Geography

​The second division begins at the Caspian Sea, at which the former division ended; and the same sea is also called Hyrcanian. But we must first speak of this sea and of the nations that dwell near it. Now this gulf extends from the ocean towards the south, being at first quite narrow, but widening as it proceeds further inland, and especially at its recess, to a width of about five thousand stadia; and the voyage in to its recess would be slightly more, joining in some way already with the uninhabited land. Eratosthenes says that the coastal voyage of this sea known to the Greeks, along the Albanians and Cadusians, is five thousand four hundred stadia, and that along the Anariacae, Mardi, and Hyrcanians to the mouth of the Oxus River is four thousand eight hundred, and thence to the Jaxartes is two thousand four hundred. But one must listen to accounts concerning the people in this division and those who are situated so far away with greater latitude, and especially concerning the distances.

​For one sailing into the sea, on the right hand live the adjacent Scythians of the European side and the Sarmatians who live between the Tanais and this sea, most of whom are nomads, whom we have mentioned; and on the left are the eastern Scythians, these also nomads, extending as far as the Eastern Sea and India. To all the northern peoples in common, indeed, the ancient Greek writers gave the name of Scythians or Celto-Scythians; but those still earlier, dividing them, called those who lived above the Euxine, the Ister, and the Adria, Hyperboreans, Sauromatae, and Arimaspi, while those beyond the Caspian Sea they called some Sacae and others Massagetae, although they were unable to say anything accurate about them, even though they wrote the history of Cyrus’ war against the Massagetae. But nothing has been accurately determined in accordance with truth concerning these peoples, nor did the ancient records of the Persians, Medes, or Syrians attain to great credibility, because of the credulity of the writers and their love of myths.

​For, seeing that those who were confessedly writers of myths were in high repute, they thought that they too could make their writings agreeable if they should relate in the guise of history what they had never seen nor heard—or at least not from eye-witnesses—aiming at only this, what would make their narrative agreeable and marvelous to hear. Indeed, one would more easily believe Hesiod and Homer when they tell of heroes, and the tragic poets, than Ctesias and Herodotus and Hellanicus and other writers of this kind.

​And it is not easy to believe most of those who wrote about Alexander either; for these too trifle with facts, both because of Alexander’s glory and because his expedition was made to the extremities of Asia, far away from us; and what is far away is hard to refute. But the supremacy of the Romans and that of the Parthians has disclosed something more than what had been previously handed down; for those who write about them speak more trustworthily of both the places and the nations where the actions took place than those who went before them, for they have observed more closely.