isthmus cuts off what we call the peninsula; the whole tract lying
to the west of the Cappadocians, to which Herodotus[1077] gives the name
of the country within the Halys. This is the country the whole of which
was the kingdom of Crœsus. Herodotus calls him king of the nations on
this side the river Halys. But writers of the present time give the name
of Asia, which is the appellation of the whole continent, to the country
within the Taurus.
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