Bursting through, this sea makes a passage from the Scythian Ocean into the back of Asia,[215] receiving various names from the nations which dwell upon its banks, the two most famous of which are the Caspian and the Hyrcanian races. Clitarchus is of opinion that the Caspian Sea is not less in area than the Euxine. Eratosthenes gives the measure of it on the south-east, along the coast of Cadusia[216] and Albania, as five thousand four hundred stadia; thence, through the territories of the Anariaci, the Amardi, and the Hyrcani, to the mouth of the river Zonus he makes four thousand eight hundred stadia, and thence to the mouth of the Jaxartes[217] two thousand four hundred; which makes in all a distance of one thousand five hundred and seventy-five miles. Artemidorus, however, makes this sum smaller by twenty-five miles. Agrippa bounds the Caspian Sea and the nations around it, including Armenia, on the east by the Ocean of the Seres,[218] on the west by the chain of the Caucasus, on the south by that of Taurus, and on the north by the Scythian Ocean; and he states it, so far as its extent is known, to be four hundred and eighty miles in length, and two hundred and ninety in breadth. There are not wanting, however, some authors who state that its whole circumference, from the Straits,[219] is two thousand five hundred miles. Its waters make their way into this sea by a very narrow mouth,[220] but of considerable length; and where it begins to enlarge, it curves obliquely with horns in the form of a crescent, just as though it would make a descent from its mouth into Lake Mæotis, resembling a sickle in shape, as M. Varro says. The first[221] of its gulfs is called the Scythian Gulf; it is inhabited on both sides, by the Scythians, who hold communication with each other across the Straits,[222] the Nomades being on one side, together with the Sauromatæ, divided into tribes with numerous names, and on the other, the Abzoæ, who are also divided into an equal number. At the entrance, on the right hand side,[223] dwell the Udini, a Scythian tribe, at the very angle of the mouth. Then along[224] the coast there are the Albani, the descendants of Jason, it is said; that part of the sea which lies in front of them, bears the name of ‘Albanian.’ This nation, which lies along the Caucasian chain, comes down, as we have previously stated,[225] as far as the river Cyrus, which forms the boundary of Armenia and Iberia. Above the maritime coast of Albania and the nation of the Udini, the Sarmatæ, the Utidorsi, and the Aroteres stretch along its shores, and in their rear the Sauromatian Amazons, already spoken of.[226]