[517] On comparing this passage with others, (b. xi. c. xiv. § 12, and b. xvi. c. i. § 1, and c. i. § 8,) in which Strabo speaks of Adiabene, we perceive that he understood it to be a part of the country below the mountains of Armenia, and to the north of Nineveh, on both banks of the Tigris. Other authors have given a more extended meaning to the name, and applied it to the country on the north of the two rivers Zab, from whence (Amm. Marcel. xxiii. 5, 6) the name Adiabene appears to be derived. In this sense Adiabene may be considered the same as Assyria Proper. [518] B. xi. c. xiv. § 15. [519] Groskurd proposes reading Saulopodes, delicate walkers, in place of Saccopodes, sack-footed. [520] Herod. i. 198. Almost all the details concerning the Babylonian customs are taken from Herodotus, who sets them forth with greater clearness; there are, however, some differences, as, for example, the disposal of young women in marriage, and the different tribunals, which prove that Strabo had other sources of information. [521] Groskurd here suspects a corruption of the text, and for τούτου reads τοῦ πρώτου, “of the first,” and for ἄλλου, “of another,” δευτέρου, “of the second.” [522] Merkan. [523] El-der. [524] The Van. B. xi. c. xiv. § 8. [525] In b. xi. c. xiv. § 8, Strabo says that this lake contains one kind of fish only. [526] Now Roumkala, from the fortress which defends the passage of the river. [527] Nisibin. [528] Kara-dagh. [529] Sered. [530] Haran. [531] Racca. [532] B. C. 51. [533] Gordyæa was the most northerly part of Assyria, or Kurdistan, near the lake Van. From Carduchi, the name of the inhabitants, is derived the modern name Kurds. [534] Pliny, x. c. iii. and xxxvi. c. xix., calls it “Gagates lapis;” a name derived, according to Dioscorides, from a river Gagas in Lycia. [535] Herod. vi. 199. [536] These appear to be the rivers found in the neighbourhood of Roha or Orfa, the ancient Edessa. One of these rivers bears the name of Beles, and is perhaps the Basileios of Strabo. Chabur is the Aborrhas. [537] Probably an interpolation.