[499] Strabo has misunderstood the meaning of Eratosthenes, who had said that the excess of the waters of the Euphrates sunk into the ground and reappeared under the form of torrents, which became visible near “Rhinocolura in Cœle-Syria and Mt. Casius,” the Casius near Egypt. Our author properly observes that the length and nature of the course contradicts this hypothesis: but, misled by the names Cœle-Syria and Casius, he forgets that the Casius of Egypt and the district bordering upon Egypt, improperly called Cœle-Syria, are here in question; he transfers the first name to Cœle-Syria of Libanus, and the second to Mt. Casius near Seleucia and Antioch, and adds that, according to the notion of Eratosthenes, the waters of the Euphrates would have to traverse Libanus, Antilibanus, and the Casius (of Syria), whilst Eratosthenes has not, and could not, say any such thing. The hypothesis of Eratosthenes could not, indeed, be maintained, but Strabo renders it absurd. The error of our author is the more remarkable, as the name of the city Rhinocolura ought necessarily to have suggested to him the sense in which the words Casius and Cœle-Syria should be understood. [500] καὶ οὕτως πλημμυρεῖν. These words are, as Kramer proposes, transferred from below. There can be no meaning given to them as they stand in the text, which is here corrupt. [501] Herod. i. 193. [502] Herod. i. 194. [503] Al-Madain. [504] Strabo probably here refers to Hecatompylos, which, in b. xi. c. ix. § 1, he calls “the royal seat of the Parthians,” and which shared with Ecbatana the honour of being a residence of the Parthian kings. The name Hyrcania has here a wide meaning; the proper name would have been Parthia. [505] Cicero de Nat. Deor. i. § 5. [506] Descura. _D’Anville._ [507] Sus. [508] Asciac part of Khosistan. [509] Kerman. [510] Groskurd here supposes an omission by the copyist of the words ἑσπέραν καὶ πρὸς before ἄρκτον. [511] Parætacene, Cossæa, and Elymaïs occupied the mountainous parts of Irak Adjami. [512] Aiaghi-dagh. [513] Media extended partly into Irak Adjami, and partly into Kurdistan. [514] ὕστερον in the text must be omitted, or altered to πρότερον, unless, as Kramer proposes, the words καὶ πρὸς τοὺς Πέρσας be introduced into the text. Strabo frequently mentions together the three successive governments of Persians, Macedonians, and Parthians. B. xi. c. xiii. § 4, and c. xiv. § 15. [515] Mithridates I., son of Phraates, 163 B. C., and 124 years after the expedition of Antiochus. [516] Probably the Djerrahi.