Book 16
1.4
After Arbela and the mountain NicatoriumProbably a branch of the Karadgeh-dagh. (a name which Alexander, after the victory at Arbela, superadded), is the river Caprus,The Little Zab, or Or. situated at the same distance from Arbela as the Lycus. The country is called Artacene.As the name Artacene occurs nowhere else, Groskurd, following Cellarius (v. Geogr. Ant. i. 771), suspects that here we ought to read Arbelene, and would understand by it the same district which is called Arbelitis by Ptolemy, vi. 1, and by Pliny, H. N. vi. 13, § 16, but as this form of the national name is nowhere to be found, it would appear improper to introduce it into the text. It is more probable, continues Kramer, that Strabo wrote Adiabene, of which Arbelitis was a part, according to Pliny, loco citato. Near Arbela is the city Demetrias; next is the spring of naphtha, the fires, the temple of the goddess Anaea,The same, no doubt, as the goddess Anaitis. B. xi. c. viii. § 4, and b. xv. c. iii. §15. Sadracae, the palace of Darius, son of Hystaspes, the Cyparisson, or plantation of Cypresses, and the passage across the Caprus, which is close to Seleucia and Babylon.
