[459] Founded probably by the Macedonians. [460] The Elymæi reached to the Persian Gulf. Ptolem. vi. 1. They appear to have left vestiges of their name in that of a gulf, and a port called Delem. [461] The account of the Persians is taken from Herodotus, i. 131, &c. [462] According to Herodotus, the priest who sacrificed was crowned. [463] Roused the sacred fire, as the law bids, Touching the god with consecrated wand. _Athenæus_ xii. 40, p. 850. Bohn’s Classical Library. [464] i. e. “who kindle fire.” [465] i. e. places where fire is kindled. [466] B. xi. c. viii. § 4. [467] Not the same plant as mentioned above, c. i. § 10, but the pistacia terebinthus. [468] An interpolation. The Cardaces were not Persians, but foreign soldiers. “Barbari milites quos Persæ Cardacas appellant,” (Cornel. Nepos.) without doubt were Assyrian and Armenian Carduci. See b. xvi. c. i. § 24, and Xenoph. Anab. iv. 3. Later Gordyæi or Gordyeni, now the Kurds. _Groskurd._ [469] Cardamum is probably the “lepidum perfoliatum” of Linnæus, or the “nasturtium orientale” of Tournefort. Xenophon also, Expedit. Cyr. iii. 5 and vii. 8, speaks of the great use made of this plant by the Persians. [470] The length of the arms and the surname “Longhand” here given to Darius are assigned by others to Artaxerxes. It was in fact the latter to whom this surname was given, according to Plutarch, in consequence of the right arm being longer than the left. Therefore Falconer considers this passage an interpolation. _Coraÿ._ [471] This, says Gossellin, may account for the rarity of the Persian Darius, badly struck, and coined long before the time of Alexander, and appearing to belong to a period anterior to the reign of Darius Hystaspes. [472] Chalybon was the name of the modern Aleppo, but the wine of Damascus must have possessed the same qualities, and had the same name. “The Chalybonian wine, Posidonius says, is made in Damascus in Syria, from vines which were planted there by the Persians.” _Athenæus_, b. i. page 46, Bohn’s Classical Library. [473] In the text “ten or eleven years,” which reading is contrary to all other authorities, and is rejected by Kramer. [474] This is only an approximation. From the conquest of the Medes by Cyrus to the death of Darius Codomanus, last king of Persia, is a period of 225 years. [475] According to Dion Cassius, xviii. § 26, Aturia is synonymous with Assyria, and only differs from it by a barbarous pronunciation; which shows that the name Assyria belonged peculiarly to the territory of Nineveh. [476] Aiaghi-dagh. [477] It is to be remarked that the people bordering upon the Gordyæi are the only people of Mesopotamia here mentioned, for the whole of Mesopotamia, properly so called, is comprised under the name of Assyria. [478] The bridge or passage at the foot of the modern fortress Roum-Kala. [479] B. xii. c. iii. § 5; Herod. i. 6 and 72. [480] Al. Lucan. b. xi. c. xii. § 4; b. xiv. c. v. § 18; b. xvi. c. ii. § 8.