Book 11
1.1
Asia is adjacent to Europe, bordering thereon along the TanaïsThe Don. River. I must therefore describe this country next, first dividing it, for the sake of clearness, by means of certain natural boundaries. That is, I must do for Asia precisely what Eratosthenes did for the inhabited world as a whole.See 2. 1. 1.
1.2
The Taurus forms a partition approximately through the middle of this continent, extending from the west towards the east, leaving one portion of it on the north and the other on the south. Of these portions, the Greeks call the one the “Cis-Tauran” Asia and the other “Trans-Tauran.” I have said this before,i.e., “Asia this side Taurus and Asia outside Taurus.” (Cp. 2. 5. 31.) but let me repeat it by way of reminder.
1.3
Now the mountain has in many places as great a breadth as three thousand stadia, and a length as great as that of Asia itself, that is, about forty-five thousand stadia, reckoning from the coast opposite Rhodes to the eastern extremities of India and Scythia.
