Book 34
9
One of the Iberian kings had such a magnificent andHomer, Odyss. 8, 248. richly furnished palace, that he rivalled the luxury of the Phaeacians, except that the vessels standing in the interior of the house, though made of gold and silver, were full of barley-wine. . . .
10
From the Pyrenees to the river Narbo the country is River Aude. The Tech and the Ruscino or Tet. flat; and through it flow the Illeberis and Ruscinus, past some cities of the same name inhabited by Celts. In this plain there are found what are called underground fish. A mistake of Timaeus as to the Rhone. The soil is light, and produces a quantity of grass called agrostis; and below this soil the earth is sandy for a depth of two or three cubits, through which the overflow of the river percolates; and with this water, as it makes its way, the fish also get below the soil to feed, for they are exceedingly fond of the root of the agrostis, and have thus made the whole plain full of subterranean fish, which people dig up and take. . . .
10
The Rhone has not five, but two mouths. . . .
10
The Liger discharges itself between the Pictŏnes and Namnitae. Britain is quite unknown to the southern Gauls. There was in ancient times an emporiumThe Loire between Poitou and Nantes. Coiron. on this river called Corbilo, but none of its inhabitants, nor those of Massalia or Narbo, could give ScipioWhich member of the Cornelian gens this was is unknown. He appears to have been at Marseilles in the 4th century B. C. inquiring as to centres of trade open to Rome in rivalry with Carthage. any information worth mentioning on the subject of Britain when questioned by him, though they were the most important cities in that part of the country; and yet Pytheas has ventured on all those stories about it. . . .
