CHAP. 26.—SCYTHIA. Leaving the Ister, we come to the towns of Cremniscos[2811], Æpolium, the mountains of Macrocremnus, and the famous river Tyra[2812], which gives name to a town on the spot where Ophiusa is said formerly to have stood. The Tyragetæ inhabit a large island[2813] situate in this river, which is distant from Pseudostomos, a mouth of the Ister, so called, 130 miles. We then come to the Axiacæ, who take their name from the river Axiaces[2814], and beyond them, the Crobyzi, the river Rhodes[2815], the Sagarian Gulf[2816], and the port of Ordesos[2817]. At a distance of 120 miles from the Tyra is the river Borysthenes[2818], with a lake and a people of similar name, as also a town[2819] in the interior, at a distance of fifteen miles from the sea, the ancient names of which were Olbiopolis and Miletopolis. Again, on the shore is the port of the Achæi, and the island of Achilles[2820], famous for the tomb there of that hero, and, at a distance of 125 miles from it, a peninsula which stretches forth in the shape of a sword, in an oblique direction, and is called, from having been his place of exercise, Dromos Achilleos[2821]: the length of this, according to Agrippa, is eighty miles. The Taurian Scythians and the Siraci[2822] occupy all this tract of country. At this spot begins a well-wooded district[2823], which has given to the sea that washes its banks the name of the Hylæan Sea; its inhabitants are called Enœchadlæ[2824]. Beyond them is the river Panticapes[2825], which separates the Nomades[2826] and the Georgi, and after it the Acesinus[2827]. Some authors say that the Panticapes flows into the Borysthenes below Olbia[2828]. Others, who are more correct, say that it is the Hypanis[2829]: so great is the mistake made by those who have placed it[2830] in Asia. The sea runs in here and forms a large gulf[2831], until there is only an intervening space[2832] of five miles between it and the Lake Mæotis, its margin forming the sea-line of extensive tracts of land, and numerous nations; it is known as the Gulf of Carcinites. Here we find the river Pacyris[2833], the towns of Navarum and Carcine[2834], and behind it Lake Buges[2835], which discharges itself by a channel into the sea. This Buges is separated by a ridge of rocks[2836] from Coretus, a gulf in the Lake Mæotis; it receives the rivers Buges[2837], Gerrus[2838], and Hypacaris[2839], which approach it from regions that lie in various directions. For the Gerrus separates the Basilidæ from the Nomades, the Hypacaris flows through the Nomades and the Hylæi, by an artificial channel into Lake Buges, and by its natural one into the Gulf of Coretus: this region bears the name of Scythia Sindice.