Kitap 16
SUMMARY.
argument.
The sixteenth Book contains Assyria, in which are the great cities Babylon and Nisibis; Adiabene, Mesopotamia, all Syria; Phoenicia, Palestine; the whole of Arabia; all that part of India which touches upon Arabia; the territory of the Saracens, called by our author Scenitis; and the whole country bordering the Dead and Red Seas.
CHAPTER I.
1.1
ASSYRIA is contiguous to Persia and Susiana. This name is given to Babylonia, and to a large tract of country around; this tract contains Aturia,According to Dion Cassius, xviii. § 26, Aturia is synonymous with Assyria, and only differs from it by a barbarous pronunciation; which shows that the name Assyria belonged peculiarly to the territory of Nineveh. in which is Nineveh, the Apolloniatis, the Elymaei, the Paraetacae, and the Chalonitis about Mount Zagrum,Aiaghi-dagh.—the plains about Nineveh, namely, Dolomene, Calachene, Chazene, and Adiabene,—the nations of Mesopotamia, bordering upon the Gordyaei;It is to be remarked that the people bordering upon the Gordyaei are the only people of Mesopotamia here mentioned, for the whole of Mesopotamia, properly so called, is comprised under the name of Assyria. the Mygdones about Nisibis, extending to the ZeugmaThe bridge or passage at the foot of the modern fortress Roum-Kala of the Euphrates, and to the great range of country on the other side that river, occupied by Arabians, and by those people who are properly called Syrians in the present age. This last people extend as far as the Cilicians, Phoenicians, and Jews, to the sea opposite the Sea of Egypt, and to the Bay of Issus.
1.2
The name of Syrians seems to extend from Babylonia as far as the Bay of Issus, and, anciently, from this bay to the Euxine.
