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52As regards this road the truth is as follows.—Everywhere there are royal stages[39] and excellent resting-places, and the whole road runs through country which is inhabited and safe. Through Lydia and Phrygia there extend twenty stages, amounting to ninety-four and a half leagues;[40] and after Phrygia succeeds the river Halys, at which there is a gate[40a] which one must needs pass through in order to cross the river, and a strong guard-post is established there. Then after crossing over into Cappadokia it is twenty-eight stages, being a hundred and four leagues, by this way to the borders of Kilikia; and on the borders of the Kilikians you will pass through two several gates and go by two several guard-posts: then after passing through these it is three stages, amounting to fifteen and a half leagues, to journey through Kilikia; and the boundary of Kilikia and Armenia is a navigable river called Euphrates. In Armenia the number of stages with resting-places is fifteen, and of leagues fifty-six and a half, and there is a guard-post on the way: then from Armenia, when one enters the land of Matiene,[41] there are thirty-four stages, amounting to a hundred and thirty-seven leagues; and through this land flow four navigable rivers, which cannot be crossed but by ferries, first the Tigris, then a second and third called both by the same name,[42] though they are not the same river nor do they flow from the same region (for the first-mentioned of them flows from the Armenian land and the other[43] from that of the Matienians), and the fourth of the rivers is called Gyndes, the same which once Cyrus divided into three hundred and sixty channels.[44] Passing thence into the Kissian land, there are eleven stages, forty-two and a half leagues, to the river Choaspes, which is also a navigable stream; and upon this is built the city of Susa. The number of these stages amounts in all to one hundred and eleven.
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Notes
[39] {stathmoi}: "stations," the distance between them averaging here about 120 stades.
[40] {parasaggai}: the "parasang," as estimated at 30 stades, would be nearly 3½ English miles.
[40a] i.e. a narrow pass; so also below in speaking of the passes into Kilikia.
[41] In the MSS. this clause follows the account of the four rivers, and the distance through Matiene is given as "four stages" with no number of leagues added. By transposing the clause we avoid placing the rivers in Armenia instead of Matiene; and by making the number of stages thirty-four, with a corresponding number of leagues, we make the total right at the end and give the proper extension to Matiene.
[42] i.e. Zabatos: the name has perhaps fallen out of the text.
[43] {o d' usteron}: "the one mentioned afterwards." Stein reads {o d' usteros}.
[44] See i. 189.