We then come to the vast sea called the Euxine, which invades the land as it retreats afar, and the name of which was formerly Axenus[2778]. As the shores bend inwards, this sea with a vast sweep stretches far away, curving on both sides after the manner of a pair of horns, so much so that in shape it bears a distinct resemblance to a Scythian bow[2779]. In the middle of the curve it is joined by the mouth of Lake Mæotis, which is called the Cimmerian[2780] Bosporus, and is two miles and a half in width. Between the two Bospori, the Thracian and the Cimmerian, there is a distance in a straight line, of 500 miles, as Polybius informs us. We learn from Varro and most of the ancient writers, that the circumference of the Euxine is altogether 2150 miles; but to this number Cornelius Nepos adds 350 more; while Artemidorus makes it 2919 miles, Agrippa 2360, and Mucianus 2425. In a similar manner some writers have fixed the length of the European shores of this sea at 1478 miles, others again at 1172. M. Varro gives the measurement as follows:—from the mouth of the Euxine to Apollonia 187 miles, and to Callatis the same distance; thence to the mouth of the Ister 125 miles; to the Borysthenes 250; to Chersonesus[2781], a town of the Heracleotæ, 325; to Panticapæum[2782], by some called Bosporus, at the very extremity of the shores of Europe, 212 miles: the whole of which added together, makes 1337[2783] miles. Agrippa makes the distance from Byzantium to the river Ister 560 miles, and from thence to Panticapæum, 635. Lake Mæotis, which receives the river Tanais as it flows from the Riphæan Mountains[2784], and forms the extreme boundary between Europe and Asia, is said to be 1406 miles in circumference; which however some writers state at only 1125. From the entrance of this lake to the mouth of the Tanais in a straight line is, it is generally agreed, a distance of 375 miles.